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Jeremy Chambers

Forfatter af The Vintage and the Gleaning

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In Suburbia Jeremy Chambers brilliantly evokes a place and a time. My view of this place is bound to be influenced by the fact that this is my neighborhood and although the time a decade out it still resonates strongly.
Told through the eyes of Roland this coming of age novel takes place in a fictitious outer Eastern suburb of Glenella. Roland is seven when in 1982 he and his younger sister Lily movie into this new Suburban development.
Their cream brick-veneers crowding out the older Californian bungalows and old iron roofed farm houses. Chamber lyrical description of the place and time contrast with the inarticulate conversations of young children and teenagers.

"The children walked to the pool through the sunlit empty streets, the miles and miles of concrete and bitumen, the rows of identical brown-brick houses that lined the rising hills, their orange-tinted windows blinding in the sun. The grass on the nature strip was lush from sprinkler hoses that ran all day long, thin sparkling arcs dampening the footpath and trickling down the dusty gutters to the stormwater drains. The road melted, seethed; it turned to black liquid. It shimmered in the distance and made mirages at the rounded peaks and hollows. The children’s thongs slapped the footpath, echoing like rifle shots."

"Birds scuttled. A twig cracked in the heat and fell through the rustling foliage; leaves and branches waved and fluttered in shadow across the lawn and the hot concrete. There was a shrill, piercing pulse of cicadas. Lawnmowers had been droning all afternoon, starting up here and there like stunted voices, joining in harsh choruses across the endless stagger of paling fences. The regularity of the shifting pitch and volume was somnolent, hypnotic."

"‘I don’t really have any friends,’ said Roland.
Cassie dabbed at the corners of her mouth. Her lips were pale, rough with flaking skin she had gnawed on until they bled.
‘Why not?’
‘They’re all idiots at my school.’
She screwed up her nose, looking sceptically at him.
‘They can’t all be idiots.’
‘I suppose I just don’t fit in there.’
‘Yeah,’ said Cassie thoughtfully. ‘I know what you mean. School sucks.’
‘Yeah,’ said Roland."

Cassie is the daughter of the local car dealer tycoon. Reg Noble Auto. Now in their early teens their easy, uncomplicated friendship is staring to be affected by their growing realisation that things are changing.

"They suddenly became awkward with one another, tongue-tied under each other’s gazes and embarrassed at what they did manage to blurt."

Into this burgeoning sort of, could be relationship comes Darren with his motorbike and things become complicated

"Cassie blushed. She took a swig of beer and choked on it, coughing and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She smiled helplessly as she blushed even deeper...Cassie had regained her poise. She took another sip of beer, careful this time. The boy was sitting with his limbs spread out, one arm over the back of the chair. He held his cigarette loosely between his fingers. His gaze lingered on Cassie’s long, tanned legs.
‘I’m Darren, by the way,’ he said to them. "
… (mere)
 
Markeret
Robert3167 | Feb 8, 2019 |
When Alex Miller and M J Hyland commend a book as they do on this one’s blurb, a new author appears to have it made, but I can’t quite make up my mind about The Vintage and the Gleaning.

The writing is mostly beautiful, the characters credible, and the plot’s intriguing, but there were times when the dialogue was just plain exasperating.

The story takes place in a town in the north-eastern wine-making region of Victoria. The characters all seem to have had a charisma bypass. The central character, Smithy, used to be a shearer but now he’s a labourer who’s taking a break from heavy drinking on doctor’s orders. He’s in poor health but still working in a vineyard, doing demanding physical labour and spending his days with the hard-drinking labourers who form the team. It was their dialogue which tested my patience almost beyond endurance.

...

Somehow this book reminded me of Camus’ The Outsider. It’s been 20 years since I read that so I can be challenged on the detail, but The Vintage and the Gleaning is an existentialist quest for meaning and its themes include angst, (Charlotte’s), nihilism (the town’s) and alienation and stoicism (Smithy’s). So despite my doubts, this is a young writer with promise, and definitely one to watch.

To read the rest of this review, please visit http://anzlitlovers.wordpress.com/2010/08/10/the-vintage-and-the-gleaning-by-jer...
… (mere)
½
 
Markeret
anzlitlovers | Aug 10, 2010 |

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Statistikker

Værker
6
Medlemmer
33
Popularitet
#421,955
Vurdering
3.9
Anmeldelser
2
ISBN
7
Sprog
2