Product Description

On St Valentine's day in 1900, a party of Australian schoolgirls set off with two schoolmistresses on a picnic to a place called Hanging Rock. Some were never to return. What began as a pleasant and happy day out ended in terror.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #162059 in Books
• Published on: 1998-07-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Customer Reviews

A haunting and enigmatic tale
Having seen Peter Weir's film before reading Joan Lindsay's novel it is difficult for me to review the book without referring to the film. The film leaves out some details from the novel but both convey the same sense of beauty, horror and loss, longing and haunting. We are told on the book's cover that the story is based around a St Valentine's day picnic in 1900, and the disappearance of some of the picnic party.

Picnic at Hanging Rock is Joan Lindsay's only work of fiction, although its many themes are firmly based on reality. The story covers the loss of youth, beauty and innocence; love and sexuality; discrimination, prejudice and class privilege; fear, passion and the breakdown of order; the English Empire in a foreign environment, the clash of alien cultures, and the end of an era; beliefs and life's purpose; life's myriad web and coincidences; destiny and fate; and Time itself, reflected in Miranda's favourite quote "Everything begins and ends at exactly the right time and place".

Joan Lindsay's descriptions of the Australian bush and wildlife are as evocative as Russell Boyd's cinematography. The style and language of her writing is deliberate to emulate turn-of-the 20th century writers.

The girls images were already imprinted on my mind when I read the book and the casting in the film seemed to me perfect, especially that of Anne Louise Lambert as Miranda and Karen Robson as Irma. Joan Lindsay described Mademoiselle Dianne de Poitiers, the French teacher and the girls' confidante, as having blond hair, yet the casting of the excellent Helen Morse was inspired.

Joan Lindsay describes Miranda as a Botticelli Angel from the Galleria Degli Uffizi in Florence, and Peter Weir specifically uses the image of the birth of Venus. Miranda is all knowing and shows compassion to Sara and Edith the least popular girl's at the school. Anne Louise Lambert's portrayal of Miranda with her ethereal beauty and enigmatic smile captures the vision perfectly, and is reminiscent of the knowing smile on the death mask of the famous "L'Inconnue de la Seine", who coincidentally died around 1900 in Paris.

The story's many strands are reflected by the girl's layers of virginal white dress representing suppression and restriction, with gloves, stockings and shoes being shed by the more enlightened girls on their ascent of the rock. Peter Weir used several techniques to convey the many layers of the story including shots into mirrors as into another dimension.

Joan Lindsay made a literary mistake which Cliff Green repeated in the film script - Felicia Hemanes' famous Victorian recital piece is "Casabianca" (about the Battle of The Nile), and not "The Wreck of the Hesperus" (the captain ties his daughter to the mast to save her from the storm which eventually sinks the ship) which is by Henry Longfellow. Discrimination is shown by Mrs Appleyard against Sara (an orphan) who is punished for not learning the poem, by being kept back from the picnic, whereas clearly Irma cannot remember it (on the picnic she can only quote the first line) but her family's wealth and her position as heiress obviously carry influence.

The importance of time and place are shown in that Joan Lindsay based the location of her story on Hanging Rock near mount Macedon in Victoria, which is a sacred Aboriginal site. To provide added authenticity Peter Weir filmed at the rock during the same six weeks of summer. Aboriginals believe time is not linear and Joan Lindsay refused to have clocks in her home, hence the title of her autobiography "Time Without Clocks". At Hanging Rock both Mr Hussey's and Miss McCraw's watches stopped at twelve o'clock. 14 February 1900 actually fell on a Wednesday, not a Saturday, unless Joan Lindsay used the Julian calendar instead of the Gregorian, so that the eleven days were not lost? The open endedness of the novel is deliberate to mirror life where we may learn or uncover some secrets but never understand the mystery. Plenty of clues and coincidences are related, together with unexplained details such as the absence of scratches to Irma's bare feet, yet identical injuries appear on her and Michael's heads, very reminiscent of the X-Files.

This is a very thought provoking and inspiring story that will haunt you. I find the book and the film compliment each other exceptionally well, so if you haven't already done so I urge you to also seek out the film.

Like The Blair Witch's Big Brother.
Picnic at Hanging Rock is the type of book that makes the reader completely lose track of time, in the race to discover the fate of the girls. Set in the early 1900's, the book is the chilling story of a group of girls and their teacher who mysteriously vanish during a St Valentines Day picnic. The book is apparently based upon real events which happened at Hanging Rock at the beginning of the 20th Century. I discovered the book after seeing the motion picture, and have since rad the book many times. It is very similar to The Blair Witch Project, in that there is no explanation as to what happened to the girls or the maths mistress. There are several subplots running through the novel, which add greatly to the depth and realism of the book. Especially fascinating is the subplot featuring Sarah, a 'charity' pupil at the school. The climax to Sarahs story within the book comes as a complete surprise, and will make you want to immediately reread the book in the search for clues! Definitely worth a read, especially for horror fans. A disturbing tale which will keep you guessing till the very end.

Fascinating But Flawed
I read somewhere that the editors advised Joan Lindsay to cut the last chapter in which she had solved her mystery of the fictional schoolgirls who vanish on St. Valentine's Day in 1900 Victoria, Australia at the brooding Hanging Rock. Whether this report is apocryphal or not, I do not know, and I am conflicted about the disturbing ending, or lack of it. On the one hand, it leaves the reader pondering possible solutions. On the other hand, it seems unsatisfactory, since one has come to care for the well-delineated characters of the girls--especially Miranda and Sara--and the young men--Michael and Albert, as well as the governess, Mademoiselle, whom we discover mid-book is the namesake of that historical figure of courtly love, Dianne de Poitiers.

Perhaps much of the disappointment comes from the fact that Miss Lindsay relates her tail in compelling prose that captivates the reader until the end, and then the end does not come.

One of the reasons I read the book was to clarify some of the omissions in the Criterion Collection DVD, which were present in the original screen version (which I loved), such as the fate of Miss McCraw, the Maths governess. I felt justified that this cut from the NTSC version was indeed in the book.

Despite the troubling ending, which leaves the reader with dozens of unanswered questions, the book is well worth reading. And even though one might find the beginning a bit slow, one will soon be mesmerised and find it difficult to put the book down. One can easily discern traces of of the subtle magic that Peter Weir captured so brilliantly in the movie's original screen version.