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In the Garden of the Fugitives
Celebrated by The New York Times as “a gifted prose stylist,” Ceridwen Dovey returns with a startling tale of obsession, control, and identity
Almost twenty years after forbidding him to contact her, Vita receives a letter from a man who has long stalked her from a distance. Once, Royce was her benefactor and she was one of his brightest protégées. Now Royce is ailing and Vita’s career as a filmmaker has stalled, and both have reasons for wanting to settle accounts. They enter into an intimate game of words, played according to shifting rules of engagement.
Beyond their murky shared history, they are both aware they can use each other to free themselves from deeper pasts. Vita is processing the shameful inheritance of her birthplace, and making sense of the disappearance of her beloved. Royce is haunted by memories of the untimely death of his first love, an archaeologist who worked in the Garden of the Fugitives in Pompeii. Between what’s been repressed and what has been disguised are disturbances that reach back through decades, even centuries. But not everything from the past is precious: each gorgeous age is built around a core of rottenness.
Profoundly addictive and unsettling, In the Garden of the Fugitives is a masterful novel of duplicity and counterplay, as brilliantly illuminating as it is surprising – about the obscure workings of guilt in the human psyche, the compulsion to create and control, and the dangerous morphing of desire into obsession.
Almost twenty years after forbidding him to contact her, Vita receives a letter from a man who has long stalked her from a distance. Once, Royce was her benefactor and she was one of his brightest protégées. Now Royce is ailing and Vita’s career as a filmmaker has stalled, and both have reasons for wanting to settle accounts. They enter into an intimate game of words, played according to shifting rules of engagement.
Beyond their murky shared history, they are both aware they can use each other to free themselves from deeper pasts. Vita is processing the shameful inheritance of her birthplace, and making sense of the disappearance of her beloved. Royce is haunted by memories of the untimely death of his first love, an archaeologist who worked in the Garden of the Fugitives in Pompeii. Between what’s been repressed and what has been disguised are disturbances that reach back through decades, even centuries. But not everything from the past is precious: each gorgeous age is built around a core of rottenness.
Profoundly addictive and unsettling, In the Garden of the Fugitives is a masterful novel of duplicity and counterplay, as brilliantly illuminating as it is surprising – about the obscure workings of guilt in the human psyche, the compulsion to create and control, and the dangerous morphing of desire into obsession.
305 pages, Paperback
First published May 8, 2018
30 people are currently reading
1397 people want to read
About the author
Ceridwen Dovey
32 books148 followersCeridwen Dovey grew up in South Africa and Australia, studied as an undergraduate at Harvard, and now lives in Sydney. Her first novel, Blood Kin, was translated into fifteen languages and selected for the US National Book Foundation’s prestigious ‘5 Under 35’ award. J.M. Coetzee called it ‘A fable of the arrogance of power beneath whose dreamlike surface swirl currents of complex sensuality.' Her second work of fiction, Only the Animals, will be published by Penguin in 2014 (Australia) and Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 2015 (USA).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 109 reviews
November 2, 2018
Actual rating 4.5/5 stars.
In the Garden of the Fugitives has one of the most intriguing titles, covers, and synopsis!
This follows modern-day Royce and Vita as they reflect back upon their days as freshmen at Harvard university. Royce, some years older than Vita, spent a fateful summer on an archaeological dig in Pompeii, as part of his degree. More than ancient ruins were unearthed there and something, long-buried in the dust, is now returning that seems bent on destroying them both. Vita was the later recipient of the Lushington Scholorship, that allowed her to study film-making in America but also left her feeling indebted to her benefactor, Royce. She sought to cut him out of her life but a decade later, their paths have intermingled once again.
This thrilling literary fiction promised confessions, unreliable narrators, shocking grand reveals, a discourse on the creative spirit and an exploration of guilt and grief - and it delivered it all. I went into this expecting a thriller and, instead, was delivered discourses on South African apartheid, American left-wing politics, the process of wine-making, and the social politics of the ancient Greeks. But how this all ties in together is truly where he brilliance of this novel lay!
In the Garden of the Fugitives has one of the most intriguing titles, covers, and synopsis!
This follows modern-day Royce and Vita as they reflect back upon their days as freshmen at Harvard university. Royce, some years older than Vita, spent a fateful summer on an archaeological dig in Pompeii, as part of his degree. More than ancient ruins were unearthed there and something, long-buried in the dust, is now returning that seems bent on destroying them both. Vita was the later recipient of the Lushington Scholorship, that allowed her to study film-making in America but also left her feeling indebted to her benefactor, Royce. She sought to cut him out of her life but a decade later, their paths have intermingled once again.
This thrilling literary fiction promised confessions, unreliable narrators, shocking grand reveals, a discourse on the creative spirit and an exploration of guilt and grief - and it delivered it all. I went into this expecting a thriller and, instead, was delivered discourses on South African apartheid, American left-wing politics, the process of wine-making, and the social politics of the ancient Greeks. But how this all ties in together is truly where he brilliance of this novel lay!
March 16, 2018
This was a real puzzle of a book - the slightly awkward epistolary structure, the intersecting stories that barely intersect and the obsession with unreliable narration made me wonder whether I was really *getting* it. The writing is sublime, and the ruminations on race, guilt, power, sex and creativity engaging, but I couldn't help feel that I'd slightly missed something by the end. This is one to ponder - I'm looking forward to seeing what others think.
September 11, 2018
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In the Garden of the Fugitives by Ceridwen Dovey. (2018).
Almost 20 years ago Vita forbid her benefactor Royce from contacting her but she has just received an email from him. While they share a murky history, they have both also lost loved ones; one to an untimely death and the other to a strange disappearance. Both are also trying to free themselves from their pasts - Vita from the inheritance of her birthplace and Royce from the grip of the ancient city Pompeii and the secrets of the Garden of the Fugitives.
I can't say I much enjoyed this book. For me personally it was just fairly boring to the point where I skim read quite a lot of sections because I just wasn't interested. The end was a bit of a strange mix where I went ohhhhh okaaaaay that makes sense but then I'm not really sure I interpreted it correctly so I may not have even gotten it. There seems to be some intelligent musings on controversial topics in this book but it just all went over my head.
The thing I did like about this book was the references to and scenes set in Pompeii, that made me want to further research into the history of the city.
From the impression I got from a quick look at reviews online, you will either quite enjoy this book or you will really not think much of it.
In the Garden of the Fugitives by Ceridwen Dovey. (2018).
Almost 20 years ago Vita forbid her benefactor Royce from contacting her but she has just received an email from him. While they share a murky history, they have both also lost loved ones; one to an untimely death and the other to a strange disappearance. Both are also trying to free themselves from their pasts - Vita from the inheritance of her birthplace and Royce from the grip of the ancient city Pompeii and the secrets of the Garden of the Fugitives.
I can't say I much enjoyed this book. For me personally it was just fairly boring to the point where I skim read quite a lot of sections because I just wasn't interested. The end was a bit of a strange mix where I went ohhhhh okaaaaay that makes sense but then I'm not really sure I interpreted it correctly so I may not have even gotten it. There seems to be some intelligent musings on controversial topics in this book but it just all went over my head.
The thing I did like about this book was the references to and scenes set in Pompeii, that made me want to further research into the history of the city.
From the impression I got from a quick look at reviews online, you will either quite enjoy this book or you will really not think much of it.
June 2, 2018
I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway.
Here's what I think about this...
A rambling discourse between two people which starts nowhere, goes nowhere and ends ...
There are writers - and among them, many of the best - who really, really really - r e a l l y - want to show off how much they know. Of course they do! What we know is what we write about BEST! Only natural to throw in odd, mundane, little-known details here and there. A dash of Pompeii, a sprinkle of South African farming - it's all good. (And does impress!) But when overdone...
It's like the pumpkin pie I burned. (And once I put in paprika in place of cinnamon! Holy-terrible-pieness that was!) Anyhow, it's just too much and over-cooked at that. I do love reading about the past, other cultures, and come on I was/am a total volcano freak. I used to photocopy stories about Pompeii, Herculaneum, Mt. Vesuvius and all those plates knocking together in the Mediterranean to pass out to my 120+ students. I get it. It is fascinating...
But as I read I felt okay, this is an epistolary novel about two people arguing, discussing and ruminating on past events. That's it; that's all. Is there tension, excitement - something palpable? - between them. I guess so. But it got lost in the details and then I got bored.
When I get bored I stopped reading, though I did make it through approx. two-thirds. Enough for a review, enough for a rating.
Two stars.
Here's what I think about this...
A rambling discourse between two people which starts nowhere, goes nowhere and ends ...
There are writers - and among them, many of the best - who really, really really - r e a l l y - want to show off how much they know. Of course they do! What we know is what we write about BEST! Only natural to throw in odd, mundane, little-known details here and there. A dash of Pompeii, a sprinkle of South African farming - it's all good. (And does impress!) But when overdone...
It's like the pumpkin pie I burned. (And once I put in paprika in place of cinnamon! Holy-terrible-pieness that was!) Anyhow, it's just too much and over-cooked at that. I do love reading about the past, other cultures, and come on I was/am a total volcano freak. I used to photocopy stories about Pompeii, Herculaneum, Mt. Vesuvius and all those plates knocking together in the Mediterranean to pass out to my 120+ students. I get it. It is fascinating...
But as I read I felt okay, this is an epistolary novel about two people arguing, discussing and ruminating on past events. That's it; that's all. Is there tension, excitement - something palpable? - between them. I guess so. But it got lost in the details and then I got bored.
