Life happens between drafts.

WoTD: ne plus ultra

2010-04-13T20:27:00.001+10:00

Definitions:
1. The highest point, as of excellence or achievement; the acme; the pinnacle; the ultimate.

2. The most profound degree of a quality or condition.

Arnold aspired to greatness. He worked long and hard at perfecting his craft and even harder at self promotion. His single minded obsession to gain fame earned him a reputation and notoriety amongst his peers. He longed for more, for recognition from the everyday man, the person in the street who mixed in circles other than his own. The ne plus ultra was for Arnold DiSilva to be a household name like Da Vinci, Picasso and Van Gogh. But his peers could see what he could not. If he achieved fame for anything, it would be for his arrogance and ego, not for the talent that he lacked.

BR: Immortality (Milan Kundera)

2010-03-08T18:12:00.000+11:00

A friend loaned me this book, confiding that it's one of her favourites and taught her a lot about the meaning of life.

The back cover reveals little about the novel, instead -- as is the modern style -- it features snippets of reviews as if to say 'these people think the book is great, so will you.'

I found an overview online, At least this gives part of an impression of what will come.

Synopsis (http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/k/milan-kundera/immortality.htm):

Milan Kundera's sixth novel springs from a casual gesture of a woman to her swimming instructor, a gesture that creates a character in the mind of a writer named Kundera. Like Flaubert's Emma or Tolstoy's Anna, Kundera's Agnes becomes an object of fascination, of indefinable longing. From that character springs a novel, a gesture of the imagination that both embodies and articulates Milan Kundera's supreme mastery of the novel and its purpose; to explore thoroughly the great, themes of existence.

The book started well; the prose poetic, longing, rich and detailed with a tainted worldiness that hooked me in. Divided into seven parts, I worked through part one with a heady sense of wonder, luxuriating in the complexity of the author's mind and delighting in the philosophical wanderings of a writer whom blends himself into his work. The female character engaged me and I sympathised with her. She wasn't around long enough for me to connect.

Part two began to bog down, but I persevered, aware that the fictional nature of the work had crossed over into the realm of non-fiction, yet without going all the way there. I felt that the author held strong views about life, love, human connectedness and the ongoings of select historical figures but lacked the determination to pursue them other than in idle daydreams.

As the book progressed, I laboured forward. I felt trapped inside the author's head, locked in a theatre of his mind with his theories, his values, his moral questions and hypotheses. The characters lusted and toyed with each other in a bitter orgy of misplaced emotions and deviant motivations.

Yes, in places the author's insight impressed me. I thought outside of the square, but as the chapters laboured on and the same themes repeated in different ways, I grew bored.

This novel best suits academia where students can pore over the words, compare the text with other masters and engage at great length in discussion about the meaning and intent. It is well written and obscure enough to appeal to intellects who long to unearth its secrets. As a writer, however, I approach reading from another angle, not from the intellectual challenge it might bring but from the emotions it can evoke. This story tells a story and offers up a paradigm shift in how the reader might view their relationships and lives, but it doesn't offer an experience, a sensory world between the written lines. I seek that.

I acknowledge that I wouldn't make a good academic intellectual. I don't read to learn, I read to feel, and through feeling, to become more than I am. This isn't my type of book, but that doesn't make it bad. In fact, it's not. Maybe in another time I'll give it another try. Maybe.

WoTD: arcanum

2010-02-24T20:59:00.068+11:00

definition:

1. A secret, a mystery.

2. Specialised or mysterious knowledge, language, or information that is not accessible to the average person (generally used in the plural).

Pop once said that the secret of life lay not in the living of it, but in the study of those who came before. He lived that advice, reading volume after volume of historical text in preference to stepping out to live his own. I long thought he did it because he could not walk, but then I saw him hurry down his back steps to shoo the neighbour's cat from out of the yard. Then I figured he did it because he feared life beyond the safety of his front gate, until I happened across him at the local library, chattering away to the librarian as though he had known her his whole life. In the later years he hosted clandestine meetings in his basement for men who wore dark clothes and carried dusty old tomes. I wondered if he were a cult leader, but what kind of cult would my grandfather lead?
As I grew into adolescence and my grandfather into old age, I wearied of trying to figure him out. He was an arcanum and I lacked sufficient wisdom and persistance to figure him out.

WoTD: fructuous

2010-02-23T13:30:00.000+11:00

definition: fruitful, productive

The stakes, over two metres high and set into the ground at regular intervals across the length and width of the paddock, supported an intricate trellis of wire and netting. One foot high seedlings dotted the tilled earth like an army of forest green cow pats. Twenty thousand dollars and the future of two familes rested on those herbaceous clumps and so very much could go wrong.
George leaned on the strainer post and rubbed his back. Eddie did the same to his own though no amount of rubbing could ease the deep ache.
"Should have hired someone," George said.
"Couldn't afford it."
George bent a little as though the weight of the field and all it represented rested on his shoulders. He nodded, resigned. In the distance as two tanned, slow moving dots, Norma and Eloise finished the last of the stakes.
"If this is anything other than a fructuous endeavour, we lose everything. You know that."
Eddie's skin prickled. "Yeah. I know it."

WoTD: fractious

2010-02-22T23:04:00.000+11:00

definition:

1: tending to cause trouble, unruly.

2: irritable; snappish; cranky.

My moods take me, at random, to squarish places in windowless rooms. Inside those confines, I war against a fractious enemy, a despicable, angry warlord consumed by venom and spite. It wages against me, tireless and irrational, ever yapping like a rabid Chihuaha on a monster's leash, all fangs, froth and torment. Respite, heavy and numb, comes with slow regard, unwrapping leaf by leaf, strip by strip, taking me apart in pieces, separating and reassembling, making me whole again. I am savoured -- saved -- until next time. Random.

WoTD: duplicity

2010-02-19T18:38:00.000+11:00

definition:
1: deliberate deceptiveness in behaviour or speech; also, an instance of deliberate deceptiveness; double dealing.
2: the quality or state of being twofold or double.

I saw her on Tuesdays and Thursdays, a waif-like creature camped out by the city market, two bags by her side, a dog in her lap. Each week she wore the same t-shirt, faded black, long-sleeved, the cuffs torn and frayed. Her presence, ritualistic and shameful, struck a sympathetic chord in me. Whenever I walked past I dropped some coins or a five dollar note onto the footpath beside her. Not too much money, I thought, for fear she would use it for drugs, but enough to buy a meal, or some socks, or food for her dog.

