Booker Book # 5: The Secret River by Kate Grenville

Just put me out of my misery and hand Kate Grenville her Booker Prize now, please.

Though the other Longlisters I've read have been fantastic, some almost stratospherically so, I would call The Secret River approaching a masterpiece of contemporary fiction.  This is the story of William Thornhill, a man transported to Australia for a crime he merely intended and never managed to carry out.  His wife, Sal, and their children are transported with him, and it's a minor miracle he didn't wind up swinging from the end of a rope, instead.

Australia is presented as a forbidding, harsh place, but also a land of opportunity. Thornhill puts his nose to the grindstone, determined to see his way to buying a pardon, and then sets his sights on settling the wild land. They begin scratching out a farm in hostile land, constantly under threat from the very forbidding aborigines.  Facing hardship, intense weather, sickness and constant setbacks, they hope to prevail and make their fortune. Sal hopes to return to England one day, and pins all her hopes on it.  Her husband sees a very different reality, and hopes she can reconcile herself to the fact they'll never see their homeland again.

Kate Grenville is a brilliant writer. I'd say she reminds me of a modern day, Australian version of George Eliot. Her prose is dense and lush as well as lyrical, and her themes universal and humanistic.  She presents the story without judgment, setting down the very brutal reality of the situation without presenting anyone as complete hero or villain.  It's a very fair and balanced portrayal of the struggle between the white settlers and the black aboriginals, portrayed warts and all. No one is condemned, and no one given amnesty. There are no innocents here, but neither is there a single guilty party.  All fare equally in Grenville's treatment, illustrating how incredibly powerful she truly is.

It's hard to see how any other book can be deserving of the Booker after having read The Secret River.  It's a rare book that achieves the heights this one does, and if I find any of the others as deserving I'll be surprised.

 

Kate Grenville

Comments

[Ursula]

BBC World Service Radio is recording a programme with Kate Grenville next Thurs 5th Feb and we need questions from around the world to put to Kate about her book 'The Secret River'. Please email questions for Kate ASAP to: worldbookclub@bbc.co.uk. Include your name, where you come from and contact details if you want to be recorded down a phone line and have your question played out during in the programme.
Hear from you soon.
Best wishes
Ursula
World Book Club

[Lisa Guidarini]

Danielle, that's always the way, I have to shovel off five or six books to get to read every one. Ah, well, perish the thought of never having more books waiting so I guess that's the trade off!

[Lisa Guidarini]

Booklogged, Typepad's a really great, powerful blog publishing platform. I use its poorer cousin, Movable Type, for my Northwest Suburban Library System Blog and they're going to be changing things soon to make it more like Typepad. I cannot wait! I haven't gotten to the end of of all the features here yet.

[booklogged]

Another excellent review and another book going on by TBR list. I really like how you have pictures of the books you've read in the sidebar along with a rating.

[Danielle]

I keep hearing good things about this book. It is next up on my TBR pile. Just need to finish something else first!

[Lisa Guidarini]

I wonder how much they do shy away from big issues. I haven't read enough Booker Long/Shortlisters to see how often they seem to be avoiding things like this. The theme is universal, though, in that pretty much all societies have had similar issues throughout history. It's unfortunately not an extraordinary thing for a stronger culture to overtake a weaker one, and is really how humanity has evolved into whatever it is we consider ourselves today. Not sure how sophisticated it makes us to have made our way up the backs of those we've defeated, but it is the way of things. I think the Booker committee definitely ought to not avoid tough issues, and should in fact encourage them. We'll see how brave they ultimately are, I guess, as I can't imagine another contender more worthy than Grenville.

[dovegreyreader]

You liked it then Lisa!
I don't see how anyone can FAIL to like this book it's impossible to fault it but implicit depite the even handed approach must be the embarrassment of this whole issue to the the Australian nation.Much depends on how able the judges feel to bowl them a googlie by making it the winner, we've already won The Ashes the need may have passed! Seriously though you wonder whether these issues come into the deliberations at all or is judged 110% on literary merit? I don't know but have my doubts.Sebastian Barry if he had won last year would have brought up the whole Irish question which haunts us enough as it is.All fascinating.

[Lisa Guidarini]

Now that's an absolute travesty, especially considering the quality of the fiction she wrote before TSR. It's not like she hasn't proven her brilliance. Shame on them!

[Fay]

Masterpiece is right. And yet the _New York Times_ did not even review it.

I wondered if the situation in the book might have been viewed on analogy with other hot spots in the world, where ethnically and religiously diverse populations conflict, often violently, and the NYT editor did not like the inevitable conclusions to be drawn based on Grenville's presentation. A careful review could have ended up offending all parties on all sides of current conflicts. Or maybe they just overlooked it. Hard to believe after it won the Commonwealth Prize.
Fay