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Dreams of Speaking
'We must talk, Alice Black, about this world of modern things.This buzzing world.'
Alice is entranced by the aesthetics of technology and, in every aeroplane flight, every Xerox machine, every neon sign, sees the poetry of modernity. Mr Sakamoto, a survivor of the atomic bomb, is an expert on Alexander Graham Bell. The pair forge an unlikely friendship as Mr Sakamoto regales Alice with stories of twentieth-century invention. His own knowledge begins to inform her writing, and these two solitary beings become a mutual support for each other a long way from home.
This novel from Man Booker longlisted author Gail Jones is distinguished by its honesty and intelligence. From the boundlessness of space walking to the frustrating constrictions of one person's daily existence, Dreams of Speaking paints with grace and skill the experience of needing to belong despite wanting to be alone.
Alice is entranced by the aesthetics of technology and, in every aeroplane flight, every Xerox machine, every neon sign, sees the poetry of modernity. Mr Sakamoto, a survivor of the atomic bomb, is an expert on Alexander Graham Bell. The pair forge an unlikely friendship as Mr Sakamoto regales Alice with stories of twentieth-century invention. His own knowledge begins to inform her writing, and these two solitary beings become a mutual support for each other a long way from home.
This novel from Man Booker longlisted author Gail Jones is distinguished by its honesty and intelligence. From the boundlessness of space walking to the frustrating constrictions of one person's daily existence, Dreams of Speaking paints with grace and skill the experience of needing to belong despite wanting to be alone.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
About the author
Gail Jones
43 books138 followersGail Jones is the author of two short-story collections, a critical monograph, and the novels BLACK MIRROR, SIXTY LIGHTS, DREAMS OF SPEAKING, SORRY and FIVE BELLS.
Three times shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award, her prizes include the WA Premier's Award for Fiction, the Nita B. Kibble Award, the Steele Rudd Award, the Age Book of the Year Award, the Adelaide Festival Award for Fiction and the ASAL Gold Medal. She has also been shortlisted for international awards, including the IMPAC and the Prix Femina.
Her fiction has been translated into nine languages. Gail has recently taken up a Professorship at UWS.
Three times shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award, her prizes include the WA Premier's Award for Fiction, the Nita B. Kibble Award, the Steele Rudd Award, the Age Book of the Year Award, the Adelaide Festival Award for Fiction and the ASAL Gold Medal. She has also been shortlisted for international awards, including the IMPAC and the Prix Femina.
Her fiction has been translated into nine languages. Gail has recently taken up a Professorship at UWS.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
June 19, 2016
Read for my bookclub.
I was really unsure about this one. It was a struggle. I read it in two parts.
Was I bored with it or did I find it fascinating? Did I find the author pompous with her use of big words, or did I find her smooth and flowy?
When first completed, I felt that there wasn't really much to it. While it was mildly interesting and engaging, it seemed to lack any plot or real story.
Until I discussed it with my bookclub.
This book was very well written. Very real. The author manages to cover a whole host of issues and emotions in one easy novel. Grief, rejection, betrayel, love, loneliness, self harm, friendship, travel, and more. Definitely a read for 'the thinker'. Not a book to be read and then discarded. To understand this book, will require some after thought on a whole host of topics.
I was really unsure about this one. It was a struggle. I read it in two parts.
Was I bored with it or did I find it fascinating? Did I find the author pompous with her use of big words, or did I find her smooth and flowy?
When first completed, I felt that there wasn't really much to it. While it was mildly interesting and engaging, it seemed to lack any plot or real story.
Until I discussed it with my bookclub.
This book was very well written. Very real. The author manages to cover a whole host of issues and emotions in one easy novel. Grief, rejection, betrayel, love, loneliness, self harm, friendship, travel, and more. Definitely a read for 'the thinker'. Not a book to be read and then discarded. To understand this book, will require some after thought on a whole host of topics.
