What's with today, today?

1900s- the man of property

2012-01-28T00:36:00.000+11:00

Since I don't read much from the 1900s usually I thought I should make a list of options to make sure I found something to read, but then I couldn't choose so I read three (unfortunately two ended up being from the same year):
The Man of Property by John Galsworthy (1906)
The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton (1908)
A Room with a View by E.M. Forster (1908)

Basically I decided to use this challenge as an excuse to read some of the books I've been meaning to read for a long time but haven't gotten around to. It's taken me a while to get around to blogging about them because I just wasn't sure what to say. I said to a friend the other day that I used to judge whether books were good or not by whether I could understand them. If I had no idea what a book was about by the end of it, it must be very high literature indeed. By this token The Man Who Was Thursday is incredible, and E.M. Forster should be my favourite writer. On the other hand, reading The Man of Property was like being hit over the head with the one idea. John Galsworthy likes to demonstrate his concepts, then explain them, and then spell them out again in case you didn't understand them the first time. But all this sounds extraordinarily negative, and really it wasn't like that at all, so I'll go through them in more detail (with some spoilers). Starting with:

The Man of Property by John Galsworthy
Published in the 1900s, but set in the 1880s, this is the first book of the famous Forsyte saga. It follows the Forsyte family, with its many aged uncles and aunts and the family patriarch, Jolyon Forsyte. It opens at the engagement party for June (Jolyon's grand-daughter) and her architect fiancee Bosinney. Meanwhile, June's uncle, Soames, and his wife (and June's best friend) Irene are having marital difficulties.

The title says it all really, a lot of the novel is a criticism of, I guess, materialism- or rather the focus on ownership. The novel's crisis is brought about by Soames purchase and construction of a house, and focuses on his desire to 'own' his wife. The writer claims all Forsytes are obsessed by property, and by 'Forsytes' he means the upper-middle classes, the noveau riche I suppose. The book is informed by Victorian social changes and a real distaste for 'Forsyte-ism', mixed with occasional affection (for Jolyon and June, for instance). It's mostly quite a fun (if terribly tragic) read, though I did feel for June, who loses her fiance to her best friend. But we are not allowed to sympathise for long, she is a Forsyte after all.

While you do get a sense of authorial intervention, very critical of the Forsytes, the story is largely told from their perspective. This reinforces the sense of Bosinney and Irene as outsiders. While that may be effective, I found it frustrating to have so little sense of Irene's character. She is charming, and we're constantly told that she is sort of accidentally seductive. But we are always on the outside, Irene is, after all, a mystery to all the Forsytes. She is also apparently pliable with a core of certainty. She has a horrible time of it through the book, and I just wished I knew more about her.

This is also a book in which I spent a lot of time thinking "why don't you just talk to each other? Just ask each other what's going on?" This would clearly be more effective for some characters than others, but I feel that if my fiance didn't talk to me for weeks, maybe I would ask him about it? And on the other hand, that's not really behaviour that's calculated to make me feel sympathetic towards anyone, starving artist or no. Overall, I found Bosinney really quite infuriating. If I felt that Irene was made out to be mysterious, Bosinney's character was made out to be very irritating. But while they drive the plot of the book, it's not really about Irene and Bosinney at all. It's about the Forsytes, and at that the book is a lot more successful.

on egypt

2012-01-24T10:06:00.003+11:00

Last year I wrote about reading The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif, and how relevant it felt reading about Egypt's history in light of the Tahrir Square demonstrations and the revolution that was happening. I wondered how Ahdaf Soueif would feel about it, and whether she would write her book differently if she was writing today. Well, apparently she's written a new book about the revolution in Cairo (in which she was involved), and there are what I think are extracts from that book in the Guardian here. It's a very personal account of Egypt and revolution, interesting to read as Egypt's new Government holds its inaugral session, although the extracts end before the elections.

And my reading around the world posts will come soon! I hope.

2011 book list

2011-12-30T19:25:00.000+11:00

It's been a good year in reading, even though I haven't been doing so much blogging. As always, this is the list of books I've read all the way through for the first time this year. I don't include rereads, but then again I don't think there have been many... Links to books I've mentioned on the blog, * for my top picks, and a summary post coming later for those of you who don't like reading through lists. There are a lot I haven't mentioned on the blog, but for many of those I've added some short notes.

Some themes from the year's reading:

War- from WWI (A Very Long Engagement) to child soldiers in Nigeria (Song for Night) and the experience of everyday life in war-torn Iran (Persepolis), war dogged my reading this year. While it was diverse, reading this year (and planning for next year's reading) has really brought home how big the influence of the world wars has been on Western literature. Oh, and I dislike war more than ever.

Fairy-tales- I talked about this earlier this year, but I sought out a lot of fairy-tales this year, inspired by reading The Bloody Chamber, which I followed up with some originals in the form of The Grimm Reader. Mostly retellings, with a short focus on the Twelve Dancing Princesses thanks to Wildwood Dancing, I also bought a few new fairy-tale collections (not represented on the list). Probably the most unusual fairy-tale retelling was Deathless, set in WWII Russia and based on Koschei the Deathless.

Steampunk?- I also sought out fantasy set in the 19th century, after reading Cold Magic and A Matter of Magic (collecting Mairelon the Magician and The Magician's Ward) close together. Not sure if what I was looking for was steampunk exactly, but it's hard to describe. Maybe a fantasy-of-manners? Something that picks up the social structures of the 19th century rather than the technology. That said, Cold Magic is not exactly that either... So maybe I'll settle for saying quasi-Victorian fantasy settings.

Truth - Peter Temple

Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins

Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins The sequels to The Hunger Games, which I wrote about back in 2010- fast paced and addictive reads

Freedom - Jonathan Franzen

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand - Helen Simonson A nice read about an life in an English village and a late-in-life romance

* The Bloody Chamber - Angela Carter

The Grimm Reader - ed. Maria Tater

* The Pillow Book - Sei Shonagon

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - MurielSpark Strangely sinister coming-of-age story set in a girls' school around a charismatic teacher

* A Very Long Engagement - Sebastien Japrisot

Goodbye to Berlin - Christopher Isherwood Set in the underworld of 1930s Berlin, the basis for Cabaret

Song for Night - Chris Abani

The Captain's Verses - Pablo Neruda

We Have Always Lived in the Castle -Shirley Jackson American Gothic tale of a family living in their crumbling house on the outskirts of an unsympathetic village. Classic unreliable narrator

Saraswati Park - Anjali Joseph The quiet lives of a middle-aged couple living in Bombay and the coming-of-age of the nephew who comes to live with them

House of Many Ways - Diana Wynne Jones Fun sequel from one of my favourite fantasy writers, even if it doesn't quite live up its predecessors, Howl's Moving Castle and Castle in the Air

Fingersmith - Sarah Waters Dickensian tale of love between orphans girls in Victorian England, full of twists and turns

On Beauty - Zadie Smith I love Zadie Smith's stories of class and race in the contemporary world, this one is set in American Academia

The Tattooed Potato and other clues - EllenRaskin

The Good Master - Kate Seredy Tales from Kate Seredy's childhood in pre-WWI Hungary, told for children. Like a Hungarian version of the Little House books (with fewer pioneers)

Fire and Hemlock - Diana Wynne Jones A retelling of Tam Lin by Dianna Wynne Jones, sounds fantastic! And is good, although a little incoherent towards the end

The Road Home - Rose Tremain Enjoyed this book about immigration in the UK, until one incident which made me less sure of it

* Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons I had a lot of fun with this book about a 'modern woman' setting out to modernise her cousins and their ancient farm, the no-nonsense heroine is great

Chiggers - Hope Larsson

The Neon Court - Kate Griffin Really enjoy Kate Griffin's fast paced urban fantasy

Memory- Margaret Mahy

The Ghost of Thomas Kempe - Penelope Lively

* White Cat - Holly Black Fascinated by the set-up of a family of criminal magicians, I was still wary of this book, but the smart con-man hero, the world and the plot were all so engaging, I loved this

Lord Edgeware Dies - Agatha Christie

* Cold Magic - Kate Elliott

Mairelon the Magician - Patricia C Wrede

The Magician's Ward - Patricia C. Wrede

Sorcery and Cecilia or The EnchantedChocolate Pot - Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermere All these Patricia Wrede books are enchanting, this one is written as a letter game, with two writers exchanging letters to build this epistolary novel set in a magical 19th century

Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch Flawed but mostly fun crime/fantasy books with a sometimes funny, sometimes irritatingly slow magician's apprentice/policeman hero

Moon over Soho - Ben Aaronovitch

A Red Herring Without Mustard - AlanBradley

The Murders at the Rue Morgue - Edgar AllanPoe Billed as the first detective story and a predecessor of Sherlock Homes, but of more historical than readerly interest

Willful Creatures - Aimee Bender Fantastical, strange, but somewhat cold short stories

Notwithstanding - Louis de Bernieres A nostalgic look at the English countryside and English eccentrics

* Wildwood Dancing - Juliet Marillier

Soulless - Gail Carriger Picked this up looking for a fantasy-of-manners, turned out to be more steampunk-paranormal-romance

The Door in the Hedge - Robin McKinley Short story retellings of fairy tales, as well as new fairy tales

* Gilead - Marilynne Robinson

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake -Aimee Bender

The Likeness - Tana French A sequel I liked even better than its predecessor, Into the Woods, Tana French always keeps me on the edge of my seat, scared but intrigued

Who Killed Palomino Molero? - Mario Vargas Llosa

Deathless - Catherynne M. Valente Started off a bit disturbed, but this book won me round, it is a fairly dark fairy-tale retelling set in WWII Russia. Still not quite sure what to think of it

After Dark - Haruki Murakami Bearing a lot of similarities to number9dream, but shorter (and written first, I should point out), really enjoyable novel of Tokyo night-life along with a touch of the supernatural/uncanny

Liar - Justine Larbalestier

A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman -Margaret Drabble A collection of short stories from Margaret Drabbles writing career, focusing on different women

The Good Thief - Hannah Tinti A rollicking great Western with orphans, con-men/thieves, vengeance and sordid pasts. Recommended.

Red Glove - Holly Black The sequel to White Cat follows in the same vein, throwing up more questions and even more problems for the hero to navigate

I Shall Wear Midnight - Terry Pratchett

10 Short Stories You Must Read in 2011 -Various Writers It was free!

Two Doors Down - Annie M. McCartney

Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi Graphic novel (or rather, graphic memoir) of the author's childhood in Iran- really interesting look at Iranian history and what it's like growing up in turbulent times

Cold Fire - Kate Elliott Sequel to Cold Magic, with much high tension and joy for me

Necropolis - Catharine Arnold Interesting, if bitsy, history of burial and burial grounds in London

* The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern

Ragnorak - A.S. Byatt

Skim - Mariko Tamaki & Jillian Tamaki Coming-of-age story set in a girl's school in Canada (graphic novel). Found the hints of student-teacher relationship a little off-putting

The Floating Admiral - Various Brings together G.K. Chesterton, Dorothy Sayers, Agatha Christie and other Golden Age detective writers to write one story, a chapter each. What's not to like?

The Map of Love - Ahdaf Soueif

Nights at the Circus - Angela Carter

Night Waking - Sarah Moss

Murder is Easy - Agatha Christie

Fever Pitch - Nick Hornby

Maus - Art Spiegelman

Full Dark House - Christopher Fowler I heard these were more Crime/Fantasy books- but they're not exactly fantasy, although they're certainly not realistic. They are quite fun, not to be taken seriously

Seventy-Seven Clocks - Christopher Fowler

The Water Room - Christopher Fowler

Claudine in Paris - Collette Could not like this, felt somewhat seedy and didn't really like the narrator, but I know that other people think they're fun- I think part of it is that I just really dislike father-figure romances.

The Easter Parade - Richard Yates Known for his depressing stories, this is a depressing story of two sisters who choose different paths in life but both end up miserable. I know that sounds dismissive, but really it is good and takes in the changing choices available to women in the middle of the 20th century

The Pastor's Wife - Elizabeth von Arnim So funny and yet so sad at the same time, this made me incredibly glad to be alive today rather than 100 years ago. Liked the first half best, the POV of the main character just seemed less believable towards the end, too naive

The Girls of Slender Means - Muriel Spark

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day - WinifredWatson Would have been a lovely book if not for the racism. Still manages to be quite fun and zesty as a portrayal of friendship between women and second chances, at least in parts

Goodbye To All That - Robert Graves

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children- Ransom Riggs Incorporating found photographs, this didn't start off as I was expecting, but was quite sinister and strange, before moving toward a more familiar fantasy narrative. But sinister in all the right ways. Hard to put down.

The Sense of an Ending - Julian Barnes Thought this was about the unreliability of memory, but after reading it I think it's more about the unreliability of the narratives we create about the past and ourselves. If that's so different.

reading around the world round up

2011-12-19T22:27:00.000+11:00

Another end of year post as promised! Albeit a little late. I am officially declaring my reading round the world challenge done! Although I did end up cheating a bit... Reviews of earlier books here. Here's what I read (with brief reviews of books I haven't mentioned earlier):

Africa: Song for Night by Chris Abani (Nigeria). I thought this was cheating, so added The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif (Egypt) (also kind of cheating, since it is set in Egypt but written in English).

I'm counting The Map of Love because I felt like I ended up learning a lot about Egypt by the end. The book is split between the turn of the century and the present day (when the book was written in the late 90's), following two parallel love stories which bridge the East/West divide and are linked by family history. It also deals with Egyptian politics and identity, and the relationship between Egypt and the West. The first love story was a bit idealised, but I still found it compelling and moving. Their story is told through diary entries, uncovered by their ancestors Isabel and Amal, who then piece them together to retell it. Amal's brother and Isabel make up the current day love story. I found their love story less compelling for a number of reasons, mainly because I didn't really feel it was given much room, and since the narrative centres on Amal rather than Isabel it felt a bit like a sideshow. But the main point of the book is not the love story, but the politics and the history of Egypt.

Reading about Egypt struggling for independence against a military (British) force, and the competing forces within it striving to define its identity, felt incredibly timely in the year of Tahrir Square. Reading about America's involvement in the Middle East and its reactions towards terrorism felt very relevant on the 10 year anniversary of 9/11. While I tend to find books that are focussed on politics hard to get through, the grand sweep of this story and the context it gave to current affairs really made this a great read for me. And while I say this with some trepidation, given that it is a work of fiction, but I felt like I learnt a lot and gained a better understanding of world events afterwards (though is an area I don't know much about, so I was starting from a low base)! At the end, most of all I was left wondering: have things moved forward since this book was written? Or does it demonstrate that we are stuck repeating the same historical cycle? I think we will have to wait and see...

Asia: The Pillow Book by Sei Shongagon (Japan).

Some others: Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (Iran)

After Dark by Haruki Murakami (Japan)

Australasia: Truth by Peter Temple (Australia).

Some others: Memory by Margaret Mahy (New Zealand)

Europe: A Very Long Engagement by Sebastien Japrisot (France).

Some others: Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby (UK)

Claudine in Paris by Colette

North America: Freedom by Jonathan Franzen (US).

Some others: Easter Parade by Richard Yates (US)

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (US)

South America: The Captain's Verses by Pablo Neruda (Chile). Feeling like this was cheating, I also read Who Killed Palomino Molero? by Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru).

Who Killed Palomino Molero? follows two police officers investigating the murder of a young Peruvian man nearby an army base. With the wealthy white army officers falling under suspicion, all sorts of racial and class tensions come into play. This book sets up its premise and then starts to undercut your expectations, so that your doubt increases more and more towards the end. There are clearly a number of forces in play, powerful men that are trying to protect themselves, as well as prejudices. But these take a number of forms, and this book plays with your ideas by the end.

It's hard to say much more, because I don't want to talk about the ending and I don't know that I can offer any great insights. But if you've read this, please mention it in the comments! Would love to hear what you thought.

blogging in december

2011-12-01T22:50:00.001+11:00

Ah, December. The month of end-of-year lists, wrap ups and frantic Christmas shopping. And of course looking forward to next year. So in the end-of-year spirit I am looking to post several year wrap-ups, including a final post on my reading round the world challenge and my yearly booklist post. But to start off, plans for next year! Which is perhaps a back-to-front way of doing things...

This year my blog has been sorely languishing, and while I can't guarantee that I will be more diligent in posting next year, I do have some plans to pep it up a bit. Over the holidays I am hoping to do a bit of a template re-jig, weed out some of my older posts and just generally make things a bit more presentable. So changes ahoy!

My other plan for next year is to take part in Simon at Stuck-in-a-Books A Century of Books challenge.

The original challenge calls for reading a book from every year of the 20th century, but since I know that I get through far fewer than 100 books in a year, and I want to allow myself a lot of freedom in my reading choices, I will just be reading a book from each decade of the 20th Century. The plan is to read, and blog about, a book from a decade each month, starting in the 1900s. Hopefully there will be more blog posts than that, but I'm hoping this will get me writing. Plus it sounds like a lot of fun! Now to decide which 1900s book to read... Suggestions welcome!

line link love

2011-11-24T11:23:00.001+11:00

Since I wrote my blog post about first lines, I seem to notice people talking about them everywhere. So have some links that celebrate the first line!

Firstly: The Guardian's short editorial piece in praise of first lines and its slightly longer discussion of favourite first lines.

Secondly, Kit Whitfield's blog (thanks for the link, Ronni!) has a series deconstructing the first lines of novels, and what they say about the novel as a whole. Really good for some longer discussion of opening lines.

