CHARADES

by Janette Turner Hospital

This stunning and intoxicating novel speaks of passion and obsession, ranging in setting from an Australian rainforest to Boston and Toronto. A mysterious and elusive love affair haunts the lives of three women in Australia. Twenty years later, on the other side of the world, Charade Ryan sorts through story and counter-story for her father, the legendary Nicholas, and the truth about her origins.

Genres: Australia, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Literature, Novels, Fiction

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Born in 1942, Janette Turner Hospital grew up on the steamy sub-tropical coast of Australia in the north-eastern state of Queensland. She began her teaching career in remote Queensland high schools, but since her graduate studies she has taught in universities in Australia, Canada, England, France and the United States.

Her first published short story appeared in the Atlantic Monthly (USA) where it won an 'Atlantic First' citation in 1978. Her first novel, The Ivory Swing (set in the village in South India where she lived in l977) won Canada's $50,000 Seal Award in l982. She lived for many years in Canada and in 1986 she was listed as by the Toronto Globe & Mail as one of Canada's 'Ten Best Young Fiction Writers'. Since then she has won a number of prizes for her eight novels and four short story collections and her work has been published in multiple foreign language collections. Three of her short stories appeared in Britain's annual Best Short Stories in English in their year of publication and one of these, 'Unperformed Experiments Have No Results', was selected for The Best of the Best, an anthology of the decade in l995.

The Last Magician, her fifth novel, was listed by Publishers' Weekly as one of the 12 best novels published in 1992 in the USA and was a New York Times 'Notable Book of the Year'. Oyster, her sixth novel, was a finalist for Australia's Miles Franklin Prize Award and for Canada's Trillium Award, and in England it was listed in 'Best Books of the Year' by The Observer, which noted "Oyster is a tour de force… Turner Hospital is one of the best female novelists writing in English." In the USA, Oyster was a New York Times 'Notable Book of the Year'.

Due Preparations for the Plague won the Queensland Premier's Literary Award in 2003, the Davitt Award from Sisters in Crime for "best crime novel of the year by an Australian woman”, and was shortlisted for the Christina Stead Award. In 2003, Hospital received the Patrick White Award, as well as a Doctor of Letters honoris causa from the University of Queensland.

Orpheus Lost, her most recent novel, was one of five finalists for the $110,000 Australia-Asia Literary prize in 2008.

Orpheus Lost was also on Booklist's Top 30 novels of the year in 2008, along with novels by Booker Prize winner Anne Enright, National Book Award winner Denis Johnson, Philip Roth, Don DeLillo, Michael Ondaatje, Ian MacEwan, Ha Jin, and Michael Chabon.

The novel also made the list of Best 25 Books of the Year of Library Journal, and Hospital was invited to be a keynote speaker at the annual convention of the American Library Association in Los Angeles in June 2008.

The Italian edition, Orfeo Perduto, has been so well-received in Italy that it will be a featured title at the literary festival on Lake Maggiore in June 2010 where Hospital will be a featured author.

She holds an endowed chair as Carolina Distinguished Professor of English at the University of South Carolina and in 2003 received the Russell Research Award for Humanities and Social Sciences, conferred by the university for the most significant faculty contribution (research, publication, teaching and service) in a given year.

Reviews

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Janette Turner Hospital was born in Queensland in 1942, but she has lived in the US and Canada for most of her adult life. From her ten novels, I had previously read two: Due Preparations for the Plague (2003) and Orpheus Lost (2007) so I was pleased to see the re-release of Charades. It’s a most interesting book, artful in its construction and yet sincere in its treatment of lost souls.

Charade Ryan is a young woman in search of her father Nicholas Truman, and it is she who seduces her lover Professor Koenig with Scheherazade-like tales in order that he might tell her what she wants to know. All she knows of Nicholas is scraps of memory and imagination, but from her own cuckoo-like existence she knows that he was not like her mother’s other men.

My mum – Bea Ryan, the slut of the Tamborine Mountain, Queen Bea, Honey Bea, that Bloody Breeder B. – my mum would stare and shake her head. Never seen anything like it, she would say. There were always brothers and sisters, older and younger, falling all over each other and me. There were always the men, stopping by to have a beer with my mum. It was a small and noisy place, a fibro shack with lizards on the walls, and cracks and holes that were hung with sacs of spiders’ eggs. But I would wedge myself into a corner, two sides protected, crosslegged on the floor, a book propped open on my knees, and I wouldn’t even deign to acknowledge the company.

