Michelle de KretserCritiques

This book consists of two seemingly unrelated stories, which, given the subtitle of the book, are meant to form a consistent whole. I just can't see how they go together, although I could force some similar or overlapping themes (i.e. immigration).

In the first, Lili, a 20 something Australian whose family had emigrated to Australia when she was a teenager, is now working a temporary teaching job in the south of France. She befriends an English artist, Mina, and several other ex-pats, and they do the sorts of things 20-somethings do, somewhat oblivious of consequences and of how their actions might be affecting others. Nothing serious though. Along the way Lili occasionally observes discrimination against North African immigrants. This whole story just didn't interest me.

In the second story, we are in near future dystopian Australia with another Asian emigrant family, father Lyle, mother Chanel (assumed names), their two kids, and Lyle's mother Ivy. They do everything they can to fit in, including gettin a pet dog and playing the popular on-line game Whack-a-Muslim. There was some very clever world-building here, and the dystopian aspects were extremely plausible. Obviously, a big theme is the fear of immigrants, but there is also an ageism theme going with assisted suicide being encouraged for older people (Ivy). As a stand alone this would have been a competent novella.

As I said, I can't see how these go together.

ETA: Amazon blurb says the "scary monsters' referred to by the title are racism, misogyny, and ageism. And that one of the stories is meant to refer to/represent the past, the other the future, and that you can read them in any order. Enlightened? Not me.

2 stars

Stages of life portrayed through sveral short stories but all connected by one character who appears in each. Is there a point or main time to the stories? Hard to say. They were ok, but not terribly gripping.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/scary-monsters-by-michelle-de-kretser-brief-note...

Interestingly in the old double format; literally a book of two halves. I liked the non-sf bit more than the sf bit; young lust in France in 1980 vs fascist near-future Australia. The Australia bits seemed to me more about the setting than the plot.

Michelle de Kretser's Miles Franklin winning novel uses travel as a lens to look at two drastically different protagonists: Laura, a footloose middle-class Australia; and Ravi, a Sri Lankan caught up in that country's brutal civil war. The book follows their life journeys, which ultimately intersect at a travel publishing firm (where else?).

The first third of the novel mainly deals with the interminably boring Laura and her mundane roaming around the usual tourist spots of Asia and Europe. Just as the reader is about to nod off, de Kretser hits you with a head-snapping plot twist that transforms this novel into something very different. The pace and tension pick up from there but unfortunately de Kretser cannot sustain it. The story she tells of Ravi's experiences is emotional, nuanced and topical. However Laura's story is cliched and bathetic, unable to be saved by a surprise ending.

The questions of the title are posed through the key characters' stories. One is "what am I doing here?". Another is "why does everybody have to leave in the end?", immediately followed by "when will it be my turn to leave?'. These deep questions are a great theme for the novel, but could have been much more tellingly explored by cutting Laura's character to the bare minimum and placing the focus on Ravi's more compelling odyssey. In the process, a good editor could have cut 150 pages from an unnecessarily long novel.

I have no plans to write a long review of this short story since there isn't much to say about it.

I just finished it after reading it now and then turning a couple of weeks, with the thought back in my mind that "I can't give up on a novella, it's a short thing I can do it!", but honestly it's a story that is said to be a ghost story, but it's not. It's more about the main character trying to come to grip with her new life after the man she loves left his wife for her and then she sees something that may be a ghost. And, not much is going on in the book, no suspense, just a mystery with a ridiculous ending.

I want to thank the publisher for providing me with a free copy through Edelweiss for an honest review.

Read this review and others on A Bookaholic Swede

I have no plans to write a long review of this short story since there isn't much to say about it.

I just finished it after reading it now and then turning a couple of weeks, with the thought back in my mind that "I can't give up on a novella, it's a short thing I can do it!", but honestly it's a story that is said to be a ghost story, but it's not. It's more about the main character trying to come to grip with her new life after the man she loves left his wife for her and then she sees something that may be a ghost. And, not much is going on in the book, no suspense, just a mystery with a ridiculous ending.

