My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.
Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.
My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin (Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin) C+
This novel 1901 is the first person narration of Sybylla, a volatile, strong-willed, free-spirited, ambitious, and talented girl growing up on farms in eastern Australia between Melbourne and Sydney in the later 1880's. It recounts her life from the age of five to nineteen, with the greater part of it concerning her life from the age of sixteen to eighteen.
Sybylla's great regret, a theme running through the book, is that, at least in her eyes, she is unattractive, and as such, she finds herself at a great disadvantage in life. In a world where men value how women look, and expect them to be little more than showpieces doing insipid things and obedient wives, she feels that she is both unlikely to attract a husband, and/or be allowed to play an active role in the marriage and life is she should. This is something she very much wants to do, for she is both smart, ambitious, and aspires to culture and the arts which are closed to her, at least in her rural situation. She may also be too volatile and independent minded that seems to make her ill-fitted for a life on the remote farms and ranches of countryside. Indeed, she's a great trial for her mother. So, with her ambitions and dreams, Sybylla refuses to compromise and vows not to get married - despite a seemingly golden opportunity to do so. With very iffy results. The book seems to end before the story ends... Or does it?
In any event, the story offers an authentic look at life in the Australian countryside of the 1880's, both its lushness as well as the spirit-breaking bleakness of it. She writes of the wealthy farmers and of tramps who walk the roads looking for their next meal at the ranches the roads past by. And of the hard life of the small farmers trying to scrape a living from an often very inhospitable land.
Miss Franklin wrote this "romance" as a teenager to amuse her friends. And though is presents the view of a very young person, I gather it proved to be somewhat of a manifesto for Miss Franklin, who lived an adventurous and committed life that her hero dreamed of. She submitted the manuscript of a famous Australian author, who seeing its worth, submitted to his publisher in England. It proved popular. Perhaps too popular, as she never wrote another novel that achieved the success of her first book. Still, she left her mark on the world, not only with this book and her half dozen other books, stories, and writing, but in her various "real jobs" and in her life-long promotion of Australian arts.
I found it to be a very interesting book, for the colorful life and interesting characters, Miss Franklin painted. But there is nothing romantic about it. It doesn't shy away from the grim realities of the time. Between those grim realities and its rather abrupt, pessimistic, and unsatisfactory ending, I found it a little too grim for my tastes. Not what I would consider a bright summer read.
Note; When searching for the cover for this book, I used Google "Lens" to identify the cover art of this issue, and it is an authentic Australian artist and scene from the period.
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