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planetselin's review
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.5
corradrienne's review
4.0
REALLY loved the searing critique of shoddy over-development that still reigns unchecked in Australia. The section on Old Parliament House was a cracker. Liked its exploration of Parramatta, migrant experience, intergenerational misunderstandings, work, the perversity of the White Australia policy. I liked its ambition in the linking of Tampa with Antonio's experience. Here are a few things that, from a craft perspective, distracted me: I did not love the errors in tense. They cropped up so often in the middle third of the book that it made me think this had originally been written in present tense, then gone through and changed to past tense but by someone who missed a few sentences here and there. Another thing that distracted me was the repetition of the phrase "on account of"; I could have handled and liked its repetition if it had stayed either with the narrator or as a turn of phrase used by one character, but it is used by multiple characters in their moments of focalisation and in the narration, and is not a phrase I ever remember being particularly common in Australian vernacular (in fact, it seems like a very American turn of phrase to me), so it just seemed like a sort of odd quirk of the author.
dreesreads's review against another edition
3.0
I picked this book up from the library's New Fiction shelf, I could not resist a Europa Edition.
This novel takes place in Australia--and Castagna is Australian--but it could just as easily be set in the US. Antonio Martone, who immigrated to Australia in 1961 as a young man, after the deaths of his parents. He knew his older brother, who did not want to farm, would inherit the olive and bergamot orchard. His father had told him this. So he left for Australia. And now his best friend has died in a construction site accident, and he himself was permanently injured and forced to retire. With nothing to do all day, and unable to ten his own large garden, he watches TV and gets angry. He blames the immigrants for everything--the accident (he also carries a lot of guilt), the ugly apartment building going up next door to the house he built, crowds, noise, everything. And he gets wrapped up with a local skinhead/anti-immigrant group (run by the son of a Syrian immigrant). He thinks of his parents and brother he has never communicated with, and the orchard he loved but left behind.
Meanwhile, his wife Rose, who had a difficult and sad upbringing by a single mom, does not know why he is so angry or why he is anti-immigrant, being one himself. 30-ish daughter Clare switched jobs over a year earlier but never told her family for fear of disappointing them. 23-year-old Francis works with dad on the constructions site until his dad's injury. He is lost and doesn't know what to do with his life.
I liked this book and had to look up a bunch of Australian words, looked at maps, and so on. It is very interesting and the parallels to what is going on in the US are disturbing. But I also wanted more--what happens to these characters? Do they try to talking to each other? Why does no one try talking about Antonio's issues with his doctor?
This novel takes place in Australia--and Castagna is Australian--but it could just as easily be set in the US. Antonio Martone, who immigrated to Australia in 1961 as a young man, after the deaths of his parents. He knew his older brother, who did not want to farm, would inherit the olive and bergamot orchard. His father had told him this. So he left for Australia. And now his best friend has died in a construction site accident, and he himself was permanently injured and forced to retire. With nothing to do all day, and unable to ten his own large garden, he watches TV and gets angry. He blames the immigrants for everything--the accident (he also carries a lot of guilt), the ugly apartment building going up next door to the house he built, crowds, noise, everything. And he gets wrapped up with a local skinhead/anti-immigrant group (run by the son of a Syrian immigrant). He thinks of his parents and brother he has never communicated with, and the orchard he loved but left behind.
Meanwhile, his wife Rose, who had a difficult and sad upbringing by a single mom, does not know why he is so angry or why he is anti-immigrant, being one himself. 30-ish daughter Clare switched jobs over a year earlier but never told her family for fear of disappointing them. 23-year-old Francis works with dad on the constructions site until his dad's injury. He is lost and doesn't know what to do with his life.
I liked this book and had to look up a bunch of Australian words, looked at maps, and so on. It is very interesting and the parallels to what is going on in the US are disturbing. But I also wanted more--what happens to these characters? Do they try to talking to each other? Why does no one try talking about Antonio's issues with his doctor?
archytas's review against another edition
3.0
On the surface, there is a lot going on in this novel: themes of transition, migration, belonging, corruption, ageing, urban evolution/gentrification and national identity. Unfortunately, little of this really landed for me, instead providing a whirling kaleidoscopic backdrop to that most Australian of phemonena, a literary suburban study lit with claustrophobic decay.
If this is your thing, the book is going to be worth it. Castegna is an assured writer, and her switching narrative between the characters forms a kind of spiral, touching on many elements but centering always back on the family that is at the heart of all their dysfunction. She keeps her characters interesting without softening them, and she captures the drift of post-adolescence particularly well. I found the kaleidoscope topics more intriguing than the family drama, leaving me pretty 'meh' about the book as a whole.
Antonio's decaying mental state is evoked more than described: as readers we have about as much idea of the motives he has as he does for much of the book. Castegna draws his need for some clarity and simplicity into the crude, plain message from Howard and Rudd at the time, but it all so mixed with dissociation and trauma, I found it hard to connect to broader significance. It's a book more interested in emotional interior than analysis, which is no doubt for most readers a good thing.
I don't relate well to novels which use big political events as a backdrop to a deeply personal story, as opposed to books which use the personal as a gateway to the big political. And this felt like the former to me. Probably exacerbated by the fact that race - and racism - is not a prominent part of the narrative. This feels accurate in looking at the mental landscape of Castagna's protogonists, but missing in the broader context of the dramatic events occurring around them.
My favourite part of the book was the relationship between Antonio's daughter and a young Vietnamese man, which explored our tendencies to center narratives on ourselves, to not listen, and the ways in which the Boats story does not belong to those of us who know so little. For this alone, the read was worth it.
A caveat to this review: Being close to the subject matter can work for you or against you as a reader. During the months over which the novel is set, I was living in Parramatta and working in Darlinghust/Newtown - the two areas in which the novel is set. I was also involved with the refugee community. In this case, it worked against my reading experience. The detail of Castagna's research meant sections were extremely evocative, but I was constantly distracted by small details that didn't fit, and the exaggerations natural to novelisation became a tension between memory and story that never allowed me to relax. The suburban world of the protagonists never really felt like Parra to me, but more like Granville or Auburn, where waves of migration had created pockets of distict social and cultural networks. My Parra experience was of dense flats and the tolerant multiculturalism of five nationalities in one building. Perhaps I was just too close to it all.
If this is your thing, the book is going to be worth it. Castegna is an assured writer, and her switching narrative between the characters forms a kind of spiral, touching on many elements but centering always back on the family that is at the heart of all their dysfunction. She keeps her characters interesting without softening them, and she captures the drift of post-adolescence particularly well. I found the kaleidoscope topics more intriguing than the family drama, leaving me pretty 'meh' about the book as a whole.
Antonio's decaying mental state is evoked more than described: as readers we have about as much idea of the motives he has as he does for much of the book. Castegna draws his need for some clarity and simplicity into the crude, plain message from Howard and Rudd at the time, but it all so mixed with dissociation and trauma, I found it hard to connect to broader significance. It's a book more interested in emotional interior than analysis, which is no doubt for most readers a good thing.
I don't relate well to novels which use big political events as a backdrop to a deeply personal story, as opposed to books which use the personal as a gateway to the big political. And this felt like the former to me. Probably exacerbated by the fact that race - and racism - is not a prominent part of the narrative. This feels accurate in looking at the mental landscape of Castagna's protogonists, but missing in the broader context of the dramatic events occurring around them.
My favourite part of the book was the relationship between Antonio's daughter and a young Vietnamese man, which explored our tendencies to center narratives on ourselves, to not listen, and the ways in which the Boats story does not belong to those of us who know so little. For this alone, the read was worth it.
A caveat to this review: Being close to the subject matter can work for you or against you as a reader. During the months over which the novel is set, I was living in Parramatta and working in Darlinghust/Newtown - the two areas in which the novel is set. I was also involved with the refugee community. In this case, it worked against my reading experience. The detail of Castagna's research meant sections were extremely evocative, but I was constantly distracted by small details that didn't fit, and the exaggerations natural to novelisation became a tension between memory and story that never allowed me to relax. The suburban world of the protagonists never really felt like Parra to me, but more like Granville or Auburn, where waves of migration had created pockets of distict social and cultural networks. My Parra experience was of dense flats and the tolerant multiculturalism of five nationalities in one building. Perhaps I was just too close to it all.
angiex's review
4.0
Thoroughly entertaining. A uniquely Australian novel that weaves the mundane with the politics of the time (2001). A slow burn character driven plot, this was cleverly written and engaging. Felicity Castagna does a wonderful job of highlighting the irony and cognitive dissonance inherent in a nation of immigrants (and their descendants) that are hostile to refugees and asylum seekers. I loved the nod at the end of the book to the role of the media in shaping public opinion. A great read.
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