Thursday, October 14, 2010

Picnic at Hanging Rock

I'm a little obsessed with Picnic at Hanging Rock at the moment. Well, I've always been curious... I saw the film as a teenager but had never read the book until just now. I loved it. It's so romantic - but not in the modern sense of the word...

After the novel I read another book ABOUT the novel, which dissected the book and looked at parallels between it and other works. A lot of rubbish really. I really want to read the last chapter - the one that was released after the author died. I've looked up a summary on the internet and it sounds a bit silly... hopefully that's just because it's been summarised into only a few sentences. I tried to borrow it from the local library but they don't have it. And to buy it online is about $100 for a VERY short book (ie one chapter!). BUT lucky for me, I live in Canberra! Dave reminded me that the National Library has to keep a copy of every published Australian book, and according to their website they have two copies! So I will have to hang out at the National library and read it (it can't be borrowed). We borrowed the DVD from our local library and watched it this week. Seriously I wouldn't have seen it for about 20 years but it was all so familiar. So funny. It obviously stayed with me all those years!



4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Yvette,
sorry to dissapoint but I read the 13th Chapter at high school and was very sad I did!! I think the summary you read was a fair one..a lot of hogwash. Sigh...because I LOVED the book too.
Steph Stewart

Photography said...

I remember this from childhood. Was it a true story? Can't remember.

Felicity said...

I've always been a bit fascinated with it too! Hope you get "closure" with the ending... :-)

Mardi said...

Wow..... guess what....
The house we visited at Mintaro when we had friends...or rather...mansion we visited...was the home in Picnic at Hanging rock.....its the most AMAZING opulent place ever...and open to the public for a small fee.....I can see the steps in the photo in your post....
When you come to visit....we should go there...lol
Mardi xx