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The Longing
One of the most extraordinary novels to come out of Australia in recent years. Norman Swan, Late Night LiveIn Australia in the 1840s, the lives of two very different women intersect. Ellis MacRorie is shipped to Victoria from her Scottish homeland by her bankrupt father; Leerpeen Weelan, her Aboriginal servant known as Louisa, has lost her tribe in a bloody act of violence. 'That my country, belong to me. Over there. This not my country,' says Louisa.Ellis feels the ache in the words, the longing, and she looks into the distance. She feels something stir within herself too. Memories of the land she has left, of the people.Forced to marry a man she does not love, and isolated from all society, Ellis is resigned to a solitary life on the remote Western District homestead of Strathcarron. After the tragic death of two babies, she is ready is give up altogether. Although Louisa has endured dispossession and the loss of her own family, she becomes a steadfast source of guidance, friendship and strength for Ellis. When the American Romantic landscape painter, sketcher and collector Sanford P. Hart comes to stay at Strathcarron, the two women are transformed forever - in both enriching and devastating measures. One hundred and fifty years later, ambitious assistant curator Cornelia, researching an exhibition on S. P. Hart for the National Gallery of Victoria, makes a remarkable discovery that has the potential to rewrite history. However, it is not Hart's paintings that offer a glimpse into the untold events of nineteenth-century rural Australia, but rather something very rare . . . The Longing is a novel about loss, finding home and the significance of history - what is recorded and what is left unknown.
307 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 1, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
June 22, 2016
The Longing is the debut novel of Candice Bruce, a former art historian and academic, and it appealed to me straight away because like the novels of Susan Vreeland and Tracy Chevalier, The Longing is an historical novel about art and artists – except this one is Australian. There are not many of those! The only other one that springs to mind is Patrick White’s brutal portrayal of the artist Hurtle Duffield in The Vivisector, but The Longing is not like that at all.
Yet in its own way it is as brave as White’s writing, for Bruce has succumbed to her muse and crossed into controversial territory with this novel. It tells the story of a contemporary art historian called Cornelia Bremer who is plunged suddenly into the onerous task of curating her first exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria.* While sourcing paintings of the American Romanticist and collector of Aboriginal artefacts Sanford P. Hart in rural Victoria, she comes across the story of two women from the 1850s, Ellie MacRorie from Scotland, and her Aboriginal servant, Leerpeen Weelan…
So there are three voices in this novel, Cornelia’s, Ellie’s and Leerpeen’s, and it is this last that ventures into the vexed issue of non-Indigenous authors appropriating the voice of an Indigenous person. Rohan Wilson also trod into this territory with his remarkable novel, The Roving Party so that he could tell the story of a massacre in Tasmania. He not only handled it respectfully, he did it so well that he brought the story to public notice in a way that transcended the History Wars. (See my review) . But there are those who feel that such writing is wrong, and that after centuries of suppression, Indigenous people should speak for themselves and no one else has the right to. I am undecided about this, but there are those who say that it is not my place as a non-Indigenous person to decide. It’s a thorny issue indeed.
To read the rest of my review, please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2012/03/20/th...
Yet in its own way it is as brave as White’s writing, for Bruce has succumbed to her muse and crossed into controversial territory with this novel. It tells the story of a contemporary art historian called Cornelia Bremer who is plunged suddenly into the onerous task of curating her first exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria.* While sourcing paintings of the American Romanticist and collector of Aboriginal artefacts Sanford P. Hart in rural Victoria, she comes across the story of two women from the 1850s, Ellie MacRorie from Scotland, and her Aboriginal servant, Leerpeen Weelan…
So there are three voices in this novel, Cornelia’s, Ellie’s and Leerpeen’s, and it is this last that ventures into the vexed issue of non-Indigenous authors appropriating the voice of an Indigenous person. Rohan Wilson also trod into this territory with his remarkable novel, The Roving Party so that he could tell the story of a massacre in Tasmania. He not only handled it respectfully, he did it so well that he brought the story to public notice in a way that transcended the History Wars. (See my review) . But there are those who feel that such writing is wrong, and that after centuries of suppression, Indigenous people should speak for themselves and no one else has the right to. I am undecided about this, but there are those who say that it is not my place as a non-Indigenous person to decide. It’s a thorny issue indeed.
To read the rest of my review, please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2012/03/20/th...
