Lovesong

by elizabeth-jolley

Novel dealing with memories, relationships and unfulfilled yearnings. Thomas Dalton, intent on making a fresh start in the community, takes a room in a boarding house and becomes trapped in a marriage to one of his fellow lodgers.

Genres: Fiction

252 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. An original, character based,beautifully written novel about Thomas Dalton, a man who moves to a new town for a fresh start. He finds accommodation in a boarding room and caught up in a life he doesn’t want but cannot free himself from as he is weak willed and not all there.

This book is not an easy read as it randomly jumps backwards and forwards in time. The world seen through Thomas is a little surreal. His lack of clarity produces an air of unreliability to the narrative.

Thomas Dalton is alone, depressed and mentally unstable. He regularly recalls his past life with his mother, aunt and father. When Thomas was a younger person he went to music concerts. We learn that he had been in some sort of rehabilitation centre for half of his life. Now he is back living in his old neighbourhood, just around the corner from his former home. He is now living in a drab boardiing house. Mrs Porter’s Establishment is a home away from home for homeless gentlemen, with a number of lodgers. Miss Marlow is a disorientated piano teacher, Miss Emily Vales is on the lookout for a husband, several ‘painted’ young men who work as dancers, and two young men who live together, one a waiter with AIDS and TB and the other, a doorman.

A novel that explores memories, relationships and unfulfilled yearnings.

This book was shortlisted for the 1998 Miles Franklin Award.

[Stef Rozitis · Rating 3 out of 5]

A tragic and troubling story of the darkness beneath respectable veneers.

It ends of a hopeful note of a redemption so universal I can't quite accept it. The attempt to find something redeeming in the ordinary is all very well but people have been hurt and twisted throughout the book. I don't know what to say really, it was so well written but quite depressing for most of the book and very troubling in its entirety.

[Alison · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the creepiest intense Jolley book, about a 40ish man who has been rehabilitated from experiencing beauty and sweetness with inappropriate others, who mourns the loss of his father, and whose social ineptness finds a home in a boarding house full of strange people. Humans are so complex and Jolley is do good at evoking this.

[Leanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

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A review by you! 
Lovesong, by Elizabeth Jolley

challenging dark reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character

Loveable characters? No

Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0 

Very disturbing. Dalton Foster goes from a prison to a boarding house. He does lots of physical and mental wandering. He interacts with the people in the boarding house, reconnects with one of his childhood homes, and explores his relationship with his father, mother and aunt.

His crime is never explicit, yet his yearnings and the 're-training' are enough for the reader to make suppositions and be disturbed. Lots of hints about things. Sometimes hard to know if it's real, imagined, past, present... also lots of literary and musical references. Quite eclectic - like Jolley herself.

I liked the hopeful ending and appreciate the understandings he came too. Not realistic, but not supposed to be.

[Heather Boundy · Rating 3.5 out of 5]

Revisiting Elizabeth Jolley in the wake of listing my ABC Best 100 books was a joy. This is not my favourite of her novels, but her understanding and approach to the human condition is always enlightening to read. During the 80s and 90s I attended a number of conferences and events where Elizabeth was a speaker and I was always interested and intrigued by her life story, her writing and her gentle personality. She had emigrated to Australia with her husband Leonard after their first daughter was born and they were able to marry. He became Chief Librarian at the University of Western Australia and eventually she became a lecturer at Curtin University where Tim Winton was one of her students. She seems largely overlooked now which is a pity as I fond her novels engaging and beautifully written. Try The Well, or My Father's Moon or The Cabin's Wife.

[Marianne Webb · Rating 1 out of 5]

Old fashioned and don’t quite understand what I was reading DNF Read about 1/3

[Susan Day · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is difficult book to read for sure but the fragmented phrases and sentences are a reflection of the state of mind of the main character. It's well worth reading to the end. This is not a book that retells a story but one which whisks up emotions, colours and thoughts and presents them to us .... I feel like I've dreamt this book not read it.

[Isobel Blackthorn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Self-conscious. Poorly written. Confusing.