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roie's review against another edition
5.0
My mother named me Rowena after Rowena Darcy in this book, she finally gifted me this book for my 21st birthday and I demolished it. The characters in this are so unequivocally Australian it almost feels like I'm reading a story about my family even though this is set nearly a century ago now.
I think the thing I loved about this is even though it is so of its time and a lot has changed since Ruth Park wrote this, so many of themes are still current issues that resonate so easily with many Australian people. The whole middle section with Roie and her terrible experiences with men and sexuality are so relevant to current social discourse and it really hit hard with me. Then towards the end, after you've been dragged through so many terrible experiences there are some really lovely chapters that are just such a relief to finally reach.
Because this was written just after World War Two, there is quite a lot of uncomfortable language and conversations around race that I found quite hard to read, but although the language is quite old there are really great moments of progressiveness for the time specifically with Roie and Charlie.
Other than that, this is incredible and if it isn't a text in the Australian English Curriculum it definitely should be.
I think the thing I loved about this is even though it is so of its time and a lot has changed since Ruth Park wrote this, so many of themes are still current issues that resonate so easily with many Australian people. The whole middle section with Roie and her terrible experiences with men and sexuality are so relevant to current social discourse and it really hit hard with me. Then towards the end, after you've been dragged through so many terrible experiences there are some really lovely chapters that are just such a relief to finally reach.
Because this was written just after World War Two, there is quite a lot of uncomfortable language and conversations around race that I found quite hard to read, but although the language is quite old there are really great moments of progressiveness for the time specifically with Roie and Charlie.
Other than that, this is incredible and if it isn't a text in the Australian English Curriculum it definitely should be.
vickie's review against another edition
3.0
Comments in <20 words: Expected plotless 19th-century Sydney slum life; unexpectedly charmed, though felt story episodic and disjointed. Overall, share partner's "it's okay" comment.
coreyzerna's review against another edition
5.0
I'm still not entirely sure I haven't read this before - but it thoroughly deserves its place on the 10 Australian Books Before you Die list! A beautiful story - so hard to picture the Surry Hills of today as it was back then - the epitome of Australian poverty
kathryn08's review against another edition
2.0
I know this book is an Australian classic, but it was just OK, in my opinion. It reminded me of [a:Tim Winton|19929|Tim Winton|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1240750986p2/19929.jpg]'s [b:Cloudstreet|343881|Cloudstreet|Tim Winton|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1348191126s/343881.jpg|1154594], although I wasn't actually able to finish ploughing through that one and I was able to finish this. It improved toward the end, but still not enough to make me love it. I would give it 2.5 stars if I could, but I didn't think I could truly say I enjoyed it and give it 3 stars.
taphophile's review against another edition
4.0
Such a great book. It was lovely to spend a few hours with the Darcy's and their neighbourhood again. I was Dolour's age when I read it first, and now I'm about Mumma's. And the intervening years have left me with a greater appreciation of Ruth Park's work - her humour, humanity and historian's eye.
zoenosis's review against another edition
4.0
I laughed, I cried, and then I did it all again.
I wouldn't say this book has a "plot" as such, but rather a truly amazing cast of characters and Park's incisive commentary, so if you're into plot-driven novels then this may not be for you. I tried reading this once before, a few years back, and was put off by this at first, and that's why I can't give it a full five stars. Now, as then, I found the beginning a little bit plodding - but goodness, the way it all builds and builds towards the ending is absolutely masterful. I'll be thinking about these characters - Hugh, Mumma, Roie, Dolour, Grandma, Patrick, Miss Sheily - for a long time.
If you don't mind waiting a bit to get through the first few chapters, this book packs a massive punch. Seeing this family grow up and change together truly touched me, and I reached the end with actual tears in my eyes, after laughing out loud (weird for me) not two pages earlier. Even if I can't quite imagine Surry Hills as a slum, the book resonates really well with modern Australia, going through religion, family, sex, love, poverty, racism, family violence, multiculturalism, substance abuse, and ridiculous rent prices (ha!) which are all delicately woven in through this one little tale. It feels so small, and yet so big at the same time - just perfect in its aim and execution. I wish more people had read it!
I wouldn't say this book has a "plot" as such, but rather a truly amazing cast of characters and Park's incisive commentary, so if you're into plot-driven novels then this may not be for you. I tried reading this once before, a few years back, and was put off by this at first, and that's why I can't give it a full five stars. Now, as then, I found the beginning a little bit plodding - but goodness, the way it all builds and builds towards the ending is absolutely masterful. I'll be thinking about these characters - Hugh, Mumma, Roie, Dolour, Grandma, Patrick, Miss Sheily - for a long time.
If you don't mind waiting a bit to get through the first few chapters, this book packs a massive punch. Seeing this family grow up and change together truly touched me, and I reached the end with actual tears in my eyes, after laughing out loud (weird for me) not two pages earlier. Even if I can't quite imagine Surry Hills as a slum, the book resonates really well with modern Australia, going through religion, family, sex, love, poverty, racism, family violence, multiculturalism, substance abuse, and ridiculous rent prices (ha!) which are all delicately woven in through this one little tale. It feels so small, and yet so big at the same time - just perfect in its aim and execution. I wish more people had read it!
joelleps's review against another edition
2.0
I did not finish this book on my first attempt, but picked it up again a year or 2 later to read for a bookclub. On this second attempt, I unknowingly got a trilogy edition ebook from my library, so I actually read the prequel Missus (which was written nearly 40 years later) first, before realizing my silly mistake. However, I enjoyed Missus, & I developed an affection for the characters that carried me through the original THitS, though I preferred the prequel.
incrediblemelk's review against another edition
4.0
To be honest I read this years ago and so its details escape me, but I remember being struck by the vividness of its portrayal of inner-city poverty. In its portrayal of old-fashioned Australian working-class life and the role of women in particular, I file it along with Brides of Christ and [b:Come in Spinner|3190170|Come in Spinner|Dymphna Cusack|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1267846184s/3190170.jpg|3223146].
I read it as an example of a bygone form of community in which people of different races and circumstances (disabled, addicted, pregnant, aspirant, etc) were forced to coexist and be confronted by one another. Another example is the Depression-era young adult novels [b:Colour In the Creek|10448161|Colour In the Creek|Margaret Paice|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1297694742s/10448161.jpg|15352911] and [b:Shadow Of Wings|7390885|Shadow Of Wings|Margaret Paice|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1297575016s/7390885.jpg|9259547] by [a:Margaret Paice|1431429|Margaret Paice|http://www.goodreads.com/assets/nophoto/nophoto-F-50x66-2a9d702c2a0f483c9f7dd119cc28a9a7.jpg], which I read as a kid, and which taught me about a particularly Australian stoicism and laconic community-building in the face of poverty.
I live in an atomised world now where the communities we make are created by shared belief systems and tastes, and sheltered by the privilege of class and cultural capital. I've noticed people can be very uncomfortable when confronted with difference – of opinion, of belief, of circumstance – because we're able to retreat from it. The Harp in the South hardly sentimentalises its world – there's plentiful violence and trauma – but it seems to me to illustrate a kind of Australian community that may no longer exist.
The other thing is that I didn't realise that 'Roie' was short for 'Rowena' (which gives you a hint of how you're meant to pronounce the name). So in my head I pronounced it closer to 'Roy'. I don't know why I am confessing my ignorance here, but there you go.
I read it as an example of a bygone form of community in which people of different races and circumstances (disabled, addicted, pregnant, aspirant, etc) were forced to coexist and be confronted by one another. Another example is the Depression-era young adult novels [b:Colour In the Creek|10448161|Colour In the Creek|Margaret Paice|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1297694742s/10448161.jpg|15352911] and [b:Shadow Of Wings|7390885|Shadow Of Wings|Margaret Paice|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1297575016s/7390885.jpg|9259547] by [a:Margaret Paice|1431429|Margaret Paice|http://www.goodreads.com/assets/nophoto/nophoto-F-50x66-2a9d702c2a0f483c9f7dd119cc28a9a7.jpg], which I read as a kid, and which taught me about a particularly Australian stoicism and laconic community-building in the face of poverty.
I live in an atomised world now where the communities we make are created by shared belief systems and tastes, and sheltered by the privilege of class and cultural capital. I've noticed people can be very uncomfortable when confronted with difference – of opinion, of belief, of circumstance – because we're able to retreat from it. The Harp in the South hardly sentimentalises its world – there's plentiful violence and trauma – but it seems to me to illustrate a kind of Australian community that may no longer exist.
The other thing is that I didn't realise that 'Roie' was short for 'Rowena' (which gives you a hint of how you're meant to pronounce the name). So in my head I pronounced it closer to 'Roy'. I don't know why I am confessing my ignorance here, but there you go.
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