the reader reading

‘A reader participates in the creative process when we let a work of art act
upon us as it acted upon the artist. To grasp its meaning, we must allow it to
shape us as it shaped him. . . plunged into the healing and redeeming depths of
the collective psyche. . . This re-immersion in the state of participation
mystique is the secret of artistic creation and of the effect which great art has
upon us.’ (Jung, 1971)

More here - http://www.falconastrology.com/pdfs/Fiction_in_Another_World.pdf - about 'participation mystique'; musings on how and why readers can become immersed in worlds that they know not to be 'true' nor even possible in some cases, but experience emotional responses as if they were.

Indigenous Literacy Day, September 5, 2007

An event that Australian book lovers and book shoppers might want to support:

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Our goal is to raise $100,000!

All Australians are invited to be a part of the inaugural Indigenous Literacy Day, Wednesday September 5, 2007.  Indigenous Literacy Day is a single event to help raise urgently needed funds to address the literacy crisis in remote Indigenous communities.

On Sept 5 participating booksellers will donate 5% or more of their takings to Indigenous Literacy Day.

All funds raised go directly to The Fred Hollows Foundation to buy books and other literacy resources for remote Indigenous communities in Northern Territory and New South Wales.
http://www.worldwithoutbooks.org/ILD.htm

Sydney Writers’ Festival director Wendy Were will chair a panel including David Malouf, Tara June Winch, Catherine Jinks and Tommy Murphy
State Library of NSW from 6pm. Entry is by gold coin donation. Tel: (02) 9273-1770 or email: karen@worldwithoutbooks.org.

Atwood quote

Just read this morning:

..By this time he is almost an anecdote, and Julie is almost old

The Bog Man, from Wilderness tips (short stories)

Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino

This is another one of my all time favourite authors. Picked this book up at the second hand book shop that also has a cafe and occasionally music in the courtyard, was very happy to get a copy. Such a slim little book, chock full of intense readerly experience. It made me think somehow of 'concentration' of reading experiences - remining me that some books are kind of full of air, the interesting thoughts are few and far between, they are like eating fluffy white bread that doesn't reallly nourish or engage you in digestion, you can eat slices and slices before feeling satisfied. Other books, like this one, are intense dark rye, where just a sliver has such intense flavour that you linger over the sliver, and need time before the next slice. That was a laboured way of saying that I'm reading this book slowly, that I've stopped just 2 chapters from the end, because I worry that I've whizzed through annd haven't really given it the time for ruminating that I'd like to. Every few pages I smile, or snort in happy recognition, or want to write down quotes, or draw it, or read it out loud to someone. It seem wry and full of amazing images and like a kind of mirage, hinting at meanings, showing them, obscuring them.

The stories are all about cities, tiny little vignettes of mystical cities, but the characteristics of these cities are the characteristics of our cities, all cities, of us, of all people. It maps the spread of fears and desires and movements and change and lack of change, of ritual and interractions. It has a reallly lovely texture about it.

Lighthousekeeping - Jeanette Winterson

"Words are the part of silence that can be spoken"

Well, I was excited a few months back to get this book from my local second book shop, one of the few of hers that I hadn't read. And I liked it. It is a fairytale of sorts, a few tales woven together - one of a young girl who is orphaned and goes to live in a lighthouse with Pew, an old blind man who can nonetheless 'see', and his ancestors, and a love and not love story of Dark, an unhappy and conflicted priest who inspires 'Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde', and also of fossils found on the cliffs of the oceanside town, which attract Darwin and his followers. It has lots of similar themes to her other works: dwells on the nature of love (Winterson is a big old softie and has great faith in romantic love as a force of transformation), identity, family ties (not the tv show), the joys of simple living, and the magical power of stories to create the world around us and the meaning the world has for us.

A passage about Dark:
"He grew to dread the hesitant tread on the stairs to his room that overlooked the sea. She carried the tray so slowly that by the time she reached his room the tea had gone cold, and every day she apologised, and every day he told her to think nothing of it, and swallowed a sip or two of the pale liquid. She was trying to economical with the tea leaves.
That morning, he lay in bed and heard the clinking of the tea cups on the tray, as she came slowly towards him. It would be porridge, he thought, heavy as a mistake, and muffins studded with raisins that accused him as he ate them. The new cook - her appointment - baked bread plain, and disapproved of 'fanciness' as she called it, though what was fancy about a raisin, he did not know."

