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rhi_'s review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Colonisation and Racism
Moderate: Pedophilia, Violence, Hate crime, Genocide, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, and Murder
Minor: Sexual violence, Forced institutionalization, Rape, and Police brutality
dylan2219's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
A lot of respect for Tara June Winch for the insane research that went into making this book, which she reveals in her author's note at the end. While the world of The Yield is fictional, it is based on a number of real incidents, places, and memories that occurred in Wiradjuri land, in the Murrumbidgee Valley. As a Wiradjuri woman, writing The Yield must have been both a gutwrenching and deeply cathartic exercise for Winch, which is evident in its often visceral, deeply textured prose. Lots of blood and saliva and dirt and sweat on the pages here, reminding me a lot of Faulkner whom Winch references in the text. Beyond that, The Yield introduced me to both the landscape and the associated dreaming of Wiradjuri country, as well as the Wiradjuri language. The linguistic aspects here are incredibly historically and culturally significant, as Winch weaves Wiradjuri phrasing throughout the book in the form of the Gondiwindi dictionary - which she reproduces in full at the end - creating perhaps the first (?) work of fiction in the Wiradjuri language, enshrining Wiradjuri as a language that will remain preserved in spite of the systematic cultural erasure that has sadly destroyed so many Indigenous languages throughout Australia. Indeed, Winch notes that since Invasion, Indigenous Australian languages have suffered the most extensive and rapid extinction known to history.
These aspects alone make The Yield a book that should be widely read, as well as an "Australian" text that is deeply world-historically significant, but it does more than restore a language and a culture that has experience so much loss. It is a new, postcolonial spin on a classic Australian narrative of the harshness of the land and our relationship to violent memory. This time, however, Indigenous Australians are centred in the story as primary subjects, rather than ancillary/foils to white colonists, and violence is seen as sustained as a consequence of colonisation, displacement, neglect, and disenfranchisement. The loss of land, rather than its acquisition, is the locus for violence and conflict, here seen in the very relevant dispute of a mining company attempting to acquire the Gondiwindi family's property. We discover that this property - like all property in Australia - has a complicated and often contradictory history of its own. Winch interrogates what land means to many Indigenous people after it has been seized for so long, and the emotional and psychological difficulties of reclaiming it and defending it.
I did have some structural problems with the book, namely that August is not a particularly compelling or well-developed character, and the plot takes probably too long to kick in (basically not till the final third). Things are wrapped up a little too quickly, with some very weak explanation as to why, because so much time has been spent meditating before Winch needs to build to her climax. This might be due to the complex three-strand narrative that Winch is working here, which I found compelling even if it makes things much slower. The dictionary passages are easily the best thing in here, especially the way they comment on the contemporary narrative, link Greenleaf's narrative to the present, and give us insight into the history of Massacre and the Gondiwindi family.
Still, The Yield is an immense, significant book that is brilliantly, evocatively written, and is doing incredible things. It's rare to come across a writer who is not only innovating in what novels and "Australian" writing can do, but is genuinely changing history.
These aspects alone make The Yield a book that should be widely read, as well as an "Australian" text that is deeply world-historically significant, but it does more than restore a language and a culture that has experience so much loss. It is a new, postcolonial spin on a classic Australian narrative of the harshness of the land and our relationship to violent memory. This time, however, Indigenous Australians are centred in the story as primary subjects, rather than ancillary/foils to white colonists, and violence is seen as sustained as a consequence of colonisation, displacement, neglect, and disenfranchisement. The loss of land, rather than its acquisition, is the locus for violence and conflict, here seen in the very relevant dispute of a mining company attempting to acquire the Gondiwindi family's property. We discover that this property - like all property in Australia - has a complicated and often contradictory history of its own. Winch interrogates what land means to many Indigenous people after it has been seized for so long, and the emotional and psychological difficulties of reclaiming it and defending it.
I did have some structural problems with the book, namely that August is not a particularly compelling or well-developed character, and the plot takes probably too long to kick in (basically not till the final third). Things are wrapped up a little too quickly, with some very weak explanation as to why, because so much time has been spent meditating before Winch needs to build to her climax. This might be due to the complex three-strand narrative that Winch is working here, which I found compelling even if it makes things much slower. The dictionary passages are easily the best thing in here, especially the way they comment on the contemporary narrative, link Greenleaf's narrative to the present, and give us insight into the history of Massacre and the Gondiwindi family.
Still, The Yield is an immense, significant book that is brilliantly, evocatively written, and is doing incredible things. It's rare to come across a writer who is not only innovating in what novels and "Australian" writing can do, but is genuinely changing history.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Death, Genocide, Colonisation, Grief, and Racism
Moderate: Child abuse, Adult/minor relationship, and Eating disorder
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