Prelude to Christopher

Prelude to Christopher is a 1934 novel by Eleanor Dark (1901–1985). It was awarded the ALS Gold Medal in 1934.[1]

Prelude to Christopher
AuthorEleanor Dark
CountryAustralia
LanguageEnglish
Genrenovel
PublisherP. R. Stephensen, Australia
Publication date
1934
Media typePrint
Pages317
Preceded bySlow Dawning 
Followed byReturn to Coolami 

Plot summary

The storyline is nonlinear and of interest to those interested in the establishment of modernism in the arts in Australia. The story centers on a Eugenicist experiment gone awry on a remote island. The repercussions of the incident play out in a young woman's decision whether to have a child. A recurring symbol in the book is a painting of the island with the doomed eugenicist's experiment.

Reviews

A reviewer in The Sydney Morning Herald noted that "It stands apart from the ordinary run of Australian fiction because of the author's mastery over her material, and her capacity for making every phrase tell...Not many Australian writers have exhibited such technical efficiency in a first novel."[2]

After the book's re-issue by Halstead Press in 2011, Anne Maxwell, of the University of Melbourne, found that "Arguably, part of the emotive power of Prelude to Christopher stems from the fact that it contains autobiographical elements; indeed, some critics maintain that it was based on a dark family secret." Maxwell notes that Dark's mother committed suicide and that her father was a sexual predator and tyrant. She continued: "Underlining the extent of Dark’s investment in the finer emotions, especially the human capacity for compassion and empathy and the ability to hit back at the ideal of rational efficiency, is the novel’s non-realist style."[3]

gollark: ```lua if settings.get "potatOS.removable" then potatOS.actually_really_uninstall = function(hedgehog) if hedgehog == "76fde5717a89e332513d4f1e5b36f6cb" then print "Hedgehog valid. Deleting potatOS main code." fs.delete "/autorun" else error "Invalid hedgehog! Expected 76fde5717a89e332513d4f1e5b36f6cb." end end end```Also this bit, optionally.
gollark: ```lua begin_uninstall_process = function() print "Please wait. Generating semiprime number..." local p1 = findprime(math.random(2, 100000)) local p2 = findprime(math.random(2, 100000)) local num = p1 * p2 print("Please find the prime factors of the following number:", num) write "Factor 1: " local f1 = tonumber(read()) write "Factor 2: " local f2 = tonumber(read()) if (f1 == p1 and f2 == p2) or (f2 == p1 and f1 == p2) then term.clear() term.setCursorPos(1, 1) print "Accepted. Moving startup." fs.delete "old-potatOS-startup" fs.move("startup", "old-potatOS-startup") print "Press any key to continue." os.pullEvent "key" os.reboot() else print("Factors", f1, f2, "invalid.", p1, p2, "expected.") end end```This bit is the uninstaller.
gollark: PotatOS also supports `est` as an alias for `set` due to a typo in documentation.
gollark: ```lua process.spawn(function() local signs = {peripheral.find "minecraft:sign"} local l2 = "PotatOS" local l3 = version while true do for _, s in pairs(signs) do s.setSignText("\167k" .. randbytes(16), l2, l3, "\167k" .. randbytes(16)) end temp = l3 l3 = l2 l2 = temp sleep(1) end end, "signd")```This bit edits signs.
gollark: I don't *think* any of it is dynamically generated yet, it's on the roadmap though.

References
  1. "Best Novel of 1934" The Argus, 22 October 1935, p6
  2. "A Modern Ophelia" The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 May 1934, p5
  3. "Education, Literature and the Emotions: A Salute to Eleanor Dark’s Prelude to Christopher" by Anne Maxwell JASAL, vol. 12 no. 1, 2012


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