Informazioni generali

Nome canonico: Dark, Eleanor
Data di nascita: 1901-08-26
Data di morte: 1985-09-11
Luogo di sepoltura: Blackheath Cemetery, Blackheath, New South Wales, Australia
Sesso: female
Nazionalità: Australia
Luogo di nascita: Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Luogo di morte: Katoomba, New South Wales, Australia
Luogo di residenza: Katoomba, New South Wales, Australia
Burwood, New South Wales, Australia
Montville, Queensland, Australia
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Istruzione: Redlands College for Girls
Attività lavorative: secretary
novelist
Relazioni: O'Reilly, Dowell (father)
Dark, Eric (husband)
Organizzazioni: Fellowship of Australian Writers
Premi e riconoscimenti: Australian Literature Society Gold Medal for Literature (twice)
Agente: Curtis Brown

Utenti

Recensioni

Prelude to Christopher di Eleanor Dark

Winner of the ALS Gold Medal in 1934, Prelude to Christopher was the second novel of Eleanor Dark (1901-1985). A radical departure from her debut novel Sun Across the Sky, it is regarded as Australia's first modernist novel.

Set over four days in the aftermath of a car crash that critically injures Doctor Nigel Hendon, the story is revealed in fragments; flash backs; feverish dialogue contrasted with mannered calm; disjointed interior monologues; and characters starting and failing to express their fractured thoughts in words. There are four main characters: Nigel; his wife Linda; his mother Mrs Hendon, and the young nurse Kay. (Who fancies Nigel even though he hasn't given her any encouragement at all). The plot is minimal: this is a novel of ideas.

A sense of transgression arises as the reading progresses because Dark is exploring territory that is viewed differently today. Yesterday I posted about Thomas More's 16th century political satire Utopia, because I found myself comparing More's discredited economic ideas of shared ownership of property, with the failed Utopia in Prelude to Christopher exploring an equally discredited form of social organisation. It makes for uneasy reading when it is eventually revealed that Nigel, a brilliant young man whose mother has great ambitions for him, abandons a conventional future to set up an island colony based on the principles of eugenics. He bases the criteria for membership on medical suitability: presciently provoking today's reader to remember the Lebensborn (1935-1945), Nigel wants healthy bodies and minds to breed a better society. But because he loves his wife Linda dearly and cannot leave her behind, he compromises his own rules because her family has a history of mental illness.

But Nigel's colony does not fail because of Linda or because of the moral contradictions in its 'scientific' approach. It fails because of the collective madness of World War 1 mass hysteria.

As the stigma around mental illness fades in our own time, this novel — written nearly a century ago — was groundbreaking in the way it challenged prevailing beliefs about mental illness. It shows how Nigel's 'chosen people' — selected for their superior physical and mental qualities — descend into an irrational rabble not unlike the boys in William Golding's Lord of the Flies though that wasn't written until twenty years later in 1954. Nigel's 'superior' people riot with escalating violence because they want to leave: they want to join the excited hordes clamouring to send their young men to be slaughtered in the war.

And Linda? The novel depicts Linda being subjected to gaslighting by her uncle and by local gossip as an example of how nurture can be just as harmful as nature.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2024/01/05/prelude-to-christopher-1934-by-eleanor-dark/… (altro)

Segnalato

anzlitlovers | 3 altre recensioni | Jan 5, 2024 |

Timelessential Land Film Jacket di Eleanor Dark

Almost earned five stars. Dark was an exquisite writer and her fictional retelling of the key moments in Australia's history, from the days when our first peoples "Saw the tall ships come" remains compelling after many decades.

Segnalato

therebelprince | 2 altre recensioni | Oct 24, 2023 |

Lantana Lane (Virago Modern Classics) di Eleanor Dark

A series of linked short stories about the residents- and life in general- for the struggling pineapple farmers of Lantana Lane in 1950s Queensland. From the local kookaburra, cyclones, men from the government...to local characters and the sense of community. I think the stories varied- some were really good, but the "comic" tale of Aunt Isabelle arriving was tedious...

Segnalato

starbox | 4 altre recensioni | Sep 25, 2022 |

THE TIMELESS LAND di Eleanor Dark

A fiction written in the late 30's early 40's that's a great insight into the views and thoughts of people involved in the first few years of settlement in Australia, especially in light of the prevailing view of aboriginals in the 40's. There must have been a lot of research into the diaries and letters from early settlement. The aboriginal viewpoint is perceptive and was well written. I enjoyed the read and will look at others she has written.

Segnalato

SteveMcI | 2 altre recensioni | Oct 9, 2021 |

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