A truly important piece of Australian literature, this was a set text in some highschools during the late 20th century. Anderson's tale of a woman born at the turn of the century, is a tale of the oppressions and challenges women faced during this era, a poignant reflection on memory, and a truthful, quiet story. ( )

As a GR friend has said, the writing feels awkward at the start of the novel, but settles down reasonably quickly, and thereafter is a pleasure to read. It's also a fine technical feat: two parallel narratives, one of Nora in the let's call it present, and then the how did she get to be in this present narrative that she's remembering. Most impressive of all is present Nora's own interpretation of past Nora's activities, and even of present Nora's; few books are willing to explicitly show the workings of the character's mind about herself in such depth.

Otherwise, a raft of themes and issues that make this an obvious revival book: gender, art, poverty, modernization, you name it, all done in an unpretentious, non-judgemental way. Which makes sense, since the narrator is an aged, sickly woman who is slightly distant from her self and others around her. ( )

This is an absolute stunner. It gets Australia completely right without the cheapness of St John's shots. It nails the state of captivity of women without agency. Nora's need to escape, and taking marriage as the way out is heartbreaking. The role of education, and even more that of reading, which I might add is big in Women in Black and also in My Brilliant Friend comes comes into play here too. To be educated is to escape the poverty and meanness of life in city Australia and country Australia as much as it may extract you from neighbourhood Naples. To forsake education in favour of marriage as one's saviour is to court utter ruination. To read is to build one's dreams of escape. Oh, I did this as a child and many must have had it much, much worse than I.

Rest here:

https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpress.com/2017/01/07/tirra-lirra-by-the-river-... ( )

This is an absolute stunner. It gets Australia completely right without the cheapness of St John's shots. It nails the state of captivity of women without agency. Nora's need to escape, and taking marriage as the way out is heartbreaking. The role of education, and even more that of reading, which I might add is big in Women in Black and also in My Brilliant Friend comes comes into play here too. To be educated is to escape the poverty and meanness of life in city Australia and country Australia as much as it may extract you from neighbourhood Naples. To forsake education in favour of marriage as one's saviour is to court utter ruination. To read is to build one's dreams of escape. Oh, I did this as a child and many must have had it much, much worse than I.

Rest here:

https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpress.com/2017/01/07/tirra-lirra-by-the-river-... ( )

In Anderson's Miles-Franklin-award-winning novel, an elderly woman, Nora Roche Porteous, returns to her childhood home in Brisbane, after living many years abroad. Diagnosed with pneumonia upon her arrival, she spends many days in bed, tended to by kind neighbours. As she rests, she reflects on her life--on the stifling conventionality of her childhood home in which she finds herself once again, and particularly on her overbearing, now deceased, elder sister. Early on in life, Nora found it natural and necessary to create a realm of the imagination for herself--a place in which she could take intense and joyful refuge. At first this kingdom was based on what she saw from one of the windows of the house by the river, but eventually it could be entered through the poetry found in one of her father's books, and then spontaneously as needed.

Nora's father died when she was a child, and there is a sense throughout the book that this event has haunted her, trailed and affected her in a slippery way she can't quite grasp. Family members have commented that she was broken to bits by grief, yet she has almost no recollection of the event or her response to it . . . until the end of the novel when a dreamlike image emerges as her convalescence comes to an end.

Much of Tirra Lirra focuses on the small human tragedy of Nora's marriage to a petty tyrant and her attempts to flee this claustrophobic and stultifying relationship. She finds some freedom with a group of artists who live near her flat. A creative and skilled seamstress teaches Nora some fundamentals of dress-making and encourages the artistic spirit within her. However, Nora's husband resents and rails against her hanging about with this decadent, free-spirited lot, and is particularly threatened by the fact that she has a close male friend who is gay. Ultimately, the Porteouses move from their lovely rooms in a decaying Sydney mansion to live with Nora's overbearing mother-in-law, the ever critical and perpetually dissatisfied, Una. The fact that Nora can't seem to produce a child only makes matters worse for her. In the end, though, the lack of dependents makes it a great deal easier for her to escape to England, where she is able, finally, to come into herself.

A commentary at the end of the edition I read states that Jessica Anderson saw Nora as an artist who did not fully understand that she was one. Nora's struggles against convention, her quest to find a place to be herself, as well as her yearning to create and be surrounded by beauty represent the impulses and the archetypal journey of the artist. In naming her book Tirra Lirra by the River, Anderson nods to Tennyson's poem, The Lady of Shalott, and enriches the novel with a poetic subtext about the tensions between artistic creativity--which requires solitude and detachment--and the romantic, social, and physical yearnings of a woman.

Initially, I found the novel a little disorienting. Anderson quite deliberately discombobulates the reader, perhaps to encourage more complete identification and sympathy with the ailing and displaced Nora, the first-person narrator throughout. However, it didn't take long to be rewarded by the book. I enjoyed it very much and was surprised by the degree to which I could relate to Nora's experiences, though I'm of quite a different generation. ( )