Literary observations about people
Am re-reading The Children's Bach by Helen Garner and just finished The Romantic by Kate Holden.
In the latter she writes of having coffee with a new acquaintance in Rome, a fellow expatriate, how she looks at the waiter's face in the cafe as they leave, to see if he will betray whether her date makes a regular habit of picking up female tourists. Reminded me of having coffee at Valhalla with a male friend, who worried that the female waitress wouldn't make eye contact with him. He was a frequent enough visitor to know her name-she had straight dark hair and dressed like a young student (which she probably was) and could have been his type if he was single (but he wasn't), and I teased him about her rejection, suggested that she probably didn't respect him.
In The Children's Bach, even though the novella is prefaced with the statement that all characters are fictional, you can recognise elements of people in her life: the bookworm and sensible pre-teen only child (Garner's daughter), the professional musician/bachelor etc. The way she describes the culture of an all day Fitzroy Cafe, or Melbourne tram lined streets on winter days, as they appear to someone new to town... brilliant. Melbourne in the 80s is recalled to me, visits when we stayed in Carlton, walked those same streets, how I wondered at people that lived above shops, ate at their delicatessens, the multicultural life of the city instead of the brick veneer suburban safety I knew.
In the latter she writes of having coffee with a new acquaintance in Rome, a fellow expatriate, how she looks at the waiter's face in the cafe as they leave, to see if he will betray whether her date makes a regular habit of picking up female tourists. Reminded me of having coffee at Valhalla with a male friend, who worried that the female waitress wouldn't make eye contact with him. He was a frequent enough visitor to know her name-she had straight dark hair and dressed like a young student (which she probably was) and could have been his type if he was single (but he wasn't), and I teased him about her rejection, suggested that she probably didn't respect him.
In The Children's Bach, even though the novella is prefaced with the statement that all characters are fictional, you can recognise elements of people in her life: the bookworm and sensible pre-teen only child (Garner's daughter), the professional musician/bachelor etc. The way she describes the culture of an all day Fitzroy Cafe, or Melbourne tram lined streets on winter days, as they appear to someone new to town... brilliant. Melbourne in the 80s is recalled to me, visits when we stayed in Carlton, walked those same streets, how I wondered at people that lived above shops, ate at their delicatessens, the multicultural life of the city instead of the brick veneer suburban safety I knew.
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