GREAT LITERARY LADY: Jean Paget
A Town Like Alice is a brilliant but sadly overlooked novel, set in the years immediately after the Second World War. Jean, its protagonist, is introduced by a London solicitor as the heiress to her uncle’s fortune. Initially quite reserved and diffident, we learn through her friendship with the solicitor that she was a prisoner-of-war of the Japanese and has been scarred by her experiences.
Jean is an unlikely heroine, not very well educated or refined – but her qualities of leadership and common sense come to the fore when circumstances force her to take charge of a party of British women and children being marched across Malaya. Although outwardly quiet, her emotions run deep, as shown by her undying love for Australian soldier Joe Harman.
Against the mores of the time, Jean shows herself to be a capable businesswoman and philanthropist. She invests much of her inheritance to help improve the lives of the villagers in Malaya where she lived during the war, and the people in the outback town in Australia where she later settles. Her emphasis on improving women’s lives would have been considered unusual at the time.
The book’s title, other than its reference to the Australian town of Alice Springs, has deeper connotations: it alludes to the perfect place of our imagination, the wonderland for which we yearn in times of hardship. Jean Paget’s grit and determination ensure that, in the end, she gets her own ‘town like Alice’.
Jean is an unlikely heroine, not very well educated or refined – but her qualities of leadership and common sense come to the fore when circumstances force her to take charge of a party of British women and children being marched across Malaya. Although outwardly quiet, her emotions run deep, as shown by her undying love for Australian soldier Joe Harman.
Against the mores of the time, Jean shows herself to be a capable businesswoman and philanthropist. She invests much of her inheritance to help improve the lives of the villagers in Malaya where she lived during the war, and the people in the outback town in Australia where she later settles. Her emphasis on improving women’s lives would have been considered unusual at the time.
The book’s title, other than its reference to the Australian town of Alice Springs, has deeper connotations: it alludes to the perfect place of our imagination, the wonderland for which we yearn in times of hardship. Jean Paget’s grit and determination ensure that, in the end, she gets her own ‘town like Alice’.