Literary The Secret River by Kate Grenville

[sun surfer]

This is the MR Literary Club selection for October 2013. Whether you've already read it or would like to, feel free to start or join in the conversation at any time! Guests are also always welcome.


Some ebook availability-
Australia- Bookworld
Canada- Amazon
U.K.- Amazon Kobo bundle that includes "Searching for the Secret River" as well
U.S.- Amazon Kobo


So, what are your thoughts on it?

[HomeInMyShoes]

I wasn't that enthralled with the first forty pages, but once I got to the trial. Part way into the third section and I'm totally sucked in.

[Bookpossum]

Phew! I'm glad it has picked up for you.

The contrast between the life in England and the life in Australia, particularly for the convicts who came to Sydney in the early days, is quite stark. I married into the criminal classes (!), as my husband is descended from a number of convicts, the earliest of whom arrived in Sydney in 1798. He married, had three children, each of whom produced 13 children, almost all of whom survived to adulthood. That is a pretty unlikely scenario in late 18th/early 19th century London.

It was a much healthier place to live, and there was just so much more opportunity here ... but of course at a terrible cost, as will be shown.

[caleb72]

I'm not even ready to start this book yet. Halfway through two different books at the moment. I'll get there.

[HomeInMyShoes]

@caleb72. I put Elkin on hold to fit this one in. I'm glad I did.

[desertblues]

I am not very far in the book, but I rather like the book till now.

Spoiler:

The only thing I wonder about at this moment is the marriage of William. He does marry above his own social status, but not much is said about it. I would have thought that the girls parents would have wished for someone better. There is a suggestion, but no more than this, that he is hailed as a kind of substitute son.

[Bookpossum]

I won't make any comment on the book yet, but I thought you might be interested in a couple of images I have pulled off the web.

The first shows the spit of land shaped like a thumb, and the second is a painting from the 1830s.

[BelleZora]

Thanks for the photographs, Bookpossum. I love photographs illustrating people or places I read about. I just found a thrift store book with over 200 photographs and illustrations depicting the people, places, and events I read about in Edward Rutherford's Dublin books, both of which I read in August. A treasure trove.

I finished The Secret River and really enjoyed it, although the events described were so very sad. It is a good historical read. The plight of aboriginal people is, of course, a familiar and tragic one in my own country. Beyond that I won't make any comment until others have finished the book. It is an excellent book club choice.

[Bookpossum]

I'm so glad you found it a good book, BelleZora - I think it very good indeed, and I just wish that every Australian could read it and ponder on what it has to say. Sadly, there are still plenty of people who try to claim that such things didn't happen.

The good thing is that at least there are people writing about the past who are prepared to face up to what was done and to acknowledge it. One of the historians doing this is Henry Reynolds, and I thought you might be interested in a couple of passages from one of his books, called This Whispering in our Hearts which is about the people who did speak out about the treatment of the Aboriginal people. These are from the Introduction:

Unease about the morality of settlement has been apparent throughout the two centuries of European occupation of the Australian continent. In each generation people have expressed their concern about the ethics of colonisation, the incidence of racial violence, the taking of the land and the suffering, deprivation and poverty of Aboriginal society in the wake of settlement.

Some were so troubled by what they saw around them that they devoted themselves to the amelioration of Aboriginal suffering or to the denunciation of violence and brutality. In doing so they courted the anger, hostility and even the hatred of their contemporaries. They voiced the unspeakable, exposed carefully cloaked self-deception, dragged out hidden hypocrisies. For their pains they were seen as self-righteous, disturbing, dangerous, obsessive or mad. (Page xiv)

Settler solidarity was not just comforting. It seemed necessary for survival. The shared guilt of the punitive expedition, the complicity in killing, bound participants together in close confederation. Dissenters who challenged the ways of the frontier were boycotted, bullied or banished. The pioneer Queensland grazier Ernest Thorn refused to allow a party of neighbouring settlers to use his boat to facilitate a nocturnal attack on a neighbouring Aboriginal camp. As a result he acquired a bad name which, he explained, 'followed me for many years, and rose up in judgement against me, in unexpected places, as a dangerous man.' His name was 'covered with opprobrium' and he was branded as a man 'who was false to his race, and unworthy of the confidence of decent white men.' (Page xvi)

As we discussed in Things Fall Apart, it takes a lot of courage to go against the majority.

And finally, in case you hadn't come across this bit of information, the title of the book refers to the Hawkesbury River of course, but also it is a quote from an anthropologist called W E H Stanner who referred to 'the secret river of blood' that was shed in the conflict between the settlers and the Aboriginals, and the silence about that shame in the way our history was taught to us. It's a powerful and chilling image.

[BelleZora]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

As we discussed in Things Fall Apart, it takes a lot of courage to go against the majority.

Thanks for the interesting quotes, Bookpossum. Things don't seem to change until, one person at a time, a majority is formed that refuses to be part of the abuses of the past and challenges them wherever they occur. Then the new unhappy minority complains a lot about the tyranny of 'political correctness'. Having a multi-racial family, I can tell you that it was a great boon to live in Seattle, long a 'politically correct' city.