So, another first line: from the book I just finished reading, The Pastor's Wife by Elizabeth von Arnim

"On that April afternoon all the wallflowers of the world seemed to her released body to have been piled up at the top of Regent Stree so that she should walk in fragrance."

one book, two book, three book four... and five

2011-10-30T16:49:00.002+11:00

I'm doing this meme again, along with Stuck-in-a-Book. A quick reading round up...

The book I'm currently reading...

Night Waking by Sarah Moss
Erm, so I saw a review of this on Stuck-in-a-Book as well, and it intrigued me so I picked this up from the library. A historian is staying on the small Hebridean island her husband owns with her husband and two small children for the summer, when she finds the bones of a child buried on the property. Incorporates children's/19th C. history along with musings on good parenting and relationships. I enjoyed it (I just finished it... but it still counts, right?), speculating on the narrators state of mind and following her attempts to uncover local history. It did wrap up perhaps a bit too smoothly though.

The last book I finished...

Besides Night Waking that is!
Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter
I've been keen on Angela Carter since my friend Georgia lent me The Bloody Chamber, so I was interested to read this to follow up on the circus theme I started with The Night Circus. Also to follow along on the theme of books with 'night' in the title, it seems. It's pretty hard to sum up what I thought of this book, which follows the aerialiste Fevvers, a tall cockney performer who may or may not have real wings. It's kind of grotesque, and also puts a bunch of Marxist/Feminist language in the mouths of the main characters, which has a kind of tongue-in-cheek feel that somehow adds to the surrealism. Overall it's a good read, even if I do not always get along with the grotesque, and deserves more than a paragraph of discussion!

The next book I want to read...

Maus by Art Spiegelman
I really enjoy autobiographies/memoirs in comic book style, and this book in which a holocaust survivor tells his son his story is meant to be hugely influential in this genre, and possibly the first of its kind, so I have been vaguely meaning to read it for a while. I'm going to look it up in the library, but you never know, I might end up reading something by Christopher Fowler (writer of Fantasy/Crime novels!) instead, or something from my fairy tales collection, or...

The last book I bought...

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
I bought this after reading a highly persuasive review in The Guardian (who incidentally also pubished an article on Maus the other day) and seeing it promoted in my favourite local bookshop... Too easily swayed. I've written a review of it here, suffice to say that it is a book that creates a magical circus for its readers, in a 19th century world of magic and performers and nights.

The last book I was given...

Ragnorak by A.S. Byatt

I'd really been looking forward to this book, so I was pretty excited when my friend Angi offered to give me her copy. I love both A.S. Byatt and Norse mythology, but I'm still not sure that I'm sold on this book. Maybe it's the difference in religious outlook- I'm a Christian and this book is about a child realising that they don't believe in God, or maybe it's because the Norse myths in this book seem quite static, without much of a narrative sense pulling them forward. There is some beautiful writing in this very short book which combines the story of a young girl growing up in WWII and reading Norse myths, said to be semi-autobiographical, with a retelling (sort of from the girl's perspective) of the myths themselves.

Gilead

2011-10-27T12:36:00.000+11:00

After much anticipation, I finally read Marilynne Robinson's Gilead earlier this year. I've been doing companion reviews of Gilead and Home with Sam (you can read his review of Gilead here), so before starting to write my review I reread his post. It's amazing what different reactions we had to this book! But while I read through his post thinking "I guess I'll just chalk it up to different tastes", I was struck by one comment which I wanted to dispute, which seems to say that the character of John Ames, the main character of the novel, is lost in the writing, with the reader instead looking through the eyes of his son. Which is interesting, because for me this novel is so grounded in the character of the narrator, his voice comes through so clearly and we get to know him so well throughout the course of the book, that I found it hard to understand this point of view. So maybe we can argue about this point in the comments?

But I am getting ahead of myself. Gilead is written from the point of view of the aging pastor, Reverend John Ames, ostensibly as a letter to his young son. In it he talks about his family history, wrapped up with the history of the small town of Gilead in which he still lives, his faith, and about his life. Eventually his account is interrupted by the return of the prodigal son of his best friend, his namesake Jack Ames Boughton. The narrative runs parallel to the story of Home, set in the Boughton household, and though Gilead was written first there is no clear order to the books. I read Home first, and I wonder how it would change the experience to read them the other way round? A lot of the revelations are shared in the books, so something that was a surprise to discover in one becomes background knowledge when you read the other. But there are still surprises in store in each, and in fact the lightness of plot means that not much is lost by knowing some of the twists beforehand. This is a book where language and character take centre stage. I think one of the things that I noticed about reading Gilead second is that it ends the pair on a more uplifting note, I found Home more bittersweet and I think it would create an entirely different flavour to read them the other way around.

There is so much that I loved about this book, it is a book that I want to read through again and savour more slowly. If anything I feel that I was maybe in a slightly too impatient mood to read through it the first time, and there was a little bit of theology that I may have skimmed through. But I think that was my fault rather than the book's. I thought John Ames was a great character, I loved reading the delight he took in his existence, his joy and his resignation, his wisdom and his vulnerabilities. I also loved the language. Something that I noted in my review of Housekeeping by Marilynne Gilead was the language of water and light- something which I didn't notice in Home but was certainly present in Gilead. Water is often associated with baptism here, and the Ames thoughts on baptism and communion, the way he seems to see them as so personal, were so refreshing to me. But light is really everywhere the quality of light seems to evoke the beauty Ames sees in his surroundings, as well as a kind of nostalgia often:

But it has all been one day, that first day. Light is constant, we just turn over in it. So every day is in fact the selfsame evening and morning.

or a moment that has remained significant in Ames' memory of his father:

Then I realized that what I saw was a full moon rising just as the sun was going down. Each of them was standing on its edge, with the most wonderful light between them. It seemed as if you could touch it, as if there were palpable currents of light passing back and forth, or as if there were great skeins of light suspended between them. I wanted my father to see it, but I knew I'd have to startle him out of his prayer, and I wanted to do it the best way, so I took his hand and kissed it.

It seems as though the light that Ames sees suffuses the book and his character. Though it's clear that he has seen some dark times the presence of his wife and son see him content with life.

The other thing that I wanted to mention in this post was the treatment of race in the book. It's so important in the history of the town, in the histories of the characters (or at least of Jack), and yet it is not overtly present. There are no black people in Gilead, though it came into being as part of the underground railroad, because their church burnt down. There is so much that is unspoken here and yet it makes itself felt- the way that people don't see it and yet it is still there. This novel is, after all, set in the 1950s, when America was still segregated. I think this novel does a good job of showing how that segregation affected everyone, even a small town in the mid-West with only white folks in it.

I think there is more in this book than I can possibly cover, I will have to read it again and if you do want more reviews, there are some lovely ones at Stuck-in-a-Book, Book Snob, and Evening All Afternoon's discussion of Home and Gilead, as well as Sam's aforementioned companion review.

circuses

2011-10-10T23:49:00.001+11:00

'The Night Circus' by Erin Morgenstern has been reviewed all over the place, and a lot of those reviews have said very similar things- basically that the plot and characters were not stunning, but the setting was amazing. I love an amazing setting, so I went out and read it straight away. The basic premise is not particularly new: two ageless magicians set up a contest between their protege's, the rules are not defined and the participants have no choice in the matter (or knowledge of the other's identity). The setting, which becomes the contest itself, is a circus which involves not just the duelling magicians but a host of other performers, including a contortionist, living statues, acrobats, a fortune teller, and lion tamers.

The circus is indeed enchanting, but I think the critics are a little harsh on the plot- for the first half at least it unfolds in a similar way to the circus itself, following different tracks without revealing its secrets. It reminded me a little of 'Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell', with its 19th century setting, duelling magicians and sense of secrets lying just out of view. It does get a little hazy toward the end, and I'm not sure that all the loose ends add up, but I cared enough about the characters and the circus to get there. I think the circus had the most charm at the beginning as well, but it remains a brilliant creation. The night circus, as its name suggests, opens only at night. It is entirely black and white, tents, costumes and decorations, smells of popcorn and caramel and contains a myriad of different attractions, both real and magical. This is how it opens:

"First, there is a popping sound. It is barely audible over the wind and conversation. A soft noise like a kettle about to boil for tea. Then comes the light.

All over the tents, small lights begin to flicker, as though the entirety of the circus is covered in particularly bright fireflies. The waiting crowd quiets as it watches this display of illumination. Someone near you gasps. A small child claps his hands with glee at the sight.

When the tents are all aglow, sparkling against the night sky, the sign appears."

I love a good literary circus, here are some of my favourites:

The Carnival from The Last Unicorn, sinister and slightly sad, with its enchanted menagerie:

"There were nine wagons, each draped in black, each drawn by a lean black horse, and each baring barred sides like teeth when the wind blew through the black hangings. The lead wagon was driven by a squat old woman, and it bore signs on its shrouded sides that said in big letters; MOMMY FORTUNA'S MIDNIGHT CARNIVAL. And below, in smaller print: Creatures of night, brought to light."

Margaret Mahy short stories: Margaret Mahy has the most amazing fantasy worlds, and her short stories really capture that. 'The Door in the Air' and 'The Green Fair' are among them.

dancing princesses

2011-07-23T23:03:00.000+10:00

I've always liked the story of the twelve dancing princesses. It's such a pretty story, with dances and dancing slippers and gold and silver trees, and it also has a sense of mystery to it. The story raises a lot of unresolved questions, like where is this place the princesses are dancing? Who are the princes and is there a romantic interest there? How do the princesses live half in one world and half in another where they dance every night? How do they feel about the resolution to the story and their separation from the princes? What happens to the youngest sister who comes closest to noticing the soldier but doesn't marry him in the end? So I was happy to hear of Wildwood Dancing, which is based on the story, and intrigued to see what answers Juliet Marillier would bring.

In some ways, Juilet Marillier does not answer my questions. Wildwood Dancing is not an exact retelling of the fairy tale (and is the better for it I think), so there are only five sisters and the plot does not follow very closely the plot of the fairy tale. On the other hand, it offers a very satisfying portrayal of the place where the sisters go to dance and the people they meet there, here known as the 'Other Kingdom'. This book fills in what was so lacking from the fairy tale, it shows the 'princesses' (they are not in fact princesses in the book) perspective. The sisters approach their full moon dancing nights with a mix of wonder and caution as well as a kind of familiarity, since this is something they do often. The people in the other world are their friends, they know how things work there. I love a well evoked other world, and there are a few here. Firstly, the 'other kingdom', and secondly the real world, which is Transylvania in, I would guess the 18th or 19th century? It's hard to say exactly. In her epilogue, Juliet Marillier says she tried to avoid a lot of the Transylvanian stereotypes, and I don't know Transylvania or its folklore well enough to say how well she's done at capturing it but certainly it generally does avoid Dracularizing the place, while still having some moments of familiarity. And yes, vampires make an appearance. But vampires are not the main event.

The main drift of the story follows the five sisters, who live in the Transylvanian countryside, fending for themselves for the winter as their merchant father travels to warmer weather for his health. More specifically, it follows the second oldest sister, Jena, who is in charge of the family business while their father is away, with support from her uncle's family who live nearby. Unfortunately, her cousin's idea of help is to take control of the household of girls, and to pursue his goal of clearing the woods to take revenge on its supernatural inhabitants for the death of his older brother when they were kids. This threatens the household and their trips to the other kingdom to dance every full moon, as well as their independence and hopes for the future. The book feels increasingly suffocating as the the smart, practical and independent Jena and her sisters find themselves increasingly controlled, and face how little power they have as women in their time period. These are the books that made me cry as a kid, the infuriating and senseless injustice of someone abusing their power over others. It makes for a similar reaction as an adult, the same helpless feeling of suffocation. Jena battles with her cousin and works to look after her sisters as events in the both worlds lead to a crisis, with the help of her frog. Did I mention there's a love story?

There's a lot going on, and its a great fairy tale, coming-of-age story. Some parts of the plot and exposition felt a bit rushed toward the end, and the characters had a couple of moments of not noticing the obvious, but overall really enjoyed this book. I liked the love story, and I liked the relationship between the sisters. Though some the sisters were in danger of seeming two-dimensional at times- the smart one, the flighty one, the baby- for the most part this was avoided due to the clearly strong relationship they had, which allowed them to be fleshed out, and this relationship is sketched in well, the sisterly love, tensions and all. But the focus is on Jena, not her sisters, and they are not given as much development.

Really the strength of this book is on creating a sense of enchantment, and a satisfying fairy-tale reimagining. I feel like fairy-tales have featured strongly in my reading this year, so it seems appropriate to share this fairy tale site I found, SurLaLune Fairy Tales, which features a collection of fairy tales, fairy tale annotations, histories and interpretations.

reading around the world (update)

2011-06-28T22:37:00.002+10:00

As I wrote back in January, one of my challenges to myself this year was to read a book from every continent (author's nationality + setting of book + language originally published in must all be from the same country in that continent, although I will read them in English). Since we're now almost halfway through the year, it seems like a good time to report on my progress. I'm actually quite pleased with my progress, but not quite finished with this challenge yet. Here's what I've read so far:

Africa: Song for Night by Chris Abani (Nigeria). On the recommendation of my friend Duncan. While all the reviews for this say it's set in 'an unknown country in Africa', the tribes mentioned in the book are both from around Nigeria, as is the author... so I'm calling this Nigeria. Not entirely happy with this one as a representation of Africa though. I do feel this is perhaps written for Western audiences... which wasn't really the point of this challenge. So I might try to read something else from Africa as well. Apart from that, this was a good book. I thought the story of a child soldier might be overwhelmingly depressing but it's not, very sad, certainly, but more haunting than anything.

Asia: The Pillow Book by Sei Shongagon (Japan). I've already reviewed this one but I will say it again, I liked this one! It's such a personal tour through the world of the Japanese court at the end of the last millennium, and a beautiful book.

Australasia: Truth by Peter Temple (Australia). This was a Christmas present, and the only Australian book I've read all year... Which is a bit sad really. It's a detective story set in Melbourne, the sequel to a book I haven't read, and that and the fact that it's a hardboiled-ish Crime novel (not my favourite subgenre) meant that I didn't like it all that much. Not a writer I will feel compelled to follow more.

Europe: A Very Long Engagement by Sebastien Japrisot (France). The book the movie (which I haven't seen) was based on. It's a WWI story, and I am constantly amazed that despite all the books and movies made about the World Wars they still have the power to be so moving. This one certainly was. It's the story about Mathilde, a young girl in a wheelchair whose fiance declared dead, in the trenches. She hears from another soldier that the circumstances surrounding her fiance's death are murky, and spends years following leads to try to find out the truth. A very bittersweet ending, this was definitely a bit of a tearjerker. It's not all romance, there is a lot about the horrors of war and I guess the expendability of soldiers... Anyway, recommended.

North America: Freedom by Jonathan Franzen (US). This seems a very fitting book to read for the US, it's by one of the current 'Great American Writers' crop and it is about America in the 2000s, it's even called 'freedom'. Like many people, I loved Corrections, and I think that it's very hard for other books to measure up. Nonetheless, I enjoyed this book, the story of the Berglund family from middle-class middle America. There's a lot to write about in this book, it's too hard to fit in a mini-review (and hard to sum up my thoughts, which were, like the Berglunds, in the middle). Suffice to say it talks about liberals and conservatives, particularly in the wake of the September 11th attacks, and has some pretty scathing things to say about both. In the figure of Walter Berglund we have the well-meaning liberal who has lost his way somewhere along the line, and his son shows a fairly self-interested and uninformed young conservative, looking for profit and self-preservation. I love, though, how I came to feel affection for all the characters, no matter how misguided or self-seeking, by the end. That's why I read Franzen.

South America: The Captain's Verses by Pablo Neruda (Chile). I am not planning on counting this one. This collection of poems was written, in exile in Europe, mostly for his lover, who was with him in exile. Therefore it doesn't really fulfill the criteria of being set in South America. But the poet's love for Chile is a major theme running through his poetry, and his yearning for a better society in his country, as much as the love for his mistress/lover/later wife. A beautiful set of poems.

So there you go- just halfway through the year and mostly done! Maybe I was too easy on myself... I would definitely like to read another book from South America, probably another book from Africa and I feel like I should read some more from Australia. I might add some more to the other continents too. Suggestions for further reading welcome!

reading block

2011-06-19T15:18:00.001+10:00

I finished up the semester of uni a couple of weeks ago, and, as is often the way, completely lost motivation for everything else. I was getting so excited about reading books that are harder going when uni's on, I borrowed two non-fiction books from the library (one on Old English literature and society, and one on fairytales) and I haven't opened them. Instead I have been reading fashion blogs, considering starting a fashion blog, my last blog post was about food, I even painted a picture the other night, despite my lack of anything resembling artistic talent. By contrast, while uni was on and I was getting more and more stressed and feeling so short on time, I read like crazy, found myself enjoying books more than I have for a while- you know, when you read late into the night and don't want to put the book down. Don't ask me why this is, all I can think is that it's a break, a time for something different.

Speaking of fashion blogs, here are a couple that are a little different, if you feel like reading about clothes. Leila Audrey is my friend Bec's blog. She works in a museum and has an interesting perspective on fashion and history. Marieke Hardy has been promoting her friend's blog Dress, Memory on twitter, it's a personal history in clothes- more memoir than anything.

