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Janet Frame is one of my favourite authors of all time. It seems she was a modern-day Virginia Woolf. Her way with words is absolutely magical. This was her only book to be set in the United States. The main topic of this book is death. Dr Talbot Edelman, our narrator, is a post-graduate medical student working in New York and researching death. We learn early on that he does this because death has always been repressed in his family; people have died or been dying and have suddenly disappeared and been pushed out of the imagination. Talbot discovers, as we do by reading this book, that death has become a taboo and dying has become the most lonely place of all. He experiments on his dog, Sally, his most faithful companion who he breaks and puts back together, because he loves her and because he couldn't bare to harm anyone else.
Talbot comes to meet Turnlung, an old man who seems to resemble his dead grandfather. Talbot comes to befriend and research Turnlung, an author and a man who has moved to New York, not to live but to die. The existence of Turnlung's existence is quite questionable from his entrance into the story. We wonder if he exists or if he only exists for Talbot.
Above all this book is a critique of the way that Western civilisation deals with death - we brush it under the carpet, we don't talk about it for fear of being viewed as morbid, we ignore it and we brush past it in day-to-day life, it is inevitable but it is completely silent. Talbot's experience with death in his family sets him up for a life of wondering and researching the taboo of death and in his own way his world becomes mythical as he obtains custody of a buffalo in the zoo.
This is an amazing book and I take something new from it every time I read it.
Last year, my friend Serra got me bound editions of eight of Janet Frame's books to read which I did in quick succession. I started to really appreciate the way she writes, I'd grown up knowing who she was, rather famous in New Zealand and saved at the last minute from getting a leucotomy, a practice rampant in mental health in NZ long after other countries had stopped using it. All of Janet Frame's books seem to be part-auto-biographical in a different way, they definitely all mirror someone she knows.
This book is about an author who goes to stay in a house in Berkeley where a couple has agreed to let her use their house while they are away in Italy. When they die in an accident and everything is left to her, four friends of the couple comes to stay and it is at this point in the novel that the real and imaginary start to collide. We are taken on journeys with each of the characters, all connected to NZ somehow but all with different backgrounds. Although the main character is quite silent, you begin to wonder how she knows everything about each of the characters.
As usual Frame in this book draws on her own experiences, as well as that of ex-pat New Zealanders and the experience of living in a country so cut off from the rest of the world (especially pre-email etc.). Frame teaches us in this book to look beyond first impressions and takes us on a journey through a vivid imagination. As with all her other books, I highly recommend this.
After reading several of Janet Frame's books last year, I saw this on the bookshelf at my parents' house and thought it looked pretty interesting. Plus Michael King is a brilliant non-fiction writer.
One of the things I liked most about this book is it did not focus solely on the period of hospitalisation in Frame's life, and did not sensationalise the fact that she had been in hospital either. It, like a real biography should, details her life from an early age, and shows what shaped her to become the amazing literary artist she was. For a New Zealander it also provided detailed insights of where in New Zealand she lived, and shows how the 20th century era of reconstruction of houses affected her trying to work.
It begins with a tale of her early life, full of disaster and sadness, and her as a young girl then a young woman having to cope with everything turning pear shaped around her. It also shows the difficulties, she as a full time author had financially, and the friends she had (in particular Frank Sargeson, another New Zealand author) who made it possible for her to write full-time before the New Zealand government would support her.
After Frame's long period of hospitalisation, and after staying with Sargeson, Frame undertook a tour of the world where many of her contacts both in the publishing world and in friendships were formed. It also details where she got ideas for a lot of her books, and her particular ruse of modeling characters on people she knew in real life, which at times affected her relationships with friends.
This book enlightened me that Frame stayed alone most of her life, she still had a fear of one day ending up back in the psychiatric hospitals where she had been treated so badly (and narrowly escaped a lobotomy), and was not always the most personable women in the world either. However, through the vivid descriptions of inspirations for her books, and the copies of letters and unpublished poems that King was able to acquire in his research, he showed a truly unique personality behind the books.
I don't have any criticisms to make of this book, apart from the occasional grammatical error (grr) which is probably more the fault of the editors than the author himself.
I highly suggest you read it, even if you have no particular interest in Frame's amazing works. It shows truly and accurately how a person can leave their past behind and become whatever they want to be.
Next up: One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
