The Colour

by Rose Tremain

Book Overview

From the critically-acclaimed historical novelist Rose Tremain comes the The Colour

Newlyweds Joseph and Harriet Blackstone emigrate from England to New Zealand, along with Joseph's mother Lilian, in search of new beginnings and prosperity. But the harsh land near Christchurch where they settle threatens to destroy them almost before they begin. When Joseph finds gold in a creek bed, he hides the discovery from both his wife...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312423101
• ISBN13: 9780312423100
• Release Date: April 2004
• Publisher: St. Martins Press-3PL
• Length: 382 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

This is simply a wonderful, colourful tale!!!

This is my 5th Rose Tremain novel. I've read 5 in a row: The Road Home, Restoration, The Colour, Music and Silence and Sacred Country. I am in the process of buying all of her works! If pressed, I couldn't tell you which I liked best. Each one wove its own intricate tapestry and connected with a part of my heart and mind. It would be like asking who your favorite child was... until I was a mother, I would say 'there HAS to be a favorite', but now that I have my own tykes, I understand. Each is special and lovely in individual ways. The characters are complicated. You loathe one moment, but understanding prevails, and you can see the inner struggles and hurt, even as you steam. Though much less complicated than the others, in this story, my favorite character was/is Edwin. I wanted to snuggle him and protect him. Tremain has a wonderful, exquisite gift for writing. I was telling my husband that reading her books is akin to eating... it just leaves you 'full'. Each sentence is meant to be savored and enjoyed. While reading in bed one night, my husband asked me to read a sentence as an example of what I was referring to (this whole eating analody didn't sink in with him)... I didn't even have to search; I simply read the next sentence. Her books elicit in me such a profound sense of introspection and objectivity about others around me. For through the words of Rose Tremain, I am allowed to see into the hearts and lives of others, as if they actually were present and real. That I think of these characters even now, through many other novels, is deeply profound. The only downside is that now, I crave her work. I am anxiously awaiting my next novel and plan to devour it with relish...

Master Storyteller...

The story is set in the late 1800's. Joseph Blackstone flees England with his new wife Harriet and his aging Mother in tow. He was looking to start a new life in New Zealand and flee from a darkness that clouds his conscience and existence. On the other hand, Harriet was restless and was sick of her humdrum life as a governess - "weary of owning nothing and going nowhere and spending her days by other people's meager fires. He wooed her with dreams of escape. She sat on the heart rug with her head on his knee and he described to her the paradise he would create on the other side of the world. It was his words which made her cling to him when he touched her." Joseph buys uncultivated land in rugged New Zealand and constructs a humble home out of cob (lumps of clay and dirt) with his remaining capital. They intend to raise livestock and crops however Joseph happens to find gold in a creek running through his property - and begins to pan on the sly - not sharing his secret with his wife and Mother. Joseph and Harriet drift apart - what little drifting there was to be from a marriage that was hastily arranged - with love not being at the core of the union. Joseph eventually finds little Colour on his property and decides to abandon his mother and wife to join the gold rush. The story moves on to depict the struggles of Joseph finding gold - circumstances leading to Harriet to travel to join Joseph and the gold rush and engaging story developments that pull you along to the finish. Author's imagery throughout the novel is spectacular: "But Joseph understood that the men of a gold rush were like moths, going towards a golden light, and in time - inevitably - that light began to die, and so they hurried blindly on to the next and the next, always hopeful, but always aware of the enormity of the pursuing dark." The main characters' introspection is woven through a terrific story: "Harriet preferred not to think about Joseph. She discovered that almost every memory she had of him produced in her a feeling of disquiet. Though she had to work harder, she found life much easier without him." The book is alive - you smell the smells, you feel the emotions, your skin tingles with the heat and cold, your body aches with the hardships. Tremain is a master storyteller who puts you on-site as the story unfolds and she takes you along the journey with the principal characters. Great story...

Elegant, passionate adventure

Set during the 1860s New Zealand Gold Rush, Tremain's elegant, passionate tale of a British emigrant couple's fresh start in the rural outback, grabs the reader from the first page with its effortless evocation of place and character.Newcomer Joseph Blackstone has built his house in a summer spot, despite expert advice. As the season changes, he lies awake, worrying. "He rebuilt it in his mind in the lee of a gentle hill. But he said nothing and did nothing. Days passed and weeks and the winter came, and the Cob House remained where it was, in the pathway of the annihilating winds."It was their first winter. The earth under their boots was grey. The yellow tussock grass was salty with hail. In the violet clouds of afternoon lay the promise of a great winding sheet of snow."With Joseph is his new wife, Harriet, 34, grateful to be saved from a stultifying spinsterhood as a governess, and his widowed mother, Lilian, who spends the cold days mending china, broken on its long journey from home. Uprooted, alienated by this inhospitable place, Lilian is miserable, but Joseph and Harriet both have ardent hopes.Joseph has fled England with a terrible secret to put behind him. He believes that strong, capable Harriet will renew him "and living sensibly with her, without loathing and without damage, then, he believed, his past would slowly vanish. He would be able to grow old without it, just as, if a man is careful, he can grow old without yearning."But, a product of his times as well as his nature, he begins by stifling Harriet's dreams, first refusing her desire to help in building the Cob House (a structure meant to be temporary, built of mud and grass), then denying her longing for a child. Though growing disappointed with her marriage, Harriet retains her optimism. She surveys her hard-won garden with satisfaction or looks out at the distant mountains with wonder and desire.Then, during a thaw after a devastating snow storm, with Harriet gone to get help from their richer, more established neighbors, Joseph finds gold in their creek. It's not much, but it sends him into a frenzy of feverish work and secrecy. Instinctively he hides the dust he's found and takes pains to keep his work from Lilian and Harriet. Though he finds no more, his obsession builds and when gold is found on the other side of the mountains he seizes the chance to escape his failed life and eroding marriage.The narrative continues to move between characters, primarily Harriet and Joseph, but also Lilian, and their neighbors, the Orchards. Tremain brings alive the privations, filth, obsession and excitement of the Gold Rush; the struggles of the two women to maintain their Cob House holding in the face of an onslaught of New Zealand elements; the even, tranquil tenor of life at the Orchards' ranch.Eventually Harriet gets to fulfill her longing to go into the mountains, only to find them impassable. Joseph's failure to find gold inflames his self-absorption with hatred for the world,

Interesting people in interesting and hard times

All of the characters in this book are believeable although not necessarily likeable. Harriet has a strength about her that was necessary if a woman was to survive during these hard times. Even her mother-in-law Lillian, who at first meeting appears to be weak and self-centered learns to adapt to the hard circumstances of their life. Joseph is a complex, distant, and distrusting man filled with a guilt that he himself does not seem to understand. The setting of New Zealand with its rugged terrain seems to almost become a character. All of the realistic and harsh aspects of this novel pulled me into the story. However, the mysterious "spiritual" world of the Maori nurse and her relationship to young Edwin seems out of place in the story. I was disappointed in this aspect of the book. The contrast between how the Maori reacted to the environment around them and how the English settlers reacted could have better developed. Overall, a really good historical fiction read

Touching, Wonderful Story; Full of Life!

The Colour is a beautiful book. The characters inhabit a world that is vibrant, emotionally alive, daring with a host of smells and textures that pour from the page into your heart. It is an adventure story, a love story, a human story.The setting is 1860's New Zealand, and the characters are trying to survive in a brash, untamed land. With an unfurling of lives that is natural and compelling, Rose Tremain transports the reader into a world that is so real that the cold of the mountain torrents, and the unbearably heavy lightness of the snow, and the strange wonder of the birds and air and clouds sink into your bones and deep into your mind.Finishing this book was sweet sorrow. It all came full circle, but i didn't want to say goodbye. The world of The Colour, though, is as real as things seen only in the mind. Travel there yourself, and you won't soon forget the journey.