A Town Like Alice

An all around good, satisfying read that didn't turn sappy when a bit of a love story came into the plot. I found the myself pretty interested in the details of how rice is grown and harvested, or how Australian outback stations are run, or how a town can be grown out of pretty uninspiring beginnings. I wasn't surprised to read that the author was an engineer. :-)

I wasn't aware of the WWII battles in Malaysia, and the roles Britain played there. This book's historical detail opened my eyes.

The book is definitely dated with some pretty crude attitudes toward aborigines, women and other cultures. But, I really came to like the main character and initiator of all progress in the book, a strong woman named Jean Paget.

Sweet, moving, but really two books. The first half merited six stars; the second... well, it was more of an upbeat story of Entrepreneurship and Economic Development brought to us by the Queensland Ministry for 1950s-style Family Planning. It felt flat. So much so that my initial click upon beginning this was four stars. But that's not fair: Shute's language is beautiful; his depictions of scenery and people remarkable; his compassion stunning. The book's ending cannot take away from the rest of it.

The first-person narrative is awkward, only really serving to tell a third but far-background story. I found myself distracted by it too often. Maybe on rereading—and yes, I think I will reread in 5 years or so—I won't find it so jarring.

One of my mum's favourite books, I finally got around to reading it myself. I enjoyed the story, but found myself shocked at the outstanding sexism in the way Jean is considered incapable of handling her own finances where her inheritance is concerned, but once she is married there's no problem because the man can deal with it all. Huh.

A young woman enduring war-time hardship and defying the conventions of her time, this made for a great binge-read. The first half is set in WII in Malaya, and our heroine Jean Paget becomes the unappointed leader of a group of English women and children, who are marched across the island by Japanese prison guards. She uses her knowledge of the local language and an empathetic approach to foreign customs to negotiate for the group's survival. Returning to the site years later, she develops a good sense for how to help the Malay women and subsequently improve their communities. A skill she employs again in the second half of the book, as she explores the dusty and hot Australian outback. I liked her entrepreneurial spirit and success, which made up for the rather too comfortable love story.

Feminism as written by a rather conservative man in 1950. Some blunders, but mostly laudable. There's also some racism, that mostly - but not always - gets attributed to the characters. Still, this was a great read.