| The Spare Room | 
 enlarge | Author: Helen Garner
Publisher: Canongate Books
Category: Book
List Price: £12.99
Buy New: £6.49
You Save: £6.50 (50%)
New (20) Used (3) from £6.49
Avg. Customer Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 1574
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 208
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.4 x 1
ISBN: 1847672655
EAN: 9781847672650
ASIN: 1847672655
Publication Date: July 3, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW - ***Delivery usually * 2 - 3 * working days - From Aphrohead of SOUTHPORT, Lancs, UK *** . Priority Airmail used Worldwide on International orders. Thanks from all at Aphrohead.
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
Small but perfectly formed August 30, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
In the Spare Room, Helen Garner takes on death and wins. Nicola is a cancer patient who is staying in the spare room of her Melbourne based friend, Helen, for three weeks whilst she receives treatment. Helen narrates the novel, and using the same name as the author, one wonders whether there mightn't be some autobiography thrown in - or perhaps this is a double bluff.
It quickly appears that Nicola is not resigned to her fate, and intends to battle the cancer by any means at her disposal. She is willing to take on any treatment, no matter how painful, no matter how questionable, no matter what the cost to herself or those around her - so long as it gives her hope. Whilst she appears to make light of her own predicament, underneath the stoicism she is a deeply selfish woman who just assumes that her friends and family will drop everything to support her. The strain on Helen is immense, with constant taxiing, laundry, cooking, fussing. And Nicola gives little impression of even understanding the impact she has on those around her. At one point, she chastises Helen - with an ironical eyebrow - for not writing a theatrical review (Helen is a journalist) because people would say that Nicola was preventing Helen from working.
This raises real issues around death and palliative care. Nicola refuses palliative care because she refuses to accept a terminal diagnosis. That's her right - even if it might seem misguided. Nicola has a right to clutch at straws - even when everyone else can see the futility of it. But how far does Nicola have a right to impose on others in her pursuit of cure? At what point can her friends and family, who do love her, say enough's enough?
The portrayal of the two central characters is exquisite. Helen's mixed bag of emotions: grief, frustration, guilt, anger, kindness, patience all bounce off one another. It is a feat to have created such a maelstrom in so few words. It would have been so easy to drop into a sarcastic or unreliable narrator, but Garner takes on the bigger challenge of creating a complex but straight narrator. There is no hint that her actions are anything but well meant and sincere. Meanwhile, Nicola's attention seeking, selfish behaviour becomes ever more frustrating just through constantly adding to the pile. It's not that Nicola does anything worse, just that the impact of her behaviour mounts up for both Helen and the reader. Of course, Nicola does really suffer, and has every right to complain, but she does appear to milk the situation. The writing was on the wall, perhaps, early on when Nicola banished Bessie, the small child living next door, because Bessie had a cold and Nicola's immune system was weakened. As though it would matter if Nicola dies of a cold when she was already dying of cancer.
Helen Garner also makes the reader ask real questions about attitude to dying. Most of us will have a conversation with a doctor one day when the doctor will tell us that we'll die soon. Few people imagine what that must feel like and how we might react. Most of us looking with dispassion would hope we ask to be made as comfortable as possible in our last days, weeks, months or however long. Most of us will hope we don't make fighting death a full time obsession, but accept it with grace and dignity. Yet in The Spare Room, dying is the elephant in the room that nobody dares mention. All around Nicola, the characters act out roles to suit Nicola's wish of how the world might be - and seethe ad gnash teeth in private. That is probably a very real, true portrayal of many people's experiences of the end of life. Hopefully, a novel like this will help more people talk about the elephant.
This is a terrific novel - small but perfectly formed - and it fully deserves to be Booker shortlisted - perhaps to win. What a shame the judges didn't even place it on the longlist.
 Very thoughtful July 26, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
It's nice to read a book where each word means something and nothing has been wasted. This is my first novel by Garner and it was a pleasure. I can't compare it to any of her other material as she was an unknown author for me and I was only drawn to this novel by the cover but I'm pleased I opted for it. The quality of the writing is excellent; if this is her usual standard then I need to read more of her work. I wonder if any of it echoes the author's life? I don't know the answer to this but it felt like it was written from personal experience.
I expected it to be full of woe and misery, and whilst it is emotional in places; Helen's character does actually go over all the thoughts you know you shouldn't have if you were in that situation. I can't imagine how I would feel if I was Helen, having my friend Nicola come to stay for three weeks whilst she receives treatment for her progressing cancer. The novel lives up to the quotations and blurb and explores a friendship that is about to be tested to its limits - will it flourish or will it flounder?
I liked Helen's character, it was good to see her arguing with her friend (even though she knew she shouldn't) about the treatment she was going for and whether or not it was worthwhile. It was refreshing to read about the struggles and that she desperately wanted her friend to move out because she couldn't take any more; rather than reading about how wonderful everything was. I found myself laughing at Helen's nature and how (or so it seemed) Nicola was completely oblivious, until you realise she isn't actually like this and some of it is a coping mechanism.
The length was great, had Garner gone for a lengthier novel it would have spoiled the writing and in my opinion made it a dreary read. A great novel and one I'm happy to recommend.
A sublime tale about death and friendship July 20, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Even before I started reading Helen Garner's The Spare Room I knew I was going to like it. It was the design of the book that convinced me, because surely a publisher wouldn't go to all this trouble to make it look so beautiful if the content was rubbish? The cover image grabbed me initially when I ordered it online, but once I had it in my possession I loved the whole package: the gorgeous cover image (tulips are my favourite flowers); the dust jacket with its luxurious matt sheen; the pretty endpapers (tulip petals interspersed with green leaves); and a green bound bookmark.
But putting the sheer physical beauty of the book aside, The Spare Room is also rather special because it is Garner's first novel in 16 years. Her last novel, Cosmo Comolino, was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award in 1992, but she then took a different writing path, concentrating on short stories and journalism. The first (and only) Garner I have read was The First Stone, a non-fiction account of a sexual harassment scandal at a residential college at the University of Melbourne, which caused much controversy upon publication in 1995. I ate that book up in the course of a day and closed the last page feeling dazed, slightly dirty and not quite sure whether the author was a genius or a traitor. Having now read The Spare Room my opinion lies toward the former rather than the latter.
That other great Australian author Peter Carey endorses Garner's talent by describing her new book as a "perfect novel". Of course this is an oft overused trite phrase but, in this specific case, it's a wholly appropriate one. In fact, I'd go so far as to describe it as a sublime novel, and one that works its way into your subconscious so that you find yourself thinking about it when you are doing other things.
Reviewing the book is difficult though, because the synopsis sounds terribly dull and depressing. Two women in their sixties, one of whom is dying of cancer, doesn't really grab you by the throat, does it? And yet, in Garner's careful hands this story becomes a thoroughly engrossing one. The carefully measured prose, stripped of unnecessary clutter, serves to remove the claustrophobia of such a dark storyline, imbuing it with a light-hearted touch. Indeed, there were many times when I laughed out loud, not the least of when Nicola, the cancer sufferer, asks Helen, the friend caring for her, to buy some organic coffee for an enema:
"When I saw her brewing the organic coffee in the kitchen after dinner, I said tentatively, 'Do you need a hand to set it up? I can...'
She shook her head, too busy to listen.
'I wonder, though,' I said, as she forged off to the bathroom with the equipment. 'Is it a good idea to have a coffee enema at bedtime? You don't think the caffeine might keep you awake?'
'Why on earth would it do that, darling?' she said breezily. 'I won't be drinking it -- I'll only be putting it up my bum.'"
Supposedly based on Garner's own experience of caring for a dying friend, The Spare Room has a genuine ring of authenticity about it. You can understand Helen's anger, her fear, her inability to look after her dying friend, even if it is for just three weeks, because you know to be in a similar situation you'd probably feel the same way. Why should a friend do what a family member should be doing? And what happens if this friend dies in your spare room?
This is a novel about death and friendship, about drawing lines and crossing them, about facing up to hard truths and shying away from things we'd rather not confront. But it also embraces other uncomfortable issues, including whether it is permissible to believe in alternative therapies if Western medicine does not have a solution, but all the while it never preaches, never comes across as heavy or patronising.
The Spare Room is one of those books that throws you in at the deep end and, to completely mix my metaphors, you either run with it or you don't. I'm pleased to say I ran with it... and only wished it was longer than its brief 180 pages.
Carey is right. This book is perfect. July 6, 2008
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
Garner is a great writer and this is a great book. I read it in two sittings and couldn't stand that it had to end.
Friendship under fire July 5, 2008
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
Helen Garner's first novel in 15 years is a moving, funny account of a woman dying of cancer and her friend, who tries to help her. The novel begins as Helen gets her spare room ready for Nicola, who is coming down from Sydney for three weeks to undergo an alternative treatment in the hope that it will cure her cancer. Helen's skepticism about this radical treatment which leaves Nicola exhausted and in pain, is contrasted with Nicola's determined optimism. Helen feels inadequate to cope with Nicola's pain and helpless in the face of Nicola's refusal to accept that she is dying. One of Helen's friends describes the situation when he says, "Maybe she wants you to be the one... The one to tell her she's going to die." There's a lot of humour in the novel and, as always in Garner's work, beautiful descriptions of domestic life. This book is an emotional journey which raises questions about love, friendship and honesty.
|
|
|
