Gail Jones is the proud winner of the 1991 TAG Hungerford Award for Fiction, the 1992 Barbara Ramsden Prize, the 1993 Steele Rudd Short Story Award and the 1993 Western Australian Premier's Book Award for Fiction for her short stories collection Breathing House. Her debut novel is The Black Mirror.


This story is basically about an eight year old Lucy and a ten year old Thomas who are orphaned when mother Honoria Strange dies giving birth to her third child. The story starts off in Melbourne. The children go off to live with uncle Neville in London. Jones has a very lucid narrative. She is often effortless with complex emotions, often poetic. Has a keen eye for visual images much like her protagonist Lucy. Lucy's flair for photography is well justified as a result.


There is a very credible shift in the Point of View (POV) of Lucy as she grows into an adult. But at certain points the depth rendered seems deliberate and hyperbolic. Like , when little Lucy looks at her mother Honoria Strange's photograph as a seven year old (with a lovely flowing dress and a big white hat ) and reads state of mind of Honoria to herself in her aloneness. I wonder if anyone can do that so much at depth and an eight year old at that.



The novel does have happy scenes of Lucy's brother little Thomas whispering fantasies about going to Brazil and getting bucketsful of gold. But the reader is still left feeling a little melancholic because these fantasies hide the insecurity of the situation in their lovely blanket of glee - Jones makes this apparent in her tone. Each character adds to the mood of the story, so that way there are no frills. Though the story is set in the Victorian age , it has contemporary shades may be because it is recently written , this could be sub conscious on the part of the author.


The story flows and has a good pace. A part of the story is also set in Mumbai -India. The writing about the way Lucy sees the people and the way she finds the people and the places visually appealing makes a good read. I like the way the relationship between Harriet White and Honoria is woven , the shades of lesbianism are so polished. Jones' poetic style may be mistaken for a verbose piece of prose. Interesting similes.... - '' transient as a sundial shadow''. The prose piece has a sad ending on the surface but happy at a spiritual level. Methinks Gail Jones specializes in that effect.


I read the book because at first glance it came across as an intense work of fiction. It is set in the Victorian Age much the way Jane Eyre is set. But this one has a protagonist, Lucy Strange who is more lively than Jane Eyre. Lucy is an appealing person with visible flaws in her personality and she desires freely, she is not quite a Jane Eyre whose desires had been suppressed. In short, Lucy can never be a chaste governess like Jane. Lucy has impulses and is visibly beautiful. So, basically I found Lucy more believable , not as archetypical as Jane. The novel is at some points melancholic but has more shades to it than Jane Eyre which makes it colorful and not monotonous unlike Jane Eyre. Lucy is also more evolving than Jane. Lucy evolves into a woman ahead of her day and age , a woman of the future. Of course, Jane Eyre has its merits but this is only one person's analysis.


The novel has shades of Great Expectations too in the way protagonist feels and reacts but is mushier than Great Expectations but Great Expectations is a wee bit more pragmatic that way. Basically, Sixty Lights makes a good read and better read in three sittings.

By

Lakshmi Vishwanathan