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cody240fc's review against another edition
2.0
Murnane has reached the twilight of his life and, as many older men have a tendency to do, wants to enjoy his remaining years reflecting on a long life lived. In "Border Districts," Murnane focuses on memory and lasting images. He calls this a work of fiction because "How could I have begun to tell what I truly felt when even today, more than sixty years later, I labour over these sentences, trying to report what was more an intimation of a state of mind than an actual experience?"
But this is not a work of fiction in the traditional sense. The author himself refers to it numerous times as a report, so that is what I am going to call it as well.
Much of this report focuses on stained glass and light. For the life of me, I can't quite put my finger on why the author has decided to focus on this particular aspect of his memories and, frankly, it makes for a boring read.
I like the idea of sharing your lasting images of your memory with your readers, but while the significance of those images might be of interest to the man doing the remembering, it is difficult for an outsider to care, especially when most of those images center on stained glass.
Murnane has a great literary reputation, and there were passages that in "Border Districts" that illustrated the talent that has made him a famous author. I want to read some of his fiction, particularly "The Plains." But as for his supposedly final offering, it is merely okay.
But this is not a work of fiction in the traditional sense. The author himself refers to it numerous times as a report, so that is what I am going to call it as well.
Much of this report focuses on stained glass and light. For the life of me, I can't quite put my finger on why the author has decided to focus on this particular aspect of his memories and, frankly, it makes for a boring read.
I like the idea of sharing your lasting images of your memory with your readers, but while the significance of those images might be of interest to the man doing the remembering, it is difficult for an outsider to care, especially when most of those images center on stained glass.
Murnane has a great literary reputation, and there were passages that in "Border Districts" that illustrated the talent that has made him a famous author. I want to read some of his fiction, particularly "The Plains." But as for his supposedly final offering, it is merely okay.
jvmpbvndles's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Unique book. Some very relatable insights and he goes to great lengths to be as honest as possible about his inner experience, so then it was also very self-indulgent and I grew tired of it after awhile. Started to get more repetitive and less insightful.
blairmahoney's review against another edition
5.0
Gerald Murnane is one of the greatest Australian writers ever. This is supposedly his last book and it's very much in line with his last few since his late renaissance. It's a meditative reflection on the nature of literature and a sort of stream-of-consciousness trip through the narrator's memory. I wouldn't recommend it as a place to start with Murnane's writing, but what a wonderful place to finish.
spadeano's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.75
coreyatad's review against another edition
An extraordinary bookend to Tamarisk Row, free of the more brazen play with sentence length and attempts at plainly evocative prose. Stripped down to just about 130 pages, Border Districts is Murnane in a different kind of reflective mode, focused intently on relating images of the mind without literary abstraction, but full of abstracted description. Beautiful and funny and hopeful at the end of life.
shoba's review against another edition
5.0
“Two months ago, when I first arrived in this township just short of the border, I resolved to guard my eyes….I do this so that I might be more alert to what appears at the edges of my range of vision; so that I might notice at once any sight so much in need of my inspection that one or more of its details seems to quiver or to be agitated until I have the illusion that I am being signalled to or winked at.”
An unnamed narrator moves from the city to a quiet township in an unnamed country. The man recalls that while a young boy he would read passages from the books on his father’s and mother’s nightstands. He read of fictional characters, wealthy young women and men, in fictional settings, in large houses with manicured lawns. As he read, one passage flowing into another, the boy became convinced he was reading a “never-ending book”.
“The remembering man remembered….”
The man remembers that when he was a boy he observed the colors and patterns of the panels of stained glass windows in churches and in private homes, the marbles in his collection, and the kaleidoscope he looked through. His memories from his childhood were so vivid that he remembers the hue of the colors from his colored pencil set and the name given to each color.
“…to read aloud one after another of the tiny printed names…to let each colour seem to soak into each word of its name or even into each syllable of each word of each name so that I could afterwards call to mind an exact shade or hue….Deep cadmium, geranium lake, imperial purple….”
Visiting a friend that he knew from his childhood, the narrator photographs the panels of stained glass in his friend’s home. Looking at the photographs later he perceives that the stained glass panels were more vibrant when he saw them in person.
“Ignorant as I am in the fields of optics and physics, I might have decided that no photographic film is quite so sensitive to light as is the human retina. I might simply have decided that I imagined rather than recalled the sight of the actual windows: that this was one more example of the unreliability of memory….when I decided that my seeing the panes of glass in the early morning had consisted of much more than my registering, as it were, certain shapes and colours; that a part of my seeing was my investing the glass with qualities not inherent in it qualities probably not apparent to any other observer and certainly not detectable by any sort of camera; that what I missed when I looked at the photographic prints was the meaning that I had previously read into the glass. And if I could give credence to such an eccentric theory, then I might as well go further and assert that I saw in the glass part of the private spectrum that my eyes diffused from my own light as it travelled outwards: a refraction of my own essence, perhaps.”
It took me about a month to finish this slim novel. I found it necessary to put it aside often because the text at times became overwhelming. I especially loved the passage where the narrator described the photograph of the author on the back of a George Gissing biography that he read years ago. In the author’s photograph, the narrator noticed a possible door in the distance and a light, the source unidentifiable. This novel was about memory and light or the memory of light. Therefore it serves as a record of perceptions, lived experiences, rather than facts. I wasn’t sure how to rate this book, possibly 4 stars since I enjoyed it less than Inland. I then realized that I would reread this book before any other 4 star book I had read this year. I remain, continuing in the glow of Murane’s light.
kaph's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
Suggested to me by the bookseller at St George in Berlin.
I really did not get this book. It just seem a constant, disconnected and incoherent rambling of an old man about his past and his obsessions. Among those obsessions are colored glass panes, religion and women. Thought about dropping it multiple times, at least it's short (though not quick). I also have an ick with the overuse of "one or the other", it killed the flow every single time. Also, some parenthesis were either never closed or never opened, and I'm not sure whether it is a typo or not.
Underdeveloped to say the least.
I really did not get this book. It just seem a constant, disconnected and incoherent rambling of an old man about his past and his obsessions. Among those obsessions are colored glass panes, religion and women. Thought about dropping it multiple times, at least it's short (though not quick). I also have an ick with the overuse of "one or the other", it killed the flow every single time. Also, some parenthesis were either never closed or never opened, and I'm not sure whether it is a typo or not.
Underdeveloped to say the least.
chillcox15's review against another edition
5.0
Gerald Murnane with his supposedly final work, confirms once again he is one of the pre-eminent masters of narratology.
mandibibbs37's review against another edition
2.0
This was a challenging read for me. The author's style was obscure. I lost track of the place and characters, who are all without names or clear definitions. And with this book, that's kind of the point.
I hit a stride with the writing style at times, but it felt once I was in the reading groove, the author went off on a description of a person or location that was unintelligible again.
I really wanted to like this one because it came so highly recommended to me as someone who loved "Atocha Station" but the reading experience between this and Atocha was completely different.
I hit a stride with the writing style at times, but it felt once I was in the reading groove, the author went off on a description of a person or location that was unintelligible again.
I really wanted to like this one because it came so highly recommended to me as someone who loved "Atocha Station" but the reading experience between this and Atocha was completely different.