Kate Grenville

In Restless Dolly Maunder, Kate Grenville recreates the enterprising life of an obscure historical figure

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, August 3, 2023
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Dolly determines that she will escape the farm, become a teacher, and earn her own way.

Key Points: 
  • Dolly determines that she will escape the farm, become a teacher, and earn her own way.
  • But the men in whom she is interested have their own commitments, and Dolly’s desires are thwarted by barriers of class and religion.
  • Review: Restless Dolly Maunder – Kate Grenville (Text Publishing) Restless Dolly Maunder extends Kate Grenville’s longstanding fascination with the lives of obscure historical figures, most of them women.
  • The life of Dolly Maunder is depicted as one of persistent struggle in the face of adversity.
  • When the boys enlist, Dolly is plunged yet again into that familiar state of “rage and regret and helplessness” that has punctuated her life.
  • Read more:
    Review: Kate Grenville's A Room Made of Leaves fills the silence of the archives

A hinge generation

    • For years, Grenville told this story as a joke, but now, she writes, “I see the memory differently”.
    • This unlovable old woman
      longed to be loved and was unsure enough to have to ask.
    • She was looking back over her life and – as surely we all do – feeling the pain of regret.
    • She was looking back over her life and – as surely we all do – feeling the pain of regret.
    • But it is intriguing to think of her as part of a “hinge” generation of settler Australian women, living through changes that had more to do with class mobility than feminist advances.
    • Dolly Maunder’s story is representative of a more remote generation: “those mostly silent, unrecorded women”, who represent “where we come from”, but about whose lives we know so little.

Arresting, dry and fast-paced: ABC series Bay of Fires brings a new humour to the tradition of Australian Gothic

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, July 19, 2023
People, Music, Social class, Humour, Drama, Horror, Staring, Natural Life, History, Element, Kate Grenville, Term, Literature, BMW, ABC, Nordic noir, Bay, Church, Wilderness, Weather, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Death, Environment, Rachel House, Indigenous Australians, Drug, Entertainment, Furniture, Whaling, Nightclub, Film industry, Johann, Gothic, Otis, Tasmanian Gothic, Bay of Fires, Iris, Fire

But Anika is betrayed by Johann and becomes the target of an attempted murder.

Key Points: 
  • But Anika is betrayed by Johann and becomes the target of an attempted murder.
  • She soon discovers Johann has hired professional thugs to murder her and her children, Otis (Imi Mbedla) and Iris (Ava Caryofyllis).
  • Bay of Fires, the new drama from the ABC, is arresting, dry and fast-paced.

An Australian Gothic

    • As we get to know the townsfolk, they open the door into a Gothic world of mystery and the supernatural.
    • Australian Gothic began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, combining elements of traditional European Gothic literature – characterised by horror, mystery and the supernatural – mixed with the unique Australian landscape, history and cultural identity.
    • The harsh and unforgiving Australian environment provided a fertile ground for the development of a distinctive Gothic tradition.
    • These experiences became a central theme in Australian Gothic literature and the sub-genre Tasmanian Gothic.
    • Read more:
      Australian Gothic: from Hanging Rock to Nick Cave and Kylie, this genre explores our dark side

Twisting the genre

    • Bay of Fires is a continuation of this significant Australian genre.
    • The series captures dark and mysterious aspects of the nation’s past and present which shape our national imagination and the Australian Gothic genre, all with a larrikin wit.
    • Read more:
      How Deadloch flips the Nordic Noir crime genre on its arse and makes it funny