When I get bored I stopped reading, though I did make it through approx. two-thirds. Enough for a review, enough for a rating.
Two stars.
March 18, 2018
In The Garden Of The Fugitives is such an absorbing novel, it borders on addictive. Stylised as an exchange of correspondence between two people who have been estranged for twenty years, the entire is novel is a back and forth between Royce and Vita, a confessional for them both, although they each embark upon it for different reasons.
The voyeurism attached to the exchange, the nature of confession, where it begins with an agenda but moves into a cathartic response, was utterly absorbing. It was almost like a cat and mouse game, pens poised for retaliation but the draw of turning the focus back onto yourself, with an open audience, proved too tantalising to resist, so the accusations were thus implied, but kept to a minimum. What unfolds, after Royce’s initial letter requesting Vita indulge him in his deathbed confession via email, is two incredible stories, linked only by the depth of guilt each person clings to, and a mutual tendency for obsessive behaviour.
Through Royce’s confession, we learn about Pompeii from an anthropological perspective, and through Vita’s perspective, we learn about South Africa post apartheid. From both, we learn about guilt, its manifestation and destructive qualities, both on the individual and on those surrounding them. The examination of human nature is so precise; I’ve rarely encountered such intuition within a novel.
The history of Pompeii, both prior to its destruction and all of the discoveries about life within that has been uncovered since, was fascinating to explore. It’s incredibly mind bending to think of entire civilisations preserved beneath the earth. And to think, over time, how much has been lost on account of plundering and ill-advised excavations. Pompeii itself seems alluring on so many levels and I will admit to not knowing very much about it at all, with exception of the obvious. The effect that Pompeii had on those working on uncovering its secrets was well wrought, and for Royce – whose only attachment to the place was his obsession with Kitty, an anthropologist aiming to make Pompeii her life’s work – I was struck by how much the place got under his skin as well. I felt a deep sadness for Royce, the origin of his guilt, manifesting itself into his obsession with Kitty, and much later, with Vita. He was not quite the demon Vita liked to paint him as.
South Africa post apartheid gave me much to ponder on. I have met many South Africans in recent years, my hometown being a first point of settlement for immigrants. Conversations about South Africa have often shocked me, some going so far as to rage about Mandela and how he ‘ruined their country.’ But I see now, from reading Vita’s story, that this is not widespread. Perhaps those who have left have done so for one reason, while those who stay, do so for another. Indeed, I remember speaking with an older woman who mourned the fact that her son had not immigrated with them because he loved the new South Africa. Such a complicated history. The widespread guilt about being a white South African was utterly captivating to examine. The parallels drawn against the guilt experienced post Nazism within Germany was expertly applied. While Vita frustrated me in so many ways, I clearly understood her, what was preventing her from settling and why she couldn’t let go of the past. She was a floater, existing within but never fully engaging with her life. The ending makes me think this was not going to change for her, a realistic portrayal of those with the type of psychological burdens she was plagued with.
“Every human on earth has inherited privilege and inherited pain.”
Such insight into human nature is prevalent within the pages of this novel. This observation is particularly notable:
“Those who are considered to be good with people are also often depleted by people. Even a simple conversation can leave me feeling sucked out, bone-dry. Animals and plants ask for nothing in return, but humans take until you have nothing left to give.”
I love the truth in this.
In The Garden Of The Fugitives is a novel about guilt, the benefit of hindsight, and the powerful allure of confession. The research that has gone into this novel is evident, there is so much to dive into and explore. I have noted after finishing that Ceridwen is Australian-South African, and that comes as no surprise, for the knowledge imparted about living in South Africa, the sociological as well as the psychological, seemed empirical in its delivery. This novel really is addictive, so clear your schedule because you will not want to put it down once you begin reading. One to watch for next year’s Stella Prize longlist, I hopefully predict.
Thanks is extended to Penguin Random House Australia for providing me with a copy of In The Garden Of The Fugitives for review.
The voyeurism attached to the exchange, the nature of confession, where it begins with an agenda but moves into a cathartic response, was utterly absorbing. It was almost like a cat and mouse game, pens poised for retaliation but the draw of turning the focus back onto yourself, with an open audience, proved too tantalising to resist, so the accusations were thus implied, but kept to a minimum. What unfolds, after Royce’s initial letter requesting Vita indulge him in his deathbed confession via email, is two incredible stories, linked only by the depth of guilt each person clings to, and a mutual tendency for obsessive behaviour.
Through Royce’s confession, we learn about Pompeii from an anthropological perspective, and through Vita’s perspective, we learn about South Africa post apartheid. From both, we learn about guilt, its manifestation and destructive qualities, both on the individual and on those surrounding them. The examination of human nature is so precise; I’ve rarely encountered such intuition within a novel.
The history of Pompeii, both prior to its destruction and all of the discoveries about life within that has been uncovered since, was fascinating to explore. It’s incredibly mind bending to think of entire civilisations preserved beneath the earth. And to think, over time, how much has been lost on account of plundering and ill-advised excavations. Pompeii itself seems alluring on so many levels and I will admit to not knowing very much about it at all, with exception of the obvious. The effect that Pompeii had on those working on uncovering its secrets was well wrought, and for Royce – whose only attachment to the place was his obsession with Kitty, an anthropologist aiming to make Pompeii her life’s work – I was struck by how much the place got under his skin as well. I felt a deep sadness for Royce, the origin of his guilt, manifesting itself into his obsession with Kitty, and much later, with Vita. He was not quite the demon Vita liked to paint him as.
South Africa post apartheid gave me much to ponder on. I have met many South Africans in recent years, my hometown being a first point of settlement for immigrants. Conversations about South Africa have often shocked me, some going so far as to rage about Mandela and how he ‘ruined their country.’ But I see now, from reading Vita’s story, that this is not widespread. Perhaps those who have left have done so for one reason, while those who stay, do so for another. Indeed, I remember speaking with an older woman who mourned the fact that her son had not immigrated with them because he loved the new South Africa. Such a complicated history. The widespread guilt about being a white South African was utterly captivating to examine. The parallels drawn against the guilt experienced post Nazism within Germany was expertly applied. While Vita frustrated me in so many ways, I clearly understood her, what was preventing her from settling and why she couldn’t let go of the past. She was a floater, existing within but never fully engaging with her life. The ending makes me think this was not going to change for her, a realistic portrayal of those with the type of psychological burdens she was plagued with.
“Every human on earth has inherited privilege and inherited pain.”
Such insight into human nature is prevalent within the pages of this novel. This observation is particularly notable:
“Those who are considered to be good with people are also often depleted by people. Even a simple conversation can leave me feeling sucked out, bone-dry. Animals and plants ask for nothing in return, but humans take until you have nothing left to give.”
I love the truth in this.
In The Garden Of The Fugitives is a novel about guilt, the benefit of hindsight, and the powerful allure of confession. The research that has gone into this novel is evident, there is so much to dive into and explore. I have noted after finishing that Ceridwen is Australian-South African, and that comes as no surprise, for the knowledge imparted about living in South Africa, the sociological as well as the psychological, seemed empirical in its delivery. This novel really is addictive, so clear your schedule because you will not want to put it down once you begin reading. One to watch for next year’s Stella Prize longlist, I hopefully predict.
Thanks is extended to Penguin Random House Australia for providing me with a copy of In The Garden Of The Fugitives for review.
January 22, 2021
This kind of book needs a more nuanced version of star rating! It deserves far more stars for the quality of the prose, and that's what kept me reading. I admire her sense of place, and I learned new things about Pompeii - but as a novel, it failed for me, because the two main characters are so pathetic.
Vita is a self-centred, entitled young woman. She complains about being poor, but when her parents send her to study at a foreign university, she wastes the opportunity by taking an arty-farty degree with no thought of how she's going to make her living. Worse, she's not even good at it - all but one of her films is dreadful.
She's lucky that a creepy old guy fancies her, and awards her a scholarship, in spite of her poor grades.
I was angry at Vita for wasting the money her parents, and Royce, invest in her. Her excuse is that she's so paralysed by white South African guilt, her brilliant creative gift is stifled. Her shtick is that she could be such a great artist, if only she didn't have this unbearable burden of shame. OK, if that's the case, don't take the money under false pretenses, you spoilt little ninny! Go do something else until you've got over it.
But no, for the entire book, Vita is too busy feeling sorry for herself. i might be more sympathetic, if I could understand it - but I simply couldn't see how Vita, a mere child when she lived in South Africa, could feel responsible for apartheid. But enough of Vita.
Unfortunately, Royce is just as bad. He has a sexual problem - he is revolted by his first sexual encounter. In his youth, he falls in (unrequited) love with a woman, Kitty, and stalks her for years, trying to sabotage her relationships and ultimately . As an old man, he sees echoes of Kitty in Vita and adopts her as his protégée, supporting her artistic endeavours even though she has no talent.
The most interesting parts of the story are in Pompeii, but that's because of the depiction of Pompeii itself and the interesting facts about the archaeology and the lives of the Pompeiians. Those things should be incidental to the story of Vita, Royce and Kitty, but they became the only reason I continued to read.
What made it all even worse was that Dovey tells the story via an exchange of letters between Vita and Royce. The result is that we learn the whole story at one remove, told years after it happened, which feels flat and lifeless. Towards the end, the long psychotherapist lectures are mind-numbing
A frustrating book, because the writing is so good but it's wasted.
