Customer Reviews

Picnic at Hanging Rock

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I had to hunt for a copy of this out-of-print novel through the internet, and order it used from a bookstore in Australia, but it was well worth the effort! Beautifully written, this 1986 re-issue has period photographs that add greatly to the enigmatic story. The excellent 1975 Peter Weir movie version is quite faithful to the book. Interestingly, there is a Chapter 18 that is considered the "lost" final chapter that resolves the mystery. Joan Lindsay wrote it, but was asked by the publishers to withhold it from publication pending the movie rights. The caveat was that the chapter would only be published after her death. Lindsay died in 1984, her book was re-issued in 1986 (minus Chapter 18) and the "missing" chapter was finally published in 1987 under the title "Secret of Hanging Rock." If you can find "Picnic at Hanging Rock," buy it & savor it. It's THAT good. Rent the video too!

Having seen Peter Weir's film before reading Joan Lindsay's novel it
is difficult for me to review the book without referring to the film.
The film leaves out some details from the novel but both convey the
same sense of beauty, horror and loss, longing and haunting. We are
told on the book's cover that the story is based around a St
Valentine's day picnic in 1900, and the disappearance of some of the
picnic party.

Picnic at Hanging Rock is Joan Lindsay's only work of
fiction, although its many themes are firmly based on reality. The
story covers the loss of youth, beauty and innocence; love and
sexuality; discrimination, prejudice and class privilege; fear,
passion and the breakdown of order; the English Empire in a foreign
environment, the clash of alien cultures, and the end of an era;
beliefs and life's purpose; life's myriad web and coincidences;
destiny and fate; and Time itself, reflected in Miranda's favourite
quote "Everything begins and ends at exactly the right time and
place".

Joan Lindsay's descriptions of the Australian bush and
wildlife are as evocative as Russell Boyd's cinematography. The style
and language of her writing is deliberate to emulate turn-of-the 20th
century writers.

The girls images were already imprinted on my mind
when I read the book and the casting in the film seemed to me perfect,
especially that of Anne Louise Lambert as Miranda and Karen Robson as
Irma. Joan Lindsay described Mademoiselle Dianne de Poitiers, the
French teacher and the girls' confidante, as having blond hair, yet
the casting of the excellent Helen Morse was inspired.

Joan Lindsay
describes Miranda as a Botticelli Angel from the Galleria Degli Uffizi
in Florence, and Peter Weir specifically uses the image of the birth
of Venus. Miranda is all knowing and shows compassion to Sara and
Edith the least popular girl's at the school. Anne Louise Lambert's
portrayal of Miranda with her ethereal beauty and enigmatic smile
captures the vision perfectly, and is reminiscent of the knowing smile
on the death mask of the famous "L'Inconnue de la Seine", who
coincidentally died around 1900 in Paris.

The story's many strands
are reflected by the girl's layers of virginal white dress
representing suppression and restriction, with gloves, stockings and
shoes being shed by the more enlightened girls on their ascent of the
rock. Peter Weir used several techniques to convey the many layers of
the story including shots into mirrors as into another
dimension.

Joan Lindsay made a literary mistake which Cliff Green
repeated in the film script - Felicia Hemanes' famous Victorian
recital piece is "Casabianca" (about the Battle of The Nile),
and not "The Wreck of the Hesperus" (the captain ties his
daughter to the mast to save her from the storm which eventually sinks
the ship) which is by Henry Longfellow. Discrimination is shown by
Mrs Appleyard against Sara (an orphan) who is punished for not
learning the poem, by being kept back from the picnic, whereas clearly
Irma cannot remember it (on the picnic she can only quote the first
line) but her family's wealth and her position as heiress obviously
carry influence.

The importance of time and place are shown in that
Joan Lindsay based the location of her story on Hanging Rock near
mount Macedon in Victoria, which is a sacred Aboriginal site. To
provide added authenticity Peter Weir filmed at the rock during the
same six weeks of summer. Aboriginals believe time is not linear and
Joan Lindsay refused to have clocks in her home, hence the title of
her autobiography "Time Without Clocks". At Hanging Rock both
Mr Hussey's and Miss McCraw's watches stopped at twelve o'clock.
14 February 1900 actually fell on a Wednesday, not a Saturday, unless =
Joan Lindsay used the Julian calendar instead of the Gregorian, so that =
the eleven days were not lost? The open endedness of the novel
is deliberate to mirror life where we may learn or uncover some
secrets but never understand the mystery. Plenty of clues and
coincidences are related, together with unexplained details such as
the absence of scratches to Irma's bare feet, yet identical injuries
appear on her and Michael's heads, very reminiscent of the
X-Files.

This is a very thought provoking and inspiring story that
will haunt you. I find the book and the film compliment each other
exceptionally well, so if you haven't already done so I urge you to
also seek out the film.

I probably would have liked this better if I hadn't seen the movie first, a lot of the suspense was ruined because I knew what was going to happen. Still, its a very good book and I recommend it. Plus there is one final horror at the end of the book that wasn't in the movie (I won't give it away, of course). It actually seemed to me that Peter Weir's film created a much more eerie atmosphere than the original book especially with its scenes at the Rock itself with its shots of weird animals and rocks that look like human faces. It seemed that much of the focus in the book was on how the disappearences affected the people who didn't disappear while the movie focused on the strangeness of the event. This causes the book and movie to be different experiences even though the story is exactly the same. The book is a fascinating portrait of Australian life at the turn of the century while the movie is a masterpiece of psychological horror, not that the book isn't frightening or that the movie doesn't recreate how life was at that time, there's just a different focus. Both the book and the movie are excellent and both are worth taking a look at.

A group of school girls in the Austrialian outback at the turn of the century go out for a picnic and from there a haunting mystery ensues. Joan Lindsay has written a short but involving, absorbing novel that brings to life a strange and memorable experience from a time long ago. Carefully crafted, this novel as well as Peter Weir's direction of the full-length motion picture by the same name present one of the most fascinating interplays between the written form and motion picture format. Much of actual dialogue for the movie is taken from the novel which is almost unheard of nowadays. (For those unable to obtain a copy of the book, the movie version is as well done as the book). Both are delightful as they are haunting.

This book is facinating in its exploration of australian society at the beginning of the 20th century, the repressive nature of society and the menace of the bush. More than this, it is a mystery story with no conclusion - we never find out how or why the girls disappear, but rather witness the uneasy slide into anarchy of the closed community around Appleyard College as the mystery deepens. Some versions of the book have an additional chapter giving the explaination of the mystery - don't read it, it's really bad and completely takes away from the atmosphere of the story. If you can, see the movie too - many movies made from books suffer from being visualised, but if anything,the movie makes the book even richer.

I just finished this book several days ago and can't quit thinking about it. Having seen the movie many years ago, I already knew the outcome or better stated, the lack of an outcome, but was still enthralled by the mystery itself. I found Picnic to be very suspenseful and well written but am left with more questions then answers. Highly recommended for those that don't mind filling in the blanks about what might have happened.

I read this book years ago and liked it, but since we are planning a trip to Australia I wanted to read it again, and I found it (from a private Seller at Amazon MarketPlace) in the Illustrated edition. What a delightful book! It is filled with photos of the era and of the place, as well as pertinent paintings. There is something special on almost every page and it truly enlightens the reading experience!

The text itself is fabulous! Very clever writing, straight-forward yet retaining the mystery of the plot. The story takes place at a boarding school for young girls. On Valentines Day, 1990, about 20 girls and 2 teachers are excited to be taking a day trip to Hanging Rock (a real place in Victoria, Australia). Their picnic turns deadly in time, and I don't want to give away any of the plot, so please, get a copy and read it for yourself. I can't say enough about this book! I can't imagine why it has been allowed to go out of print, but searchers can find copies at Amazon U.K as well as several different editions from Sellers at Amazon MarketPlace. Do yourself a favor and try to find a copy! You will love it, and it just might prompt a trip to Australia.

Joan Lindsay created an incredibly disturbing novel, full of atmosphere and suspense. The writing is so powerfully visual, you can picture each scene as if it were playing in front of you. You can feel the heat of the day, smell the earth and hear the characters talking. And when you finally finish the novel, you will want to read it all over again and even visit the place where these (fictional) events were set...Hanging Rock, Australia.

On St. Valentine's Day, 1900, three girls and a teacher disappear from a school picnic at a local landmark called Hanging Rock. Only one of them will ever return. Picnic at Hanging Rock follows the events and fallout surrounding this mystery. The book is a view of the sublime: a natural wonder, concurrently beautiful and frightening, viewed through the eyes of those standing in its vast, dark shadow. At only 200 pages and written in a clean, clever voice, Picnic at Hanging Rock is a short book--but never simple. Its tone is at once gentle and morbid, equally suited to the dreamy hauntings and harsh fates that follow the events at Hanging Rock. Much of the book's complexity arises from the fact that its entire premise is an unsolved mystery. It offers more questions than answers, but it does so with quiet, thoughtful intent. In sprinklings of detail, dark implications, and suspicious events, the book sketches the shadow cast by Hanging Rock; its unsolved mysteries invite the reader into the story to engage and interpret, emerging with their own understanding of the events and their own view of that vast shadow--but perhaps no answers. The lack of answers is unsettling and for some readers may be unfulfilling, but those in search of something atmospheric and thoughtful, shadowed and intriguing, will do well to pick up Picnic at Hanging Rock. I recommend it.

(I add in brief that I also recommend the film based on this book. The book and film are quite similar, but the book offers more detail while the film better capture the ghostly atmosphere. Each stands alone, but they are beautiful in tandem--perhaps best with the book first.)

I just finished reading this book and have to say that I really enjoyed it. The author did a great job of creating a sense of foreboding out of a simple outing of an Australian private school for girls. I deliberately did not see the movie version yet because I wanted to finish the book first, but I knew enough about it to know that three of the students disappeared during the picnic at the beginning of the book. Even without knowing this though, the story is written in such a way that the reader is given a sense that something bad is going to happen. I found that the odd little touches of the story created this ominous feeling, such as several of the character's watches stopping near the time that the girls disappeared on the rock. I also thought it was very creative that this one event slowly fanned out throughout the story to effect the lives of the characters in different ways, and led to the downfall of the headmistress of the school, and ultimately the school itself. I also was wondering if I would find it annoying that the mystery is never really fully explained, but the fact that the mystery is never solved only made the ending of the book that much spookier. Overall, I found this to be a very enjoyable read and would like to find some of Joan Lindsay's other books if I can.