Helen Hodgman (1945–2022)
Autore di Blue Skies and Jack and Jill
Sull'Autore
Opere di Helen Hodgman
JACK AND JILL 1 copia
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Nome canonico
- Hodgman, Helen
- Data di nascita
- 1945-04-27
- Data di morte
- 2022-06-06
- Sesso
- female
- Nazionalità
- Australia
- Luogo di nascita
- Aberdeen, Scotland, UK
- Luogo di residenza
- Aberdeen, Scotland, UK
Colchester, Essex, England, UK
Tasmania, Australia
London, England, UK
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia - Attività lavorative
- bookmaker's clerk
domestic cleaner
film and television writer
novelist
Utenti
Recensioni
Liste
Premi e riconoscimenti
Potrebbero anche piacerti
Statistiche
- Opere
- 10
- Utenti
- 229
- Popolarità
- #98,340
- Voto
- 3.6
- Recensioni
- 13
- ISBN
- 24
- Lingue
- 1
Blues Skies (1976) is, despite its title, a sardonic portrait of marriage and motherhood in Tasmanian suburbia; Jack and Jill (1978) is a macabre twist on Tasmanian Gothic; and Hodgman's last novel The Bad Policeman (2001) is a tragi-comedy about an anti-hero with an heroic streak. (See my reviews here and here and here.) Though impossible to read now without the awareness that its preoccupation with ageing foreshadowed the author's own long, slow descent into dependence on others due to Parkinson's Disease — Passing Remarks is, as I showed in this Sensational Snippet, often outrageously funny.
Passing Remarks is also a novel of lesbian love. There is not much about Hodgman's private life in the public domain, but she married young and had a daughter within a marriage that appears to have lasted quite some time. (His Wikipedia page makes no mention of his personal life, except that he re-married in 1984). But in an interview at the SMH on the reissue of Jack and Jill in the Text Classics series, Hodgman revealed that she had fallen in love with a woman in what was described as a catastrophic affair that consumed her emotionally. Whether there were autobiographical elements in Passing Remarks or not, Hodgman writes convincingly about the lesbian milieu, and the problems that confront a May-September relationship.
The story is narrated mostly from the intimate perspective of Rosemary, whose breakup with Billie has precipitated a mid-life crisis; but told also from the point of view of Billie, the much younger lover who has left her.
For Rosemary, the break-up is a catastrophic moment of truth. It's not triggered by any dramatic moment, only Billie's desire to visit her mother who's living a hippie lifestyle in Bundagen on the NSW north coast, and then to travel north, to work perhaps in Byron Bay, or even go as far as Cairns. Billie sets off on her Harley insouciant about this departure, but it sends a chill down Rosemary's spine. She worries that it is her minor signs of bodily ageing that remind Billie of her mother.
But Hodgman doesn't dwell on it, Rosemary's inner dialogue undercuts itself.
As she reflects on major problem in the relationship — the age difference — Rosemary revisits incidents from their time together that hint at other issues.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/11/24/passing-remarks-1998-by-helen-hodgman/… (altro)