Other than that, I am spending my uni holidays on work placement in Fisher library, which has been pretty great so far. I'm based in the Uni press, so it's kind of a mix of librarianship and publishing. But of course, all about books! (and yes, all the other materials the library has to offer). I'm planning on doing a half-yearly post on my reading around the world challenge soon, I'm currently looking for a book from South America- preferably by an author I haven't read before (because this challenge is all about reading new things!). Hopefully will find some inspiring reading to write about soon, in any case I am enjoying my holiday!

brunching in sydney

2011-06-13T16:22:00.000+10:00

Seeing as it's a long weekend, it seems like an appropriate time to talk about brunch. Brunch would have to be one of my favourite meals, because it goes very well with a sleep in and basically you can eat whatever you feel like at the time. Today I ate a croissant and muesli at 2pm. Why not? Alternately, you could have a burger at 11. It's brunch after all, and anything goes. The one downside is the prevalence of eggs in brunch foods, I just don't like 'em, and some menus have little else. But many do, and here are some of my favourite brunching places in Sydney...

Vargabar, Newtown

This is my regular, and it's great for having a wide range of options (vegetarian, meat, breakfasty, lunchy, eggs or not). It also does good coffee. Of all the things they have here my favourite is the pumpkin chili hotcakes. They're a savoury twist on pancakes and just delicious. I love the way the dishes here keep changing, nothing seems to be presented the same way twice, but it's always good. The hotcakes come with kumera rosti, kumera chips, avocado and relish and all manner of good things- a veritable feast! Andrew also loves their eggs benedict with salmon, it's served on brioche which apparently makes it stand out from the eggs benedict crowd. They also do some amazing cold drinks.

Book Kitchen, Surry Hills

This is not one of my regulars, but I had to include it because when I went there they had the most amazing bircher muesli. Honestly, it tasted like Christmas cake mix, it was so delicious. It's also very, very close to the amazing Bourke Street Bakery. But on its on merits Book Kitchen has tasty food and a good selection of cookbooks, even if it is a bit pricey...

Deus ex Machina, Camperdown

It is pretty much impossible to park near this place, but they do do good food. I think their dinner menu is perhaps better, but we haven't really tested the whole brunch menu, so maybe a return trip is in order. The one time we managed to go there for brunch, I had strawberry crepes (very tasty). Andrew had, of course, eggs benedict with salmon.

The Gallery Cafe, Annandale
The portion sizes here are pretty amazing, so a good place to come if you're feeling hungry. This is a cheerful and fairly large cafe with a good range of options for the fussy bruncher (i.e. me). Plus they stock baked goods from the famous Adriano Zumbo, for instance the croissant you see below. And a bunch of jams and other goods.

So many more cafes to explore, so many weekends to explore cafes in...

extracts from my notebook part 4

2011-06-05T23:07:00.001+10:00

A full bottle of wine next to the public phone - Pitt St

Bree and Adam
Locked 2gether in hatred as it's the closest to love- we're forever
- sad toilet graffiti at The Annandale

"When the dog that you tattoo on your arse turns into a shark"
- Overheard on a train

Though contrived, this little story might as well exemplify the mischief that involves us all who take on the job of turning real life into words.
Always the essential thing gets lost. That's one rule holds true of every inspiration.
- 'The Moon', Jorge Luis Borges

"His dad's a novelist"
"What, writes books and stuff?"
- Overheard

Graffiti on a train seen on the morning commute:

"Be not a man of success, but a man of value"- Einstein

"I just want to go live in Europe... I want to do everything and I want to do it now."
(other person says something)
"But when? What's the plan? How will it all fit in?"
- Overheard on the train

and human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars
- Madame Bovary

"Lies and deceit..."
"But that's all part of the job, isn't it?"
- Overheard on a train

one book, two book, three book four... and five

2011-05-17T22:29:00.001+10:00

I wanted to write this post ages ago, in responses to the post over on Stuck-in-a-book post, but blogger has been playing up and uni assignments have been calling... so some of these books are out of date, and some have been changed, but here we go...

The book I'm currently reading...

I loved Patricia C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles SO MUCH when I was younger, but I haven't read anything else by her (or even the whole set of the Chronicles, for that matter). This is living up to my expectations, it's a regency/fantasy book and it's so much fun! The main character is a street urchin in London who dresses as a boy to stay out of trouble and takes a job breaking into Mairelon the magician's caravan and is then taken on as an assistant. Adventures ensue.

The last book I finished...

I am reading quite a bit of fantasy at the moment I feel, and this is also set in a quasi-regency period, but with the added complication of an alternate history and a spirit world. I'm also reading a lot of books I really enjoy, I loved this one. Kate Elliot has impressed me in the past with her attention to historical detail in worlds not quite like our own (in her Crown of Stars series, which I nonetheless never finished for reasons of timing), and I've been meaning to read some of her other books for a while. Unfortunately, as with the Crown of Stars, the series hasn't been finished yet, but when I finished this book I was dying to read the next one. I guess I'll just have to wait...

The next book I want to read...

This book intrigued me, from the title to the premise (a nine year old girl finds she can taste the feelings of the person who made the food in all the food she eats). Actually I have started reading it in digital form, but I want to get my hands on it and finish it and figure it out. This is a strange one...

The last book I bought...

Latest in a series! Can't resist. I'm always amazed at how Kate Griffin manages to start each one of these books right in the middle of a crisis, but it is definitely a way to get the reader's attention. I like her portrayal of London through magic, I do sometimes feel the lack of secondary characters. Mind you, I wouldn't want to be a secondary character in this series, they don't usually last for long...

The last book I was given...

This is a tricky one, since I tend to be given books in lumps. In fact I guess The Neon Court would count as the last book I was given, since I bought it with a book voucher. But I think the last time I was given an actual book was Christmas, and there were a few: Freedom by Jonathan Franzen, The City and The City by China Mieville, The Grimm Reader by Maria Tatar, The Complete Poems of Walt Whitman and Truth by Peter Temple are the ones that spring to mind. Not a big fan of Truth, but really enjoyed The City and the City and The Grimm Reader, also Freedom but it suffered a bit from not being The Corrections.

comfort reads

2011-05-02T22:53:00.001+10:00

Well it is certainly a woeful year for blogging for me. But it is a hectic year for uni, work and apparently everything else. Heading into panic mode. So at the moment not much is getting done, and all my books are comfort reads. Books to read when your brain is all worn out at the end of the day. If I look at my current reading list, I think it pretty much sums up all my comfort-read categories:

1. Agatha Christie
Maybe that should be 'murder mysteries', but there are few things as comforting as Agatha Christie. I'm currently reading 'Lord Edgeware Dies', which has Poirot, dead actresses and suspects galore. Agatha Christie has written so many books I don't think I've read them all, the only problem is that it can be hard to sort out the ones I have read from the ones I haven't. Pretty sure this is a new one though.

2. Anything with a really strong plot
Fast-paced books, preferably full of action, wake you up at the end of those 10 hour days. I just finished 'The Neon Court' by Kate Griffin (which I was always going to read, but came at the right time), which managed the series' usual trick of dropping you right in the action and making you read quickly through to the end so you could figure out what was going on. Maybe not a true 'comfort' book as such, but lots of fun.

3. Young Adult (YA)
Not all YA, but there is something soothing about a good one of these. I went to the library and just browsed the YA section, looking for a Diana Wynne Jones or Margeret Mahy or something with romance. What I got was 'Chiggers' by Hope Larsson, a graphic novel (nice to the sore brain) about friendship at summer camp. Just the ticket.

4. Rereading something old and familiar
Preferably a children's book or YA that you have a lot of fondness for. Like a warm bath. Combines nostalgia and reading and a book you know from the start will be a good one. Not actually rereading anything at the moment, but now I have a sudden desire to read some Narnia. Next on the to be read list?

There you go, that's pretty much what I'll be doing for the next month- working like crazy and reading some comfort reads whenever I get the chance.

bookish birthday

2011-03-31T22:23:00.000+11:00

I know I have been doing very poorly at keeping up my goal of blogging more frequently this year, and am only now putting up pictures from my birthday earlier this month, while it is still the same month. Hope you enjoy them anyway!

This year I turned 25, and for my birthday Andrew made me a spectacular chocolate mud cake type cake. It was very secretive and time-consuming, but I think he did an amazing job.

The view from above.

It looks so cozy, I would like to sit in that armchair by that fire and read those books.

As it is, I nibbled on the armchair and ate those books (they are made of white chocolate + food dye + flavouring).

There's me, turning 25 with cake, candles, bookshelf and friends (not pictured, but I swear they were there). After this we headed to the Berkelouw Books wine bar for some food and wine and book-browsing.

For my birthday I got a lot of book vouchers (appropriately enough) among other things, so I spent Sunday book shopping and came back with a bunch of new books. All read now :( But there's some new books coming out in April I'm pretty excited about.

Now March is ending, I hope I get to blog about some more books soon.

Anjali Joseph, Saraswati Park; Pablo Neruda, The Captain's Verses; Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle

the pillow book

2011-03-29T18:49:00.000+11:00

The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon is a collection of thoughts, like a diary, written by a court gentlewoman in Japan in the tenth century. This absolutely blew me away when I started, because it was impossible not to make comparisons to Old English literature, and there is just nothing like this in Old English (sidenote: though many works I studied in Old English are dated pre-10th C., technically the period ends in 1066, so this book is roughly contemporaneous with the late Anglo-Saxon period). This book seems so personal, in a way that Anglo-Saxon literature is not, and it's so concerned with the affairs of women (it's written by a woman) and everyday life, and aesthetics, it's like an entirely different world. There is something really incredible about reading something that seems so personal and yet was written 1,000 years ago. Besides, this book is a great introduction to the world of the Japanese court in the 10th century, with its descriptiveness and anecdotes.

There are things that are frustrating about reading a book from 1,000 years ago in translation. For instance, I just don't know much about the literary context. While this book is presented as the personal musings of Sei Shonagon, not intended for anyone else to see, this feels like a rhetorical device, but I don't know how likely it is or how many other such books were written. The politics and some of the expressions can be opaque, the constant expressions of devotion to the Emperor's consort struck me as stylised and possibly politically motivated, but then, at the time the book was written the consort was dead and out of favour in court, so maybe it is best to take them as genuine? I would love to read more about it.

The most annoying thing is reading it in translation, my edition points out all the puns/double-meanings scattered throughout, particularly in the poems I feel like reading the original would really add to the experience. But some of the lost meaning is down to time rather than language, with footnotes expressing merely the lost meaning of a place, or word.

Overall this is such a charming book, Sei Shonagon is very personable, I enjoyed the vignettes, the anecdotes and lists, they come together to create a sense of aesthetic enjoyment of life. Sometimes it grated, when poor people are dismissed because they are not dressed nicely, but on the whole it was a lovely experience, full of a sense of humour and life as well as a strong sense of taste and aesthetic appreciation.

on fairytales

2011-02-17T21:54:00.000+11:00

The first word I can remember reading was in a fairy tale, and folk and fairy tales have long had a fascination for me. When I was growing up (or when I was a teenager even) we had a collection of books at home by Ruth Manning Sanders (A Book of Dragons, A Book of Sorcerers and Spells etc.) which rekindled that interest after fairy tales had become overly familiar and a little bit boring. These books had a selection of fairy tales from around the world on a specific theme (dragons or sorcerers for instance), which meant that it had a wider range of stories than I was used to and made me aware of the universality of fairy tales. Tales from all over the world were familiar, there are so many variations on Cinderella. And yet, they were not the same stories that I had read. There are dragons from all over the world, but Chinese dragons are very different from European dragons.

I am not the first person to be fascinated by fairy tales, of course, or to notice that there are similar types of stories retold around the world. There has been much written about them, they have been collected, classified, analysed, told and retold, written, rewritten, parodied and sung. The questions that come up time and time again are: why are we interested in these stories? why do we tell the same stories? and what makes a 'proper' fairy tale?

Reading The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter and The Grimm Reader (edited and translated by Maria Tatar) has brought up these questions again for me. Specifically- what makes a satisfying fairy tale? And what is so fascinating about these stories? Interestingly, reading the introductions to The Grimm Reader and The Bloody Chamber brought out some similarities- both referred to the stories within as 'flat' or 'concerned with surfaces'. I don't think that all fairy-tale retellings are successful, but Angela Carter's worked for me, and perhaps that is why. Not because the stories are superficial, perhaps the opposite, they conceal meaning as much as they reveal it. Tales in both collections are largely unexplained, we often are not introduced into the world or its conventions, things happen, and that is all. But there is more going on- we do not need to be introduced into the world of fairy-tales because we already know its conventions, things lead to the happy ending.

Of course meaning is often added to stories like this. There are morals at the end, there is deconstruction in the retelling. I think deconstruction is the bane of many a modern fairy-tale retelling, they become over-earnest, too explicit in meaning, they lose the magic of the true fairy-tale. Something that has come to annoy me is the way many 'feminist' retellings react more against modern fairy-tale selection than fairy-tales themselves. There are brave and clever heroines in the Grimm tales, not all happy endings involve marriage, marriage is used as a happy ending for both men and women. I think so commonly fairy-tales are seen differently to this, but it is through the popularity of a select number of tales that this perception has come to be. Rather than subvert those tales, why not retell the others, restore the fairy-tale balance?

The moral at the end is less offensive to me, I do not mind if my fairy-tales have morals or not. Generally the hero or heroine wins through because they are clever, or kind, or beautiful. In terms of meaning, Angela Carter said that rather than wanting to retell the tales she wanted to make them into new stories, to bring out the existing meanings. I think she does that well, in that she manages to keep the spirit of the existing tales, and meanings may be emphasised but they are not spelt out or shoe-horned in to the existing story.

People have looked for more meaning in fairy-tales and folk-tales. For psychological, or societal readings, for the common thread that binds us all together, for the origin of story-telling. Some of these are fairly compelling (this discussion of Bluebeard, for instance, is pretty interesting), but some are less so. Who know if the fairy-tales we know today really represent the first stories people told, as some claim? They're hard to date because they were largely passed on orally. Maybe it's enough to say that they're among the first stories we are told as children, to explain their popularity and fascination. We keep coming back to the same stories, and making them into new stories. That fits with the oral tradition, these stories change with each retelling. But I think a true fairy-tale should not be self-concious, should focus on enchantment, and should let meaning seep through as though coming from the beginning of consciousness.

reading resolutions

2011-01-31T12:20:00.002+11:00

As January draws to a close, it's really my last chance to blog about New Year's resolutions, so here they are before the time runs out.

1) Blog more. This is one of those things like 'exercise more' or 'eat healthily' that crop up over and over again but rarely eventuate. But all the same I'd like to blog more regularly this year. And leave comments on other blogs, rather than lurking as usual.

2) Read at least one book from every continent (apart from Antarctica). My reading tends to be very dominated by, roughly in order, England, the US and Australia. So in order to mix things up a bit I've set this target, I think it's pretty easily achievable but I don't really have a plan of attack. Any recommendations (particularly for books from Africa and Asia, which I don't come across often) greatly appreciated! It can be difficult to define a book's 'nationality', so I'm using these guidelines- author's nationality + setting of book + language originally published in must all be from a country in that continent. There are a whole bunch of different ways you could do this, I thought this way would be interesting.

That's it really. We'll see how I go with those. In the mean time, in aid of 1 I have been thinking about posts on trilogies, folk tales and brunch. Not sure how many of those will make it into coherent post form, wait and see!

home, let me go home

2011-01-12T22:07:00.002+11:00

Sam's companion review of Gilead is here

Coming to Home straight after reading Housekeeping I was struck by the differences. Home feels earthier, more dialogue, less light and water, less dreamy. But then the similarities- the interest in family, the presence of loneliness as a force that seems intrinsic to some people. The outsider, the drifter, and home. As you might expect, home is a major theme in this novel.

Home begins with Glory, the youngest of eight children, returning home to the Iowa town of Gilead to look after her aging father, the Rev. Robert Boughton, after her own dreams have been shattered. Shortly after her return her brother, Jack, comes home too. Unlike Glory, he hasn't been home for 20 years, and his return fills the house with a mixture of anger, joy, love and anxiety. Home in this book is a place of happy childhood memories, but also painful ones. It provides sanctuary but also a sense of failure. Both children have returned less than voluntarily, and the fact of being home provides a contrast to what they could have hoped for from their lives.

Glory and her father are both happy to see Jack, they love him and want him to come home and stop wandering. Since he was a boy he has always been a sort of outsider in the family, a constant source of worry and misbehaviour even before disappearing for 20 years. While away it is clear that his life has been hard and fairly solitary, and when he comes home he brings with him the habits of solitude and secrecy that he has always had. The relationship between father and son is difficult. Robert Boughton loves his son, regards him almost as a favourite, is overjoyed to have him home, but still cannot trust him or entirely approve of him. The three try to live together in one house, with father and daughter always wary of saying or doing anything that will scare Jack away again. Jack, for his part, seems to love them too, but can't work out how to be a part of the family and can't get rid of his own sense of guilt. What a hard book to sum up! How to summarize these complex family relationships?

Jack seems to have a sense of 'outsider-ness' from birth:

Jack said quietly, "I don't want you to give a damn about me. Any of you. I never did." He looked at Glory as if he might apologize, then there was a silence

But the rest of the family can't help caring about him. They love him and they want him to think well of them. Glory still looks up to him as an older brother, like when she was a child. His father tries to work for the best for his family, but things don't work out as he hopes and his efforts often seem futile or counter-productive:

"If it were only a little easier to know what they are. The needs of others. A good deal more is required than just being mindful. That has certainly been my experience."

Probably the best way to summarize the relationships is to compare them to the story of the prodigal son, which Robinson is drawing on here. Religion is a big part of the family life of the Boughtons (they are a Presbyterian minister's family after all), and their religious beliefs are very much a part of how they relate to each other and see themselves. 'Home' in this context has also a resonance with the idea of a heavenly home (though I don't think this is really drawn out in the novel). Guilt and forgiveness are big themes too, they are warring forces particularly in Robert Boughton. There are no easy answers here though, forgiveness is not always easy, and guilt is insidious. The problem of not knowing the right thing to do comes up often, particularly as the family is not quite sure how to relate to Jack.