I want to thank the publisher for providing me with a free copy through Edelweiss for an honest review.

Read this review and others on A Bookaholic Swede

So, firstly, the title is apparently a reference to a song by David Bowie? Well, I Googled the lyrics... and am none the wiser.

Secondly, the 'novel' is actually two novellas, tenuously linked. One, 'the past' is set in 1980s Montpellier, France, and the other, 'the future' in a dystopian Melbourne. It's packaged in an upside-down format so that the reader can choose whether to read 'cherry-side-up' first: the coming-of-age story of Lili in France; or alternatively cherry-blossom-side-up: the satirical story of Lyle in the future. I can't see that this experiment in format makes much difference whichever one is read first, though perhaps Lili's story might put you in a better mood...

De Kretser explains the reasoning behind this upside-down format at the Guardian, i.e. her belief that migration turns lives upside-down, and she expresses her anxiety that publishing the book this way might be seen as gimmicky. Well, I'll leave that to others to judge, but I will comment on her idea that migrants are viewed as gimmicky citizens whose worth is constantly questioned. FWIW The 'migrant as victim' is an offshoot of identity politics that I reject. It's hard — of course migration is hard, change is always hard. But unlike refugees, migrants choose it. As a migrant myself I consider it a privilege to have been accepted as a migrant when there are millions of people around the world fruitlessly seeking a new homeland.

Anyway...

I started with the story of Lili. She's a twenty-something teacher from Australia, settling into Montpellier in the south of France. Through Nick, who teaches at the same school, she develops an intense friendship with his girlfriend, a young English artist called Minna. Minna teaches Lili to be more assertive with the landlord who takes advantage of her inexperience to deny her heating in winter. She also encourages her to dress with the individuality of mismatched clothes because 'uglification' is a way of mocking the French preoccupation with appearance. They have a lot of fun together, but Lili privately thinks that she would be a better soulmate for Nick because she knows more about French literature and culture than Minna does. However, because Lili is a person of colour, she thinks that she can never be quite 'enough'.

Lili wants to be a Bold. Intelligent. Woman. like Simone de Beauvoir, and she enjoys posing for Minna's series of photos called 'Daring Audrey'. (This reminded me of Kim Mahood's Position Doubtful in which Mahood's friend the photo-artist Pamela Lofts posed her in all kinds of ironic feminist critiques out in the Tanami Desert.) But despite having the courage to set off alone across the world for adventures in a different culture, Lili is more often hyper-alert for serial killers and she suspects that her creepy neighbour is plotting to attack her. Reading this novella first without the brief allusion to it in Lyle's story makes it end somewhat inconclusively in 1983 two years after the election of the socialist president François Mitterand.

Lyle's story is a rather heavy-handed satire. It is set in a surreal dystopian Melbourne where Islam is illegal and there are heavy penalties for mentioning climate change. Sydney has been abandoned because of coastal erosion and bushfires, and the government monitors communications to identify troublesome migrants for repatriation. Migrants Lyle and his wife Chanel keep their heads down in the outer suburbs while their adult children Sydney and Mel bully them. Mel is studying architecture in Chicago, but her YouTube channel is about the 'architecture of the face' and her speech is loaded with farcical Millennial jargon. When Lyle demurs about the cost of an American college, Mel tells him she'll get a better job in Australia with an American degree and it's really patriarchal of him to destroy her career before it's even begun. Mel demands three 'statement' dresses for forthcoming social events, and her grandmother Ivy is not to make them because that would be 'beyond tragic'.

'Can't you wear the same dress?' asked Chanel. 'There'll be different people in those three places.'

Mel burst into tears. 'Oh my god, I can't believe it!' she gasped between sobs. 'Gaslighted by my own mother. Oh my god.' (p.75)

What she wears is monitored by everyone in the world on Instagram...

Millennials are such an easy target for mockery...

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2021/10/20/scary-monsters-by-michelle-de-kretser/

This book is among the worst I've honestly ever read. I'm still struggling to understand the point of the book.

