Road
from Coorain
by Jill Ker Conway
About the book…
Road from Coorain is a memoir of Conway's youth in mid-century
Australia. Conway recounts the successive phases of her early life: her
childhood on a remote sheep station, her teenage years in suburban
Sydney, her education at the University of Sydney, and her decision to
become a historian and to leave Australia for the United States. Her own
coming of age is set against that of her country. The British Empire is
disintegrating, and as England retreats to a local rather than an
international role in world affairs, Australia must set out to
rediscover its own identity, not as an extension of England, but as a
Pacific nation with a distinctive culture and history. Conway's search
for her own identity, as a woman and as an Australian, is a complex
story written in a deceptively simple narrative style.
About the author…
Jill Ker Conway was born in Hillston, New South Wales, Australia,
graduated from the University of Sydney in 1958, and received her Ph.D.
from Harvard University in 1969. She is a noted historian, specializing
in the experience of women in America, and was the first woman president
of Smith College.
Discussion Questions:
1. Describing the landscape of Coorain in the first chapter, Conway says
"Human purposes are dwarfed by such a blank horizon" (p.5).
What does she imply here? What effect might this landscape have upon the
human beings that inhabit it?
2. "The way of life that grew up for white settlers was
unique," says Conway (p.7). How was this life unique? What made it
different from that of any other society in the world?
3. Conway describes her parents as "two natural risk
takers" (p.17). How would you describe the characters of her
parents? How are they similar and how do they differ? Which do you think
is the stronger?
4. Why does Pommy kill himself? Conway says that Pommy "came to
be one of my symbols for our need for society, and of the folly of
believing that we can manage our fate alone" (p.61). How does
Conway apply the lesson of this death to her own life?
5. "One troublesome aspect of the frustration of my parents'
dreams was the extent to which they transferred their ambitions to their
children" (p.65). How does this transferral affect Jill and her
brothers? Is such a transferral a common element of family life, in your
experience?
6. Why does Mr. Ker visit Jill in her bedroom the morning of his
death (p.71)? Do you believe that he intended to kill himself?
7.
"I did not understand the nature of the ecological disaster which
had transformed my world, or that we ourselves had been agents as well
as participants in our own catastrophe" (p.82). Whom does she mean
by "we"? In what way had they been agents in the catastrophe?
8. What does Conway learn about the Australian class system from her
brief stay at the local state school? What does she mean when she says,
"My encounter was a classic confrontation for the Australia of my
generation" (p.94)? Why does she consider the culture represented
by these students "more vital and unquestionably authentic"
(p.94) than her own? Would you agree with her? Do you believe that she
made the right decision in leaving this school?
9. Does Conway receive encouragement to attend university? What is
her mother's attitude to her wish for higher education? Is Mrs. Ker
proud of her daughter's intelligence, or is she scornful -- or jealous?
What does it mean to be "brainy" in Australia?
10. How does Conway's vision of her mother change during their trip
to Europe? What does she herself learn from her visits to Santiago de
Comostela and Grande Chartreuse?
11. How does Conway react to her first trip to England? What does she
admire about British tradition and history, and what does she reject?
Why does she ultimately decide, "I was not at home here and never
could be" (p.208)?
12. Why does Conway decide against a life in the bush? Why does she
decide against staying in Australia?
13. How does Conway "violate the code of (her) forefathers"
(p.232)?
Questions courtesy of Random
House
