Resumo de Sixty Lights

Sixty Lights by Gail Jones

Gail Jones is the proud winner of the 1991 TAG
Hungerford

Award for Fiction, the 1992 Barbara Ramsden Prize, the
1993

Steele Rudd Short Story Award and the 1993 Western

Australian Premier's Book Award for Fiction for her
short

stories collection Breathing House. Her debut novel is
The

Black Mirror.

This story is basically about an eight year old Lucy
and a

ten year old Thomas who are orphaned when mother
Honoria

Strange dies giving birth to her third child. The story

starts off in Melbourne. The children go off to live
with

uncle Neville in London.

Jones has a very lucid narrative. She is often
effortless

with complex emotions, often poetic. Has a keen eye for

visual images much like her protagonist Lucy. Lucy's
flair

for photography is well justified as a result.

There is a very credible shift in the Point of View
(POV)

of Lucy as she grows into an adult. But at certain
points

the depth rendered seems deliberate and hyperbolic.
Like ,

when little Lucy looks at her mother Honoria Strange's

photograph as a seven year old (with a lovely flowing
dress

and a big white hat ) and reads state of mind of
Honoria to

herself in her aloneness. I wonder if anyone can do
that so

much at depth and an eight year old at that.

The novel does have happy scenes of Lucy's brother
little

Thomas whispering fantasies about going to Brazil and

getting bucketsful of gold. But the reader is still
left

feeling a little melancholic because these fantasies
hide

the insecurity of the situation in their lovely blanket
of

glee - Jones makes this apparent in her tone. Each

character adds to the mood of the story, so that way
there

are no frills. Though the story is set in the Victorian

age , it has contemporary shades may be because it is

recently written , this could be sub conscious on the
part

of the author.

The story flows and has a good pace. A part of the
story is

also set in Mumbai -India. The writing about the way
Lucy

sees the people and the way she finds the people and
the

places visually appealing makes a good read. I like the
way

the relationship between Harriet White and Honoria is

woven , the shades of lesbianism are so polished.
Jones'

poetic style may be mistaken for a verbose piece of
prose.

Interesting similes.... - '' transient as a sundial

shadow''. The prose piece has a sad ending on the
surface

but happy at a spiritual level. Methinks Gail Jones

specializes in that effect.

I read the book because at first glance it came across
as

an intense work of fiction. It is set in the Victorian
Age

much the way Jane Eyre is set. But this one has a

protagonist, Lucy Strange who is more lively than Jane

Eyre.

Lucy is an appealing person with visible flaws in her

personality and she desires freely, she is not quite a
Jane

Eyre whose desires had been suppressed. In short, Lucy
can

never be a chaste governess like Jane. Lucy has
impulses

and is visibly beautiful. So, basically I found Lucy
more

believable , not as archetypical as Jane. The novel is
at

some points melancholic but has more shades to it than
Jane

Eyre which makes it colorful and not monotonous unlike
Jane

Eyre. Lucy is also more evolving than Jane. Lucy
evolves

into a woman ahead of her day and age , a woman of the

future. Of course, Jane Eyre has its merits but this is

only one person's analysis.

The novel has shades of Great Expectations too in the
way

protagonist feels and reacts but is mushier than Great

Expectations but Great Expectations is a wee bit more

pragmatic that way. Basically, Sixty Lights makes a
good

read and better read in three sittings.

Lakshmi Vishwanathan.

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