Pew says:
"Don't regret your life, child. It will pass soon enough."

And later, the hero, grown up and in Italy:
"I unlatched the shutters. The light was as intense as a love affair. I was blinded, delighted, not just because it was warm and wonderful, but because nature measures nothing. Nobody needs this much sunlight. Nobody needs droughts, volcanoes, monsoons, tornadoes either, but we get them, because our world is as extravagant as a world can be. We are the ones obsessed with measurement. The world just pours it out."

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Not...telling...you...anything...about...what...happens!!

ha ha ha!

But anyway, a quick, entertaining and easy read, with what I thought was quite a populist ending.

Before I read this Harry book, I was discussing JK Rowling with my Ma In Law, who is a School librarian. We'd read an article criticising JK's writing (ie that it's not very good compared with the writing of other child classics). I have to say, there were moments where the writing seemed a bit Ludlum-ish, spelling out things instead of painting the picture for you, e.g.: "It was chaos!!". I hadn't really paid much attention to JK's writing before, and the story is usually engaging enough that you don't notice. Not sure if that says something about the plot or not? But we agreed in the end that anything that keeps kids reading is good.

* It's a bit silly, as my child is too young to watch movies or read on his own, but in my mind I've started partitioning books and films into:
a) ones I can watch with him or he can read himself one day soon
and
b) ones he can't watch/read until he's 15 or so
(ie children's versus grown up books/films)
Never used to discriminate. I suppose my brain is working out what I might do if I ever have much time to myself versus things I'll do with my son.

"Under Milk Wood", Dylan Thomas

I haven't read Dylan Thomas in a long time - probably the last time was high school english poetry.

Under Milk Wood is a radio play. There are so many beautiful bits I want to quote it all. Instead, here's a paragraph from the opening scene, describing the night:

"Hush, the babies are sleeping, the farmers, the fishers, the tradesmen and pensioners, cobbler, schoolteacher, postman and publican, the undertaker and the fancy woman, drunkard, dressmaker, preacher, policeman, the webfoot cocklewoman and the tidy wives. Young girls lie bedded soft or glide in their dreams, with rings and trousseaux, bridesmaided by glow-worms down the aisles of the organplaying wood. The boys are dreaming wicked or of the bucking ranches of the night and the jolly, rodgered sea. And the anthracite statues of the horses sleep in the fields, and the cows in the byres, and the dogs in the wetnosed yards; and the cats nap in the slant corners or lope sky, streaking and needling, on the one cloud of the roofs.
You can hear the dew falling, and the hushed town breathing."

Sure, it's of another time, but I can fully imagine a little Welsh town, asleep at night, while at the same time get an idea of all the people who live there. I love how he transposes adjectives - e.g. "wetnosed" used to describe the damp night yards the dogs are in instead of the dog itself.

This book is a Dylan Thomas omnibus, so hope to dip into some of his poems along the way.

After us they’ll fly in hot air balloons, coat styles will change, perhaps they’ll discover a sixth sense and cultivate it, but life will remain the same, a hard life full of secrets, but happy. And a thousand years from now man will still be sighing, “Oh! Life is so hard!” and will still, like now, be afraid of death and not want to die.
- Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Read these recently

The Pratchett was lent to me when I ran out of other things to read in Vietnam (apart from work books and really didn't want to read work books), the Phalahniuk was a airport impulse purchase, and the Ian Rankin was a birthday pressie from my flatmate. The green self help book was another impulse purchase when I was in the shop getting a copy for my other flatmate as a 'get well' present (she'd told me about it and said she'd like it).

Pratchett and rankin were as you'd expect. The Chuck book grated a bit at first with it's dense lists of factoids assembled as paragraphs (in the section 'people together' which are mostly essays for magazines on zany cultural events), but then became more interesting for me when he weaved in more personal stories (in the section 'portarits' and 'personal'). I think the one 'Almost California' about his own experience of going to LA for the making of the screenplay of fight club and the disconnect between his wildest dreams as a writer in the past and then what it felt like having those be realised is very poignant and extremely raw, very good stuff. That junction of writer as celebrity and writer as teller of eth story behind celebrity is interesting. The stories about his dad's recent murder were amazing. That this most horrible, pointless and suddent event is just woven into a couple of the stories makes it even more powerful - like you wonder 'fuck, how can he get it together to keep functioning and concentrating on all this other stuff when that has happened?' - his processing seems all the more powerful because it is restrained.

More on 'refuse to choose' later.

'Bluebeard's Egg' Margaret Atwood

This was unsettling really. A bit early 80's despair at impending nuclear winter and desperation in the face of tiny tight lives with unfeeling husbands, or egoistic young men picking up random women from grimy diners. I don't recommend it if you've recently had a break up or are feeling pesimistic about people. It's not all like this though, there are lots of larger than life characters, and interesting look at possible lives, ways of living lives.Loulou the hefty full-of-life potter who lives with a multitide of waifish poets who make fun of her and gather around her light with eagerness, and Yvonne the artist who lives alone and paints strange men, Emma who survives a boat down Niagra Falls and then beleives she is invincible, the narrator going home to her parents and watching her father get sick and time rush by, Joel the smug ideologue and activist who slowly drives his girlfriend to drastic actions... these people are jam-packed with hope and pain and confusion and wry humour. It's hard to read this and not see parts of yourself and the people around you.

'Yvonne has had to learn how to take care of herself; she didn't always know how. She's like a plant - not a sickly one, everone always comments on how healthy she always is - but a rare one, which can flourish and even live only under certain conditions. A transplant. She would like to write down instructions for hertself and hand them over to someone else to be carried out, but despite several attempts on her part this hasn't proved to be possible.'

The 'to read' pile

here are pictures of my 'to read' piles :) Not getting any smaller, but I have vowed to pause on my second hand book buying so that I might catch up a bit on the backlog waiting to be read.

"The Crying of Lot 49" by Thomas Pynchon

This is an interesting book, and one that I really don't know how to begin to describe. Perhaps with a loose synopsis of the plot, and we'll see what that brings forth.

Set in late 60's, main character, Oedipa, is a lady in her late 20's, is married to a disk jockey who questions the value of his profession (at least when he sold used cars, he did something solid). One day, Oedipa receives a notice that an ex-lover has died, and has made her co-executor of his estate. She heads off in her car to stay in the ex-lover's town and sort through the estate. She meets the lawyer who is her co-executor, has an extramarital fling, and they go out to a bar one night. In a toilet cubicle, she finds some graffiti with a strange symbol (like a musical horn) underneath with a message and a phone number. The rest of the book traces her attempt to find out the meaning of the symbol.

The symbol seems to be linked to a rogue mail service (that's right, we're talking postal services here). She goes to a play with her lover, and finds more references that seem to be linked to whatever she is hunting down. As she trawls through the ex-lovers' estate, she finds connections and references to the symbol. Her journey takes her to talk to English professors at nearby Universities, to shops selling rare editions of books, and up to San Francisco. At San Francisco, she wanders around through the night, finding symbols plastered around, helping an old down and out man to deliver mail to a loved one through the rogue mail service. She comes across a man in a gay bar who has sworn chastity, to avoid becoming reliant on another person.

I started to wonder at this point whether, given Oedipa's visit to San Fran is supposed in the late 60's, she might be on some giant acid trip. Next, she goes to visit her shrink, because she is aware she is paranoid about the whole symbol/mail service thing, and she isn't sure whether the whole thing is coincidental, whether the dead guy set it all up for her to find while executing his will or whatever. This is made worse when some people she is hunting down suddenly die or go missing. Her shrink has lost it when she arrives, and holds her hostage in his rooms. It he has some issues to resolve from working for the Nazi's during WW2. When she gets out and ambulances and police arrive, Oedipa is reunited with her husband, covering the siege for his radio station.

At this point, you realise she is not on acid, because her husband has taken up the habit since she left on her journey. He is openly taking drops of the stuff, and is losing touch with reality. And instead of being overly concerned, Oedipa heads off to continue attending to her ex-lover's estate for a bit. Then the novel ends quite suddenly when the meaning of the title is revealed.

What's it all about? Lots of things and nothing. It's mostly about counterculture, but in a strangely conservative and educated way. The main character gets engrossed and researches a topic much like a writer must when researching their novels. An interesting read.

Grave Secrets – Kathy Reichs

In brief: Trilingual Canadian forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan goes to Guatemala to help recover remains for reburial from mass killings of Mayan civilians during hideous military violence in civil war. Other wacky things happen to do with more murders, corruption and violence. She is sad and cranky and homesick in turn. She washes her knickers in the sink of the hotel room and suffers from no existential angst or self-doubt of any kind. She has wild crushes on French and Spanish speaking men who have integrity, rippling muscles and dry sense of humours (senses of humour?) who both seem growlingly hungry to get in her (freshly washed) knickers. She wears a size 6 jean and has fine features, a cat and a daughter who is self sufficient, blonde and has fine features, a good grade point average and is conveniently miles away.

Yes this was my aeroplane reading of choice from Sydney to Vietnam. I had a busy schedule of a) catch up on sleep b) eat things from tiny little boxes on little plastic trays and choose beverages to match c) reading. I also had Chuck Palanhiuk’s ‘Non-Fiction’ which is, funnily enough, a series of non fiction pieces about sex festivals, wrestling meets, why he writes etc. Good stuff, but not quite as well suited to the aeroplane read as a little bit of crime fiction with bone descriptions and mini tutorials on genetics to boot. Plus it was a pass-me-on from my mum, who also eagerly indulges in a bit of crime fiction (what used to be called ‘mystery novels’ – an interesting change in focus perhaps? Did we once like the mystery and now like the crime itself?) as a literary palette cleanser / fun read of choice, so I was keen to read it so we can talk about it later.

Did I like it? Well I finished it in the bath in the hotel room after I arrived, so I guess that’s a good sign. I liked the spatterings of description of Guatemala and had yearnings for colourful handmade textiles. I wondered where I might meet a dark eyed, squeaky clean and wildly competent South American detective who is hard with all the right people and soft with the rest. I wondered whether I might like to do what she does as a job. I marveled at the fact that Reichs in ‘real life’ both works as a forensic anthropologist and also writes crime fiction based on her work. That her first novel went (sorry, ‘shot’) to number one on the Sunday Times bestseller list and that this is her 5th and that this was written a few years ago so she’s probably written more since then. Marveled at how efficient some people are with their time, to be so prolific in outputs. Mused that she probably has better filing systems and cleaner house than I do, probably has very shiny white teeth and a house with oriental rugs. But that’s by the by.

A friend at work the other day happily admitted to reading crime fiction between her other books, saying that everyone has a genre that is their easy reading material. I was pleased to find another ‘accomplice’ and will probably offer this one to her next. I am unlikely to run out and hunt down her other books though, I didn’t care about her main character that much, and in any case, whilst happy to be a bit of an author hopper, maybe there are only so many gnarly detective characters you can attach to and identify with without getting mixed up and forgetting who was an alcoholic and who suffered from pain killer addiction; who is on and off again with which other law enforcement staff; and who is deeply psychologically wounded b y which spectacular homicide / marriage break up. And I think maybe my quota is full, with Marlowe, Kinsey Millhone, Phryne Fisher, Detective Rebus and the Nancy Drew and Miss Marple of my childhood. No offence temperance Brennan, I just think I’m all full-up for crime fiction heroes.

And some not so good books...

Tried to read "The Wasp Factory" by Iain Banks, but got maybe 5-6 pages in and lost interest. Basically the plot as I guessed it is this (written in first person of main character - say this out loud in weasely high pitched voice for full effect):
"Oh I'm such an outcast/psychopath/wierdo - let me freak you out by alluding, in a way that I think is really cunning, that I did some REALLY BAD THINGS, but first I'll let you know in dribs and drabs how unconventional my life is and how abusive my father was to our family, then I'll let you know what I did in the last few pages of the book so you have to read to the end".
Humble apologies to anyone who has read and like it. We'll just have to agree to disagree.

