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brendanlambourne's review against another edition
4.0
I love Ruth Parks Australian writing style - engaging and warm - excellent read
roie_23's review
5.0
I honestly can’t get over the writing in this book. There were so many parts that made me stop and just think because the writing was so beautiful.
The middle section of this just chewed me up and spat me out. I was sobbing for a while just because some of the passages provided a perspective on death in a way I hadn’t considered before and it was just so intense. The development of Dolour as she grows older too is so well done and realistic for the time. Yeah I loved this so much.
I do have some issues with the ending but literally everything else was perfect.
The middle section of this just chewed me up and spat me out. I was sobbing for a while just because some of the passages provided a perspective on death in a way I hadn’t considered before and it was just so intense. The development of Dolour as she grows older too is so well done and realistic for the time. Yeah I loved this so much.
I do have some issues with the ending but literally everything else was perfect.
roie's review
5.0
I honestly can’t get over the writing in this book. There were so many parts that made me stop and just think because the writing was so beautiful.
The middle section of this just chewed me up and spat me out. I was sobbing for a while just because some of the passages provided a perspective on death in a way I hadn’t considered before and it was just so intense. The development of Dolour as she grows older too is so well done and realistic for the time. Yeah I loved this so much.
I do have some issues with the ending but literally everything else was perfect.
The middle section of this just chewed me up and spat me out. I was sobbing for a while just because some of the passages provided a perspective on death in a way I hadn’t considered before and it was just so intense. The development of Dolour as she grows older too is so well done and realistic for the time. Yeah I loved this so much.
I do have some issues with the ending but literally everything else was perfect.
katiealex72's review
5.0
Poor Man’s Orange covers the same themes as The Harp in the South…extreme poverty in Sydney’s post-war slums, adolescence, violent crime, gender roles in a poor working class Catholic family, illness and death. The book is darker though, with more cohesion between chapters, in contrast to THITS which was serialised and published in separate chapters. In some ways it’s almost a rewriting of the first book with similar things happening to Dolour that happened to Roie earlier, but it’s better. The transformation of Dolour from awkward, sick teenager to a grown woman whose integrity and inner (and outer) strength shines like a star in her grim environment is highly satisfying. (Did she have trachoma? I can’t find anything on the internet about it but it seems to fit). Where Roie crumples helplessly, Dolour fights back instinctively. The scene where she shoves the Kidger out of the shop with a mop handle is a beautiful thing. Hughie is a less sympathetic character here as well. In the first book he was a loveable, flawed buffoon, but in this book you just want to kick him for the pain he inflicts on his whole family. In the end it’s clear that the house on 12 1/2 Plymouth Street won’t be around much longer, and the younger members of the family are going to move to the bush. There’s not much optimism there for Mumma and Hughie but I think that Dolour, Charlie and the kids will make it.
polyhy_14's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
rodhunt's review against another edition
4.0
A great continuation of the story - a soapie really with some good social commentary.
hazeyjane_2's review against another edition
5.0
Once more Ruth Park has outdone herself. Her prose is magical, and as smooth as cream in this sequel to The Harp in the South, which is about the continuing existence of the Darcy family and their neighbours in the nineteenth-century tenements of Surry Hills. Poor Man’s Orange is bursting with detail, evocative, rich in imagery.
This is as much a tragedy, and a novel about poverty, squalor, spirituality and change, as it is a bildungsroman. Most of it is from sixteen-year-old Dolour’s perspective (there are shades of A Little Princess in Dolour’s delicious imaginings of the filth, sordidness and disorder around her transforming into untold luxury), but we get a good look at the whole ensemble from THITS - drunkard Hughie Darcy and his wife, ‘Mumma’, calm, practical Charlie Rothe, dreamy Roie. And of course, the colourful and often insistently multicultural cast of neighbours, from benevolent old Lick Jimmy to the Sicilianos. They might verge on stereotypes, but they are strangely charming for all that, and although Park’s non-white characters are less three-dimensional than her white ones, they are not spared the keenness of her observation, her sense for character development, her ruthless ‘chronicling’ of their sins, or the subtlety and sympathy she evokes so beautifully. Her characters are far from saints.
Her character development is ample in this novel, and each character is given time to make mistakes. Like its predecessor, PMO is a slow paced novel, gliding from perspective to perspective with ease. It’s a slice of life book worth its salt.
The love story is none too subtle, but Park wafts it toward you as beautifully as incense, so that you don’t mind the ending not being quite as you expected.
The only sour notes are the racism and ableism.
This is as much a tragedy, and a novel about poverty, squalor, spirituality and change, as it is a bildungsroman. Most of it is from sixteen-year-old Dolour’s perspective (there are shades of A Little Princess in Dolour’s delicious imaginings of the filth, sordidness and disorder around her transforming into untold luxury), but we get a good look at the whole ensemble from THITS - drunkard Hughie Darcy and his wife, ‘Mumma’, calm, practical Charlie Rothe, dreamy Roie. And of course, the colourful and often insistently multicultural cast of neighbours, from benevolent old Lick Jimmy to the Sicilianos. They might verge on stereotypes, but they are strangely charming for all that, and although Park’s non-white characters are less three-dimensional than her white ones, they are not spared the keenness of her observation, her sense for character development, her ruthless ‘chronicling’ of their sins, or the subtlety and sympathy she evokes so beautifully. Her characters are far from saints.
Her character development is ample in this novel, and each character is given time to make mistakes. Like its predecessor, PMO is a slow paced novel, gliding from perspective to perspective with ease. It’s a slice of life book worth its salt.
The love story is none too subtle, but Park wafts it toward you as beautifully as incense, so that you don’t mind the ending not being quite as you expected.
The only sour notes are the racism and ableism.
bristoni74's review against another edition
5.0
The sequel to Harp in the South, this continues the story of the Darcy family. Ruth Park continues to depict the poverty and tragedy of living in Surry Hills in the late 1940's and early 1950's. But there's always hope, a sense of community and the characters feel like long lost friends. I'm so glad I had a glimpse into the lives of the Darcy family with all their faults and poor choices, but still a genuine love for each other.
During this novel the poor are moved out of their cramped, overcrowded and run-down terraces to the outer suburbs to make way for a high-rise. How times change! Terrace houses are now highly sought after in inner-city Sydney and Surry Hills has gone from a slum to one of the most expensive places to live in the world!
During this novel the poor are moved out of their cramped, overcrowded and run-down terraces to the outer suburbs to make way for a high-rise. How times change! Terrace houses are now highly sought after in inner-city Sydney and Surry Hills has gone from a slum to one of the most expensive places to live in the world!
charmainekim's review
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
roie's review against another edition
5.0
I honestly can’t get over the writing in this book. There were so many parts that made me stop and just think because the writing was so beautiful.
The middle section of this just chewed me up and spat me out. I was sobbing for a while just because some of the passages provided a perspective on death in a way I hadn’t considered before and it was just so intense. The development of Dolour as she grows older too is so well done and realistic for the time. Yeah I loved this so much.
I do have some issues with the ending but literally everything else was perfect.
The middle section of this just chewed me up and spat me out. I was sobbing for a while just because some of the passages provided a perspective on death in a way I hadn’t considered before and it was just so intense. The development of Dolour as she grows older too is so well done and realistic for the time. Yeah I loved this so much.
I do have some issues with the ending but literally everything else was perfect.
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