The Golden Age

Posted on by

This is a story of resilience, the irrepressible, enduring nature of love, and the fragility of life From one of Australia s most loved novelists He felt like a pirate landing on an island of little maimed animals A great wave had swept them up and dumped them here All of them, like him, stranded, wanting to go home It is 1954 and thirteen year old Frank Gold, refugee from wartime Hungary, is learning to walk again after contracting polio in Australia At the Golden Age Children s Polio Convalescent Hospital in Perth, he sees Elsa, a fellow patient, and they form a forbidden, passionate bond The Golden Age becomes the little world that reflects the larger one, where everything occurs, love and desire, music, death, and poetry Where children must learn that they are alone, even within their families Written in Joan London s customary clear eyed prose, The Golden Age evokes a time past and a yearning for deep connection It is a rare and precious gem of a book from one of Australia s finest novelists. Read The Golden Age by Joan London – kino-fada.fr At the ferry jetty he turned right into Barrack Street, walked up past the Supreme Court Gardens, across St Georges Terrace This was the city they d been offered, and had accepted They were safe here, but even now, at rush hour, the wide streets felt empty That was the bargain He d left his city and would never return.How short lived gratitude was It was like this Budapest was the glamorous love of his life who had betrayed him Perth was a flat faced, wide hipped country girl whom he d bee At the ferry jetty he turned right into Barrack Street, walked up past the Supreme Court Gardens, across St Georges Terrace This was the city they d been offered, and had accepted They were safe here, but even now, at rush hour, the wide streets felt empty That was the bargain He d left his city and would never return.How short lived gratitude was It was like this Budapest was the glamorous love of his life who had betrayed him Perth was a flat faced, wide hipped country girl whom he d been forced to take as a wife Only time would tell if one day he would reach across and take her hand He had a suspicion that never again would he feel at home as he once had Never again on this earth And another suspicion that to love a place, to imagine yourself belonging to it, was a lie, a fiction It was vanity....If someone were to have told me that The Golden Age was written in 1954 the time of its setting I would have believed them The book has the tone of a classic, with the potential of rediscovery upon future readings.There are no bells and whistles here The writing is spare but powerful, carefully calibrated to reveal but not lead the reader I often separate books into warm those that touch the heart and cool those that touch the brain On that continuum, I d place this book at cool ish If someone were to have told me that The Golden Age was written in 1954 the time of its setting I would have believed them The book has the tone of a classic, with the potential of rediscovery upon future readings.There are no bells...The second last book in my quest to read the 2015 Stella Prize longlist I wasn t hugely taken by London s previous novel, Gilgamesh, so I wasn t super excited to tackle this Somewhat surprisingly, I loved it a gorgeously written evocation of a 1950s children s polio rehabilitation centre in Perth, The Golden Age has a lot to say about love, family, independence and coming to terms with the hand life deals you The supporting characters are rich and memorable Frank s parents in particular , The second last book in my quest to read the 2015 Stella Prize longlist I...Frank Gold, along with parents Ida and Meyer arrived from Hungary as refugees fleeing a war torn country Their original hope was to go to America but an earlier ship was leaving for Australia from Vienna where they were waiting They found it hard to settle into their new country, Ida especially New Australians and their funny accents were the butt of many jokes In 1954 when Frank contracted polio and was placed into isolation, their shock and devastation was great When Frank was transferre Frank Gold, along with parents Ida and Meyer arrived from Hungary as refugees fleeing a war torn country Their original hope was to go to America but an earlier ship was leaving for Australia from Vienna where they were waiting They found it hard to settle into their new country, Ida especially New Australians and their funny accents were the butt of many jokes In 1954 when Frank contracted polio and was placed into isolation, their shock and devastation was great When Frank was transferred to the Golden Age Children s Polio Convalescent Hospital in Perth, he felt that he definitely didn t belong For a start he was one of the oldest children there at almost thirteen manywere babies but he felt as if they had all been shut away to be forgotten just because of their illness Frank had a curious nature his investigation of the hospital as he wheeled himself aroun...Golden Age il nome di un sanatorio, realmente esistito, in Australia negli anni 50 Vi sono ricoverati i bambini vittime della polio un microcosmo di dolore, ma anche di speranza, anche di conoscenza di s , anche di a A Golden Age il tredicenne Frank, aspirante poeta, si innamora di Elsa, radiosa nuvola bionda su esili gambe offese Intorno a loro, a quel nucleo di possente luminosa verit , ...Once you get used to your condition, he said, your imagination becomes free again The Golden Age is set in a convalescent home for children who were victims of poliomyelitis in Perth, Western Australia in the early 1950s The Golden Age Convalescent Home for Polio Children which operated in Leederville from 1949 to 1959, really existed It was once a hotel, a...What struck me most about this book is that although it is dealing with children struck down by the terrible polio epidemic of the 1950s it is a quiet and joyous story For Frank Gold, recently arrived in Australia from post WWII Hungary and on the cusp of adolescence it should be a horrific time in his life But Frank is resilient and resourceful and relishes the sudden...An extremely easy read Gorgeous prose.This book was for my local library book club.The main theme for me in this one is all the main characters change to become new Australians In the case of Frank his parents, they are Hungarian migrants that escaped the Jewish extermination thru deception They were professionals in Budapest are now doing menial jobs in their new life in Perth In the case of the children, they are all severely affected by polio are learning to walk again The active lifestyles they once had a This book was for my local library book club.The main theme for me in this one is all the main characters change to become new Australians In the case of Frank his parents, they are Hungarian migrants that escaped the Jewish extermination thru deception They were professionals in Budapest are now doing menial jobs in their new life in Perth In the case of the children, they are all severely affected by polio are learning to walk again The active lifestyles they once had are gone, and it is interesting that all the children become quite cerebral Even the baby Fabrio, croons when he is on his own, making his own songs during his enforced inactivity Sullivan sees snow on the white hospita...Meh I m abandoning this book half way through as it wasn t holding my interest and was a bit blah for me I kept going long after I wanted to stop as the reviews have been glowing I began to think is there something wrong with me, am I not getting some...

The Golden Age
  • English
  • 04 August 2017
  • Paperback
  • 256 pages
  • 1741666449
  • Joan London
  • The Golden Age