November 12, 2023
An interesting, original short novel about Alice Black, a young woman writer who meets 68 year old Mr Sakamoto, on a Paris train. Alice is in Paris writing a book on the poetics of modernity. Mr. Sakamoto is writing the biography of Alexander Bell. Alice is from Perth, W.A. Mr Sakamoto is from Nagasaki, Japan. A survivor of the Nagasaki nuclear bombing in 1945. Mr Sakamoto has two adult daughters. Alice has a younger sister, Norah.
Alice is the narrator and she writes, “I liked him at once, his candor, his humour. Then we discovered we were both, in a sense, researching technology….Our friendship consists almost entirely of shared meals and long talks.”
The novel is filed with short interesting facts on a number of topics including Alexander Bell, (telephone), Hedy Lamar, (radio controlled torpedo), John Logic Baird,(television) Gugliemo Marconi, (wireless), and Magnetic Resonance Imaging.
A very satisfying read about two interesting characters, with a couple of plot surprises.
This book was shortlisted for the 2007 Miles Franklin Award.
Alice is the narrator and she writes, “I liked him at once, his candor, his humour. Then we discovered we were both, in a sense, researching technology….Our friendship consists almost entirely of shared meals and long talks.”
The novel is filed with short interesting facts on a number of topics including Alexander Bell, (telephone), Hedy Lamar, (radio controlled torpedo), John Logic Baird,(television) Gugliemo Marconi, (wireless), and Magnetic Resonance Imaging.
A very satisfying read about two interesting characters, with a couple of plot surprises.
This book was shortlisted for the 2007 Miles Franklin Award.
June 7, 2014
I read her book Sorry years ago and it was an odd experience where I didn't love the book, but was really struck by the writing. I waited years to read this book because I just never was in the right place to take in the kind of writing I was expecting.
Dreams of Speaking was published one year before Sorry, and the writing is quite different and not as good, but the book is actually quite interesting. Jones is looking hard at modern life and the isolation caused by technology. Alice, the Australian main character, is in Paris trying to write a book on this when she meets Mr. Sakamota, a Japanese survivor of the Nagasaki atomic bomb. Mr. Sakamota is writing a book on Alexander Grahm Bell and about the humanity in technology and how Bell's insights into human speech led him toward his invention. Through the book Alice will encounter a series of challenging experiences on subways, in her family, her relationships, and she will even visit the atomic bomb museum in Nagasaki. It's not clear where it leaves her, but somewhere bouncing between the her own pessimism and Mr. Sakamota's optimism about technology. I find it thought provoking.
The writing I didn't like. Everything is described in multiple phrases with slightly different meaning and feel as she tries to capture different perspectives all in one sentence. The affect is a mixed sense of repetition, indecisiveness and hyperbole. That may have been an intended affect (it's a feature lacking whenever Mr. Sakamota talks or writes), but it's unpleasant...and clearly not what I was anticipating.
On the whole I'm mixed.
'The difficulty with celebrating modernity,' he declared, 'is that we live with so many persistently unmodern things. Dreams, love, babies, illness. Memory. Death. And all the natural things. Leaves, birds, ocean, animals. Think of your Australian kangaroo,' he added. 'The kangaroo is truly unmodern.'
Here he paused and smiled, as if telling himself a joke.
'And sky. Think of sky. There is nothing modern about the sky.'
Dreams of Speaking was published one year before Sorry, and the writing is quite different and not as good, but the book is actually quite interesting. Jones is looking hard at modern life and the isolation caused by technology. Alice, the Australian main character, is in Paris trying to write a book on this when she meets Mr. Sakamota, a Japanese survivor of the Nagasaki atomic bomb. Mr. Sakamota is writing a book on Alexander Grahm Bell and about the humanity in technology and how Bell's insights into human speech led him toward his invention. Through the book Alice will encounter a series of challenging experiences on subways, in her family, her relationships, and she will even visit the atomic bomb museum in Nagasaki. It's not clear where it leaves her, but somewhere bouncing between the her own pessimism and Mr. Sakamota's optimism about technology. I find it thought provoking.
The writing I didn't like. Everything is described in multiple phrases with slightly different meaning and feel as she tries to capture different perspectives all in one sentence. The affect is a mixed sense of repetition, indecisiveness and hyperbole. That may have been an intended affect (it's a feature lacking whenever Mr. Sakamota talks or writes), but it's unpleasant...and clearly not what I was anticipating.
On the whole I'm mixed.
'The difficulty with celebrating modernity,' he declared, 'is that we live with so many persistently unmodern things. Dreams, love, babies, illness. Memory. Death. And all the natural things. Leaves, birds, ocean, animals. Think of your Australian kangaroo,' he added. 'The kangaroo is truly unmodern.'
Here he paused and smiled, as if telling himself a joke.
'And sky. Think of sky. There is nothing modern about the sky.'
January 6, 2023
6/Jan/2023: Having re-read this novel I’m wondering what I had against it four years ago. This time I can feel how the two main stories converge in a story about families and belonging.
Lovely prose, though with one or two clangers caused by overwriting, allows the reader to float through the story of a young Australian academic living in Paris to research her thesis on modernity. There she meets Mr Sakomoto, an elderly Japanese inventor who, as a child, survived the nuclear bomb dropped on Nagasaki. The narrative is interspersed by memories of her sister.
The three stars are because I don’t know that the two narratives (sister and Mr Sakomoto) were quite coherent and the revelation at the end was too abrupt and needed unpacking; it also drove the two narratives much further apart.
I’d still recommend Dreams of Speaking to anyone who loves good prose, and I’d highly recommend Jones’s other novels as well.
Lovely prose, though with one or two clangers caused by overwriting, allows the reader to float through the story of a young Australian academic living in Paris to research her thesis on modernity. There she meets Mr Sakomoto, an elderly Japanese inventor who, as a child, survived the nuclear bomb dropped on Nagasaki. The narrative is interspersed by memories of her sister.
The three stars are because I don’t know that the two narratives (sister and Mr Sakomoto) were quite coherent and the revelation at the end was too abrupt and needed unpacking; it also drove the two narratives much further apart.
I’d still recommend Dreams of Speaking to anyone who loves good prose, and I’d highly recommend Jones’s other novels as well.
August 18, 2015
Shortlisted for the Miles Franklin but I didn't like it. Too much syrupy symbolism, IMO and indigestible prose.
But lots of other people loved it, so don't take any notice of me.
But lots of other people loved it, so don't take any notice of me.
August 24, 2017
A thoughtful book about the many ways we communicate, or fail to communicate, with the people who mean the most to us.
May 14, 2020
Jones writes well in terms of her prose; however I find her characters boring- and so abandoned this novel.
November 13, 2021
When I'm more excited about the fact the book is damaged and I can use it for crafting purposes than the contents of the book itself, you know its not a great story.
January 14, 2017
I like the prominence of technology and the shared understanding of its role that linked Alice and Mr Sakamoto
The writing is excellent.
The writing is excellent.
June 15, 2013
Die Australierin Alice ist in einer abgelegenen westaustralischen Stadt aufgewachsen. Befremden bei den Erwachsenen löste in ihrer Kindheit ihr spontan ausgesprochener Wunsch aus, dass sie später entweder Astronautin oder Surferin werden wolle. Eine selbstbewusste kräftige Sportlerin überstieg in Alices Heimatort die Vorstellungskraft. Alice war das Ausnahmekind, die begabte Torschützin, ihre Schwester Norah dagegen war bei anderen Kindern die Beliebtere. Das Verhältnis zwischen Alice und der nur ein Jahr jüngeren Norah ist von eifersüchtigem, aggressivem Gerangel bestimmt. Die Eltern fragen sich, wie sie wohl diese kriegerischen Kreaturen herangezogen haben. In Rückblenden tauchen immer wieder Szenen aus Alices und Norahs Kindheit auf und man fragt sich, warum die Schwestern sich als Erwachsene so weit auseinanderleben konnten.
