6/5/2023 0 Comments Hope Farm by Peggy Frew![]() ![]() ![]() Interspersed with Silver’s narrative are journal entries which, though not named, quickly become obvious as the voice of Ishtar. The transitions end at Hope Farm, ironically named as it’s the most ramshackle commune of them all, with a run down house sitting amidst a garden of weeds and dying ideals. Hope Farm mostly takes the point of view of thirteen year old Silver, who is is forced to follow her young mother Ishtar, as they move from one ashram or commune to another, each one slightly less comfortable for Silver, usually involving Ishtar in a new romance and Silver having to accustom herself to a new school. Peggy Frew wasn’t an ashram child, but she does a brilliant job of capturing what it’s like to be dragged along as an extra on a parent’s self-serving quest for Nirvana. ![]() ![]() Swami Sachidananda’s Integral Yoga Institute was the one my mother attached herself to, and I can recall many an afternoon babysitting my younger brother in a back room at the centre while my mother chanted, did free work, or attended “Satsang”. Perhaps that’s because the late 70s and 80s were a peak time for Personal Development Groups and of the sort that my mother became engrossed in – Rajneesh, Hari Krishna, EST – there were a swag of them. I’m sure I’m not the only reader who felt an uncomfortable pang of familiarity reading Peggy Frew’s Hope Farm. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |