Christine - A Review (from the non-existent archives)

Found an old book review I'd done for the LT back in the day. My writing style has been so, um, flowery back then.
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I’m wary of memoirs that involve frothy ramblings only of interest to the author. But the minute I started reading Christine I was hooked. When I first saw the book I was to review and realized it was written by Dr. R. L. Spittel’s daughter, I didn’t know quite what to expect.

Growing up I’d excitedly read and re-read his series of books on Hans, the Dutch boy adopted by our Veddhas. So in Christine, I was prepared to encounter a lot of Veddhas and jungle treks. This I did, in moderation, but what I hadn’t expected was to be moved by a poor-little-rich-girl story and to be enchanted by the way the tale unfolded.

Christine Spittel Wilson writes in a style all her own. Not for her long-winded narratives on the when and where. Instead, her story takes us through her life in softly cordoned-off episodes that deal more with moments than facts. She has a gift for language that allows her to convey emotions with economy but with such feeling.

Starting with her childhood in Ceylon her story runs round the world to settle at last once more in Sri Lanka, “my island”. Alistair, her beloved husband, her father, mother and daughter are of course the main characters her story is wound around. However, she hasn’t neglected others who made a subtle but forceful impact on her. One-eyed Amos, the flower seller; Aideen, the sentry with his gap-toothed smile - they make their graceful entrances and exits and leave the tale much richer by their presence.

The narrative is structured in such a way, just when you think the thread of some story has been abandoned it springs up on you unexpectedly and delightfully. Unlike most biographies, Christine doesn’t dwell on the author’s feelings and drive the reader to distraction. There is feeling, but it’s not wallowing in sentiment for the sheer pleasure of it. Instead it lightly skips across the pages and the beauty of the writing is that you still absorb it.

Christine, a memoir, isn’t a book that should be used just to pad up your library bookshelves. It’s a book that should be read and re-read and then passed on for others to enjoy.