Recommend: No (But I do recommend strongly Gleebooks Blackheath!)
When city people ask “why Blackheath?”, it’s a fair question. We don’t climb. Neither of us particularly like the cold. I can’t drive. I love Harris Farm. “Do you have family there?” No… “Did you grow up there?” No… “Can you work from home?” No… “Do you commute every day?” Well no… I rent in the city for the week days… Taking in the facts, the jury would deem moving to Blackheath a poor and expensive life decision.
The truth is, said in the same dreamy whisper as one might confess “I followed a boy”, I followed a bookstore.
For a joyous period during my time at university, Gleebooks Secondhand operated out of a perfectly sized and perfectly stocked rectangle shopfront in Glebe. It was located where ‘nice’ Glebe and ‘naughty’ Glebe intersect. Sometimes you’re harassed here by iced-up homeless people (they really could be more polite). Sometimes you see David Roberts waiting for a bus in front of the deli (while breathlessly chanting to yourself: don’t do the emu dance in front of him, don’t do the emu dance in front of him).
Then… one day… nothing. No books to peruse. No books to buy. No books to load into a bulging backbook and be dragged back to Randwick on the 370. An empty store. A unsatisfying promise to relocate to the main bookstore on Glebe Point Road. And no bookseller. Where was Stephen?
At this stage in our life we didn’t know Stephen’s name. And how could we have known his perfectly curated and attractively priced book selection, since relocated to Blackheath, would coax us to buy a house there on that chilly, foggy ridge?
Girl With Green Eyes came from Stephen’s personal collection and was gifted to me on account of my enthusiasm at buying as many disintegrating second-hand Muriel Spark novels as I could. It is a great honour to receive not only a recommendation but the actual book resurrected from the shelves of a page-sensi.
What was the novel like? It doesn’t matter, really. The delight is entirely in the receipt of the physical item itself.
Girl With Green Eyes is actually a sequel but thankfully it also works as a standalone. Its narrator is the infuriating Caithleen. She’s religious, she’s stupid, she winges incessantly. Oh, and she’s Irish. So, essentially, she’s like every HR manager, bulging out of colour-coordinated activewear, that sits in front of you chirping “grand” into a Skype call at 7am on an otherwise silent bus into the city. Caithleen falls in love with an unsuitable man – he’s taking a break from his marriage to an alluring American; or, in a more modern reading, I would suggest he’s just unsuited to her because he’s interesting. The plot of the novel is Caithleen falling over herself to secure from him commitment and security. More often than not she makes a right fool of herself and expects this poor man to comfort her in the way he would comfort a disturbed Golden Retriever – with food and attention. “Grand.”
This elusive man is a far superior character to Caithleen. He is funny. He is self-aware. He wishes to indulge in music and conversation. Caithleen, in unfavourable comparison, contributes nothing to society or capitalism. Edna O’Brien is dead now, so I’ll never be able to ask her if this is what she intended, or if the glare of the modern age has completely shifted where the audience’s sympathies lie.
O’Brien is a good author. Her plot twists just enough to remain interesting without straying from comfortingly domestic. Her secondary characters are superb. Her kind of landlady, Joanna, is from an Eastern European background and I loved how she would gruffly proclaim, “Mine Got!” Caithleen’s father is an unsavoury but pitiful drunk who does seem to want the best for his daughter. There are also some lovely descriptions of an Irish country manor that is hidden amongst pine trees and fog.
Girl with Green Eyes is a pleasurable read. There really are some beautiful pieces of atmospheric prose, like this small description of the boat going from Ireland to England:
The gulls flew slowly with us, their screaming unwinding the scream inside me. By degrees, the sky darkened; a mist rose from the sea; the stars lit up.
While I personally don’t recommend this book because the story has dated and the main character is insufferable, I adore that I had it recommended to me.
When handed too me, Stephen warned that I would likely be the last person to read this book. It’s currently held together with an unholy amount of sticky tape that closely resembles piecemeal schoolbook contact. That’s a deeply upsetting thought – that a book may cease and perish – books, unlike us, are meant to be permanent. I disagree with Stephen. Sure, its spine might be cracked and the corners of its covers snapped off, but I think there is life left in this book.
Long live Gleebooks Blackheath.
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