"She closed the door behind her, and then it was quite silent, quite dark."

A fallen tree. Pilchers Hill, Geilston Bay. March 2021.

In the Springtime of the Year by Susan Hill

There is some wonderful writing here, and Hill has done an excellent job in fashioning the numbness and insularity of a world that has been overtaken by grief. This is a small life story, almost timeless in its setting (it could be 1920, it could be 1970) in isolated Yorkshire.

After a brief year of a rich and fulfilling marriage to well-regarded forrester Ben, Ruth - the character within which our central narrative swirls - is suddenly widowed at 21. From here, she is plunged into a deep and dark depression. She finds herself unable to leave home and increasingly self-isolates.

Her only visitor is Ben's 14-year-brother, the wonderful Jo. Jo is a beautifully-realised character, one of those fictional people that you just want the best for. In his own way, Jo cares for Ruth through her darkest moments, all the while he himself stumbling through his own grief.
Hill does such a fantastic job in bringing to life the feeling of deep, deep depression that it is at points profoundly difficult going. Yet in the piece's vividness, a wonderful exploration of loss, compassion, grief, mourning and the buds of recovery emerge.

There's no melodrama, no sentimentality, just a massive kick in the guts and then a slow, slow, slow process of recovery. There is a power to this book not commonly found in literature, with the cramped and taciturn community in which it is set affording the time and space to let events play out organically.

Hugely recommended.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

Comments

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke...

In dreams begin responsibilities.

A life at sea, that's for me, only I just don't have the BREAD. That's right, Theme Thursday yet again and I post a photo of a yacht dicking about in Bass Strait just off Wynyard. The problem is, I am yet again stuck at work, slogging away, because I knead need the dough . My understanding is that it is the dough that makes the BREAD. And it is the BREAD that buys the yacht. On my salary though, I will be lucky to have enough dough or BREAD for a half dozen dinner rolls. Happy Theme Thursday people, sorry for the rush.

This will hurt me...

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