Lovesong
by Alex Miller
(chosen by T-Rex)
T-Rex chose this book as it ticked three boxes for her: it was a love story, it was set in Paris, and it got a good review in The Age.
About the author:
Alex Miller is one of Australia's best loved writers. He has won the Miles Franklin Literary Award twice, and has won numerous other literary awards. In 2008, he was awarded the Manning Clark Cultural Award for an outstanding contribution to the quality of Australian cultural life. His earlier works include The Ancestor Game, Journey to the Stone Country, Conditions of Faith, Prochownik's Dream and Landscape of Farewell. Lovesong, his most recent novel, was published in November 2009 to great critical acclaim.
(general biographical details from the publisher's website)
What the publisher says about the book:
Strangers did not, as a rule, find their way to Chez Dom, a small, rundown Tunisian cafe on Paris' distant fringes. Run by the widow Houria and her young niece, Sabiha, the cafe offers a home away from home for the North African immigrant workers working at the great abattoirs of Vaugiraud, who, like them, had grown used to the smell of blood in the air. But when one day a lost Australian tourist, John Patterner, seeks shelter in the cafe from a sudden Parisian rainstorm, the quiet simplicities of their lives are changed forever.
John is like no-one Sabiha has met before - his calm grey eyes promise her a future she was not yet even aware she wanted. Theirs becomes a contented but unlikely marriage - a marriage of two cultures lived in a third - and yet because they are essentially foreigners to each other, their love story sets in train an irrevocable course of tragic events.
Years later, living a small, quiet life in suburban Melbourne, what happened at Vaugiraud seems like a distant, troubling dream to Sabiha and John, who confides the story behind their seemingly ordinary lives to Ken, an ageing, melancholy writer. It is a story about home and family, human frailties and passions, raising questions of morals and purpose - questions have no simple answer.
Lovesong is a simple enough story in many ways - the story of a marriage, of people coming undone by desire, of ordinary lives and death, love and struggle - but when told with Miller's distinctive voice, which is all intelligence, clarity and compassion, it has a real gravitas, it resonates and is deeply moving. Into the wonderfully evoked contemporary settings of Paris and Melbourne, memories of Tunisian family life, culture and its music are tenderly woven.
What we discussed about the book:
- How are 'motherhood' and 'womanhood' represented in this book?
- What is Sabiha prepared to sacrifice in her drive to have a child?
- How is her paternal grandmother's life/discontent echoed in Sabiha?
- Was it realistic the way Bruno 'fell in love' with Sabiha? What are the different ways of loving?
- What made Bruno sob? (betrayal, lust, love...?)
- Was Bruno simple and uncomplicated?
- Were we as aware of Sabiha's seductive nature (the singing, the hair, the long gowns, the beaded curtain barrier) before the Bruno incident as we were after?
- In what ways was the Tunisian culture woven into the story?
- How was the Paris of this story portrayed?
- What was the motivation for the stabbing? Was there a religious/extremist undertone to the bad blood between the two?
- How did we feel about Ken 'stealing' the story?
- What was the nature of communication between John and Sabiha when neither was speaking in their first language?
- Was John saved from a difficult decision by Bruno's death? Was this a little too neat?
- How will Sabiha judge herself? How did we judge her?
- How did we judge John?
- IVF, fertility treatments, surrogacy, adoption...what is the point at which people accept that a baby is not going to be part of their future? Should there be a 'point'?
- Do more technological possibilities in fertility options push out that point of acceptance?
- Who owns a story?
- Once a story has been told to someone else, is it still your story?
- Why do people tell stories? (confession, absolution, analysis...)
- The issues of being dislocated from your hometown. Is it possible to ever feel belonging where you are, and no pull back to where you've come from? How does that work if you're both from different places?
- Lack of local language as a barrier to assimilation. How quickly would we pick up another language if forced to live elsewhere?
In other news:
- What can you do for a last minute birthday present?
- Who has read anything great over the summer holidays?
Ratings:
Range: 6 to 9
Average: 8.0
Next book: Dog Boy by Eva Hornung (chosen by Elster)
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