Victorian dresses, teenage passions and fiction’s scariest picnic: Picnic at Hanging Rock

Secret Life of Books

Sophie and Jonty find themselves a few sandwiches short of a picnic this week when they take on their first Australian classic book, the legendary “Picnic at Hanging Rock.” This 1960s masterpiece achieved global fame with Peter Weir’s hit film in 1975. And it has lost none of its edge with the passage of time. The intrepid hosts of SLoB discover that the joke’s on them – descended as they are from the white colonial families that Joan Lindsay set out to skewer so mercilessly.

With riffs aplenty on Cath and Kim, Sir Les Patterson and other touchstones of Australian culture, Sophie and Jonty drop the “citizens of the world” act and connect with their Australian origins. And in the serious bits they talk about what’s really going on in this surrealist bush-gothic masterpiece, discussing the secrets behind Lindsay’s Picnic. These include Australian independence from Britain in the year the novel was set and the referendum on First Nations sovereignty in the year the novel was written, as well as the painting in the National Gallery of Victoria that inspired the 70 year old Lady Joan to put pen to paper.

The episode is recorded in advance of the publication of the first full biography of Lindsay, and a provocative new Sydney Theatre Company production of Tom Wright’s stage play, directed by Ian Michaels who has been hailed as the “most exciting director of his generation.” Both coming in February 2025.

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