After reading the first chapter of the book, I am starting to get a mental image of the life of Hart, living in Broome, during WWII. At the start of the prologue we hear a little about Hart being in love with Mitzy, a young Japanese girl who uses Hart’s home as her sanctuary. This is offered by Hart’s father, Michael Penrose, who is unaware of Hart’s love for Mitzy. We learn that Hart’s mother, Ida Penrose, is living in England with her elderly mother, who did not like the life she was living in Broome with her husband and children. At the end of the prologue, I am anxious to find out more of the love between Hart and Mitzy.
After viewing the front cover of the book, I am under the impression that the book is set during the war, with what looks like a fighter plane in the background. There is an Asian girl standing in front of the ‘war scene’ looking at the ground. She looks sad, and this gives me the impression that this may be a sad book. Also the writing style used is of an olden day’s style, which makes the book look like it was set a long time ago. Overall, it looks to me that it is a book about war.
In the third chapter, I learn early that most European households had servants, and that they usually employed a gardener and a house girl. This is interesting to me and I am wondering how they had the money to afford to employ them. I learn about Bernadette’s brother, Derby Boxer, and hoe he is a drunk. I learn more about Hart’s affection for Mitzy, and how he can only express his love when they are together in the cinema, leaning against each other. Hart talks about his friend Jamie Kilian, and how he liked having the power over heart because he was almost 10 months older than hart. U know how this feels, as I have had friends that have had the same nature about them. Hart has his birthday party on board the Ida Penrose, one of his fathers luggers named after Hart’s mum, Ida. He talks about it being a very awkward, difficult and frustrating party. Mitzy had earlier misinterpreted something Hart had done and hart now felt as if he had lost the close friendship that they once had. This made the part worse, as Hart thought that Jamie was trying to ‘come-on’ to Mitzy. Following the party, there is a dinner at Hart’s place, where we are introduced to Jamie’s mother and father. We learn about Mr Kalian’s views toward the Jap’s, and how Jamie couldn’t stand his father and his views.
Ida then leaves the family and moves to England to be with her sick father. Ida is killed whilst in England later on in the book. Hart discovers that if war broke out, he and Mitzy would be on apposing sides, and thinks about how Mitzy would react if he told her that he was going to go to war. Jamie decides to enlist to go to the war, and this only makes it worse as Hart now definitely wants to enlist, otherwise Jamie would just become more ‘superior’ to Hart.
Hart is now 17. Hart’s dad takes him out on the Ida Penrose, and the cyclone that his dad had thought was no threat, comes over them. The boat is overturned and the crew are thrown into the sea. They get washed ashore and Hart discovers that his leg is badly torn up. While he is in hospital, he gets bathed by Mitzy, and this in a way. Brings them both closer together, a kind of intimacy that had not been felt by the two for a long time. Zeke is killed in the boating accident, and the body is not found. I learned that a proper funeral with the body was extremely important to a Japanese family, and mitzy is very upset about not being able to have a proper funeral. After the accident, Hart’s father decides to sll the rest of the luggers that weren’t destroyed in the storm, and because of this Hart’s father was able to give the Sennosuke’s more money to support them. Hart tells mitzy of this, and she is offended by this information. Afterwoulds harts realises that no money could compensate for the loss of Zeke, and especially the fact that they could not have a proper funeral because of the absense of the body. One of my relatives dies a couople of years ago, and I can remember all of my friends being really nice, (for example buying me things and being extra nice) this was really nioce and did help out, but I can remember thinking that nothing could compensate for the loss. Because of this, I can relate this experience to this section of the book, and can understand how mitzy felt when hart told her that his father would now be able to pay them more money because he was selling his luggers.
At this stage of the book, I am starting to feel I know the characters. The author of the book has done a good job of depicting their feelings and emotions. As a result, this had made them very believable characters.
Being about Hart’s age, I can relate his feelings emotions to my own life. Such emotions and feelings include love, confusion about the opposite sex, and occasionally toward life in genereal. I cant really imagine how mitzy would be feeling, as her life and her background are obviously different to mine. However I think the author has depicted her life, feelings and emotions very well and as a result I am able to understand how she is feeling.
I have a mental image of where the book is set etched into my head after reading this far into the book. For some reason I have a strong image of what the hospital ward would look like in my head, but am unsure of why. I also have an image of the cinema where Mitzy and Hart were able to sort of express there faint love toward each other.
At this point of the book, Hart realises how grateful he is of Alice’s help and company. Hart is now out of hospital, and staying at home. She looks after him for about two weeks while their father is in Darwin to negotiate with Japanese pearlers. Hart talks of his gratitude toward Alice, as she has made him talk and exercise his leg, as well as being there for him as someone to talk too, and as company. We next find out about Alice’s new love toward Carl Venning.
At this point in the novel, I have read about Hart’s plane trips with Alice and Carl. He still doesn’t really like Carl, but puts up with him and tries to be nice so that he can continue to to go on the plane trips that he loves so much. In this section we learn more about the life of Carl Venning, and how he treats his servants compared to how Hart is used to people treating them. He speaks about Carl never hitting them or whipping them, but he was more likely to just dock there wages.
Later in the book, Alice dumps Carl, and when Derby Boxer is locked up in the jail, Car will not help get him out. Hart wonders weather this is his genuine attitude, or wether he is just doing it to ‘get back’ at Alice.