Rhubarb

Rhubarb: a novel by Craig Silvey.

Meet Eleanor Rigby: tiny, blind and left behind. Led by her zealous, overprotective guide dog, Warren, she courses constantly through the places she knows. Tired, mired and sequestered from the world, Eleanor can’t shirk the feeling she’s going nowhere slowly. Until, of course, she recognises something in the sound of Ewan Dempsey, reclusive and compulsive maker and player of cellos, who impels in Eleanor a rare moment of caprice …

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*****

Reviews of Rhubarb.

"… the novel has the charm of early work such as Gustave Flaubert’s Novembre and Jack Kerouac’s The Subterraneans."

— The Weekend Australian.

" … both sad and hilarious … a daring and moving work."

— The West Australian.

"Written with wry humour and great depth of perception, this moving and often hilarious novel is a must-read."

— Melbourne Weekly.

"A sheer joy."

— Sydney Morning Herald.

"So light of touch, so full of insight into human strategies for coping …Unusual, composed and engaging."

— The Bulletin.

*****

Awards.

* Winner, Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelist, 2005.

* Shortlisted for The Australian/Vogel Literary Award, 2001.

*****

Rhubarb Reading Group Guide / Book Club Questions.

1. What is the importance of the link between the Beatles’ song "Eleanor Rigby" and the character of the same name?

2. Discuss the rhubarb motif, and how it links the characters.

3. How authentic are the characters? What qualities and aspects of the writing contribute towards your experience of ‘knowing’ the characters?

4. Both Eleanor and Ewan suffer from different disabilities; blindness and agoraphobia. How does this limit the characters? What is Silvey saying about the marginalisation of dysfunctional individuals in the community?

5. How do their maladies affect their relationship to each other? How does it affect their ways of seeing the world?

6. What is the importance of Ewan’s cello-playing to the story’s development? What is the significance of the hybrid instrument that Ewan creates in his backyard?

7. Craig Silvey says, “some readers have said Rhubarb is a love-story, and a book about coping, but I think it’s more about how we don’t cope.” Discuss.

8. Craig Silvey writes from the perspective of many different characters - including those from the animal world. How effective is his use of the hermit crab and Warren, the guide-dog? How do their ways of seeing relate to the way Silvey’s human characters see the world?

9. How does the characters’ sense of place inform the story? Much of the story focusses on the streetscapes of Fremantle. Could the story be set elsewhere?

10. Silvey has been compared to the early work of Jack Kerouac’s The Subterraneans and Gustave Flaubert’s Novembre. Discuss.

Source of discussion questions: Fremantle Press (archive 1, archive 2).