Months passed and I developed a habit, a need, a ready discharge of my societal guilt. Never once did I ask if she needed more, nor did I offer it.

Then, she disappeared.

I dismissed her absence on the first day, comforting myself that even vagrants had responsibilities, but by the next Thursday the vacant place by the wall distressed me. I lingered for a long time with coins warm in my hand; needing answers, an explanation. I felt cheated. She and I had a deal, an unspoken agreement, a passing of financial fortune to one less fortunate. She had no right to reneg. Eventually I accepted that she had.

It's been weeks now and she has not returned. I am helpless to uncover the truth. I satisfy my curious turmoil by tarnishing her memory, slating her as a deceptive cheat, a trickster who feigned poverty to exact a complex and measured duplicity. Probably she was affluent and bored, testing society's generosity by behaving like a homeless person. If I never learn otherwise, that is how I will remember her. It's easier that way.

WoTD: coquetry

2010-02-12T17:35:00.001+11:00

Definition:
1. dalliance, flirtation

Marion danced with the lustful, uninhibited vigour of a gypsy temptress. Her hair, earlier coiled and knotted at the crown of her head, now flicked and trailed, a glorious russet mane as bold and liberated as she. Her dance partner, a solid gentleman with an unfortunately protruding chin and unflattering rim of stomach fat, lumbered in false step behind her. He lasted one waltz – attributable to her generous nature – before she fell out of sync and wafted into the arms of another. Her manner and allure might have been interpreted as blatant coquetry, a threat to any attached women who dared to allow their men to fall prey. Yet the women offered no challenge and the men knew better.

Later, when the dance ended and the couples went home, Marion stayed behind and danced in the silence, her footfalls a quick step on polished boards. No man waited for her. No woman lingered to defend her territory. Marion danced alone.

WoTD: mondegreen

2010-02-01T21:35:00.000+11:00

Definition: a word or phrase resulting from a misinterpretation of a word or phrase that has been heard.

Seated against the wall, pinned flat by the music, my spinal fluid oscillating to the pounding pop beat, I mimed songs from my adolescence and bobbed my head to a rhythm long forgotten. Alone and off to the side, I blended into the faux brickwork and maintained just enough motion so as to guarantee invisibility. Over the crackling speakers and vacuous hiss of forty year olds reliving their youth, Cyndi Lauper screeched and whined about how girls just wanted to have fun. Back then, like now, I struggled to unravel the definition of the three letter word. While my peers had danced, sang and kissed their way through their high school years, I, in comparative solitude, read books, wrote stories and imagined freedom. Not a lot had changed in those intervening years.

"C'mon, get up and dance. You're missing all the fun."

I smiled at the owner of the voice, a woman I hardly recognised. We had been friends once, long ago. I had a hazy recollection of school hallways, lockers and whispered words. She fitted in there somewhere.

The track changed, on came Madonna with her swooning Spanish ballad, la isla bonita. The woman sat beside me, her thighs touching mine. She held a glass with shimmering, bubbling liquid and her breath smelled sour. We sang together, fumbling the words.

"... a young girl with eyes like potatoes," I sang, loudly. The woman leaned in, laughed, her forehead momentarily resting on my shoulder as she mimicked the words. The deliberate lyrical mondegreen built a bridge between us and I remembered then what had connected us as children. I smiled.

WoTD: vicissitude

2010-01-01T15:21:00.000+11:00

Definition:

Regular change or succession from one thing to another; alternation; mutual succession; interchange.
Irregular change; revolution; mutation.
A change in condition or fortune; an instance of mutability in life or nature (especially successive alternation from one condition to another).

Nature's seasonal vicissitude wore Norm down. Sure, the four seasons offered a measure of diurnal predictability, scheduled long and short days and those in between where the sun, low down and lacking in heat, chased frost across the ground, but from year to year he endured torturous unpredictability. Three years ago, in spring no less, a howling sandstorm blew in from the west and scraped two inches of topsoil from every one of his paddocks. All his seed went with the wind. Five thousand dollars gone in just a few hours. Then the summer rains, regular for December, failed to arrive. December burned into January and still no rain. That was three years ago and the experts called it a climate change induced drought. Norm thought otherwise and hung on when other farmers gave up. He believed in cycles, in seasonal patterns, in the regular succession and order of things. The rain would come. It had to, and until it did, he would suck it up and endure. It's what Anderson men did.

WoTD: hauteur

2009-12-29T18:40:00.007+11:00

Definition:
1: haughty manner, spirit, or bearing; haughtiness; arrogance.

In the balcony seat elevated above the stage, Madeleine arranged herself into the pose of a royal princess, her gloved hands prim atop her skirted knees, her feet smart in spit shiny shoes. Pantomime light gathered on her face, seeking to lighten and engage. It failed. Though only twelve years old, Madeleine's upstart manner, stiffly raised chin and aloof gaze betrayed burgeoning arrogance. The child emulated her mother, a woman with the inbred hauteur of third generation aristrocracy leavened on a shoestring budget. Worse than a true blue blood with wealth to their name, the Carson's affluence bought only so much. It did not buy respect.

WoTD: embonpoint

2009-12-26T19:17:00.019+11:00

Definition:
1: plumpness of person; stoutness

Her embonpoint, so massive that she turned sideways to walk through the door, failed to bother her as it did her husband. Ray, himself so stout that he sat on the toilet seat to urinate because he could no longer reach his genitals by hand, glowered at her from across the room. She cast him a vagrant smile then wafted -- well, lumbered actually -- over to the couch. Steering herself around like a huge double decker bus, she lined up her massive behind with the cushions and lowered herself down. Partway there her knees gave out and down she went like an out of control truck. Her buttocks collided with a meaty thunk that punished the couch cushions and tortured the springs. Wheezing out a breath, she settled herself comfortably, deliberately ignorant of Ray's condescending stare.
"Two can play this game, dear," she said. "Remember who started it."
His grumbled response made her laugh.

