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First Tuesday Book Club: The lost and the missing at Hanging Rock

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Screenshot from Picnic at Hanging Rock
First Tuesday Book Club: The lost and the missing at Hanging Rock

SUBJECTS:  English

YEARS:  9–10


Joan Lindsay's 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' is often considered a classic of Australian literature.

But what makes it so well-regarded? And does everyone agree?

Join in this panel discussion and explore why one person's literary masterpiece is another's turgid pot-boiler.


Things to think about

  1. 1.If you've read Joan Lindsay's 'Picnic at Hanging Rock', do you think it deserves a place in the '10 Aussie Books To Read Before You Die' list? How important is it for mystery writers to resolve the mysteries they present in their books?
  2. 2.Note what panellists say about the film version's effect on them as they read the novel. What does Judy Nunn think about Joan Lindsay's descriptions? What do Marieke Hardy and Jennifer Byrne appreciate about Joan Lindsay's descriptions of the Australian landscape? How do different readers react to the novel's lack of resolution? What do the panellists think about the later publication of the 'final chapter'?
  3. 3.What do the panellists agree are the strengths of 'Picnic at Hanging Rock'? Keeping in mind that the list of '10 Aussie Books To Read Before You Die' was selected by the television audience of First Tuesday Book Club, what conflicts might arise when discussing the final selection? Do you think, for example, that Judy Nunn would have nominated 'Picnic at Hanging Rock'? What might its inclusion tell us about how we judge literary value?
  4. 4.The 'Australian gothic' genre has existed since British colonisation. Michael Williams suggests that many readers regard the Australian bush as an 'ominous thing on the edge of our cities … that is going to swallow us up'. Do you agree? Explore other examples of Australian literature and consider the role landscape plays in unsettling the reader. What other commonalities can you discover in the texts?



Date of broadcast: 4 Dec 2012


Copyright

Metadata © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia Ltd 2012 (except where otherwise indicated). Digital content © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). Video © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). All images copyright their respective owners. Text © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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