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Owls Do Cry
Owls Do Cry | Janet Frame
2 posts | 5 read | 6 to read
Owls Do Cry is the story of the Withers family: Francie, soon to leave school to start work at the woollen mills; Toby, whose days are marred by the velvet cloak of epilepsy; Chicks, the baby of the family; and Daphne, whose rich, poetic imagination condemns her to a life in institutions. 'Janet Frame's first full-length work of fiction, Owls Do Cry, is an exhilarating and dazzling prelude to her long and successful career. She was to write in several modes, publishing poems, short stories, fables and volumes of autobiography, as well as other novels of varied degrees of formal complexity, but Owls Do Cry remains unique in her oeuvre. It has the freshness and fierceness of a mingled cry of joy and pain. Its evocation of childhood recalls Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience, as well as the otherworldly Shakespearean lyric of her title and epigraph, but her handling of her dark material is wholly original' Margaret Drabble
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Centique
Owls Do Cry | Janet Frame
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Frame didn‘t think of this as a novel, she called it a collection of scenes. You have glimpses into the lives of the Withers family, poor and chaotic but kind and loving. Living on the edge of society, fossicking in the local dump for a treasure of a book or a toy. We see them as children and again as adults, post trauma, when one sister, Daphne, has been institutionalised. It‘s a book of brilliant and startling writing. ⬇️

Centique But it is difficult at times - each character is at times overcome by sensation and metaphors of pain and loss leap up to overwhelm us and them. Some of the saddest, most human moments I‘ve ever read and worth persevering through the harder to comprehend pieces. ⬇️ (edited) 2y
Centique This was her first book and this is my first edition that my husband bought me as a birthday gift many years ago 😍 Very precious 💕 2y
TrishB Lovely review ♥️ 2y
See All 9 Comments
LeahBergen Great review and what a lovely cover! 2y
Ruthiella How autobiographical do you reckon this is? 2y
Centique @Ruthiella she would always say it wasn‘t autobiographical but it was close enough to upset her brother and sister a bit 😬 It is really moving when you read it knowing her background, it feels like she was exorcising some of her own demons 💔 2y
Reggie This sounds rough. Great review, though. 2y
CarolynM Lovely review. You gifted me a copy some time ago. I'm resolved to read it soon🙂 2y
Centique @CarolynM I hope you enjoy it - although enjoy might be the wrong word! 2y
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Wilkie
Owls Do Cry | Janet Frame
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We are staying with my Uncles in Barcelona and there are books in every room of the apartment 💕💕 #booklovers #booksinbarcelona #barcelona

TrishB Lovely 💕 6y
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