{"id":217,"date":"2012-01-29T22:03:44","date_gmt":"2012-01-29T11:03:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/misrule.com.au\/wordpress\/?page_id=217"},"modified":"2012-01-29T22:03:44","modified_gmt":"2012-01-29T11:03:44","slug":"saving-francesca-by-melina-marchetta","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/misrule.com.au\/wordpress\/sample-page\/saving-francesca-by-melina-marchetta\/","title":{"rendered":"Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta"},"content":{"rendered":"

This review was published in Viewpoint: On Books for Young Adults<\/a> in 2003.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Saving Francesca<\/p><\/div>\n

When I told friends and colleagues that I was to review Saving Francesca<\/em>, the new novel by Melina Marchetta, the reaction from each person was almost identical. First, there was delight that there was<\/em> a new Marchetta novel. Then a pause. Then the question, asked anxiously and almost fearfully \u2014 \u201cIs it any good?\u201d<\/p>\n

This is pretty much the same sequence of reactions I had myself when I saw Saving Francesca<\/em> listed in Penguin\u2019s forth-coming titles mailout a few months ago. Initial excitement \u2014 then anxiety. It\u2019s been ten years. It\u2019s the author of Looking for Alibrandi<\/em>, one of the most beloved Australia YA books ever \u2014 a phenomena, indeed, in a country not prone to publishing phenomena. What if it\u2019s dreadful? What if it\u2019s even just ordinary? What a let down! How embarrassing!<\/p>\n

And so it\u2019s with some relief and great pleasure that I can report that Saving Francesca<\/em> is neither a let down nor an embarrassment. (Nor is it, contrary to the Sydney Morning Herald\u2019s headline, \u201cLooking for Alibrandi<\/em> Part 2\u201d \u2014 but more on that later.) Rather, Saving Francesca <\/em>is the work of an accomplished and mature writer, a testament to the ten years Marchetta spent not<\/em> rushing in to print to capitalise on Alibrandi\u2019s<\/em> success.<\/p>\n

Saving Francesca<\/em> takes place over the middle two terms of the year Francesca Spinelli is in Year 11. She\u2019s at a new school, St Sebastian\u2019s \u2014 her old school St Stella\u2019s only goes to Year 10. All of Francesca\u2019s Stella friends have gone to Pius Senior College and Francesca is adrift without them. Worse, Sebastian\u2019s has until this year been an all boys\u2019 school, and the boys (and some of the teaching staff) aren\u2019t taking too kindly to the new intake of girls into the senior school. All of this is bad enough \u2014 and then Francesca\u2019s mother, the bossy, over-bearing, controlling but deeply loved and relied upon Mia, has taken to her bed. Mia is seriously depressed and it looks as though Francesca\u2019s family \u2014 and Francesca\u2019s fragile sense of self \u2014 may not survive her mother\u2019s illness.<\/p>\n

Macquarie University\u2019s Professor John Stephens claims the \u201cabiding ideal of adolescent fiction\u201d is \u201cthe emergence of subjectivity as a development of a central character\u2019s ability to express<\/em> self-recognition or agency\u201d[1]<\/a>. If Stephens\u2019 claim is accurate \u2014 and a quick mental survey of YA fiction both recent and historical would suggest it is \u2014 then Saving Francesca<\/em> serves as an example par excellence <\/em>of the genre. At the heart of Francesca\u2019s story is her long and painful rediscovery of the self she abandoned years ago.<\/p>\n

Back in Year 7 Francesca was an extrovert, playing horsies and singing and dancing in the playground \u2014 until someone pointed out to her she was a show-off. Francesca promptly dropped her best friend Siobhan and handed her personality over to a bunch of girls who rescued her from being \u201c(tapped) on the shoulder to point out what I was doing wrong\u201d \u2014 and who spent the next four years doing precisely that. Since then, Mia has been bewailing the loss of \u201cthe little girl who sang \u2018Dancing Queen\u2019 at the Year 6 Graduation Night.\u201d Mia\u2019s been fighting for that little girl for years \u2014 and at the same time that Francesca furiously objects to the fact that \u201c(Mia) thinks she knows who I am because she thinks who I am is who she<\/em> tells me\u201d, she has been more than willing to allow the St Stella friends to quash her personality. By the time we meet her, she doesn\u2019t even have her own taste in music. She fears she\u2019s invisible, she believes she\u2019s silent, and she has so successfully acceded to the repression of herself that when she is separated from her friends and her mother vanishes into depression, Francesca no longer has any idea who she is:<\/p>\n

I miss the Stella girls telling me what I am. That I\u2019m sweet and placid and accommodating and loyal and non-threatening and good to have around. And Mia. I want her to say, \u201cFrankie, you\u2019re silly, you\u2019re lazy, you\u2019re talented, you\u2019re passionate, you\u2019re restrained, you\u2019re blossoming, you\u2019re contrary.\u201d<\/p>\n

I want to be an adjective again.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m a noun.<\/p>\n

A nothing. A nobody. A no one.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She is, however, a fascinating narrator. Told exclusively in the first person, Marchetta employs a clever use of flashbacks \u2014 Francesca\u2019s imperfect memories \u2014 to explore Francesca\u2019s shifting understanding of herself and of her family and friendships. It quickly becomes evident that Francesca\u2019s not the most reliable of narrators \u2014 but this is a reflection of her mental and emotional state rather than an attempt to evade or deceive on her part. On the one hand, Francesca considers herself invisible and ineffectual, yet her self-deprecating humour and knack at getting into clever, witty strife with the very people she ought to stay on the good side of \u2014 if she wants a quiet life, that is \u2014 reveal someone quite different from the young woman so insecure she introduces herself to her friends on the phone with her full name. Her early sparring matches with House leader Will Trimbol \u2014 who she will eventually fall in love with \u2014 and with the despotic Mr Brolin (despite being invisible, Francesca can\u2019t seem to stay out of detention) \u2014 are classic Marchetta in terms of their humour and revelation of character. Francesca may tell us she\u2019s someone with nothing to say, but she gets herself into a hell of a lot of trouble \u201cnot\u201d saying it.<\/p>\n

Marchetta\u2019s realisation of the school scenes are masterful \u2014 her years teaching have given her a shrewd insight into classroom dynamics. Francesca has evidently spent all of Term 1 assiduously avoiding being friends with any of the other girls at Sebastian\u2019s \u2014 including her Year 7 \u201chorsie\u201d friend Siobhan and a handful of other Stella girls. She finds the Sebastian boys distasteful at best, and disgusting most of time. But despite her resistance and resentment and the lingering influence of her Stella friends \u2014 the ones who \u201crescued\u201d her \u2014 Francesca finds herself building an initially tenuous, but ultimately incredibly powerful set of friendships with both boys and girls \u2014 and learning about the true nature of friendship as she does.<\/p>\n

Family is also critical to Saving Francesca<\/em>. In addition to Francesca and Mia there\u2019s father Rob and little brother Luca, and the posse of extended Italian relatives. The main interest here is how Mia\u2019s depression affects the family and eventually changes the family dynamics for ever \u2014 and for good. Francesca has had a difficult relationship with Mia and she\u2019s deeply ambivalent about her mother\u2019s depression \u2014 she\u2019s angry, scared, compassionate, impatient \u2014 everything you\u2019d expect a 17 year old to be. She adores younger brother Luca but develops an intense antagonism to Rob, who she comes to blame for Mia\u2019s illness. The adults in Francesca\u2019s life are flawed people \u2014 Rob, for instance, has Francesca ring Mia\u2019s work colleagues to explain her absences and illness \u2014 and it\u2019s largely through her own will and with the support of her new friends that Francesca learns and grows. How Francesca\u2019s family will re-make itself is left open at the novel\u2019s end, but there\u2019s a strong sense that their fundamental love and respect for each other \u2014 and the hard lessons learned \u2014 will pull them through.<\/p>\n

Marchetta employs popular culture in a most interesting way in Saving Francesca<\/em>. Most YA novels that drop in references to a poster of a (real) band on a wall or a character\u2019s favourite actor threaten to date quickly. Saving Francesca<\/em> has numerous references to actual popular culture \u2014 punk band One Dollar Short, \u201cBuffy the Vampire Slayer\u201d, for instance \u2014 but they are embedded in the meaning of the text. Rather than being one-off references to establish the novel\u2019s (possibly short-lived) credibility with the readership, Marchetta uses the centrality of popular culture to young people\u2019s lives to explore her interest in the power of family and the nature of friendship. In fact, it\u2019s so important to the novel that it informs the book\u2019s very design \u2014 the first page of each chapter features the names of various alternate contemporary bands and musicians in greyscale behind the text. Popular culture in Saving Francesca<\/em> bonds friendships (after finding out Will Trimbol has a girlfriend, Francesca\u2019s new friends cheer her up with a night of Alanis Morrissette and the Colin Firth \u201cPride and Prejudice\u201d), represents a character\u2019s frame of mind (Francesca\u2019s misery at being sent to stay with her grandparents is made worse by them not letting her watch Buffy the vampire Slayer<\/em> \u2014 emotional torture!), and acts as a shorthand to exemplify a point (Francesca\u2019s memories of her family singing a Whitlams song together is a powerful pointer to what they\u2019ve lost). Time will tell how these references are received by future readers, but my sense is that their meaning and use are so clear that it will over-ride any problems of transitive popularity.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m full of admiration for Saving Francesca<\/em>. It\u2019s beautifully structured and has remarkable depths that emerge on subsequent readings, it\u2019s written with a mature hand and heart, it\u2019s painful and moving, it\u2019s funny and true. There\u2019s also a feisty sense of social justice and a feminist sensibility underpinning this book, and it\u2019s a pleasure to read forth-right, opinionated and informed teenaged characters in a time when many would like to see young people silenced. In an interview in the afore-mentioned Sydney Morning Herald<\/em> (Spectrum, April 5-6, 2003), Marchetta stated \u201cI knew, as soon as Alibrandi<\/em> came out, that my competition was not going to be any other writer, it was just going to be this novel.\u201d It would be a shame indeed if Saving Francesca<\/em> were viewed only in terms of its enormously successful and beloved predecessor, despite some superficial similarities. Let us hope that, like its protagonist, Saving Francesca<\/em> finds its own place in the world, on its own fine, compelling and independent terms.<\/p>\n

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[1]<\/a> \u201cConstructions of Female Selves in Adolescent Fiction: Makeovers as Metonym\u201d, Papers<\/a> Vol. 9, Number 1, April 1999<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This review was published in Viewpoint: On Books for Young Adults in 2003. When I told friends and colleagues that I was to review Saving Francesca, the new novel by Melina Marchetta, the reaction from each person was almost identical. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":2,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"sidebar-page.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-217","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/misrule.com.au\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/misrule.com.au\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/misrule.com.au\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/misrule.com.au\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/misrule.com.au\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/misrule.com.au\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1234,"href":"http:\/\/misrule.com.au\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/217\/revisions\/1234"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/misrule.com.au\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/misrule.com.au\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}