It's taken me awhile to finish this review..but here I am now with a pile of dishes I don't feel like doing in the kitchen and a baby who's asleep..so I may as well :)
I scored a few awesome books a little while back. My husband's step-dad had a box of books from his late Grandma. He wasn't going to read them but he didn't just wanna send them to the charity store. I love old books, and they ended up on my bookshelf. He, satisfied to keep them in the family, me thrilled to have em.
They're chiefly 'Australian' books, about the settlers, and Aborigines.
I've read my first one, For The Term of His Natural Life, by Marcus Clarke. I haven't read Australian literature this good. I was left thrilled, satisfied yet pining for more, happy and yet sad when I turned the last leaf. Amazing literature. You can read the summary here. I hope it's ok.
For me, this was almost an Australian Les Miserables. The similarity between Rufus Dawes and Jean Valjean (from Les Miserables) is striking.. they are like the convict-priests. Men whom the law has branded as bad and hopeless, and whose destiny it seems forever to be chained, hunted, wanted, hated. But they are both such lovers of men..the opposite of what they really should be. I guess it makes you think of how society brands certain people, because of what they do or have done in the past, without giving them a chance.
I think if either of the had submitted to all the bad stuff that life threw at them (which was volley after volley especially on the part of Rufus Dawes) ,they would have turned out full of anger, bitterness and hatred. They would have been exactly what society expected of them. But their hearts were preserved by the power of God..that strong, strange power of love and good. Though their lives do seem to end prematurely, and they do not see happiness as we would picture it, they leave a mark. :) A mark on the heart of Cossette, of Marcus, of Rev North...and of course of me, as the reader.
Sure bad things do happen to good people, but good people are remembered for the good things they did when bad things happened to them. Oh, and of course, lets quit judging each other. Love is louder. xx
