The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard
London: Macmillan, 1980 ISBN 0333277511
This is a book that grew on me as I read it: I have had a little project of reading more Australian women novelists, and Transit of Venus has been high on the list for some time. At first I very much thought I was not going to like the book, as the early chapters lead one to think it a kind of a modern-day Jane Austen novel. Once the book got going however, it became something much more modern, and reveals itself as a deep dive into the world of love and desire. It is also a book that has been very carefully and cleverly constructed, although it is not without some slightly clunky moments.
Briefly, the story centres around Caroline Bell. Both her and her sister Grace were orphaned at an early age when their parents drowned in a Sydney ferry accident. They were then brought up by their half-sister Dora, who is one of those character types that is either suffering offence, or nobly sacrificing herself for others....and letting everyone know about it. The three girls go to England, where Grace quickly marries Christian Thrale, a life-long civil servant. Caroline's beauty leads to scientist Edmund Tice falling completely in love with her, a love that is not reciprocated. Caroline instead falls for the dashing playwright Paul Ivory, who is engaged to Tertia, daughter of local nobility. That is the basis for much of the story that follows, although there are many twists and turns on the way to a tragic denouement.
Hazzard writes this story in quite a dense, lush manner; we are always reminded of the handsomeness of Ivory, the beauty of Caroline, the way clothes may fit them, the curves and crests of their bodies. It can become quite intoxicating, which is exactly the experience Hazzard wishes to portray - how love can make the simplest things shine, and take over your soul.
We see love in many forms in this book. We see the emptiness of unrequited love in the story of Tice, who lives a life of great accomplishment and has a beautiful wife and children, but it is all nothing to him without the love of Caroline. We see the ordinariness of Christian Thrale, who takes Grace for granted and seems content, until he is ambushed by desire for Cordelia Ware, his secretary. Once tasted, fear takes over and he crushes her feelings for him, to return to normality without true feeling. We see the pain of love when Grace falls for Angus Dance, her son's doctor, who loves her also, but does the right thing, and leaves her life. Her pain is not assuaged by all that Dance sees her as having - a family. We see the surprise of love - Paul Ivory takes Caroline as a lover to spite both Tertia and Edmund Tice, but finds that he can't merely keep his relationship on a surface level - that he becomes enraptured by Caroline's stillness and beauty. We see how love can save, when Caroline finds and marries Adam Vail, who helps her to get over Paul and begin again. And we see incapability of love, in Dora, who is too self-obsessed to give to anyone else.
These tropes are weaved throughout the interlocking stories of the character's lives over decades. Hazzard shows us that while each story of love may be individual in its events, the emotional journeys of lovers follow a similar pattern, even though each person cannot truly delve into the innermost feelings of the other. Caroline and Grace, although sisters, and although brought together by an early tragedy, never really communicate their feelings to each other until too late. The impossibility for Tice to truly communicate his feelings to Caroline - because if he did she would completely exit his life - destroys him.
The construction of this novel is worth a comment. Sometimes Hazzard will take the reader into the future and, seemingly randomly, give the reader a gobbet of information. These little pieces of plot then loom large as the novel progresses, especially the piece that, as the end of the book is reached, presages the final tragedy for Caroline and Tice. An interesting gambit, they give the book an added power.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this review, I've been on a journey with Australian women novelists. This one is by far the best I have read so far. A great book.
No comments:
Post a Comment