Alice ist zu einem Studienaufenthalt nach Paris gekommen und schreibt offenbar ein Buch. In Paris lernt sie den älteren Japaner Mr. Sakamoto kennen, wie sie eine äußerst schillernde Persönlichkeit. Alice gewinnt durch diese Beziehung neues Selbstvertrauen. Sakamoto stammt aus einer wohlhabenden Familie; er hatte sich als junger Mann zunächst gegen den Familienbetrieb und für ein Literaturstudium entschieden. Die Technik scheint ihn nicht losgelassen zu haben; denn Sakamoto erzählt mit Feuereifer von diversen Erfindungen und aus dem Leben prominenter Erfinder wie Alexander Graham Bell. Das Geheimnis der besonderen Beziehung zwischen Sakamoto und Bell liegt offenbar in ihrer Biografie. Bell hat wie Sakamoto sein Leben lang mit dem Verlust geliebter Menschen gehadert. Sakamoto zeigt eine besondere Begabung, den Menschen hinter dem Wissenschaftler wahrzunehmen. Sakamotos Geschichten wirken symbolhaft, deuten bisher Verschwiegenes aus seinem eigenen Leben an. Über den Tod fast seiner gesamten Familie spricht S. selten, obwohl er für einen Japaner erstaunlich offen in Gesprächen Gefühle erkennen lässt, seine Alpträume und seine Depressionen andeutet. Alices Faszination durch Sakamato mag sich u. a. daraus entwickelt haben, dass er ein exzellenter Beobachter ist; er selbst führt diese Fähigkeit auf seine Beschäftigung mit der Form des Haiku zurück. Die Geschichten Sakamotos klammern das ungleiche Paar in seiner platonischen Beziehung förmlich aneinander. Eine Frau wie Alice scheint das ideale Pendant zu Sakamoto zu sein, hatte sich doch ihr erster australischer Freund über ihr unweibliches Interesse an Technik ereifert. Ich musste mich während der Handlung immer wieder darauf konzentrieren, dass Mr Sakamoto kein Zeitreisender aus einem anderen Jahrhundert ist, sondern als kleiner Junge den Atombombenabwurf auf Hiroshima und Nagasaki miterlebte. Sakamoto, der auf die 70 zugeht und sich auf sehr poetische Weise an die Landschaften seiner Kindheit erinnert, wirkte auf mich altertümlich, nicht von dieser Welt.
Als Alice den nach Japan zurückgekehrten Sakamoto in seiner Heimat besuchen will, ist er bereits schwer erkrankt und Alice kann ihn nicht mehr treffen. Die auf Alice fremd wirkende Familie kümmert sich rührend um die Besucherin. Bevor Alice endgültig nach Australien abreist, besucht sie die Gedenkstätte von Nagasaki. Nach diesem verstörenden Erlebnis scheint es schwer vorstellbar, dass sie sich wieder in die gewohnte Struktur ihrer Familie einpassen kann. In ihrer Trauer um Sakamoto hat Alice die schwere Erkrankung ihrer Schwester eine Weile verdrängt und welche Konsequenzen diese Krankheit für sie persönlich hat.
Die Figur des älteren Mister Sakamoto, der sein Leben lang mit Biografien und Erfindungen beschäftig ist, die Menschen die Kommunikation miteinander erleichtern, könnte das verbindende Element zu Jones früheren Romanen sein, in denen es ebenfalls um Kommunikation und Erinnerungen geht. Der Traum vom Sprechen ist ihr dritter von bisher fünf Romanen, dessen Sprache mich faszinierte und der für mich der rätselhaftere der drei von ihr gelesenen Romane blieb.
