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A review by shaq
Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay
1.0
I am so lost having read this, I don't even know what to say. I have so many questions.
This review may give some spoilers to the book, nothing major, but it will discuss the events in the book, but honestly, in my opinion its not even worth reading, so if you are reading this review before having read the book, you're probably saving yourself from going down the line of actually reading this book in my opinion.
What exactly was this book about? The title mentions about a Picnic at Hanging Rock, presumably I would have thought that the book would have revolved around the incident that occurs at the picnic, and so it does, for a while, and then the author moves on and we hear nothing more of it. Why?
Is the book about a supernatural force that revolves around the Hanging Rock? That attracted and teleported the missing people into another realm never to be found and somehow some of them escaped? A classic cheating death story?
Is it about a blooming love story between a rescuer and the rescue-e brought together by a higher power on the day of love itself united through tragedy and trauma? A somewhat love written in the stars story?
Is it a dialogue about the finishing school and the education of women or maybe revolving around a bad Headmistress that didn't care about its wards and how she got what she deserved? A sort of karmic retribution story?
The author went into such brilliant detail in describing each scene that I could picture it perfectly and was sure that the details would eventually be relevant at a later stage but then moved on without any mention of the matter at all. I may have thought that the book was meant for a time when the world didn't have the ability to view things on a screen that this book may have gained its fame for capturing the moment well enough that I imagine people would sit by the fire and read about this appalling event and imagine themselves to be there, but no, this book was written in the late 1960s.
Maybe I'm one of those people who actually need some closure on things I read but I do not believe the author gets to cop out of finishing any particular piece just by writing 'readers need to decide themselves whether this is fact or fiction'. There are supposed news articles mentioned to indicate that the story may have been a non fiction retelling of the incident, yet at the same time references to visions and mysterious disappearances without elaborating or going in-depth on either aspect, and I can understand that the author may have wanted to leave the story an open ended mystery, without having a resolution, but then why go into detail on so many other stories that had nothing to do with it.
The children may have gone lost, but why and where did the teacher go? Why was her clothes missing? Was it normal for everyone's clock to stop working at the same time? Was the people who came back holding something back or had malicious intent? Why was a random person able to find something two days later but the people and all their dogs couldn't through an exhaustive search? Why does Mike not care about someone he was hellbent on rescuing? Was the fire an accident or intentional or an act of god? Was the Headmistress a murderer or twisted in the head?
There are so many questions and literally no answers.
This review may give some spoilers to the book, nothing major, but it will discuss the events in the book, but honestly, in my opinion its not even worth reading, so if you are reading this review before having read the book, you're probably saving yourself from going down the line of actually reading this book in my opinion.
What exactly was this book about? The title mentions about a Picnic at Hanging Rock, presumably I would have thought that the book would have revolved around the incident that occurs at the picnic, and so it does, for a while, and then the author moves on and we hear nothing more of it. Why?
Is the book about a supernatural force that revolves around the Hanging Rock? That attracted and teleported the missing people into another realm never to be found and somehow some of them escaped? A classic cheating death story?
Is it about a blooming love story between a rescuer and the rescue-e brought together by a higher power on the day of love itself united through tragedy and trauma? A somewhat love written in the stars story?
Is it a dialogue about the finishing school and the education of women or maybe revolving around a bad Headmistress that didn't care about its wards and how she got what she deserved? A sort of karmic retribution story?
The author went into such brilliant detail in describing each scene that I could picture it perfectly and was sure that the details would eventually be relevant at a later stage but then moved on without any mention of the matter at all. I may have thought that the book was meant for a time when the world didn't have the ability to view things on a screen that this book may have gained its fame for capturing the moment well enough that I imagine people would sit by the fire and read about this appalling event and imagine themselves to be there, but no, this book was written in the late 1960s.
Maybe I'm one of those people who actually need some closure on things I read but I do not believe the author gets to cop out of finishing any particular piece just by writing 'readers need to decide themselves whether this is fact or fiction'. There are supposed news articles mentioned to indicate that the story may have been a non fiction retelling of the incident, yet at the same time references to visions and mysterious disappearances without elaborating or going in-depth on either aspect, and I can understand that the author may have wanted to leave the story an open ended mystery, without having a resolution, but then why go into detail on so many other stories that had nothing to do with it.
The children may have gone lost, but why and where did the teacher go? Why was her clothes missing? Was it normal for everyone's clock to stop working at the same time? Was the people who came back holding something back or had malicious intent? Why was a random person able to find something two days later but the people and all their dogs couldn't through an exhaustive search? Why does Mike not care about someone he was hellbent on rescuing? Was the fire an accident or intentional or an act of god? Was the Headmistress a murderer or twisted in the head?
There are so many questions and literally no answers.