Somehow, Oscar & Lucinda (1988) by Peter Carey got onto my radar via a fantasy-inspired recommendations. It doesn’t belong anywhere near that kind of categorization: instead, it’s a pretty straightforward historical romance, albeit one where little works out as expected for the characters involved.
The titular duo are, respectively, a flame-haired priest and a spunky female heiress. His story starts in England, but they meet in Australia, and the notion of a church totally constructed of glass figures prominently, as does a mutual affection (bordering on compulsion) for gambling.
(A note on the last: it’s not a particular insightful view of the draw of gambling, as Carey misses the draw of losing itself, although he does capture the thrill of the illicit moment, and the same it carries with for these characters, quite well.)
Carey’s strength, for me, is the way he probes the faults and foibles of his characters, creating people that are constantly mired in internal struggles that often are out of sync with their external presentations and understandings. That provides a depth of humanity that is, at times, missing in narratives so richly and deeply rooted in historical detail. It also allows the petty politics of the day to drive the characters’ actions in ways that build a nicely anxious tension that never feels forced for the period.
There are many striking and lasting images: Oscar’s overbearing father’s obsession with seaside invertebrates; his own (deeply linked) water phobia; Lucinda’s reaction to the process of glassblowing, which leads to her purchase of a glassworks; and, of course, the sparkling monstrosity of the glass church being built upon a boat as it moves slowly towards the Australian inland.
The writing is deeply literate, to the point where the only thing that saves it from accusations of being written “for book clubs” is that it predates the fad by at least a decade. For many, this will be an attractor.
It’s a good read, and was, in 1997, turned into a movie by Gillian Armstrong, starring Ralph Fiennes and Cate Blanchett in the titular roles, which I have not seen. Carey’s book is recommended if historical fiction, with some significant quirks, is your thing.
#WhatIWishICouldDo
The sort of detailed historical recreation is impressive. I find reality much trickier to recreate than fantasy, whereas he has no qualms about the stories left untold, or only referred to, or inadequately told (the most glaring here is that of the Aboriginal Australians who are encountered and, largely, slaughtered). I’m not saying he should have told the story differently, btw: the concerns and reactions of Oscar and Lucinda and the rest ring genuine for who those characters are.