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Tomorrow and Tomorrow
This is the first published version - text censored and title shortened at the time. Full text published as Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow in 1983.
466 pages, Hardcover
First published July 11, 1947
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282 people want to read
About the author
M. Barnard Eldershaw
16 books4 followersM. Barnard Eldershaw was a pseudonym for the Australian writers Marjorie Barnard (1897 - 1987) and Flora Eldershaw (1897 - 1956), who collaborated on numerous novels, short stories, and essays on Australian fiction.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
November 22, 2019
Oh, dear, it feels disloyal to The Sisterhood and the feminist Virago publishing project to say this, but Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is a really dreary book. I'm not surprised that the censored (1947) edition wasn't popular with the reading public, and now, having read the uncensored (1983) version, I'm inclined to think that the rejection of this novel had little to do with the censor's scissors. There are two reasons why I persisted with it: I wanted to contribute to Bill's AWW Gen 3 Week at The Australian Legend; and the book is very rare now and hard to get hold of, and it's part of Australia's literary history.
Alas, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow has a history more interesting than the story within its pages...
Firstly, it is a work of collaborative writing, by Marjorie Barnard and Flora Eldershaw. Both born in 1897 into middle-class professional families, they met at Sydney University but established themselves as independent of their families before turning to writing. Flora Eldershaw became a teacher, and eventually Head of PLC in Sydney. Margery Barnard, who had been offered a place at Oxford after winning the University medal, reluctantly became a librarian because her father would not let her take up the place.
In 1928 The Bulletin offered a prize for an Australian novel, and this was the catalyst for them to begin writing together. Barnard and Eldershaw's A House is Built shared first prize with Coonardoo by Katharine Susannah Prichard, and they went on to write five more novels during the turbulent 1930s.
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow was their last novel, and it suffered from the hands of the zealous Australian censor. (To see just how zealous he could be, see my review of The Censor's Library by Nicole Moore.) However, the censor's cuts weren't made because of prudery as I had first thought, it was because it ruffled political feathers during the emerging Cold War.
To quote from the introduction by Anne Chisholm:
Well, you can see the potential for the authors to lose control of their material, and IMO they did. The story of Harry Munster and his circle is Misery 101, piled on with a trowel and with a surprisingly unsympathetic portrayal of his feckless, selfish wife as the source of most of his troubles. At first the representation of Harry as the Everyman had my sympathy: he endured the two world wars, the Depression and the inability to escape from poverty in an unfair economy. But then he ceases to be poor, and any moral authority he has vanishes because a quixotic (and not very credible) bequest of £200 pounds is hoarded, kept secret from his family, and not used to enable the brightest of his children to get an apprenticeship, because she is a girl. The opportunity for Barnard's autobiographical experience of this kind of sexism is wasted because Wanda's point of view about it is never explored. IMO the characterisation of women is surprisingly weak, reverting to easy stereotypes like female jealousy over a man and portraying the lives of working-class women with a loftiness that contrasts unfavourably with Ruth Park's authentic stories of slum life in Sydney.
But what really kills this novel is its unwieldy structure. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is structured as a novel within a novel, and it was the framing novel that really tested my resolve to finish the book.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2019/11/21/t...
Alas, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow has a history more interesting than the story within its pages...
Firstly, it is a work of collaborative writing, by Marjorie Barnard and Flora Eldershaw. Both born in 1897 into middle-class professional families, they met at Sydney University but established themselves as independent of their families before turning to writing. Flora Eldershaw became a teacher, and eventually Head of PLC in Sydney. Margery Barnard, who had been offered a place at Oxford after winning the University medal, reluctantly became a librarian because her father would not let her take up the place.
In 1928 The Bulletin offered a prize for an Australian novel, and this was the catalyst for them to begin writing together. Barnard and Eldershaw's A House is Built shared first prize with Coonardoo by Katharine Susannah Prichard, and they went on to write five more novels during the turbulent 1930s.