In the end it is a bittersweet book about family and love and how hard it can be to translate love to another person. How home can be valued by people in different ways. It is sad but I wouldn't describe it as sentimental. When they were looking forward to Jack coming home in the beginning, I was teary. At the end I flat-out cried. It seems so real somehow, all these people so flawed but trying so hard to make things better. I can't do it justice, except to tell you to read it yourself. And I am definitely looking forward to Gilead!

top picks of 2010

2011-01-10T23:28:00.000+11:00

Author discovery of the year: Marilynne Robinson! I would be happy to go out and just read anything by her. Other notable authors I read for the first time this year were Kate Griffin and Anais Nin.

Top 10 books read last year (not in order):

Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel
Scott Pilgrim series - Bryan Lee O'Malley
Mrs Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
The Changeover - Margeret Mahy
The City and the City - China Mieville
The Summer Book - Tove Jansson
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie - Alan Bradley
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet- David Mitchell
A Madness of Angels - Kate Griffin
Home- Marilynne Robinson

I feel like it's cheating to pick 10, since that makes up such a large proportion of books read. But it was still hard to pick. Honourable mentions to The Piper's Son- Melina Marchetta, Housekeeping- Marilynne Robinson, Under a Glass Bell- Anais Nin, The House of Mirth- Edith Wharton, The Knife of Never Letting Go and The Hunger Games... I could go on, but I have to stop somewhere. This is a sign of the high calibre of books read in 2010 I think.

Least favourite book: The Slap - Christos Tsiolkas

Favourite books of 2010 anyone? I could do with some recommendations for 2011!

2010

2011-01-01T13:42:00.001+11:00

I did this a couple of years ago- it's a meme taken from Ronni- and I liked it so I'm doing it again. Pretend that it's NYE rather than New Years Day....

1. What did you do in 2010 that you'd never done before?
Studied by distance, ran a bible study.
2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I'm a bit wishy washy with new year's resolutions. I guess the same as most people- eat better, exercise more.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Two school friends of mine did- to Amelia and Matthew. Both in October. Also my cousin, in June, to Oscar.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
My Gran. It was somewhat unexpected. We remembered her chocolate cakes and love of books. I remembered the time she defended us from a charging bull (it may have been a cow) armed with a pitchfork. Love you Gran.
5. What countries did you visit?
Didn't leave Australia.
6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?
More holidays! Maybe even leaving Australia.
7. What date from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
If I can't think of one, I doubt it can be etched on my memory.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Getting through a year of uni while also working and running a bible study.
9. What was your biggest failure?
I always forget the failures. Maybe failing to get my paperwork together and save as much as I could have. But I did get some way towards those things, so yay me!
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Not so many colds as normal, but a lot of hayfever. Short stomach bug. Nothing exciting.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
Books, my cardigan... I don't know. Money can't buy you love.
12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
So proud of my friends who managed to give birth! Proud of Cloud Control for growing as a band.
13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
Internet commenters.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Savings, food, Andrew's car.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Babies! And my friend Alicia's engagement.
16. What song will always remind you of 2010?
I think most things from last years Triple J hottest 100, we played the CD alot this year.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

i. happier or sadder? A little bit sadder.
ii. thinner or fatter? Fatter
iii. richer or poorer? Slightly richer.
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Holidaying! Reading, exercise.
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Worry.
20. How did you spend Christmas?
With my family, in my Gran's old house near Scone. Although half the day was spent driving to Scone.
22. Did you fall in love in 2010
No
23. Did your heart break in 2010?
No
24. What was your favourite TV program?
Gruen Transfer/Nation, Chaser, Good Game. Love you ABC! Oh, and Sherlock Holmes. And the IT Crowd.
25. Where were you when 2010 began?
At a friend's place in West Pennant Hills.
26. Who were you with?
Uni friends, Andrew.
27. Where will you be when 2010 ends?
At a friend's flat in Annandale.
28. Who will you be with when 2010 ends?
Uni friends, no Andrew :(
29. What was the best book you read?
Home by Marilynne Robinson30. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Florence and the Machine
31. What did you want and get?
Many things, I am lucky.
32. What did you want and not get?
A trip overseas.
33. What was your favourite film of this year?
Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World? Can't even remember what movies I watched this year.
34. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Went out to dinner with Andrew, played lawn bowls with my friends and went to the pub.
35. How many different states did you travel to in 2010?
NSW and ACT.
36. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?
Eclectic? Indecisive?
37. What kept you sane?
Andrew, God.
38. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
meh
39. What political issue stirred you the most?
Australian elections, Wikileaks (does that count as political?), the US and the rise of the Tea Party
40. How many concerts did you see in 2010?
Um, I think three? Maybe there were more? Florence and the Machine and Cloud Control (twice).

41. Did you have a favourite concert in 2010?
Florence and the Machine introduced me to their music, which was awesome. Cloud Control's second concert showed how good they had gotten, which was also great.
42. Who was the best new person you met?
My bible study were pretty great.
43. Did you do anything you are ashamed of this year
I'm sure I got angry about a lot of small things. Probably ranted about something stupid. Not too bothered though.
44. What was your most embarrassing moment of 2010?
Don't remember one.
45. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010.
Everyone approaches life from different viewpoints, so they are always going to disagree. Try not to demonise the opposition.
46. What are your plans for 2011?
More of the same (work, study, bible study), hopefully with that overseas trip in there somewhere, or a house.
47. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

I'll love you 'til the ocean takes us all
- Til the Ocean Takes Us All, Cat Empire

book list 2010

2010-12-30T00:12:00.001+11:00

As always, books I finished reading for the first time this year. This year with links to where I've talked about them before, for added convenience.

[edited to add link to Home review]

Wolf Hall- Hilary Mantel Don't know how Hilary Mantel managed to make the intricacies of Tudor politics so clear and readable, but she did. Reviewed here
Bella Tuscany- Frances Mayes Self-indulgent travelogue
Angel Puss- Colleen McCullough
AA Gill is Away- AA Gill
The Graveyard Book- Neil Gaiman Perhaps my favourite Neil Gaiman to date.
A Madness of Angels- Kate Griffin Fast paced and lots of fun, urban fantasy. More here
Under a Glass Bell- Anais Nin Gorgeous little short stories that made me want to read more.
The Hunger Games- Suzanne Collins One of the most talked about books of the year, reviewed here
The Slap- Christos Tsiolkas One of the most talked about books of last year. I was in two minds about it though, see here and here. On the whole, not a fan.
Unseen Academicals- Terry Pratchett Always enjoy a new Discworld book, and this was no exception
Point Omega- Don DeLillo Started off loving it, ended up a bit bemused. I've quoted it here
Un Lun Dun- China Mieville Interesting, but a bit disappointing. The prophesy stuff was interesting but the city was a mess. Quoted here
Brooklyn- Colm Toibin
The Mountain of Light- Claire Allen Another disappointing one with a promising start. It's about a bunch of friends and centered around an Indian restaurant, but the ending is not
Fire in the Blood- Irene Nemirovsky A great read if you love tragic and sardonic French novels about infidelity. No, seriously. Quoted here and talked about here
The Piper's Son- Melina Marchetta Love Melina Marchetta, and loved this sequel to Saving Francesca
The Midnight Mayor- Kate Griffin Sequel to 'A Madness of Angels' showed up some of the flaws of the books but was a good read overall
Madame Bovary- Gustave Flaubert Also talked about here
Invisible Cities- Italo Calvino Quoted here
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet- David Mitchell You never know what to expect from one chapter to the next with David Mitchell, and he blew my mind once again with this book
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie- Alan Bradley Thought these captured a mid-Century murder mystery feel quite well. Recommended. Mentioned here
The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Noose- Alan Bradley
The Summer Book- Tove Jansson Only discovered that Tove Jansson wrote things other than the Moomintroll books this year, well worth it. Mentioned here and quoted here
The Changeover- Margeret Mahy Heard lots about this, turned out to be pretty good. Mentioned here
The Pinhoe Egg- Diana Wynne Jones Went through a bit of a Diana Wynne Jones reading marathon after I bought a copy of 'Castle in the Air'.
Moominvalley in November- Tove Jansson (not sure if I've read this, or Exploits of Moominpappa)
The Demon's Lexicon- Sarah Rees Brennan Had some great characters and moments, plus awesome plot. Somehow felt a bit patchy though. Still would be interested in reading the sequel. Mentioned here
Conrad's Fate- Diana Wynne Jones
Elephants Can Remember- Agatha Christie
Die a Little- Megan Abbott Interesting noir-ish twisty and a little bit nasty book. Pretty sure I enjoyed it though.
The House of Mirth- Edith Wharton Edith Wharton can make me so angry and so sad, and this book was no exception. Think I liked this even more than 'The Age of Innocence'
Flambards- KM Peyton Change of tone to 1970s YA set pre-WWI
The Tricksters- Margaret Mahy Had a bit of a Mahy phase too, she is an old favourite with more books than I have read. The end of this book took me back to the end of high school.
The Chronicles of Clovis- Saki
The Knife of Never Letting Go- Patrick Ness Another much-hyped YA, this has a great concept and is unputdownable.
The Edge of the Cloud- KM Peyton
Flambards in Summer- KM Peyton
Astercote- Penelope Lively Read this looking for a forgotten childhood book. It wasn't it.
The Haunting- Margaret Mahy
Miss Hargreaves- Frank Baker A man invents a lady as part of a tall story, but she comes to life, a playful but sometimes painful book.
Diary of a Provincial Lady- EM Delafield Like a early-20th Century Bridget Jones in some ways (and I like Bridget Jones) funny and entertaining.
The Chesnut Soldier- Jenny Nimmo (?) I thought I'd read this before but had no memory of it when rereading. Part of the brilliant 'Snow Spider' trilogy invoking Welsh mythology.
Started Early, Took My Dog- Kate Atkinson Crime with brains and a light post-modern edge. Reviewed here
Love in a Cold Climate- Nancy Mitford No-one does disturbing-but-funny quite like the English aristocracy.
A Spy in the House of Love- Anais Nin Quoted here
The Ask and the Answer- Patrick Ness
Jude the Obscure- Thomas Hardy So depressing I don't quite know what to say about it. Argued with this book all the way through.
Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life- Bryan Lee O'Malley Graphic novels about a Canadian slacker, full of video game references and about growing up, dealing with the past, getting to know yourself and forming adult relationships. Review here
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World- Bryan Lee O'Malley
Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness- Bryan Lee O'Malley
Scott Pilgrim Gets it Together- Bryan Lee O'Malley
Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe- Bryan Lee O'Malley
Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour- Bryan Lee O'Malley
Housekeeping- Marilynne Robinson Love at first sight. Review here
Dead Man's Chest- Kerry Greenwood Fun murder mystery, where the mystery sometimes gets a bit overlooked in favour of the fun
Home- Marilynne Robinson Great novel about family and love and communication and, well, home. Review here.
Mrs Dalloway- Virginia Woolf Never really raved about Virginia Woolf but this was fantastic.
Personal Anthology- Jorge Luis Borges A little bit of everything.
10 Short Stories You Must Read in 2010- Various Authors
The City and the City- China Mieville Read this boxing day, and it more than lived up to my expectations.

we wish you a merry christmas and a happy new year

2010-12-29T15:31:00.001+11:00

Happy Christmas all! Hope you had a great day. I was away from my computer at the time (actually spent about half the day on the road), so sorry that the Christmas greetings are belated.

I am currently in the process of writing up my list of New Books Read This Year, but for now- what I got for Christmas (aka Christmas books):

   - Truth, Peter Temple (Australian Crime)
   - The Little Prince and Other Stories (Collected Children's stories, including The Little Prince and The Railway Children)
   - The City and the City, China Mieville (Fantasy/Crime)
   - Freedom, Jonathan Franzen (American Literature)
   - The Grimm Reader, trans. Maria Tatar, foreword by AS Byatt. (Fairy/folk tales)
   - The Complete Poems of Walt Whitman
+ a book voucher

Some good books in there, and a fairly varied collection I think. Who else got books for Christmas?

fill in the books

2010-12-13T22:51:00.000+11:00

In my wanderings around the blogosphere I have come across two(!) memes that involve filling in the blanks with books you've read this year. I couldn't decide which one to do, so naturally I have done both. The downside is that you start to run out of good titles, but it was fun nonetheless.

First, from Regular Ruminations (here):

In high school I was: Under a Glass Bell (Anais Nin)

People might be surprised I’m: The Fire in the Blood (Irene Nemirovsky)

I will never be: Jude the Obscure (Thomas Hardy)

My fantasy job is: Unseen Academicals (Terry Pratchett)

At the end of a long day I need: Love in a Cold Climate (Nancy Mitford)

I hate it when: Housekeeping (Marilynne Robinson)

Wish I had: A Study in Scarlet (Arthur Conan Doyle)

My family reunions are: Exploits of Moominpappa (Tove Jansson)

At a party you’d find me: Looking for Alibrandi (Melina Marchetta)

I’ve never been to: Brooklyn (Colm Toibin)

A happy day includes: The Summer Book (Tove Jansson)

Motto I live by: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (Patrick Ness)

On my bucket list: Bella Tuscany (Frances Mayes)

In my next life I want to be: The Piper's Son (Melina Marchetta)

Second, from Stuck-in-a-Book (here):

Describe yourself: Personal Anthology (Jorge Luis Borges)

How do you feel: These Happy, Golden Years (Laura Ingalls Wilder)

Describe where you currently live: Home (Marilynne Robinson)

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Invisible Cities (Italo Calvino)

Your favorite form of transportation: Castle in the Air (Diana Wynne Jones)

Your best friend is: The Ask and the Answer (Patrick Ness)

You and your friends are: A Madness of Angels (Kate Griffin)

What's the weather like: The Edge of the Cloud (KM Peyton)

You fear: The Knife of Never Letting Go (Patrick Ness)

What is the best advice you have to give: Started Early, Took My Dog (Kate Atkinson)

Thought for the day: Elephants Can Remember (Agatha Christie)

How I would like to die: Die a Little (Megan Abbott)

My soul's present condition: The House of Mirth (Edith Wharton)

self-destruction's kinda dumb. but if you do it well...

2010-11-25T22:58:00.001+11:00

Points for identifying the lyrics in the title!

This is a train of thought that has been brewing in my head for quite a long time, so I'm not sure if it's coherent anymore. It's also based heavily on my own personal experiences/feelings, so I'm sure not everyone will agree with me, and I would love to hear your thoughts! Basically I have been reading YA (young adult) fiction for many many years, and throughout my teenage years (and before and after) and for a while I stopped because some stuff about it annoyed me. Here is my rant:

I remember when I was around 15 a friend recommended Sonya Hartnett's 'All My Dangerous Friends', about a girl starting university who goes out with a bad boy, falls in with the wrong crowd, steals, takes drugs and then leaves because she sees the dark side of it (in the form of the 'crowd's' violent retribution against a man who abuses one of their own). The basic plotline there feels a little familiar. It did to me then, I was thoroughly annoyed. An annoyance that I directed toward YA fiction in general over the next few years. I think in fact my reaction was stronger than was warranted, there is some good stuff in there, but we will get to that later.

The main problem for me as a teenager was that I was a quiet bookworm, far from dabbling in drugs or theft, and I had long resented the portrayal of kids and teenagers in the media/society. Teenagers are trouble, self-absorbed, with no thought for consequences or the wider world. By contrast I saw around me friends who were thoughtful and intelligent and generally trying to do their best. To my mind fiction aimed at teenagers was interested more in how adults perceived teenagers, in portraying 'us' as difficult, even to ourselves.

Now I know I am not everyone. I have read authors talking about how they write for the kids or teenagers who feel different, who are seen as trouble, that they want to write about the problems people face in a real way and not shy away from difficult subjects. So exploring these topics can be a good thing. But word to the writers out there- please try not to be didactic about it.

Didactic books in and of themselves can be annoying. But writing a book where the lesson is learnt through tragedy can have the unfortunate side effect of making the behaviour they're talking about more appealing. To summarize: saying that risk-taking behaviour is bad because it might hurt you ignores the point of 'risk-taking'. As a fairly well behaved teenager drug taking never seemed more appealing than when it offered the prospect of going down in a blaze of glory/fast living. I think the best YA books understand their audience, are relatable to, and are not too preachy. In a way I think 'All My Dangerous Friends' does well here, it says 'drugs are appealing, but they are not as glamorous or dangerous or edgy as you might think' (this is mostly taken from one scene, I don't think drugs were the main theme of the book). But then again the 'bad crowd' are wild and cool and slightly tragic, so they retain some of that appeal.

There is also the danger of going the other way, of mocking things rather than taking them too seriously. So for instance emos are famous for bad self-esteem, misery, feeling isolated and self-harm. People's reaction is to laugh at them and say self-harm is funny. Personally I don't think it sounds like a good idea to take a group of people who feel sad and misunderstood and further alienate them by saying the things they care about are stupid and their emotions are dumb. I think it's an extension of the way people often talk about teenagers- oh, you have teenage angst, that's a silly thing we all got over. Because knowing that other people are going/have gone through the same things IS helpful, but only if it's personal and shows some understanding of the other person. Just being dismissive is surely only going to fuel feelings of being misunderstood? Just because in hindsight your teenage angst seems ridiculous doesn't mean someone going through it will have the same perspective.

Sometimes it can be so easy to mock, but I know when I was miserable as a teenager that attitude would just bewilder me, because it didn't take away my problems or help me deal with them, it belittle me and made me feel my problems were not worthy of sharing. Better to have people talk about their problems, however stupid they sound, and feel like they have supportive people around to help, than to push them into isolation.

To sum up! Self-destruction can be appealing, even if it's shown as a warning. The best books relate and provoke thought, they don't try to cram a viewpoint down your throat. Be nice to sad people.

upcoming

2010-11-09T21:57:00.001+11:00

Here's an update on a future thing appearing on this blog, I know you will all be on tenterhooks to hear what I will write next.

After reading Housekeeping I wanted to go out and read everything else Marilynne Robinson has ever written. But where to start? The obvious place is Gilead, perhaps her most famous book. But should I read that or Home, written later than Gilead but set parallel to it? Musing on Twitter my friend Sam commented that he was keen to read Gilead and, long story short, we decided to do a parallel read- he read Gilead and I read Home. Next step: we both review them, swap and repeat. So I'm sorry if this blog starts to give you Marilynne Robinson fatigue, but I have a lot more coming up!

eventful

2010-10-30T16:25:00.004+11:00

Last weekend two of my friends had babies! Two! One boy and one girl. I haven't met them yet but I have seen photos and I can report that they are both extremely cute. Also from all accounts both friends + their babies are healthy, which is even more important. So very exciting times. During this week another friend managed to get in a car accident- rolling her car right over on a wet road. But she emerged unscathed through the back window. And most importantly, her gelato was safe. Which is good to hear. This weekend another friend is moving house. So much news, and thankfully all good. What a week! My life seems unexciting by comparison. Though I did get a haircut (it's very short!), get my marks back from my last assignments (passed with pretty good marks) and manage to buy a bunch of new books. That is eventful enough for me!

Edited to add picture of new haircut (coincidentally I am also dressed as a flapper for Halloween in this photo)

housekeeping

2010-10-26T21:41:00.000+11:00

Another rave from me here, I loved Housekeeping, by Marilynne Robinson, and have to read the rest of her books now. Marilynne Robinson is best known (I think) as the author of Gilead, as well as Home (winner of the 2009 Orange Prize). From what I have gleaned, her major themes are religion and domesticity. While I have heard about Gilead quite a bit I have not been tempted to read it, and only came to read Housekeeping after reading a review that described it as good-but-not-as-good-as-Gilead (as well as an encounter with it in a bookshop in a moment of weakness).

But I am so glad that I did, because this was such a gorgeous novel, beautifully written. It's a novel of liminality, with recurring imagery of water and light and the sense of memory and dream. All these things seem to infuse the writing style itself, as well as informing the plot, characters and settings. And what are they? Two sisters are left by their mother on their Grandmother's doorstep, and cared for by a succession of relatives, their Grandmother, two Great Aunts and finally their Aunt Sylvie. Sylvie has been living as a drifter, and she and the house are something of an uneasy fit. The liminal is here in the families status as outsiders, the idea of the drifter, and the adolescence of the two girls. The whole thing is related as a memory and reads like a dream, the parts dealing with the family history reminded me a little of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, in the concern with telling family history and the almost unreal quality of them. I've included a picture of the cover (from Amazon, hence the 'click to look inside') because I think it is a pretty good representation of the book and its prose style.

I have to admit though, my enthusiasm cooled a little by the end. Whether it was a combination of boredom and a rainy afternoon I am not sure. It may be that the slow plot caused me to lose momentum, although it did start to pick up towards the end, it was in a somewhat disconcerting way. I don't think the pages of reference to Cain and Abel and Noah's ark around chapter 10 helped either. Biblical allusions are used throughout the book, but very lightly, and pages of discourse on God's character seemed slightly out of place and jarring. Plus the whole Noah/flood/water thing seemed a bit heavy-handed. But I don't know if this was merely because I had fallen out of a reading mood, maybe at other times I would have felt these passages were more resonant with the rest of the book. The main character, Ruth, narrates the book, and is somewhat distant from the story throughout, but becomes more involved near the end, and I found her a little difficult to relate to in parts.

Back to the positive side: I loved this book most of the way through, it almost made me cry so many times for reasons I could not pin down, it is beautiful and shifting and cries out for a reread. So notwithstanding my difficulties with it toward the end I have to say I loved it. So here's a snippet apropos of Teaser Tuesday (hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading):

"Downstairs the flood bumped and fumbled like a blind man in a strange house, but outside it hissed and trickled, like the pressure of water against your eardrums, and like the sounds you hear in the moment before you faint.

Sylvie lit a candle. "Let's play crazy eights."

pp65-66

Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson

the two scott pilgrims

2010-10-24T16:42:00.000+11:00

I want to write a review of 'Scott Pilgrim', having recently read the graphic novels after watching the movie, but it's hard to find something to say other than "I loved it!" But I will give it a go, because after all it is a rainy Sunday afternoon, Andrew is at work and if I finish reading my current book I will immediately want to write about it instead.

Scott Pilgrim is a 23 Canadian slacker, in a band but without a job, sharing a bed with his gay flatmate, Wallace (who has a job and therefore foots most of the bills) and dating a 17-year-old high-school girl named Knives Chau, when Ramona Flowers (an American delivery girl) enters his dreams and he becomes infatuated and falls in love with her. In order to date her, he must break up with Knives and defeat Ramona's seven evil exes (hard to say which task he finds more difficult, though defeating the exes is more time consuming). It's a story about love, emotional baggage and growing up. A couple of months ago I watched the movie, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (directed by Edgar Wright), and last week I read the graphic novels, Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness, Scott Pilgrim Gets it Together, Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe and Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour (by Bryan Lee O'Malley).

Whether you read the book or watch the movie first, encountering adaptations is always strange. Everything is so familiar until something comes out of left field and subverts your expectations. In this case everything starts off very much the same, but the book and movie increasingly diverge, a fact partially explained by the fact that the movie was optioned after the release of the very first book, and largely completed before the last was released. Apparently the film ending was going to be different but they changed it at the last minute to match more closely to the book. But I did not feel that all this spoilt my enjoyment of the books at all- for the simple reason that I liked them better than the movie.

Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy the movie. It was a lot of fun, they translated the comic-book/video-game sensibility really well to the screen and the story was told well. But the limitation of a movie is that it just doesn't have as much space and time in which to tell that story as, in this case, a 6 book series (even if they are very short). Things made more sense in the book, even though the movie has a neater narrative structure, and there was a lot more room to expand on the rest of the characters, as well as on Ramona and Scott's relationship. Plus I liked the Kim Pine character, and she seems to have more space in the books. I just found the books more satisfying than the movie. At the end of the movie I turned to Andrew and he was clearly blown away, he thought it was the best thing ever. I enjoyed it, but I didn't really get that (maybe because he is more of a gamer than me, so he really loved those references). But at the end of reading the books I just wanted to turn around and read them again.

Things aren't easy for Scott and Ramona, and their relationship isn't perfect, but at the end of the last book I was left with a warm glow and a feeling that they had both grown as characters. I haven't had so much fun with a book in a long time, and I haven't read any graphic novels for ages, so I thoroughly enjoyed it. A worthy addition to the book-shelf!

on art

2010-10-19T22:18:00.000+11:00

There's an age-old debate about the importance or usefulness of art- why do we bother with it? This last week I happened across a couple of quotes that talk about that in different ways:

"One remark that I remember in particular had to do with his identity as a craftsman: he wanted to make solid objects that were concretely useful to the people who knew them. As a craftsperson myself, I love this outlook on art: it's not some enervated "extra" of no real value to life, but a solid, utilitarian object, like a chair or a toilet. It's not that people "can't live without" art; people can live without chairs and toilets, too. But the presence of art has a concrete benefit; I appreciated Bergman's reminder of that."
- Evening All Afternoon, on an interview with Ingmar Bergman

"These, with keen edges and smooth curves, were forms in modern prose which the lichened colleges presented in old poetry. Even some of those antiques might have been called prose when they were new. They had done nothing but wait, and had become poetical. How easy to the smallest building, how impossible to most men."
- Thomas Hardy, The Return of the Native

goldengrove unleaving

2010-10-15T19:30:00.000+11:00

Childhood books part 3

When I was a kid, I tended to prefer happy endings, and as I said before I even liked books where nothing too bad happens to the main characters. In fact, I think I still do! But there are some exceptions to this rule. I think I have come to appreciate sad books, and there are a bunch of books I read as a child that helped me to do that. There are so many degrees of 'sad', so many different feeling books, but I think there is something of a theme: the books I found most sad and discomfitting as a child are about growing up and about death. Here are some that I loved even though they made me sad:

The Little Prince- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
When going through the 1,001 Books You Must Read Before You Die with some friends, we came across this book. Neither of them had read it. That made me realise that this is a book that I think everyone should have read. How can you not have read The Little Prince? As Vizzini would say: inconceivable! It confused me as a child, but it still managed to be enchanting, and of course very sad. It's not quite a children's book, it's about love and death and humanity and such. It is difficult to explain this book, let me quote it to you: "One sees clearly only with the heart. The essential is invisible to the eyes."

The Last Unicorn- Peter S. Beagle
I think I may have talked about this book before. But what can I say? It is a favourite of mine. The titular unicorn in the world realises she is alone and goes in search of other unicorns, only to find she is the last, as all other unicorns have been captured by King Haggard. I don't think this is a children's book as such, it's a fantasy book, and one I read as a child. Again, love and aging and contemplating mortality. But in the most beautiful way.

Peter Pan- J.M. Barrie
Famously sad, a children's book that doesn't talk down to children (that's how I felt about it at the time), which is actually very rare. I remember reading it vividly, walking up and down through the botanical gardens (I was on some family outing at the time, neglecting everyone shamefully because I couldn't put down the book). It was one of those books that has a hold on you for a long time after you finish it. I wasn't sure if I liked it but it was certainly powerful. The idea of growing up as a thing which you both desire and fear is pretty strong for a kid I guess.

Uncle Tom's Cabin- Harriet Beecher Stowe
This sums up an entire group of books guaranteed to make me cry as a kid- books about injustice. Including not only books like Uncle Tom's Cabin but even the occasional Malory Towers book. But I don't know if this counts as a sad book, maybe it is more an anger-inducing book. Also The Little Princess by Frances Hodges Burnett, which Angela reminded me about. These are nigh-on-unbearable, but also great.

In terms of picture books: Lifetimes and John Brown, Rose and the Midnight Cat are the ones that stand out. Lifetimes is a book that is about explaining the concept of death, and the reality of living, to children. I remember it was so sad because it had a picture of a dying butterfly.

Facebook has reminded me also of The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Anderson (thanks Vicky!). I read it after seeing the movie, and was so angry about the sad ending. Unfairness! Mortality! Sadness! But somehow it grew on me, and I came to appreciate it.

A couple of others that people have mentioned and that made an impression on me include the Narnia series and Charlotte's Web.

And writing this makes me realise that a lot more of my favourite books had a tinge of sadness to them: The Lord of the Rings for instance (which may have influenced my later love of Anglo-Saxon elegiac poetry, and was probably influenced by Tolkien's interest in the same).

Anyway, those are some books that I think do sadness well, and helped to introduce me to the fact that sadness (particularly in literature) is not all bad, and can be borne, and can make something work in a way it wouldn't with a happy ending. I think my favourite type of sadness in books is a kind of gentle melancholy, and elegiac mood perhaps, which a lot of these books share. And while I may have loved Uncle Tom's Cabin, I still find it hard to bear books that make me so passionately sad and angry.

I think that maybe the best way of describing the sadness of these books is by continuing the title quote:

It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for. 'Spring and Fall' by Gerard Manley Hopkins

'Started Early, Took My Dog'

2010-10-13T22:29:00.001+11:00

I started writing this blog post back when I read the book, but life (read: assignments) got in the way. So it has been finished in a completely different style at the last minute. But look- a proper blog post!

***

Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie books all seem very multi-layered- weaving together different characters and different narratives leading to the eventual denouement. In 'Started Early, Took My Dog', I found it a bit too fragmented and disconnected at first, but by the end she had once again succeeded in pulling the threads together and creating an intriguing mystery and solution (with some red herrings thrown in for good measure). The slow beginnings give way to a sense of urgency by the end of the book in a satisfying way.

Jackson Brodie appears somewhat late in the book, trying to find out the background of a girl in New Zealand who wants to discover the identity of her birth mother. Meanwhile, as a kind of reaction against a horrific scene earlier in her life, finding the child of a murder victim, an ex-cop security guard buys a disadvantaged child as a way of fixing something in the world. The narrative alternates between the police force and murder in the '70s and Jackson's investigation in the present day, detouring through his current relationship woes.

It struck me that this book does in a way what 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' promises- confronts the problem of violence against women. But without the graphic torture and rape scenes, which in my book is a good thing. Violence happens a lot in this series (it's a crime series after all), in a lot of varying ways and degrees, with the impact felt over time. It's a more realistic world than the Stieg Larsson books- fewer serial killers for one thing. Although having said that, much of 'One Good Turn' felt somewhat farcical. But the effects of crime are never far away, indeed our hero is still haunted by the long-ago murder of his sister. I don't know if that description is very enticing, but can I just say these books are much better than Steig Larsson's, and very different!

One characteristic feature is the (quite dark) humour of these books. Perhaps very dry is a better word than dark, it's not exactly morbid but it does make humour out of some of the less cheerful aspects of life. The hero is far from infallible, and not exactly at the centre of the story all the time, but the characters in general are likeable-but-hopeless types. In fact one of my few criticisms of this series is that the characters have perhaps too much of a tendency towards the same voice.

On the whole, while I enjoyed the book I found it to be a slow starter (after an attention-grabbing opening chapter), and certainly the character development is much more comprehensible if you have read the earlier books in the series. I think 'One Good Turn' is still my favourite, but if crime, English manners and humour are your thing, you should check this series out.

apropos of famous first words

2010-10-12T14:09:00.004+11:00

A while ago I wrote a blog post on memorable first lines in novels, today I found out that American Book Review has compiled a list of the top 100! From a quick glance at the beginning a couple of the ones we talked about are in there, but there are many, many more.

I'll leave you with one that wasn't in that blog post, but is on the list, and well worthy of it too:

"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. —Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967; trans. Gregory Rabassa)"

Check it out here.

spring is sprung

2010-10-11T17:37:00.001+11:00

Assignments are finished, summer is icumen in, and I can almost believe I'm on holidays... Time for some more reading, blog-updating and miscellaneous adventures. Oh, and work of course. Difficult to forget that one.

So here's an October update, with links!
The Unbearable Lightness of Being Hungry- a food blog about Sydney restaurants, with a great name.
Something from xkcd to put this whole blogging thing in perspective...

2010-09-28T21:56:00.001+10:00

Teaser Tuesday

As always- meme hosted by Should be Reading.

'A Spy in the House of Love', Anais Nin

"He smiled.

When they reached her room, and she closed the door, he examined his surroundings as if to assure himself he had not fallen into an enemy trap."

p. 83

fragments, playing with words

2010-09-16T23:34:00.001+10:00

Pictures of light
The shadows form a lattice on the wall
The wall that glows in afternoon light
Light which picks out the many-coloured bricks
Bricks that stand so tall against a fearless sky
Sky of a bright and everlasting blue
Blue that will nonetheless fade...
Fade like the shadows on the wall.

Not quite a poem?

A girl and a boy walked over the bridge
hand-in-hand
and the air around them glowed
while the wind whipped past a lonely bus-stop.

a fraction of the whole:

fine filigree twigs against a liquid sky,
brittle being in the immutable immortal.

link love

2010-09-14T13:49:00.002+10:00

So often it is that it is when you have a million other things you should be doing that you find a bunch of good things on the internet. And so 'tis that amid assignments, busy work days etc. I have some links for you!

Firstly- Sarah Rees Brennan on murder mysteries. I found myself saying yes! That! And that! Her description of the type of novels that do not appeal, yes! Her impression of Dorothy Sayers talking to her editor about the character of Harriet Vane- yes again! All the way up to when she starts talking about the Ice House, and other books I haven't read. But maybe should, now.

And a great post on Evening All Afternoon (first I've ever read of this blog, but will read more now) about A.S. Byatt's Possession and the various voices therein. Yes I do think I am displaying my biases in my choice of links today, but any talk about why Possession is great is fine by me.

And lastly something very light-hearted: Smart Bitches, Trashy Books ran a competition to win a bed through getting readers to share wedding night stories. Many are hilarious, some sweet, some horrifying (but don't worry, none are particularly TMI) anyway an entertaining way to spend some time. EDIT to add one of the sweet examples: CarolPie "Finally, we got to our hotel at around 1 in the morning. Waiting in the lobby, me in my homemade dress and flower crown, my husband in his two dollar suit, I felt like we were two kids running around holding hands and playing dress up."

Enjoy!

forgot to remember what i wanted to do

2010-09-09T22:52:00.001+10:00

I honestly think that I read much more prolifically when I was a kid than I do now. At least, that's my excuse for having forgotten so many books. But not all forgotten books are forgotten in the same way. To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld: there are books I remember, books I remember I have forgotten and books I forget I have forgotten altogether. For example...

Witch Week- Dianna Wynne Jones

I knew part of the plot of this story, but I'd forgotten the book. It drove me crazy, the story as I remembered did not match with 'Witch Week' so I knew it couldn't be it. Until I read it one day.

Turns out it was...

