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3.65 AVERAGE
3.65 AVERAGE
Usually I like the books I have to read for university, but I did not like this one. It felt like a third of the book was taken up by useless description of the Australian bush, the gardens around Appleyard College and Lake View, which may be interesting for people who haven’t been to Australia but was boring for me who lives in semi-rural Australia. Other than that not much really happened and I was unsatisfied with the ending. I’m hoping the movie and tv series I have to watch for this assignment are more entertaining.
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Picnic at Hanging Rock is a good entry to the "Australian Gothic" canon. The mystery itself is unexciting for the latter-half of the book; where you're left with uninteresting characters following the aftermath of three school girls and their teacher lost on Hanging Rock.
The suspense builds throughout the picnic scenes as the girls scale the mountain and eventhough we know the outcome, it never snapped me out of the gravity of the climb.
Joan's strength is keeping the spirit of the missing alive throughout the novel and escalating the tension between characters confusion, fear and frustration. But her weakness is that the story does feel empty and incomplete.
The suspense builds throughout the picnic scenes as the girls scale the mountain and eventhough we know the outcome, it never snapped me out of the gravity of the climb.
Joan's strength is keeping the spirit of the missing alive throughout the novel and escalating the tension between characters confusion, fear and frustration. But her weakness is that the story does feel empty and incomplete.
Found this sooooo boring to listen to. After the initial hint of potentially supernatural goings on in the disappearance, we get nothing from the author to explain what happened or why. The death of Sarah is forgotten in the final news clipping and seems almost a pointless B-plot. All of the characters and relationships were surface level and there were too many half-started lines of enquiry not given enough time to delve into. It almost felt like I was reading a plot summary than an actual story. What a waste of 9 hours
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Mike and Albert were in love and you cannot convince me otherwise
This book absolutely floored me and it was all I could think about for weeks after reading it. I can’t believe I hadn’t read it sooner. A classic for those who love stories about strange girls with secrets, mysterious natural forces, and trauma trauma trauma. Victorian Twin Peaks down under.
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
You know the book you're reading isn't for you when you are genuinely counting down the pages until you reach the end...
Maybe me not enjoying this book was because I tried to read the bulk of it between midnight and 2am on a Saturday night and so I was too tired to fully keep track.
Maybe there were too many 'incompletes' by the end of the book when all I wanted was just to understand what happened to the three women who went missing at Hanging Rock.
The zoning out thing that seemed to happen to Miranda when she walked off seemed so random and the math teacher just disappearing with only a vague later reference to her being raped and murdered felt unnecessarily unfinished.
Maybe that was the point that Lindsay was trying to make - that no one truly knew what happened and so neither would the reader.
Or maybe I was supposed to read into the hints dropped about the Headmistress. That she not only killed Sarah but somehow the three women and the people who died in the fire.
Maybe the Headmistress threw herself off the rock to bring the deaths of the girls at Hanging Rock full-circle. But did those girls even die?
The whole book felt like a situation and not a story... It felt incomplete and lacked the context I needed to draw any kind of conclusion about the events.
I really wanted to like this book but now... I'll never forget it, in the worst possible way.
Maybe me not enjoying this book was because I tried to read the bulk of it between midnight and 2am on a Saturday night and so I was too tired to fully keep track.
Maybe there were too many 'incompletes' by the end of the book when all I wanted was just to understand what happened to the three women who went missing at Hanging Rock.
The zoning out thing that seemed to happen to Miranda when she walked off seemed so random and the math teacher just disappearing with only a vague later reference to her being raped and murdered felt unnecessarily unfinished.
Maybe that was the point that Lindsay was trying to make - that no one truly knew what happened and so neither would the reader.
Or maybe I was supposed to read into the hints dropped about the Headmistress. That she not only killed Sarah but somehow the three women and the people who died in the fire.
Maybe the Headmistress threw herself off the rock to bring the deaths of the girls at Hanging Rock full-circle. But did those girls even die?
The whole book felt like a situation and not a story... It felt incomplete and lacked the context I needed to draw any kind of conclusion about the events.
I really wanted to like this book but now... I'll never forget it, in the worst possible way.
2023 reread:
This is still a favourite of mine. That's it. I still love it.
*
Original 2010 review:
This book can be reviewed from two angles.
It can be reviewed as a mystery novel and the investigation that went into trying to find the girls. The second way is that it can be viewed as the events that occur after someone's (or multiple someones) disappearance. Rather, Picnic at Hanging Rock is a book about both sides, with, in my opinion, an emphasis on the latter. Granted the first third of the novel is focused on finding the girls and retracing their steps, and the last chapter (in this copy- let's ignore Chapter 18 for the time being) sums up the investigation, I felt the novel is about the shattered emotions that come after the death or disappearance of a loved one. It is stated time and time again about Miranda's wonderful personality, beloved nature and beautiful looks. She is the apple of everyone's eye. Little is said of Miss McCraw and even littler of Marion. Irma would have disappeared entirely if she hadn't been found.
The world at Appleyard College changes abruptly after the disappearance of the girls and governess. If they had all been found- dead or otherwise- maybe things wouldn't have changed so drastically. More deaths, strange behaviours and the like. And what of the fires and girls attacking Irma when she returns? That leads into a possible third way to review the book: that of a fantasy novel.
In this edition of Picnic, I find it difficult to review it as such. Yes, there are possibilities- ghostly swans, fires, mood changes. But without the mysterious Chapter 18, it doesn't seem likely. It can all be explained away- concussions, emotional stress and turmoil, PTSD, that sort of thing. Lindsay may have intended for all this to be read as a fantasy element. I know I felt shivers while reading that chapter wherein the girls climb Hanging Rock and get pulled into the chilling Australian geography. Mrs Appleyard is apparently approached by Sarah's ghost and jumps- or falls- off Hanging Rock to her death. And what of the stopped clocks? That's perhaps one of the more eerie, fantasy-related elements to the book.
Now, about Sara. I haven't seen the movie in about six years, so I can't talk about that interpretation of her death. But in the book, I choose to read it that she was killed. There are reasons to point to her suicide- her return to the orphanage for instance, and the note that Appleyard found- but why would Appleyard hide it? Of course students and staff were leaving, and more scandal would be provoked because of another death, but there was no reason to hide it, nor pretend that her caregiver had picked her up. And why would she avoid going to the police and instead head to Hanging Rock (unless she had a ghostly calling- another fantasy element). I don't see Appleyard as intentionally or maliciously becoming a killer- if it was meant to be read as Sara being killed- but on the suicide/murder coin toss, I'll place my bets on murder.
This can also be read as a reflection on the Australian landscape. The haunting rock formations, the skyline, the shifting shadows and designs. The rainbow of colours of sunrise and sunset, the fauna. It's beautiful- even if Lindsay's prose does drift into the purple variety.
But it's such a shivering, beautiful, haunting read.
This is still a favourite of mine. That's it. I still love it.
*
Original 2010 review:
This book can be reviewed from two angles.
It can be reviewed as a mystery novel and the investigation that went into trying to find the girls. The second way is that it can be viewed as the events that occur after someone's (or multiple someones) disappearance. Rather, Picnic at Hanging Rock is a book about both sides, with, in my opinion, an emphasis on the latter. Granted the first third of the novel is focused on finding the girls and retracing their steps, and the last chapter (in this copy- let's ignore Chapter 18 for the time being) sums up the investigation, I felt the novel is about the shattered emotions that come after the death or disappearance of a loved one. It is stated time and time again about Miranda's wonderful personality, beloved nature and beautiful looks. She is the apple of everyone's eye. Little is said of Miss McCraw and even littler of Marion. Irma would have disappeared entirely if she hadn't been found.
The world at Appleyard College changes abruptly after the disappearance of the girls and governess. If they had all been found- dead or otherwise- maybe things wouldn't have changed so drastically. More deaths, strange behaviours and the like. And what of the fires and girls attacking Irma when she returns? That leads into a possible third way to review the book: that of a fantasy novel.
In this edition of Picnic, I find it difficult to review it as such. Yes, there are possibilities- ghostly swans, fires, mood changes. But without the mysterious Chapter 18, it doesn't seem likely. It can all be explained away- concussions, emotional stress and turmoil, PTSD, that sort of thing. Lindsay may have intended for all this to be read as a fantasy element. I know I felt shivers while reading that chapter wherein the girls climb Hanging Rock and get pulled into the chilling Australian geography. Mrs Appleyard is apparently approached by Sarah's ghost and jumps- or falls- off Hanging Rock to her death. And what of the stopped clocks? That's perhaps one of the more eerie, fantasy-related elements to the book.
Now, about Sara. I haven't seen the movie in about six years, so I can't talk about that interpretation of her death. But in the book, I choose to read it that she was killed. There are reasons to point to her suicide- her return to the orphanage for instance, and the note that Appleyard found- but why would Appleyard hide it? Of course students and staff were leaving, and more scandal would be provoked because of another death, but there was no reason to hide it, nor pretend that her caregiver had picked her up. And why would she avoid going to the police and instead head to Hanging Rock (unless she had a ghostly calling- another fantasy element). I don't see Appleyard as intentionally or maliciously becoming a killer- if it was meant to be read as Sara being killed- but on the suicide/murder coin toss, I'll place my bets on murder.
This can also be read as a reflection on the Australian landscape. The haunting rock formations, the skyline, the shifting shadows and designs. The rainbow of colours of sunrise and sunset, the fauna. It's beautiful- even if Lindsay's prose does drift into the purple variety.
But it's such a shivering, beautiful, haunting read.