November 4, 2013
Assistant curator Cornelia is researching for an exhibition of famous colonial artist S.P. Hart’s work and part of that research involves going through his journals, diaries and sketchbooks as well as visiting private collectors who still own his paintings with view to loan or purchase them for the exhibition. She finds herself at the homestead of Strathcarron, having stumbled upon an interesting piece of information that could change everything about the exhibition. Strathcarron is a 30-room monstrosity, a light of better and more properous days. Inhabited now by Duncan MacRorie, his sister-in-law and his nephew, it is in need of much repair. They possess an original S.P. Hart and Cornelia discovers sketches and drawings from the time that Hart visited the homestead in the 1840s when the homestead was owned by its builder, Alexander MacRorie and his wife Ellis.
Ellis was sent from her home of Scotland to Australia to marry Alexander, who was about thirty years her senior. Her new life in the Western Districts of Victoria wasn’t easy for her and she found herself isolated on the 100,000 acre property, saved only by the arrival of her Aboriginal servant who sweeps in and takes over and helps get Ellis back to herself. Known as Louisa, her real name is Leerpeen Whelan and she is the sole survivor of a deliberate massacre of her people, surviving because she was down at the river bathing her sick baby. She fled along the riverbank and was eventually found by missionary people. Louisa is biding her time until she is ready to leave to go and find the daughter that the whites took from her, the one she fled with down the river. But for now she is an observer when artist S.P. Hart arrives at the homestead to sketch. He has been commissioned by Alexander to do several paintings of the property and from the moment she sees him, Ellis is transfixed.
For the lonely and often unappreciated Ellis, Hart is a breath of fresh air. He makes her feel alive again when she has felt lost and alone for so long, with only the company and guidance of Louisa to help her along and prevent her from doing something terrible. But Ellis is also naive and her foolish love for Hart can only lead to her downfall.
The Longing was my October book club’s selection and I have to admit, I’m surprised that I didn’t know anything about it (and hadn’t even heard of it) before it was handed out at the previous month’s meeting. Having taken part in the Australian Women Writers Challenge last year and this year and read an awful lot of reviews and heard a lot about releases, I thought this one would’ve popped up on my radar somehow. But it didn’t but I was glad it provided me with an opportunity to read something set in Australia in a time that’s not overly represented in my reading and also a book that deals with Aboriginal issues and also includes art. I figured it’d be win-win.
However, it wasn’t quite that simple. There were parts of this novel that I enjoyed – such as the glimpse into life in 1840′s Australia for Ellis and also for Louisa/Leerpeen but overall I felt a little dissatisfied when I finished it. It felt to me like there were the good bones for a story but that most of them were left bare without being fleshed out enough for me to really get right into it. I found the ‘romance’ between Ellis and S.P. Hart sort of baffling in many ways. I know that Ellis was lonely and that she was trapped in a loveless marriage to a man much older than her, she’d had numerous miscarriages and/or stillbirths and felt disconnected to the two children she had given birth to but I don’t really get what happened between her and Hart. In the way in which it was set up, it felt like it was going to be romantic but it seemed to turn really quickly and I couldn’t quite connect with that. The same thing happened in the modern day story with Cornelia, something else that only felt half finished, if even that. She ends up staying overnight at Strathcarron to investigate the painting and the drawings but everyone is so full of loathing and so rude and borderline leaping across the table and choking each other. Where does that go? Does the painting go into the exhibition? Is it sold? Does the house get renovated? What happens to Maggie and Hugo and Duncan? What became of Louisa/Leerpeen and Thookay? I felt like this book had so many unanswered things happening for me.
Our bookclub raised the issue of whether or not a white person is qualified to write about/talk about Aboriginal history and events and what has happened to them. It’s something that has come up before but I think (and this is just me) that if anyone is raising awareness for past history and dealing with it in a way that is realistic and genuine and respectful to what occurred during that time frame of massacres and rapes and horrific treatment then it is beneficial. I am aware though that it can be a really delicate topic and that others may feel much differently and I’m hardly qualified to comment myself really, given I’m not of Indigenous descent either. I found the story of Louisa/Leerpeen far more interesting than that of Ellis but I think that’s because I felt so much of Ellis’s story was untold or not told in enough detail. It did cement for me though that I would like to read more fiction set in this time.
