The Transit of Venus

A masterpiece, though not an easy read. This was my third reading and I understand more and like it better each time. This edition is good, with the intro by Lauren Groff, another good writer.

"The Transit of Venus" is an extraordinary piece of modern literature. Hazzard has a special talent for combining words on a page. This talent is truly and uniquely illustrated here. Her similes and metaphors, her adjectives and adverbs, her incisive psychological look at the characters inner thought processes and pattern are all here beautifully put together. In this wonderful novel, Hazzard follows the love life, non-love life, adultery and non-adultery to illustrate the depth of human emotion. Using world traveling characters, the book takes place all over the world, but mostly in England and the United States. Hazzard is at her finest in some of her descriptive narrative about people's appearances and the physical realities, both beautiful and ugly, in the world about her characters. With painstaking excellence, the lives of the two girls are illustrated. There marriages; various deceits and betrayals; various divorces and continuations, the pace and thoughts of the ladies' encounters and interactions are elucidated. Hazzard makes these two ladies a huge metaphor for love and dislove. And yet, her focus surely is on love. The many forms it takes are sketched out by Hazzard like a Renoir. The book is highly recommended for those looking to read great Modern Literature. Hazzard starts to reach her peak in this book, and only exceeds it in her most recent novel, "The Great Fire." Those who wish to understand just a little better the phases of women's changing emotional patterns would be most enlightened by this work.

I share some of the criticisms of "Transit of Venus" voiced by others but I stuck through to the end and felt my patience was rewarded. I was truly surprised by the climax and the closing scene, which led me to reassess the entire book. I still have some reservations but generally admire the compassion and intelligence behind this finely crafted novel by Shirley Hazzard. I agree with others that the dialogue is cryptic and weighed down by too many obscure literary allusions. Whole conversations are conducted through metaphorical references to poetry or antiquity. It seemed overwritten and pretentious at times. A good editor should have reined that in. My bigger disappointment was with the passivity of the primary character, Caroline. I realize that she's our Venus stand-in, buffeted by love, but she was hard to get to know. Orphaned, adrift and with few friends, she only sparks when a man enters or re-enters her life. In many scenes, she's monosyllabic, uttering "Yes" or "No" as other characters - especially the men - expound at length. To the extent the author meant this as a critique of power relations between the sexes, it makes sense. Caroline's lack of agency reminded me of some of Edith Wharton's women who are trapped or defeated by forces beyond their control. Also like Wharton, Hazzard writes of her characters with detachment, which makes them hard to warm up to. Among the things I enjoyed about "Transit of Venus" was its careful plotting. It covers three decades in the lives of multiple characters, which includes some lulls in action (like real life), but it heads toward a dramatic conclusion. Ironies abound and there is some sharp humor, including withering depictions of bosses and bureaucrats. In the end what stayed with me was its broad canvas of lives lived, love won and lost, the complicated trajectories of people's journeys. Its examination of relationships, whether exploitive, unrequited, ephemeral or enduring, whether parent-child, sibling or sexual, is rich and thought-provoking. It explores goodness and venality, love and death, lust, abandonment, idealism, deception, regret, infidelity and fate. So despite stylistic flaws, "The Transit of Venus" left me with much to ponder.

This 1990 book by Australian author Shirley Hazzard was the choice of my international book club at my local bookstore Unfortunately I was not able to attend and so I missed the discussion but I'm sure that my voice would have been unique because even though it was well written and considered a classic, I found the book tedious and could not relate to the characters. The story is about two Australian sisters from their childhoods during WWII right up to the present. I did get a feeling of what it was like to live in Australia but the two sisters just didn't come across to me as people I could relate to. Their lives were very sad and I found it hard to read. But this sadness was basically because of their rather pathetic relations with men Through the years they had many relationships but not one of them really gave them pleasure. It was interesting to read the snapshot of the political landscape and conflicts between British and Australian ways of life but the two sisters made so many mistakes with their romances that I just couldn't feel any sympathy for them. I found it all tedious reading but I will not give it a very high rating even though the author is obviously talented.

I've read almost everything Shirley Hazzard has written. Deceased in the last year or so, she was a writer of great intelligence and sophistication. "The Transit of Venus" is thought to be her best novel. I would agree with that. Since I'm a native English speaker, it's hard for me to say how difficult she would be for a native German speaker (or reader) to read. My guess is that someone with moderate fluency in reading English could read her fairly easily, with an English dictionary to hand.

Superior fiction in every way possible

very good second hand book

A very dense book, best shared in a reading group where many insights can be discussed.

Wonderful recommendation from a friend. Now my own discoveries on every page are a delight.