Indian Captive: The Mary Jemison Story- Lois Lenski

I read this book back in year 5 or 6, but completely forgot its existence until the other day. Reading a website dedicated to finding forgotten books, I came across one that reminded me of the existence of this book, reading something like 'girl is kidnapped by Indians'. There are millions of books with this plotline, it turns out, but this is my one. It's based on a true story! A girl on the American frontier is kidnapped by Native Americans, at first bitterly resenting her captors but later choosing to stay with them as part of the tribe. Apparently the real Mary Jemison narrated her life story at age 80 (check out her story on Wikipedia, pretty interesting). Anyway *ahem* I had totally forgotten this book existed, so pleasant surprise to remember it again.

There are a number of books like 'Witch Week' still that I haven't found (if you think you can help, one of them is up here in hope of identification, although I am beginning to think I imagined it), but the ones that are really exciting are the ones you stumble across, having forgotten them, and are able to greet them like old friends.

Some books that I lost, and found again, and really count as childhood favourites include:

Patricia C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles

A princess wants to avoid getting married, so sets off to be 'captured' by a dragon and away from princely suitors. Adventures follow. Read these books in the library, loved them, returned then lost them and found them after much searching. I've borrowed and read them many times, but only the other week found that there's one I haven't read! Need to hunt it down...

Jenny Nimmo Snow Spider series
Kind of cheating- I can't remember if I forgot it? I own 'The Snow Spider' but kept forgetting the sequels. As I recall these books were amazing (I'm actually planning to reread them soon). Based on the Mabinogion + Welshness. I could probably right a whole post on childhood favourites incorporating various aspects of British mythology.

As for the rest... I forget. Hopefully they will turn up again some day.

nothing but breakfast

2010-08-30T17:09:00.003+10:00

A while ago I thought I would write a blog post about my favourite childhood books. But as I came to think about it, I remembered more and more, too many to fit into one blog post. So a whole series of blog posts seems more appropriate. Various happenings (mostly assignments) have conspired to keep me from writing any of them. But today, since fate seems to be conspiring to keep me from my uni work, it seems appropriate to talk about comfort books.

When I was in Year 12 at school we had to study speeches, and one of the speeches happened to be by Margaret Attwood talking about writing and feminism. In it she describes how her young daughter and friend put on a play, in which all they did was eat breakfast, which was pretty dull because narrative needs to be 'more than breakfast'. Well when I was younger I was quite happy to read about 'breakfast'. I remember once complaining to my mum about all the horrible things happening to characters in a book I was reading, to which my mum replied something along the lines of 'well, without that there wouldn't be a story'. I've thought about this, and true though it may be I'm pretty sure I enjoyed a lot of fairly tension-free books in my childhood. Here are a few:

Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. There is tension in the 'Little House' series, difficult journeys, struggles with the land, illness, disappointment and so on. But not so much in this first book. Something about Little House in the Big Woods is just so cosy- the purpose of the book is to evoke a bygone time as much as to tell a story. Excitements and conflicts are generally small- Laura gets into trouble for being disobedient, or wants different coloured ribbons. Some of my favourite memories of this book include the dance, where the family get together in their best dresses, and the children make naple-syrup candy in the snow. I loved this book for its comfort, I liked to imagine living in a log house in the woods with a rag doll to play with.

Margaret Mahy's books of short stories, including The Door in the Air and Mahy Magic. They are not all tension free, but they are about evoking a different world. I think I read a lot for escapism, and these stories are fantastic for that. Some of my favourites include the story about the man who made fantastical bridges, the Green Fair and the story of the magical merry-go-round. I have never understood why 'escapism' is considered such a dirty word- why can't we take a holiday from reality once in a while?

The Fairy Caravan by Beatrix Potter. This book begins with a guinea-pig running away from home and joining a travelling caravan of animals. Full of fairy-tales, talking animals, cosiness and strangeness. There is a journey, and problems to overcome, but I enjoyed this book for the caravan and sense of magic. I've always been fond of caravans.

Maybe most shameful of these is the large book of Flower Fairies that I had, and loved, and read and memorised parts of. I also read a whole lot of Enid Blyton. Although I only read them when I was older, I think the Swallows and Amazons books fit nicely into this category of comforting childhood books where nothing much happens.

Descriptive books, comfort books, books about breakfast, they are still some of my childhood favourites and ever more will remain so. Next up- forgotten books.

famous first words

2010-07-30T18:47:00.002+10:00

Skimming through the internet the other day I came across a reference to a line of startling familiarity, a line that made me realise some first lines stick in your head forever:

"Sing Goddess, the rage of Peleus' son Achilles" (funnily enough, I can never remember the first line proper until I see it, as my friend and I spent much of year 12 Ancient History misquoting it as "rage Achilles, rage on Agamemnon". We were also amused by the fact that 'Xerxes' backwards spelt 'Sexrex'. Yeah, mature I know.) From Homer, The Illiad Ironically, a first line that I find impossible to remember is one of the most recognisable for me. I'm not usually very good at first lines, but there are a few I'd know anywhere...

"Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote" My English classes at university drummed this one into me- the first line of Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales'. I think Chaucer is a genius, but this first line is not quite as engaging as some.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." Famous from the BBC adaptation (oh yeah, and the original book) of Pride and Prejudice.

And I almost forgot (unbelievable!) one of the most famous first lines in history- "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" from 'A Tale of Two Cities'. It goes on of course... "it ws the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way."

These are some famous (and familiar) first lines from books I have read (or, in the case of 'The Illiad', started to read) but they are not why I read those books. They are all great lines- lines that set the scene and the tone of the book, and that grab you from the first moment (with the possible exception of Chaucer). But I have also my personal canon of first lines, those that got a book past the first page test and onto my favourites list. Do you recognise them? First off-

"The book was thick and black and covered with dust"- designed, it seems, to appeal to a book lover, hinting at mystery and perfectly setting the scene for a novel about literature, this caught my interest from the beginning.

"A galaxy of cream unribbons in my coffee cup"- ok that's cheating, it's on the first page but it's not the first line, in any case it sold me on the book from that moment.

Any notable first lines that I've forgotten or should know about?

On another note- I've added a link to The Omnivore on the sidebar- a UK site that collects reviews on books, movies and theatre, and adds some commentary too.

what am i reading? of blogs and books

2010-07-19T13:10:00.003+10:00

A while ago I wrote about looking for book review blogs- I love reading blogs, I love reading books, and a blog that helps me find new books has got to be a good thing. I've done a bit of wandering in the blogosphere, which has been good, and I has been reflected in my last trip to the library. Here's what I borrowed:

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson. I found this here, and was immediately intrigued. Tove Jansson! Writer of Moomintroll! Writing something completely different! It took me a couple of library visits to find it, but I was not disappointed. What a beautiful book. Set on a Finnish island it tells the story of Grandmother and Sophia with a style that is in fact similar to the Moomintroll books, but without the outlandish adventures and therefore allowing the characters more room to shine.

Moominvalley in November by Tove Jansson. Having been reminded of Tove Jansson I couldn't resist borrowing a Moomin book, especially as I'm not sure I've read this one before. When you start dreaming about reading a book I feel that means you should read it!

The Changeover by Margeret Mahy. This one kept popping up all over the place. It's described as 'a supernatural romance', which I would usually find off-putting, but it's by Margeret Mahy, who I love (I read 'The Door in the Air' so many times as a kid, if you haven't read it I recommend it highly) and so many people loved it I had to give it a go. Again, I wasn't disappointed, very much enjoyed it.

Those are all books by authors I've previously loved. I did buy 'The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie' by Alan Bradley (which I thought I saw on this blog, but can't find now, but I swear it was on some blog somewhere). Really enjoyed that.

Next up: I've found that 'Demons' Lexicon' by Sarah Rees Brennan (written about here among other places, though I haven't read that link yet since I'm avoiding spoilers) is in the USYD library, so I'm going to see how that goes. Other books I'm thinking about reading include:

Something by Sarah Waters- maybe Fingersmith to start?

'The City and the City'- China Mieville

'The Knife of Never Letting Go'- Patrick Ness

'Howard's End is on the Landing'- Susan Hill

'The Winter Book'- Tove Jansson
'At Home: A Short History of Private Life'- Bill Bryson

Unfortunately they're not all in the library catalogue, so I have to find some other way to read them...

2010-07-13T23:13:00.001+10:00

Teaser Tuesday

As always- meme hosted by Should be Reading.

"Sophia was climbing very slowly now, with long pauses between steps, and Grandmother could see she was scared. The old woman stood up too quickly."

- p. 47, 'The Summer Book', Tove Jansson

i'm on the pursuit of happiness and i know... i'll be fine once i get it, i'll be good

2010-07-13T13:15:00.000+10:00

A while ago I read 'Fire in the Blood' by Irene Nemirovsky, then more picked up 'Madame Bovary' by Gustave Flaubert, and thought "this sounds familiar". Not that I am accusing Flaubert of copying a work written about 90 years after his, or Nemirovsky of copying Flaubert. I just noticed that 'Madame Bovary' is subtitled 'Patterns of Provincial Life', and that's what these two books provide- patterns. It's hard to describe the patterns exactly- there's the obvious (watch out there may be spoilers) pattern of infidelity in young French provincial wives, but that sounds a bit broad. There are the large country weddings, the hope of happiness that turns to discontent- or merely marriage as a chance to get away from home.

While these patterns repeat themselves between books, and within books in the case of 'Fire in the Blood', I reacted very differently to the two. 'Fire in the Blood' seems all about patterns. The title refers to youthful passion which supposedly makes everyone act crazily and is contrasted to the contentment and passivity of the aged narrator. As a bit of an aside- what I really liked about this book is that the apparent contrast and the detachment of the narrator is brought into question at the end, and you are left questioning his true feelings. There is also the pattern within families- the children repeat the sins of the parents. It's an interesting dynamic that's presented- the children believe their parents are above reproach and vice versa, but in reality they all make the same mistakes.

While 'Fire in the Blood' sees infidelity as one of the inevitable mistakes of youth, in 'Madame Bovary' it is perhaps a tragic side effect of being female. Or maybe an individual foible. Despite the fame of 'Madame Bovary' I didn't really know much about it, and had the impression that the main character was very unsympathetic. So I was surprised at how much sympathy I had for her, particularly to begin with. It really made me think how limited a woman's life was at that time, particularly in a small country town. Emma Bovary seemed fairly intelligent, but with no outlet for her energy she became extremely bored and dissatisfied, looking to wild schemes and affairs for love and happiness that continued to elude her. At the beginning I was sympathetic to her, she had very little choice in her marriage, in where she lived, and very few available occupations. But her dream of grand living and grand romance appears from the beginning to be flawed. When she becomes discontent I was reminded of the words of Merlin in Prince Valiant: 'Only a turtle on a sunny rock knows contentment' (ie no human is ever content). In this instance the search for contentment is indeed futile, and becomes more and more selfish seeming as it continues. I don't think Prince Valiant is alone in talking about the difficulties inherent in pursuing happiness, take the words of Kid Cudi for instance:

I'm on the pursuit of happiness and I know
Everything that's shining always gonna be golden.
I'll be fine once I get it,
I'll be good.

when inspiration fails, links!

2010-07-01T16:57:00.000+10:00

I'm afraid this is going to be a very short post, because while I have a couple of blog post ideas turning over in my head (French provincial women in 'Madame Bovary' and 'Fire in the Blood', 'memento mori' and celebrity) they are as yet only half-formed.

But I just read a blog post on reading books in translation that struck me as particularly true, and reading through this blog so far I am really liking her observations on many book-related things. So you might like to check out Book Snob. And I will write a proper blog post of my own soon, honest.

extracts from my notebook 3

2010-06-15T20:51:00.003+10:00

"He asked her to marry him. She giggled, "okay!" Perhaps before realising that he was serious, or that he truly loves her"

- BJE May's engagement story

"Some people die, just dreaming of the outside world"

- Cuban resident on imprisoned defectors, from Frankie

"Love is made of differences and suffering and apartness, and of the struggle to overcome this apartness."

- Anais Nin, 'The All-Seeing' from Under a Glass Bell

The lampshade is torn

it lets the light spill out

pure and sharp.

"You'll be right there beside me when I do it."

"Don't do it for me"

- Overheard, a couple in a dark alley

"You've seen my show more times than I've performed it

You may not think I'm splendid anymore"

- Pat singing song by his friend Andre

"We dream more, change our minds more often and are in love with the little possibilities available to us."
"Do I identify with Gen Y? Yeah I do! Because I am a fan of it on facebook."
- From Katie Vogel, 'Y', ArtXpress work 2010

2010-06-15T20:34:00.001+10:00

Teaser Tuesday

"Cities & Memory - 5. In Maurilia, the traveler is invited to visit the city and, at the same time, to examine some old postcards that show it as it used to be: the same identical square with a hen in the place of the bus station, a bandstand in the place of the overpass, two young ladies with white parasols in the place of the munitions factory."

Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino, p. 30

panem et circenses

2010-06-07T22:54:00.000+10:00

It seems like I've been reading quite a lot of Young Adult books this year, which is not so usual for me lately... There's been some great books ('The Piper's Son' did not disappoint) and some not so great. One of the most intriguing was 'The Hunger Games' by Suzanne Collins, a book which came with significant hype and some different expectations. One friend told me it was pover-rated, another thought it was the best thing ever. In this situation I tend to approach a book with caution, and start out looking for flaws. And there were flaws. But then again I think, is that really fair? Anyway, back to the book...

'The Hunger Games' is set in what appears to be a dystopian future USA, which is divided into a number of 'districts' all ruled by the 'Capitol'. Life in the outer districts is pretty bleak, with little food, hard work and rigid control. To top it off, each year the Capitol takes two children, a boy and a girl (called 'tributes'), to fight to the death in a televised contest (the titular Hunger Games) where only one person can come out alive. The protaganist of the story is Katniss Everdeen, a girl from 'District 12' who supports her family by hunting in the out-of-bounds forest with her friend Gale after the death of her father in a coal-mining accident. When her beloved younger sister is drawn out of the hat to fight in the arena, she takes her place in what looks to be a fairly hopeless fight (well, unless you're a reader, in which there really only seems to be one outcome).

I have to say that although this feels like a stupid quibble, I found the names pretty off-putting at first. Katniss? It later turns out she is named after a tuber- effectively her name translates as 'potato' (although 'Kumera' would make a pretty name...). Of course, that's pretty quickly overcome, and this book really does drag you in pretty fast.

A more serious problem for me is that I thought I knew how the book ended before I started it, but it turns out I was wrong. *spoiler warning* I was waiting for all the contestants to join together and take on the arena, but that doesn't actually happen. Admittedly that would not really work, and I was curious to see how the author would pull it off, but it was still a little bit dissapointing, particularly when they introduced the characters of the 'career tributes'- who have been trained specifically for the games and are keen on killing and winning. It is particularly unfair to judge a book for not having the ending you expected, and really the positive of this was that I was left guessing as to what would happen.

So what does happen? Katniss survives, along with Peeta, the other District 12 tribute, through a combination of luck, fighting ability and appeal to the sponsors. Sponsors have the ability to provide vital supplies to the tributes during the game, and the main appeal of Katniss and Peeta is their manufactured love story. Which turns out not to be so manufactured on Peeta's side, which comes as a surprise to, well, nobody, except perhaps Katniss. And I spent much of the book wondering how she could be so dense. Apart from the fact that she is desperately overthinking everything in order to survive. In the end I could not decide if it was accurate character representation or just irritating. Maybe because the character of Katniss never really worked that well for me- she doesn't do emotions well, not the most sympathetic trait. My level of sympathy for her varied quite a bit throughout the book. Peeta I liked, probably because I have a weakness for the dogged, determined guy with an unrequited love for the heroine that will probably be returned before the story is done. Loved the end of 'Vanity Fair', cried like a baby for 'A Tale of Two Cities', set to be a sucker for Peeta here. I'm interested to see through the series who Katniss chooses- Peeta or Gale. Or neither. Not an easy choice.

Suzanne Collins got the idea for writing this book while watching reality t.v., at least according to Wikipedia, and Abigail Nussbuam has written about why she thinks the novel is a good portrayal of reality t.v., and I don't know if I have anything to add to that. One of the first things that sprung to mind for me was Roman gladiatorial competitions, but once I thought of the phrase 'bread and circuses' I also realised the role that bread plays in this book.

Firstly, circuses. I really liked the political aspect to this story, the idea that while the Hunger Games is a form of entertainment for the masses it is also a form of threat and an exercise of power. Particularly for those in the poorer districts, the significance of the game is that it kills their children, and they are motivated to watch mostly through fear. But while the Capitol may be good at providing circuses, it is very bad at providing bread. People in District 12 are starving, and even the baker eats stale loaves. Two incidences that I can think of in the book hinge on bread: Peeta (the baker's son) gives a loaf of bread to a young Katniss when she is starving- an act of compassion and love, and the people of District 11 send a loaf of bread to Katniss in thanks for her attempts to care for the female District 11 tribute. Apparently the bread of each district is easily distinguishable. Once I started thinking about bread it was difficult to ignore the fact that the country is called 'Panem'. Even if this link is really there though, I'm not sure what it means. Panem is unable to feed it's people, they have to feed each other? One of the key ingredients of Governance is missing? The Capitol is so out of touch with the people's needs it can't provide for them? The country is run purely on fear, every good thing is distorted?

On that note, I have to say that my feelings towards this book are somewhat ambiguous. I wanted to keep reading, it really drew me in, but I also wanted to pick holes. At the end I wanted to read the sequel, I'm keen to see what happens, and in the end I probably enjoyed this book more than it annoyed me. I am also curious- Abigail Nussbuam reviewed 'The Hunger Games' along with another, called 'The Knife of Never Letting Go', which she thought was better. The person who enthusiastically recommended 'The Hunger Games' has also since read 'The Knife of Never Letting Go', and judged it to be the better book. Maybe that should be next on the 'to be read' pile?

you gotta love this city for its body and not its brains

2010-06-04T21:13:00.002+10:00

Having just had a few crazy weeks of assignment writing, conference preparation at work and general hectic-ness, I'm now ready to write another blog post! Woo! I mentioned a while ago I was interested in writing a blog post about why I love Sydney, and Ronni recently posted a link to a blog project photographing the suburbs of Sydney, which inspired me to do something about it. Incidentally, that blog posted a link to the Dictionary of Sydney, which looks like an interesting place for information on all things related to Sydney.

I can't cover all of Sydney in one blog post, I just can't. And my photos are no match for those in 52 suburbs. But here are some things I love:

- Festivals in Summer! When the whole city comes into one space and the streets are full of people instead of cars and everything is free.

- The coffee! It looks great, it tastes great... It means we have heaps and heaps of little cafes. Everyone I know who travels overseas misses it oh so much.

- More festivals- the way that we get these little bits of organised whimsy...

- As well as the unofficial whimsy, of course. The type of thing that inspires people to knit stockings for street signs.

- The left-behind bits of industry, whether they be converted to new uses or left to fall down gradually...

- The sea and storm clouds are so good together, and it's hard to dislike the Manly ferry.

- Even some of the cemeteries have a view... I think cemeteries are beautiful in any case.

- The skyline... Let's face it, even people who diss Sydney think it's beautiful.

There's so much more to love: the range of cultures, foods, graffiti, buildings.... I think that this a subject I could just keep returning to again and again. I'll leave you with one of my favourite Sydney photos from near where I live:

parchment and pixels, and lots and lots of libraries

2010-05-14T18:17:00.001+10:00

I know there is a lot happening in the world right now: elections, recessions, budgets, not to mention floods and volcanoes and so on. But I am sorry to say I am unable to comment on any of them. I have not really been following the news at all. Last week work was hectic and this week has been very different. This week has been full of libraries!

From Tuesday to today I've been on a study visit for my library course (it's like a school excursion all over again) visiting libraries all over Sydney. Such a variety there were too! There was Ultimo TAFE, doing so much innovative work on a tiny budget, and UTS doing so much innovative work on a much bigger budget. There was the NSW Parliamentary library, which was AMAZING and where the librarians are like researchers, and the Society of Australian Genealogists, where the researchers were like librarians. The Botanical Gardens library had a signed first edition of the Origin of the Species, and the Australian Film, Television and Radio School had scripts in every stage of development. As for the State Library, well that was very impressive all round. Needless to say I am currently feeling very inspired about working in a library one day. I also have some links, just to share the library love!

If you haven't seen the State Library website recently, you should definitely check it out. They have this thing called Discover Collections where they show digitised versions of library historical resources (for instance, you can read journals from the First Fleet in original handwriting) with contextual information, organised into subject collections. Plus, NSW residents can access a number of databases for free online through the site. It's just an incredible way of merging the historical collection with electronic accessibility. I could rave on...

And those interested in family history should definitely check out the Society of Australian Genealogists: they may be smaller and slower with their digitisation but they have a great collection of Australia genealogy material and the librarians have some great experience in the field too. The website might not have everything, but it gives a pretty comprehensive guide to what's on offer, and if you need to know in detail they have an online catalogue.

If you're a student or interested in the use of social media, check out UTS Library on Facebook. Or Twitter. They are still kind of small (around 350 followers) but it's interesting to see what they're doing.

One of the things that amazed me about these visits is how many card catalogues are still around. Apparently only 30% of the State Library's collection is in the electronic catalogue, for example. And they are clearly a library who are fairly happy to embrace technology.

For myself, I think I found that even though I loved hearing about all the new developments in libraries and what they were doing electronically, it was when I saw the libraries that were full of old manuscripts and texts and photos that they didn't want to get rid of that I got really excited. Maybe a future in the archives somewhere is in store for me... What can I say? I may blog and be on Facebook and Twitter, but one thing I will never get behind is the idea of e-books replacing real books. I love them. Thus although I was one of the youngest on the study visit I felt a bit behind the times. Will find a nice library that is also behind the times to work in- I think there might be some around. But not to end on a down note- let's hear it for libraries! Yeah!

2010-05-04T15:30:00.002+10:00

Tuesday Teaser

I wasn't reading anything last Tuesday. But here we go again...

"I moved softly. The water shimmered, giving off a pale light, like a mirror in a dark room."

Irene Nemirovsky, Fire in the Blood, p. 37

links for a rainy day

2010-04-19T23:04:00.000+10:00

I feel that after ranting it is good to add some balance to the blog by posting about cheerful things. What the world needs is more colour and cuteness and kindness. These things make me smile:

Definitely check it out at Colour Me Katie

And Bakerella always appeals to my sweet tooth.

Hope all is well with you, readers!

harry potter is overrated (and also underrated)

2010-04-13T22:22:00.001+10:00

I had an assignment yesterday, and all I wanted to do was write a blog post. Now it's handed in, and my motivation is flagging. Still! I did have all that time to think about what I wanted to say, so here goes...

I remember first reading Harry Potter. I believe it was 1999, my parents were in the UK and when I went to visit they had Harry Potter, which was being reviewed at the time in the papers. But I hadn't really heard of it before. To my family, children's and young adult fantasy is pretty standard reading, and it was pretty natural for us to all read any book that came into the house. So, enough of setting the scene, I read Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone and I really enjoyed it. It had a great world, and it was a lot of fun, the language was so bubbly, it had a great humour to it and the story was a great adventure. But then the trouble started- I read the first review. And here follows the account of my continuing encounter with People's Reactions to Harry Potter.

If my memory serves correctly, the first review I read of Harry Potter praised it highly for it originality- particularly for having the amazing idea of a school for wizards. Fancy! Which made me grind my teeth, why would someone review Harry Potter having apparently no idea of the fantasy genre? Here are some wizard schools predating Harry Potter: the Roke academy in 'The Wizard of Earthsea', Unseen University in the Discworld books (it is a university, but similar concept), 'the Worst Witch' (both book and tv), I've heard Dianna Wynne Jones has written some and I think Margaret Mahy may have too. There are probably others, these are just those that spring to mind. Not that JK Rowling hasn't written her own unique take on the subject, but the idea of a wizard school is not what people should really focus on if looking for originality here.

But things have not really gotten any better. JK Rowling now has a large array of fans, who are keen to point out her amazing achievement, and how the books are flawless, every detail accounted for, every happening foreshadowed. Also, reading a lot of comments floating around from fans about their favourite book the early ones don't get a look in, the middle ones are preferred because they are 'darker'. OK, so here are my thoughts about that:

My favourite book is the first one! I feel that as they go on, and become darker, and longer, they also become slower, and start to make less sense. JK Rowling's writing perfectly suited the first book, I thought it was well written, light-hearted and conveyed a sense of wonder. I just don't think her writing performs as well with heavier subject matter, as the series goes on it becomes more and more workmanlike, less fun. The teenaged characters can be annoying, I think the love stories are not very well developed and the consistent repeating of mistakes and mistrust of characters (and having recently read Ronni's blog post on authority in Harry Potter, I will clarify that my annoyance is at the way the lose trust so quickly in adults who have previously gained their trust) gets annoying. The world stops making sense to me when I look closer- there don't seem to be many limitations on magic, yet there is poverty? Why? And above all I just don't think the books are that dark. Just because people die, doesn't make it dark. Dark how? I don't get it. There are some scary moments, some (well, at least one) ambiguous characters, and some death. But there are scarier books that get thrown into the 'children's literature' category (Susan Cooper and Alan Garner write some fairly menacing scenes), and the death of major secondary characters is a standard trope. To my mind, the later books are less well realised and not particularly dark. And books don't have to be dark! I think JK Rowling does light better than dark.

*breath*

I guess to summarise, I think that reactions to Harry Potter fall into one of two camps. Either people haven't read it and dismiss it as 'a kid's book', or they have and won't hear a word against it. I think the series deserves a more considered approach- it was a massive phenomenon and very hard to put down. To be fair, I have read some more thoughtful reactions (I mentioned Ronni's post, and The Last Muggle to Read Harry Potter has had some interesting reactions when finishing the series). I read them all, and quickly. I think JK Rowling is good at creating suspense, and one of her major achievements was the way she engaged with fans- feeding them clues while they waited for the next installment and so on. But it's not perfect, and the reactions often just make me feel that so much of the fantasy genre is unappreciated. But I guess I should be more understanding. It's a whole different story if anyone criticizes LOTR...

2010-04-13T16:42:00.002+10:00

Tuesday Teaser:

"Everyone looked up. Swooping down in a shadowy cloud of broken umbrellas, Mr Brokkenboll was dropping towards them out of the sky."
China Mieville, Un Lun Dun, p. 259

cotton

2010-04-06T23:38:00.000+10:00

On Monday it was Andrew's and my second wedding anniversary. It was also the Easter long weekend. In celebration, we left town and headed for the mountains, staying in a place just outside Lithgow. It was a really awesome weekend. We got to relax, see some sights, sleep, and eat nice food. So, some highlights...

Instead of going to Jenolan Caves, which turned out to be packed, we went for a walk elsewhere, and found this spectacular view. Also a lot of very steep stairs.

I read a lot in the leaflets in our cabin about a walk to the 'glow worm tunnel', accessible only after a 37 km drive down a dirt road. Lured by the promise of glow worms, but wary of disappointment, we made the trek and behold! There were glow worms. Unfortunately it's a bit tricky to get a photo of the things, so you will have to make do with these photos of the end of the tunnel, one from the inside and one from the outside. Apparently it is an old mine shaft which the glow worms took a fancy to after the place was mined out. Very pretty, but very very dark in the middle. Apart from the glow worms of course.

We did this walk on Sunday, and went out to dinner the night before at Vulcan's in Blackheath (I brought my free 2009 Good Food Guide with me to scope out the restaurants). It was very good, but somehow we felt it failed to really impress us. But it was difficult to fault the food, the flavours all balanced nicely. My slow cooked beef with lemongrass and thyme was very tender, the flavours just right. Anyway, we enjoyed it, but our expectations were very high.

Back to Sunday, and after our walk into the glow worm tunnel we drove back through Lithgow. We just had to check out the ruins on the hill, which turned out to be an old blast furnace, shut down in the 1920's (or 1930's?). If you're in Lithgow, I definitely recommend this place. But then, I do love old ruins. It was fantastic, with explanatory signs but no real limitations on your own exploration. And the way the ruins blended into the landscape was amazing. I tried to get a photo that showed it but I think I mostly failed. I haven't seen a historical sight that was this much fun for ages, and with the cool crisp air and rabbits hopping around I almost felt like I was in England. Except for the magnificent hills that made up the background. And the fact that the building was just around 100 years old. My point is: it was fantastic in its own right. I loved exploring it. I've never heard Andrew use the term 'happy as a kid in a candy store' about me quite so frequently in such a short space of time.

At the book shop in Blackheath (Gleebooks- what it is doing so far from Glebe I don't know) Andrew bought me my anniversary present- Point Omega, Don DeLillo; Brooklyn, Colm Toibin and Un Lun Dun by China Meiville, as well as the Ponyo DVD. We watched Ponyo on Sunday night while drinking champagne by the fire (fine, sorry to rub it in, but it was a great weekend, ok?), and I'm excited to have all these books lined up.

Anyway, back to work now, and I have a whole lot of blog post ideas buzzing round. Another book review? A discussion of favourite childhood books? A rant about Harry Potter? Something about writing styles? A post about why I love Sydney? Can't decide just yet, will have to wait and see... And who knows? Maybe I'll get too busy, forget them all and write something completely different in a month.

Teaser Tuesday

2010-04-06T15:55:00.002+10:00

I came across this meme at The Captive Reader (my exploration of the world of book blogging continues!) which apparently originated with MizB at Should Be Reading, it goes like this:
Grab your current read. Let the book fall open to a random page. Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page. You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!

So here goes:
There was another thing she said, my wife, sympathetically, referring to the way I regarded life on the one hand and film on the other. "Why is it so hard to be serious, so easy to be too serious?"

Don DeLillo, Point Omega p. 55

the blogosphere and me

2010-04-01T14:48:00.000+11:00

Finding a new blog is usually a fairly haphazard process- it occurs through one of the three following ways: someone I know starts a blog and I find out about it, someone I know recommends a blog/blog post OR I stumble upon it through a trail of links. For that reason the blogs I read represent a fairly diverse (and unrepresentative of me) range of interests, here are some I probably haven't mentioned before:

Ronni's blog from Cambridge, which I have just added a link to in my sidebar.

Style Bubble- A fashion blog from the UK

Pioneer Woman- A blog about life in rural America + cooking + homeschooling

Smart Bitches Trashy Books- A blog about Romance novels

I enjoy these blogs, I really do, different as they are. Though they don't have much in common, I guess I could say that a good blog has personality, and these do. But I feel there is something missing in my life, and that something is book reviews. I can't seem to find them on online newspaper sites (or even in the weekend paper). I want reviews of all kinds of fiction, things that I want to read. Ronni writes about books sometimes, but that is not really the main purpose of her blog. Smart Bitches reviews books all the time (when it is not reviewing e-book devices), but it exclusively reviews romances, and I don't read romances (or use a Kindle). Don't ask why I read the blog, I don't think I can explain.

Why, I wondered, since I like books more than cooking or fashion or homeschooling, do I read no blogs devoted to book reviews? So I am on a quest. A quest for book review blogs. I started at technorati, since they list popular blogs, amazingly finding a book review blog that doesn't focus on romance is harder than it looks, but I have found Stuck In A Book, and that's looking good so far. If you have any other recommendations, please let me know! I love to read about books (I also love to read books).

a retraction (kind of)

2010-03-19T15:38:00.000+11:00

I panned 'The Slap' in my last blog post, having not finished it, but now that I have I feel I may have been a little unfair. In the last few chapters of the book I came to care about the characters, I feel a lot of the threads pulled together, and the hopeful notes toward the end redeemed what would otherwise have been a very bleak book. It ended on a good note, with a sense of satisfaction as well as a tantalising glimpse toward the future. As I theorised back in my early adolescence, a bleak story should always end on a hopeful note. That was my formula, and I was reminded of it here.

But I do not feel I can really be entirely positive about this book. I mean it took me until the last few chapters to feel anything much other than annoyance to the characters, to feel that I understood them at all, and to actually enjoy this book. Sure, a good ending is a good thing to pull off, but if you don't enjoy the rest of the book then there is still a problem there.

I think the way the book was structured was something of a double-edged sword. Each chapter moved the story forward but was written from a different perspective. This let you get a different perspective on the characters and events, but it also created something of a distance, in that it didn't give you much time to get to know each character. Overall I think it was an effective technique, but it contributed something to my annoyance through the beginning of the book (as well as reading through the perspective of some of the more annoying characters). In the end it contributed to a feeling of well-rounded-ness as everything came together, or past events seemed to click. But as I said, is pulling it together at the end enough?

books i didn't like becoming movies i probably won't like either

2010-03-17T17:43:00.000+11:00

I was surprised to learn the other day that 'The Elegance of the Hedgehog' was being made into a movie, and slightly less surprised to find out that 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' was too. The surprise came with a certain feeling of frustration- why these books? Although this was tempered by the thought that perhaps an adaptation of a book you don't like is likely to be less frustrating than an adaptation of one you do.

I'm saying right now that I have no intention of ever watching 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'- it was violent on the page, on the screen that will surely be unbearable. I've said something on this blog about it already, and while it was quite a page-turner I was glad to put it down.

'The Elegance of the Hedgehog' is a different kettle of fish (well, it is a totally different book), and something I haven't already addressed here. It's a much more gentle books, really about the inner lives of a middle-aged Parisian concierge and a 12 year old Parisian girl. I don't know if I was just in a rather irritable mood at the time, but it grated on me. I wanted to like the characters, but I found it hard, because of their calculated superiority, and the way they felt that the world cheated them, while really they were imposing limits on themselves. It made it hard to listen to their thoughts and philosophising, because at base I thought they were wrong. I may have been a bit harsh on them, and by the end I had warmed to them somewhat- motivations were explained, lessons were learned. But in a book with so little plot it seems a bit tough to leave all the exposition to the end. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it, and I wonder what kind of movie they will make of it.

'The Slap' is looking like being the latest on my list of 'books I don't like all that much', but I haven't finished it yet... I thought none of the characters were at all sympathetic, but there have been a couple of moments which are ok. So far it is pretty much a pattern of sex, infidelity, swearing, drugs and marital strife, and that is becoming dull. If there is one thing that's probably unfashionable but I really like, it's a sympathetic character, and there are a shortage of those. You can make a cheating, swearing, drug-taking character sympathetic, I mean I'm not saying that I can't like a book with these elements, but if none of the characters are likeable I just want to throw the book on the ground and never pick it up again. Because I just don't care what any of them do.

alot of words about kate griffin

2010-03-08T12:42:00.001+11:00

"I’m not a huge fan of didactic writing – I’ve always been of the opinion that the story should be put first, and any profound moral messages should emerge as a result of the story, rather than as a thing imposed on the narrative as prime purpose."

- Kate Griffin
http://www.kategriffin.net/

Yes yes yes! At least in the majority of cases, yes.

