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tahnoogey's review against another edition
5.0
About poverty, love, and Irish migrants in 1950s Sydney - an immersive read!!
teachingkids1982's review against another edition
2.0
It was not what I thought it would be I love classics but this one not so much
maplessence's review against another edition
5.0
This is Surry Hills, Sydney now. Epitome of gentility.
But it was a working class slum in the 1940s.
and it was home to the working class Darcys, who live in desperate circumstances. The squalor, lack of privacy & bed bugs - this is as far removed from the romantic poverty of I Captured the Castle [bc:I Capture the Castle|860533|I Capture the Castle|Dodie Smith|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1178966399s/860533.jpg|950769]as it possible to be. The family can barely afford to feed & clothe themselves (certainly not made an easier by father Hughie's bluster & heavy drinking. I can promise you there is one scene that will have most people grinding their teeth in rage at Hughie's fecklessness) but this family love each other & when it is important they pull together. These were real people that I came to care about & love.
The book is episodic in style. Another GR reviewer has the book was originally serialised in an Australian newspaper & while this shows, I don't think it detracts from their stories at all.
& Park won an award from the newspaper. This is from the start of my copy. I have a first edition - if only it wasn't in such poor condition!
Ruth Park is fading into obscurity in her country of birth (New Zealand.) I just hope she is better known in Australia where she lived most of her life. This, her first novel, is also supposed to be her best, but I still want to read more of her work.
Best New Zealand book I have read this year.
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By Orestes654 (talk) 08:34, 23 November 2010 (UTC) - Own work, CC BY 3.0, Link
But it was a working class slum in the 1940s.
and it was home to the working class Darcys, who live in desperate circumstances. The squalor, lack of privacy & bed bugs - this is as far removed from the romantic poverty of I Captured the Castle [bc:I Capture the Castle|860533|I Capture the Castle|Dodie Smith|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1178966399s/860533.jpg|950769]as it possible to be. The family can barely afford to feed & clothe themselves (certainly not made an easier by father Hughie's bluster & heavy drinking. I can promise you there is one scene that will have most people grinding their teeth in rage at Hughie's fecklessness) but this family love each other & when it is important they pull together. These were real people that I came to care about & love.
The book is episodic in style. Another GR reviewer has the book was originally serialised in an Australian newspaper & while this shows, I don't think it detracts from their stories at all.
& Park won an award from the newspaper. This is from the start of my copy. I have a first edition - if only it wasn't in such poor condition!
Ruth Park is fading into obscurity in her country of birth (New Zealand.) I just hope she is better known in Australia where she lived most of her life. This, her first novel, is also supposed to be her best, but I still want to read more of her work.
Best New Zealand book I have read this year.
fourtriplezed's review against another edition
4.0
Very good. A story of the working poor in pre-war Surry Hills in Sydney. Nowadays Surry Hill is probably as expensive as any place on planet earth so the description of this long lost working poor suburb is a look into a past that no longer exists.
The story itself covers the life of the Catholic Darcy family, the sons and daughters of Irish migrants, and makes a humane read of these people and their struggles through life be it tragic loss or love. Their trials and tribulations are well told in the hands of Ruth Park who has a beautiful turn of phrase and also an understanding of the life and thoughts of these working poor.
Many passages stood out and one of a young girl going to the beach for the first time showed an author of rare insight to youthful joy.
“At half past seven that night Dolour, almost purple with sunburn, and with sand in almost everything except her mouth, came bursting into the room. Behind her was a brilliant memory of a day at the beach, of bus rides, of yelling ‘Waltzing Matilda’ and ‘Little Nellie Kelly” and ‘Hail Queen of Heaven’; of swooping white roads and sudden revelations of cobalt seas iced with foam; of Harry Drummy being sick all over the three Sicilianos, and Father Cooley being forced to take Bertie Stevens aside and explain to him about the gigantic hole in the seat of his trunks; of Sister Theophilus sitting calmly hour by hour making high turreted sandcastles which were wiped into spinning dust and pygmy willy-willies by the afternoon wind. There were so many things to talk about. Dolour had experienced them all in one day, but it took her weeks to tell about them all.”
The copy of this book that I have is an old Queensland school library copy with a few names stamped in the front cover from back in the early 80’s. I got curious and asked around. I was told that this was on the high school reading list of year 11 students for many years. I have no issue with that at all as the book has subjects that young people should read about and understand, abortion, alcoholism, sectarianism and racial prejudice for example. With that I am intrigued as it making the reading lists of Queensland state schools even as late as 1984. I vividly recall Rona Joyner and her anti humanist campaign in schools for subjects such as sex education and reading lists. This book, I would have thought would have been in that spotlight but seemingly passed the censors by. I recall books such as To Kill a Mockingbird, The Catcher in the Rye, Lady Chatterley's Lover and Fahrenheit 451 were attacked. Link here for anyone interested.
http://blogs.slq.qld.gov.au/jol/2016/09/26/rona-joyner-and-the-society-to-outlaw-pornography/
One other character is Delie Stock. I am wondering if Ruth Park modelled her on the infamous Tilly Devine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilly_Devine
A book for anyone interested in Australian literature from the past.
The story itself covers the life of the Catholic Darcy family, the sons and daughters of Irish migrants, and makes a humane read of these people and their struggles through life be it tragic loss or love. Their trials and tribulations are well told in the hands of Ruth Park who has a beautiful turn of phrase and also an understanding of the life and thoughts of these working poor.
Many passages stood out and one of a young girl going to the beach for the first time showed an author of rare insight to youthful joy.
“At half past seven that night Dolour, almost purple with sunburn, and with sand in almost everything except her mouth, came bursting into the room. Behind her was a brilliant memory of a day at the beach, of bus rides, of yelling ‘Waltzing Matilda’ and ‘Little Nellie Kelly” and ‘Hail Queen of Heaven’; of swooping white roads and sudden revelations of cobalt seas iced with foam; of Harry Drummy being sick all over the three Sicilianos, and Father Cooley being forced to take Bertie Stevens aside and explain to him about the gigantic hole in the seat of his trunks; of Sister Theophilus sitting calmly hour by hour making high turreted sandcastles which were wiped into spinning dust and pygmy willy-willies by the afternoon wind. There were so many things to talk about. Dolour had experienced them all in one day, but it took her weeks to tell about them all.”
The copy of this book that I have is an old Queensland school library copy with a few names stamped in the front cover from back in the early 80’s. I got curious and asked around. I was told that this was on the high school reading list of year 11 students for many years. I have no issue with that at all as the book has subjects that young people should read about and understand, abortion, alcoholism, sectarianism and racial prejudice for example. With that I am intrigued as it making the reading lists of Queensland state schools even as late as 1984. I vividly recall Rona Joyner and her anti humanist campaign in schools for subjects such as sex education and reading lists. This book, I would have thought would have been in that spotlight but seemingly passed the censors by. I recall books such as To Kill a Mockingbird, The Catcher in the Rye, Lady Chatterley's Lover and Fahrenheit 451 were attacked. Link here for anyone interested.
http://blogs.slq.qld.gov.au/jol/2016/09/26/rona-joyner-and-the-society-to-outlaw-pornography/
One other character is Delie Stock. I am wondering if Ruth Park modelled her on the infamous Tilly Devine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilly_Devine
A book for anyone interested in Australian literature from the past.
polyhy_14's review against another edition
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
rodhunt's review against another edition
4.0
Loved it - after a visit to Surry Hills. Worth reading - never been out of print apparently
stanro's review
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
The Harp in the South by Ruth Park is an Australian post-WW2 classic set in the inner Sydney suburb of Surry Hills. Whilst its location in place is evident, its location in time is not. It is apparently unaffected by world events, which thus do not provide a framework or series of reference points of this sort, giving it a form of timelessness.
Now gentrified, Surry Hills then comprised of slums - closely packed housing with families and tenants crowded in amongst cockroaches and other vermin.
The Darcy family live at 12 1/2 Plymouth Street, together with two others as boarders and the story is centred around these Australian-born Irish folk.
The Darcy family live at 12 1/2 Plymouth Street, together with two others as boarders and the story is centred around these Australian-born Irish folk.
There is something of an antipodean Dickens about this tale and its telling, though Park’s book is not as magisterial in the writing as that of her great predecessor. But like him, she has an evident love for her flawed characters and an ability to turn from pathos to humour. There is little subtlety in Park’s characterisations.
However, some passages glowed and illuminated. As someone who never knew my grandparents, I was moved to find teen-aged Rowena thinking, as she gazed upon her bed-ridden grandmother in what were her dying days, “It was hard to believe that from the little worn out body had come eleven children. It was as though Grandma were a tiny gate in the great wall of life and through her, had flowed being itself.”
And Park humorously uses a number of now curious and archaic terms, like “pesthouse,” and “My living heart and soul” and “you old octopus,” and “flushing as red as a turkey cock.”
It is a simple and in many ways delightful book, well told, though creaking with age and its expression of racist attitudes from several of the characters towards Chinese, Jewish or Aboriginal people.
Not really my type of book.
booksbecreads's review against another edition
3.0
I had extremely high expectations. This was meant to be THE book to read in Australian fiction.
Don't get me wrong, it was good, it just wasn't fantastic.
Don't get me wrong, it was good, it just wasn't fantastic.