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow was their last novel, and it suffered from the hands of the zealous Australian censor. (To see just how zealous he could be, see my review of The Censor's Library by Nicole Moore.) However, the censor's cuts weren't made because of prudery as I had first thought, it was because it ruffled political feathers during the emerging Cold War.
To quote from the introduction by Anne Chisholm:
It is a deeply political book and a brave one, considering that it was written at the height of World War Two. At the heart of it is the story of how the aftermath of the First World War—the Depression and the rise of Fascism in Europe—impinged on the lives of a group of working-class families in Sydney, in particular on Harry Munster and his family and circle. But Barnard Eldershaw do not stop the story at the outbreak of World War Two. Writing before the war was half over, they postulate a series of events leading to the invasion of Australia by a right-wing international police force, a revolutionary uprising by left wingers and the destruction and abandonment of Sydney.
It is hardly surprising that the book, when it came to the attention of war-time censors, caused them concern. Although they confined their cuts to the fictional ending and the build up to the rising, the whole book is in fact provocative in the extreme. It reveals Barnard Eldershaw's deep hostility to capitalism, materialism and competition, and to the way that Australia, as they saw it, had been exploited and manipulated by Britain and the United States. (p.xii)
Well, you can see the potential for the authors to lose control of their material, and IMO they did. The story of Harry Munster and his circle is Misery 101, piled on with a trowel and with a surprisingly unsympathetic portrayal of his feckless, selfish wife as the source of most of his troubles. At first the representation of Harry as the Everyman had my sympathy: he endured the two world wars, the Depression and the inability to escape from poverty in an unfair economy. But then he ceases to be poor, and any moral authority he has vanishes because a quixotic (and not very credible) bequest of £200 pounds is hoarded, kept secret from his family, and not used to enable the brightest of his children to get an apprenticeship, because she is a girl. The opportunity for Barnard's autobiographical experience of this kind of sexism is wasted because Wanda's point of view about it is never explored. IMO the characterisation of women is surprisingly weak, reverting to easy stereotypes like female jealousy over a man and portraying the lives of working-class women with a loftiness that contrasts unfavourably with Ruth Park's authentic stories of slum life in Sydney.
But what really kills this novel is its unwieldy structure. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is structured as a novel within a novel, and it was the framing novel that really tested my resolve to finish the book.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2019/11/21/t...
September 16, 2016
I can't say that I've ever been too aware of Australian sci-fi, which is more my failing than that of the genre. But I'd heard Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow spoken of in reverential tones, a kind of feminist, socialist meditation on war, peace and politics, conveyed through an historical novel told within a science-fiction framework. And I must admit, I was intrigued.
Then I read that Patrick White thought the book was pretty good, and that made me even more interested, as I couldn't really recall stories of him liking anything, so I figured it must be good.
And it is, with caveats.
The novel is the work of two woman, Marjorie Barnard and Flora Eldershaw, writing as the entity M. Barnard Eldershaw. This is their last collaboration, and it shows, I think, in the way the text tends to wander. As I understand it, Barnard wrote and Eldershaw acted as editor, though in the case of this work, the scissors of the censor at time of original publication ensured that the pair's original intentions would remain unseen until 1983, when a Virago reprint reinstated 400 chopped lines.
The book takes place in the 24th century, where inhabitants reside in some kind of technocratic socialist state. War and poverty have been eliminated through the institution of scientific laws. We're in the Tenth Commune - formerly known as the Riverina - and we zoom into a writer called Knarf, his mate (and thin prop audience) Ord, and Knarf's politically-motivated son, Ren. And today just so happens to be the day a telepathic vote-recording machine is to be tested, and where the son's future will be either made or broken.
However, this is all just preamble. The real guts of the tale - though we return to the future at opportune times, and for a final familial act - takes place in the Sydney Of The Past. Knarf, a future novelist, has written a book - Little Life Left Behind - which takes place from the 1920sto the early 1950s. Spurred into narrative action by the unearthing of an enormous military statue - one of the sentinels from the now-demolished Anzac Memorial in Hyde Park - Knarf has written a story of the Common Man.
