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Blue Skies & Jack and Jill
The Tasmanian sun flashes upon weather-boarded houses and a holiday-brochure beach. Early-morning hoovering gives way to empty afternoons when the clock always says three and women and children huddle together in steaming heaps by the sea. But this stagnation will be shattered -- by incest, suicide and murder.
- GenresFiction
213 pages, Paperback
First published August 24, 1978
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 9, 2019
Blue Skies is narrated by a snarky young mother marooned in the dull suburbs of Tasmania. She is a most reluctant housewife, striving to escape the futile monotony of child care and housekeeping. There is some interesting language here, for the narrator has a rather twisted outlook on life. She describes the sea lit at dawn looking 'as if covered with a slick of afterbirth'. It is a dark, brooding slice of suburban Gothic, saturated in death and set in a land haunted by ghosts of the exterminated Aboriginals.
With Jack and Jill Hodgman switches to third person and follows the lives of a woman and a man whose fates are twined together since the time he first comes to work on her father's ranch in the outback of New South Wales. The narrative is kind of disjointed, meandering hither and thither, but not in a particularly interesting way. The man goes off to war, eventually comes back. The woman leaves Australia for London, eventually comes back. Their relationship is uneasy and that quality of it seems unlikely to change, but nonetheless you keep turning the pages to see if it will.
With Jack and Jill Hodgman switches to third person and follows the lives of a woman and a man whose fates are twined together since the time he first comes to work on her father's ranch in the outback of New South Wales. The narrative is kind of disjointed, meandering hither and thither, but not in a particularly interesting way. The man goes off to war, eventually comes back. The woman leaves Australia for London, eventually comes back. Their relationship is uneasy and that quality of it seems unlikely to change, but nonetheless you keep turning the pages to see if it will.
September 22, 2011
next re release by Text Publishing as is Blue Skies by this
lesser known Australian author. Farmer Doug is away and in his absence his
wife dies and on return he finds his small daughter Jill dirty and hungry.
So in the NSW outback he raises his daughter and then Jack arrives on their
doorstep and he is taken on as a farm hand. Jack and Jill become close to
Doug's dismay, then Jack goes off to war and Jill moves to the city. Years
pass and Jack returns a cripple from the war and Jill also comes home and
then a romance, marriage and a strange arrangement ensues. Hodgman has a
wicked sense of humour and this is a warped sort of fairy tale.
lesser known Australian author. Farmer Doug is away and in his absence his
wife dies and on return he finds his small daughter Jill dirty and hungry.
So in the NSW outback he raises his daughter and then Jack arrives on their
doorstep and he is taken on as a farm hand. Jack and Jill become close to
Doug's dismay, then Jack goes off to war and Jill moves to the city. Years
pass and Jack returns a cripple from the war and Jill also comes home and
then a romance, marriage and a strange arrangement ensues. Hodgman has a
wicked sense of humour and this is a warped sort of fairy tale.
August 3, 2020
Mostly quite dull and occasionally quite cruel.
August 26, 2016
I came to these two short novels by Scottish born, Australian writer Helen Hodgman with no expectations at all. At first I found the voice a little unusual, but certainly intriguing and very readable. Blue Skies is a novella of post-natal depression and domestic stagnation which results in suicide and murder.
“The beach waited in its early-morning perfection just for me and the odd dog-exerciser. When the sun rose higher, the pale yellow sand became an almost desert blaze. The black rocks crouched like primitive worship stones, antipodean Stonehenges.
Later, when the noon blaze subsided, the local women came down. Those nearest could walk laden with bright beach-bags and babies, carting the many necessities for enjoying an hour in the open. Those from further up the road would drive, the wheels of their small economical second-cars spurting up dust sprays and rutting the sand at the edge. Most people gathered together towards the end of the beach. The hitherto mysterious rocks were then pressed into domestic service, their flat tops used as tables, their crevices as storage spaces for cold drinks and for keeping bits of clothing out of the sand.”
Finding Blue Skies to be very well written, with its atmosphere of unsettling claustrophobia, that unusual voice pulled me right in. In the first novel of the two we find ourselves in Tasmania – where a young wife and mother finds the empty afternoons hang heavily, the clock always reading three o’clock. She watches her new next door neighbour Olive mow the grass, with indifference, take the baby down to the beach where she listens to the chatter of the other young mums who gather by the sea.
Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2016/...
“The beach waited in its early-morning perfection just for me and the odd dog-exerciser. When the sun rose higher, the pale yellow sand became an almost desert blaze. The black rocks crouched like primitive worship stones, antipodean Stonehenges.
Later, when the noon blaze subsided, the local women came down. Those nearest could walk laden with bright beach-bags and babies, carting the many necessities for enjoying an hour in the open. Those from further up the road would drive, the wheels of their small economical second-cars spurting up dust sprays and rutting the sand at the edge. Most people gathered together towards the end of the beach. The hitherto mysterious rocks were then pressed into domestic service, their flat tops used as tables, their crevices as storage spaces for cold drinks and for keeping bits of clothing out of the sand.”
Finding Blue Skies to be very well written, with its atmosphere of unsettling claustrophobia, that unusual voice pulled me right in. In the first novel of the two we find ourselves in Tasmania – where a young wife and mother finds the empty afternoons hang heavily, the clock always reading three o’clock. She watches her new next door neighbour Olive mow the grass, with indifference, take the baby down to the beach where she listens to the chatter of the other young mums who gather by the sea.
Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2016/...
May 8, 2021
Oggi vi parlo di un romanzo diverso, particolare, che ha il potere di risucchiarti nella storia e farti vivere momenti tra il tragico e il divertente, utilizzando un umorismo nero che vuole in se sdrammatizzare la situazione anche se a volte può risultare un pò pesante. Ma la lettura è stata comunque piacevole.
Siamo negli anni '60, Jill si trova sola con la madre, gioca con lei distesa sul letto e, nonostante veda poca reazione da parte sua, non capisce quanto la madre stia male. La mattina Jill trova la madre morta, ma non capisce cosa le sia successo, continua a chiamarla, a scuoterla, ma niente. Passano alcuni giorni e Jill è quasi morta di fame, quando giunge alla fattoria il padre che si trova davanti una scena pietosa.
Douggie si trova a crescere una figlia da solo, ma non sarà per niente facile. E Jill, dal canto suo dovrà rimboccarsi le maniche per poter andare avanti.
Un giorno arriva alla fattoria Jack, un ragazzo in cerca di lavoro e viene assunto. Molte cose cambieranno con il suo arrivo. Tra i due ragazzi nascerà qualcosa, ma sarà un rapporto abbastanza burrascoso, lui non è per niente un tipo tranquillo, anzi è violento ed egoista. Ma Jill si farà strada, studiando, andrà all'università e diventerà una bravissima scrittrice.
Jack and Jill rappresentano due interpretazioni necessarie a far comprendere quello che l'autrice ci vuole comunicare, rappresentano un dolore vissuto in maniera diversa, una contrapposizione di pensieri, cosa li unisce non si capisce bene, ma tuttavia questa unione è necessaria, utilizzando un linguaggio a volte crudo. Però credetemi se vi dico che non troverete niente di banale e niente di prevedibile, vi consiglio di leggerlo è veramente un romanzo esplosivo.
Siamo negli anni '60, Jill si trova sola con la madre, gioca con lei distesa sul letto e, nonostante veda poca reazione da parte sua, non capisce quanto la madre stia male. La mattina Jill trova la madre morta, ma non capisce cosa le sia successo, continua a chiamarla, a scuoterla, ma niente. Passano alcuni giorni e Jill è quasi morta di fame, quando giunge alla fattoria il padre che si trova davanti una scena pietosa.
Douggie si trova a crescere una figlia da solo, ma non sarà per niente facile. E Jill, dal canto suo dovrà rimboccarsi le maniche per poter andare avanti.
Un giorno arriva alla fattoria Jack, un ragazzo in cerca di lavoro e viene assunto. Molte cose cambieranno con il suo arrivo. Tra i due ragazzi nascerà qualcosa, ma sarà un rapporto abbastanza burrascoso, lui non è per niente un tipo tranquillo, anzi è violento ed egoista. Ma Jill si farà strada, studiando, andrà all'università e diventerà una bravissima scrittrice.
Jack and Jill rappresentano due interpretazioni necessarie a far comprendere quello che l'autrice ci vuole comunicare, rappresentano un dolore vissuto in maniera diversa, una contrapposizione di pensieri, cosa li unisce non si capisce bene, ma tuttavia questa unione è necessaria, utilizzando un linguaggio a volte crudo. Però credetemi se vi dico che non troverete niente di banale e niente di prevedibile, vi consiglio di leggerlo è veramente un romanzo esplosivo.
October 19, 2022
Hodgman presents a suffocating suburbia where adults in a state of arrested development act out childishly capricious (if often adult-themed) escapes.
'Blue Skies' was my favourite of the two stories, even though I read this for 'Jack and Jill' as part of my non-sequential dip-in to works that won the Somerset Maugham Award. Hodgman wasn't as prolific as some, and there was enough in these early-career works that I would return to her in future.
I'm behind in my reviews, and three weeks on I cannot now recall many details, but the atmosphere created was quite specific and lingers longer. I'd especially try another as a companion to others who write from an Anglo-Australian perspective.
'Blue Skies' was my favourite of the two stories, even though I read this for 'Jack and Jill' as part of my non-sequential dip-in to works that won the Somerset Maugham Award. Hodgman wasn't as prolific as some, and there was enough in these early-career works that I would return to her in future.
I'm behind in my reviews, and three weeks on I cannot now recall many details, but the atmosphere created was quite specific and lingers longer. I'd especially try another as a companion to others who write from an Anglo-Australian perspective.
July 1, 2012
A weird story - not quite love story but more dependency story - from 1920-1960 in Australian bushland. There was such a feeling of doom hanging on the whole book that the ending was surprisingly happy. Liked the way it was written, as you needed to read also the litlle hints between the lines.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews