Australian Women Writers Gen 3 Week, Part II, 17-23 Jan. 2021
Eleanor Dark (1901-1985) is best known for her Timeless Land trilogy, but she was also an important modernist writer, and one of the earliest. Luckily for us, two contributors to this Week, Buried in Print from Canada and Emma of Book Around the Corner from France, have chosen to review Eleanor Dark novels.
Buried in Print
Writers in Novels: Eleanor Dark’s The Little Company (1945) #AWW
It’s a time of “political and intellectual crisis” in The Little Company. Sound familiar?
Drusilla Modjeska’s introduction situates readers in Dark’s depiction of ordinary life in Sydney and Katoomba, in this time of “recession, nuclear threat and more failed expectations” in Australia.
Lantana Lane by Eleanor Dark – an intelligent comedy about a community doomed to disappear.
Eleanor Dark introduces us to the inhabitants of Lantana Lane, set in Dillillibill, a rural area of Queensland, the tropical part of Australia. They have small farms and mostly grow pineapples on their land that is not occupied by the sprawling lantana weed.
In this district it may be said with little exaggeration that if you are not looking at pineapples, you are looking at lantana.
.
Photo: Eleanor Dark at Varuna with typescript for Storm of Time, Dec. 1947. Blue Mountains City Library
The Australian Legend 
Thanks for the mention! I really enjoyed Lantana Lane and thanks for recommending it to me.
LikeLike
Thank you! It’s fun having our old stories looked at with fresh eyes.
LikeLike
Ah, you too! I also like reading reviews of French classics by foreigners. It’s refreshing and they point out new things.
LikeLiked by 1 person
How do you break up the word “Dillillibill” when you say it?
LikeLike
Dill-ill-i-bill (?) Emphasis on 2nd syllable. It’s not a real place as far as I know.
LikeLike
Ah, okay! I ended up buying the book after I sampled the first two pages. If there’s anything people in the Midewest (where frequent temperature changes DESTROY the roads) can relate to, it’s horribly roads. I was cackling at the author’s description of the pot hole that has a name. I think I’m going to read this one to Nick!
LikeLike
Hey, that’s great! I never think of what might be available as an e-book, except occasionally Proj. Gutenberg
LikeLike
ahhh – I went for the stresses in lillipilli when I read this name dilli – lilli – bill, then realised I had one too many syllables!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks kindly for linking and ohhh, I love that photo!
LikeLiked by 1 person
What I said to Emma. I have a new appreciation for Dark with all the reviews that have been done in connection with ‘Gen 3’.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I enjoyed both these reviews and will definitely look out for this author
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dark’s themes seem to me to be more universal than most of the authors we have looked at this week (or perhaps just less focussed on injustice).
LikeLike