“I trust a man who golfs less than a man who pays for sex.”

Vines upon a tree. Cairns, Far North Queensland. April 2021.

The Bass Rock by Evie Wyld

I had high hopes for this one at starting, but I was more than a little underwhelmed. Between time jumps and shifting narrative perspective, I found myself confused throughout.

While I understand and appreciate the central tenet of the novel is an exploration of the horrors that men visit upon women (and occasionally other men), the unremitting bleakness does wear the reader down. Flitting across three interlinked timeframes, I found the one farthest back - of witchcraft in early-modern Scotland - a bridge too far, disorienting and distracting to the central story arc.

Wyld's exploration of the dysfunctional male psyche that brings about misogyny and the terrible crimes committed upon women (and, again, upon other men) does not trouble me as it seems to have other male reviewers. Alas, I want to see a little more depth to the characterisation of these men, lest we fall into the trap that the "bad guys" are simply that, with very little to be learned beyond the obvious.

While many of the female characters in the book are drawn in rich, complex strokes, the men come across as one-dimensional and overly simplified. Their motivations lack the depth and subtlety that might help get further to the crux of the issues at hand. Without this, it feels more like a futile scream into the void.

Perhaps that is what the book is intended to be. If so, I guess that it did not quite land for me.

⭐ ⭐ 1/2

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...

Search This Blog