Winner of the Australian Booksellers' Award, this novel blurs together memories and fiction as an octogenarian narrates the legend of the silver hands to a woman in her twenties, who in turn passes on the tale to a man who claims it as his own.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Australian author Modjeska has written a ramblingly structured, autobiographical novel largely in the form of three "porous, conversational, sometimes moody" essays about women as lovers, daughters and artists. At the heart of the narrative is the story of swan-necked, 80-year-old Ettie, an artist-turned-gardener whose affair with a married painter in the 1930s produced a daughter who was subsequently given to the painter's wife to bring up as her own. Ettie's secret continually intrudes itself into the lives of the women friends and family around her: Louise, in her 40s and contemplating an affair; Clara, who is really Ettie's granddaughter and is struggling to define her own identity; and the first-person narrator, the academic observer who derives sustenance from these stories for her own life. In three parts that have little connection with one another, the narrator probes essential experiences that shape the woman artist. In "The Adultery Factor," she intersperses the historical triangle among Stella Bowen, Ford Madox Ford and Jean Rhys with the marital troubles a trois of a contemporary Australian couple. "Sight and Solitude" recounts the isolation forced upon the narrator by near blindness. "The Winterbourne" describes the journey she takes with Clara back to her old boarding house in Carn, England. Modjeska's prose is poised, and she is adept at blending her dreamy stories into a kind of mythological web. Yet her cultural criticism is often heavy-handed, and the programmatic structure of the book hampers its success. (Aug.) FYI: The Orchard won three of Australia's national book awards, including the Australian Booksellers Award.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
The Orchard could simply be described as "peculiar," which may well be what sets it apart from other literary works and what helped Modjeska reap many literary awards with the Australian publication. The novel is broken into three segments, distinct stories except for their recurring characters. Each imparts a message or moral realized during the life of a single narrator who is never identified. These lessons are brought to light quite imaginatively in stories not really told so much as allowed to develop though the chronicles of the narrator's relationship with the other characters, mostly women. Unfortunately, Modjeska has filled what could be a smooth and graceful journey to understanding with feminist proclamations and distracting intellectual ruminations. The middle section about solitude is particularly patience-trying, but the novel is redeemed by its finale--a woman coming into her own mirrored by a telling of the legend of the princess with the silver hands. Though beautiful in its own right, this book isn't light reading. Toni Hyde
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Life, relationships and intelligent introspection.,
By
This review is from: The Orchard (Paperback)
...The Orchard is about a series of issues that recur from place to place in the book: learning from one's past; how women can use their special qualities to advantage even when dominated by a man/men; how a particular event can signify many things when seen in idfferent contexts - the rape of Artemisia Gentileschi, the flowing of the winterbourne, the story of the orchard etc. It also serves as a good precursor to Stravinsky's Lunch to be published shortly in the USA but which I read when it came out in Australia a year ago. Another theme and one that links the two books is the practice of representation through painting and the personal searches and enquiries that lie behind pictures that we see in galleries or in books. The Orchard is one of the most thought-provoking, wise and deeply wordly books that I've read for some time.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Astonishing,
This review is from: The Orchard (Paperback)
Modjeska's exquisite novel is told by an unnamed woman who relates her own story, her friends' stories, and the stories of famous women, all woven together to give a greater picture of the lives of women as artists. Virginia Woolf, Stella Bowen, Artemisia Gentileschi, and others are threaded into this vibrant tapestry. The final fable of the princess with the silver hands is actually the single basis of the rest of the book: the idea of women finding their own agency in the world, whether in art or in daily life or in relationships with men and/or women. The language is supple and complex, which might deter some readers seeking light reading, but the sheer beauty of Modjeska's writing seduces and inspires. It's like an essay, but through fiction, as if "A Room of One's Own" were a faerie tale of sorts. "The Orchard" is a powerful book that deserves many visits.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Graceful and Unique,
By L Davies (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Orchard (Paperback)
This is a graceful and unique book that blends fiction with intellectual theory and even biography to explore the themes of agency and self-identity in women's lives. Modjeska's style is unique, using what she calls an essay form to tell the stories of four fictional women characters and such well-known artists and writers as Stella Bowen, Artemisia Gentileschi and Virginia Woolf. Modjeska and her characters discuss such concepts as the formation and preservation of self-identity, with the intellectual theories surrounding these concerns framed, refreshingly, in the context of women's everyday lives. The complexity of this book means it can be read over and over, and I recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone who is interested in sexual politics, art history, relationships, literature - or to anyone who loves an engrossing story, well-developed characters and beautiful language.
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