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A review by adperfectamconsilium
Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
The picnic setting of Hanging Rock in Australia in 1900 is eerie and feels like it belongs to another world, as if another reality has bled into the idea of what we perceive as nature.
A boarding school for Young Ladies run by the formidable Mrs Appleyard has a summer school trip for a picnic in the geological marvel of the rocks. A place that is majestic, beautiful, isolated and imbued with a dream like quality in the blazing sunshine.
A group of four girls go off exploring and later one returns in hysterics with no idea of what has happened to the other three.
One member of school staff seen wandering in their direction also disappears.
The search is called off as darkness approaches and the party arrive back at school late, tired & forlorn, disrupting Mrs Appleyard's timekeeping, school reputation and control of the girls.
Search parties provide no clue as to what has happened to the missing girls and tutor. Have they been murdered? Abducted? Killed by wild animals? Fallen and trapped and slowly dying?
The narrative is left open ended. There is no resolution to the mystery making it feel even more sinister. Possibly even supernatural.
The disappearance happens early in the novel and then the event begins to have an effect on those involved and then an increasing number of people in the surrounding community.
More tragedy follows as if the initial event is casting longer shadows reaching out to claim more victims.
It's written like a true account and the author asks the reader to decide whether it is fact or fiction. 'As the fateful picnic took place in the year nineteen hundred, and all the characters who appear in this book are long since dead, it hardly seems important.'
A boarding school for Young Ladies run by the formidable Mrs Appleyard has a summer school trip for a picnic in the geological marvel of the rocks. A place that is majestic, beautiful, isolated and imbued with a dream like quality in the blazing sunshine.
A group of four girls go off exploring and later one returns in hysterics with no idea of what has happened to the other three.
One member of school staff seen wandering in their direction also disappears.
The search is called off as darkness approaches and the party arrive back at school late, tired & forlorn, disrupting Mrs Appleyard's timekeeping, school reputation and control of the girls.
Search parties provide no clue as to what has happened to the missing girls and tutor. Have they been murdered? Abducted? Killed by wild animals? Fallen and trapped and slowly dying?
The narrative is left open ended. There is no resolution to the mystery making it feel even more sinister. Possibly even supernatural.
The disappearance happens early in the novel and then the event begins to have an effect on those involved and then an increasing number of people in the surrounding community.
More tragedy follows as if the initial event is casting longer shadows reaching out to claim more victims.
It's written like a true account and the author asks the reader to decide whether it is fact or fiction. 'As the fateful picnic took place in the year nineteen hundred, and all the characters who appear in this book are long since dead, it hardly seems important.'