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Cosmo Cosmolino
Janet is a skeptic, a journalist; Maxine revels in New Age fantasies; and Ray, a drifter, is a born-again Christian. The common ground is the house they share. But their fragile domestic balance is about to explode amid the smashing of ukeleles, the unexpected ascension of an angel, and a sudden shower of jonquils.
221 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
31 people are currently reading
351 people want to read
About the author
Helen Garner
52 books1,398 followersHelen Garner was born in Geelong in 1942. She has published many works of fiction including Monkey Grip, Cosmo Cosmolino and The Children's Bach. Her fiction has won numerous awards. She is also one of Australia's most respected non-fiction writers, and received a Walkley Award for journalism in 1993.
Her most recent books are The First Stone, True Stories, My Hard Heart, The Feel of Stone and Joe Cinque's Consolation. In 2006 she won the Melbourne Prize for Literature. She lives in Melbourne.
Praise for Helen Garner's work
'Helen Garner is an extraordinarily good writer. There is not a paragraph, let alone a page, where she does not compel your attention.'
Bulletin
'She is outstanding in the accuracy of her observations, the intensity of passion...her radar-sure humour.'
Washington Post
'Garner has always had a mimic's ear for dialogue and an eye for unconscious symbolism, the clothes and gestures with which we give ourselves away.'
Peter Craven, Australian
'Helen Garner writes the best sentences in Australia.'
Ed Campion, Bulletin
Her most recent books are The First Stone, True Stories, My Hard Heart, The Feel of Stone and Joe Cinque's Consolation. In 2006 she won the Melbourne Prize for Literature. She lives in Melbourne.
Praise for Helen Garner's work
'Helen Garner is an extraordinarily good writer. There is not a paragraph, let alone a page, where she does not compel your attention.'
Bulletin
'She is outstanding in the accuracy of her observations, the intensity of passion...her radar-sure humour.'
Washington Post
'Garner has always had a mimic's ear for dialogue and an eye for unconscious symbolism, the clothes and gestures with which we give ourselves away.'
Peter Craven, Australian
'Helen Garner writes the best sentences in Australia.'
Ed Campion, Bulletin
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 64 reviews
March 17, 2013
Cosmo Cosmolino (1992) was Helen Garner’s last work of fiction before she pioneered her own distinctive brand of questing, addictive narrative non-fiction with The First Stone.
It’s an unusual book; not quite a novel, not quite a short-story collection; both completely what you expect from a Helen Garner book (share houses, trams, ageing hippies, finely honed ‘kitchen table candour’, as Robert Dessaix put it when reviewing The Spare Room) and a surprising departure (faith, belief, angels, religion). The prose, too, is a mix of classic Garner – deceptively simple observations, dialogue so slyly provocative it makes you gasp – and a more ornate, poetic style: long sentences, images bunched together like bouquets rather than presented as polished, solitary gems in her usual fashion.
Cosmo Cosmolino consists of two short stories and one novella. The unnamed narrator of the first story, ‘Recording Angel’, is, the reader gradually realises, the same person as Janet, the recently divorced journalist and writer of the novella, ‘Cosmo Cosmolino’. And Raymond, the self-absorbed, socially illiterate protagonist of the second story, ‘A Vigil’ (whose boorish negligence contributes to the death of his depressed, substance-abusing girlfriend) is one of Janet’s two lodgers in ‘Cosmo Cosmolino’, now a chastened born-again Christian.
The three stories are united by themes as well as characters: dark maybe-angels appear in the first two and in the third, Raymond is greeted as an angel by mad artist Maxine, Janet’s other lodger. Questions of faith and belief – how it can sustain, resurrect or transform – how misplaced faith can lead a person astray and lack of faith can leave a person barren – are central to all three stories.
Love and family are central too, despite (or maybe because of) the near-total absence of traditional family arrangements. Garner seems to be questioning the sustainability and the fall-out of the share house culture of her (and Janet’s) past; self-made families that drift apart, leaving lonely individuals in their wake.
