[fantasyfan]

i enjoyed reading your excellent text, Caleb 72. I agree with everything you say.

Yes, the narrative voice is a problem--as Issybird points out. Perhaps Shute should have simply used an omniscient narrator. On the other hand, when reading the book for the first time, I don't think one is immediately aware of the improbability of Jean communicating all of these ideas to Strachan--considering how personal some of them are. And I think Jean's character comes through fairly convincingly--though I wouldn't say the same about Joe.

I agree, too, that there are actually two romantic elements. Strachan clearly falls in love with Jean quite early on--witness his genuine upset when he learns that she doesn't intend to return. This also explains why he doesn't tell Joe where Jean is and that she is searching for him. Mean? Yes. But he is still smarting from his own sense of loss. What Strachan doesn't realise is that Jean does love him--but as a father figure. He adjusts to this in the end and on his visit finds that Jean and Joe regard him as part of their family and even name a child after him.

That final section does reflect certain obsessions of Shute. He was in love with Australia and admired its openness --the way it allowed a meritocracy to flourish. Further, he despised what he regarded as the stifling beauracracy which he felt dominated England. You can see this in other works he wrote--particularly The Far Country.

In the end, A Town Like Alice may not be a great novel--it certainly is rather diffuse and lacks coherence--but it is an entertaining story.