Comments on: Review “The Slap” by Christos Tsiolkas

By: Frances

Frances — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 07:36:56 +0000

That’s an interesting comment from J….I hadn’t heard that one before. But, in that the literary community applauds it, and in that they are largely middle class, I guess Tsolkias failed in that attempt. I’m still trying to work out what there was in it to disturb the middle class.
He says that he himself was angry about Hansonism when he wrote it: I expect that is why the Australian mother who sues is not only overly protective, but she also started out neglecting her baby. That is, she is guilty of all maternal crimes.
I still find the language objectionable, not per se, but because everyone happily accepts that this is how the “lower classes”, ie factory workers, spoke in the 1960s: which I think is a slander…or libel?… I get them mixed up. A canard, at least.
I’ve never worked in a factory, but I’ve worked at that time in some very ordinary jobs, and never came across the language used here. (It was, in fact, a criminal offence at that time, and much later than that). I don’t think that, by and large, the language used here was even known then in those just post-Chatterly days. Remember Simon and Garfunkel and the four letters on the subway wall? That was about as bad as language got.
I found the poor and uneducated to have standards and values, and I find this an awful slur on them. So, I find a horrible classist snobbishness in the general acceptance that the men learned this language in a factory.

By: Trevor

Trevor — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 02:57:32 +0000

Thanks for your comments J.

You may well be right – but in my opinion it still doesn’t make it a well written book.

By: J

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 02:06:14 +0000

The whole idea of the book is to make the middle-class angry; to get a reaction out of them and make them think out of their conservative shell. Looks like it may have worked.

By: Trevor

Trevor — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 04:58:37 +0000

Thanks for your comments, Nat. It’s always good to find someone who agrees with you.

Only a few minutes before your comment came in I was irritated to read the news that this novel has been long listed for the 2010 Man Booker prize. The publisher was quoted as saying they were delighted, seeing the book is selling well in many countries in the wake of much literary acclaim. I feel as if I’m very much swimming against a swelling tide of positive acclaim. Obviously either I’m very wrong – or many critics are seriously deluded – or they wouldn’t know a good book if it bit them on the backside.

Don’t know what I’ll do if it wins!! I’ll try not to slit my wrists! LOL.

By: Nat

Nat — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 02:46:41 +0000

Thank you, thank you! I am so glad I am not the only person in the world to dislike this book. I don’t think I even made it to the end of the first section before giving up. I didn’t care enough, or indeed at all, about any of the characters to waste precious reading time on them.

By: Trevor

Trevor — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 06:11:46 +0000

Thanks for commenting, Ken. I find it fascinating – and not a little irritating – that “truth” comes in so many guises these days. Well, it’s probably not changed all that much over recent millenia. For example, two people standing side by side can give quite different accounts of the same event.

We all bring the sum of our past experiences, prejudices, opinions and points of view to any given situation. And how we interpret that situation is “truth” in our own mind.

So truth comes in many forms and disguises; that’s what makes the claim of Jesus that he IS the truth so excitingly bold and outrageous and yet comforting at the same time.

By: Ken Rolph

Ken Rolph — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:05:31 +0000

I managed to read the first section of this book. I’m not sure I’ll bother to finish. People write out of what they know. I suspect that many writers exist inside small communities which share outlooks that many others don’t. So they think they are writing “truth”.

By: Trevor

Trevor — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 03:30:53 +0000

Thanks for visiting Frances – and for leaving a comment. I read your review with interest. You’ve touched on several issues that I didn’t which is good. I could have gone on, but my review above was already over 700 words and getting too long as it was.

By: Frances

Frances — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 02:37:51 +0000

It wasn’t the language that disappointed me, Trevor: it was the book itself.

(if you are interested, my v brief review is on my blog, Dec 16th. My issues don’t coincide with yours, but we reach the same conclusion).