Alice ist zu einem Studienaufenthalt nach Paris gekommen und schreibt offenbar ein Buch. In Paris lernt sie den älteren Japaner Mr. Sakamoto kennen, wie sie eine äußerst schillernde Persönlichkeit. Alice gewinnt durch diese Beziehung neues Selbstvertrauen. Sakamoto stammt aus einer wohlhabenden Familie; er hatte sich als junger Mann zunächst gegen den Familienbetrieb und für ein Literaturstudium entschieden. Die Technik scheint ihn nicht losgelassen zu haben; denn Sakamoto erzählt mit Feuereifer von diversen Erfindungen und aus dem Leben prominenter Erfinder wie Alexander Graham Bell. Das Geheimnis der besonderen Beziehung zwischen Sakamoto und Bell liegt offenbar in ihrer Biografie. Bell hat wie Sakamoto sein Leben lang mit dem Verlust geliebter Menschen gehadert. Sakamoto zeigt eine besondere Begabung, den Menschen hinter dem Wissenschaftler wahrzunehmen. Sakamotos Geschichten wirken symbolhaft, deuten bisher Verschwiegenes aus seinem eigenen Leben an. Über den Tod fast seiner gesamten Familie spricht S. selten, obwohl er für einen Japaner erstaunlich offen in Gesprächen Gefühle erkennen lässt, seine Alpträume und seine Depressionen andeutet. Alices Faszination durch Sakamato mag sich u. a. daraus entwickelt haben, dass er ein exzellenter Beobachter ist; er selbst führt diese Fähigkeit auf seine Beschäftigung mit der Form des Haiku zurück. Die Geschichten Sakamotos klammern das ungleiche Paar in seiner platonischen Beziehung förmlich aneinander. Eine Frau wie Alice scheint das ideale Pendant zu Sakamoto zu sein, hatte sich doch ihr erster australischer Freund über ihr unweibliches Interesse an Technik ereifert. Ich musste mich während der Handlung immer wieder darauf konzentrieren, dass Mr Sakamoto kein Zeitreisender aus einem anderen Jahrhundert ist, sondern als kleiner Junge den Atombombenabwurf auf Hiroshima und Nagasaki miterlebte. Sakamoto, der auf die 70 zugeht und sich auf sehr poetische Weise an die Landschaften seiner Kindheit erinnert, wirkte auf mich altertümlich, nicht von dieser Welt.
Als Alice den nach Japan zurückgekehrten Sakamoto in seiner Heimat besuchen will, ist er bereits schwer erkrankt und Alice kann ihn nicht mehr treffen. Die auf Alice fremd wirkende Familie kümmert sich rührend um die Besucherin. Bevor Alice endgültig nach Australien abreist, besucht sie die Gedenkstätte von Nagasaki. Nach diesem verstörenden Erlebnis scheint es schwer vorstellbar, dass sie sich wieder in die gewohnte Struktur ihrer Familie einpassen kann. In ihrer Trauer um Sakamoto hat Alice die schwere Erkrankung ihrer Schwester eine Weile verdrängt und welche Konsequenzen diese Krankheit für sie persönlich hat.
Die Figur des älteren Mister Sakamoto, der sein Leben lang mit Biografien und Erfindungen beschäftig ist, die Menschen die Kommunikation miteinander erleichtern, könnte das verbindende Element zu Jones früheren Romanen sein, in denen es ebenfalls um Kommunikation und Erinnerungen geht. Der Traum vom Sprechen ist ihr dritter von bisher fünf Romanen, dessen Sprache mich faszinierte und der für mich der rätselhaftere der drei von ihr gelesenen Romane blieb.
January 7, 2012
This is a book that, for me, started slowly and gained momentum as I read. To be honest, I only picked it because it had a "J" in the title. I'm combining the Australian Women Writers challenge with the Aussie Readers "Challenge with a Twist": each month you have to read a book whose title or author starts with the same letter as that month. "Jones" = "January". I'd initially chosen Margo Lanagan's Black Juice for January, only to find it's a collection of short stories. (Lanagan's first prize-winning story, "Singing the Sister Down" is outstanding, by the way.)
Initially I had my doubts. Any book that has a writer as the central character makes me wary. I've spent too many hours of my life reading "literary" books that seem far removed from life, but I persisted with Dreams of Speaking and was well rewarded. By the end, I was in love with Jones' characters, their different ways of seeing the world and the author's language.
An aspect I particularly loved was Jones' way of interspersing the narrative with "facts". I write "facts" in inverted commas because these sections purport to be facts, but come via one of the book's key characters, Mr Sakamoto, retired Japanese gentleman traveller with a passion for Alexander Graham Bell, who befriends the main character, Alice, the young Australian writer from Perth whom he meets after she has taken up a literary scholarship to live in a studio in Paris.
From a narrative point of view, these interspersed sections of "fact" do a number of things. They provide evidence of the basis of this unlikely friendship, a shared fascination with invention and technology. The "fact" sections also a counterpoint with the shocking drama that underlies these characters' lonely obsessions: the trauma Mr Sakamoto has suffered in surviving the atomic bomb blast of Nagasaki, and the fractured relationship Alice has with her sister Nora, and her former lover Stephen. Gradually, the reader has the impression that these characters' fascination with human invention is both a retreat from a painful world, and a way of reaching out tentatively to others. This dance between distance and connection, intimacy and isolation creates a powerful tension throughout the book and leads to an ending which, for me, was one of the most moving I've read in years.
Who would like this book? People who love language, who love the idea of Australians as global people, equally at home - or at a loss - in Perth, Paris or Japan. Also anyone whose interested in Japanese character and culture, especially the post-nineteenth-century influence of the Meiji restoration with its love of European elegance and sophistication, as well as its embrace of modern technologies. People who are interested in the traumatic aftermath of WWII will find aspect of the book interesting, too - but this subject is treated in an oblique way, which, for me, has a lot more emotional power than something direct.
They say that if a book and its characters are memorable, it’s the sign of a good book: the story and characters remain vivid in the imagination long after you put the book down. It’s too soon after reading to judge whether Dreams of Speaking will have this quality for me. But I can say this: when I got to the end, I felt at war with the author: not because I felt the story failed, but because I cared so strongly about her characters and their fate. I didn't like the ending Jones chose, but I respected it: it seemed true to the characters and the messiness of life generally. Instead of being a diversion and an escape like so many of the page-turning books I've read in recent years, this story made me feel as if it had added hours to my life, expanding my heart and my mind in unexpected ways.
I'll certainly read more by this author.
Initially I had my doubts. Any book that has a writer as the central character makes me wary. I've spent too many hours of my life reading "literary" books that seem far removed from life, but I persisted with Dreams of Speaking and was well rewarded. By the end, I was in love with Jones' characters, their different ways of seeing the world and the author's language.
An aspect I particularly loved was Jones' way of interspersing the narrative with "facts". I write "facts" in inverted commas because these sections purport to be facts, but come via one of the book's key characters, Mr Sakamoto, retired Japanese gentleman traveller with a passion for Alexander Graham Bell, who befriends the main character, Alice, the young Australian writer from Perth whom he meets after she has taken up a literary scholarship to live in a studio in Paris.
From a narrative point of view, these interspersed sections of "fact" do a number of things. They provide evidence of the basis of this unlikely friendship, a shared fascination with invention and technology. The "fact" sections also a counterpoint with the shocking drama that underlies these characters' lonely obsessions: the trauma Mr Sakamoto has suffered in surviving the atomic bomb blast of Nagasaki, and the fractured relationship Alice has with her sister Nora, and her former lover Stephen. Gradually, the reader has the impression that these characters' fascination with human invention is both a retreat from a painful world, and a way of reaching out tentatively to others. This dance between distance and connection, intimacy and isolation creates a powerful tension throughout the book and leads to an ending which, for me, was one of the most moving I've read in years.
Who would like this book? People who love language, who love the idea of Australians as global people, equally at home - or at a loss - in Perth, Paris or Japan. Also anyone whose interested in Japanese character and culture, especially the post-nineteenth-century influence of the Meiji restoration with its love of European elegance and sophistication, as well as its embrace of modern technologies. People who are interested in the traumatic aftermath of WWII will find aspect of the book interesting, too - but this subject is treated in an oblique way, which, for me, has a lot more emotional power than something direct.
