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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
This is a black comedy of manners about a marriage in its death-throes. Rennie does not belong in a heterosexual marriage, although he is not prepared to realise it, and when Louise accepts this truth, it frees her to find out where she might belong.
Dreamhouse is about being in a place where you don't belong - in a foreign country where you don't speak the language, in a relationship that is only pretending to work, in an idea of yourself that will not fit until you have the courage to find out who you are. (Source: Author's website)
Adaptations
-
form
y
Traps
( dir. Pauline Chan
)
Australia
:
Ayer Productions
,
1993
Z973753
1993
single work
film/TV
romance
In 1950, English couple Louise and Michael arrive in French-occupied Indochina to cover a story on a rubber plantation. They stay as guests of the enigmatic plantation overseer Daniel and his beautiful yet difficult daughter Viola at their elegant, decaying villa amid a tropical jungle. Hoping that some time spent working in an exotic location will help reignite the passion in their floundering marriage, Michael and Louise instead find themselves unwittingly involved in the personal, sexual, and political tensions of their hosts. Daniel is desperate to hold onto a way of life no longer possible in a country struggling for independence, bringing him into conflict not only with his daughter but also with his adopted country.
Notes
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Adapted as a sound recording by Hear-a-Book, 1987.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Animal Handlers : Australian Women Writers on Sexuality and the Female Body
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Outskirts : Feminisms along the Edge , May vol. 26 no. 2012; 'The year 2011 saw the igniting of mass protest around the issue of sexual double standards for women with numerous marches worldwide called 'SlutWalks'. Thousands of women across a range of countries including America, Europe, Britain and Australia took to the streets to defend the right of women to dress and behave freely without stigmatisation and violence. The 'SlutWalks' started in reaction to a local policeman in Toronto telling a class of college students to avoid dressing like 'sluts' if they did not wish to be victimised (SlutWalk Toronto site). The public protest in response to this incident demonstrates resistance to historically embedded discourses that demean women's sexuality and blame women for abuse and rape they suffer. Terms such as 'slut' perpetuate a virgin/whore dichotomy fundamental to the oppression of female sexual self-expression. These marches are a recent example that follows on from a tradition of mass protests for women's sexual equality and right to safety such as 'Reclaim the Night'. Drawing on writing and conversations with poets Dorothy Porter and Gig Ryan, novelists Drusilla Modjeska, Kate Grenville, Carmel Bird and Melissa Lucashenko and playwright, Leah Purcell, this article offers insights into individual creative women's responses to this theme of women's sexuality. I argue that the work and ideas of these women are examples of the unique and powerful dialogue that can happen through a focus on creativity and female stories in Australia.' (Author's introduction)
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The Silver Age of Fiction
2011
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Meanjin , Summer vol. 70 no. 4 2011; (p. 110-115)‘In human reckoning, Golden Ages are always already in the past. The Greek poet Hesiod, in Works and Days, posited Five Ages of Mankind: Golden, Silver, Bronze, Heroic and Iron (Ovid made do with four). Writing in the Romantic period, Thomas Love Peacock (author of such now almost forgotten novels as Nightmare Abbey, 1818) defined The Four Ages of Poetry (1820) in which their order was Iron, Gold, Silver and Bronze. To the Golden Age, in their archaic greatness, belonged Homer and Aeschylus. The Silver Age, following it, was less original, but nevertheless 'the age of civilised life'. The main issue of Peacock's thesis was the famous response that he elicited from his friend Shelley - Defence of Poetry (1821).’ (Publication abstract)
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Aboriginal Gothic
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Darkness Subverted : Aboriginal Gothic in Black Australian Literature and Film 2010; (p. 11-29) In this essay, Althans ‘treats the Gothic as being a mode which continues to endow genres with a certain set of menacing stock elements and unstable characteristics of which the interrogation of boundaries, binaries, and identity are particularly useful in an Aboriginal Australian context’. (p.11-12) -
Homeless and Foreign : The Heroines of Lilian's Story and Dreamhouse
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Lighting Dark Places : Essays on Kate Grenville 2010; (p. 119-134) 'Kate Livett's essay concerns the lens of 'the tragic'. This, she argues, enables a reading of Thornhill as a tragically flawed character and provides a fitting genre fro Grenville's empathetic imagination.' (Kossew, 'Introduction' xix) -
Great Expectations
2010
single work
column
— Appears in: Australian Author , December vol. 42 no. 3 2010; (p. 6-9)
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Kate Grenville's Enduring Witches
2002-2003
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , December-January no. 247 2002-2003; (p. 65)
— Review of Bearded Ladies : Stories 1984 selected work short story poetry ; Dreamhouse 1986 single work novel ; Joan Makes History 1988 single work novel -
[Review] Dreamhouse
1987
single work
review
— Appears in: Fremantle Arts Review , February vol. 2 no. 2 1987; (p. 12)
— Review of Dreamhouse 1986 single work novel -
[Review] Bearded Ladies [and] Dreamhouse
2003
single work
review
— Appears in: JAS Review of Books , May no. 15 2003;
— Review of Bearded Ladies : Stories 1984 selected work short story poetry ; Dreamhouse 1986 single work novel -
A Blighted Bloom
1987
single work
review
— Appears in: The CRNLE Reviews Journal , no. 2 1987-1988; (p. 23-25)
— Review of Dreamhouse 1986 single work novel -
Faint Praise
1987
single work
review
— Appears in: Overland , March no. 106 1987; (p. 76-78)
— Review of Sister Ships and Other Stories 1986 selected work short story ; Second Sight 1986 single work novel ; Dreamhouse 1986 single work novel -
Out of Context : Transplanted Characters in Pauline Chan's Traps
1995
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Rubicon , vol. 1 no. 2 1995; (p. 78-89) This article discusses 'transplanted characters'and examines the effect moving Grenville's characters in Dreamhouse from Europe to Asia has on possible readings of Traps. -
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. -
'A Shocking Bad Book to Be Sure, Sir' : The Gothic as Counter-Discursive Strategy in Margaret Atwood's and Kate Grenville's Fiction
2009
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Peripheral Fear : Transformations of the Gothic in Canadian and Australian Fiction 2009; (p. 203-231) -
Footnotes to an Australian Gothic Script
1993
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 7 no. 2 1993; (p. 127-134) -
Great Expectations
2010
single work
column
— Appears in: Australian Author , December vol. 42 no. 3 2010; (p. 6-9)
Awards
Last amended 5 Sep 2019 08:43:13
Subjects:
-
Tuscany,
cItaly,cWestern Europe, Europe,
-
cItaly,cWestern Europe, Europe,
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