Out came a thought and then another...

The Secret River - winner of the 2006 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book, shortlistee for the 2006 Miles Franklin Award, longlistee for the Booker 2006, is a historical work of fiction set in Australia during the time when convicts of the Empire were allowed to settle in the vast empty lands revered(owned) by the native Aborigines. The novel, as this review explains, focuses on the conflict between ex-convict settlers and the Aborigines.

This is a narrative whose outlines we know already: convicts transported to Sydney, eventually pardoned, encouraged to settle what seemed to be an empty continent. They didn't understand, and wouldn't have cared, that the land they were occupying was sacred to the mysterious, dark-skinned people who appeared and disappeared from the forests and seemed to them no more than naked savages.
...
The William Thornhill born in the opening pages is clearly marked out for poverty, suffering, degradation and criminality. We've been reading this story at least since Dickens and, in contrast, say, to Sarah Waters' linguistically brilliant portrayal of the Borough in Fingersmith, there is a sense of having been here before, of marking time, of earning the rest of the novel.

It does, though, turn out to be worth it. There isn't much underlying moral ambiguity in this book: the costs of settlement are appalling, which makes Thornhill its villain, even while he carries its sympathetic weight. Grenville is particularly good on inarticulate love, and Thornhill's relationship with his wife, Sal, civilises him, makes him a good man and ensures that the reader is on his side. As husband, father and hard-working, decent man, he is also the book's hero.
...
The Secret River is a sad book, beautifully written and, at times, almost unbearable with the weight of loss, competing distresses and the impossibility of making amends.

Australian writer Kate Grenville won the Orange Prize in 2001 for The Idea of Perfection. A couple of interviews posted in her website provide insight into how and why she chose writing.

"I write because I need to explore ideas," she declares. And though her books have "a moral that's fairly obvious," she dislikes didactic fiction: "You have to embed what you want to say in the truth of human experience."

Jai Arjun Singh's post on a meeting with Grenville in late 2004 has some interesting observations

She was a pleasant, schoolteacherly sort (she does, in fact, teach creative writing) with a prim, birdlike expression -- very un-Australian, I thought. Her face lit up within three minutes of our chat when she realised that I actually knew something about her Orange Prize-winning novel The Idea of Perfection.
...
[reference to The Secret River]
We spoke mainly about her country’s ambivalent attitude to its past. "Perhaps because of our dodgy history and the continuing perceptions about our ‘convict ancestry’, we have this hunger to put our past behind us and focus on being modern and world-class," explained Kate. "But that’s an escapist attitude, and most leading Australian novelists caution their readers that we must come to terms with our history." Incidentally, Kate’s next book, already complete, is based on the true story of her own convict ancestor, who rose to the position of nobleman after coming from England to Australia. "I was intrigued by the nature of his relationship with the Aborigines, whose land he might have usurped, and I took up the story from there," she said.

In this paper on the National Library of Australia website, Grenville talks about the stories in history that she is always looking for. Her convict ancestor who is said to be the inspiration for The Secret River finds a mention.

Other reviews of The Secret River that I enjoyed reading are here (The Quarterly Conversation), here, (the Guardian) and here (the Telegraph)

Posted by Echo/Lavanya on Thursday, August 24, 2006 at 2:59 PM | Permalink