Ellis was sent from her home of Scotland to Australia to marry Alexander, who was about thirty years her senior. Her new life in the Western Districts of Victoria wasn’t easy for her and she found herself isolated on the 100,000 acre property, saved only by the arrival of her Aboriginal servant who sweeps in and takes over and helps get Ellis back to herself. Known as Louisa, her real name is Leerpeen Whelan and she is the sole survivor of a deliberate massacre of her people, surviving because she was down at the river bathing her sick baby. She fled along the riverbank and was eventually found by missionary people. Louisa is biding her time until she is ready to leave to go and find the daughter that the whites took from her, the one she fled with down the river. But for now she is an observer when artist S.P. Hart arrives at the homestead to sketch. He has been commissioned by Alexander to do several paintings of the property and from the moment she sees him, Ellis is transfixed.
For the lonely and often unappreciated Ellis, Hart is a breath of fresh air. He makes her feel alive again when she has felt lost and alone for so long, with only the company and guidance of Louisa to help her along and prevent her from doing something terrible. But Ellis is also naive and her foolish love for Hart can only lead to her downfall.
The Longing was my October book club’s selection and I have to admit, I’m surprised that I didn’t know anything about it (and hadn’t even heard of it) before it was handed out at the previous month’s meeting. Having taken part in the Australian Women Writers Challenge last year and this year and read an awful lot of reviews and heard a lot about releases, I thought this one would’ve popped up on my radar somehow. But it didn’t but I was glad it provided me with an opportunity to read something set in Australia in a time that’s not overly represented in my reading and also a book that deals with Aboriginal issues and also includes art. I figured it’d be win-win.
However, it wasn’t quite that simple. There were parts of this novel that I enjoyed – such as the glimpse into life in 1840′s Australia for Ellis and also for Louisa/Leerpeen but overall I felt a little dissatisfied when I finished it. It felt to me like there were the good bones for a story but that most of them were left bare without being fleshed out enough for me to really get right into it. I found the ‘romance’ between Ellis and S.P. Hart sort of baffling in many ways. I know that Ellis was lonely and that she was trapped in a loveless marriage to a man much older than her, she’d had numerous miscarriages and/or stillbirths and felt disconnected to the two children she had given birth to but I don’t really get what happened between her and Hart. In the way in which it was set up, it felt like it was going to be romantic but it seemed to turn really quickly and I couldn’t quite connect with that. The same thing happened in the modern day story with Cornelia, something else that only felt half finished, if even that. She ends up staying overnight at Strathcarron to investigate the painting and the drawings but everyone is so full of loathing and so rude and borderline leaping across the table and choking each other. Where does that go? Does the painting go into the exhibition? Is it sold? Does the house get renovated? What happens to Maggie and Hugo and Duncan? What became of Louisa/Leerpeen and Thookay? I felt like this book had so many unanswered things happening for me.
Our bookclub raised the issue of whether or not a white person is qualified to write about/talk about Aboriginal history and events and what has happened to them. It’s something that has come up before but I think (and this is just me) that if anyone is raising awareness for past history and dealing with it in a way that is realistic and genuine and respectful to what occurred during that time frame of massacres and rapes and horrific treatment then it is beneficial. I am aware though that it can be a really delicate topic and that others may feel much differently and I’m hardly qualified to comment myself really, given I’m not of Indigenous descent either. I found the story of Louisa/Leerpeen far more interesting than that of Ellis but I think that’s because I felt so much of Ellis’s story was untold or not told in enough detail. It did cement for me though that I would like to read more fiction set in this time.
April 30, 2018
This book had four woman characters - two in the present day and two in the past. Only the aboriginal woman Louisa is at all likeable or probably even believable. Ellis, Cornelia and Maggie were there to flesh out the story but were variously unlikeable and unbelievable.
March 8, 2016
Oh so clunky!! I really wanted to like this book and I think it had so much potential but it really needed a better edit. I don't think the flicking forwards and backwards between the two time periods was necessary and I think it could have been done in a more clever and subtle way.
Read
April 18, 2018Didnt finish it... just got to around the 30th page... it just didnt click with me sorry... i wasnt absorbed into book. Didnt enjoy her writing style.
July 29, 2019
A careful juxtaposition of two stories, set over a hundred years apart, in the Western District of Victoria. One , a Contact history of dispossession, violence, oppression and finally subjugation of the Aboriginal people who had occupied that country, the other a story of continued occupation by those responsible: colonial squatters and their descendants.
But it was so much more! Careful research and a very particular method of weaving into the story the Kirrae-Wurrong and Gunditjmara language made the shifting viewpoints smooth and insightful. The irony that the love of country and their feelings of belonging were deeply rooted in both families and their stories that came before them. It is a story of hope for the future.
