13 May 2024

Morgan’s Run and Aurora Australis

I’ve been reading Colleen McCullough’s Morgan’s Run. I’ve read some of her books before but she is not a favourite writer, even though I don’t mind her writing and do admire her historical research. I’m reading the book because it is partly set on Norfolk Island during the early days of the convict colony established in Australia by the British. Jenny and I will be travelling there soon and I thought it might provide some flavour for our trip.

As I was reading it over the weekend I came across the following passage:

And on the 5^th of September came a night sky the like of which few had ever seen, and that never with such structure as this huge display of celestial fireworks. The vault glowed and shimmered with fabulously draped curtains and arches dripping luminous fringes in greenish-yellow, crimson and violet; great steely-indigo beams shot from all horizons to the zenith, moving as fast as lightning or eerily still and radiant. There had been an aurora in England in 1750, but no one remembered it as more than a cloudy, colourful glow. This was, the sailors assured people the next day, more wondrous by far than any Northern Lights.

The passage stood out to me because I live in the Blue Mountains, just west of Sydney where the original convict settlement was located, and when I was younger I lived closer to Sydney, itself. I’ve never seen the Southern Lights (Aurora Australis) in Sydney as described by McCullough, and I wondered whether this was a recorded event or imagined. Given the historical accuracy of McCullough’s writing, I was willing to give her the doubt.

And then what happened is what always happens. Over the last week there have been storms on the surface of the sun and for the first time in my life that I remember the Southern Lights were seen as far north as Sydney (and farther!) But typically, whenever there is a celestial event I would like to see, the sky is overcast and it’s not viewable. We’ve had rain for the past week and only this morning does it appear to be clearing. I’m hoping that there might be something left to see this week.

The only worrying thing, now, is that McCollough also describes a cyclone the likes of which there is no physical evidence of ever having occurred before on Norfolk Island shortly after the British establish a camp there (the storm flattens most of the Norfolk Pines). Could it be that my sojourn on Norfolk Island is ill-fated!!!

Luckily, I’m not superstitious. But that doesn’t protect me from cyclones, I know!

- bikerbuddy

2 May 2024

Updates

The beginning of May brings this website to a point where all its reviews are now phone friendly. If you need a sense of how poorly this website was displaying on phones, looking at the main page as it still is today will give you an idea. Included in these updates are pages like this one, our About page, our search page for reviews, our Contributions page as well as all of Michael Duffy’s Great Writers project.

That still leaves the Main Page, the Booker Prize Project Page, The Federalist Papers pages, some of the Count of Monte Cristo pages, the project page for the Golden Age of Crime (but not its reviews) and our Homer pages to be updated yet. Sadly, for me, there could be a few months’ work in it, which is why I’m not reading as much, and why I skipped the Reading Project Newsletter this week. There had been no new content posted on the website because of the updates.

At least I will be writing a new review today, even though it may take until tomorrow before I post it. And Victoria has another book finished and will review it soon, although her involvement in a half marathon this weekend will delay that.

Tomorrow I will start to read Colleen McCollough’s Morgan’s Run, which is a historical novel partly set on Norfolk Island where Jenny and I will be going later this month.