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Shell

Kristina Olsson

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Dec 26, 2018 Louise rated it really liked it

Shelves: female-authors, australian-setting-author

I would have to agree with the myriad compliments paid to Kristina Olsson about her novel Shell ; it is a perceptive, finely written work which mesmerised me from the moment I admired its beautiful cover depiction of the Opera House in an airport bookshop in October until my reading of it was completed very recently.

Descriptions of the Australian landscape with particular reference to the spectacular land and sea environs of Sydney Harbour during the construction of the iconic Sydney Opera H I would have to agree with the myriad compliments paid to Kristina Olsson about her novel Shell ; it is a perceptive, finely written work which mesmerised me from the moment I admired its beautiful cover depiction of the Opera House in an airport bookshop in October until my reading of it was completed very recently.

Descriptions of the Australian landscape with particular reference to the spectacular land and sea environs of Sydney Harbour during the construction of the iconic Sydney Opera House (1959-973) are vivid and atmospheric: they contrast strikingly with the also impressively described scenes from the Scandinavian homeland of the young glass artist, Axel.

I appreciated the historical detail of the novel and insights into the psyche of the Australian public at the time. The outrage felt by many Australians that its young men should be forced to participate in a war not of its making via the evil practice of conscription is compared with the fury at the choice of an outsider architect, Danish born Jorn Utzon, to design and oversee the creation of a building many wanted to herald Australia’s arrival as a player on the cultural world stage.

The most affecting parts of the novel for me were those that described the grief, loss and disruption experienced by families through untimely death, forced separation or the physical and mental decline of older family members. The young journalist Pearl’s desperation to reunite her family, feeling as she does the guilt that as the eldest of her family at fourteen she was, “unable to stop the disintegration, the scattering to homes and orphanages.” is but one example of the emotion laden situations which are a feature of the narrative. Kristina Olsson has previously written of her own family’s heartbreaking experience of losing a child in the exceptional family memoir, Boy, Lost .

I think that to do justice to Kristina Olsson's novel I will need to read it again in the near future - there is certainly much to take in and admire. Whilst reading Shell I was reminded of another Australian family story set in the 1970s, The Bridge by Enza Gondolfo. Both novels are fine examples of Australian literature which I recommend wholeheartedly.

Update January 3 2019
Link to a marvellous interview with Kristina Olsson talking about Shell on Radio National's The Hub on Books on December 4 2018.
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/... ...more

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