A Town Like Alice

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Summary: One of my top ten favorites of a lifetime.
Review: I first read Nevil Shute's The Legacy, as a high school student in the sixties. Now republished as A Town Like Alice, I was delighted to discover it all over again through the PBS special. The characters are people you will learn to admire and wish you could know yourself. The gripping and seemingly endless "death march" will have you on edge for hours, but the love story certainly begins as one of the most sensuous a very impressionable 16 year old had ever read in 1961. I still hope one day to visit the beach where Jean and her Australian hero first came together. Her struggle to improve the quality of life in the little town of Alice Springs is inspiring and such a good read. This is a story to inspire, one you will read again and again.

Rating:
Summary: Not to be missed
Review: This book makes my top 10 list of all time. I've lent it or given it to several friends and everyone's agreed that this is an extraordinary book. Its age hasn't dated it at all. Great characterizations and an engrossing second half, watching their small Australian town develop into something worthwhile through one woman's efforts. Since it is the story of a woman for the most part (although the narrator is a man), I tend to suspect more women than men will put the book on their "rave about" list, but I think anyone will find this well worthwhile.

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Summary: One of my favorite novels
Review: ATLA is compelling, powerful, romantic, and vivid. It made me cry, it made me laugh. Few novels have moved me as much.

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Summary: One of the most satisfying adventure stories of all time.
Review: The magical journey through the Malaysian and Australian outback by English girl, thrown into adulthood by World War II. It is brimming with romance, adventure and characters that will become a part of your life forever. It will make you laugh, cry and sigh. I heartily recommend it!

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Summary: You will fall in love with Jean Paget! Perfect.
Review: Crikes! This must be my favorite book even though I usually read non-fiction. The best thing was that I really thought at first that it was not going to have a happy end. What a surprise!

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Summary: This book is actually based on the World War II.
Review: My name is Danyal Ahmed. I am currently in class eighth. 'A Town Like Alice' is includes in our English Literature course. This novel is a masterpiece. I have also seen the movie of the novel. This book is actually based on the World War II. The book visualise the condition the women were facing in Malaya. The soldiers made the women march to different places. They thought that women are of no value. During the war, Jean Paget, met a guy named Joe Harman. They started to like each other. But Joe thought that Jean was married. But she wasn't.After the war, things turned differently. Jean went back to her home country, England, & Joe was back to Australia. After many years Joe came to know that Jean wasn't married. So he went England to find her. In the meantime Jean was in Australia finding Joe. So both couldn't find each other. But after sometime they were reunited & married.

Rating:
Summary: A winner - what a wonderful story
Review: I always wanted to go to Austrailia, now I've been there, seeing it through the eyes of Jean Padget. I was caught up from the very first sentence. The series on PBS was very good and worth every minute as each of the characters came to life for us. I have since read several other N. Shute books and have enjoyed his style of writing.

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Summary: Australia's Finest
Review: Having spent time in the Australian outback in the 1960's, I found this book (read several years later) to be the ONLY story I've EVER read that captures the true character, lifestyle, and sense of the Australian people. The story woven around World War II and and the subsequent re-uniting of the main characters years later, makes this novel compelling and impossible to put down. The PBS series Masterpiece Theatre aired this story in the late 1970's and was an excellent portrayal of Shute's work. The two-volume video, while shortening the PBS work considerably, is still an enjoyable viewing experience.

Rating:
Summary: Another terrific read from Nevil Shute
Review: A Town Like Alice, at various times also published under the name The Legacy, is typical Shute - quiet, heartening, hard to put down, but full of those things which keep bringing it back to mind over the following days and weeks. This is one of his books which was made into a (rather bad) movie. Should you happen upon it on late night TV don't judge the quality of the book by the quality of the movie.

Rating:
Summary: A story full of cardboard cutouts
Review: A lot of people write about this book saying that it is one book that should always be a classic and important work. I guess I agree to that in one aspect. This is the story of a woman who was a victim of a Japanese death march that happened in Malaysia during WWII. It's basically her story about how she survived and how she meet this man named Joe whom she fell in love with and how because she aquired some money, she was able to change the lives of the Malay people who helped her during the war years and then the lives of the Aussie's in the outback. There's more to it but I didn't like this book very much.

It does write about a true account of what the Japanese did during the war but because of the way that Nevil Shute wrote about the account and the "Great Jean" who made everyone's lives better--- it just didn't get to me. There is absolutely no heart in this story at all. I did not get to know the characters at all. It's like they are all cardboard cutouts of how people should act and should talk and should behave during that time. It really pissed me off. And I could not stand the main characters' blatant racism towards the Aboriginese. I guess it was accepted during that time that the "Abo" was an outcast but come on now. I couldn't stand it anymore. Aboriginese faced the same problems as blacks in South Africa and our own problems in the south during the Civil Rights Movement and the Native American struggle. I've never read a book with so much slang about the Aboriginese. Whatever. I mean, here is Jean, the hero, the ultra feminist. She decides to make an ice cream shop in the outback so everyone can enjoy ice cream. But what does she do? To her "Everyone" only means the white australians. She instead makes a seperate shop to the side for the "Abo's" who aren't welcome. She makes a segregated icecream shop. And this is the woman that wanted to be treated equally during her time of struggle? There were other incidents and it's probably because I'm thinking of this stuff as if it happened now and not during the time when that kind of racism is shamefully accepted. But that is not an excuse. If Jean was such a hero she should make a difference in race and not make the original Australians outcasts and calling them "Boogs". Reading this book I wonder why people like it so much. The history of it is true I guess but one I am not familiar with, but what good is a book when the characters are false. Not one minute did I believe the Jean or Joe character. They were just names on a page and did not come to life to me at all. Nothing they did seemed real. Like I said, just cardboard cutouts. Everyone it seems love this book but I did not find it one bit endearing. "A love story?" No way.