In wartime Australia, two children form an extraordinary bond as they negotiate the dangers of life as strangers abandoned on the far side of the world.
Patrick White is a two time Miles Franklin award winner and has also won the Nobel prize for literature. His unfinished novel The Hanging Garden was recently published; it feels like an old novel in the sense that, while it’s nicely written; nothing ever happens in the book. This is very much a character driven book, focusing on the two and a wild garden. I think I’d be alright with reading a book like this if I didn’t have the feeling that the author hated every single one of his characters; he was mean and cruel to them all, not just the key characters. As a general rule I love dark and flawed characters but this just felt mean and even the attempts of trying to being erotic felt awkward. I spent the whole book waiting for something to happen and I was left disappointed. Also as this is an unfinished novel, I don’t know what the overall goal was with this book and I get the feeling that maybe Patrick White doesn’t either.
My review and thoughts on an unfinished novel can be found on my blog;
http://literary-exploration.com/2012/05/28/the-hanging-garden-and-unfinished-novels/
Reading updates
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Started reading
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27 April, 2012:
Finished reading
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27 April, 2012:
Reviewed