The Harp in the South Trilogy

 Like most readers, I wasn't very impressed with the first book of the trilogy "Missus", and it doesn't fit with the second and third in style or content. By content I mean the treatment of the characters. In the first book they are treated seriously and examined minutely and in the second Hughie has changed so much for the worse that it's difficult to find the person he was. The same with the young woman who has changed dramatically into "Missus". 

In "The Harp in the South" and "Poor Man's Orange" the focus is on their daughters and their chances of escaping the Sydney slums they live in. We feel for them as Ruth Park takes us to the most intimate details of their experience.

Ruth Park never lets up with her descriptions of the living conditions which are dirty, because there are factories nearby and smoke belches out ceaselessly so there is not much point in cleaning. The personal washing conditions are difficult too. She describes the effect of bed bugs, the constant presence of cockroaches and most horrible of all, rats. And as the story goes on you feel how wrong it is that any people have to live this way. She describes the price of rental property going up and up until the aged have nowhere to live but flophouses which are no better than tents. Food is cheap enough and plentiful, so the people survive and at least Sydney is not very cold in winter. She describes endless pungent smells. 

Warning: the language used to describe people of ethnicities other than Irish is very racist and there is no getting away from the fact that people used to say abusive things about native Australians, Jews and Chinese. (It isn't as though the other nations never said the Irish were dirty, drunken, and lazy.)

I think this book is intended to be an eye-opener. Ruth Park doesn't pull her punches about what Hughie resorts to to get out of his mind, how the baby's clothes are black from the street, and the nappy smells, what the young people do for entertainment, and how it all seems to Dolour who is strong and disapproving due to the influence of Catholic teaching about the significance to God of all we do and the wonderful Sister Theophilus.

Although Dolour missed out on her exams due to the sheer bad luck of getting infections in her eyes (the family is either not given medical care or it is always botched), one feels that there is always hope that she will find happiness and fulfillment. Ruth Park has quite a repetitive style in that she warns you about the beginnings of people's feelings and then revisits them repeatedly to tell you they are growing. 

I really want to give this 5 stars because giving us a good read about these circumstances is such an amazing achievement but I can't because it leaves such a bitter taste - the taste of the poor man's orange.