Read "A Month of Sundays: how to go travelling withough leaving home" by James O'Loghlin. The plan was to read it to get inspiration about places to go in Sydney while my husband was on leave for 6 or so weeks, and we had time to hang out, and go places we'd never been before together. Kept reading... a few places of interest mentioned... lots of bits about the author's middle class Canberran upbringing... bits he didn't like about his career as a criminal lawyer... Got near the end of the book, and was wishing there were a few more places of interest to me that he might suggest and review.
Then got to the epilogue, and I quote: "This isn't one of those books where the aim is to encourage you to go where the author went. In fact, if you do that you may be missing the point." Bummer. Should have mentioned that at the start of the book. The point of the book (that you never know what's less than an hour from your door if you just take the time to look!) wasn't interesting enough to resonate with me at all, as I've always been the type of person who likes exploring the city they're living in. I actually was looking for a kind of guide book for my city, in a novel form, but instead got stories of places that were kind of boring, middle class Canberra, and career crises.

"Timequake" by Kurt Vonnegut

We borrowed this from our local library after looking at "1001 books you must read.... etc" for inspiration of who/what to read.

This book starts off very unfocussed. It took me a while to work out where it was going. Fortunately, it was amusing and interesting enough to keep going. It jumps around between several threads - that of a writers clambake at Cape Cod, a timequake (I'll get to this later), and bits and pieces of what seems to be autobiographical material about Vonnegut's extended family and friends. I wasn't sure whether or not to believe some bits that appeared to be autobiograpical - did a quick wiki search on Kurt Vonnegut and it seems quite a lot of his life has been written about in this book (presuming whomever wrote the article was correct).

A Timequake is a wacky idea where time jumps back a number of years (in the book, it jumps back 10 years from 2001 to 1991), and everyone is forced to relive that parcel of time again, knowing what will happen next, but not being able to do a thing about it. People say the same things they said the first time, and do the same things they did first time around. Then, at the end "free will kicks in again" and people basically fall in heaps as they aren't accustomed to free will (and there are lots of accidents!). The author refers to the the first time he went from 1991-2001, when he was writing the first draft of the book. I can't help but think that the timequake is a creative metaphor for what it is like to re-write a book, because you or your publisher isn't satisfied - trawling through the plot... remembering why you wrote what you did... possibly arriving at the same point of view you did first time.

The whole novel is like sitting down and chatting to your eccentric great uncle or grandpa... and it's written from the viewpoint of an old man who wants to impart a few important messages in his book, about humanism, things that don't make sense, and what to celebrate in life. The author has lived an interesting and at times difficult life - his mother's suicide, 2 wives, fighting in WW2 and being held prisoner in Dresden (the topic of another of his novels, "Slaughterhouse 5"), a tragedy in his sister's family which leads to him adopting her 3 children on top of his 3 kids, being forced by his father to study science at college, but gradually trying to make a career out of writing, and moving away from his home state. I'd never heard of Vonnegut before, but suspect I'll read at least one more of his soon (especially if J lends one to me when she has finished it... :) .

January

So in January I enjoyed quite a bit of Christmas light reading. Just gobbled it down like it was a little piece of Christmas cake with a cup of tea. Read the two first 'Sunday Philosophy Club' books by Alexander McCall Smith, mostly I think because the main character was having even less of a social life / love life than me and I wanted her to get one. I kept hoping she'd jump out of character and madly shag the younger man, over the edge of a banister at a Edinburgh socialite party and scandalise all the other well ironed, well read, well spoken, nicely mannered welll behaved sorts. But she didn't, and neither did I. I finished 'Perfume' which I started just before Chrissie, and wondered if I was the only person left on the planet who hadn't read it. It made me worry for days about whether I was a bad person, whether I too was a dreadful narcissist - because I feel driven too sometimes (not to do awful things to people or steal their smells, just for the record) and am good at some things without knowing how or why. Are we starting to uncover a theme here - maybe I get too attached to the characters of books, too involved with the plot.

Then read an old Angela Carter I picked up second hand - only $4 thank you Glebe Books - 'Fireworks'. Hadn't read it before and quite liked it. Some short stories set in japan, quite a few nature themes, still fairytale-esque, gruesome, bleak, funny, one even a little bit sci fi in a 'when the revolution comes' kind of a way, some very self aware stories of the narrator in love. Liked it. All over the place, but somehow held together. Then started reading and still haven't finished an old second hand Margaret Atwood book of short stories 'Bluebeard's Egg' - at $12, not quite as good as Glebe Books but nice coffee, thanks Sappho Books. This has interesting connections to Angela Carter in some ways, as I think she also did a retelling of the Bluebeard's Egg fairytale, didn't she? Also as two very significant (I think) Northern Hemisphere female authors from the late 20th century, tackling edgy tales with a wry sense of humour and little squeamishness about human frailties... The Atwood collection I'm still going with. I think if anything, Atwood's work has a more consistent voice - these are all relationship stories, all set in the late 1970's, early 80's (it feels like) - and even though the perspectives shift around, the points change, the motivations and machinations shift about, the canvas is generally a relationship. But sad, or desperate, or louche, or self deluding, and often amusing. The Carter short stories covered more ground, had more breeze flowing through them, more shifting of the edges of things, were less 'even', in a way that I like.

Also on the 'to be continued' pile for January are the started but haven't got far Walt Whitman 'Leaves of Grass'. Started this around new years and made myself finish the poems Song of Myself and also I Sing the Body Electric, both of which I knew of and had seen snippets quoted from but not read. I know it's no great feat to read 2 single poems from a whole book, but it was a start, and to be honest I found 'Song of Myself' hard going in bits, because of the repetition, and because it's hard to sustain that sense of intense awe for as long as the poem goes. I am wowed by Whitman and even though he was an intense patriot, and that is very uncool these days (for lots of good reasons) he was so subversive in so many ways. His singing of praise for women as humans and sexual agents and moral beings who are not special wounded treasures or senseless voids is very cool for the mid-1800's. His abundance of feeling and his fascination with the world is lovely, if a little intense. It's all very mystical really, which is so not the image I had of him before I read his stuff - this bearded almost Hemmingway-esque man's man is what I had in mind - which in some ways he was, and in other ways not. (Which is not to say that Hemmingway wasn't moving too, just not so much into the magic of a leaf of a grass). A Deep Ecology posterchild, in verse.

Finally, on the 'ooops, didn't finish you or even really get much further into you' pile, is Fritjof Capra's 'Uncommon Wisdom'. I had been meaning to read his 'The Tao of Physics' or 'The Turning Point' for a while now and mum kindly hunted me down a copy of the Tao of Physics.. but for some strange reason I started with this one first. Why? Because I thought it was a series of interviews - possibly forgiveable given the subtitle 'Conversations with remarkable people'. However, little did I know, this is actually a 'the making of' book, which basically weaves its way through his own personal history to telll the story of him writing the other two books, his own personal journey and the people he met along the way that inspired him. I think this is like watching a detailed 'making of' for a movie that you haven't read yet - probably not such a hot idea. I think I will keep going, especially because his meetings with Schumacher are yet to come, but overall I'm not such a fan of the structure or the writing style. I'm hoping the other ones were written in the heat of the rapture and this one is the retelling after the meal has gone cold, because otherwise I'm going to wonder what all the excitement was about with the others. I suspect I''ll still be reading this one come Christmas. I suspect that avoiding it was half the momentum for my other reading this month.

Oh I also started, accidentally*, Eckarte Toll's 'the Power of Now', which I almost deliberately didn't mention because it sounds so woo woo 'I swim with dolphins'. Which I don't, but actually would quite like to. And it in some ways is, and in many ways isn't. I think I quite respect him for having the guts to be raw and open and speak honestly with the world about the way he sees it. And even though that's paid off, in a material sense, you get the feeling that material gain wasn't where he was coming from. He apparently spent almost a year (I'm making the details of this bit up - too lazy to go find the book and find that bit to verify) sitting on a park bench, with no actual job or income, having given up everything after he had his revelation, processing, and thinking about how to do good in the world. And of course you could argue that he'd had a psychotic episode (any sudden flashes of meaning are routinely interpreted as mental illness in our society?), perhaps he just did let go of a heap of crap and suddenly want to share that new vision with people. Anyway. It is quite gentle and makes a lot of interesting points. I just haven't been able to finish it yet because it may require some actual response on my behalf, and I haven't wanted to engage. It is second only to Fritjof on my avoiding list.

*Grabbed offf housemates shelf, flicked and then absentmindedly carried to couch for chapter reads

Aunty B's book shelf floweth over

Hi fellow booknerds! I seem to be reading faster than I'm blogging at the moment. Must be those dragging summer sun-filled days. So if you're hungry to find out what's been in the bedside pile at B's - you get to vote! (And I don't mean dirty socks and knickers either) Would you rather hear about:

Clash of the fundamentalisms - Tariq Ali
Reading Lolita in Tehran - Azar Nafisi
Playboy Book of Short Stories - Various, including Keroauc, Nabokov et al
100 Years of Solitude - Gael Garcia Marquez
The Infinite Plan - Isabel Allende
The Men Who Stare at Goats - Jon Ronson
Dead Famous - Ben Elton

Ooh the tension is almost too much to bear.

"Stiff", by Shane Moloney

I read this basically to shut my Dad up, as he had been raving about these Shane Moloney books since October when he came to visit.

To quote Tony Wilson (another author): "His sentences have an effortless grace and humour and he brings Melbourne to life on the page." The writing is very easy to read, with casual humour inserted throughout, and metaphors and common sayings slightly twisted to suit the context of the story in a way that makes you laugh out loud, briefly. It's also good to read something Australian, set in an Australian city that I have visited many times.

This story is the first in a series, about a guy who works as an assistant to a State Labor MP in Melbourne's ethnically diverse northern suburbs. He's asked to look into the circumstances behind a death in an abattoir located in the electorate, to make sure there won't be any union or IR implications for the government. As he delves deeper and deeper into the characters involved, and series of chaotic events unravel in his personal life, involving his unofficially separated wife who has taken up a position in Canberra, his 7 year old son, whom he stuggles to pick up from school on time, and the roof on his house, which inconveniently collapses in the middle of all the action and during the middle of a rainy week.

Anyhow, all is revealed and resolves itself in the end. I have no idea how this character manages to have a series or mystery novels written about him given his profession (ie not a detective, but then neither was Miss Marple), but I don't think I am intrigued enough to find out. Not bad, easy to read, and entertaining enough to make you want to see how it ends.

Holiday reading

I have a new years resolution (a real, heartfelt one, not a token one) to read more and watch less telly. Not that re-runs of The Bill at 2pm during E-chan's nap, or watching television series on dvd aren't a good way to spend your time, but I have more energy now that bub is 7 months old and have less need for passive entertainment like telly and radio.

So I thought during my recent trip to Adelaide, I should get at least one book finished. I'll get to that in a minute (above). I tried to read "The Guns of Navarrone" by Alister Maclean, which I grabbed off my parent's bookshelves, but about 10 pages in, I realised I wasn't going to finish it in time and wasn't interested enough to take it with me. Kind of a boys own adventure set in the WW2 mediterranean where the good old Allies hatch up a "daring, but it's just crazy enough to work" plan to shoot down some troublesome and strategically placed Axis guns (back then, the Axis was the Gerries and the Italians, and the Japs of course, but on the other side of the globe). Would have been good to read as a teenager, but alas that time has long past.

I'm beginning to think I'm not a fast reader. I stop and think too much, try to absorb every sentence, when some text should be skimmed over more. That must be why I've never finished epics like "lord of the rings" or dense work like that of Umberto Eco. However, I will get there one day. Perhaps I will linger less on every sentence as my reading picks up again.

The reason why I'm thinking about my reading speed is that over our holiday, C-chan got through a lot more.... Now that he isn't studying, he is really chewing through the books. I'll post about that, because I'm not sure he'll ever get around to it, despite being invited to join this blog a few times, and I'm ashamed to say, I'm to some extent living my life of books through him. He read half an Orwell omnibus ("Animal Farm" and "1984" - he's not sure he's actually ever read them before. I read them as a teenager, and remember them so vividly - talking about these books again made me curious about Orwell's less famous works, which are also meant to be good). He also read half of "1001 books you must read before you die", which he was given for xmas and any of you are welcome to browse through when you come over if you are stuck for ideas on what to read!

Before xmas, he read "Against a Dark Background" by Iain M Banks (which I also read many years ago, and remember enjoying) - a science fiction novel set way way into the future. Basically an adventure novel, in a time when people are not restricted by resources, science, or technology. Pure fantasy, I know, but Banks writes in a way that is interesting - the people and their flaws and desires are still the centre of his sci fi writing, it just happens to be in set in a fantastic backdrop. I don't read all that much fantasy or Sci fi, but read quite a few of Bank's stuff about 10 years ago. I'm hoping to read some of his regular fiction soon ("The Business", or "The Wasp Factory").

Finally, back to what I actually am reading: "A Month of Sundays" by James O'Loghlin of "the new inventors" fame and "Baby & Toddler Meals" by Robin Barker, which is a cook book I borrowed from my local library for inspiration.

And what I didn't read was also great

Check out this funny post of reviews of books not read in 2006 - I love the idea and plan to make up wild stories about all the books I didn't read in 2006.

Getting it Right (Heat 10, New series, 2005) - edited by Ivor Indyk

Aunty B got me a magazine (which is actually a bound book) on sale; one of those arty little anthologies of local writers - with short fiction, poetry and essay - called 'Heat 10 - Getting it Right'. Published for the Writing and Social Research Group at the university of western sydney.

Judging a book by its cover
Before I talk about the contents I must confess that I always find these things a little bit daunting - a little bit in-house and cosed door. The way this book is graphically designed is a bit off-putting, there's no easy to find by-line that helps you to figure out exactly what the thing is that you're holding in your hand. For example if it just said on the cover 'short fiction and non-fiction by Sydney writers Summer 2005' you would actually know what it was. As it is the title 'getting it right' implies to the lay reader that there is an actual theme, or some overarching question that this collection is addressing - but that doesn't seem to be the case. You don't know what the magazine *is* or who puts it together, or what it's focus is until after you've squirreled away in the inside first pages and pieced together a bit of a jigsaw. So I guess my general coment there is - hello, people, if you want to share what you do with more people, don't scare them away with cryptic cover art and maybe invest in a catchy para on the back cover that talks up what your publication is (how about 'Heat is an annual magazine showcasing edgy and provocative writers from Western Sydney who explore contemporary social issues... ' or whatev).

It's what's on the inside that counts
Anyways. I did the flick and dip style holiday couch and cup of tea read, and very much enjoyed the following:
- A short description of and some reproductions of Angela Brennan's beautiful text paintings .
- A longer piece called 'Badly hurt and beautifully loved' by Peter Kirkpatrick on John Laws (yes that John Laws, and the title is actually one of Johns') and the poetry he has written and published. It looks at Laws' views of masculinity and sensitivity, of romantic love and of his slightly inconsistent contempt for that high fandangled booklearnin'. It is a serious review and cultural analysis but with a strongly bemused tone, as it is fairly clear that, in a nutshell, the writer thinks his poetry sucks, big time. I would rewrite some of John's verse here but I really can't bear to as it is pretty awful.
- A short story called 'the dark wet' about a girl travelling in India, by Jess Huon
- A poem I liked about tequila versus wine by Anna Jackson because it was all very topical what with the silly season silliness and a few hangovers on my mind. Here it is (and if you like it she has a new book out which you can read about here):

A beautiful theory isn't a poem, James

I still haven't written a duck poem although
the duck was good, what can I say, was so

good, but now it is more like three weeks later
that I am once again leaving an elevator

with James, and I have a theory I want to unfold
to him about tequila and wine: how wine will hold

the moment open in all its ripeness and let you sit
in the present tense for an evening, but tequila, it

is like a terrible vortex drink, that tries to pull
all the future and all the past into the swirl

of the moment you drink it in, and there you are
trying to relive some other night at another bar

on someone else's lap and James is referring to that
conversation you've never even had with him yet

about Diana's apples and the next morning, your
hangover is not at all the wistful melancholic despair

for the future and regret for the past that wine
induces, but an unrelenting present tense return

to precisely the moment you were trying to swill
yourself out of, a moment all the worse for being full

of you, and what you did. So, I get out of the elevator
three days after the tequila night, reborn as a stater

of tequila theory, and now James is waiting for me
to put it all into a poem. But a beautiful theory

isn't a poem, James. A beautiful theory is only
a theory.