Maybe it's unfair to judge a single chapter of a book as a standalone work, but the fact remains that had this ending been included in the book I wouldn't have liked it as much. It wasn't even that I hated it though! Tonally it represents a jarring shift, but I guess I'd understand including such a frustrating ending to a book that shares the goal of frustrating the reader. The science fiction elements left me with more questions than were answered, but if that's the whole point then I respect that decision.

No, the reason I'm rating this so low is because of Yvonne Rousseau's bizarre analysis. I've seriously seen more cogent analysis on like, reddit fan theories! She reads so much into the text that just isn't there, and even says "I shall no longer be supporting Joan Lindsay's claim that the solution of the mystery is unimportant." Like, I get it if you're frustrated by the original ending, but personally the reason I liked the book so much was because it was unsolved, and all this stuff about time travel and about how Irma was left on the rock for being Jewish just makes my head hurt! ( )

This very short book contains the unpublished final chapter of Joan Lindsay's classic Picnic at Hanging Rock. Her decision to remove this chapter before its publication was to my mind absolutely the right decision; the final chapter is, from a view of the text as a human mystery novel, very disappointing and leaves as many questions unanswered as it attempts to answer. The book includes a few commentaries offering explanations for the final chapter, which I found both mildly interesting and a bit annoying at the same time. Perhaps the most striking conclusion, though, was John Taylor's statement that the omission of the final chapter created the modern Australian film industry "because it is highly unlikely that there would have been a rush to buy the film rights in 1972 if Chapter Eighteen had not been deleted". ( )

The 18th (and unpublished) chaper of the famous "Picnic at Hanging Rock". (Luckily) it does not explains too much but I think ending "Picnic" with 17 chapters was a very good choice.

I did'nt find the commentary interesting ( )