I finished "The Road from Coorain" while in the air, en route from spending Christmas in Pocatello, Idaho. As a brief synopsis, the book details the life of the authoress as she moves from a sheep ranch in the Australian bush to Sydney and on to Harvard.
It started out promising. Detailed descriptions of her parent's carving out a life in the wilds of Australia, building a house, raising, shearing and culling herds of sheep numbering in the tens of thousands, and trying to raise children that matched up to the ideal of colonial Britain.
When her father dies in an accident on the farm, her mother takes her from the bush to Sydney and enrolls her in a private school. She lets the reader into her private struggles to adjust to life with a mother eaten up by grief and frustration at the passive role society has assigned her, to the crowds and noise of the city, to peers who's worries revolved around fashion and boys.
The book started to lose me, however, in the last few chapters. As the authoress entered college and embarked on a path that would eventually take her from her beloved Australia. Here, it was almost like the historian in her took over - the text became removed, the language stilted. An 18-month-long passionate romance was glossed over in a few paragraphs. Her four year college career lasted a few pages. It reminded me of my journal when I am catching up months after the fact - all summary and none of the visceral emotion of the moment.
Despite the disappointment of the final few chapters, I loved the book. It opened a window into a time and place I will never experience. It made me want to get into a truck and drive on dusty roads. I finished wanting to spend an afternoon watching lambs frolicking in the bush. Thanks Emily - it was a great Christmas present!
1 comment:
Nice usage of the word "visceral". Also, I can see that my 17-year-old self was right not to read this book, as she clearly would have been bored by it. My 27-year-old self, however, is intrigued.
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