Janet’s seriously ill friend Patrick in ‘Recording Angel’, who ‘recited [her] life like a poem he had learnt by heart’, has a wife and children who love him with a fierce straightforwardness missing from the other relationships in the book. He teases Janet for her nomadism, and what she later calls her ‘unwifeliness’ (she has ‘no talent for intimacy’). Although Janet privately recognises Patrick’s barbs as his need to contrast her life with his own, and she calls her domestic landscape a ‘blasted heath’ with her tongue firmly in cheek, what we later encounter in Cosmo Cosmolino is exactly that.
Both Janet and the wildly eccentric Maxine are childless; both feel it as an acute absence. When Janet recalls the share house ‘kids’, now scattered and presumably grown, it is bittersweet. Hearing passing schoolchildren, she muses, ‘It was a good sound, she believed with the part of her still believed anything; but it hurt her.’ The empty rooms in the house she owns, once a share house and now the aftermath of a recently failed marriage, are still named for those long-ago housemates who once occupied them. When Maxine and Raymond move into those unoccupied spaces, they are also creating a community of sorts again, though a diminished and ill-matched one.
There is a sense of hope about Cosmo Cosmolino, a sense of faith in community and the families we make, if a nagging sense that the permanence and transience of such families makes them no substitute for the bonds of blood or traditional unions. And there is the idea that loving and believing – even if such enterprises may be doomed to dissolve – is worth the plunge, and far preferable to the alternative of careful, closed-off cynicism.
This is a fascinating book, with flashes of brilliance and scenes of piercing truth. Helen Garner is never boring; she is always an artist. And this gorgeous Text Classics edition is well worth buying not just for its striking cover, but for Ramona Koval’s illuminating introduction, which includes insights from Garner herself and a reflection on Cosmo Cosmolino’s place within her body of work.
This review was first published at www.readings.com.au.
It’s an unusual book; not quite a novel, not quite a short-story collection; both completely what you expect from a Helen Garner book (share houses, trams, ageing hippies, finely honed ‘kitchen table candour’, as Robert Dessaix put it when reviewing The Spare Room) and a surprising departure (faith, belief, angels, religion). The prose, too, is a mix of classic Garner – deceptively simple observations, dialogue so slyly provocative it makes you gasp – and a more ornate, poetic style: long sentences, images bunched together like bouquets rather than presented as polished, solitary gems in her usual fashion.
Cosmo Cosmolino consists of two short stories and one novella. The unnamed narrator of the first story, ‘Recording Angel’, is, the reader gradually realises, the same person as Janet, the recently divorced journalist and writer of the novella, ‘Cosmo Cosmolino’. And Raymond, the self-absorbed, socially illiterate protagonist of the second story, ‘A Vigil’ (whose boorish negligence contributes to the death of his depressed, substance-abusing girlfriend) is one of Janet’s two lodgers in ‘Cosmo Cosmolino’, now a chastened born-again Christian.
The three stories are united by themes as well as characters: dark maybe-angels appear in the first two and in the third, Raymond is greeted as an angel by mad artist Maxine, Janet’s other lodger. Questions of faith and belief – how it can sustain, resurrect or transform – how misplaced faith can lead a person astray and lack of faith can leave a person barren – are central to all three stories.
Love and family are central too, despite (or maybe because of) the near-total absence of traditional family arrangements. Garner seems to be questioning the sustainability and the fall-out of the share house culture of her (and Janet’s) past; self-made families that drift apart, leaving lonely individuals in their wake.
Janet’s seriously ill friend Patrick in ‘Recording Angel’, who ‘recited [her] life like a poem he had learnt by heart’, has a wife and children who love him with a fierce straightforwardness missing from the other relationships in the book. He teases Janet for her nomadism, and what she later calls her ‘unwifeliness’ (she has ‘no talent for intimacy’). Although Janet privately recognises Patrick’s barbs as his need to contrast her life with his own, and she calls her domestic landscape a ‘blasted heath’ with her tongue firmly in cheek, what we later encounter in Cosmo Cosmolino is exactly that.
