So many great novels have unrealistic plot twists or protagonists that are too good to be true. I thought the events in a A Town Like Alice were simultaneously plausible and fantastic. Meaning that ordinary people do live through extraordinary times and have unexpected adventures, and their lives make great stories. Jean and Joe’s story is fiction, but I never thought, “that couldn’t happen.” In any case, I liked imagining that it could.
The inheritance is a driving factor of the novel, but I didn’t see that as a flaw. It’s not a deus ex machina that drops mid-book. It’s the focus of the very first chapter, right from the first sentence. It’s not even a plot twist; it’s just…the plot. Without the inheritance, there is no Noel; without Noel, there is no story.
From a structual point of view, moving from town to town in Australia was sort of an echo of the march through Malaysia. In both places they find a happy place to stop, but they have to work to make that place work by learning to live like natives. In Malaysia by planting rice and not being a burden on the villagers. In Australia also by finding an employment, and finding a way to integrate herself into the community.
I’m thinking a little more about the minimalist way that Jean’s harrowing WWII journey is relayed. To watch so many friends–and their children!–die on the journey would be horrendous. Death, disease, malnutrition, brutality. Perhaps the simple matter-of-fact sentences about such events were not so much Noel’s style as Jean’s in the telling – as a way to protect herself from re-living the trauma. Nobody had a name (or therapy) for PTSD back in the day.
Another heartache for Jean had to be giving four-year-old Robin back to his father after the war.
“They let me travel home with Bill and Robin, to look after Robin. He looked on me as his mother, of course.”
She smiled a little. “Bill wanted to make it permanent,” she said. “I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t have been the sort of wife he wanted” (p. 79).
Wow, only five years…you would expect a more one-dimensional depiction. Yet even Joe’s would-be executioner had complex reasons for setting him free and letting him be taken to the hospital.
Rape is one trauma from which this group of women was mostly spared. And maybe that is an unrealistic element of the novel; I don’t know. It’s possible that such a topic that could not be comfortably broached in a 1950 novel. The subject is alluded to, however, with the disappearance of Ellen:
At Seremban they were accommodated in a schoolhouse on the outskirts of the town, which was full of soldiers. In the morning Ellen simply wasn’t there, and they never saw her again.
Jean and Mrs. Horsefall asked to see the officer and stated their case, that a member of their party had disappeared, probably abducted by the soldiers. The office promised to make inquiries, and nothing happened. Two days later they received orders to march down the road to Tampin, and were moved off under guard (p. 45).
I didn’t remember the story from the mini series, but I did remember liking it. I think Bryan Brown probably had a lot to do with that. I guess I’m an outlier here in not really liking the book. I know it was Noel’s voice in narration, so it made sense, but I just didn’t enjoy the spare writing style at all.
What I did like: The first part of the story; I didn’t know much about that part of the war, or the geography of that area. Jean’s ability to deal with hardship and difficulties, and adapt to a different culture, nicely set up her trumphs in the second half. And I loved the descriptions of the outback–more interesting to me than the characters. But once Joe told Noel about Willstown and Alice Springs, the title of the book was a pretty clear clue to the ending, so the rest of the plot didn’t engage me. We already know at that point what Joe and Jean are like, and that they’ll get together, make Willstown more like Alice, and everything will work out.
Also, that endless “Eight Able George, Eight Queen Charlie” section was particularly annoying on audio! Did we really need every radio call?
I can see how the radio call would be a different experience with an audio book. That section was a little silly, but I did find it interesting from a historical perspective. Communication was so primitive, even though it was “modern” times. Gone are the days when a heroine would need to travel 40 miles on horseback to deliver a message!
Thanks to all of you who chose this book for this month! I really enjoyed it. Yes, everything turned to gold in Jean’s hands in the end, but I was inspired by her pluck, especially in that era. Like @momofboiler1 I looked at how much of the book was left after she and Joe were together in Willstown and wondered if there was going to be another crisis, and was pleased there wasn’t.
