‘Painted Love Letters’, written by Catherine Bateson.
The cover of this book looks like a painting of a black & white picket fence, with trees in the background behind the fence, and a purple bougainvillea hanging in the front. It suggests the book will be about a family- because of the stereotype of white picket fences in front of traditional family houses, the families that live in the suburbs with two kids and both parents, a canine and a “happy” life. But because behind the fence there are, what look like, pine trees, it prompts to suggest that the story isn’t set in the suburbs. What made me choose ‘Painted Love Letters’ was the thickness. Indeed a bit shallow, I wasn’t in the mood for a thousand paged, completely engaging novel.
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“Before and After.” – the first chapter.‘Dad said that in Nurralloo we were surrounded by Philistines who wouldn’t know a good painting if it jumped up and bit them, but at the pub they hung one of his small watercolours, a sketch he called it, and Dad got free beers. He said by the time I was sixteen, we’d be rich. We’d celebrate my birthday in Paris, the city of art and lovers. Mum said, ‘Don’t put ideas in her head Dave Grainger. Chrissie, don’t listen to him,’ and flicked her tea towel at him but later she pulled down one of Dad’s art books and showed me paintings of people dancing in Paris and a Paris pub which looked posher than the Station Hotel.’
My initial response to the writing is it seems temperately colloquial. It makes me feel as though I am a young teenager’s journal- so it wouldn’t consist of acutely complex language or unfamiliar phrases. It is definitely not compelling, but on the up-side it can be understood and related to quite simply. For example, I can imagine my fat…
…ere a part of me. I knew everything now about love and death, everything I needed to know.”My prediction was correct, but only because of the build up of Dave’s death in the beginning of the book. The end was very satisfying – I believe the author put a really good close to the book. Chrissie had grown up and learnt so much about life at such a young age.If I were basing the conclusion on how I would have behaved, I would have had Chrissie disintegrate into nothing because she had such a huge part of her life ripped away from her. But, I think Catherine Bateson’s ending is much more pleasant, and definitely touches my heart.
When I think about it, the front cover in a sense symbolises Dave’s life. He is the purple bougainvillea hanging on the black and white fence. This could be a way of how they celebrate his life – show how bright he was in a cold world.