The 'Longing' as a term could be read on many levels - Victorian sexual hunger, revenge on poxed women, sadness for a time when the land was respected and social relationships were completely understood. So much more....
But it was so much more! Careful research and a very particular method of weaving into the story the Kirrae-Wurrong and Gunditjmara language made the shifting viewpoints smooth and insightful. The irony that the love of country and their feelings of belonging were deeply rooted in both families and their stories that came before them. It is a story of hope for the future.
The 'Longing' as a term could be read on many levels - Victorian sexual hunger, revenge on poxed women, sadness for a time when the land was respected and social relationships were completely understood. So much more....
April 17, 2019
A fictional investigation of art history is an interesting concept and I felt that Bruce was justified in writing from the perspective on an Indigenous woman, due to the research and empathy that went into the writing of each perspective used.
However, I wanted to enjoy this more than I did.
The parts of the novel that take place in 1855 were intriguing, well-written and well-researched. The present day sections felt heavy handed. There were interesting themes and ideas about the position of women in society, historically and today, but the dialogue from the contemporay characters did not ring true and I felt the ideas here were being explicitly announced to me. I would have preferred some more subtlety to let the reader instead tease out their own wider ideas from the actions of the narrative.
The strengths of the writing are in the descriptions of landscape and artworks such as Bruce's description of Ferntree Gully. But the people, placed in 2002, felt clunky and caricaturish at times.
However, I wanted to enjoy this more than I did.
The parts of the novel that take place in 1855 were intriguing, well-written and well-researched. The present day sections felt heavy handed. There were interesting themes and ideas about the position of women in society, historically and today, but the dialogue from the contemporay characters did not ring true and I felt the ideas here were being explicitly announced to me. I would have preferred some more subtlety to let the reader instead tease out their own wider ideas from the actions of the narrative.
The strengths of the writing are in the descriptions of landscape and artworks such as Bruce's description of Ferntree Gully. But the people, placed in 2002, felt clunky and caricaturish at times.
May 22, 2023
This book was decent. I liked the story line however it was super interesting. Interesting enough to finish, not much more. I’d give it 3.5
abandoned
April 29, 2018I enjoyed the opening chapter and really wanted to read the rest of this book, but life got in the way and I ran out of time.
I may look at borrowing it in the future to continue the story.
I may look at borrowing it in the future to continue the story.
March 25, 2016
A young girl sent from Scotland to Australia because her father couldn't afford to keep her and is expected to marry a man much older than herself. His property is in the bush where the only company Ellis has is the Aboriginees who live and work on the property. It tells of the slaughter of a whole tribe, leaving only one woman and her baby. She has a possum cape made by her mother that tells the history of her Aboriginal tribe. 150 years on is a curator who is researching the art found on a property in Western District of Victoria and comes across Aboriginal paintings and a possum cape.
Wonderful book. Wonderful story. Wonderful writing.
Wonderful book. Wonderful story. Wonderful writing.
September 26, 2013
A very interesting book, showing the differences in getting on with life between two women. Modern day family and past family come into play. This book covers the settlement of parts of Western Victoria, and massacres by settlers, the missions that took aboriginal survivors from their land and placed the elsewhere, and the development of a half cast population due to the arrogance of the victors. Well woven story lines, although I was really saddened by one thread, I do recommend this book.
January 15, 2013
I devoured this book, Australian themes always interest me. The life old story of man marries wife, lonely desolate country and then introduce a sexual interest with third party. This story has the lot. The Indigenous story is equally as good. Re telling the life an aboriginal woman who is the domestic help. I could easily put this on my list of re-readable books and highly recommend to others.
March 24, 2013
Beautifully written fiction incorporating 2 of my loves - history and art. The Longing tells the very moving story of the intersecting lives of two women Louisa, an aboriginal servant who loses all of her people under the most tragic circumstances; and Ellis a young woman who tragically loses herself after she is sent far from her homeland to a loveless marriage in a remote Victorian homestead.
April 3, 2015
This book drew me in, I ended up carrying it around with me just in case I got a few minutes to read it. I liked both aspects of the story, the present and past. I also really enjoyed the art, indigenous history, mystery and 1855 Victoria. Even now that I have finished I am dipping back into the book matching up ideas and linking characters.
October 7, 2013
4.5/5
what a fab read!
what a fab read!
June 19, 2016
this is a very interesting account of life in Western Victoria during the 1850s.
February 17, 2015
This was an interesting story. Quite enjoyed it.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews