Lead Review (Unfinished Woman)
- Book: Unfinished Woman
- Location: World
- Author: Robyn Davidson
The UK cover of this memoir caught my eye. The author stares – smiles slightly in a knowing way – at the potential reader and you can almost feel a wink coming down the line,
This a memoir of the author’s life, spanning several decades. There is a solid opening about the author’s early years’ experiences in Queensland back in the mid 20th Century. The family moves across The Great Dividing Range (which brought back memories of geography lessons at school) in order to kickstart their lives. The narrative has hardly got going and there is an early mention of the momentous event, the suicide of the author’s mother – and that the author remembers to this day their very last interchange before she herself set off for school.
It was clearly, at many levels, a tricky childhood, she cannot remember her parents playing with her, although she describes times together that felt warm and harmonious. Music was part of the family dynamic, especially for her mother. Her sister was six years older and theirs was a fraught relationship at times. I guess there is a sense that it was quite an emotionally arid childhood, devoid of ‘connection’ perhaps. “Useless ugly stupid” was the refrain that embedded itself in her psyche, accompanying her throughout childhood. Where did she find her tremendous courage to travel as she did? “No doubt it had something to do with the games I played as a child – a female isolate in an imaginary and fantastical universe, battling the elements alone”, she says.
There is thought given to the siblings’ mother and her maternal intentions – perhaps she was a narcissist in some ways, but the author asserts that she and her sister were loved. I was left wondering how they knew they were loved because many of the interactions described were in fact quite unloving….
At 27 the author crossed Australia with dogs and camels carrying her luggage, something to do, to get away, to achieve. That adventure garnered publicity and accolades that she hadn’t anticipated. India lured her and still she continues to return there to this day; London provided a base for a while; other places provided respite and interest. When she gets to the age of forty-six she is only too aware that she has reached the point at which her mother chose to take her own life. In interim periods she has relationships that are marked by attachment and abandonment.
This is, in so many ways, a brave memoir, with a great level of detail, describing the feats she has undertaken so far against so much adversity. I feel that many of the experiences in the early years inhibit her sharing her own self, and although this is beautifully written, it can feel a little emotionally dry. I don’t feel I ever really – really – got to know the author who clearly has so much life experience to share with her readers.
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