How’d you get that one, Honey Bea? the men would laugh. Been fooling around with a cyclo-pee-dia, have ya? That accounts for her hair, they would say. (It stuck out in all directions like the pages of a riffled book; it was fair and my mum’s was dark.) This is the little cuckoo in your nest? there was always someone to ask; and that someone always got rapped on the knuckles by Bea. Uh-oh, they would laugh. Cutting close to the bone, is it? Whyn’t you ever come clean on this, Bea? (p.46)

From her mother Charade learns not to mind men, and how to handle them. Or so she thinks. Charade tells so many stories, sometimes the same story but in a Version 2, that the reader has no idea what to believe. But that is true of Charade as well: she is equally lost in a swirl of stories about herself and her family.

To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2015/11/08/ch...

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

A cleverly written novel about Charade Ryan, a young woman, seeking to understand her past. The book starts with Charade having an affair with a MIT scientist named Koenig, who she was told, resembles her father. Charade is searching for her long lost father, Nicholas. She was raised in the outback by her mother, an earthy, clear sighted woman content with her ten children and no husband. As soon as she is able, she leaves her mother, travelling to England, then Canada, then the USA.

Charade and Koenig converse with one another, each telling stories about their past lives. Sometimes Charade’s stories become more based on imagination than reality. There were times I was a little lost in what the purpose of a particular story had to the overall plot. However, by the end of the novel, everything came together satisfactorily!

This book was shortlisted for the 1989 Miles Franklin award.

[Steven Langdon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Started reading a new edition of this novel and discovered I'd read it!

Charade Ryan is a very bright young Australian woman who launches a passionate affair with an MIT scientist named Koenig in this complex and fascinating story. Hospital has written a number of excellent novels that I have read, including "Oyster" and "Orpheus Lost." This book is in the same league. Charade's mother is an original, trapping men in her orbit in the Australian jungle, her father is a disappeared myth, and her Aunt Kay is the enigma who can bring them altogether.

Hospital writes well, her characters are vivid, and this plot unwinds with glorious intricacy.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strange book - more literature than fiction. The author weaves a complex story together, particularly dealing with the titular character, Charade, and her hunt for her absentee father. The characterisation was exceptional, especially Charade's mother, B. Perhaps the story was a bit long-winded, but it was so well written that I guess that was forgivable. 3.5 stars.

[Lisa Ikin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the style of this book. It takes you down many paths and creates many alternative scenarios. A fantastic sense of place whether it was the North Queensland forest or the streets of Toronto. The characters were very fluid but constant. A thoroughly enjoyable and satisfying book with an unexpected twist.

[Brenna Lee- Cooney · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book. I first read it as a UQ English student for a unit on Australian contemporary Literature. Now I am hoping to buy it as an ebook for my daughter in the Netherlands to give her a reminder of her homeland.

[Katy Lovejoy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Call me childish, call me a prude, call me whatever.

This had too much sex in it for me to even notice the actual plot

[Robin Murray · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hard going. I didn't like the characters. I only stuck with it to find out what happened to the people in the past.

[Ruth Bonetti · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have so enjoyed many of Hospital's book, so can only conclude that this is an earlier opus and she was feeling her way. The heroine seemed over the top. Why did she act so? Apparently some reason would have unfolded if I was sufficiently engrossed to continue reading. But I wasn't. It perhaps didn't help that the mathematical/scientific images were lost on me.

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Typical Hospital intertwining of relationships.  Had to read it twice to enjoy the nuances more fully and still didn't understand all the physics references.  Worth the effort, but definitely not a beach read.

[Carolyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an ambitious novel that tries to interweave a personal story with nuclear physics and the uncertainty principle. It may be too subtle for me - I kept falling asleep.

[Jake · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was without a doubt the most painful I have ever read, it sticks in my memory as the most unpleasant reading experience of my life. It was incredibly pretentious. God I hated this book.

[Jane Routley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lovely writing making up for the fact that Hospital is not great at plot.
Always remember the line about her stockings susserating against each other as she walked across the room though.

[Claire Noonan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vibrant prose. The plot was a bit intricate at times with a bit of heartbreak at the end. A nice read.

[Fernanda Dahlstrom · Rating 5 out of 5]

First read this when I was 13. Loved it then and love it still.