Alex Miller's "Lovesong"

You're sure to have seen Alex Miller's latest book in the bookstores over the last few months, and it's been featured in the State Library of Victoria's The Summer Read programme for this year.  Maybe some of you have tried it, while others have been put off by Miller's "literary" label having won two Miles Franklin Awards - in 1993 for The Ancestor Game and in 2004 for Journey to the Stone Country.  I have to say that I have put off reading Lovesong to date because I found The Ancestor Game quite a hard read although I did ponder on the story for quite some time after I had finished.  I was expecting Lovesong to be in the same vein and was waiting until I felt up to reading it.  After finishing the book yesterday, I am both happy and sad.  Happy that Lovesong was a much easier read and thus will appeal to a broader audience and it is a "nice" read, the story flowing along effortlessly,  But I am sad in that I didn't have the same sense of dwelling on and interpreting the story as I had when I finished The Ancestor Game.

The novel starts in Melbourne where the narrator, Ken, strikes up a friendship with Australian born John, whose Tunisian wife, Sabiha, runs a local bakery selling the pastries of her homeland.  During their meetings for coffee, John tells Ken the story of how he and his wife ended up living in Melbourne, and Ken, a well known author, can see the outline of his last book in John's story.  John is backpacking through Europe, catches the wrong train in Paris, and ends up at the Tunisian cafe run by Sabiha's aunt.  John And Sabiha marry and establish their life together running the cafe after Sabiha's aunt dies.
As John and Sabiha's story unfolds the reader is taken to exotic places and beautiful food, and you get a real sense of the community in which they live - the large number of unofficial immigrants from the Middle Eastern continent living in Paris.  It is a tale of the fairytale marriage where the hardships that arise from two people who don't speak the same first language, come from different backgrounds and are living in a strange city in a strange country are nothing in the face of love.  It seems idyllic.  Or is it?  For John battles his feelings of disappointment that he left his home, his family, and his career as a secondary school teacher to help his wife run their little cafe, while Sabiha longs for the daughter that she's always believed she will have and will only emigrate to Australia when she has taken this daughter to see her beloved father in Tunisia.  Fifteen years on, and still no sign of the anticipated daughter, and the health of John's parents is deteriorating with each letter they send to ask when he is coming home to visit.  In desparation, Sabiha takes matters into her own hands, causing a series of events that will not only affect them but also the other characters in the story.
Did I like this novel?  All in all, probably yes.  Did I love this novel.  Not the way I have when reading one of my favourite novels.  I didn't really like the main character, Sabiha, who seemed very caught up in her own needs and feelings without any thought for her husband, John.  John really annoyed me, lacking in depth, and believability.  The two of them avoid talking about these issues that are causing dissatisfaction in their lives and I found this frustrating. Maybe that is the point the author is trying to make - that we often have trouble  articulating what is important to us to our partners and this inevitably leads to unhappiness and misunderstanding.  There are some nice parallels with Alex Miller's own life, and the ending has an amusing twist.

There is a review on Lovesong in the Australian Book Review Magazine, November 2009 issue by Judith Armstrong, which seemed to reflect many of my feelings towards this book.  If you would like to read it yourself, you can find it here.

Have you read Lovesong yet?  Am I being too critical?