A Room Made of Leaves

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What she does demonstrate is a shrewd insight into John’s character: his love of grandiose schemes, of the ‘long game’, his need to be proved right, his delight in catching other people out, and his sensitivity to any suggestion of insult.

I drew on as many primary sources as I could find: the parish records of Bridgerule in Devon, archives in the State Library of NSW, Governors’ correspondence, and contemporary accounts of early Sydney. It would take the form of her secret memoirs, hidden in a tin box tucked away in the roof of her house. She turns inside-out the conventional emblem of birdsong as heartfelt expression, making it expressive only of tragic limitation: as a newly married, unhappy wife, Elizabeth hears a bird that sings “a lovely song” at dawn.In her rich vision of an alternate life for Elizabeth… Grenville offers a potentially myth-busting version of a turbulent time. Generously, she attributes his behaviour to the traumatic experiences of his youth and a sense of inferiority. He put his hand on his heart with a delicate movement, a caress of himself, fingers spread on his coat, and tilted his head questioningly, submissively, yearningly. And it’s taken the skill of the author to turn these memoirs into an intriguing depiction of life for those early Australian settlers.

Fact and fiction would overlap and allow a fictional woman of the past to do what would have been impossible for any real woman of that time: to put down in writing what she really thought. It is also very similar to some of the authors previous works, offering a different viewpoint but not sufficiently unique to stand out. I felt as though I was living through her, I had traveled back in time to this unknown land and all of a sudden history was been stitched together in front of me.It is a complicated balancing act, and feels somehow unresolved — even in a novel that embraces the idea that fiction’s job is to frame questions in new ways and invite engagement, not answer or settle them.

In her introduction Kate Grenville tells, tongue firmly in cheek, of discovering a long-hidden box containing that memoir. Twenty-one-year- old Elizabeth is hungry for life but, as the ward of a Devon clergyman, she knows not to expect much. Elizabeth, also unsurprisingly, seems to have been far more involved in successful sheep breeding than has been acknowledged in the traditional histories.She was on her own – for four years during her husband’s first absence, nine years the second – in a brutal society, yet she came to thrive. A Room Made of Leaves is the internationally acclaimed author Kate Grenville's first novel in almost a decade. Mr Kingdon must have tried to offer some kind of irritating comfort, in which a reverend like him was well practised, because there was a sharp edge when she answered. It's beautifully intimate, and Elizabeth Veale is a wonderful protagonist who not only enriches the countryside of Devon in earlier chapters but becomes a key fixture in the rapidly developing Sydney.

there's also a very sort of Jane Austen feel to the book in some ways - lots of wit, lots of charm, and Elizabeth balances her experiences against good humour and a steadfastness which is completely admirable but also believable.I believe she was, in her own right, a strong, attractive, independent woman who held her own in the new Colony and was loyal to her husband despite his obvious misgivings. Twenty-one-year-old Elizabeth is hungry for life but, as the ward of a Devon clergyman, knows she has few prospects. Elizabeth is portrayed as a woman of passion, bright, resilient, courageous, ambitious, independent, witty, and able, married to a nasty piece of work, the manipulative, domineering bully that is John, so she has to operate below the radar to manage him in times when women had little power or agency in a patriarchal world. Jaučiuosi suklaidinta lietuviško viršelio – man jis toks visai ne istorinis, gal net šiuolaikiškas, susisiejantis su kokia knyga apie mišką ar gamtos pažinimą.