Both Janet and the wildly eccentric Maxine are childless; both feel it as an acute absence. When Janet recalls the share house ‘kids’, now scattered and presumably grown, it is bittersweet. Hearing passing schoolchildren, she muses, ‘It was a good sound, she believed with the part of her still believed anything; but it hurt her.’ The empty rooms in the house she owns, once a share house and now the aftermath of a recently failed marriage, are still named for those long-ago housemates who once occupied them. When Maxine and Raymond move into those unoccupied spaces, they are also creating a community of sorts again, though a diminished and ill-matched one.
There is a sense of hope about Cosmo Cosmolino, a sense of faith in community and the families we make, if a nagging sense that the permanence and transience of such families makes them no substitute for the bonds of blood or traditional unions. And there is the idea that loving and believing – even if such enterprises may be doomed to dissolve – is worth the plunge, and far preferable to the alternative of careful, closed-off cynicism.
This is a fascinating book, with flashes of brilliance and scenes of piercing truth. Helen Garner is never boring; she is always an artist. And this gorgeous Text Classics edition is well worth buying not just for its striking cover, but for Ramona Koval’s illuminating introduction, which includes insights from Garner herself and a reflection on Cosmo Cosmolino’s place within her body of work.
This review was first published at www.readings.com.au.
August 19, 2014
This is an unusual collection of stories with two short stories and a novella. There is cross-over between some of the characters, seen as young people in the short stories and then re-appear in the novella as middle-aged, disappointed adults left behind by the 70s.
Janet is the owner of a large sprawling house that was once home to a large, bustling hippie commune. Now she rattles around her dilapidated home alone. Her short marriage has failed and she works as a freelance journalist, rarely leaving the house. Into her life and house arrive Maxine, a slightly mad artist and carpenter of impractical furniture and Ray, a penniless born-again christian. Ray's brother Alby was once Janet's lover and lived in the house for a short time in his drug addled youth. The three combine to make a strange household, never eating together or understanding each other.
I can't say I really enjoyed this book. The story is quite bleak and depressing - all these middle aged adults who can't get their lives together. The writing is very good however and there are some very powerful images in the stories, such as the 'angels' who take Ray to hell in the second story.
Janet is the owner of a large sprawling house that was once home to a large, bustling hippie commune. Now she rattles around her dilapidated home alone. Her short marriage has failed and she works as a freelance journalist, rarely leaving the house. Into her life and house arrive Maxine, a slightly mad artist and carpenter of impractical furniture and Ray, a penniless born-again christian. Ray's brother Alby was once Janet's lover and lived in the house for a short time in his drug addled youth. The three combine to make a strange household, never eating together or understanding each other.
I can't say I really enjoyed this book. The story is quite bleak and depressing - all these middle aged adults who can't get their lives together. The writing is very good however and there are some very powerful images in the stories, such as the 'angels' who take Ray to hell in the second story.
December 13, 2015
A bit weird, but it kept me interested.
September 27, 2025
Helen !!! Wtf !!!! You are a crazy girl, but also - awesome :)
February 19, 2015
Thank you Ms Garner for scaling down the crazy in this novel compared to those previous to it.
I really enjoyed both the short stories and novel contained in this book.
I was captured by its mystical tale and vivid characters.
Oh how I adored Maxine! What a horror and a delight she was.
Really really enjoyed this.
I really enjoyed both the short stories and novel contained in this book.
I was captured by its mystical tale and vivid characters.
Oh how I adored Maxine! What a horror and a delight she was.
Really really enjoyed this.
