Customer Reviews

The Idea of Perfection

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3 star:		(6)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

"The Idea of Perfection" won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2001 (a British literary award of distinction) and I can see why. It is very different, very moving, and is the type of book that doesn't allow the reader to forget its haunting atmosphere.

Although the flyleaf on the hardback version calls it a "funny and touching romance..." I found nothing funny about it whatsoever, and what romance there is, is largely in the torturedly shy minds of two of the two awkward protagonists: big-boned, plain and shy Harley Savage, and equally shy and plain Douglas Cheeseman. Harley has come to the tiny Australian Bush village of Karakarook to set up a "heritage museum" of local crafts (she is a renowned craftsperson in her own right and lives in Sydney); Douglas, an engineer, has come to demolish and rebuild a Karakarook icon: the "twisted bridge." These two unlikely people meet and are attracted to one another, but are so terribly awkward and shy that they cannot possibly express anything other than "wrong" smiles and comments.

A subplot involves the wife of the banker, whose inner self is focused solely on keeping herself young with various beauty products, certainly NOT on the Chinese butcher to whom she is powerfully attracted. Certain reviews found this subplot specious and/or funny; I did not. It had a hysterical edge to it that exactly matched the inner terrible turmoil of the wife, whose empty existence in Karakarook has obviously driven her to the edge of madness.

A truly outstanding book; a work of art. I'm glad I read it.

This is ostensibly a love story, with two professionals from the city forming an unlikely bond when they are thrown together in a small country town. However, the relationship between the two is only one of many in this well written book. The chapters alternate between the viewpoints of the main characters to develop a well-rounded portrait of all concerned.

Karakarook, like many small Australian country towns, has been left behind - they highway doesn't run through town anymore, the bank will soon close its branch, and any industries that supported the town have long gone. Many in the town are pinning their hopes on 'Heritage', which gives a reason for one half of the city partnership, Harley, to be there. She has come from Sydney to organise a museum. She also becomes involved in the fight over another heritage flash point - the old Bent Bridge.

Bent Bridge is the reason for the other city person to be in town. Douglas is the engineer tasked with organising the replacement of the bridge. Harley and Douglas have their stories told alternately with that of a third - Felicity, the flighty wife of the bank manager. All three are outsiders - not just in the sense that they have arrived in Karakarook from elsewhere, but they also don't quite belong in the society in which they live. Also, all three have been deeply marked by their backgrounds - Harley forever trying to live up to the expectations of her famous creative family; Douglas living in the shadow of a war hero father he never met; and Felicity trying to forget her humble background while clinging to youthful beauty. Grenville is a skilful enough writer to allude to the importance of these details, while not overburdening the reader with too much character history. Like the other aspects of the book, the author credits the reader with enough intelligence to see the points she is making with being too strident. This is a delight.

The fourth main character in the story is the town itself - its history, the lives lived there day-by-day, its physical characteristics. Having lived in more than one small Australian country town, this really rang true for me, and Grenville manages to reign in the 'big town' superiority in her depiction. I was also happily surprised to see the inclusion of a lot of Australian words that the author didn't bother to explain - this is interesting to see in a book that was probably written with an international audience in mind.

Although romance is part of the book's plot, _The Idea of Perfection_ is far from being a jumped-up romance novel. The book's focus is primarily on how human beings balance their own needs with those of society, and what happens when a person is either too public or too private. Ms. Grenville takes plenty of time to allow development of character and setting, but once she's underway, the reader is treated not only to a fascinating story of what makes three characters "tick," but also a discussion of what constitutes "value," especially aesthetic value. Her portrayals of creative process are spot-on and underlie the book's theme perfectly. Although a little slow in the beginning, perseverance on the part of the reader will make it clear that this is a beautiful book and well worth taking the time to read.

Pitched as a love story set around the replacement of a country bridge, "The Idea of Perfection" turns out to be more a study of some amusingly imperfect characters. Harley Savage and Douglas Cheeseman are hilariously unlike your typical romantic leads: physically unattractive, professionally insecure, emotionally tortured. But Grenville's careful articulation of their social anxiety will have you smiling (or cringing) with recognition. (Her rendition of Australian male anxiety is particularly well observed.) For me, this felt more like a collection of fragments than a unified novel, mainly because there was too little focus on the particular plot line I was expecting - the construction of the bridge and the conflict this might create in the country town. But no matter. What this book gives us instead is a love story that depicts "romance" like it often really is - furtive, frightening and funny. Such frankness is rare, and very refreshing.

"The Idea of Perfection." That's the theme of this book, really, the concept about which the entire story turns. Harley and Douglas are imperfect and they know it, and they don't expect their lives to get any closer to perfection, so they've given up on certain things. Felicity is obsessed with perfection (going toward OCD behavior) and has the most messed-up life of the three of them. Harley's quilts are imperfect on purpose, as if to not give them the burden of being faultless, to free them to live the life she herself lives. Ironically, she has to work very hard to keep the quilts from perfection.

I greatly enjoyed this book, which is wonderful since I just randomly chose it off the library shelf. If you enjoy books that express the way people really think and live, regardless of country, then give this one a chance.

A unique read in its setting and odd characters. It requires a kind of slow, detail drenched mindset, which I didn't always have the patience for. I'm not sure about the lead character - I wasn't very gripped with sympathy a lot of the time. I was often glad for the parallel plot with the age obsessed housewife and her erotic dabble. In the end a satisfying read.

Were it not for the setting in rural New South Wales and all the Australian slang, I would have taken Kate Grenville for an English writer. For she perfectly captures that peculiarly English comedy of social awkwardness, and people trying (and generally failing) to be something that they are not. Most of the book is written in interior monologues, as the characters question, harangue, or despair of themselves. The comedy comes over best in her portrayal of Felicity Porcelline, the upwardly-mobile wife of the bank manager in the little town of Karakarook, driven by a self-imposed need to Set Standards (capitals and italics for clichés are very much a part of Grenville's style). Here she is thinking about the local butcher, Albert Chang, whom she thinks of as not quite Australian:

"Partly it was that the butcher was Chinese. She was no racist, and wanted him to know that she did not count it against him, him being Chinese. The trouble was, not wanting to be though racist always seemed to make her too friendly. She could hear that her voice was a little too loud and a little too sprightly in the quiet shop. She smiled too much, and did not know how to stop. She was no racist, but noticed, every time he spoke, how he spoke exactly the way everyone else did...."

Felicity, a relatively minor character, exemplifies the Idea of Perfection in the title, even rationing her smiles so as not to cause wrinkles on her skin. The inner-monologue approach is very funny in her scenes, but it becomes tiresome when constantly applied to the major characters also. The two protagonists, professionals down from Sydney, are at first disconcerted by the free and easy ways of most of the town, and for a long time the book plays out as city/country culture shock. But it turns out that the two are on opposite sides of a cultural divide within the town itself. Harley Savage, a museum expert and quilter, and fiercely independent veteran of three marriages, comes to advise the town on a Heritage Museum. Douglas Cheeseman, a divorced engineer, is in charge of tearing down a wooden bridge that is the town's main source of charm. Eventually, as the book jacket will tell you, they will come to accept their own imperfections and fall in love, though it takes a while. So this is an amusing book, but sadly a slight one.

Just finished The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville which won the Orange Prize a few years ago (against stiff competition) and have to confess to being slightly puzzled by it. She writes deftly and Karakook, the small town in New South Wales where it is set, is very effectively evoked. The story is about Harley and Douglas two slightly stunted, frightened middle-aged people who find in eachother a tentative romance. This central relationship is powerfully delivered and genuinely moving, but a third of the book is given over to the affair taking place between the town's butcher and the bank manager's wife ... it goes nowhere, reveals nothing and is a very very odd distraction. Or so it seemed to me. The rest of the book is so well written that I feel it has to have been me failing to see the link: was it just an unhappy counterpoint? a comment on unhappiness behind the facade of a successful marriage? what??? it really bothered me though and I just kept thinking why is Grenville wasting words on this. Hmmm. I guess it is a testament to the book that I want to know what it is that I missed.

It is clear why Kate Grenville won the 2001 Orange Prize for this engaging and thoughtful book. Although billed as a romance, the first interest of the book is to elaborate very human, credible characters whose relationships establish a strong and mutually-supporting structure. It is less a romance and more an investigation of community and the meaning of individual perfection within a social context. Grenville captures the spirit of Australian rural life convincingly and laces it with a subtle wit. It is true that the tragedies that have befallen some characters are extreme, but such extreme deluges do happen and are instrumental in forming people's personalities. I would recommend this book to any reader.

I highly commend Kate Grenville for her artistic writing talent. I greatly appreciated the way she crafted the story - putting together sentences that spoke directly to me as experiences I have had but could never have put so beautifully into words. I found the writing and main plot profoundly enjoyable and I would venture to guess that most readers would recognize a bit of themselves in any one of the main characters.

The only drawback for me was the subplot of the housewife and the butcher - I understand the psychology behind it relative to the title of the book but for the same reasons I don't watch Desperate Housewives - I uncomfortably skimmed over those pages.

Sorry Kate, not a prude, just thought it took away from the beauty of the main story. I prefer some things left to my imagination.