I didn’t mind the sparse writing. The only thing that occasionally threw me was Noel’s omniscience. Clearly Jean wouldn’t have written all those details in her letters to him. I liked Shute’s use of him as a narrator, but sometimes felt the switch into him talking about his own feelings on some matter jarring.
I think this is one of the reasons the book was also an enjoyable re-read for me. Instead of being anxious about what might happen next, I could relax and think more about the characters, setting, history, etc.
For an ultimately “feel good” novel, Jean’s life is full of tremendous loss. For her, it probably didn’t seem like she was triumphing over everything. Just surviving.
Gotta agree … I am pushing myself to finish this one. I passed the part where Jean begins exploring the possibility of making shoes. She has now connected with - omg, I can’t remember his name - umm, Joe. Maybe I’m not a romantic, but intercontinental plus intra-continental travel with thoughts of marriage to a man you don’t know sounds either desperate or creepy. Maybe both. Surely it gets better but I’m over halfway through with it. My expectations must have been too high to feel this disappointed. Oh my word!
For those interested in the setting and time period of the first part of the book, there’s a debut novel recently out by a Malaysian author, Vanessa Chan. The Storm We Made is about a British family living in Malay during the Japanese occupation. I haven’t seen it yet (long wait lists!) but it’s gotten glowing reviews, including in today’s New York Times Book Review.
Well, you may not remember Joe’s name, but at least you’re using his lingo!
If you don’t like the book by the point you’re at, I don’t think it will improve on you. I’m sure that’s disappointing! I guess the only bright side is that, for better or for worse, you have a semi-classic that you can check off your to-read list.
Oh, I don’t agree! I think their shared trauma meant that they were at the forefront of each other’s minds for years. The inheritance gave Jean the opportunity to put to bed (emotionally and, as it turned out, literally) an idea that had been in her head for a while.
As far as being desperate and/or creepy, my late mother had many stories of marriage proposals during World War II from soldiers on leave whom she had met only once or twice. Her friends had similar experiences. Some of those proposals were accepted, some not. But my mom never found it creepy. Rather, it was a time when life seemed especially precarious; there was no opportunity to date in a traditional way; and many of the women (and men) had “no prospects,” to use an Austen term. It was practical match-making, and being one’s own matchmaker.
I think Jean and Joe traveling to each other had that element of practicality. Jean was working as a typist, socializing with a 75 year old man, and feeling much, much older than her peers. And who was Joe going to meet in the outback? There were no women, as we came to learn in part two.
Jean moves forward with marriage on her mind, but not necessarily love at the start. For Joe, it’s similar – he can’t get her out of his head, but at the same time, he acknowledges how little he knows of her:
For six years he had carried the image of this girl in his heart, but, in sober fact, he didn’t in the least know what she looked like (p. 149).
All the travel to reconnect didn’t feel that unrealistic to me. They had both suffered trauma in the war, some of it together, and who else could really understand the horror of that? More importantly, they saw how they each handled the challenges they were dealt: with ingenuity, kindness, and tenacity. Those are important things to know about someone you might share a life with. And Jean was fascinated by Joe’s descriptions of the outback and how much he loved it. She didn’t really feel at home in London.
Jean could just as plausibly have arrived in Australia and run right back home. But that would have ended the book, so it was obvious she wouldn’t–which is why I got bored at that point. No tension, just plot points to the inevitable love and success.
It was interesting that Jean’s short time with Joe made her think marriage was possible. Yet there was no appeal to the ever so practical option to marry the English father of the child she had been fostering the past few years.
That’s true, it would have offered her security. She already knew Robin’s father was a good man. Maybe at that moment of her release, it felt too much like stepping out of one form of captivity into another.
(No offense intended toward the institution of marriage )
I guess I’m an outlier here in not really liking the book. I know it was Noel’s voice in narration, so it made sense, but I just didn’t enjoy the spare writing style at all.
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