July 27, 2024
Tonally different from Helen Garner's other books, this collection of three interconnected stories is not about down-and-out share-house junkies like her famous debut Monkey Grip and it's not interested in salacious stories of true-crime depravity (like her more recent non-fiction). Cosmo Cosmolino is about people seeking redemption and new beginnings—in "Recording Angel", a woman, whose best friend is undergoing cancer treatment, breaks into his cupboard and burns all the embarrassing post-cards she had sent him when she was a directionless desperado, a so-called self-destructive nympho and lost soul; in "A Vigil," a man, after finding his girlfriend dead one night from an overdose, runs away but days later attends the funeral and watches her cremation; finally, in "Cosmo Cosmolino", a woman opens up her empty house to a new-age, aura-reading hippie (her recently hired cleaner) and a Christian convert (the brother of an old friend), hoping to replace her loneliness with this makeshift family of strangers. In all these stories, the central characters are trying to escape their pasts and assuage their regrets with new spiritual consolations.
I've seen the words "kitchen sink realism" applied to this book but that doesn't feel like a fitting description—these characters are not the working-class avatars of suburbia with children and nine-to-five jobs; they are the afterlives of the 60s counterculture movement, the people who had to figure out their individual futures alone after their kibbutzes closed. They're not attracted to bourgeois religion or mainstream lifestyles but follow their own brand of oddball mysticism.
I've seen the words "kitchen sink realism" applied to this book but that doesn't feel like a fitting description—these characters are not the working-class avatars of suburbia with children and nine-to-five jobs; they are the afterlives of the 60s counterculture movement, the people who had to figure out their individual futures alone after their kibbutzes closed. They're not attracted to bourgeois religion or mainstream lifestyles but follow their own brand of oddball mysticism.
November 20, 2020
I like to think of Garner’s fiction as Australian kitchen sink dramas. This is most certainly not a put down, but rather putting her into a genre (and not that she really needs one). She gives us a snapshot of domestic life in city Australia over various decades. Monkey Grip is definitely a time capsule of the 1970s, & this novel is a snapshot of late 1980s; both deal with share houses.
Share houses are strange animals in that unlike a household comprising of family members, share houses don’t necessary develop a bond between the inhabitants; sharing walls and facilities doesn’t mean a harmonious bond shall develop: in fact, the reverse may happen making the environment extremely toxic. Garner here puts a mix of disparaging people in a house and plays with the situation. I found it highly believable to the extend I actually super-imposed images of my last share house in a large terrace into this narrative as I read. The occupants in the share house was eclectic, unsettling, and harmony wasn’t achieved. The resulting dramas that played out kept my interest up to the very end. A share house does not make a “home”, and while the people in this share house have different expectations of what they want out of the relationship, ultimately, the people who puts the least investment in making the house work, makes it the common denominator.
The novel is essentially two short stories and a novella. There are both a common link, and a common theme. Although no character occurs in all three stories, there are characters that link the three in a clever way. Snippets are dished out to make you realise how and why the characters are fitting in, in each story.
The dominant theme that connects all three stories is: faith. Faith can manifest itself in either a religious state, or in an emotional one. Immediately one then thinks that a religious statement of faith is pronounced, and in the novella this is certainly true- and helps carry the story. Ray has found evangelist Christianity, he is a born again Christian, which is based on a traumatic incident. The reader, and Ray’s brother are the only people who know why Ray turned to religion, which gives us an insight as to how he may behave towards people who challenge him. Ray is a broken person, and thus he is unpredictable. The frisson for the reader is anticipating his behaviour in these tense moments.
Faith is not restricted to conventional religion, and Garner explores this with Maxine. Maxine represents someone interested in New Age philosophies and adopting ancient and alternative practices. Maxine is an interesting stereotype using ancient and contemporary practices to live her life, and to get over perceived difficulties. Her method of getting pregnant almost enters the realm of the mystical. It is important to mention that Garner explores this without being critical or disparaging – although there is humour at times.
One might suppose this is a religious novel, and that is partly true, and hopefully that doesn’t dissuade potential readers, for it explores how faith – in all its myriads of forms – impact our lives. Janet is both a sceptic and atheist, but she still has faith: faith that some fate will change her current unhappiness with life.
