Gail Jones (1) (1955–)
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Om författaren
Gail Jones was born in 1955 in Harvey, Australia. She was educated at the University of Western Australia. She is Professor of Writing in the Writing and Society Research School at the University of Western Australia. She is the author of two short-story collections, and a critical monograph. Her visa mer novels include Black Mirror, Sixty Lights, Dreams of Speaking, Sorry, and A Guide to Berlin, which won the 2016 Colin Roderick Award and the HT Priestley Medal. (Bowker Author Biography) visa färre
Verk av Gail Jones
Associerade verk
Taggad
Allmänna fakta
- Födelsedag
- 1955-06-17
- Kön
- female
- Nationalitet
- Australia
- Födelseort
- Harvey, Western Australia, Australia
- Bostadsorter
- Western Australia, Australia
New South Wales, Australia - Utbildning
- University of Western Australia
- Yrken
- novelist
professor (Writing)
short-story writer - Organisationer
- University of Western Sydney (Writing and Society Research School)
University of Western Australia
Medlemmar
Recensioner
Sorry is a quiet novel about dramatic events. I love when an author can accomplish this juxtaposition. The events circle around the consequences of a disastrous marriage between Nicholas and Stella. The two meet in England and quickly marry, moving, at Nicholas's insistence, to Australia. Nicholas becomes abusive and Stella shuts down. Their daughter, Perdita, finds friendship with a deaf and mute boy, Billy, and a young girl, Mary, who is Aboriginal Australian. Nicholas's actions reach to these friends with dramatic and traumatic results.
The backdrop of this novel is the two world wars, the setting in outback Australia, and the theme of saying "sorry" and what that truly means and also who it impacts. I found this theme was dealt with in a powerful and sensitive way.
I really enjoyed this novel and would like to read more by Gail Jones. Thanks for the intro to this author, Club Read!… (mer)
The backdrop of this novel is the two world wars, the setting in outback Australia, and the theme of saying "sorry" and what that truly means and also who it impacts. I found this theme was dealt with in a powerful and sensitive way.
I really enjoyed this novel and would like to read more by Gail Jones. Thanks for the intro to this author, Club Read!… (mer)
1 
japaul22 | 17 andra recensioner | Nov 24, 2023 |
japaul22 | 17 andra recensioner | Nov 24, 2023 | 
It's a bright sunny Saturday in Australia, and crowds of people converge on the Circular Quay in Sydney, with its views of the landmark Opera House and bridge. Among them are four people who interpret what they see in very different ways due to their histories and circumstances. First is Ellie, a transplant from the countryside, who is meeting up with her former childhood lover for the first time in years. James is eager to meet Ellie, hoping that connecting with her can help him heal from a traumatic event which he cannot overcome on his own. Catherine has just moved to Australia from Ireland and is only starting to recover from the grief of losing her brother. Pei Xing suffered greatly during the Cultural Revolution in China and emigrated to Australia hoping to start a new life, but finding a fragment of her old.
Each character's backstory is complicated and messy, as are most people's, and Jones does an excellent job at threading the stories together. Commonalities pop up in unexpected places—Doctor Zhivago, the ferries, a missing child—yet each character is unique and fully formed. Small acts of kindness among strangers are impactful for all four characters, and the interconnected nature of social interaction is a major theme. Sydney, and the Circular Quay in particular, is like another character, influencing each of the four in different ways, and being interpreted by each of the four in different ways, sometimes differently in the same day. For instance, one person thinks the Opera House resembles a body bent in a graceful curve, another a hooded eye. What one person can see as beautiful and containing hope, another sees as foreboding.
I thought I knew where the book was going, led in part by the jacket flap description, but the ending was a surprise and darker than I anticipated. But the plot is beside the point. The real beauty of the book lies in the character descriptions and the setting and atmosphere. The author reminds us that we are all of us connected in a myriad of ways, if only we could see it.… (mer)
Each character's backstory is complicated and messy, as are most people's, and Jones does an excellent job at threading the stories together. Commonalities pop up in unexpected places—Doctor Zhivago, the ferries, a missing child—yet each character is unique and fully formed. Small acts of kindness among strangers are impactful for all four characters, and the interconnected nature of social interaction is a major theme. Sydney, and the Circular Quay in particular, is like another character, influencing each of the four in different ways, and being interpreted by each of the four in different ways, sometimes differently in the same day. For instance, one person thinks the Opera House resembles a body bent in a graceful curve, another a hooded eye. What one person can see as beautiful and containing hope, another sees as foreboding.
I thought I knew where the book was going, led in part by the jacket flap description, but the ending was a surprise and darker than I anticipated. But the plot is beside the point. The real beauty of the book lies in the character descriptions and the setting and atmosphere. The author reminds us that we are all of us connected in a myriad of ways, if only we could see it.… (mer)
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Booker Prize (1)
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Associerade författare
Statistik
- Verk
- 12
- Även av
- 1
- Medlemmar
- 1,060
- Popularitet
- #24,290
- Betyg
- 3.8
- Recensioner
- 66
- ISBN
- 77
- Språk
- 5
- Favoritmärkt
- 8
'Intergenerational trauma' is a term that gets bandied about a bit these days, but this novel brings us the story of a man profoundly damaged by his experience as a POW of the Japanese, and how this impacted on his son Noah and thus his grandchildren Martin and Evie. On his postwar return to Australia, Joshua Glass took his family with him to a remote leprosarium in Western Australia where he ministered to the sick in the days when Hansen's disease meant desolate isolation and disfigurement. A doctor missionary working off some undisclosed debt of secret thanksgiving, he believed that faith and antibiotic breakthrough would keep his family beyond all harm.
It didn't protect his son Noah from psychological harm. Noah was traumatised by what he saw and his father's disconnect from his family.
Noah's sole consolation was a book:
Which it does. Noah welcomed escape to a boarding school where he excelled in maths and physics, but took Arts at university and became an art historian. When as a student on a visit to the National Gallery in London, he sees Piero della Francesca's The Nativity and interprets it as having a rare distinction because of the ordinariness and simplicity of its elements, (p.70) it is a catalyst for him to become a scholar of Piero's work, and later, when viewing The Baptism of Christ to formulate his theory about the instability of time in the Tuscan artist's work. (The figure awkwardly undressing on the RHS might be Christ preparing for his baptism.)
Noah is especially fascinated by the Prussian blue of Mary's robe under the infant Jesus, which becomes in turn the catalyst for him to teach his daughter Evie all the gradations of the colour blue. Because categories of things could be apprehended, she recites these into lists as a sort of talisman against the confusion and emotional pain of believing that Martin is the favourite child. For Evie, these lists are a repertoire of consoling images:
(My father, who was a research scientist specialising in surface coatings i.e. paint, more prosaically taught me the names of the colours using house-paint sample cards! That was back in the days when they actually had the names of the colours e.g. cerise or cobalt, not silly names like 'Poor Knights' and 'Big Lagoon'.)
But Evie is wrong about her father's preference for Martin.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2024/03/11/the-death-of-noah-glass-2018-by-gail-jones/… (mer)