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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
Set in the eccentric backwater of Karakarook, New South Wales, this is the story of Douglas Cheeseman, a shy and clumsy engineer who meets Harley Savage, a woman who is known for being rather large and abrupt. Harley Savage is a plain, rawboned woman, a part-time museum curator and quilting expert with three failed marriages and a heart condition. Douglas Cheeseman is a shy, gawky engineer with jug-handle ears, one marriage gone sour, and a crippling lack of physical courage. Seeming to be incompetent was something Douglas did to protect himself, just as having a "dangerous streak" served the same purpose for Harley. Douglas is there to pull down a quaint old bridge and Harley aims to foster heritage. They are clearly on a collision course - but when they meet they are unaware that something unexpected is going to happen. (Source: Trove)
Notes
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Dedication: For Tom and for Alice with love
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Epigraph: 'An arch is two weaknesses which together make a strength.' - Leonardo da Vinci
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Listed in The New York Times Book Review's list of Notable Books for 2002.
Contents
- Introduction, essay
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Also braille, sound recording.
Works about this Work
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The Australian Reifungsroman : Reading Women’s Ageing in Kate Grenville’s The Idea of Perfection and Dorothy Hewett’s Neap Tide
2023
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Journal of Commonwealth Literature , September vol. 58 no. 3 2023; (p. 677-691)'Women’s ageing processes raise important questions about the relationship between the body, the self, and society, but this topic has been widely ignored in Australian literature. The Australian Reifungsroman, through nuanced articulations of ageing women’s experiences of being doubly othered, shows itself to be a critical discourse that helps to break the cultural silence accorded to ageing women. This article aims to acknowledge the existence of the Reifungsroman in Australian literature while addressing questions around how this genre is employed in the Australian context, in order to actively engage with the topic of women’s ageing. Drawing on literary gerontology, this article examines Australian novelist Kate Grenville’s The Idea of Perfection (2000) and Dorothy Hewett’s Neap Tide (1999) from a feminist perspective, focusing on the literary representations of ageing women offered by these novels. In so doing, this article contends that the Australian Reifungsroman unsettles the dominant ideas about women’s ageing as negative and declining. Indeed, narratives such as these help to articulate ageing women’s agency by reconstructing new images of older womanhood.' (Publication abstract)
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y
Texts and Textiles : Affect, Synaesthesia and Metaphor in Fiction
Newcastle upon Tyne
:
Cambridge Scholars Press
,
2017
11791282
2017
multi chapter work
criticism
'This study shows how fiction that makes use of textiles as an essential element utilizes synaesthetic writing and synaesthetic metaphor to create an affective link to, and response in, the reader. These links and responses are examined using affect theory from Silvan Tomkins and Brian Massumi and work on synaesthesia by Richard Cytowic, Lawrence Marks, and V.S. Ramachandran, among others. Synaesthetic writing, including synaesthetic metaphors, has been explored in poetry since the 1920s and, more recently, in fiction, but these studies have been general in nature. By narrowing the field of investigation to those novels that specifically employ three types of hand-crafted textiles (quilt-making, knitting and embroidery), the book isolates how these textiles are used in fiction. The combination of synaesthesia, memory, metaphor and, particularly, synaesthetic metaphor in fiction with textiles in the text of the case studies selected, shows how these are used to create affect in readers, enhancing their engagement in the story.
'The work is framed within the context of the history of textile production and the use of textiles in fiction internationally, but concentrates on Australian authors who have used textiles in their writing. The decision to focus on Australian authors was taken in light of the quality and depth of the writing of textile fiction produced in Australia between 1980 and 2005 in the three categories of hand-crafted textiles – quilt-making, knitting and embroidery. The texts chosen for intensive study are: Kate Grenville’s The Idea of Perfection (1999, quilting); Marele Day’s Lambs of God (1997, knitting) and Anne Bartlett’s Knitting (2005, knitting); Jessica Anderson’s Tirra Lirra by the River (1978, embroidery) and Marion Halligan’s Spider Cup (1990, embroidery).' (Publication summary)
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Introduction
2014
essay
— Appears in: The Idea of Perfection 2014; -
Constructions of Nation and Gender in The Idea of Perfection
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Lighting Dark Places : Essays on Kate Grenville 2010; (p. 153-166) -
Bridges and Troubled Waters
2007
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australia : Who Cares? 2007; (p. 123-133)
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A Search for Perfection in a Quilt of Many Characters
1999
single work
review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times Sunday Times , 3 October 1999; (p. 18)
— Review of The Idea of Perfection 1999 single work novel -
A Search for Perfection in a Quilt of Many Characters
1999
single work
review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times Sunday Times , 3 October 1999; (p. 18)
— Review of The Idea of Perfection 1999 single work novel -
A Search for Perfection in a Quilt of Many Characters
1999
single work
review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times Sunday Times , 3 October 1999; (p. 18)
— Review of The Idea of Perfection 1999 single work novel -
A Search for Perfection in a Quilt of Many Characters
1999
single work
review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times Sunday Times , 3 October 1999; (p. 18)
— Review of The Idea of Perfection 1999 single work novel -
Country Strife
1999
single work
review
— Appears in: The Australian's Review of Books , August vol. 4 no. 7 1999; (p. 3,27)
— Review of The Idea of Perfection 1999 single work novel ; Drylands : A Book for the World's Last Reader 1999 single work novel -
The Wood from the Trees : Taxonomy and the Eucalypt as the New National Hero in Recent Australian Writing
2004
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 3 no. 2004; (p. 81-94) Explores the cultural circulation of the Eucalyptus as represented in a variety of recent Australian texts. -
Kate Grenville's Mythopoeic Imagination : A Study of Her Novels
2006
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Caring Cultures : Sharing Imaginations : Australia and India 2006; (p. 131-141) The article examines the portrayal of female characters and the female voice in the novels of Kate Grenville. -
Australian 'Everymans' : Post-Medieval Spiritual Adventurers
2006
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Medievalism and the Gothic in Australian Culture 2006; (p. 81-97) Margaret Rogerson demonstrates types of medievalism in Australian literature, through a discussion of the deployment of the 'everyman' figure. -
Gao bie ji jin nu quan zhu yi-Ping Kaite Gelunweier de xioa shuo Hei an zhi di yu Wan mei zhu yi
Reflection of Kate Grenville's Radical Feminism : An Interpretation of Dark Places and The Idea of Perfection;
告别激进女权主义——评凯特·格伦维尔的小说《黑暗之地》与《完美主义》
2006
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Foreign Literature Studies , August vol. 28 no. 120 2006; (p. 103-107)'凯特·格伦维尔是在激进女权运动影响下成长起来的女作家,其早期作品认同激进女权主义关于男权为女性一切苦难之源的思想,从家庭、社会和文化三个方面对于男权进行了抨击和批判.而80年代后期,格伦维尔的创作表现出在性别问题上告别激进、寻求反思与妥协的价值取向.她的小说<黑暗之地>通过变换叙述视角表达了对于男性的同情和理解,小说<完美主义>则对激进女权主义所暗含的完美主义思维方式进行了批判.'
Source: CAOD.
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Bridges and Troubled Waters
2007
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australia : Who Cares? 2007; (p. 123-133)
Awards
- Country towns,