I normally am not an ardent fan of Garner’s writing style. In the past I have complained about the super short, staccato sentences. Here she is at her most flowing. It isn’t verbose in any sense of the word, but it is far more artfully descriptive than in other books. Personally, I really liked it.
There is also a lot of nice allegory, and placement. A bird outside of Ray’s window, has a song that is broken – who else is “broken” (emotionally, spiritually, etc) in this house? Trams are integral to the stories, which sounds strange and weird as I write this, but by just adding that word, it anchors the stories in Melbourne, or with native Melbourne exiles who think about them. Anyone who has spent time in Melbourne, and particularly, in the inner suburbs, fully understand the impact trams have in the psyche of a citizen.
I remember when this novel was on bookseller stands, and I am glad I have finally gotten around to read it – it is a real gem.
Share houses are strange animals in that unlike a household comprising of family members, share houses don’t necessary develop a bond between the inhabitants; sharing walls and facilities doesn’t mean a harmonious bond shall develop: in fact, the reverse may happen making the environment extremely toxic. Garner here puts a mix of disparaging people in a house and plays with the situation. I found it highly believable to the extend I actually super-imposed images of my last share house in a large terrace into this narrative as I read. The occupants in the share house was eclectic, unsettling, and harmony wasn’t achieved. The resulting dramas that played out kept my interest up to the very end. A share house does not make a “home”, and while the people in this share house have different expectations of what they want out of the relationship, ultimately, the people who puts the least investment in making the house work, makes it the common denominator.
The novel is essentially two short stories and a novella. There are both a common link, and a common theme. Although no character occurs in all three stories, there are characters that link the three in a clever way. Snippets are dished out to make you realise how and why the characters are fitting in, in each story.
The dominant theme that connects all three stories is: faith. Faith can manifest itself in either a religious state, or in an emotional one. Immediately one then thinks that a religious statement of faith is pronounced, and in the novella this is certainly true- and helps carry the story. Ray has found evangelist Christianity, he is a born again Christian, which is based on a traumatic incident. The reader, and Ray’s brother are the only people who know why Ray turned to religion, which gives us an insight as to how he may behave towards people who challenge him. Ray is a broken person, and thus he is unpredictable. The frisson for the reader is anticipating his behaviour in these tense moments.
Faith is not restricted to conventional religion, and Garner explores this with Maxine. Maxine represents someone interested in New Age philosophies and adopting ancient and alternative practices. Maxine is an interesting stereotype using ancient and contemporary practices to live her life, and to get over perceived difficulties. Her method of getting pregnant almost enters the realm of the mystical. It is important to mention that Garner explores this without being critical or disparaging – although there is humour at times.
One might suppose this is a religious novel, and that is partly true, and hopefully that doesn’t dissuade potential readers, for it explores how faith – in all its myriads of forms – impact our lives. Janet is both a sceptic and atheist, but she still has faith: faith that some fate will change her current unhappiness with life.
I normally am not an ardent fan of Garner’s writing style. In the past I have complained about the super short, staccato sentences. Here she is at her most flowing. It isn’t verbose in any sense of the word, but it is far more artfully descriptive than in other books. Personally, I really liked it.
There is also a lot of nice allegory, and placement. A bird outside of Ray’s window, has a song that is broken – who else is “broken” (emotionally, spiritually, etc) in this house? Trams are integral to the stories, which sounds strange and weird as I write this, but by just adding that word, it anchors the stories in Melbourne, or with native Melbourne exiles who think about them. Anyone who has spent time in Melbourne, and particularly, in the inner suburbs, fully understand the impact trams have in the psyche of a citizen.
I remember when this novel was on bookseller stands, and I am glad I have finally gotten around to read it – it is a real gem.
May 4, 2014
Grown-up, fragile, confused and partly jaded idealists from the 70s struggle with life in the 90s. Their inner city utopia has gradually, although unknowingly, turned dull and sad. This is the best of Helen Garner's inner-Melbourne communal living stories, because she allows these characters to truthfully admit their disappointment in the apparent failure of their artistic aspirations rather than hide behind the cloud of addiction, which was a very strong theme in Monkey Grip. There's a lot to learn about from this story, like the virtues of remaining positive, and learning to embrace the mundane as a thing that is a constant in life that gives greater contrast and significance to beauty, excitement and being spiritually and mentally balanced and fulfilled. All done with great descriptive prose and constantly unique ways of expressing inner thoughts and emotions. Yes, I enjoyed it!
November 12, 2012
An incredibly descriptive writer, the pictures her sentences create and the artful way they are assembled is fabulous.
An enjoyable read - the first short story (Recording Angel) literally tumbles you from page to page and throws you onto the next story.
The next two stories didn't have quite the impact of the first (for me) but were equally interesting in their descriptive writing.
For instance a sentence from Cosmo Cosmolino:
"Its face, a faithful little moon, was turned up to her, its hands were spread to plead innocence, and its inner mechanism emitted without ceasing the rapid ribbon of blows called the passing of time."
An enjoyable read - the first short story (Recording Angel) literally tumbles you from page to page and throws you onto the next story.
The next two stories didn't have quite the impact of the first (for me) but were equally interesting in their descriptive writing.
For instance a sentence from Cosmo Cosmolino:
"Its face, a faithful little moon, was turned up to her, its hands were spread to plead innocence, and its inner mechanism emitted without ceasing the rapid ribbon of blows called the passing of time."
March 19, 2025
While reading this book I struggled to reconcile that it was Garners writing, but looking back I realised the only thing that wasn’t typical Garner was its fantastical or mythical elements, and really, it’s a book about share houses, god, getting old, and children. A phantasmagorical side of Garner I haven’t read before but still Garner through and through!
April 18, 2025
3.5 stars. A short character based novel about individuals struggling to find themselves, and who have unsatisfactory friendships and relationships. The book consists of three interconnected stories. (Two short stories and a novella).
‘Recording Angel’ is about a recently separated woman who visits an old friend and his wife in Sydney. The old friend is a little to honest and tells the separated woman some home truths she really doesn’t want to hear. (This woman is possibly ‘Janet’ in the novella).
‘Vigil’ is about a young woman who is in a relationship with Raymond. She is hoping to split from Raymond who is only out for a good time. (Raymond is possibly ‘Ray’ in the novella).
‘Cosmo Cosmolino’ is about three lonely people over thirty years of age who find themselves living in Janet’s rundown house and shed. Ray is waiting for his big brother Abby to arrive and start a new venture. Maxine is an unusual single woman who makes arty wooden items. Maxine arrives at the house looking for work as a cleaner, and Ray arrives, expecting to meet his brother, but ends up waiting for many weeks.
An engaging read about interesting, intriguing individuals.
This book was shortlisted for the 1993 Miles Franklin Award.
‘Recording Angel’ is about a recently separated woman who visits an old friend and his wife in Sydney. The old friend is a little to honest and tells the separated woman some home truths she really doesn’t want to hear. (This woman is possibly ‘Janet’ in the novella).
‘Vigil’ is about a young woman who is in a relationship with Raymond. She is hoping to split from Raymond who is only out for a good time. (Raymond is possibly ‘Ray’ in the novella).
‘Cosmo Cosmolino’ is about three lonely people over thirty years of age who find themselves living in Janet’s rundown house and shed. Ray is waiting for his big brother Abby to arrive and start a new venture. Maxine is an unusual single woman who makes arty wooden items. Maxine arrives at the house looking for work as a cleaner, and Ray arrives, expecting to meet his brother, but ends up waiting for many weeks.
An engaging read about interesting, intriguing individuals.
This book was shortlisted for the 1993 Miles Franklin Award.
