Blogging Anniversary - 10 years

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A while ago I checked when I did my first blog post, in order to celebrate with an anniversary post. Well, that day came and went without any reaction from me. Better late than never, so here a reminder of my very first blog post from 24 October 2012.  The book was New Finnish Grammar  by Diego Marani. Marani is an Italian novelist, translator and newspaper columnist. While working as a translator for the European Union he invented a language ‘Europanto’ which is a mixture of languages and based on the common practice of word-borrowing usage of many EU languages. It was a suitable book to start with, being a book about letters, languages and memories. With a beautiful prose, the novel went directly to my heart.  "One night at Trieste in September 1943 a seriously wounded soldier is found on the quay. The doctor, of a newly arrived German hospital ship, Pietri Friari gives the unconscious soldier medical assistance. His new patient has no documents or anything that can ide...
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Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsey

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For Full House Reading Challenge hosted by Kathryn at Book Date, I had to read a book by an Australian/New Zealand author. Having just read a blog post from Brona's Books  about Top Ten Tuesday Aussie writers I found a reference to Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay. This is a typical story that attracts me. A mystery never solved. Although, in a perfect world, there wold be an answer in the end.


The backdrop story is a group of young, female pupils, that made an excursion on Valentine's day in 1900 to Hanging Rock. Four of them and a teacher ventured up the rock. One of them did not follow the others and came screaming back without remembering very much. The others three and the teacher went missing. A week later one of the girls is found. She neither remembers anything of  what had happened to her.

From this tale Joan Lindsay has written an account of what might have happened. Were they snatched by aliens? Did they fall into a time zone? Was it a case of female hysteria? Or did they just fall down into a crevice? Even after all these years nobody knows.

The novel is a fascinating read and difficult to put down. Lindsay manages to balance her story without taking part for anyone solution over the other. It is well written, the mystery is hanging all over the novel, including a nasty school mistress. I went on to watch the film by Peter Wier, just after having finished the book.

Looking into the story a little bit more it seems that Lindsay's novel is a work of fiction, based on actual events. Although she includes newspaper articles in the end of the novel, the events she describes are not all part of real events.  This was a little bit of a setback for me, since I though she had researched the matter very well. For all we know, she might have, but still choose to make it a novel of fiction. Whatever is the case, it is a great read.

Comments

  1. Brona23 September 2017 at 10:33

    The 'is it real of not' idea still plays out in Australian literary circles. But sadly, there was no real event that Lindsay based her story on, it was a work of imagination. Although like so many fictional stories probably based on various stories and mythologies heard throughout Lindsay's life.

    Lindsay herself claims to have dreamt the entire book over several nights.

    Thanks for the shout out and glad you enjoyed this very Australian ghost (?) story.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lisbeth 28 September 2017 at 16:41

      Oops! I thought it was based on a real event, some girls disappearing, but she made her own version of what happened. There you see. It is an excellent story nevertheless, and I really like it, as well as the film.

      Delete

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