In other news, I just finished reading 'A Madness of Angels' by Kate Griffin, and I really enjoyed it. It's a story that grabs you at the beginning and you keep reading to find out a) what has happened and b) what is going to happen. At first I had some reserves about this book, while I was enjoying the read I wasn't sure if the writing was great, what the themes were, I needed time to stop and think about them. Well, the book wouldn't let me stop, and I couldn't really address these concerns, but somehow by the end I had decided that it was good. So with my critical faculties thus disabled I am unable to be anything but glowingly positive about it.

I recall that when I read 'Neverwhere' by Neil Gaiman I was left somewhat underwhelmed. The ideas were great, I enjoyed the world he created, the way that the fantasy world intersected with real-life London, but somehow it felt a little thin. I felt like I only had glimpses, and as I recall the characters and plot also left me disappointed as well. My verdict was something like 'great idea, poorly executed'. Well 'A Madness of Angels' works on a similar idea, creating the magical underbelly of London, but in my opinion it works better. The world feels real, the concept of magic makes sense, and the whole thing feels fully realised without the reader having to be taken on a stilted guided tour.

I make a comparison here because that is the first thing I thought of when I read the book, and I think Kate Griffin has been influenced by Gaiman and Pratchett, or at least by that shared fantasy tradition. Not to say I think she is derivative, somehow fantasy seems to evolve these different groups of shared assumptions, and I like that, if you have read a lot of fantasy it makes it very easy to get your bearings, as it were. So I might add, the system of magic used by sorcerers reminds me of nothing so much as that used by Prince Mendanbar in Patricia C. Wrede's 'Searching for Dragons'.

Before I get too bogged down in digressions, let me move on. The story starts at the beginning but in the middle, in a sense, with the resurrection of the main character, and his first thoughts are along the lines of "runrunrunrun", so the pace is pretty fast, and as the main character is running for his life he doesn't have a lot of time to stop and explain things. But you want to find out. The main character, Matthew Swift, is something of an anti-hero (maybe not quite, maybe more ambiguous), and I spent some time wondering how far I could trust him. Which maybe contributed to me be unsure what to make of the book. It was interesting spending time in his head, and he was likeable enough (eventually, anyway), and while I could have personally done with some more major supporting characters that was not really in keeping with the story. To do credit to the characterisation though, I did feel like a number of minor characters could have stepped into a larger supporting role.

It's a fairly violent book, although nothing too graphic, it is an 'action' book. Things are always happening, and there's not much time for reflection. Although there is room for thought.

In short, if you like urban fantasy, ambiguous heroes, London, magic worlds or action, you should check it out. I might try to get some fantasy haters to read it, I think it's the kind of book that might change their mind.

signposts of enmore

2010-03-04T20:27:00.001+11:00

I like the area I like in, I like its little quirks, its personality. The walk home from the bus stop often uncovers interesting things. Yesterday someone had posted to a telegraph pole a poster, with those little tear off things at the bottom and a picture of a firefighter against smoke at the top, and the poster said this:

I exist!
Conform, consume, sit down, watch t.v., shut up and obey? No thanks.
Somehow, anyhow, let it be know that
[and on tiny tear off pieces of paper below]
I EXIST I EXIST

nonsense words

2010-03-02T21:00:00.002+11:00

Streetlights

The insomnious glare of the streetlights
censured me, at 2am
on the footpath, kissing you.
But we could forget,
because we were young
and in love
and besides
we were very drunk.

Lunacy

Into the moon garden
you and I fell.
I forgot which face
was yours
in the milky light
one of us lay down
and laughed at the sky.

words, glorious words

2010-02-22T14:29:00.003+11:00

One thing I love, if you haven't noticed, is words! The English language in general (and other languages as well, to a lesser extent) is fascinating. I love to read, and write, and I really like etymology. I am maybe a little bit obsessed.

Anyway, my friend Sam posted up a link to a word-related-site that I absolutely have to share with you: podictionary. It contains word-trivia in written and podcast form. Fabulous.

And through that I found another site: Wordnik. It has words, definitions, etymology, quotes, and graphs showing usage over time. That's pretty cool. The information seems incomplete for a bunch of words, but I really like the idea and the way its executed.

Check it out!

thinking happy thoughts

2010-02-19T10:48:00.004+11:00

Sometimes the whole internet, nay the world eve, seems designed to make me annoyed. I don't think I'm the only one who has had days like that, nor is it new, there is a reason I stopped watching/reading the news! Don't know why I started again...

Anyway, this post is not designed to make people angry at the world, this is a post for all things nice and smile-worthy, this is a post... for LINKS!

While I have known of this comic for a while, I just started reading Hark! A Vagrant in a concentrated way and I am enjoying it. Comics! About history! What's not to like?

http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php She has historical figure heroes, and so do I. My favourite is Alfred the Great. Man, he was great.

I just bought the Florence and the Machine album, 'Lungs', and I am loving it so far! It just won the British Album award at the Brit awards (so much more deserving than Lady Gaga, oh my).

Here's a link to 'Dog Days are Over' on YouTube, one of my favourites on the album. Makes me happy.

And it is a terrible oversight that I have not linked to Spencer's blog, which is now updated Thursdays, because I am loving the poetry and short stories. Here is one to give you a taste:

Rising

By Spencer Harding

I was a monster once;
Awful and magnificent,
sleek, soulless and cool.
You broke me upon the wheel of your heart,
cracking and straining,
until we fractured together;
I, muted, frail, human.
You, singing as the wind whistled through your cracks.
For a while we were beautiful;
but then you shattered,
and I, alone, am growing once more,
into my skin;
more awesome, and more terrible
than ever before.

little things

2010-02-15T23:21:00.005+11:00

are what it's all about. Like the bus driver I had today who greeted us all as we got on the bus, made the bus laugh with his running commentary and added:

'Next stop the Enmore theatre. I will not be performing there tonight because I will be on this bus'

I kind of love that bus driver, even though what I really wanted was to sit and read my book and ignore the rest of the world.

Like the free copy of last year's Good Food Guide I got with my newspaper.

I should do this every day.

of wolves and halls, or, how i got my reading mojo back

2010-02-10T20:38:00.001+11:00

The last post I wrote about books I was feeling dissatisfied. I kept picking holes in everything, books were annoying me rather than engaging me and even Agatha Christie was not up to par. It was a disgruntling time. Luckily, come Christmas I got a bunch of books to read to hopefully get over it. And get over it I did! The first book I read was 'Wolf Hall' by Hillary Mantel, and that cheered me right up.

I don't know if I've ranted about this before, but I have a slight aversion to historical fiction. It's just that I've read too much bad historical fiction, and although there is some that I like (Phryne Fisher from the '20s, Rosemary Sutcliff's books from all over) there are a few things that just bug me and they happen over and over again:

Anachronistic characters. I know that it might be hard to make sympathetic characters with an unsympathetic worldview, but when you are, say, in a society where women have a lower status than men then you should expect a fair few characters to act/think accordingly.

Anachronistic writing. Throwing in archaic terms out of nowhere makes me grind me teeth, they grate, sound so cutesy, losing power to write sentences... It's hard to describe this, it's just that a book will be written in modern, up-to-date English, and then to make it more 'authentic' they throw in a couple of words (usually 'courses'. For some reason that gets me the most) that seem so out of context I think it undermines the writing. It's like they can't make up their mind quite what style they're using.

Well that was really by way of a long intro to let you know I have some hang-ups, but happily 'Wolf Hall' made me realise I shouldn't be so prejudiced, and just generally blew me away. If the character's were anachronistic, I believed in them anyway, they had the context and character development to back up their views. There may have been a small exception, but I forgave it, mostly because I just LOVED the characters. The main character was Thomas Cromwell, and while I hear he hasn't always been viewed sympathetically I haven't read 'A Man for All Seasons' and I didn't need to be persuaded very hard to like him. Not by any means a perfect hero, but I did enjoy spending a books worth of time with him.

And the writing. Well. It was crisp and clear with small moments of beauty, and I only realised two thirds of the way through the book that it was written in present tense. Usually for me that is a massive drawback, but it didn't get in the way here, and in fact did its job in adding to the immediacy of the book. It's not action packed, but it definitely feels as though you don't know what the future will hold, the shifting politics at court make everyone's position unstable. And while as a reader you know what will happen (this shouldn't really be a spoiler, Henry VIII marries Anne Boleyn, she gives birth to Elizabeth, he beheads her) there's a lot that I for one did not know and the detail and the way she draws relationships really draw you in. It's hard to know where the history ends and the fiction begins (especially if, as for me, all your knowledge of this period comes from year 10 history) but it feels very real, and while there's a lot of politics and history in here, that's what the story's about (politics) and it hums along.

I was interested throughout this story, and it was the characters that kept me interested. I liked spending the time in Cromwell's company, I liked watching everyone interact, watching the royals and nobles manipulate and everyone else work them to their advantage. The story covers a short part of the history I know, which means that it feels like there's a lot of depth. And I kept waiting for things to happen (Henry to marry Anne, Anne to die, etc.) but it happened a lot slower than I had expected. Because a lot more happened between times.

In short, I would highly recommend this, for lovers of history, lovers of historical fiction and generally anyone who likes their fiction well written and their characters believable.

last day of the holidays

2010-01-22T22:36:00.002+11:00

Cold sea on a hot day. A stingray gliding over the sandbar. Fish and chips on a deck over the water, with the sunset as a backdrop and dolphins playing in the lagoon. Walking on the beach under the stars, watching a storm far out over the sea.

*sigh*

Why is today the last day?

happy new year

2010-01-02T12:52:00.003+11:00

And a happy new decade to all.

I spent NYE with some good friends, waxing nostalgic about the past decade (and playing Wii, drinking champagne and looking at Christmas lights). When this decade started I was in high school, and in the full miseries of adolescence, when it ended I had finished uni, had a job and was married (these things are all still true at this time, in the beginning of a new decade). It was a decade of growing up, making new friends, achieving various goals through what I sometimes saw as a determination not to give up, day by day. 10 years ago I would not have pictured my life would be as it is now, I have no idea what things will be like in 10 years but it will be interesting finding out!

2010 looks like it will hold more work, more study, and fewer holidays for me. I'm hoping for some live music, a lot of books to read, some more exercise and a heap of time with friends and family. May I take this opportunity to say I love you guys? I'd like more time with my husband... I guess generally more time. If the days could be a little bit longer so I can fit all this in I'd appreciate it. No New Years resolutions, just some hopes and dreams...

Have a fantastic year y'all! How do you hope to spend it?

climate change

2009-12-07T15:53:00.003+11:00

Oooh, look how topical I am! Politics, climate change...

I've seen some good articles lately, so I thought I'd put up some links in case anyone is interested.

An article from The Economist about debating climate change. I quite like this, it says that while the magazine believes in climate change, it also believes in scientific debate, and scientists with alternative views should not be silenced to support the orthodox view, because that's not what science is about. Sounds reasonable to me!

An article from the SMH basically arguing that Tony Abbot's stance on climate change is inconsistent and untenable, from an politico-economic perspective. I first came across this argument on Jordan's blog (you can find the link to the relevant blog post here) apparently Malcolm Turnbull has expressed similar views. Once again, sounds like a good argument to me. I wonder what the best solution would be?

On a totally unrelated note, I find it ironic that my blog's spell check doesn't recognise 'blog' as a real word.

politics

2009-12-02T10:18:00.002+11:00

" Mr Abbott said he would work to bring the party together because it's easier to manage a party when they oppose rather than negotiate with the government.

"The best way to unite a political party is to really go after your opponents, which is what I intend to do," he told the Nine Network today."

-Tony Abbott in the SMH

This is the kind of attitude I hate in politics, obstructionist for the sake of it and refusing to co-operate to get anything done. A bad sign for the future?

a year in books

2009-12-01T19:17:00.006+11:00

I've been composing a blog post in my head about how I don't think Twilight is all that bad for people, even though I agree with most of the criticisms of it, but now that it comes to actually sitting down and writing a blog post I am already bored of my arguments. Feel free to call me out if you disagree with this, and I will outline my thoughts. I was going to include a quote (o.k., more a rough paraphrase) from Fahrenheit 451, which I think is an awesome book, if that helps.

So having said what I won't be talking about, here is what I will be talking about. Seeing as it's December, and 'tis the season, I will be doing a Year in Review- my annual reading list! Since I lost this year's diary and didn't get around to putting up last year's list, this will be the books I read in 2008, but I hope you enjoy all the same.

Great Expectations- Charles Dickens

Mister Pip- Lloyd Jones Kind of appropriate to read next to each other, good books but Mister Pip was fairly harrowing.

White Noise- Don DeLillo Really enjoyed this, have a post about this and Bright Eyes

When the Elephants Dance- Tess UrizeHolthe I chose this book for the whimsical title- it turned out to be about WWII in the Phillipines. Interesting, but again- harrowing.

Halowe'en Party- Agatha Christie Too many harrowing books=a run of Agatha Christie.

Towards Zero- Agatha Christie

Death in the Stocks- Georgette Heyer I was told Georgette Heyer was like Agatha Christie, but in reality nowhere near as good.

They Found Him Dead- Georgette Heyer

Destination Unknown- Agatha Christie

Nemesis- Agatha Christie

Listen- Kate Veitch Did not entirely warm to this...

Independent People- Halldor Laxness Something a little different, the story of Icelandic independence through a small farming family.

On Chesil Beach- Ian McEwan The story of a disastrous wedding night was possibly not the best choice for honeymoon reading, much as I love Ian McEwan's writing.

The Aunt's Story- Patrick White The writing quality of this drew me in and kept me going the whole way.

Arthurian Literature and Society- Stephen Knight Good, at least in the first chapters, but I thought that he undervalued TH White and overvalued 'A Knight in King Arthur's Court'. Made me feel better about not being at uni.

The World According to Clarkson- Jeremy Clarkson

Domina- Paul Doherty

Breath- Tim Winton Disappointing to me, I love a lot of Tim Winton but this did not grab me. Maybe it was too male? I don't know...

The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats- Jeffrey Masson

A Partisan's Daughter- Louis De Berniere This one I liked, although it was so ambiguous.

Persuasion- Jane Austen Very much enjoyed, loved the setting especially.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd- Agatha Christie Finally read the classic, but guessed the twist.

Murder on the Orient Express- Agatha Christie

Murder in the Mews- Agatha Christie

Hercule Poirot's Christmas- Agatha Christie

One Hundred Years of Solitude- Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas- Gertrude Stein It was fun to see the artistic world of Paris in the 1920's in this way, an interesting perspective on a life.

The Whole Story and Other Stories- Ali Smith Well-executed collection of short-stories.

Kafka on the Shore- Haruki Marukami Very weird, loved the Japanese folkloric quest story, was bemused by the incestuous undertones.

Exile's return: A Literary Odyssey of the 1920's- Malcolm Cowley Not quite what I expected, inspired by Phryne Fisher and Gertrude Stein.

Striding Folly- Dorothy L. Sayers Dorothy L. Sayers = Love!

The Mystery of the Blue Train- Agatha Christie

When Will There Be Good News?- Kate Atkinson So darn depressing, though this is a good series with some black-ish humour and generally likeable characters.

Nightbirds on Nantucket- Joan Aiken Finally read these books, after reading a lot of Joan Aiken in my childhood. These are great, alternate history children's adventure. In a way reminiscent of the Philip Pullman Sally Lockhart series (mainly for the waif heroine).

The Stolen Lake- Joan Aiken

The Cuckoo Tree- Joan Aiken

The Castle- Franz Kafka In a word: baffling.

The Corrections- Jonathan Franzen This was amazing. I'd avoided it for years, but that just goes to show that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. I found the characters to be so human, if a little larger than life.

Dido and Pa- Joan Aiken

The Unbearable Lightness of Being- Milan Kundera Sad, but in a lovely way.

The Sunday Philosophy Club- Alexander McCall Smith Light as a feather, with philosophy!

The Comforts of Saturdays- Alexander McCall Smith

Romulus My Father- Raimond Gaita Heartbreaking, but also beautiful. More philosophical than the previous.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society- Mary Ann Shaffer Interesting, unlike what I expected, another facet of WWII- there are no end to the interesting stories that came out of that war. I liked it.

The Man with the Dancing Eyes- Sophie Dahl A picture book of love and New York.

Breakfast at Tiffany's- Truman Capote

mawwige

2009-11-23T16:46:00.002+11:00

I kind of have a love of weddings... some might call it an obsession, I call it an interest? I love to read the wedding of the week in the SMH, but that's been unreliable lately. Thankfully, Georgia has recommended me a wedding blog to give me wedding eye-candy through the week. I've just started reading it, and it's gorgeous, so if you're interested:

Once Wed: http://www.oncewed.com

extracts from my old notebook (part 2)

2009-11-17T18:34:00.009+11:00

"Free trip to Blue Mountains with lunch and dinner $99 ($59 without food)

For $99 you get morning tea, lunch and a four course dinner and a free trip to the blue mountains!"

- Sign at Indian restaurant in Surry Hills. Doesn't sound all that free to me...

"You know why? That card's expired- 05/11. Oh, is that the 11th year or the 11th month?"

- Overheard

"Write poetry on property"

- Graffiti on Vintage Cellars

A sandy coastline- Ivan Shishkin

Hot Springs of the Yellowstone- Thomas Moran

The trunks in the grass- Vincent van Gogh

- Paintings

"who are you, little i

(five or six years old)

peering from some high

window, at the gold

of november sunset

(and feeling: that if day

has to become night

this is a beautiful way)

-who are you little i, e.e. cummings

"Totally unfunded blackspot"

- Sign on Princes Highway

"Ye shall find refreshment, thy whose bus is without conditioned air"

- Nestea ad, emphasis mine

"People speak in pentameter, we talk in verse. Prose is the more artificial mode."

- Old English tutor