October 1, 2025
Helen garner I love you!!!! just a thoroughly enjoyable experience all round. this book has it all, the full gambit of emotions all beautifully written
abandoned
April 28, 2016I'm going to have to put this book down for a while. It feels a little like admitting defeat. I know if I put it down, I might never pick it back up which is a real shame because Garner's writing is beautiful. An example from where I stopped:
It was the season of winds. Air hissed all day and all night long, tremendous, sharp and dry. It travelled in off the northern grasslands, the stony rises, the mighty basalt plains barrelling furiously down freeways, rolling empty cans in the streets, stripping the foreign trees, pressing back dark foliage in which the globes of lemons shone.
The whole book is like this, up to where I am so far. Passages of exquisite description, somehow connected together. My issue is with the characters. They feel, every last one of them, so disingenuous. They feel intolerable. I simply can not and do not want to deal with them. It is not that any of them are Bad People (at least, it does not seem to me that any of them are).
But sometimes I get the feeling Garner doesn't really know them, and so because of this they don't really know themselves. It may well be the other way round: maybe it is because I don't know them that I don't understand them. Whatever it means, their awful opinions and beliefs simply hit me harder and I can't like or empathise with them. I can't even understand them. They seem to be people made up of sets of characteristics which simply seemed right. There personalities are these characteristics. The narrative voice's [low] opinion of them doesn't make this any better. All in all, uncomfortable reading. I may pick it back up again. I may not.
It was the season of winds. Air hissed all day and all night long, tremendous, sharp and dry. It travelled in off the northern grasslands, the stony rises, the mighty basalt plains barrelling furiously down freeways, rolling empty cans in the streets, stripping the foreign trees, pressing back dark foliage in which the globes of lemons shone.
The whole book is like this, up to where I am so far. Passages of exquisite description, somehow connected together. My issue is with the characters. They feel, every last one of them, so disingenuous. They feel intolerable. I simply can not and do not want to deal with them. It is not that any of them are Bad People (at least, it does not seem to me that any of them are).
But sometimes I get the feeling Garner doesn't really know them, and so because of this they don't really know themselves. It may well be the other way round: maybe it is because I don't know them that I don't understand them. Whatever it means, their awful opinions and beliefs simply hit me harder and I can't like or empathise with them. I can't even understand them. They seem to be people made up of sets of characteristics which simply seemed right. There personalities are these characteristics. The narrative voice's [low] opinion of them doesn't make this any better. All in all, uncomfortable reading. I may pick it back up again. I may not.
May 5, 2017
I'm almost ashamed to say I didn't finish this.
It got great reviews and the subject matter at first intrigued me ... what became of the human remnants of the kind of 1970s shared households so brilliantly depicted in Garner's earlier work, Monkey Grip.
But then she added an element I have very little patience for - magic, angels, a sort of supernatural angle.
And the characters were to me jarring and deeply unattractive. I thought "I'm never going to empathise with these people", and there was no real plot to speak of, so I gave it up.
Garner DOES write brilliantly. Her phrasing, word choices and evocative descriptions are enviable.
I often have this sense when I read short stories (& CC starts with two, which are linked to the longer novella which follows) that there's a sadness, and I find Aust women short story writers inevitably conjure up melancholy. I enjoyed that when I was in a phase in my life in my early 20s, but not now.
So, while the reviewers are probably correct & this is terrific stuff, it could also be dated pretentious twaddle, and I didn't care enough to persist past 60 pages.
I think I prefer a good plot!
It got great reviews and the subject matter at first intrigued me ... what became of the human remnants of the kind of 1970s shared households so brilliantly depicted in Garner's earlier work, Monkey Grip.
But then she added an element I have very little patience for - magic, angels, a sort of supernatural angle.
And the characters were to me jarring and deeply unattractive. I thought "I'm never going to empathise with these people", and there was no real plot to speak of, so I gave it up.
