Book Review - City of Women by David Ireland

 City of Women a Novel by David Ireland

Ringwood, Vic: Penguin Books Australia. 1981       ISBN 0140058214

I think I might have tackled David Ireland's works the wrong way around. Not long ago I read A Woman of the Future, (review here) the first Ireland novel I had read, and have now just finished the book under review, and both books have been strange experiences.

City of Women is a short novel of episodes, possibly written in the form of letters by Billie Shockley to her lover Bobbie, who has left Billie to advance her career as a water engineer. Disturbingly, as the novel moves on, the reader is brought to the realisation that Bobbie is also Billie's daughter. This trope continues an undertone of incest that occurred in A Woman of the Future, and seems, to me at least, to be there perhaps for shock value, as it adds little to the story. Another trope that carries from book to book is that of the leopard - after Bobbie leaves, a leopard turns up at Billie's doorstep and moves in... she calls the leopard Bobbie as well, which leads to (intended) reader confusion as to whether Billie is addressing human Bobbie in a letter or leopard Bobbie as she walks the city.

Confusion and skewed horizons are definitely one of the things Ireland is trying to achieve in City of Women. The title alludes to the fact that in the novel the centre of Sydney is a female-only zone - men have been excluded. Men are seen both as threats (they come into the city to attack women, and the women routinely talk of wiping them out), and also as sexual toys (women routinely kidnap men and rape them). As is the case in A Woman of the Future, this strange sci-fi situation is not clearly explained - it is up to the reader to fill in the many gaps as to why and how this situation has come about, how it is enforced and the relationship between the city of women and the suburbs, where marriage, kids and "normal" life seem to continue (in fact we learn of several women that have gone out to the suburbs to live that life, as well as women including Billie who have come the other way).

The novels structure consists of short chapters, which are each about a different woman, although they always loop back to the pain Billie feels at losing Bobbie. The women who Billie describes in her letters are all strange characters in their own ways; many of them have come to Billie because she is some sort of healer - the strange maladies of the city of women such as tooth abatement or vaginal stirring are another trope throughout the book. Much of the action of the novel occurs in pubs, particularly the "Lover's Arms". Interestingly, although all the characters are women, they act out in seemingly male ways, drinking, fighting and treating lovers more casually than they should. I can't decide whether Ireland is deliberate in this or not.

In fact that is the problem I have had with both A Woman of the Future and this novel. I personally can't believe in the female-ness of his female characters. To me, he has turned them into men, they just don't ring true as women in their attitudes, the way they live or indeed the way they love - Billie's longing for Bobbie to me seems a male rather than a female desire.

While A Woman of the Future won a Miles Franklin award, it seems that City of Women (which was his next novel after A Woman of the Future) had a more mixed reception. After reading it, I can understand why. Whereas A Woman of the Future, despite it's quirks, was breathtakingly adventurous, City of Women lacks a narrative thread, and lacks any sense of a developing story. The unfilled gaps in the situation become frustrating rather than intriguing, and I was left unfulfilled at the end.

That stated, the writing is good and at times striking, and some of the individual vignettes are wonderful little set pieces.

I'm not sure that David Ireland can be classed as a great Australian writer, but he is certainly a significant one. His experimental fiction might seem a little dated now, and I think that if you choose to try him out, I wouldn't start with City of Women. I will give him another run though at some stage.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell