'The Secret River' by Kate Grenville

My Afterthoughts

A book that opens up the world I once stayed in - NSW, Australia. I enjoyed the book so much that I had to complete it in less than a week (record-breaking for me)! ;)

Taking the stand of a settler, William Thornhill, the story unveils the thoughts n dilemma a Brit convict was caught in - between life and death, between conscience and greed(survival?), between lordship and civilisation, between family and self, between order and dominance, between right and wrong. Do we justify our gains at the expense of others and/or out of our fear?

The first few pages remind me of Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness'. I certainly enjoy that familiar tone and style of a nice, classical novel.

I like the novel as it speaks from various angles through the eyes of the protagonist, Thornhill, an anti-hero.

My rating: ****
Award Mention: The Man Booker Prize for Fiction Shortlist 2006, Commonwealth Writer's Prize 2006.

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Unforgettable Quotes
Kate Grenville, The Secret River, Canongate Books, Edinburgh, 2006.

'How could he say, I am sorry that what I want more than anything is your prison?' p.156

'See, them yams grow where you putting in the corn, he said. You dig them up, means they go hungry.' p.174

'He had thought then that it was all part of the price a boy paid for getting by in the world. It seemed that a man had to go on paying.' p.180

'How had his life funnelled down to this corner, in which he had so little choice? His life had funnelled down once before, in Newgate, into the dead-end of the condemned cell. But the thing that lay ahead of him there had been out of his hands. There was a kind of innocence in waiting for Mr Executioner.

The difference with this was that he was choosing it, of his own free will.

The noose would have ended his life, but what he was about to do would end it too. Whichever choice he made, his life would not go on as it had before...' p.314

'But there was an emptiness as he watched Jack's hand caressing the dirt. This was something he did not have: a place that was part of his flesh and spirit. There was no part of the world he would keep coming back to, the way Jack did, just to feel it under him.' p.344

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Resources

Award mention:

Commonwealth Writer's Prize 2006
http://www.commonwealthfoundation.com/culturediversity/writersprize/

The Man Booker Prize for Fiction Shortlist 2006
http://www.themanbookerprize.com/pressoffice/release.php?r=27#titletop

Available in NLB libraries, SP library, and major bookstores