They say that if a book and its characters are memorable, it’s the sign of a good book: the story and characters remain vivid in the imagination long after you put the book down. It’s too soon after reading to judge whether Dreams of Speaking will have this quality for me. But I can say this: when I got to the end, I felt at war with the author: not because I felt the story failed, but because I cared so strongly about her characters and their fate. I didn't like the ending Jones chose, but I respected it: it seemed true to the characters and the messiness of life generally. Instead of being a diversion and an escape like so many of the page-turning books I've read in recent years, this story made me feel as if it had added hours to my life, expanding my heart and my mind in unexpected ways.
I'll certainly read more by this author.
tasted
September 15, 2015At first, I was very taken with with the author's intelligence and prose style. But quickly I felt there was something wrong, at least for me. The first thing that concerned me was the use of a third-person-limited narrator that, although focused on the protagonist, is omniscient and, via the occasional adjective, opinionated. This bothered me when, for example, a dream is narrated.
I also did not like the narrator’s short disquisitions on aspects of modernity (the subject of the book the protagonist is beginning to write). The feyness of word choice and some details (a killed girl with the protagonist’s name) also bothered me. The novel just didn't work for me, and I gave it up early, but I'm glad I tasted the author's work.
I also did not like the narrator’s short disquisitions on aspects of modernity (the subject of the book the protagonist is beginning to write). The feyness of word choice and some details (a killed girl with the protagonist’s name) also bothered me. The novel just didn't work for me, and I gave it up early, but I'm glad I tasted the author's work.
April 16, 2022
Still not sure what the title is referring to! I enjoyed this author's writing style.
The descriptions of inventions kept the reader from getting involved with the characters.
The friendship between the two main characters seemed likely and refreshing in that the story remained asexual.
I could feel the alienation between cultures when Alice visited Japan and Mr Sakamoto's family instantly became suspicious of her presence, and her intentions.
The ending highlighted the cultural divide and the losses they each felt in their own environments earlier - the very thing that separated them finally.
The descriptions of inventions kept the reader from getting involved with the characters.
The friendship between the two main characters seemed likely and refreshing in that the story remained asexual.
I could feel the alienation between cultures when Alice visited Japan and Mr Sakamoto's family instantly became suspicious of her presence, and her intentions.
The ending highlighted the cultural divide and the losses they each felt in their own environments earlier - the very thing that separated them finally.
December 12, 2016
I started this book with an open mind, drawn to the Japanese connection more than anything. The cover sings the authors praises from papers like The Independent. I was quite disappointed though. I found the central character, Alice, selfish and superior and did not really warm to her at all. Her relationship with Mr Sakamoto was interesting, and I would have liked the author to have expanded on this. The second part of the book was much better - the character was forced to interact and react to her surroundings and the events that unfold, but the book ended all too quickly without a satisfying resolution. Maybe it was too highbrow for me, or maybe I just didn't like it!
December 4, 2014
I liked this - although it had a very peculiar tone to it. I liked the relationship between the central characters, and how they allowed each other to show themselves. Not a lot happened, but it felt like I'd learned a fair bit and shared something. I think Jones is doing something quite different that I really like - I think I'll seek out more of her novels.
February 20, 2016
I like her writing but, this book was too long-winded, although I did read it all.. I sighed everytime a new character was mentioned, because I knew "Oh no ,here comes the unnecessary (to move the story forward), backstory..
NOTHING as good as her later books, especially A Guide to Berlin
NOTHING as good as her later books, especially A Guide to Berlin
October 10, 2011
Lyrical, poetic and typically Gail Jones, this book is rich with imagery and many layers of meaning. Alice is not Jones' finest character, but her story is beautifully crafted and explores notions of self and modernity in captivating prose.
Want to Read
May 21, 2007Miles Franklin Literary Award 2007
Want to Read
July 29, 201106 long list-orange prize
August 12, 2011
The book that got me looking out for more by this writer. Beautiful use of language.
September 28, 2011
Boring, pretentious, florid crap. Avoid at all costs.
Currently Reading
July 9, 2014I'm finding this book really hard to latch onto... I keep finding myself putting it down to pick up something else
March 30, 2014
This book was sheer indulgence. Beautifully written.
January 28, 2013
Beautifully written short novel. Set in Perth and Japan.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews