Book Chat Issue #94

A wandering traveller on the lookout for books

I’m currently on a little road trip in rural Victoria, so this edition is a bit shorter than usual, but I didn’t want to miss an issue.

We left the sunny Central Coast a week ago and travelled down the east coast of Australia to spend a few days in Melbourne.

A couple of highlights from my trip included a wonderful lunch at a restaurant on the 89th floor of a building in Melbourne’s CBD. The views were fantastic and the lunch wasn’t half bad.

Fantastic views from Restaurant 89

After leaving Melbourne, we travelled to Barwon Heads near Geelong to visit a horse (my husband has a small share in this lovely mare) and look at the scenery.

Molly and husband Tony - Thirteenth Beach near Barwon Heads

Then we we travelled to Ballarat, a famous gold-mining town. We had a free afternoon, so we decided to visit the Art Gallery. As luck would have it, there was a fantastic exhibition on the the history of the guitar.

The exhibition included a Renoir depicting a woman playing the guitar (apparently playing guitar used to be a womanly pursuit) as well as many beautiful instruments and photos.

---

Book collections

When we travel, we usually stay in bed and breakfast accommodation and I’m always interested in what reading materials are provided for visitors. Often this is a collection of popular novels, many of which I’ve already read, or maybe don’t want to read, but I like to keep an open mind.

At one location, the choices ranged from some fairly standard offerings to a real gem of a book. I’d read five of the books in the collection but my pick would definitely be the Carol Shields novel. If you haven’t read it, you really should. I can also recommend the Anne Cleeves book and Apple Tree Yard is a pretty good thriller. I’m not a big Tana French fan, but I can see the appeal. If you’re interested in Australian literature, you should also check out Cloud Street, an Australian classic.

Speaking of classics, at our final stop in Creswick (in rural NSW), I was intrigued to see a little pile of books on the mantlepiece including Norman Lindsay’s Saturdee and a copy of We of the Never Never, a very famous Australian classic (which I have not read).

Reading choices in our bed and breakfast in Creswick, Victoria

For those unfamiliar with Norman Lindsay, he was a very well-known writer and painter. He wrote eleven comic novels and illustrated 30 other books including The Magic Pudding (published in 1918), a children’s book featuring a range of characters including Bunyip Bluegum. As it turns out, Lindsay actually lived in the same street as where we were staying.

The childhood home of Norman Lindsay and Bunyip Bluegum

We of the Never Never is an autobiographical novel by Jeannie Gunn first published in 1908. It’s an account of the author's experiences in 1902 at Elsey Station near Mataranka, Northern Territory.

As a young newly-married woman, Jeannie (Mrs Aeneas Gunn) left the security and comfort of her Melbourne home to travel to the Northern Territory, where her husband had been appointed manager of a large cattle station.

On 2 January 1902 the couple sailed from Melbourne for Port Darwin. In Palmerston, Gunn was discouraged from accompanying her husband to the station on the basis that as a woman she would be "out of place" on a station such as the Elsey. However, she travelled south and her book describes the journey, settling in, and the difficulties of life in the bush. Jeannie Gunn lived on the cattle station for about a year before her husband, Aeneas, died of malarial dysentery on 16 March 1903. Jeannie returned to Melbourne shortly afterwards and never returned to the Northern Territory.

I can’t find a strong connection between Jeannie Gunn and Creswick, so I can only assume this volume was included to pique the interest of visitors interested in Australian literature.

We of the Never Never is definitely an Australian classic. By 1945, 320,000 copies had been sold and in 1931 the Melbourne Herald reported that Jeannie Gunn was ranked third among Australian novelists after Marcus Clarke (For the term of his natural life) and Rolf Boldrewood (Robbery Under Arms).

We of the Never Never was also made into a film in 1982 and starred Angela Punch McGregor and Arthur Dignam.

So that’s my very short travel update. I’ll return to the regular format in the next edition.

Hope you are all doing well!

Marg xxx