Her “cabin fever is the same as the pause with which I am familiar…sitting…watching…waiting…This cabin fever is like the intention to speak, the long, drawn-out pause of intention”. Nonetheless, staying alone ensures hours of uninterrupted time to reflect and reminisce thus she is able to simultaneously describe her feelings and thoughts on her cabin fever plus a cure – to recognize the symptoms. ‘Being unable to leave my hotel room is my own wish to remain in the room”. Vera's cabin fever arises when she is staying in a New York hotel room on the twenty-fourth floor whilst attending a medical conference. For the woman on the 24th floor, taken with the sight or an unknown man in shirt-sleeves in a room in another building, perhaps the best friend she will find is the reader.Ĭabin Fever is a classic Elizabeth Jolley novel written over thirty years ago, nevertheless it is an interesting book to read in 2020 during the months of the pandemic "lock down" when there have been extraordinary restrictions and the closure of public facilities including libraries which is why I am now rereading books from my home library. Though there are some along the way, there is always a sense of loss. There are many tender moments - sometimes in contemplation of a hedge or a friendship or in remembering her father's kindness. Here I was always hoping for some more pleasant outcome and fearful that things would get worse. Better perhaps to linger and enjoy the way it's written. Now I've reached the end, I realise I was racing forwards at times to know what happened and to get away from the continual uncertainty in which the character finds herself. As the character's position is a good one, though she is lonely, probably bereaved, she too has come a long way from the girl who struggles through the pages of this novel with her child. It's also a portrait of post-war life that makes me glad to have been born into a time when women have more opportunities. The memories and certain links become clear. Unable to leave her room, she thinks of other places that have held her, because the step forwards into the unknown seemed unbearable. A person in a 24th floor hotel room in New York looks back. Now I look back at the beginning again, I see it is like a jewel box of memories rather jumbled together. We are very much caught in the way the character thinks, speaks to herself, and remembers. The first-person narration makes this novel a different experience to my usual Jolley pleasure. Sometimes you have to get to know her characters over time. I like Elizabeth Jolley's writing though so I can put up with temporary bewilderment. I think the confusion is also to do with the narrator's state of mind. 79 is where I felt compelled to re-read and re-know the start of the novel. The beginning confused me but it makes perfect sense from page 79. From page 79 I went back and re-read the beginning.
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