Garner DOES write brilliantly. Her phrasing, word choices and evocative descriptions are enviable.
I often have this sense when I read short stories (& CC starts with two, which are linked to the longer novella which follows) that there's a sadness, and I find Aust women short story writers inevitably conjure up melancholy. I enjoyed that when I was in a phase in my life in my early 20s, but not now.
So, while the reviewers are probably correct & this is terrific stuff, it could also be dated pretentious twaddle, and I didn't care enough to persist past 60 pages.
I think I prefer a good plot!
August 9, 2013
Set in Jeff Kennett’s Melbourne, the chaotic communes and share-houses of the 1970s now contain bitter middle-aged people, uncomfortable in the individualistic and capitalist world they find themselves in. Drifting in and out are younger transients less tolerant of the collective temperament of the 70s. It is a tricky book, quite bleak, but never completely without hope.
It’s not perfect by any stretch, but as a capture of a specific time and place that now seems long ago (despite being only twenty years old), it does a very nice job. Recommended.
It’s not perfect by any stretch, but as a capture of a specific time and place that now seems long ago (despite being only twenty years old), it does a very nice job. Recommended.
January 1, 2017
Cosmo Cosmolino (lit. Universe, Small Universe) works on a lot of levels. Helen Garner has created the small universe of a share house within the larger universe of Melb. Or is it about the small different world views of the housemates within the share house universe? There are 3 slightly linked stories in this book and Garner again showcases her writing talent with lovely sparse vivid prose and natural Australian dialogue. These characters are misfits, they grate on each other, and yet they ultimately seem to need each other. Enjoyable slice of life stuff!
January 6, 2019
I love Helen Gardner’s writing but I just didn’t gel with this one
July 4, 2011
I just adored this book; same with most everything by Helen Garner. A testament to her writing: she and i probably have very little in common but I completely relate to most of her characters. I read every of hers I can get my hand on thought some are a bit obscure in the US. I highly recommend giving her a try.
July 23, 2011
It was interesting how the second short story tied in with the novella (although I'm still trying to figure out how the first one tied in). The novella had interesting characters, but I felt that the plot didn't really go anywhere and at times I found Garner's prose a bit confusing. I wouldn't say its the best of Garner's work, but is still worth reading if you are a Garner fan.
January 23, 2017
‘In person, as on the page, Garner does not dominate or take centre stage; she doesn’t boss or harass or hector. She is never still, never fixed, dealing in no absolutes except for the power of the eye to see, and the power of the pen to record. This restlessness, this energy, brings her hurtling off the page towards the reader.’
Tegan Bennett Daylight, Sydney Review of Books
Tegan Bennett Daylight, Sydney Review of Books
September 29, 2008
Took me ages to read this book in between other books... got lost a few times. It wasn't bad, just not garner at her most glorious. But still.. in the end, she got me caught up in her intense characters that stay with you for days afterwards
November 6, 2012
Why can't we give half-stars? This was great- it sagged for a while in the middle, but Garner's voice is so vivid that you can't give up on her. And I'm glad I didn't. The first two stories are intense, and as the third picks up pace towards the end you realise you loved it, too.
April 17, 2012
Took a while to actually get into this but once there, I was hooked. I liked it a lot and have one word to describe this...wierd...lol :)
May 31, 2019
I love this book.
March 23, 2014
One of the few Garner novels that doesn't read like thinnly disguised autobiography and one of the few I really enjoyed. A good read
September 12, 2015
A strange, mystical and marvellous tale with interesting characters bizarrely thrown together in an uncomfortable house as ageing hippies moulded by their pasts.
January 10, 2017
Just a bit too mystical for me. It felt like it didn't go anywhere.
January 7, 2018
Two short stories and a novella. Didn't enjoy this as much as I had hoped I would. I think I found most of the characters very sad.
February 9, 2018
Weird - but some gorgeous writing.
February 28, 2018
Extremely and unusually weird. Pretty enjoyable nonetheless.
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