Vita is a self-centred, entitled young woman. She complains about being poor, but when her parents send her to study at a foreign university, she wastes the opportunity by taking an arty-farty degree with no thought of how she's going to make her living. Worse, she's not even good at it - all but one of her films is dreadful.
She's lucky that a creepy old guy fancies her, and awards her a scholarship, in spite of her poor grades.
I was angry at Vita for wasting the money her parents, and Royce, invest in her. Her excuse is that she's so paralysed by white South African guilt, her brilliant creative gift is stifled. Her shtick is that she could be such a great artist, if only she didn't have this unbearable burden of shame. OK, if that's the case, don't take the money under false pretenses, you spoilt little ninny! Go do something else until you've got over it.
But no, for the entire book, Vita is too busy feeling sorry for herself. i might be more sympathetic, if I could understand it - but I simply couldn't see how Vita, a mere child when she lived in South Africa, could feel responsible for apartheid. But enough of Vita.
Unfortunately, Royce is just as bad. He has a sexual problem - he is revolted by his first sexual encounter. In his youth, he falls in (unrequited) love with a woman, Kitty, and stalks her for years, trying to sabotage her relationships and ultimately . As an old man, he sees echoes of Kitty in Vita and adopts her as his protégée, supporting her artistic endeavours even though she has no talent.
The most interesting parts of the story are in Pompeii, but that's because of the depiction of Pompeii itself and the interesting facts about the archaeology and the lives of the Pompeiians. Those things should be incidental to the story of Vita, Royce and Kitty, but they became the only reason I continued to read.
What made it all even worse was that Dovey tells the story via an exchange of letters between Vita and Royce. The result is that we learn the whole story at one remove, told years after it happened, which feels flat and lifeless. Towards the end, the long psychotherapist lectures are mind-numbing
A frustrating book, because the writing is so good but it's wasted.
January 3, 2018
This book orbits around themes of guilt and shame and is a kind of reckoning for our protagonists Vita and Royce. The form used is letter/email writing and this quickly gave the book a pretension I couldn’t abide. Vita and Royce rarely engage with each other’s letters and simply pick up thoughts and stories they left off with. I perhaps need to let my thoughts settle but my main sentiment on finishing is disappointment.
April 11, 2018
An original book with assured writing, exploring guilt and obsession. It’s getting rave reviews, so I urge you to try it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t for me. Normally I would bail on a book I’m not enjoying, but we’re discussing this in an upcoming podcast so I persevered. So I feel a little unfair giving a negative review because normally I edit my reading so that I cut out books that don’t work for me. I think Ceridwen Dovey is a talented, intelligent writer with a strong vision & I’m intrigued to see what she does next. However. ...
Told in letters relating stories from many years ago, this is historical rather than being in the story itself - it feels stale. The narrators are so unlikeable I didn’t care if they lived or died (he’s a stalker; she’s an amateur artist wallowing in self-pity). Interesting themes drowned in stale action & factual download. Compare with Sight by Jessie Greengrass, where a little vignette of a scientist’s life goes a long way.
There is a really interesting issue about white South Africans feeling guilty, but I couldn’t find any sympathy for Vita - she has the world at her feet but allows herself to wallow in guilt over apartheid although there is no suggestion of anything specific to her to bring this home (I suppose that’s the point - it’s a country-wide guilt - it just isn’t compelling as a story). As one character puts it - ‘moral neediness.’
Told in letters relating stories from many years ago, this is historical rather than being in the story itself - it feels stale. The narrators are so unlikeable I didn’t care if they lived or died (he’s a stalker; she’s an amateur artist wallowing in self-pity). Interesting themes drowned in stale action & factual download. Compare with Sight by Jessie Greengrass, where a little vignette of a scientist’s life goes a long way.
There is a really interesting issue about white South Africans feeling guilty, but I couldn’t find any sympathy for Vita - she has the world at her feet but allows herself to wallow in guilt over apartheid although there is no suggestion of anything specific to her to bring this home (I suppose that’s the point - it’s a country-wide guilt - it just isn’t compelling as a story). As one character puts it - ‘moral neediness.’
December 3, 2018
The flap for “In the Garden of the Fugitives” implies that it’s something akin to a psychological thriller: an old man and his former protege reconnect years after a traumatic experience drives them apart. Told through a series of written letters, dark secrets and hidden agendas and psychological damage are revealed, leading to...
... well, not much. The two narratives - a man obsessed over a dead woman that he stalked in rather creeptacular fashion, a young white South African woman struggling with vague racial guilt - never quite intersect in a meaningful way. The narrative conceit stops working after a while, with each letter seeming less like a piece of correspondence and more like a chapter of one person’s story irritatingly interleaved with another’s. Worst of all, the two characters are extremely unlikeable and difficult to empathize with, turning the book into a struggle. The writing can be hypnotic, but in the end I didn’t find much else to recommend “In the Garden of the Fugitives”.
... well, not much. The two narratives - a man obsessed over a dead woman that he stalked in rather creeptacular fashion, a young white South African woman struggling with vague racial guilt - never quite intersect in a meaningful way. The narrative conceit stops working after a while, with each letter seeming less like a piece of correspondence and more like a chapter of one person’s story irritatingly interleaved with another’s. Worst of all, the two characters are extremely unlikeable and difficult to empathize with, turning the book into a struggle. The writing can be hypnotic, but in the end I didn’t find much else to recommend “In the Garden of the Fugitives”.
January 28, 2018
Lots to think about. One diabolically awful narrator, one pathetically so. Beautiful writing, fascinating glimpses into the history of Pompei. 3 stars? 4 stars? Still not really sure. A sometimes arduous read but a lush and rewarding one.
May 12, 2018
Correspondence between a stalker and the object of his affection make up this book. A unique concept that fell flat in its execution. Both characters were so irritating and self-righteous that I couldn't care less about their story.
April 11, 2018
*To contextualise my viewpoint, I am writing this review off the back of having just attended an event where Ceridwen Dovey was interviewed about this very book, and that has certainly sharpened my own understanding of its contents.
In the Garden of the Fugitives is an epistolary novel juxtaposing two characters: Vita, an undergraduate student interested in filmmaking, and an older man, Royce, who funds her pursuits via a scholarship. The novel starts with Royce reaching out to Vita, after a long estrangement, and sharing with her his life story as he talks from his deathbed. She falls into step and reveals her own confessions in her letters.
I’ve bumped this rating up from three stars to four stars but it is entirely arbitrary because I am still at a loss to how I feel about this book and whether or not I should be assessing it at all. To an extent, this reluctance to judge is what I have experienced approaching other works - such as Cambodia’s Lament, a book of poetry written by Cambodian refugees reporting their own experiences. How can anyone cast a critical opinion on something so personal and say, “well ho hum you definitely could’ve written about your life-changing trauma with more Oxford commas and less extended metaphors.” Obviously, the content itself is untouchable when it is written as candid truth. While not to the same extreme, I have similar reservations while examining In the Garden of the Fugitives
It is clear to whoever has even glanced at Dovey’s Wikipedia page that the character of Vita has moments in her journey of self-discovery that have not wandered at all far from Dovey’s own life story. That said, as Dovey has explained herself, Vita is not purely autobiographical. “Write what you want to know,” advises Dovey, contesting the mainstream belief that writers should only write what they know. This third book of Dovey’s is certainly a third giant step in her development as a writer and the character of Vita is meta in the sense that it feels Dovey needed to write this character in order to move forward artistically. How can I bring myself to be judge on this process? It is perhaps best to let sleeping dogs lie.
My second hesitation derives from the ways in which I both liked and disliked this novel.
To its absolute credit, this book is a palimpsest of ideas and analysis. However - and here the emphasis is on me as a problematic reader, rather than anything reflecting on Dovey's work - there were so many personas of myself from which I approached this narrative:
1. Me as a survivor of high school and having to study Pompeii for my final year.
Much of Royce’s story is set in Pompeii where, as a young student, he has followed Kitty with tongue out and tail wagging to assist her with her archaeological ambitions. Although he has no archaeological background of his own, he does have puppy dog love and a wealthy estate. All this is well and good, and Dovey demonstrates her depth of research gracefully throughout the story, but I found that it was here that my feet began to drag. As with most things studied at high school, no matter how good the content is, by the end of the day every student loathes the subject matter which they are forced to study. That was my experience after having to write about Pompeii for all my year twelve ancient history exams. When Dovey was gently giving her readers appropriate geographical and historical context, I felt I was being dragged back to the classroom, and being told how to write about Fiorelli and Lazer in my HSC exams all over again. In fact, I was even approaching the novel as if I was marking an exam, thinking to myself, “Ah yes, well done Ceridwen, you get a mark for mentioning the Napoli Mafia, but you should really also mention the corrosive effects of pigeon poo on the ruins.” Needless to say, this unwanted blast to the past (graduation was less than three years ago and so still a little too close for comfort) did not enhance my reading experience, and this was through no fault of the writing itself.
2. Me as a survivor of high school and having to study the epistolary form for English.
See previous point. Let’s just say, I’m still scarred from Fay Weldon’s Letters to Alice which I stopped reading after thirteen pages and then proceeded to incrementally detest even further as we studied it at school. I’ve never been able to respect letter writing since. That said, I do think Dovey did a pretty darn good job considering that I am in never good humour for epistol-ing. The format of the letters served as an elegant seam between the two narrators so the stories were co-dependent while still revealing 3D characters, strong in their own right.
3. Me as a writer who is also coming to terms with her own voice.
Of course, Vita is not 100% autobiographical ("I hope not!" says Dovey in tonight's interview, describing Vita as very "creepy") but where the paths of Vita and Dovey do align is coming to terms with inserting themselves into their artistic creations. Dovey's first book was published at the age of 23. Blood Kin is crystalline - a work of political fiction that seems Orwellian, and is purposefully non-specific in its geographical and social setting. She includes nothing of her own persona and is careful that the gaze is never inward. This debut novel is in stark contrast to In the Garden of the Fugitives which is a metanarrative, unreservedly examining the creative process at an acutely personal and ethical level. Personally, as a writer, but specifically in regards to my poetical writing, I'm still at the very early stages of this development and this inversion towards the author hits close to home. Is this a good thing? In my opinion, yes. Admittedly, I am way too early in my creative pursuits to perhaps apply what I have gleaned from this novel to my own processes. Nevertheless, Vita's own struggle to discover what role she must play in her own creative productions is similar to my own difficulties in choosing to spend time writing poetry - which steeps me into a pool of guilt, as I have always considered my poetical writing as an excessively self-indulgent process- instead of focussing on my straightforward non-fiction political articles.
Honestly, it's this last reflection that caused me to bump up my review from three stars to four stars. During the first few pages of this book, I thought I was reading Donna Tartt's The Secret History but with a layer of self-aware white privilege. Such an assumption was too hasty and Dovey's book is a hell of a lot more than just a college coming-of-age story mixed with a romanticised obsession with the ancient world. During the interview I attended this evening, Dovey brought up the idea of "fiction as therapy" and I think this framework is what enriches the experience of reading this book. This is not the case of yet another author trying to weigh in on the Pompeii experience. This is not Fay Weldon being condescendingly didactic about telling you how to read or write. It is simply a novel reaching out to those who are unsettled. The aching flaws and openness of the characters are what makes them such exquisite examples of human ambivalence. In the Garden of the Fugitives is not an answer, it is a question. So reader, what do you want to know?
In the Garden of the Fugitives is an epistolary novel juxtaposing two characters: Vita, an undergraduate student interested in filmmaking, and an older man, Royce, who funds her pursuits via a scholarship. The novel starts with Royce reaching out to Vita, after a long estrangement, and sharing with her his life story as he talks from his deathbed. She falls into step and reveals her own confessions in her letters.
I’ve bumped this rating up from three stars to four stars but it is entirely arbitrary because I am still at a loss to how I feel about this book and whether or not I should be assessing it at all. To an extent, this reluctance to judge is what I have experienced approaching other works - such as Cambodia’s Lament, a book of poetry written by Cambodian refugees reporting their own experiences. How can anyone cast a critical opinion on something so personal and say, “well ho hum you definitely could’ve written about your life-changing trauma with more Oxford commas and less extended metaphors.” Obviously, the content itself is untouchable when it is written as candid truth. While not to the same extreme, I have similar reservations while examining In the Garden of the Fugitives
It is clear to whoever has even glanced at Dovey’s Wikipedia page that the character of Vita has moments in her journey of self-discovery that have not wandered at all far from Dovey’s own life story. That said, as Dovey has explained herself, Vita is not purely autobiographical. “Write what you want to know,” advises Dovey, contesting the mainstream belief that writers should only write what they know. This third book of Dovey’s is certainly a third giant step in her development as a writer and the character of Vita is meta in the sense that it feels Dovey needed to write this character in order to move forward artistically. How can I bring myself to be judge on this process? It is perhaps best to let sleeping dogs lie.
My second hesitation derives from the ways in which I both liked and disliked this novel.
To its absolute credit, this book is a palimpsest of ideas and analysis. However - and here the emphasis is on me as a problematic reader, rather than anything reflecting on Dovey's work - there were so many personas of myself from which I approached this narrative:
1. Me as a survivor of high school and having to study Pompeii for my final year.
Much of Royce’s story is set in Pompeii where, as a young student, he has followed Kitty with tongue out and tail wagging to assist her with her archaeological ambitions. Although he has no archaeological background of his own, he does have puppy dog love and a wealthy estate. All this is well and good, and Dovey demonstrates her depth of research gracefully throughout the story, but I found that it was here that my feet began to drag. As with most things studied at high school, no matter how good the content is, by the end of the day every student loathes the subject matter which they are forced to study. That was my experience after having to write about Pompeii for all my year twelve ancient history exams. When Dovey was gently giving her readers appropriate geographical and historical context, I felt I was being dragged back to the classroom, and being told how to write about Fiorelli and Lazer in my HSC exams all over again. In fact, I was even approaching the novel as if I was marking an exam, thinking to myself, “Ah yes, well done Ceridwen, you get a mark for mentioning the Napoli Mafia, but you should really also mention the corrosive effects of pigeon poo on the ruins.” Needless to say, this unwanted blast to the past (graduation was less than three years ago and so still a little too close for comfort) did not enhance my reading experience, and this was through no fault of the writing itself.
2. Me as a survivor of high school and having to study the epistolary form for English.
See previous point. Let’s just say, I’m still scarred from Fay Weldon’s Letters to Alice which I stopped reading after thirteen pages and then proceeded to incrementally detest even further as we studied it at school. I’ve never been able to respect letter writing since. That said, I do think Dovey did a pretty darn good job considering that I am in never good humour for epistol-ing. The format of the letters served as an elegant seam between the two narrators so the stories were co-dependent while still revealing 3D characters, strong in their own right.
3. Me as a writer who is also coming to terms with her own voice.
Of course, Vita is not 100% autobiographical ("I hope not!" says Dovey in tonight's interview, describing Vita as very "creepy") but where the paths of Vita and Dovey do align is coming to terms with inserting themselves into their artistic creations. Dovey's first book was published at the age of 23. Blood Kin is crystalline - a work of political fiction that seems Orwellian, and is purposefully non-specific in its geographical and social setting. She includes nothing of her own persona and is careful that the gaze is never inward. This debut novel is in stark contrast to In the Garden of the Fugitives which is a metanarrative, unreservedly examining the creative process at an acutely personal and ethical level. Personally, as a writer, but specifically in regards to my poetical writing, I'm still at the very early stages of this development and this inversion towards the author hits close to home. Is this a good thing? In my opinion, yes. Admittedly, I am way too early in my creative pursuits to perhaps apply what I have gleaned from this novel to my own processes. Nevertheless, Vita's own struggle to discover what role she must play in her own creative productions is similar to my own difficulties in choosing to spend time writing poetry - which steeps me into a pool of guilt, as I have always considered my poetical writing as an excessively self-indulgent process- instead of focussing on my straightforward non-fiction political articles.
Honestly, it's this last reflection that caused me to bump up my review from three stars to four stars. During the first few pages of this book, I thought I was reading Donna Tartt's The Secret History but with a layer of self-aware white privilege. Such an assumption was too hasty and Dovey's book is a hell of a lot more than just a college coming-of-age story mixed with a romanticised obsession with the ancient world. During the interview I attended this evening, Dovey brought up the idea of "fiction as therapy" and I think this framework is what enriches the experience of reading this book. This is not the case of yet another author trying to weigh in on the Pompeii experience. This is not Fay Weldon being condescendingly didactic about telling you how to read or write. It is simply a novel reaching out to those who are unsettled. The aching flaws and openness of the characters are what makes them such exquisite examples of human ambivalence. In the Garden of the Fugitives is not an answer, it is a question. So reader, what do you want to know?
October 13, 2019
‘Our memories are always imperfect, Kitty used to say. We have to leave ourselves clues—photos, scrapbooks, journals—or our very own pasts become inaccessible, though we lived through every moment.’
Seventeen years ago, Vita wrote to Royce and told him never to contact her again. But now he is dying and decides to contact her anyway. Contact resumes, in the form of email exchanges between the two. The narrative takes us via these email exchanges, through their selected memories. Royce is elderly, wealthy and living in Boston, USA. Vita, born in South Africa, once a recipient of a generous fellowship from Royce, is middle-aged and living in Mudgee, Australia. The nature of their email exchanges permits a confessional narrative of sorts, but it also serves to enable both Vita and Royce to reconstruct their own versions of the past.
‘I fit in here because I am caught between identities.’
Royce writes of his relationship with Katherine (Kitty) Lushington (for whom his foundation was later named). Kitty was a friend of his from college, and in the 1970s he followed her to Pompeii where her archaeological research took her to the Garden of the Fugitives, with 13 bodies were entombed in the volcanic ash. Vita writes of her earlier life, born in South Africa still then under apartheid, of moving between South Africa and Australia before attending college in the USA.
‘You start out blind. And then you begin to see.’
Identity, guilt and racism are some of the themes touched on as Royce and Vita recall the past. Royce is haunted by Kitty’s death, Vita by her past as a white South African. Vita’s career has stalled, Royce’s life is ending. The future is uncertain, the past needs to be revisited.
‘If you choose to believe that everything is your fault, then the corollary is that only you are the world changer, the giver of everything good as well as bad, the only one with the ability to fix things.’
What can I say about this novel? For most of the novel, Ms Dovey had me spellbound. I felt Vita’s guilt stifling her career. I felt Royce’s obsession taking hold of his life. Is it possible to break free of the past or, like the 13 bodies in the Garden of the Fugitives, are we trapped forever?
‘Each gorgeous age is built around some core of rottenness.’
