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- General fiction - |
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The Ivory Swing |
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 The Ivory Swing byJanette Turner Hospital University of Queensland Press 252 pages, May 2000 First published in 1982 (UQP 1991) ISBN 0375709258 Reviewed by Zaheera Jiwaji Winner of Canada's Seal First Novel Award Justifiably, every nation wants to claim Janette Turner Hospital as its own. Born in Melbourne, Australia she attended university in Brisbane, then completed her graduate studies at Queens University in Canada. She has taught at universities in Canada, Australia, the USA, England, and Europe. It is not surprising that her work is widely translated. Her characters are enduring, complex yet universal. In The Ivory Swing Juliet, conflicted wife and mother, oscillates between two worlds: East and West, the traditional and the modern, independence and security. Through Juliet, we glimpse at that part of ourselves that yearns for adventure and freedom, yet is unable to part with what is solid and secure. When her husband David chooses to travel to Kerala, India for his sabbatical, Juliet reluctantly decides to join him. But not before she meets her old lover and friend Jeremy for a weekend in Montreal. Jeremy callously reminds her that her escape to India is an attempt to add spice to her boring domestic life. How wrong Jeremy is. The lazy, humid days living on the edge of a vast coconut grove in Southern India begin to suffocate Juliet. She rebels against the sexist limitations placed upon her by their high-caste Hindu hosts, realizing her egalitarian instincts are at odds in a traditional, classic environment. Silently she endures it all until she meets Yashoda, a beautiful young widow struggling to conform to expectations set out by orthodox Hindu society, especially those of her in-laws. She rejects the staid white garb worn by widows in favor of the silks and gold jewelry of her previous life. She yearns to live a full life, not one in quiet isolation. Buoyed by Juliet's family, Yashoda flagrantly disobeys tradition, placing them all in jeopardy. Hospital's fluid writing fuels the imagination, providing mythology and reality. An astute observer of both cultures, the author captures the eccentricities and inconsistencies of East and West, with valuable insight into Western culture. The Ivory Swing, the author's first novel, won Canada's Seal First Novel Award. Janette Turner Hospital completed eight other works thereafter. The most recent is the much-acclaimed Oyster. |
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