It's essentially a double-narrative following the stories of Ravi and Laura over the course of 30 years. The two characters and their stories are completely unrelated for the vast majority of the book. The narration is scattered, rambling, and extremely difficult to follow. There are moments when things are incredibly vague and/or confusing, frequent jumps in time/flashbacks, and random characters and events that don't seem to serve any purpose than to fill a few extra pages. I was surprised to learn this book actually won an award. It was a chore to read this book and I don't recommend it to anyone.

(eGalley provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.)

A very short novel that I enjoyed and that gave me something to think about. It is billed as a ghost story but it is also a story of a woman and her dog and a woman and her new relationship. It also delves into relationships between friends and acquaintances. There is so much in this lovely little book I may read it again! Plus it takes place in Australia, a place I've never been. (Christmas in summer!)

Stages of life portrayed through sveral short stories but all connected by one character who appears in each. Is there a point or main time to the stories? Hard to say. They were ok, but not terribly gripping.

The Life to Come was my first novel by Michelle de Kretser, who is emerging as one of Australia's leading writers. This book, after all, won the Miles Franklin Award, the second time that de Kretser has claimed this honor. That achievement alone puts her in some rare literary air indeed.

There are some brilliant moments in this book, my favorite being an early passage in which de Kretser skewers the ignorance of the Australian reading public, as well as the ideological rigidity of the educational establishment, about the history of Australian literature:

"Asked to name a contemporary Australian novelist, responses were more or less equally divided between 'that Oscar and Louise guy' and Stephen King. Most declined to 'Name a novel by Patrick White,' although one student recalled Riders on the Storm."

What didn't work for me about this novel, however, was de Kretser's habit of creating characters and then simply dropping them. Yes, there are recurrent characters - the writer Pippa being chief among them - but the narrative itself meanders along without any great sense of purpose or direction.

The Life to Come thus left me feeling torn. The themes and details of de Kretser's novel are skillful and beautifully rendered, but the narrative vehicle that carries them seems like it is simply wandering around, with no clear destination in mind.

Gave it a good go but could not find the books rhythm. Did not finish

A plot line little confusing, but some great descriptions of Australians and writers, and insightful and thought provoking characterisations.

Beautifully written tedium. I abandoned it.

‘’When I was small, going home past the forest at the end of the summer evening, I used to see shining people between the trees.’’

My first experience with Michelle De Kretser’s work was her atmospheric, tender historical novelThe Rose Grower . Therefore, I knew I was in good hands when I came across her novella Springtime characterized as a ghost story. It is indeed short and exquisite. And the most important thing of all is that it will make you think and decide as to the outcome. For there are no clear answers…

‘’...in Sydney the streets ran everywhere like something spilled’’

The story follows Frances in her new life in Sydney along with Charlie who has a son from his first marriage. As she tries to adopt to these new surroundings with the sole support of her dog, Rod, she comes across a woman in a garden, dressed in period clothes. Who is she? A ghost? A trick of France’s mind? So, she goes on with her life and the apparition never leaves her mind. It is there, in the back of her head, as a strained relationship begins to unfold and the shadow of another woman, much too real and tangible, haunts France's life.

I will keep this review short because you really need to read Springtime to fully appreciate it. There are so many themes for discussion and consideration. The doubt over a relationship that may not last, a new environment, a new house, people you have to interact with although they’re absolutely appalling to you. Above all, the fight to convince yourself that everything will work out in the end. There is a lovely period touch since Frances is a writer specializing in 18th century gardens, something that gives her an aura of mystery. The same quality permeates the writing as a whole. A ghost story may refer to a number of things. We don’t have to necessarily be certain that what we saw was an actual apparition. Sometimes, the spectre at the feast is much more troubling and frightening. The inner fear of potential failure, of not being enough, of not knowing what we really want. The prose reminded me of Susan Hill’s beautiful, ambiguous short stories that stand upon the border between reality and a world beyond our own. A hazy, hypnotic atmosphere with seemingly disjointed passages and a main character who is marvelously developed and mysterious enough to raise more questions as we read.

If you find Springtime, don’t let it slip away. Don't be dissuaded by the unjustly negative reviews. Read it and decide for yourselves…

My review can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com

The writing draws attention to itself. The narration is sardonic, and permeated with dislike for the characters.½

(7.5) Redeemed in the final section.½

I was seduced by this little novella's lovely cover, the Ursula K. LeGuin blurb, and the author's identity as a Sri Lankan-Australian. It has been ages since I've read a story set in Australia. And as I read this, it became clear just how little I still know about Australia. Major cities on the coasts, bloody big desert in the middle, some big red rocks in there, opal mining, all the animals want to and can kill you. That's what I know about Australia.

ANYWAY. I wonder how this story is served by putting "A Ghost Story" on the front cover. Although the back warns us that this is probably not your conventional ghost story, it definitely brings certain expectations to the table. Expectations that are not exactly met. But does setting up and then side-stepping those expectations subvert them in an interesting way? Or just frustrate them? I suspect it depends on how invested the reader is in this being a traditional ghost story.

Me? I found this story charming. Even though I'm not a dog person, and a lot of this story revolves around two dogs. The protagonist wasn't easy to relate to, but I found her research interesting, her long walks along the river. Her observations on cultural behavior at airports. And I didn't mind the light touch of the ghost story aspect.

Rambling, thin meander with a lost dog as some kind of motif, covering old age, identity, colonial issues and with characters confused and arty and rather boring.

Not great reviews: This collection of stories from 22 authors from around the world concerns travel romances. A tourist in Peru falls for her handsome guide; a writer explores the ambiguities of his relationship with a Japanese woman; and a beautiful Italian on a train proposes marriage.

Got this book only because there is a story in it by Karen Connelly (author of THE LIZARD CAGE, which I highly recommend.)Found the stories to be vacuous, but in all honesty,I didn't finish it. Maybe there was a gem or two that I missed but I didn't have the patience for the mining expedition.
Lonely Planet put out this book, I would imagine,in the hopes of inspiring folks to want to travel. Made me happy to be sitting quietly at home.

I really had to force myself to finish this book. I cannot read any French. (there was some in there, without the translation.) I just found most of, if not all, the stories boring and almost pointless!

Recommends it for: Anyone who likes the Sun magazine and traveling
Fun - maybe true - essays on love, sex and travel. Could there be a better book for travel-reading?

At different times in our lives, we view the life to come in different ways. Children and adolescents often yearn for a future where they are ‘grown up’ and can act with independence and agency; young adults with a mixture of confidence and trepidation anticipate a future with adventure or a career, hoping to have or do things that they think will bring satisfaction while also expecting eventually to find a loved one with whom to share their lives. As the years go by, the anticipated future usually becomes more peopled and expands to include the futures of partners, children and grandchildren, and then, as old age beckons, the anxieties we might have about the future begin to include worrying about the inevitable decline in health, about an adequate retirement income and about a lonely old age as friends and loved ones pass away. What is certainly true is that life rarely turns out to be the way we expected it to be…
In The Life to Come Michelle de Kretser scrutinises this existential aspect of our lives with wit and aplomb. Set in Sydney, Paris and briefly in Colombo, the novel traces the lives of diverse futures which intersect over the decades, contrasting despair and disillusionment with contentment and smug satisfaction. The author unpacks the eloquent silences that surround us to reveal the issues that we deny, suppress and ignore, exposing our flawed assumptions about other people. And she is wickedly funny about the role of social media in our lives…
Pippa is a middle-class Australian writer who is confident that when she was famous, Sydney would be obliged to place commemorative plaques outside the houses where she had lived. But right now she is anxiously waiting on feedback from her agent Gloria:

Pippa checked her email: an invitation from Matt’s mother to lunch on the weekend, a special offer from FragranceNet, nothing from Gloria. Pippa retweeted @MargaretAtwood urging the donation of books to prisons. She followed every famous writer she could find on Twitter, but so far none of them had followed her back. Someone posted a photo of a dog on a skateboard. @warmstrong linked to a screening of Hotel Monterey. ‘Chantal Akerman: wonderwoman or wanker? You decide.’ Pippa read a Lydia Davis story on the New Yorker website. She googled to see if Lydia Davis was on Twitter. She read a Crikey piece about arts funding, followed a few links and some time later bought a swimsuit. Her email chimed; it was an overdue reminder from the library. Anyway, Gloria would call, not email. Gloria’s voice was always low and exhausted. Of Pippa’s previous novel, she had whispered, ‘Everyone here really, really loves it. The scene with the endives is amazing! I’ve never read anything so raw. It really amazed everyone. But we ran it through SIMS, our amazing new reader-response software, and it says readers are over the whole French thing. I hope you’re not expecting much in the way of an advance.’
Pippa’s phone rang and she snatched it up. But it was only a former neighbour, so she let it ring out. (p.186)

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2017/10/02/the-life-to-come-by-michelle-de-kretser/

Almost more of a long short story than a novella. I picked it up for the cover, honestly, but it was sweetly written and entertaining old-fashioned kind of ghost story.

This highly acclaimed and awarded novel did little to inspire our group. The mingling of Laura and Ravi’s stories tended to confuse rather than bind, and most of us found ourselves lost in the language rather than thriving in it. Not the reaction we generally look for in a novel.

Therefore, our discussion centred mostly around travel verses tourism, as this was the only real theme we could identify with. In doing so, we shared some wonderful travel stories and chatted about the pros and cons of travelling, where it took us and what we gained from it. Most of us have travelled moderate to extensively, so it was a lively discussion.

This was all very interesting, but what were de Kretser’s questions of travel … in other words, what was she trying to say to us in this novel? Cheryle struggled big time with this book and even tackled it by reading all of Ravi’s story first, then going back and reading Laura’s. Not with any great success, but at least she gave it an honest shot!

In the end we came to the conclusion that literary fiction may not be our ideal read … but as a book club we are always up to the challenge.

An interesting short story that paints a picture of Frances. It is a ghost story, but not in the scary sense; an understated sort of miss if you blink ghost really. I enjoyed it.½

Questions of Travel is an odd novel. The opening line is fantastic, but the tension it promises dissipates under a rambling prose that is reminiscent of a journey with end. The two characters are as dissimilar as two people can be, and their lives are equally unalike. Readers push forward hoping the their paths intertwine into a joint story that takes the novel to another level. Sadly, this never occurs.

The reader is left with a novel that really should be two separate stories. Laura’s life as a globe-trotter has nothing in common with Ravi’s struggles for survival. The near-constant political rebellions and fear that mark Ravi’s youth and early adulthood are a far cry from Laura’s almost posh life as a professional house sitter and someone who spends every free moment traveling around the world. There is something almost obscene about having the two narratives told together because it trivializes both experiences.

While Laura and Ravi are undoubtedly the two main heroes of the novel, the cast of characters is large and varied. The problem with this is that none of the secondary characters make much of an impression, and distinguishing between them proves difficult. This is made worse by the fact that the story jumps between Laura’s and Ravi’s perspectives, so readers must try to remember someone mentioned in passing in Laura’s section after having attempted to untangle the weave of Ravi’s acquaintances, friends, and family during his section. It is a situation that does not improve with the passage of the novel either, as the two main characters grow older and expand their circle of acquaintances.

Questions of Travel is a disappointment. It is the type of story that leaves you wondering what the point of it is and, more to the point, why you bothered to finish it in the first place. Its two meandering storylines never really merge as you expect them to do, and the characters’ fates seem more like a convenience rather than an attempt at closure. While the prose does have moments of brilliance, it too fails to portray any semblance of coherence and cohesiveness between Laura and Ravi; the bloated character list furthers the confusion. The end result is a novel that leaves readers wanting more in the way of a structured plot with well-developed characters whose lives connect more than superficially. Alas, that is not what you get.