Too many are unable to overcome their fear and contempt, and change must forced upon them by law as an enlightened majority gains power. Then the succeeding generations have a chance to learn there is really nothing to fear and that we are all just people.

The Secret River was tragic: the hopeless poverty and class system of London, the failure of the exiled to understand the native people, and the heartbreaking massacre near the end of the book. I was left with a sadness similar to the one I felt after reading several historical novels about Ireland this year. My own homeland has its own sad history.

Spoilers may abound.

In year 12, our English theme was "conflict", and The Secret River was an assigned text (alongside Hosseini's The Kite Runner and Flanagan's The Line). I remember tearing through the novel overnight after our first English period for the year, absorbing my own cultural history as a half-caste myself -- however, I can't seem to find my copy in my 'old school stuff' box, so I'll be commenting based on memory.

On a purely literary note, I find Grenville to be quite poetic. I enjoy reading her words and immersing myself in her 'voice'. She phrases things both effectively and beautifully, and as an experience of words and phrasing, I really enjoyed The Secret River: it was beautiful and modern. As a fan of fantasy and sci-fi, I experience good writing frequently, but rarely is modern writing beautiful, especially not when dealing with an awful situation: I have to turn to Woolf, et al. for that.

I criticise the pacing (though, I regularly find criticisms with novel pacing): it felt, to my seventeen year old self, as though William spent too long in England; there was ample character building (and more relevant character building!) within Australia, there was a brilliant opportunity for character building during the voyage to Australia, and Dick's character could have been built much more smoothly, rather than the seemingly rushed almost 'post-script' about Dick's life at the end.

Now: I remember two scenes with extreme clarity, despite having read this book years ago.

Spoiler:

I remember the Aboriginal woman, chained in the gentleman's hut (his name escapes me). I remember that she was his sex slave, and that this was regarded as normal; that even the "morally conscious" William had no objections to this exploitation of the Aboriginal woman. This, as a relatively sheltered teenage girl, was an enormous shock to my sensibilities. I cried shortly after reading it. I feel that it drew poignant attention to the issues surrounding the dehumanisation of those not of Anglo-Saxon descent during Britain's fierce colonisation of the world in the 19th Century.

I also remember William beating Dick (it was Dick, wasn't it?) for learning spear throwing from the local tribespeople. It was at this point that I decided that I hated William, though I expect that if I could find the bloody book to re-read it, I may dislike him less; I expect that I'd even pity him if I re-read it. This scene dealt powerfully with fear: it showed me that William (and, indeed, the other settlers) was properly scared of Aboriginals. I found this scene to be a powerful social narrative on the perils of racism, and even on how not all racism is driven by hate. What I took from these scenes, when placed side by side, was fear and hatred driving racism, equally yet, at times, separately entirely.

I wish that I could find my notes from this novel, the essays I wrote on this novel (I recall that I received full marks - it really helped my final score for the year!), and the actual book itself. I'd love to re-read it as an adult, but as I remember the entire thing (details, of course, with more or less precision), I'll just sit back and read this thread. As somebody who is both white and Aboriginal in heritage, and somebody who has Caucasian (and racist) relatives living in America who still openly support black slavery, this book was extremely powerful. I was a sheltered teenager when I read it. It made me cry, it made me become a passionate advocate of human rights, and it was one of my favourite books for two or three years.

ETA:

As an interesting and related side-note, I learned about my cultural heritage at about the age of fifteen. I have a strong memory of my mother telling me not to let anybody at school know that I'm Aboriginal. I obeyed her without really thinking anything of it, but as I've left the quiet confines of a small country school, I've noticed increasing racism: I still don't let people know of my heritage, because despite Australia being heavily multicultural, there's a large culture of native-hatred. It's better to let people believe that I'm party Middle Eastern, or Indian, or Native American, etc. (which most people do) than to correct them and let them know that I'm partly Aboriginal -- in 21st century Australia.

[caleb72]

I'm finally ready to start. Looking forward to this.

[Bookpossum]

Thanks so much for your interesting post, Marsi, and for sharing your own personal experiences. It saddens me, but doesn't surprise me at all. Be assured of your warm welcome in this multicultural Literary Book Club though.

I do hope you find your copy of The Secret River and your essays and notes. I found it well worthwhile rereading the book after the interval of a few years, though as you say, some of the events and descriptions always stay with you.

[Bookpossum]

And thanks for your post too, BelleZora. We just all have to grit our teeth and keep on plugging away to make change happen.

I do hope you enjoy (if that's the right word) The Secret River, Caleb.

[BelleZora]

Welcome, Marsi, and thanks for your post. I, too, hope that you find your notes and continue to contribute to this thread. I long for the day when the culture changes so that you can feel free to proudly claim all of your heritage.

Bookpossum and Marsi, can you recommend other Australian books with a similar theme?