Scary Monsters Trivia Quiz

Answer:

Picking up this novel is indeed a disorienting experience, as there is no way to tell where you should start. There are clearly two options, both seem viable, but is one better? If I pick the wrong one to start with, will I be missing out on some aspect of the experience? I finally decided to pretend that holding it so that the catalogue label my library had applied was right side up, so that is the order in which my ideas were gathered. If you started the other way, the recurring themes would still be seen, but your awareness of them would arise differently. In either case, it is rewarding to reread the one you tackled first, and note how things you didn't particularly notice the first time form subtle links between the two stories, in addition to the obvious ones.

The front cover that featured white blossoms takes the reader to Lyle's story. While the time is not clear, it is set in the not-too-distant future, as the less-dystopian features of daily life are not significantly different from suburban Melbourne in 2021, when the book was first published. The dystopian elements, however, are significant 'scary monsters' which pervade the story, which opens with the death of the family dog. Readers may agree with my reaction that the way this is recounted makes Lyle feel like a heartless person, with whom one has little sympathy. (Since I actually read this in the morning when we were heading off to have a beloved 18yo pet who had reached the end of things put down, it hit me perhaps harder than was reasonable.) As the story progresses, however, it becomes obvious that this stolid recounting of events is simply part of Lyle's desperate attempt to blend in, and avoid notice at any cost. The dog had provided useful cover for the family, who had come from a Muslim country, and abandoned the practice of Islam when it was banned in Australia, as it was a well-known 'fact' that Muslims couldn't have dogs. We come to see that he really does have a lot to be afraid of. One has less sympathy, however, for Lyle's decision at the end of the book that his aging mother needs to invoke The Amendment (voluntary assisted dying) so that he and his wife can inherit the estate. Just as the dog was put down at the first sign of incontinence, Ivy is pressured into VAD because she refuses to have the test that would show whether or not she may have bowel cancer.

Lyle's story ends with a recollection of one of Ivy's tales, about a visit to a remote tribe (in their native land) whose language she did not speak. They arrive at the time of a planned wedding, which has to be delayed because of the weather. Ivy and an elderly woman in the family they are visiting spend several hours together, during which the woman announces she has relayed some significant secret she had been carrying all her life (despite the fact that Ivy did not understand a word) and was ready to die. The next morning Ivy woke to see that all the trees in the area had burst into white blossoms; she did not at first realise they were flowers, and her reminiscence finishes '"When I saw all that white," said Ivy, "I thought of brides. I thought, they've killed all the brides and strung them up in trees.' And this ominous vision, from years earlier, reminds us of the cover of the book as we finish this half.

Turning the book over, the cover has a single ripe cherry, and Lili's story makes frequent reference to fruits and flowers as she describes the year she spent in southern France when she was in her early 20s. She is doubly a stranger to society, having moved with her family from an unspecified Asian country to Australia about five years before the events in her story. It is the 1980s, as is established by multiple cultural references, including the David Bowie song 'Scary Monsters' and the 1981 French election that brought a left-wing president to power. Arab immigrants face severe repression in the wake of the Algerian revolution 20 years earlier, and Lili is frequently caught up in police stops because of her dark skin. Most of her attention, however, is focussed on being aware of her vulnerability as a woman, and her determination to overcome her uncertainty by boldness.

After Lili recounts how they all went their separate ways at the end of the year, she adds a memory of election night, when she observed a euphoria sweeping the crowds, a sense that things were really changing. Sad old memories from Fascist regimes could be laid to rest, the spirit of the French Revolution was invoked, 'L'Internationale' was sung (in multiple languages at once), people stood around waving lighters - both in the square where she stood and in the windows of buildings. This last scene led her to observe, 'When I saw all those shaky lights answering one another across the dark, I thought of an orchard breathed into new life by white blossom. It was one of those puzzling connections suited to dreams but I've never doubted that it was really there.'

So much optimism in 1981, and we ended up in Lyle's world.