Helen Trinca

She was a sort of a cultural Anglican, I guess, all her life.

But she did go regularly to church in those later years.

And she was interested in the temporal nature of the world, in the transience of the world, in what really made sense.

You know, she said to her friends, I guess, love is a,

only real, you know, really permanent thing, perhaps love and perhaps art are the permanent elements of life.

So she's interested in, you know, some big issues, I think, you know, the biggest issues of all, really, about life with a cup of love and what it means.

And I think that she has, that aspect of her work comes out very gently.

But if you, particularly when you start to look for it, it's really all there.

So I guess I think she matters in that way.

I'm not, I wouldn't, you wouldn't suggest that she's, I guess, you know, one of the, you know, she's not necessarily one of the major Australian writers of, you know, of all time.

But, you know, she has got, you know, she had some things to say and she said them.

And she's also extremely entertaining.

I mean, the books are easy to read and good reads.

And you can go back and read and reread them and they give you a lot of pleasure, I think.

Well, the two that I really admire, I love A Pure Clear Light, and that's the second published book of hers.

And that actually tells the story of an affair.

And so the husband in that relationship is looking for, you know, meaning, I guess, in an affair.

And the wife, meanwhile, is looking for meaning by trying to go back to the church.

So look, extraordinary story, really.

I mean, you never really get very many modern writers who sort of value religion, you know, rather than dismiss it.