The Strays in Aussie Readers

May 17, 2016 Kathryn rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, australian-authors, 4-stars, reading-list-2016, bookclub

The Strays describes a lifestyle with which I am not familiar and would certainly not be comfortable being a part of. Unlike me, the narrator in the story, Lily, was keen to be involved in the family life of the Trenthams. Head of the family was artist Evan Trentham, and his occupation may go some way to explaining the unconventional household where social mores were discarded or redefined. From the little reading I have done in this area, it appears to bear some striking similarities to the art The Strays describes a lifestyle with which I am not familiar and would certainly not be comfortable being a part of. Unlike me, the narrator in the story, Lily, was keen to be involved in the family life of the Trenthams. Head of the family was artist Evan Trentham, and his occupation may go some way to explaining the unconventional household where social mores were discarded or redefined. From the little reading I have done in this area, it appears to bear some striking similarities to the artist community at Heide in the 1930s.

Despite not agreeing with the life the Trenthams were living, for various reasons, or relating to the characters, I was intrigued by the story and where it was going. It was an easy read and I liked some of the descriptions, although at times I felt Emily Bitto went a little overboard with some of her metaphors. Another review I read described it along the lines of trying too hard to be profound and this describes well how I felt about it in some places.

Quotes I liked:
“The household found its way into its own peculiar form of dailiness. There was an architecture to it. Not precise, but an architecture nonetheless, as if everyone was a door or a window pulled from old houses and assembled into a new one. It had a ramshackle functionality.”

“I remember that morning…in the garden. The soft clarity of six a.m. when the day is going to be hot, as if the sun has not yet thrown off its white sheets.”

There could be a spoiler in the next quote, which is from page 235:
(view spoiler)

I didn’t keep track of descriptions I liked or didn’t like, and as I’m flipping back through the book to refresh my memory and find some examples, I can’t actually remember which ones jarred, and I can’t see any that leap out at me now as not fitting in. This leads me to think that the descriptions I objected to at the time might have just been a volume thing - in and of themselves the descriptions or observations are fine, but when read as a whole, it feels a bit too much.

I was a little disappointed in the ending - just the last ten lines or so. I’m not sure whether there could have been a better way of ending it, but I think it felt like an anticlimax. All the loose ends were tied up, I think, but the last page just felt a bit too abstract.

Overall, I enjoyed reading it, but felt it was a rather sad story that shows the kind of problems we (or perhaps not us, but the next generations) can encounter when we create our own boundaries based on what we feel like doing and expect other people to play by our own versions of the rules. ...more

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Jan 06, 2017 Tien rated it really liked it

Shelves: australian-author, historical-fiction, australia

This book pulled me in two opposite directions. On the one hand, I am just like the young Lily who was fascinated and absolutely loved the freedom in the Trentham's family home. But on the other hand, as a young parent, I was absolutely horrified by the way the children’s needs were ignored. Of course, these children, whilst appreciating their freedom, also resented their parents for not being parents.

The novel opens with the adult Lily, with a grown child of her own, living a ‘normal’ boring l ...more

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Aug 03, 2017 Lia rated it really liked it

Shelves: female-authors, available-cnl, australian

IT took me two goes to get into this story. Once I did, I'm hooked.
The characters are all so compelling and well drawn. I found my allegiances changing over the course of the novel which was an indication a great study of the family dynamics.
The descriptions of Melbourne at the time and the differences between the working (traditional) family compared to the bourgeois artsy family were wonderfully clever.

Really good Australian writing.
...more

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May 06, 2015 Rachel Watts rated it really liked it

Bitto has an easy style and a remarkable deft hand in her characterisation. The world she builds is rich and complex, the memoir style of narration gives us the closeness to the family from Lily as a youngster alongside the distance of time and tragedy from which Lily as an adult views it.

Full review here: http://leatherboundpounds.com/2015/07... ...more

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