Dear You

by Kate Llewellyn

In this book of love letters Kate Llewellyn reinvents that standard theme of male erotica, women's sexuality.

Like all the best erotic writing, Dear You is about desire unsatisfied. Yet her passionate lyricism makes ecstasy and pain equally present and powerful, untrammelled by patriarchal guilt.

Loss and longing are the pulse of life in this book, given form by the acts of daily survival - gardening, cooking, visiting and being visited. This unique combination, the strength of Kate Llewellyn's previous work, The Waterlily, is here brought closer to the erotic intensity of her poetry.

148 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Kate Llewellyn is the author of nineteen books, including the bestselling The Waterlily: A Blue Mountains Journal and Playing With Water: A Story of a Garden. A distinguished Australian poet, she has published six books of poetry and is the co-editor of The Penguin Book of Australian Women Poets. Her travel books include Lilies, Feathers & Frangipani on the Cook Islands and New Zealand; Angels and Dark Madonnas on India and Italy; and Gorillas, Tea & Coffee: An African Sketchbook. Her books The Floral Mother & Other Essays, The Waterlily and Playing With Water have been made into talking books

She is one of Australia’s bestselling authors...

Reviews

[Lee Kofman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am in two minds about Dear You, a book that calls itself a novel but is clearly a memoir if not even a diary. The prose is gorgeous, all gems and sweets, her words just loll around your body and make it swoon. But then, not infrequently this same beauty works against book’s quality, slipping into self-indulgence, into appearance over substance. And this last point is my main issue with the book. It is pure poetry, but in prose I seek particulars as well, well… the prose-aic is what I want too. It may seem as if the prosaic here is in abundance – I feel I know Llewellyn’s garden and cooking intimately now as well as her friends and the rhythms of her day and of her sexuality. But the main thread that is supposed to hold this book together – her doomed love story – remains opaque, obscure, tedious in this obscurity. The writer makes it clear this is so because of ethical concerns (is the lover-in-question married? It appears so but is never said, as most other things of him – he’s an abstract presence really). But if the ethics prevent her to say what needs to be said, then why this book? The muddle of the pain that dominates the story irritated and alienated me. And yet, despite my (quite significant) complaints, as I kept reading the book I kept feeling I am in the presence of a great talent. And this in itself is precious. While Dear You didn’t move as much as I hoped it would, I’ll be reading Llewellyn’s other, hopefully braver, works.

[Sarahlillian · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second book in her trilogy (Waterlily being the first, The Mountain the third). Quite an uncomfortable read at times because of her intense honesty and also because in this book she is writing to the love of her life in a series of letters. For a reason not entirely explained they can't be together, so in a lot of this book she is grieving and depressed. But she weaves in such beauty and heartbreaking humor, that you just can't help but accept her into your heart. She just makes you feel more connected to the human race and more compassionate. I cried when I read the last paragraph. Now on to "The Mountain"!

[Stef Rozitis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe it's me not the book and it's possible I am just a horrible philistine.

I remember in the early to mid 90s studying English at university, including creative writing and other topics that explored the craft of writing what authors do. I can remember having to force myself to read a lot of the required reading even though before then I had suffered from the illusion that I loved to read (even class novels at school).

Somewhere in there, I ended up with the impression that good writers "challenge" the reader and only pop-writers stoop to entertain, that things like plot and character and especially humour were for the masses but us educated folk would masochistically struggle through thick, lush, poignant pages and pages of description and setting that went nowhere and we'd be the better for it. That authors should not spoonfeed readers and readers should not be lazy.

As I've got older and less anxious to please I mostly just read what I feel like whether it is "quality" or not. I think as I have read more non-fiction I have learned to see the cleverness in some books which has made it a more worthwhile journey. I don't read poetry though unless it is extremely economical with words. So for me this book was a struggle.

I fail to see the value of it for anyone apart from the author, though it may be technically great (I assume the writing is good which is why I gave it more than one star). The blurb made it sound like there would be some feminist revolution in there but I think all that amounts to is alluding to extra-marital (reading between the lines) sex. So yeah she met a bloke who appears to have been married (I don't know that but I think that's why they split up) they had sex a fair bit and then they had to part. And she feels grief and is processing it.

Empathy triggered BUT 148 pages of deeply personal rumination about it seems excessive even if I knew the people involved (which I don't). In between alluding to sex she talks a lot about gardening, about a social life which again does not come to life with any immediacy but is just her wool-gathering about it, about travel which is very sparsely shown. The letters to the "you" I suspect can never even be sent, it's basically a journal and I would definitely 100% write this in her situation (and maybe not so well) but I don't see the need to publish it.

However, there were at least 2 editions of this (hardcover and paperback) and people seem to have read and loved it.

So maybe I am missing something? Is this me being autistic?

[Skyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Second in a trilogy. It is hard to accept that this is a novel, not a diary, as she refers to so many real life things. Maybe she just wanted to keep some privacy. I wouldn't describe the book as erotica, although it is a long series of letters to a lost love. It also has lots of garden and nature writing and much introspection. Now on to book three.