Classic Australian Children's and YA Novels #4: The Gathering
As part of the project I’m planning, I’m interested in thinking about how Australian children’s and young adult fantasy replicates familiar tropes and conventions from British and American examples, but also in how it might depart from them. The Gathering struck me as unusual because it depicts an Australian small town that is overcome by forces of darkness.
Protagonist Nathanial moves to Cheshunt with his mother and dog, The Tod, after a peripatetic childhood in the wake of his parents’ divorce. He discovers that there is a culture of surveillance surrounding teenagers in the town, and is soon pressured by the vice-principal, Mr Karle, to join The Gathering, like most of the other students in the school.
Nathanial is sceptical of The Gathering and alarmed by the threatening presence of a youth patrol and wild dogs in the town. He finds like-minded students at school who are similarly resistant to The Gathering, and becomes part of a small group who are working together to resist whatever evil is overcoming Cheshunt.
The novel introduces a high level of doubt about the motivations of adults, especially those who occupy positions of authority, such as teachers and the police. One of Nathanial’s teachers, Mrs Vellan, is especially sadistic in her questioning, asking him why he never saw his father after the divorce. With her yellowed eyes that recall that dogs that terrorise the town, she attempts to convince Nathanial that children’s innocence clouds their judgement:
People do not see clearly when they are young, Nathanial. There is too much they do not know. Too much hidden from them. That is why children must learn to trust and respect their elders. The problem is that often young people think they know more than adults. Even, that they can live without them. (106)
Despite Mrs Vellan’s claims, Nathanial and his friends must fight their battle without the help of adults. As Nathanial’s friend Danny notes after he is assaulted by police, “in the sleazy adult world, there aren’t any good guys” (121).With even Nathaniel’s mother concerned that it is her son who is simply being disobedient in his conflicts with the school vice-principal, he can only turn to the saviour for all young outsiders: the public library!
In the pre-internet era, Nathaniel visits the public library to view back issues of newspapers in the quest to discover what the past might have to reveal about the threatening presences in Cheshunt. Through some detective work and tracking down elderly former residents of the town, Nathanial discovers that long ago five other young people in the town were also drawn to the light to battle the darkness, with some giving their lives. Nathanial’s small group each takes on an ancient symbol, such as a rusted sword, bowl of healing, and fire torch, that will be “forged into a Chain” that will drive back the Darkness and prevent it becoming stronger.
On GoodReads the book polarises readers, some of whom find it confronting in its darkness. Indeed, the Gathering is likened to “A youth militia. Like Hitler’s Jugend”, with Mr Karle using his students as a tool for “spread[ing] the darkness” (191). Indeed, the town of Cheshunt itself makes for a depressing setting, with the omnipresent stench of an abattoir, and “old and derelict” factories surrounded by salt pans that “were a murky pink colour, which meant that chemicals had been added” (130).
The idea of what is good and pure being tainted by adults, extends to the children of Cheshunt. As Nathanial reasons, five kids had responded to “the Call” to defeat the darkness instead of adults because “believing was something kids could do better than adults” (149). The town is “bruised by evil”, but in a way that repeats itself “like echoes all around” Nathanial.
Ultimately, The Gathering belongs to a long line of fantasy novels that situates a child or group of children as the only ones who can conquer evil. In opposition to the goodness of children who believe that they can overcome darkness, adults are susceptible to the temptations of power, and care little about the destruction and harm they cause to the land, young people, or to life itself.
