![]() The story of Sahiba and John is the love song of the book. He watches and gradually strikes up an acquaintance, then friendship, with the husband who tells him his story. The wife is Tunisian and exotic, the husband Australian. But he finds himself at a loose end, and the writer in him begins observing the owners of the pastry shop that has opened up in his small Carlton strip shopping centre. Like Miller, whose last book “Landscape of Farewell” was well received, the author Ken’s last book was called “Farewell” and he expected that it would be his final book too. The frame story has an aging writer, not unlike Miller himself, who has returned to Carlton in Melbourne after an extended stay in Venice. ![]() We all have our own story about love, but we can’t all turn them into lovesongs. It could just as easily have been called “Love Story” – although I think that someone already has used THAT title! – because it’s a love story in its own right, but it’s also a story about love stories. ![]() Alex Miller’s book is called “Lovesong” and I think it falls into this final category. So what IS a lovesong, after all? It’s a performance, a creation with words and music, written sometimes for a particular person, or sometimes as a fantasy on the experience of being in love. There are spoilers here, so if you haven’t read the book you might not want to read this yet… ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |