The Colour A Novel [Paperback]

From the critically-acclaimed historical novelist Rose Tremain comes theThe Colour

Newlyweds Joseph and Harriet Blackstone emigrate from England to New Zealand, along with Joseph's mother Lilian, in search of new beginnings and prosperity. But the harsh land near Christchurch where they settle threatens to destroy them almost before they begin. When Joseph finds gold in a creek bed, he hides the discovery from both his wife and mother, and becomes obsessed with the riches awaiting him deep in the earth. Abandoning his farm and family, he sets off alone for the new goldfields over the Southern Alps, a moral wilderness where many others, under the seductive dreams of the colour, rush to their destinies and doom.

Reading Group Guide Questions
1. Discuss the significance of houses and homes inThe Colour. Why is such attentive detail paid
to the architecture and d?cor of these places. Why, for instance, is Harriet and Joseph's Cob
House builtaroundthe chimney?
2. In the beginning of the novel husband, wife, and mother all think greatly about the future and
the past  in some respects, an escape from their previous home and an expectation for their
current one. Joseph comments on page 54 that: All life&is a flight from mistake to mistake.
And while Lilian comments on page 29 that nothing here is ever quite as one has imagined it
she then reveals she too has a plan for the future. What does these characters' ideas about the
future and the past say about them as characters? What sort of expectations does Tremain
establish by delivering such information?
3. Further to the previous question: the lives lived inThe Colourseem to operate by two opposite
poles -- thoselÓ+