I had enjoyed the light deft writing of Joan London's Miles Franklin Short-listed novel The Golden Age and was looking forward to hearing some positive reports at our get-together. Silly me! Never try to predict how other readers are going to experience a book!
Our first reader found the story too slow and was not at all impressed with it. She found it very difficult to become involved in the story. Another of our readers had not finished the book but had enjoyed it sufficiently to want to continue with it, so that was more promising. One of our regulars thought it was a light enjoyable story but considered it lacked depth.
One of our readers strongly believes a novel is character driven and was disappointed with the two dimensionality of all of the characters other than Frank. They considered that the array of characters were too lightly sketched. Comments included not really getting to know the characters in depth and therefore not being able to interact meaningfully with them. Some of our readers find they can only really experience satisfaction with a book when they care about the characters and in this novel they felt they could not interact with the characters closely enough to be genuinely concerned about them.
There was discussion about how authentic some of the characters were in the context of the historical setting of the novel. Some of our readers who experienced the 1950s at first hand strongly believed that the sexual freedom enjoyed and practised by Sister Olive Penny was not credible and certainly would not have been tolerated within the social mores of the time. Some found Ida's sudden change of heart regards her piano playing difficult to accept while others conceded it was feasible to reach a tipping point when one realised that the only way forward was to change one's position on such a deeply personal decision.
Some of our book clubbers thought that the emotional and mental maturity displayed by the main protagonists did not align with their ages and certainly not young teens in the 1950s no matter what their life experience had been. Most of our book clubbers thought they were more believable as 17 to 18 year olds.
One of our readers finds it very difficult to read accounts of World War Two in the fiction genre. When she encountered this section of the book the first time she was unable to read through it but on a later attempt she was able to push through this barrier and found the author's succinct style very enjoyable despite her aversion to some of the content.
Some of our readers recall having classmates wearing callipers or having other evidence of surviving polio. Some of our readers knew Perth quite well and were able to identify with place names mentioned in the novel even though the rural setting of Leederville where the Golden Age was located has now been integrated into urban Perth.
One of our book clubbers commented that they liked the way the Gold family's Jewishness was treated as a background rather than in centre stage. They were not depicted as stereotypical traditional Jews but were rather non-committal as regards their heritage. Despite this they had still suffered persecution in Hungary.
The Golden Age was really enjoyed by another book clubber. She found the book uplifting considering the context of the polio convalescent home and really appreciated the author's precise, concise writing style.
Overall our book club enjoyed Joan London's The Golden Age as a light read but felt it lacked depth. Most of our readers really enjoyed the author's neat crisp style but were disappointed with its characterisation.
We stay with the term 'golden' and with Australian authors for our next month's read: Sonya Hartnett's Golden Boys, another novel short-listed for 2015 Miles Franklin Literary Award.
See you at 6.00 pm at the Community Meeting Room at Gordon White Library on Thursday 29 October!
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