A particular Common Man. Harry Munster. A regular bloke, one who's been in World War I. One who moves from the country into the city, who spends time in the streets of Kings Cross and Darlinghurst. A delivery driver, a denizen of the six-o'clock swill, a fighter and a lover - but, crucially, a politically-minded one.
What follows is the story of Munster and his family, friends and lovers. Through the examination of these individuals, the government of the time - and by extension, of ours - is scrutinised and found wanting. The device of a book-within-a-book allows the author to skip sections of filler in Knarf's work, making it appear as if he's cherry-picking the best bits to read to his willing audience. Barnard and Eldershaw also capture well the sense of romance any historical retelling - small actions appear either heroic or monstrous in the lens of retrospection, and this distortion, a function of historical rearview, is well conveyed. It means that the alternate-history elements of the book - what happens after the end of World War II - are more palatable, and don't seem ridiculous or improbable.
The depiction of the streets of a 1940s metropolis surviving war and then falling to revolution is at once loving and astringent. Small elements of life - too detailed for a far-future historian to glean given the wholesale destruction of its setting - are evocative, and the eventual destruction of the city is breathtaking. This is grim stuff - detonated buildings, slashed canvases, burned books - to be reading today, let alone in the aftermath of World War II, as the original readers would have done. There's a ghoulish glee to be had reading of the process of socialist revolution, and the uncertain gap between liberation from capital and descent into rule-bound authoritarianism is neatly illustrated.
This did, however, take a while to read. Though it's generally well written, it's also a quite dense work, and the Dial Press edition, at least, is laid out in a pretty fatiguing manner. Coupled with the occasional tendency to batter the reader (rather than beguile), the work can be heavy going. However, it's worth seeing through to the end. As a resident of Sydney, there were plenty of little snippets, tiny portraits which made the continuing worth the effort.
The book - as raggedy and often confusing as it might appear - is very much worth a read, particularly today. I suppose the appeal of socialist reforms springs evergreen - until their institution reveals unforseen flaws, perhaps - but it's difficult not to read the book as a critique on how our society works today, even, let alone in 1947. War is ever-present today, even mutating into new forms - ideals rather than dictators or nation-states now is in vogue - and Munster/Knarf/Barnard/Eldershaw have critical words for those who pursue war, and the commercial gains such affairs provide. How good are the forces for good? And what do they really want for us? This is sci-fi without the lasers, and - crucially - without a solid answer.
That part's up to you.
Then I read that Patrick White thought the book was pretty good, and that made me even more interested, as I couldn't really recall stories of him liking anything, so I figured it must be good.
And it is, with caveats.
The novel is the work of two woman, Marjorie Barnard and Flora Eldershaw, writing as the entity M. Barnard Eldershaw. This is their last collaboration, and it shows, I think, in the way the text tends to wander. As I understand it, Barnard wrote and Eldershaw acted as editor, though in the case of this work, the scissors of the censor at time of original publication ensured that the pair's original intentions would remain unseen until 1983, when a Virago reprint reinstated 400 chopped lines.
The book takes place in the 24th century, where inhabitants reside in some kind of technocratic socialist state. War and poverty have been eliminated through the institution of scientific laws. We're in the Tenth Commune - formerly known as the Riverina - and we zoom into a writer called Knarf, his mate (and thin prop audience) Ord, and Knarf's politically-motivated son, Ren. And today just so happens to be the day a telepathic vote-recording machine is to be tested, and where the son's future will be either made or broken.
However, this is all just preamble. The real guts of the tale - though we return to the future at opportune times, and for a final familial act - takes place in the Sydney Of The Past. Knarf, a future novelist, has written a book - Little Life Left Behind - which takes place from the 1920sto the early 1950s. Spurred into narrative action by the unearthing of an enormous military statue - one of the sentinels from the now-demolished Anzac Memorial in Hyde Park - Knarf has written a story of the Common Man.
A particular Common Man. Harry Munster. A regular bloke, one who's been in World War I. One who moves from the country into the city, who spends time in the streets of Kings Cross and Darlinghurst. A delivery driver, a denizen of the six-o'clock swill, a fighter and a lover - but, crucially, a politically-minded one.
What follows is the story of Munster and his family, friends and lovers. Through the examination of these individuals, the government of the time - and by extension, of ours - is scrutinised and found wanting. The device of a book-within-a-book allows the author to skip sections of filler in Knarf's work, making it appear as if he's cherry-picking the best bits to read to his willing audience. Barnard and Eldershaw also capture well the sense of romance any historical retelling - small actions appear either heroic or monstrous in the lens of retrospection, and this distortion, a function of historical rearview, is well conveyed. It means that the alternate-history elements of the book - what happens after the end of World War II - are more palatable, and don't seem ridiculous or improbable.
The depiction of the streets of a 1940s metropolis surviving war and then falling to revolution is at once loving and astringent. Small elements of life - too detailed for a far-future historian to glean given the wholesale destruction of its setting - are evocative, and the eventual destruction of the city is breathtaking. This is grim stuff - detonated buildings, slashed canvases, burned books - to be reading today, let alone in the aftermath of World War II, as the original readers would have done. There's a ghoulish glee to be had reading of the process of socialist revolution, and the uncertain gap between liberation from capital and descent into rule-bound authoritarianism is neatly illustrated.
This did, however, take a while to read. Though it's generally well written, it's also a quite dense work, and the Dial Press edition, at least, is laid out in a pretty fatiguing manner. Coupled with the occasional tendency to batter the reader (rather than beguile), the work can be heavy going. However, it's worth seeing through to the end. As a resident of Sydney, there were plenty of little snippets, tiny portraits which made the continuing worth the effort.
The book - as raggedy and often confusing as it might appear - is very much worth a read, particularly today. I suppose the appeal of socialist reforms springs evergreen - until their institution reveals unforseen flaws, perhaps - but it's difficult not to read the book as a critique on how our society works today, even, let alone in 1947. War is ever-present today, even mutating into new forms - ideals rather than dictators or nation-states now is in vogue - and Munster/Knarf/Barnard/Eldershaw have critical words for those who pursue war, and the commercial gains such affairs provide. How good are the forces for good? And what do they really want for us? This is sci-fi without the lasers, and - crucially - without a solid answer.
That part's up to you.
July 10, 2017
So, yes, it took me more than a month to get 144 pages and then I marathoned the remainder in less than 48 hours - there was a lot of setup in those first 144 pages, and my Very Attentive reading arrangement for Maximum Note-taking was a bit limiting on time. But the pre-reading I inadvertently did (Come in Spinner, Jean Devanny, Exiles At Home) was very good prep for being able to get straight to the big ideas without getting confused and bemused by the references and their significance. I was already clued up about the Dom, the various sub-types of leftists, the attitude to and constraints on women, etc. I had read about the book itself, had an idea what to expect with the plot (WW2 Sydney, utopian future) and structure (novel in a novel). What I did not expect was the relevance and resonance with the present day. The questions and problems the story poses about the right way to act, to organise, the important things to attend to and think about - both big and small - are just as relevant now as they ever were. MB and FE, as recorded in Exiles at Home I think, were in tension with the organised left in the Australian literary scene because they did not subscribe to the kind of 'one big push to the glorious revolution' mentality that was very in vogue back then. Everything hinged on revolution. All the stories of glorious Russia and the only real socialist state and hope for mankind on earth etc etc were framed in terms of getting the masses in nations around the globe to basically recreate the Russian revolution, in one fell swoop overthrow the rotten old system and bring in the new. One concerted action by a unified populace and all would be well. So heroic! This novel is a big middle finger to all that agitprop, skillfully rendered. It's a last novel, in several senses. The apocalyptic dystopia crossed with a historical drama seems to make great sense for a television mini-series now. It was beautiful and sad and epic and detailed and brilliant; it was cathartic. I will be busy unpacking it for a while.
October 22, 2019
I would love to give this 5 stars, but I'm trying to resist that urge these days. The book is flawed, dated, and occasionally a battering ram of ideas, so I'll stick to 4. But other reviewers here have said everything, and I'm mighty sleepy. So all I will say is the concerns of Barnard and Eldershaw (two classic leftie intellectual writers in an era of heavy right-left combat) remain with us. Questions about capitalism and materialism, about the unwanted influence of the USA on Australia, and also about whether Australia wants too much of an influence from Britain.
Australia doesn't often do dystopias - indeed, the only other literary example I can think of is Alexis Wright's compelling The Swan Book. Like all such attempts, dystopic novels reflect the age in which they're written rather than the future, and we may question Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow after 80 years on these grounds. But I think the combined literary prowess of the two authors with the cyclical nature of history has brought the wheel around again.
I will leave you with a quote from the first chapter (excerpted in the great introduction in the Virago edition) about Australians of the time:
They had been a very strange people, full of contradictions, adaptable and obstinate. With courage and endurance they had pioneered the land, only to ruin it with greed and lack of forethought. They had drawn a hardy independence from the soil and had maintained it with pride and yet they had allowed themselves to be dispossessed by the most fantastic tyranny the world had ever known: money in the hands of the few, an unreal, an imaginary system driving out reality... They loved their country and exalted patriotism as if it were a virtue, and yet they gave a greater love to a little island in the north sea that many of them had never seen... The small people was prodigal of its armies: generation after generation, they swarmed out to fight and die in strange places and for strange causes. Tough, sardonic and humorous, they were romantics the likes of which the world had never seen.
Australia doesn't often do dystopias - indeed, the only other literary example I can think of is Alexis Wright's compelling The Swan Book. Like all such attempts, dystopic novels reflect the age in which they're written rather than the future, and we may question Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow after 80 years on these grounds. But I think the combined literary prowess of the two authors with the cyclical nature of history has brought the wheel around again.
I will leave you with a quote from the first chapter (excerpted in the great introduction in the Virago edition) about Australians of the time:
They had been a very strange people, full of contradictions, adaptable and obstinate. With courage and endurance they had pioneered the land, only to ruin it with greed and lack of forethought. They had drawn a hardy independence from the soil and had maintained it with pride and yet they had allowed themselves to be dispossessed by the most fantastic tyranny the world had ever known: money in the hands of the few, an unreal, an imaginary system driving out reality... They loved their country and exalted patriotism as if it were a virtue, and yet they gave a greater love to a little island in the north sea that many of them had never seen... The small people was prodigal of its armies: generation after generation, they swarmed out to fight and die in strange places and for strange causes. Tough, sardonic and humorous, they were romantics the likes of which the world had never seen.
October 3, 2017
I have been looking forward to reading this book for some time as it comes with a reputation as an undeservedly overlooked Australian classic. The boldness of its conception is breathtaking with the character of a novelist in a 24thC technocratic socialist utopian Australia writing a novel about the struggles of the Common Man in 20thC Australia. And so we have a political sci-fi novel wrapped around what now reads as an historical fiction novel about the hard times and political consciousness of returned soldier Harry Munster and his family from the 1920s to the 1940s.
The writing style is densely poetic and detailed. At its best it produces startling metaphors, highly textured, vivid scenes and genuine depths of feeling but can at times feel over-wrought with a tumult of metaphors that exhaust the reader and demand real stamina. Lengthy and explicit discussions and reflections about the nature of liberty or the failings of modern capitalism are central to this books' project but would not be tolerated in novels today.
I was mindful throughout how heated these debates would have been in Australia in 1940 to 1942 when this book was written. I admired the courage of the writers Barnard and Eldershaw, fellow-travellers of Australian communism, in questioning the 'revolution at any cost' rhetoric while not pulling any punches in their savage criticism of Australia's economic and politic dependence on Britain and the sacrifice of Australian workers' lives and welfare.
Despite being a self-consciously political fable, the story of Harry Munster's unhappy marriage, and heartbreaking struggle to support his family was thoroughly engaging and immersive as narrative with many fascinating (and beautifully observed) details of working class life in Kings Cross and Woolloomooloo. The shocking alternative history scenario of the last few chapters shows Australia invaded by its wartime allies and Sydney burned to the ground by a workers guerilla army. It is no surprise that this, Barnard-Eldershaw's last novel, was poorly received when it was published in 1947 in an exhausted post-war Australia where cold war paranoia was taking root.
I think it is time for a reappraisal of this classic whose political concerns are startlingly evergreen and relevant in present-day Australia. This novel should be celebrated for its ambitious reach and unapologetic polemics, a timely reminder that there was once a branch of Australian literature with a broader agenda than the bourgeois psychological realist novel. Congratulations to Virago Modern Classics for publishing this - uncensored - version in 1983.
The writing style is densely poetic and detailed. At its best it produces startling metaphors, highly textured, vivid scenes and genuine depths of feeling but can at times feel over-wrought with a tumult of metaphors that exhaust the reader and demand real stamina. Lengthy and explicit discussions and reflections about the nature of liberty or the failings of modern capitalism are central to this books' project but would not be tolerated in novels today.
I was mindful throughout how heated these debates would have been in Australia in 1940 to 1942 when this book was written. I admired the courage of the writers Barnard and Eldershaw, fellow-travellers of Australian communism, in questioning the 'revolution at any cost' rhetoric while not pulling any punches in their savage criticism of Australia's economic and politic dependence on Britain and the sacrifice of Australian workers' lives and welfare.
Despite being a self-consciously political fable, the story of Harry Munster's unhappy marriage, and heartbreaking struggle to support his family was thoroughly engaging and immersive as narrative with many fascinating (and beautifully observed) details of working class life in Kings Cross and Woolloomooloo. The shocking alternative history scenario of the last few chapters shows Australia invaded by its wartime allies and Sydney burned to the ground by a workers guerilla army. It is no surprise that this, Barnard-Eldershaw's last novel, was poorly received when it was published in 1947 in an exhausted post-war Australia where cold war paranoia was taking root.
I think it is time for a reappraisal of this classic whose political concerns are startlingly evergreen and relevant in present-day Australia. This novel should be celebrated for its ambitious reach and unapologetic polemics, a timely reminder that there was once a branch of Australian literature with a broader agenda than the bourgeois psychological realist novel. Congratulations to Virago Modern Classics for publishing this - uncensored - version in 1983.
June 8, 2011
Well, this took me forever to read. It was excellent but extremely heavy going and quite depressing. I had to put it down, frequently, and be in the mood for reading it, too.
So, a rendering of Sydney/Australia (but mostly Sydney) of the 1930s and 1940s as told from the perspective of someone living in a socialist utopia (that is possibly a distopia but this is not a distopic sci-fi/speculative fiction). At the end of WW2, instead of a reversion to society as we know it, there is instead an anarchic uprising in which the complete destruction of all things capitalist occurs. This is the basis of the current society, from which the story of various people in 1930s/1940s Sydney is re-imagined, during a stage in which the youth of the future are considering their own rebellion/revolution/movement against the illiberalities of their society.
It is very involved - there are many interwoven stories going on, some in the past, some in the future. But I had no trouble keeping track of all the different threads, and the many strands were used to good effect - so a story could be skipped over where it did not progress the overall themes of the book, years condensed into a single sentence but if it was an important moment, a moment could stretch over 100s of pages. Sometimes this seemed a bit arch, but then, one was moved along into the next point being made by the author and one *understood* why it had been done.
The novel is very didactic and so, possibly annoying for some (many?) I guess one just has to be aware of that tendency and forgive it, because the depth of the exploration - of power, society, male/female relationships, the idea of freedom, the binds of wealth and poverty - and the beauty of the writing are all worthwhile.
This deserves study and wider reading. A real pity it is so unknown.
So, a rendering of Sydney/Australia (but mostly Sydney) of the 1930s and 1940s as told from the perspective of someone living in a socialist utopia (that is possibly a distopia but this is not a distopic sci-fi/speculative fiction). At the end of WW2, instead of a reversion to society as we know it, there is instead an anarchic uprising in which the complete destruction of all things capitalist occurs. This is the basis of the current society, from which the story of various people in 1930s/1940s Sydney is re-imagined, during a stage in which the youth of the future are considering their own rebellion/revolution/movement against the illiberalities of their society.
It is very involved - there are many interwoven stories going on, some in the past, some in the future. But I had no trouble keeping track of all the different threads, and the many strands were used to good effect - so a story could be skipped over where it did not progress the overall themes of the book, years condensed into a single sentence but if it was an important moment, a moment could stretch over 100s of pages. Sometimes this seemed a bit arch, but then, one was moved along into the next point being made by the author and one *understood* why it had been done.
The novel is very didactic and so, possibly annoying for some (many?) I guess one just has to be aware of that tendency and forgive it, because the depth of the exploration - of power, society, male/female relationships, the idea of freedom, the binds of wealth and poverty - and the beauty of the writing are all worthwhile.
This deserves study and wider reading. A real pity it is so unknown.
September 2, 2018
A bit of obscure 1940s Australian SF. The image of Sydney burning is quite indelible. Good in parts but also like a lot of SF from that time a barely disguised political pamphlet (eg HG Wells, CS Lewis).
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 30, 2023
Gosh is this dense with pessimism! An enjoyable and interesting read but did not compel me to pick it up, so quite a slow one. All of the characters are difficult to care about or even want to read about, but the characterisation of the women in particular I found very off-putting. They are extraordinarily shallow, and I was disappointed considering the politics and feminism of the authors. I can imagine this being a weird read in 1947. Good for historical value but just too laboured with meaning and a kind of disdain for humanity.
January 4, 2024
I really wanted to enjoy this and I did to an extent. Both narratives were interesting and it was well written...but just so dense. There's only so many page long pessimistic paragraphs I can take. Some enthusiastic editing would have done this book wonders.
January 26, 2018
I may re-read this book as part of the 2018 challenge
December 15, 2020
After many attempts to get through this book I have finally done it. I read The House is Built and enjoyed that. This however is not an easy book to read and is not what I would say totally enjoyable.
It is an Australian novel written through WWII impinged on by all the very turbulent years of WWII the depression and Russian revolution. Also 400 years in to the future.
I have read this through the COVID period in Australia 2020 and there are very many parallels to our present day.
So the title is quite apt in that human struggles and behaviours have not really changed that much.
Greed, fear, power and desire for a better world haven’t changed. Today our struggles are to foresee the aggressive rise of China, the post Trump US reassessment of values. Brexit turbulence in Europe. Death and devastation from the COVID pandemic. Battles between male and female societal relationships and roles.Better education,responsibility for the environment, global warming and natural disasters that now affect much larger populations and have to be dealt with scientifically and humanely. Displaced person looking to survive and find a home.Jobs lost through changes in technology jobs changed and reinvented because of technology.
The novel is almost a book within a book. Youthful ambitions to create better futures than that of the past.
The authors have used their characters to expound their political view points.
All the viewpoints are ones that one could spend years trying to understand and agree or disagree with.
I know I will go on thinking about this book for quite some time yet.
It is an Australian novel written through WWII impinged on by all the very turbulent years of WWII the depression and Russian revolution. Also 400 years in to the future.
I have read this through the COVID period in Australia 2020 and there are very many parallels to our present day.
So the title is quite apt in that human struggles and behaviours have not really changed that much.
Greed, fear, power and desire for a better world haven’t changed. Today our struggles are to foresee the aggressive rise of China, the post Trump US reassessment of values. Brexit turbulence in Europe. Death and devastation from the COVID pandemic. Battles between male and female societal relationships and roles.Better education,responsibility for the environment, global warming and natural disasters that now affect much larger populations and have to be dealt with scientifically and humanely. Displaced person looking to survive and find a home.Jobs lost through changes in technology jobs changed and reinvented because of technology.
The novel is almost a book within a book. Youthful ambitions to create better futures than that of the past.
The authors have used their characters to expound their political view points.
All the viewpoints are ones that one could spend years trying to understand and agree or disagree with.
I know I will go on thinking about this book for quite some time yet.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews