Effie Carr’s Stamatia X: Re-defining the Greek-Australian narrative self
“I started reading the novel with curiosity and in bewilderment. What might be the new dimension in the decades long genre of the migrant novel that could make a difference to the existing ones or in what ways it could renew the venerable series of such novels starting in Australia already since the fifties?
I must admit that the novel was a revelation to me because it added a completely new dimension in the writing of the genre and enriched with new semantics.
But together with the migrant narrative, questions of gender and feminine presence, the dynamics within a family, history and society which, although distinctly Greek, are explored giving to the novel a universal and human interest…
What distinguishes the novel is its striking narrative fluidity and flexibility: The narrator moves backwards and forwards in time using both dimensions to elucidate the present and the way we are now.
Carr re-imagines a past which is actual and factual but her imagination enriches it with sensibility of contemporary perceptions and the emotional content of current questions about identity.
But the novel is not only about identity: it is also about memory and the past, and how they determine the mind today.
The book explores the dimension of being always aware of the three dimensions of time: past, future and present, all converging into a powerful recreation of the forces that made Stamatia confront the history of the country of origin, confront prejudices and ultimately her own self. The narrative is fascinating and engaging. The characters are complex and tangible within their own contradictions and dilemmas. The act of reconstructing the past highly sophisticated and very effectively crafted. Carr used active imagination to connect some of the most turbulent events in Greek history in an an attempt to foreground the inner strange of her characters and present their existential testimony.
I read this book with the extreme interest and curiosity: it kept my interest from the beginning to the end. Throughout the reading I was trying to keep pace with the profound transformation taking place in the psyche of the central character. Gradually, Australia becomes home as the book becomes a “final love letter” to a beloved past while the final pages reward like a hallucination both verbal and imaginative. Indeed, the final paragraphs of the book are something of an amazing explosion of emotions, ideas and images as the narrative turns into the first person: (p.245) representing the unborn new life still within Stamatia’s body.
I invite all of you to immerse yourselves into this linguistic odyssey as a deeply transformative experience: you will learn, be moved and entertained all at the same time: the depth of the story and the narrative euphoria of the book enrich Australian literature with a fascinating new novel indicating where Australia can travel if it rediscovers or re-imagines its roots and origins.
Congratulations to the publisher who undertook the risk and of course to Effie who wrote such a majestic first novel.”
-Professor Vrasidas Karalis, Sir Nicholas Laurantus Professor of Modern Greek , Chair of Modern Greek Department, The University of Sydney.