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Seventeen years ago, Vita wrote to Royce and told him never to contact her again. But now he is dying and decides to contact her anyway. Contact resumes, in the form of email exchanges between the two. The narrative takes us via these email exchanges, through their selected memories. Royce is elderly, wealthy and living in Boston, USA. Vita, born in South Africa, once a recipient of a generous fellowship from Royce, is middle-aged and living in Mudgee, Australia. The nature of their email exchanges permits a confessional narrative of sorts, but it also serves to enable both Vita and Royce to reconstruct their own versions of the past.
‘I fit in here because I am caught between identities.’
Royce writes of his relationship with Katherine (Kitty) Lushington (for whom his foundation was later named). Kitty was a friend of his from college, and in the 1970s he followed her to Pompeii where her archaeological research took her to the Garden of the Fugitives, with 13 bodies were entombed in the volcanic ash. Vita writes of her earlier life, born in South Africa still then under apartheid, of moving between South Africa and Australia before attending college in the USA.
‘You start out blind. And then you begin to see.’
Identity, guilt and racism are some of the themes touched on as Royce and Vita recall the past. Royce is haunted by Kitty’s death, Vita by her past as a white South African. Vita’s career has stalled, Royce’s life is ending. The future is uncertain, the past needs to be revisited.
‘If you choose to believe that everything is your fault, then the corollary is that only you are the world changer, the giver of everything good as well as bad, the only one with the ability to fix things.’
What can I say about this novel? For most of the novel, Ms Dovey had me spellbound. I felt Vita’s guilt stifling her career. I felt Royce’s obsession taking hold of his life. Is it possible to break free of the past or, like the 13 bodies in the Garden of the Fugitives, are we trapped forever?
‘Each gorgeous age is built around some core of rottenness.’
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
July 25, 2018
In the Garden of the Fugitives, Ceridwen Dovey's newest offering, dives into history both personal and global with an effortless, elegant touch. The entire story is revealed through the correspondence of Royce and Vita, who haven't spoken in nearly twenty years. A story of love, control, and obsession, the two excavate their personal histories against the wider narrative of the archaeological work being done in Pompeii in the late 1940s, when Royce was a young man. The central figure here is Kitty, the woman Royce loved, the woman whose name he created a foundation in, a foundation which Vita was a beneficiary of. She is sparkling, beautiful, and the object of Royce's unrequited ardor. Vita, some decades later, is one of the young woman selected to have her passions financed by Royce's foundation, and she finds herself in an uncomfortable game of cat and mouse, disconcerted by his attentions but unwilling to risk the funding.
By the time we meet them, Vita is in her forties, and Royce is on death's door, being tended to by a palliative nurse, and seeking absolution for his trespasses against both Kitty and Vita. They begin to correspond again, and while Royce draws us back to Pompeii and Boston in the 1940s, Vita dwells on her fractured identity and the guilt of her twenties, torn between an Australian adolescence and South African childhood, shouldering her parents' guilt over leaving South Africa just as apartheid ended despite being on the "right side" of history. This trauma ultimately leads to a return to South Africa, which Vita dissects in detail for Royce. Both reveal the darkest parts of their own histories to each other, and to the reader, without touching on their own aborted relationship except in broad strokes, leaving it hanging like a distended corpse between them, working their respective narratives around it.
In the Garden of the Fugitives is at once tender, accusatory, exploratory, ultimately laden with the desperation of those seeking a type of personal absolution that they don't believe they deserve. Vita and Royce speak as much across each other as they do to each other, each laying (usually) gentle statements of blame at the other's feet, often ignoring the received missive in order to continue to tell their own stories. It is more in how they write to each other than in what they say that we come to understand the nature of their relationship, as well as who they are as individuals. It's often heartbreaking, frequently jarring, and in Vita's sections, discomforting, as the reader is forced as much as Vita to examine their own privileges and inherited shames.
By the time we meet them, Vita is in her forties, and Royce is on death's door, being tended to by a palliative nurse, and seeking absolution for his trespasses against both Kitty and Vita. They begin to correspond again, and while Royce draws us back to Pompeii and Boston in the 1940s, Vita dwells on her fractured identity and the guilt of her twenties, torn between an Australian adolescence and South African childhood, shouldering her parents' guilt over leaving South Africa just as apartheid ended despite being on the "right side" of history. This trauma ultimately leads to a return to South Africa, which Vita dissects in detail for Royce. Both reveal the darkest parts of their own histories to each other, and to the reader, without touching on their own aborted relationship except in broad strokes, leaving it hanging like a distended corpse between them, working their respective narratives around it.
In the Garden of the Fugitives is at once tender, accusatory, exploratory, ultimately laden with the desperation of those seeking a type of personal absolution that they don't believe they deserve. Vita and Royce speak as much across each other as they do to each other, each laying (usually) gentle statements of blame at the other's feet, often ignoring the received missive in order to continue to tell their own stories. It is more in how they write to each other than in what they say that we come to understand the nature of their relationship, as well as who they are as individuals. It's often heartbreaking, frequently jarring, and in Vita's sections, discomforting, as the reader is forced as much as Vita to examine their own privileges and inherited shames.
December 15, 2020
we follow Royce and Vita as they reflect back upon their days as freshmen at Harvard. both characters are trying to find peace, and don’t necessarily engage honestly (or at all) with their correspondent. i kinda liked it but i also didn't. perhaps i need to stop buying books just because the cover is pretty.
April 7, 2018
★★★½
In this series of emails exchanged between Royce and Vita, tales of love, obsession, guilt and healing emerge against the backdrops of Pompeii and Cape Town respectively. Both characters are trying to find peace, and don’t necessarily engage honestly (or at all) with their correspondent.
I found Royce’s sections far more compelling, given the tragedy presaged early on, but Vita’s sense of being lost comes across in her narrative quite well. I didn’t really like either character, but unusually I didn’t find that offputting, although I did feel more distant from them than I would have liked given the intimacy of their exchanges. Both experience obsessive love, which is presented by each narrator in their own way, and left for the reader to pass judgement.
The first third of the novel is pacy and tense, but things slow in the middle, before hurtling towards conclusion in the last 30 pages or so. I felt that this story was about so many things that it was hard to grasp its core – this was at odds with my expectations given Royce’s storyline had such a clear arc from the outset, but in the end I felt as though it was all about Vita, which left me on shakier ground. The novel is firmly in the ‘literary fiction’ genre, with reflections on who has the right to make art, how to best preserve history and how to lead a life in the shadow of guilt.
In this series of emails exchanged between Royce and Vita, tales of love, obsession, guilt and healing emerge against the backdrops of Pompeii and Cape Town respectively. Both characters are trying to find peace, and don’t necessarily engage honestly (or at all) with their correspondent.
I found Royce’s sections far more compelling, given the tragedy presaged early on, but Vita’s sense of being lost comes across in her narrative quite well. I didn’t really like either character, but unusually I didn’t find that offputting, although I did feel more distant from them than I would have liked given the intimacy of their exchanges. Both experience obsessive love, which is presented by each narrator in their own way, and left for the reader to pass judgement.
The first third of the novel is pacy and tense, but things slow in the middle, before hurtling towards conclusion in the last 30 pages or so. I felt that this story was about so many things that it was hard to grasp its core – this was at odds with my expectations given Royce’s storyline had such a clear arc from the outset, but in the end I felt as though it was all about Vita, which left me on shakier ground. The novel is firmly in the ‘literary fiction’ genre, with reflections on who has the right to make art, how to best preserve history and how to lead a life in the shadow of guilt.
April 1, 2018
Two things compelled me to pick up this book: the gorgeous cover and the fact I loved the author's earlier short story collection 'Only the Animals'.
Dovey's writing is just as good in this novel and I couldn't help but get caught up in the unravelling stories of Royce and Vita.
Will keep reading anything this Australian author brings out. She's extremely skilled at her craft.
Dovey's writing is just as good in this novel and I couldn't help but get caught up in the unravelling stories of Royce and Vita.
Will keep reading anything this Australian author brings out. She's extremely skilled at her craft.
February 5, 2019
I'm not usually one for the forced tone and repetitive structure of epistolary novels, however, I was hooked on Ceridwen Dovey's
In the Garden of the Fugitives
from the very beginning.
Almost twenty years after forbidding contact, Vita receives a letter from Royce, who was once her benefactor. Vita, a film and ethnography student in her youth, was one of his brightest protégées.
Vita’s career has stalled, and Royce is dying - "I stew in sickness, and in my own nostalgia” - their correspondence is a catharsis of sorts. Royce tells of his first love, Kitty, who he followed to the ancient city of Pompeii while she pursued research work; and Vita, who was born in South Africa and migrated to Australia, grapples with identity and inter-generational guilt.
Within the first few pages, there are numerous references to Royce and Vita's history. Ordinarily, these sorts of 'hints' would be strike me as lazy but the epistolary format is forgiving - mentions of the past in a letter don't require a 'back-story', and it's the complete lack of context that makes them intriguing. For example, Vita writes -
Dovey captures the changing dynamic of Royce and Vita's relationship, their letters revealing neediness and duplicity. Royce is chauvinistic in a veiled, 'I'm-old-fashioned-and-I-appreciate-fine-things' way, and his letters occasionally have a threatening tone. Equally, Vita slips in her share of being cruel and condescending, playing the 'tempestuous, youthful artist' angle.
There are many layers to this story. At the simplest level, it reveals opposites and extremes - repressed and excavated; the past and the present; the rulers and the slaves; desire and control; patron and artist; evidence and assumption. Vita coolly observes -
These themes are magnified by Dovey's canny use of the ruins of Pompeii and post-apartheid South Africa as her backdrop. The settings could have so easily been heavy-handed but instead, they're fascinating, atmospheric, and informed, a geographical representation of the broader themes in the book.
So I come back to my general quibbles with epistolary novels - the forced tone, the clumsy detailing of issues or events - there were moments of this in Fugitives, with Royce and Vita framing their stories for an audience. But it's such a clever novel and I figure the tone was intentional - Dovey's way of illustrating Vita's struggle with her identity and her perspective as an ethnographer. Early in the novel, Vita observes -
And then later -
Toward the end, a large section of Vita's story directly addresses guilt and shame - I loved this element of the story, particularly because the character seems to have autobiographical elements, however, I recognise that some readers will cringe at the psychotherapy slant. I saw it as necessary in terms of Vita's understanding of her relationship to South Africa - again, another thought-provoking layer to the story (and to extend this theme further, consider that Vita has settled in Australia, where genocide of Indigenous Australians has marked recent history).
4/5 Adding it to my list of predictions for the Stella.
Almost twenty years after forbidding contact, Vita receives a letter from Royce, who was once her benefactor. Vita, a film and ethnography student in her youth, was one of his brightest protégées.
Vita’s career has stalled, and Royce is dying - "I stew in sickness, and in my own nostalgia” - their correspondence is a catharsis of sorts. Royce tells of his first love, Kitty, who he followed to the ancient city of Pompeii while she pursued research work; and Vita, who was born in South Africa and migrated to Australia, grapples with identity and inter-generational guilt.
Within the first few pages, there are numerous references to Royce and Vita's history. Ordinarily, these sorts of 'hints' would be strike me as lazy but the epistolary format is forgiving - mentions of the past in a letter don't require a 'back-story', and it's the complete lack of context that makes them intriguing. For example, Vita writes -
Nobody has ever been so invested in me making good on whatever raw talent I once possessed - not even my parents, for their love was always unconditional. Yours came with strings attached.
Dovey captures the changing dynamic of Royce and Vita's relationship, their letters revealing neediness and duplicity. Royce is chauvinistic in a veiled, 'I'm-old-fashioned-and-I-appreciate-fine-things' way, and his letters occasionally have a threatening tone. Equally, Vita slips in her share of being cruel and condescending, playing the 'tempestuous, youthful artist' angle.
You see, Vita, talented people like you and Kitty have always needed people like me, benefactors of one kind or another... But what you might not know is that we have always needed you too. Status is linked to art and intellect...
There are many layers to this story. At the simplest level, it reveals opposites and extremes - repressed and excavated; the past and the present; the rulers and the slaves; desire and control; patron and artist; evidence and assumption. Vita coolly observes -
Contact should never be confused with comprehension.
These themes are magnified by Dovey's canny use of the ruins of Pompeii and post-apartheid South Africa as her backdrop. The settings could have so easily been heavy-handed but instead, they're fascinating, atmospheric, and informed, a geographical representation of the broader themes in the book.
So I come back to my general quibbles with epistolary novels - the forced tone, the clumsy detailing of issues or events - there were moments of this in Fugitives, with Royce and Vita framing their stories for an audience. But it's such a clever novel and I figure the tone was intentional - Dovey's way of illustrating Vita's struggle with her identity and her perspective as an ethnographer. Early in the novel, Vita observes -
A confessional style of filmmaking was ascendant. It was the dawn of the age of baring it all. I liked my classmates’ work but I felt an ethical obligation to leave myself out of my films.
And then later -
A person's pattern of ethical thinking is similar to muscle memory, and seems natural only because it's so often reiterated. My father's circular self-blame scared me. In it I heard echoes of my own guilt, but whereas his had been earned through long experience, mine felt like insincere parroting of beliefs I'd picked up from him...
Toward the end, a large section of Vita's story directly addresses guilt and shame - I loved this element of the story, particularly because the character seems to have autobiographical elements, however, I recognise that some readers will cringe at the psychotherapy slant. I saw it as necessary in terms of Vita's understanding of her relationship to South Africa - again, another thought-provoking layer to the story (and to extend this theme further, consider that Vita has settled in Australia, where genocide of Indigenous Australians has marked recent history).
It occurred to me that I had left the country at the worst possible age, neither child nor woman, still tentative in my new friendships with the black girls at my recently desegregated school, caught up in the wave of pride in becoming poster children of tolerance and amity, but without time to normalise those relationships, to get beyond the symbolism.
4/5 Adding it to my list of predictions for the Stella.
May 29, 2022
This novel consists of two interwoven narratives, told in letters, like an 18th century novel.
One story focuses on Kitty, an aspiring archaeologist, working in the ruins of Pompeii. The accepted approach to that work is to seek connections with the past, to make the past feel like the present. She, in contrast, seeks to understand the differences, to reconstruct an alien idea of what is "normal." I found that perspective intriguing and that story compelling.
"There, you see, we can fill in each other's gaps and somewhere between us may lie the truth of ourselves." p. 10
"It was a messy process, she said, but nothing could beat the feeling of getting to peek at another culture in all its mysterious workings, to glimpse ... the huge cloudy meanings behind the daily face of things." p. 96
"This links to Kitty's interest in letting the past remain peculiar, rather than forcing it to become relatable. She thought it right that people of ancient times seem fathomless to us... To her, those artifacts were more like pieces of alien matter dropped from outer space. p. 149
The other story is told by Vita, an aspiring documentary filmmaker, someone whose background e seems to echo the author's experience -- born in South Africa, moved to Australia by parent, college at Harvard. She is trying to figure out how to portray life interestingly and honestly through film, whether artistic or ethnographic, whether to include people or just animals and objects, focusing on processes She is also trying to cope with white guilt in post-apartheid South Africa, like Germans dealing with their post-WWII guilt.
The two stories are entangled and each involves romance and surprises. It's a quick and enjoyable read that leaves you lots to ponder.
One story focuses on Kitty, an aspiring archaeologist, working in the ruins of Pompeii. The accepted approach to that work is to seek connections with the past, to make the past feel like the present. She, in contrast, seeks to understand the differences, to reconstruct an alien idea of what is "normal." I found that perspective intriguing and that story compelling.
"There, you see, we can fill in each other's gaps and somewhere between us may lie the truth of ourselves." p. 10
"It was a messy process, she said, but nothing could beat the feeling of getting to peek at another culture in all its mysterious workings, to glimpse ... the huge cloudy meanings behind the daily face of things." p. 96
"This links to Kitty's interest in letting the past remain peculiar, rather than forcing it to become relatable. She thought it right that people of ancient times seem fathomless to us... To her, those artifacts were more like pieces of alien matter dropped from outer space. p. 149
The other story is told by Vita, an aspiring documentary filmmaker, someone whose background e seems to echo the author's experience -- born in South Africa, moved to Australia by parent, college at Harvard. She is trying to figure out how to portray life interestingly and honestly through film, whether artistic or ethnographic, whether to include people or just animals and objects, focusing on processes She is also trying to cope with white guilt in post-apartheid South Africa, like Germans dealing with their post-WWII guilt.
The two stories are entangled and each involves romance and surprises. It's a quick and enjoyable read that leaves you lots to ponder.
May 22, 2024
I was pulled in immediately! The novel is told through a series of letters going back and forth between Vita and Royce. I marked so many lyrical passages or thought provoking lines!
Slow, quiet reflections on privilege, obsession, control, and confronting/reflecting on the past. Also got to learn about Pompeii, Ancient Roman art, archaeology, and filmmaking which was pretty cool!
Some of the most thought provoking passages were about privilege; how much are we responsible for the sins of those before us/that look like us?; and looking for similarities between ourselves and past generations; is it disrespectful to see them as being the same as us or natural to want to find similarities throughout human history?
Oh my god the twists?! Jaw dropping 😱 we don’t get full answers on maybe one or two things but it makes sense in the context of the book. I devoured this book and didn’t want to put it down! It was fascinating and thought provoking, easily a fave for the month. The only problem is now I’ve read two 5 star reads in a row, can I continue the streak of good reading? 🤞🏻
TW/CW: suicide (brief mention), animal cruelty, colonization, apartheid, slavery, depression
Slow, quiet reflections on privilege, obsession, control, and confronting/reflecting on the past. Also got to learn about Pompeii, Ancient Roman art, archaeology, and filmmaking which was pretty cool!
Some of the most thought provoking passages were about privilege; how much are we responsible for the sins of those before us/that look like us?; and looking for similarities between ourselves and past generations; is it disrespectful to see them as being the same as us or natural to want to find similarities throughout human history?
Oh my god the twists?! Jaw dropping 😱 we don’t get full answers on maybe one or two things but it makes sense in the context of the book. I devoured this book and didn’t want to put it down! It was fascinating and thought provoking, easily a fave for the month. The only problem is now I’ve read two 5 star reads in a row, can I continue the streak of good reading? 🤞🏻
TW/CW: suicide (brief mention), animal cruelty, colonization, apartheid, slavery, depression
April 17, 2018
This is an intelligent and accomplished novel, but one which I found ultimately unsatisfying. It chronicles the revival of correspondence between two characters, the links between whom are only slowly revealed. They have not been in contact for 20 years, but now Royce is on his deathbed and feels impelled to get in touch once again with Vita. He wants to explore their shared past and put to rest, perhaps, the ghosts that haunt him. He is a wealthy philanthropist who has been funding Vita, a filmmaker half his age. The ensuing exchange of emails allows Royce to reflect on his first great love, Kitty, an archaeologist in Pompeii, and allows Vita to look back on her own troubled past and her guilt at her white South African heritage. What exactly do these two want from each other? Forgiveness? Understanding? Connection? To me it wasn’t really clear. Although the emails go back and forth they don’t seem to be communicating in any meaningful way. Each seems only concerned with telling his or her individual story. There are obscure reasons for their long silence, and only gradually do the facts emerge. Too gradually for my liking, as the end seems rushed. Throughout the book there is the rather heavy-handed metaphor of the excavations in Pompeii, where Kitty was exploring the eponymous Garden of the Fugitives, and as the layers peel away, the reader begins to uncover the truth. I enjoyed the book up to a point, but remained detached throughout and sometimes felt the novel was little more than an intellectual exercise. It’s curiously devoid of emotion in spite of its themes of loyalty, loss, guilt and power. Good but flawed.
July 9, 2018
Nearly 20 years after Vita broke off contact with Royce, he writes to her on his deathbed, determined to excavate the past. He is older than her, a former benefactor from her University days and from the letters between them we learn of their relationship, but this is a small part of the book.
We hear a great deal about Royce's younger days as a student himself and his infatuation with Kitty a fellow student who he helped financially so she could visit an archaeological dig in Pompeii. Vita was a South African film student, studying in America who received a grant that Royce set up in Kitty's name. The letters go back and forth, almost as if both writers are using the task as a sort of therapy - the letters don't connect with each other but each writer continues their story. Themes include racism, obsession, loyalty and guilt.
I found all the stuff about Pompeii very interesting and the letters between Royce and Vita were intriguing. I'm sure a lot of it went over my head and while I'm glad I read it, I can't really say if I enjoyed it.
Thank you to Cat Mitchell at Penguin Random House for sending a copy my way.
We hear a great deal about Royce's younger days as a student himself and his infatuation with Kitty a fellow student who he helped financially so she could visit an archaeological dig in Pompeii. Vita was a South African film student, studying in America who received a grant that Royce set up in Kitty's name. The letters go back and forth, almost as if both writers are using the task as a sort of therapy - the letters don't connect with each other but each writer continues their story. Themes include racism, obsession, loyalty and guilt.
I found all the stuff about Pompeii very interesting and the letters between Royce and Vita were intriguing. I'm sure a lot of it went over my head and while I'm glad I read it, I can't really say if I enjoyed it.
Thank you to Cat Mitchell at Penguin Random House for sending a copy my way.
July 2, 2020
I almost couldn't bring myself to finish this one. This book attempts to be a lot deeper than it really is, with a plot that brings nothing to the table.
There is no character development and no attemptt to make you like/dislike or even understand the characters. Throughout, I kept asking myself: 'do even I care about the anyone?', and the answer is no.
There is no character development and no attemptt to make you like/dislike or even understand the characters. Throughout, I kept asking myself: 'do even I care about the anyone?', and the answer is no.
April 24, 2019
I enjoyed reading this, the stories of two people whose lives touched. I was drawn into their confessions and enjoyed travelling to the places they went.
I wish there was more difference of voice between the two characters.
I wish there was more difference of voice between the two characters.
July 17, 2018
It was wonderful to read. So well written.
November 12, 2018
3.5 stars
January 28, 2019
"Didn't see that ending coming!"...
anyone in Pompeii, 79 AD.
anyone in Pompeii, 79 AD.
June 5, 2019
Did not finish this one
July 14, 2020
Ceridwen Dovey's In the Garden of the Fugitives (2018) begins with a late-life correspondence between two Harvard Graduates: Vita, class of 2003, now about forty, and Royce, class of 1975, now in his sixties and dying. A third character is Kitty Lushingham, Royce's classmate and long-time unrequited love. The primary subject of Royce's letters (emails) is Kitty. Vita is the author's alter ego¬—Dovey is an author and anthropologist born in South Africa, emigrated to Australia and matriculating at Harvard in 1999. She now lives in Sydney.)
The book is written as alternating chapters in which Royce and Vita share the secrets of their lives both before and during the seventeen years since she said she never wanted to see or talk with him again. Because the chapters are untitled and undated it's difficult to disentangle who is talking about whom and when—Dovey makes you work for your enlightenment. I suspect that this device was intended to force the reader to pay close attention; if so, it worked, but I found it excessively subtle. The compensation is that the book is beautifully written.
Royce and Kitty
Royce was a privileged young man, brought up with money and advantages available to a very few. He was the prototypical "Harvard Man," fitting the adage that
While at Harvard in the early 1970s Royce met Kitty, a classmate majoring in archaeology, a topic that Royce considered far more exciting than his own major: the "gray and bloodless" field of economics. Their relationship was extremely close but always platonic, though Royce wished for more. While they were at Harvard, Royce gave Kitty a present—a trip to Naples, Italy for the two of them so that she could join a professor's dig at Pompeii. The dig was at the House of the Peacock, where a gold statue had once been found, after which the House was returned to its former neglect.
There Kitty uncovered a garden with a once-lavishly painted wall, now drab and weather-beaten. Her project was to analyze the paints used in the wall, a job that required understanding of how plants and natural objects were used to make colors in the hey-day of Pompeii. But the project lagged as Kitty became drawn into another pursuit: the general use of plants for medicinal purposes, a topic that led her into interviewing local residents about their uses of plants.
While in Pompeii Kitty had a "secret" affair with one of her archaeology professors, Ettore Sogliano, whom she would later almost marry. In Pompeii she and Royce also met Rebecca Birkin, a thirtyish scientist who had discovered the Garden of the Fugitives, a small garden where thirteen residents had died in 79AD when Vesuvius erupted for the fourth time.
The bodies of the thirteen formed cavities in the lava, much like death masks. Rebecca had taken body casts of the Pompeii victims and was intent on pursuing that study in Herculaneum, where the population had been larger but the post-eruption bodies found were far fewer. Rebecca's theory was that the bulk of Herculaneum's dead were encased in lava that was now the floor of the Herculaneum beach: there, she thought, the residents had gathered hoping for rescue by boat. She would later be proved right, finding 139 bodies encased under the beach.
Kitty was an accomplished figure skater. After Royce and Kitty returned to Harvard following their first trip to Pompeii—other trips would follow—Kitty participated in the pairs dance event of an ice show. Her partner dropped her during a complex step and she hit her head on the ice—hard. Royce was watching from the stands but couldn't go to her aid—just as Kitty's head hit the ice, a Harvard dean approached him to tell him that his father had just committed suicide. Talk about a bad day!
When Royce returned from the funeral he was a very rich but disappointed young man. He saw Kitty and her alcoholic mother, Zelda Lushingham (how Dickensian!) in the hospital room just before Kitty's release. In Royce's absence, Professor Sogliano had made his moves—Kitty now wore his engagement ring.
When Royce and Kitty graduated they returned to Pompeii so she could continue her study of the House of the Peacock Wall, Royce serving as her assistant because she was still a bit disoriented from her concussion. But Kitty got sidetracked into studying the botany of the Garden of the Fugitives—what was planted there? How was it used by the Pompeiians? She discovers from the types of plants and the garden's layout that it was probably a market garden. Later work revealed that it was the property of a freed female slave who made perfumes. The dead frozen in lava might well have been shopping for perfumes at the time of Vesuvius' eruption!
Relationships are complicated in Pompeii. Royce thinks that Rebecca and Sogliano are getting it on even though the professor is engaged to Kitty. At a party he gets a bit tipsy, tells Kitty his suspicions, and puts his own moves on Kitty. She initially responds but then pulls away and blames him for disrespecting the man she loves and the woman who is her friend. Kitty breaks off with him, never wanting to see him again. He becomes persona non grata, and returns to Boston.
Later a surprised Royce finds himself invited to Pompeii for Kitty's marriage to Sogliano. On the eve of the wedding the still-chilly Kitty dies in a tragic accident. She had walked to the top of the volcano expecting to see her bridegroom there, but instead she found Royce. All Royce says is that
After her death Royce created the Kitty Lushingham Fellowship to support promising scholars in archaeology. Rebecca Birkin was the first Lushingham Fellow, an honor received soon after she married Professor Sogliano.
Royce and Vita
Vita was a good high school student in Australia but her mother was "gobsmacked" when she was admitted to Harvard in 1999, about 25-30 years after Royce and Kitty. Royce had learned of her through her application for a Lushingham Fellowship; she would receive the award and become Royce's protégée.
Vita was consumed by white guilt, a feeling of culpability for the plight of races dominated by whites. One friend remarked,
At Harvard, Vita chose a double-major of cinematography and anthropology, planning to go into the field of ethnography, the use of film to record the social life of ethnic groups. But Vita's progress was slow, at best. Her films were stuffed with inanimate objects, no people appeared. She was told repeatedly that anthropology was about people, but she just couldn't focus on them.
She reports an amusing moment of relief from her academic stress. While she was editing a film, a male student joined her and they had sex. As she indelicately puts it,
In South Africa Vita works as an intern for a film producer putting a film festival together. A telling moment occurs when Vita recommends showing a submitted film at the festival, a film that captivated her. It's a soundless scene of a public swimming pool with people of all ages, colors and ethnicities gathered together. She had recommended the showing because
As Vita remains out of sync with her surroundings, feeling that there is just no place for her, she slips into a deep depression. She remember a childhood teacher's comment that her parents took as a compliment: "Clearly, she has a lot on her mind." Yes, Vita continues to get in her own way!
Like Kitty, Vita suddenly cuts Royce out of her life, telling him she doesn't want to see him or communicate with him. This seems particularly unkind because Royce was in many ways her benefactor. We might ask, "how could she be so ungrateful," or perhaps we should ask, "What could he have done to her?" Dovey gives us the reason for this rupture, but it can be interpreted as benign and Vita's break as the overreaction of a disturbed young woman. Dovey gives us no information to help us decide.
Vita connects with a female black South African psychologist named Magdalene to deal with her white guilt. As often happens in therapy, transference occurs band she becomes enamored of Magdalene. What's unusual is that Vita starts stalking her! At the end of the relationship Magdalena leaves South Africa to work at a mining company. Vita never makes contact with her again and we wonder why Magdalena wanted to disappear.
But Magdalena leaves Vita with a task that will help her sort out her life—to write In the Garden of the Fugitives.
The book is written as alternating chapters in which Royce and Vita share the secrets of their lives both before and during the seventeen years since she said she never wanted to see or talk with him again. Because the chapters are untitled and undated it's difficult to disentangle who is talking about whom and when—Dovey makes you work for your enlightenment. I suspect that this device was intended to force the reader to pay close attention; if so, it worked, but I found it excessively subtle. The compensation is that the book is beautifully written.
Royce and Kitty
Royce was a privileged young man, brought up with money and advantages available to a very few. He was the prototypical "Harvard Man," fitting the adage that
You can always tell a Harvard Man. But you can't tell him much.. But his childhood was not without challenges: as a child Royce had the misfortune to watch from the base lodge as his mother died while trying to be the first woman to climb the Eiger. And as an adult he will see his life-love also fall off a mountain.
While at Harvard in the early 1970s Royce met Kitty, a classmate majoring in archaeology, a topic that Royce considered far more exciting than his own major: the "gray and bloodless" field of economics. Their relationship was extremely close but always platonic, though Royce wished for more. While they were at Harvard, Royce gave Kitty a present—a trip to Naples, Italy for the two of them so that she could join a professor's dig at Pompeii. The dig was at the House of the Peacock, where a gold statue had once been found, after which the House was returned to its former neglect.
There Kitty uncovered a garden with a once-lavishly painted wall, now drab and weather-beaten. Her project was to analyze the paints used in the wall, a job that required understanding of how plants and natural objects were used to make colors in the hey-day of Pompeii. But the project lagged as Kitty became drawn into another pursuit: the general use of plants for medicinal purposes, a topic that led her into interviewing local residents about their uses of plants.
While in Pompeii Kitty had a "secret" affair with one of her archaeology professors, Ettore Sogliano, whom she would later almost marry. In Pompeii she and Royce also met Rebecca Birkin, a thirtyish scientist who had discovered the Garden of the Fugitives, a small garden where thirteen residents had died in 79AD when Vesuvius erupted for the fourth time.
The bodies of the thirteen formed cavities in the lava, much like death masks. Rebecca had taken body casts of the Pompeii victims and was intent on pursuing that study in Herculaneum, where the population had been larger but the post-eruption bodies found were far fewer. Rebecca's theory was that the bulk of Herculaneum's dead were encased in lava that was now the floor of the Herculaneum beach: there, she thought, the residents had gathered hoping for rescue by boat. She would later be proved right, finding 139 bodies encased under the beach.
Kitty was an accomplished figure skater. After Royce and Kitty returned to Harvard following their first trip to Pompeii—other trips would follow—Kitty participated in the pairs dance event of an ice show. Her partner dropped her during a complex step and she hit her head on the ice—hard. Royce was watching from the stands but couldn't go to her aid—just as Kitty's head hit the ice, a Harvard dean approached him to tell him that his father had just committed suicide. Talk about a bad day!
When Royce returned from the funeral he was a very rich but disappointed young man. He saw Kitty and her alcoholic mother, Zelda Lushingham (how Dickensian!) in the hospital room just before Kitty's release. In Royce's absence, Professor Sogliano had made his moves—Kitty now wore his engagement ring.
When Royce and Kitty graduated they returned to Pompeii so she could continue her study of the House of the Peacock Wall, Royce serving as her assistant because she was still a bit disoriented from her concussion. But Kitty got sidetracked into studying the botany of the Garden of the Fugitives—what was planted there? How was it used by the Pompeiians? She discovers from the types of plants and the garden's layout that it was probably a market garden. Later work revealed that it was the property of a freed female slave who made perfumes. The dead frozen in lava might well have been shopping for perfumes at the time of Vesuvius' eruption!
Relationships are complicated in Pompeii. Royce thinks that Rebecca and Sogliano are getting it on even though the professor is engaged to Kitty. At a party he gets a bit tipsy, tells Kitty his suspicions, and puts his own moves on Kitty. She initially responds but then pulls away and blames him for disrespecting the man she loves and the woman who is her friend. Kitty breaks off with him, never wanting to see him again. He becomes persona non grata, and returns to Boston.
Later a surprised Royce finds himself invited to Pompeii for Kitty's marriage to Sogliano. On the eve of the wedding the still-chilly Kitty dies in a tragic accident. She had walked to the top of the volcano expecting to see her bridegroom there, but instead she found Royce. All Royce says is that
I will never forget the look on Kitty's face on hearing her name spoken at the summit by a man who loved her. The wrong man. It was her faithless fear of me that made the ground fall away under her feetRoyce had lost both his mother and his wished-for lover in mountain accidents.
After her death Royce created the Kitty Lushingham Fellowship to support promising scholars in archaeology. Rebecca Birkin was the first Lushingham Fellow, an honor received soon after she married Professor Sogliano.
Royce and Vita
Vita was a good high school student in Australia but her mother was "gobsmacked" when she was admitted to Harvard in 1999, about 25-30 years after Royce and Kitty. Royce had learned of her through her application for a Lushingham Fellowship; she would receive the award and become Royce's protégée.
Vita was consumed by white guilt, a feeling of culpability for the plight of races dominated by whites. One friend remarked,
Your side of the family have the opposite of a chip on their shoulders . . . it's more like you've got a big vulture sitting there, pecking you every time you forget about your skin colour.Her life has been a trip through racial guilt: she was born and raised in South Africa, where she saw blacks ghettoized by apartheid; then she moved to Australia where the aborigines were neglected and whites were supreme; finally she moved to the U, S. where . . . well, you get it! Vita had hit the trifecta of racism!
At Harvard, Vita chose a double-major of cinematography and anthropology, planning to go into the field of ethnography, the use of film to record the social life of ethnic groups. But Vita's progress was slow, at best. Her films were stuffed with inanimate objects, no people appeared. She was told repeatedly that anthropology was about people, but she just couldn't focus on them.
She reports an amusing moment of relief from her academic stress. While she was editing a film, a male student joined her and they had sex. As she indelicately puts it,
During the acrobatics (it was a small room) I sat on the keyboard, and the flesh of my arse somehow picked out the exact command to delete the film from the hard drive. And do you know how I felt? In the face of the destruction of a creative work you've felt ambivalent towards, there is only relief.Vita graduated in 2003 and immediately relocated to Cape Town, South Africa, land of her youth. But, as Thomas Wolfe tells us, You Can't Go Home Again. Since 1994 South Africa had been integrated and now her peers traveled in close-knit multiracial groups. But for Vita, South Africa is now an alien land—a better land, perhaps, but not hers!
In South Africa Vita works as an intern for a film producer putting a film festival together. A telling moment occurs when Vita recommends showing a submitted film at the festival, a film that captivated her. It's a soundless scene of a public swimming pool with people of all ages, colors and ethnicities gathered together. She had recommended the showing because
The filmmaker had found the right balance between saying something and saying nothing at all.And suddenly you realize that the author is describing this book—it's like a loosely-woven tapestry, beautifully organized with exquisite colors but with images so fuzzy and imprecise that you can make of it what you will. It's rich and literate, but what is it really about?
As Vita remains out of sync with her surroundings, feeling that there is just no place for her, she slips into a deep depression. She remember a childhood teacher's comment that her parents took as a compliment: "Clearly, she has a lot on her mind." Yes, Vita continues to get in her own way!
Like Kitty, Vita suddenly cuts Royce out of her life, telling him she doesn't want to see him or communicate with him. This seems particularly unkind because Royce was in many ways her benefactor. We might ask, "how could she be so ungrateful," or perhaps we should ask, "What could he have done to her?" Dovey gives us the reason for this rupture, but it can be interpreted as benign and Vita's break as the overreaction of a disturbed young woman. Dovey gives us no information to help us decide.
Vita connects with a female black South African psychologist named Magdalene to deal with her white guilt. As often happens in therapy, transference occurs band she becomes enamored of Magdalene. What's unusual is that Vita starts stalking her! At the end of the relationship Magdalena leaves South Africa to work at a mining company. Vita never makes contact with her again and we wonder why Magdalena wanted to disappear.
But Magdalena leaves Vita with a task that will help her sort out her life—to write In the Garden of the Fugitives.
July 20, 2025
kind of disappointing? there was a part where I actually quite liked Vita, but after her whole therapy debarcle w/ Magdalene, I feel her character development just stopped- she was getting somewhere, and then what? she just started accepting that she sucked?
the passages on guilt went coooommmpletely over my head too
the passages on guilt went coooommmpletely over my head too
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