FEBRUARY READING: Picnic at Hanging Rock ny Joan Lindsay

PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK by Joan Lindsay

Way back in the mid-1970s my high school English class did a class trip to see this movie. Oh my goodness, did it leave an impression on a bunch of 14 year old teenage boys and girls!  Take a look on You Tube at a film clip of the four school girls walking up the tracks around the rock on Valentine's Day 1900 - beautiful, scary, ethereal, and oh so sinister. And three of the girls, plus one of the teachers  simply disappeared into thin air. Poof! One is found a few days later by a besotted young man: unconscious, injured and her memory wiped of whatever had happened.

Set in a rural community in Australia, the film very closely follows the plot line of the book, which was first published in 1967. At an elite girls' boarding school, the girls are preparing to go on a Valentine's Day picnic to Hanging Rock. It turns into a day they will never forget. The ripples from the strange events of that day spread rapidly through the local community, affecting people in different and disturbing ways. The story actually ends up being more about the remaining characters rather than the three who disappeared forever that day. 

Although Hanging Rock is is real place, the book is a work of fiction. However the author opens the book with a very cryptic comment - "'Whether Picnic at Hanging Rock is Fact or Fiction or both, my readers must decide for themselves. As the fateful picnic took place in the year nineteen hundred, and all the characters who appear in this book are long since dead, it hardly seems important". As a result of this peculiar statement many, many people apparently believe that the events described in the story really took place. The author didn't actively discourage such belief, but she certainly didn't go out of her way to dispel the mysterious events of that day! In 1987, three years after the author's death, in accordance with her wishes, the final chapter - Chapter 18 -  of the novel was published. This reveals what really happened to the girls. It can be viewed in the author link.

Throughout the story, from the very beginning to the very end, the tension is kept at a high level. It is almost if, as readers, we are entering some sort of unreal dream like world where time ceases to matter. But apparently the author was a stickler for time, and this is seen in the constant reminder to the reader of what day of the week we are on, the number of days elapsed since the picnic, and often the time of day. Almost as if we also are in some sort of time warp. It is spooky to read, you know bad things are going to happen, but, much like the girls drifting up the tracks on a lazy hot day, you are slowly sucked into whatever this mystery is. Trekking through the internet, the film seems to have almost reached a cult status and I think is a very fitting tribute to the book.