WoTD: lambent

2009-12-25T14:16:00.003+11:00

Definition:
1: playing lightly on or over a surface; flickering; as "a lambent flame; lambent shadows"
2: softly brightly or radiant; luminous; as "a lambent light"
3: light and brilliant; as "a lambent style; lambent wit."

We hid in the shadows, Hester and I, our skirts over our knees, our socked feet itching from the cold. We should have been in bed but not even the fear of father finding us stopped us from being there. From our vantage point atop the stairs, we watched the men seated around the table. There were five of them, Shannon O'Dwyer the youngest at seventeen, a carrot top with eyes too big for his head, and his father, Matthew, the oldest at a number I couldn't remember let alone imagine. Father sat with them, his dark hair long around his face, his shoulders stooped as though weighed by a burden I could not see. The men were there for him, to help him, that much I knew. They sat in the near dark and talked in low tones, conspiring. The only light came from the fireplace, orange flames that tossed lambent light into the room, an ineffective panacea to the dark gloom and famished desperation. The light didn't reach my father. I doubted anything now could.

WoTD: clinquant

2009-12-23T22:14:00.002+11:00

Definition:
1: glittering with gold or silver; tinseled
2: tinsel; imitation gold leaf.

When I returned home summer had turned to autumn and the trees were beginning to lose their leaves. I spent much time outside, working the garden, pulling weeds, emptying bag upon bag of junk from dad's garage. The more I took away the more there seemed to be there as though a part of him refused to let go of all he had amassed -- refused to give way to my need to grieve. When I had done all I could, which was much less than I had wanted, I started the long walk back to Ron's house. The sun set before me, running beams through the trees like blades through crystal. Twinkling light, a clinquant cast on dying leaves, offered an ethereal beauty that would bewitch if I so allowed it. I wouldn't, not anymore. I had grown wise.

WoTD: collude

2009-12-22T08:47:00.006+11:00

Definition: to act in concert; to conspire; to plot.

"How did you get it done?"
"I had help."
"From the big guns?"
"Maybe."
"I wouldn't say maybe. I'd say definately. You don't get this kind of thing done in two days unless you've had help. Big help. This reeks of some serious conspiring."
"Maybe."
"Who'd you collude with? No way did you organise this on your own. It was Sheena, wasn't it? She's well connected. She could get this done."
"I'm not saying."
"You don't need to. I'll figure it out. You're not that smart."

GB: Avatar

2009-12-21T12:13:00.001+11:00

It's a rare event for me to go to the cinema to see a movie. My preference, nowadays, is to watch dvd's. It's cheaper, more comfortable and there are no theatre ushers to complain about feet on seats, hot food or noisy talking. Plus, you can pause, rewind or fast forward. Imagine doing those things in a cinema.

Avatar is different. It's not a movie, it's an experience. Or as one reviewer recently wrote: 'it's an EVENT'. For $16 and the small discomfort of wearing 3D glasses for two hours and forty minutes, I traveled to another world, a place never imagined but so real, so tangible, so convincing that I accept it into my understanding of all that exists as true.

The story is captivating and engaging. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic war veteran, adopts his dead brother’s avatar in an attempt to win the trust of the indigenous people (the Na’vi) so that he can negotiate their relocation. Their village rests over an immense and valuable mineral store. Either the Na’vi must be moved or be killed – the latter being an acceptable final option. Jake’s reward for a successful infiltration will be surgery to restore the use of his legs. The prize is personal and he is highly motivated to bewitch and betray. I cared for him. I cared about the outcome, about what is at stake for him and the physical and emotional toll of the work. Moreover I cared about the people he is charged with displacing.

The events unfold at a kaleidoscopic pace and though the story is not new – really, what story is – the presentation knocks this film out of the ball park. The people, plants and creatures are so realistic, magnificent and awesome that it contorts my mind to remind myself that they are fantasy. Ordinarily, CGI work, regardless of how well crafted, is unable to trick the mind. I watch and engage but do not believe beyond the adventure that plays out before me. The deception fails to endure. This was not the case with Avatar.

The environment is depth perfect; finely rendered with light, colour, contrast, movement, perception and contour. Forests are rich from the upper canopy to the soil and shrub layer. Sky islands tower and cluster, suspended by a force beyond our known physics. Trees, monumental in size and height, form branched bridges hundreds of feet above the ground. Beautiful, fragile jelly-like illuminated floating seeds waft and throb with a life force barely imagined, and flying, pterosaur-like creatures with skins of stunning mosaics soar and glide as though woven to the sky. Height features heavily in many scenes and acrophobics may need to buckle themselves in.

The Na'vi are as stunning as their environment. These people, so very human and yet distinctly not, bewitched me. Tall, lithe and agile, they are sculpted humans with cat-like ears and sweeping tails. They live as one with the forest, trusting and accepting the right of all to life and liberty. They accept Jake’s avatar as one of their own and train him to communicate and bond with the animals. Eventually they make him a Na’vi warrior though they know he is one of the sky people (a human imposter). Not all humans have been so accepted and it seems to me that, despite his conscious deception, they knew him better than he knew himself.

An environmental, sociological and philosophical message throbs deep within the narrative. One reviewer suggested that the story was written by an ‘aging hippy’, and maybe that’s the case but the beauty of this film is that the viewer can choose to be affected (and changed) by the subtext or to be innocently entertained. The delivery is the magic.

The climax, catastrophic and demanding, is long, enduring and emotionally draining but oh so deliciously daring and visually wrenching. Played out in unparalleled 3D, I dare anyone to watch and hold their popcorn steady throughout.

I can’t wait to see it again! I just have to save up another $16 and find someone who wants to come with me. Any takers?

WoTD: gourmand

2009-11-28T18:15:00.005+11:00

Definition:
1. One who eats to excess
2. A lover of good food.

Usage note: A gourmet is one who has discriminating taste in food and wine. A gourmand is one who enjoys food of fine quality, and also one who enjoys food in great quantities. Glutton signifies one who simply eats to excess, without reference to the quality of the fare consumed.

Kevin ate with the aloof discrimination usually reserved for a gourmet. From appetizer to dessert, the man allowed only the finest foods, the rarest wines, the most delectable morsels to grace his palate. He cared not at all for price, for scarcity, for the toil involved in preparation -- which most often he paid vast sums of money for others to complete -- he cared only for quality and quantity, especially the latter. He wolfed down meals with the ferocity and speed of a Texan at an eating contest. No one could match the gourmand's abilty to consume so much food in such short sittings. If it weren't for his fine taste he would have earned the lesser tag of a common glutton.

WoTD: provender

2009-11-27T18:13:00.001+11:00

Definitions:
1. Dry food for domestic animals, such as hay, straw, corn, oats, or a mixture of ground grain; feed.
2. Food or provisions.

They packed the wagons, he and Tom, while storm clouds darkened the sky and a fierce wind whipped the yard. Getting everything on board took two dozen trips back and forth from the store shed, carrying everything on foot across the yard and over the fence because they couldn't find the key for the lock on the gate and Dash wouldn't let them break it. His arms ached, his legs the same. Tom looked worse, grey and weak, his hair sweat-plastered to his forehead and a palsied tremor that wobbled him when he walked.
"Take a rest," he said. "I'll get the rest."
Tom nodded, grim faced, and kept working. The animals, three horses, two cows, several goats and a pig, young but showing the massive size it would become, grazed the temporary paddock. The provender, a mix of grain, hay and pellets, took up most of the space in the wagon. The food for the men, pitiful in quantity and worse in variety, stood in boxes by the wheels. He wondered how they would fit the boxes on board, then cast the problem aside. Dash would figure it out, that was his job.

WoTD: brobdingnagian

2009-11-26T18:00:00.001+11:00

Definition:
1. Of extraordinary size; gigantic; enormous.

Webber's eyes boggled, his hands flapped. "It's... it's..."
"It's what?" O'Toole smoothed the paper, set the fountain pen on the desk, the ink still drying. He stood. "What's out there?"
"I've never seen such a thing. It's girth is inconcievable. The breadth and height are such I've never witnessed in my entire life. It's gigantic, massive, stupendously ginormous."
"What on earth are you talking about?" O'Toole moved around the desk, walked to the window. Drawing the curtain aside, he looked out. The sight rocked him backwards and his mind blanked.
"It's brobdingnagian," Weber said, awestruck.
"Yes," O'Toole managed after a long moment. "Yes, it is."

I'll let you decide what it is the two men saw.

WoTD: martinet

2009-11-25T17:42:00.001+11:00

definition (person):
1. a strict disciplinarian
2. one who lays stress on a rigid adherence to the details of forms and method

"You will not learn, stupid girl!"
Startled upright, Georgia's body assumed a rigid posture before her eyes focussed on the speaker. Mr Jewel filled the doorway, his arms folded over his chest in a military pose that suited the uniform but not the wearer. The lapels on his shoulders stood upright like beaten wings seeking to take flight and depart the ill-worn costume.
"Polish with your left hand, buff with your right, clockwise motion," he said as though speaking with a stone in his mouth and an equally unrelenting hard object stuck up his ass. "The fabric must contact the surface twelve times clockwise and twelve times counter-clockwise."
It sounded even more ridiculous when he said it like that. "Yes sir, but--"
"No buts. Would you prefer to be outside with the others, running drills?"
"No."
"Then polish properly. Do it again until you get it right."
With aching limbs, a throbbing head and a creeping desire to do away with Mr Jewel in a most untidy manner, Georgia moved past the grossly authoritarian martinet, knelt and applied a thin smear of polish to the door knocker. He stood over her, head cocked to the side, observing like a hawk scanning a field for mice.

WoTD: benison

2009-11-24T20:12:00.002+11:00

Definition: blessing, benediction.

On his knees, hands bound behind his back, feet grazed and bare, Joshua accepted the malevolent benison with uncharacteristic demurity. His eyes were closed, his expression slack, a listless slump to his shoulders that I had never seen before. Falconer stood over him, tall and proud, victorious, his forearm extended as though holding a gun. His hand was empty of a weapon, still my heart beat fast, and I struggled against my bonds as Joshua should have struggled against his. As I watched, Falconer formed a symbol with his thumb and touched it to Joshua's forehead. My pulse spiked, hands fisted and a bitter taste flooded my mouth. I choked on my response, aware that unless Joshua fought back soon, it would all be over.

This is my first attempt to use the word of the day in a sentence or paragraph of writing. Let's hope I didn't get it completely wrong. I trust someone, one day, will tell me if I have.

GB: Going back to school

2009-11-24T19:34:00.002+11:00

The next three years are slated for debt repayment, technically, it's more than three years but the contemplation of the continuation of my financial misery beyond that time is outside the realms of sane comprehension. While I'm languishing in the poverty pit -- house bound, socially isolated and unable to recreationally travel further than I can spit -- I might as well acquire some useful knowledge.

Three years is coincidentally the same length of time it takes to get a degree. I don't have one. I have two half baked ones, but not a whole one. I don't regret that fact, I do, however, long to expand my literary education, increase my vocabulary and bolster my writing portfolio and skill. I don't need a degree to do any of that. In fact, having a literary degree could hinder me, so I've heard, been told and unfortunately witnessed.

I have the internet. I have a home library that would make many bookworms green with envy, and when that runs out I have access to local and state libraries where the print pages stretch as far as the eye can see. I have the desire to learn. Motivation could be an issue but that's where my blog comes in.

The syllabus isn't worked out yet, but I envisage setting assignment type tasks such as short story writing, critiquing of original fiction written by others, a daily sentence using the latest word of the day (thanks Dictionary.com), continued work on my novel, book reviews and lots of reading of fiction and non-fiction, including classics, poetry, short stories and novels. Oh, and to jazz things up, some set tasks such as listening to podcasts, doing writing assignments based on weird and wacky prompts and regular submission of new writing to the online critique site. If I become really courageous, some competition submissions. Hmm, maybe that will be a second year requirement.

Regular critiquing though, is a requirement. I will critique the work of others, and submit my own for feedback. The submission of one new story per month (minimum) will be a solid enough goal to keep me motivated, but not be too much of a diversion from my novel. Word count will range from 1,500 to 5,000, depending on how carried away I get. As for critiquing other people's work, one new critique (minimum) per week is reasonable.

Work on my novel will continue, and will take precedent. I'm loathe to set word counts or requirements because I tend to break them the moment I set them. Thirty minutes per day is my minimum exposure to my novel, with a preference for an hour. The morning commute gets me the thirty minutes. By evening, after a day of brain-drain, I'm more suited to blogging and simple creativity. Codee does my head in! This must change, and will change. I'm just not prepared to rush it quite yet.

Roughly, that's the plan. I do wish it were winter though. The whole idea feels wintery, more suited to woollen sweaters, scarves, thick booties and hot chocolate drinks -- or maybe that's just me trying to procrastinate a whole six months away.

GB: A burnt out case

2009-11-23T18:43:00.001+11:00

Writing is a struggle. It is a chore. I fear my life, complicated by financial burdens and emotional regret, are the dampeners to my creativity. I admire (and envy) writers who can free flow their work, who can sit down and transcribe hundreds of words to the page without thought, who can write what they feel, what they think, what they see in an internal picture show in their minds. Worse, I envy those people who can do this after a full day at work, and who have children, partners, pets and -- on top of that -- just as many commitments and stressors as I do. My life is relatively uncomplicated. There is no excuse for me not to be writing every night, for several hours at a time if I so wish... and I do, but I can't. Or at least it seems that I can't.

Have I lost the gift? Am I tired? Am I lazy?

On my bookcase is a book entitled 'A burnt out case' by Graham Greene. I've not yet read it, but the title draws my eye. I feel burnt out. I'm not. If I think energy, I feel better, even a little. It's all in my mind.

I am a writer. It is within me, a part of me just as I am fair skinned, brown haired, hazel eyed. This writing gift is something I was born with. I can't add up without using my fingers, but I can craft imaginary words to paper in a way that moves people. I believe that. I trust it. I know it.

Right now though, I seem unable to craft anything other than disjointed, passionless sentences with recycled metaphors and thin similes. The cure, I know, is to write... anything. If I can't write fiction, then I will blog. When I'm feeling more creatively limber, but not sufficiently strong enough to write fiction, I can blog the novels I read, or I can critique other people's work so that I stay connected -- my finger on the pulse, as it were.

Envy of others will serve no purpose other than to erode my confidence and further isolate my characters.

I wrote Iris in the space of a couple of hours. That is the last piece of writing that wrote itself. Codee is work, fulfilling, worthwhile, demanding and joyful work, but work. He doesn't flow to the page, he doesn't reveal himself in picture and metaphor. He's recalcitrant, brooding, stubborn and childlike. Writing Codee is like writing a third year university philosophy essay when you've only studied mid level high school. He and I aren't on the same level. He's smart. He's crafty. He's spent eight years of his life researching, reading, spending every waking hour strategising and studying... and he knows I haven't.

Only I can connect with him in a way that will bring him to the page, and I am doing that, slowly. Right now there's more research and planning than there is writing. I'm trying to catch up. I'm impatient to return to the flow. I want him to tell me what to do, but he can't until I know it for myself.

I miss writing in the flow, the zone. I miss being surprised by what appears on the page. I miss the startling revelations that come about only when the fingers move faster than the mind, when the conscious brain switches off and the subconscious communicates directly with the keyboard. I miss startling out of a writing sessions with hours passed and a wealth of fictional experience laid out before me that I never knew existed in my mind or elsewhere.

Despite all this, tonight I wrote some blog reviews, replied to a critique response and I wrote this. It may not be Codee, but it's writing. It's progress. I feel better for having done it.

I am a writer. I write. Everything is practice. Everything is worthwhile. I trust in that.

GB: Anxiety vs writer's block

2009-11-20T20:58:00.001+11:00

I worry. I worry about money, about work, about my housing situation, about my family, my friends, my life (whether I'm living it right), my health, my decisions, my lack of decisions. I worry that life is passing me by, that I've not achieved enough, that I've failed in some integral way to be the person I was born to be. Whatver that might mean.

Worrying makes me sick, physically sick. I battle tiredness, aches that have no cause, a tightness and uneasiness that sleep doesn't soothe. A special diet combats the worst of my Irritible Bowel Syndrome symptoms, of which generally science has no explanation or cure, but the need to avoid common foods poses its own problems, and leads to further worry.

To combat my feelings of inadequacy, I make lists, I set goals, I announce to myself that I will achieve a certain milestone by a certain date or time. I fail to meet the objective. I lose interest. My thoughts disperse. My motivation wavers, flits away like a butterfly seeking pollen on a windy day.

Often I sit in one place, physically idle, my brain whirring like a fan set too fast. Without doing anything, I overheat.

Once I used to write in the 'zone'. Given a keyboard and a few minutes, the muse would snap like a taut spring and off I'd go. I would write for minutes or hours, ignorant of the passing of time. I lived in my mind, exposing thoughts to the screen without intent, with no more effort than to transcribe. I've not written in the zone for years. I thought it was writers block. I thought I'd run out of stories. I thought it was because I was taking things so seriously, but now I suspect it's anxiety.

I yearn for a stressless holiday, a quiet beach somewhere with a book, a friend, all meals catered for, all decisions made for me. The hardest thing I'd need to do is decide whether to lay on the banana lounge or the hammock, whether to swim or sleep, whether to lay on my back to stare at the clouds or on my stomach to watch sand particles dance and bounce.

I blame my financial situation. If i were debt free, or at least in a better financial situation than I'm in, my anxiety would be less. Would it? Really? Wouldn't I just find something else to worry about, like impending climate change catastrophe, or the widening gap between rich and poor, the terrible loss of life through war and violence, the suffering of all the innocence in the world, the inadequacy of my contribution, the passivity with which I step forward into each day?

Maybe I need medication. Maybe I need to reframe. Maybe I need to write each day, even when I don't want to, even when my stomach is knotted so tight that to even place one single word on the page would seem to be the trigger that results in my entire undoing. Maybe, just maybe, I think too much and write too little.

How does a person turn off their mind? How do they stop it from overheating?

They write.

NP: 90,000 words!

2009-08-14T15:24:00.005+10:00

I've just made it to 90,000 words on my novel. Writing is now a joy. For many thousands of words it wasn't. That's not to say that I'm sitting down every day to write, far from it. But I do write every week, sometimes only once or sometimes more than that. Maybe in the future I will write every day but that's not a goal I'm forcing.

Over the past 90,000 words and three years, I've found that I, and Codee, respond well to approaching writing as a form of play. We sit down together and we see what happens -- no pressure, no wild expectations, nothing but getting to spend time with my protag and his mixed up perceptions of how things are. Most times it's a positive experience where he takes over and employs me as his scribe, rattling out his thoughts, expectations, hair-brained schemes and actions to get what he wants. Other times it's just a frustrating patch of dead air where he sits there with a blank face and empty brain. He's a smart guy, but occasionally he's just... not. Or maybe it's me that's not smart, but let's not go there. ;-)

If I've learned anything over these past 90,000 words, it's not to take myself or Codee too seriously. He's flawed. I'm flawed. The novel is flawed. I aspire to literary greatness, not as a means by which to clamour for fame or money (there's enough people already out there doing that), but as a means by which to relate the story that I've committed myself to telling. I'm not self-deluded or arrogant enough to think that I'm doing the story true justice at this point in time. I've got too much yet to learn to be able to say that.

I set my standards high. I enjoy reading a variety of different stories, but there's a difference between a masterful writer and a good one. I think I'm good. I can hold my own in a writing group without blushing beet red with shame, but I'm not masterful. Nowhere close. One day I will be, but I hope I never know it because the minute that I do I will lose my creative edge.

On a different note, I can't imagine falling in love with another character like I've fallen in love with Codee. Having said that, I'm sure I will. That's for the future and my next novel about a guy who lives on the coast. I don't know his name, or his face, or much more about him other than he's not a fisherman but might be a diver. Codee won't let me find out and more and that's the way it should be. One novel at a time.

At this point I must also publicly convey my thanks to Em, my writing buddy, best friend, mentor, coach and Leland's scribe. She, like I, has been working on a novel for the past three years.

Writing a novel is hard work. It's a commitment that many start and few finish. There are statistics out there that suggest that many people who start out writing a novel never make it past the first 10,000 words.

Em and I have made it past that, by a long way! If it takes another six years to finish our novels, those will be six years well spent. I hope it doesn't take that long, but I won't be disappointed if it does. Good things take time. Worthwhile endeavours take time. Our boys are worth it, no matter how much we sometimes think they aren't.

As for how long my novel will get. I don't know. I will write until it's finished and then I'll go back to the beginning and start over in the first of what I envisage will be two full editing phases. That will take time, but while I'm editing I can let diver-boy out of his cranium cage. Who knows what he'll get up to.

BR; Out Stealing Horses (Per Petterson)

2009-05-04T20:35:00.003+10:00

Amazon Link: Out Stealing Horses

The back cover reads:

"Out Stealing Horses has been embraced across the world as a classic, a novel of universal relevance and power. Panoramic and gripping, it tells the story of Trond Sander, a sixty-seven-year old man who has moved from the city to a remote, riverside cabin, only to have all the turbulence, grief and overwhelming beauty of his youth come back to him one night while he's out on a walk. From the moment Trond sees a strange figure coming out of the dark behind his home, the reader is immersed in a decades-deep story of searching and loss, and in the precise, irresistible prose of a newly crowned master of fiction."

This book went onto my wish list last year, and into my shopping bag this year while I was in the States. I finished reading it this morning on the train, several stops before my station. I expected resolution, a clearer explanation of Trond's psychology, his physiology even, but the book completed the story of his youth but not the story of his life. It is how it should be, and as I closed the novel in my lap and stared out the window at the city gliding past, I felt content in having experienced this journey with Trond.

He is a man who has chosen isolation, yet is unable to escape his past. Coincidence brings him a neighbour from a tragic incident many, many years before and all Trond's expectations for a solitary existence are nullified by the other man's rough companionship.

As with all great novels, animals feature heavily and their presence is not as decoration or distraction, but as a means by which the characters shift and change. Trond and Lars each have a dog, Lyra and Poker, and the two animals are strangely representative of their masters.

Trond remembers his youth and his memories are rich with a summer he spent with his father in Norway when he was 15 years old. His relationship with his father is mature, honest, absorbingly touching and ultimately saddening. One scene, whether father and son dance stark naked in the pouring rain, is hilarious and beautiful. Trond's father loves his son, respects and protects him, offering guidance and advice where necessary, and trusting distance when Trond needs to figure things out for himself. Despite their sometimes hard life, Trond is not for want of love, which makes the life his father chooses that much harder to take.

Trond's father taught him that "... we decide for ourselves when it will hurt." The lesson was in how to deal with a painfully prickly weed infestation, but this is the arc of the novel, the underlying subtext that needs multiple reads and a good book-club session to understand.

He reads Dickens, and relates some of the things that happens to stories he read long past.

... when you read Dickens you're reading a long ballad from a vanished world,
where everything has to come together in the end like an equation, where the
balance of what was once disturbed must be restored so that the gods can smile
again. A consolation, maybe, or a protest against a world gone off the rails,
but it is not like that any more, my world is not like that, and I have never
gone along with those who believe our lives are governed by fate. They whine,
they wash their hands and crave pity. I believe we shape our lives ourselves, at
any rate I have shaped mine, for what it's worth, and I take complete
responsibility. But of all the places I might have moved to, I had to land up
precisely here.

He works hard to maintain distance from people, giving them snippets of information and insight, but nothing that will reveal who he really is.

People like it when you tell them things, in suitable portions, in a modest,
intimate tone, and they think they know you, but they do not, they know about you, for what they are let in on are facts, not feelings, not what your opinion is about anything at all, not how what has happened to you and all the decisions you have made have turned you into who you are. What they do is they fill in with their own feelings and opinions and assumptions, and they compose a new life which has precious little to do with yours, and that lets you off the hook. No-one can touch you unless you yourself want them to. You only have to be polite and smile and keep paranoid thoughts at bay, because they will talk about you no matter how much you squirm, it is inevitable, and you would do the same thing yourself.

This book requires a second, third or maybe even fourth read to appreciate the subtext. It's an enjoyable read, even just for the scenery, the Norwegian and Swedish landscape and history. It's much more than that though, and it's failure to spell everything out is the richest reward of all.

Rating: *****1/2 out of five.

BR: Peace like a River (Leif Enger)

2008-11-02T17:23:00.007+11:00

Amazon Link: Peace like a River

The back cover reads:

Leif Enger's best-selling debut is at once a heroic quest, a tragedy, and a love story, in which "what could be unbelievable becomes extraordinary" (Connie Ogle, The Miami Herald). Enger brings us eleven year old Reuban Land, an asthmatic boy in the Midwest who has reason to believe in miracles. Along with his sister and father, Reuben finds himself on a cross-country search for his outlaw older brother who has been controversially charged with murder. Their journey unfolds like a revelation, and its conclusion shows how family, love and faith can stand up to the most terrifying of enemies, the most tragic of fates.

I'm not particularly religious, I don't believe in 'God', at least not in the 'go to church on Sunday's and say your prayers at night' type of belief. This book is riddled with miracles, real Jesus-as-our-saviour type miracles. It has a character who walks on air, a whole car and caravan being made invisible so as to evade police observation, a gas tank that never runs dry, a boy surviving a gunshot wound after he has been declared dead... and, you know what, I loved (and believed) every bit of it.

I didn't read this book from beginning to end in one sitting, in fact it took me quite some time because it's a slow book and not much happens in any great hurry, but each time I came back I settled right in and felt at home. Reuben is an adorable character. He's gutsy and young and vulnerable and real. His younger sister, Swede, is a novelist and poet, gifted with incredible insight and a vocabulary that puts mine to shame, and she's only nine years old.

Davey is the quintessential older brother: sixteen years old, fiercely protective of his family and those he loves. His honour lands him in deep trouble when he kills two intruders in the family home. His lawyer claims self defence, but there's history between Davey and the two young men, a history that unravels to reveal murderous intent.

With Davey in prison and their father out of work, things are looking pretty bleak for the Lands family. Until Davey busts out of prison and disappears. The FBI send a man out to interrogate the family, but he finds out very little because they don't know where Davey has gone. The situation enters a stalemate with the FBI man unwilling to let them out of his sight, and the Lands having nowhere to go and no way to get there. To quell her anxiety, Swede composes maudlin poetry while Reuban concentrates on breathing.

Miraculously, a local man bequeathes a car and caravan to the family, and a tank of gas that never runs out. Off they head into the barren winter wilderness in search of their lost brother and wayward son, managing to evade the FBI agent and local police as they pass through small towns.

When winter storms move in and the highway is closed, they are forced to spend a night off the highway with a widower, Roxanna. She's a friendly, ferocious woman who takes them in as her own. What was going to be one night, becomes two, three, more. They settle in, making a family for themselves but never far from their minds is Davey.

One night Reuban sees Davey on a horse at the boundary of the property. He braves the winter cold with his gummy lungs and meets with his brother. Here starts a series of clandestine meetings whereby he learns that Davey is holed up with a derelict outlaw, Waltzer, and his child bride, a brutal man with a sordid past.

Reuben is torn, bound to secrecy by his brother but fearful of the man who holds so much sway over Davey's safety. When the FBI agent, who by this stage has tracked them down, goes missing, Reuban believes Waltzer has murdered him and he's afraid for Davey's life. He tells his father who in turns tells the FBI agent and a posse is put together to hunt the men down. Reuban is dragged along and his guilt at betraying his brother is palpable.

The story takes a dramatic turn at this point and I won't give it away, but the ending is satisfying and rewarding, if not... miraculous. As Reuban says, 'Make of it what you will'.

Rating: **** out of five

BR: The Dogs of Babel (Carolyn Parkhurst)

2008-10-18T20:59:00.000+11:00

Amazon Link: The Dogs of Babel

The back cover reads:

This exuberantly praised bestseller - one of the year's most admired and enjoyed fiction debuts - tells the story of a man's quest to solve the mystery of his wife's death with the help of the only witness: their dog, Lorelei. Written with a quiet elegance and a profound knowledge of love's hidden places, The Dogs of Babel is a work of astonishing and lasting power - a story of marraige, survival and devotion that lies too deep for words.

This novel is one that I bought in the US last year. In fact, the last four books that I read, excluding the most recent, were books purchased last year in the US. Evidently I'm subconsciously clearing the shelves for the new books I will buy during my visit early next year.

This is a charming story, dark in places, beautiful in others, odd and disturbing when Paul's obsession with teaching his dog to talk leads him to a small group of people who believe that surgically altering the profiles of dog's jaws will give them the ability to speak.

Paul is a grieving husband, obsessed with finding out the truth of his wife's death. She fell from a tree in their backyard and the dog was the only witness. What was she doing up there? Why did she fall? Why did she cook the dog a steak before climbing the tree, and why did she rearrange their entire collection of books before she died?

Lexy left her husband a myriad of clues and he unravels them as he recalls his marraige, the highs and lows, the special things they did together and Lexy's sometimes unusual behaviour that didn't make him love her even less, but served as clues to her eventual demise.

I understand why this book made the best-seller's list, why it's a book-club book, and why it has such high praise and quality reviews. It is a quality novel that crosses genres. It has mystery and romance, it's not too long and it's not too challenging. It deals with complex issues in a manner that is accessible and not overly maudlin. It gives the reader an experience of mental illness from the outside, and it gives the reader a fluffy, light ending which readers can feel good about.

It's no wonder this is a book-club favourite and a best-seller, it packages up the nasty stuff and makes it palatable for the masses. Unfortunately I'm not one of the masses.

Paul's obsession to teach Lorelei to talk was endearing if not a little disturbing, and his embroilment with the crazy dog mutilators gave the story an aspect of danger and served to illustrate to the protagonist the error of his own ways. These are nice techniques, but they felt orchestrated rather than organic. I'd have preferred to see Paul work out for himself that the dog talking thing was flawed, which would have been much harder to pull off for the writer but inherently more rewarding for the reader.

Lexy's creativity worked well with the story and her painting of masks, especially the death masks, fed toward the eventual reveal, but the choice of making her a gifted artist is subtexturally stereotypical.

From the beginning this book didn't quite gel. The structure is mature and the pacing, though a little slow, kept me interested but the sadness is perfunctory and the writing lacked honesty. As for the whole handling of mental illness and suicide... this book sends completely the wrong message.

Readers of romance novels will enjoy this, but anyone who is seeking to understand the human condition won't get much out of it at all.

Rating: ** out of five.

BR: Always running (Luis J. Rodriguez)

2008-10-11T20:49:00.001+11:00

The back cover reads:

By age twelve, Luis Rodriguez was a veteran of East L.A. gang warfare. Lured by a seemingly invincible gang culture, he witnessed countless shootings, beatings,
and arrests, then watched with increasing fear as drugs, murder, suicide and
senseless acts of street crime claimed friends and family members.

This book was written in 1993, and revised with an updated introduction in 2005. Luis wrote the book, in a large part to appeal to his son in an attempt to deflect the young man from the same path he took. The introduction of this version informs the reader that his son is serving a 28 year prison sentence for three counts of attempted murder. It's a sobering start to a serious piece of work, written as a novel but with the truth of autobiography, it reads with the punch of a newspaper editorial and the poetry of lyrical prose – readable, accessible and haunting. It has lessons applicable to us all.

Luis is the son of Mexican immigrants. His parents were forced to move to the US after Luis' father, a former school principal, fell out of favour with the local chieftains – powerful men with political connections – his transgressions so dire that he was imprisoned on trumped up charges, fed food scraps from a can, treated with contempt. The family finally escaped to America and sought to build a life in the face of poverty, homelessness and social rejection.

Our first exposure in America stays with me like a foul odor. It seemed a strange world, most of it spiteful to us, spitting and stepping on us, coughing us up, us immigrants, as if we were phlegm stuck in the collective throat of this country.

Luis is one of several children but his closest and harshest sibling relationship is with Rano, his older brother.

In fact, I remember my brother as the most dangerous person alive. He seemed to
be wracked with a scream which never let out. His face was dark with
meanness, what my mother called maldad. He also took delight in seeing me
writhe in pain, cry or cower, vulnerable to his own inflated sense of power.

Displaced at home, misunderstood at school, surrounded by violence and gangs, social exclusion and minimal prospects, Luis and several other boys with similar backgrounds form a gang. They are kids, barely teenagers yet they begin their evolution into a life where alcohol and drugs numb pain, violent crime signifies strength and all that matters is blind, unerring loyalty to
their homies, regardless of personal or moral cost.

Along the spine of the night, through the shrubbery, on the coarse roads, past
the peeling shacks, past the walls filed with the stylized writing that
proclaimed our existence, past La India's shed where boys discovered the secret
of thighs, in the din of whispers, past Berta's garden of herbs and midnight
incantations, past the Japo's liquor store, past the empty lots scattered around
the barrio we called "the fields" overlooking Nina's house, pretty Nina, who
lavished our dreams, there you'd find the newest and strongest clique. There
you'd find the Animal Tribe.

Before long, the Animal Tribe is forced to disband, their members split up and absorbed by larger gangs of older boys, young men with bloodied pasts, murder and revenge in their veins. The initiations into these gangs are brutal, but Luis has grown up with pain and takes the beatings just as he takes everything else that happens to him – with numb acceptance.

Everything lost its value for me: Love, Life and Women. Death seemed the only door worth opening, the only road toward a future. We tried to enter death and emerge from it. We sought it in heroin, which bears the peace of death in life. We craved it in our pursuit of Sangra and in battles with the police. We yelled: You can't touch this!, but Come kill me! was the inner cry. In death we sought what we were groping for, without knowing it until it caressed our cheeks. It was like an extra finger in the back of our heads, pressing, gnawing, scraping. This fever overtook us, weakening and
enslaving us. Death in a bottle. In spray. In the fire eyes of a woman, stripped of soul and squeezed into the shreds of her humanity.

As a young adult, Luis begins what will be a long journey toward turning his life around. He was born with a gift of writing, and he started this book when he was 15 years old though no-one believed that a low achieving Mexican boy could (or would want to) write a novel. As he matured, he developed a healthy distaste for the daily horror, the deaths and violent reprisals, the fear of someone he loved being taken out by a warring gang. Through school, he learned that there were options and alternatives, he gained a voice, organized activities, appealed to his homies to stop the madness though very few would listen.

I arrived at a point which alarmed even me, where I had no desire for the
internal night, the buoyancy of letting go, the bliss of the void. I require
more, a discipline as a bulwark within which to hold all I valued, a shield
against the onslaught.

On a broader scale, some people listened and are still listening, others don't and never will. While he has a voice, Luis will spread his message and though he failed to save his son from prison and accepts responsibility for at least some of Ramiro's despair, the lessons he has learned and the hope he shares will save many others. That is without a doubt.

Rating: ***** out of five

BR: Close Quarters (Larry Heinemann)

2008-10-02T20:30:00.005+10:00

The back cover reads:

Like many other recent high-school graduates in the 1960’s, Philip Dosier found that if he didn’t have plans for himself, his country certainly did. Shipped off to Vietnam to fight in a war he knew next to nothing about, he found himself in a world of violence, fear, heat and squalor unlike anything he ever thought
could exist.
Told in the unflinchingly accurate language of the field soldier – fast, rough slang that becomes a kind of surreal poetry – Close Quarters is the story of Dosier’s year in Vietnam.
A classic of war fiction, it is the harrowing account of a decent young man who becomes an embittered combat veteran and how he makes his way back to the world he left behind.

The reader meets Philip on his arrival in Vietnam, his introduction to what will be his life for the next twelve months. He’s naïve, scared and out of place. Everything he sees and experiences is new and disorienting. The men who are already in active duty are dirty and dead eyed, rough and brutal, nothing like the guys he knows back home. All the preparation, training, instruction haven’t prepared him for the reality of what he faces, but he man’s up because he has no other option.

I stood stiffly with my feet well apart, parade-rest fashion, at the break in the barbed-wire fence between the officers’ country tents and the battalion motor pool. My feet and legs itched with sweat. My shirt clung to my back. My shaving cuts burned. I watched, astonished, as the battalion Reconaissance Platoon, thirty-some men and ten boxy squat-looking armored personnel carriers – tracks, we called them – cranked in from two months in the field, trailing a rank stink and stirring a cloud of dust that left a tingle in the air. One man slowly dismounted from each track and led it up the sloped path from the perimeter road, ground-guiding it, walking with a stumbling hangdog gait. Each man wore a sleeveless flak jacket hung with grenades, and baggy jungle trousers, the ones with large thigh pockets and drawstrings at the cuffs. The tracks followed behind like stupid, obedient draft horses, creaking and clacking along, and scraping over rocks hidden in the dust. There were sharp squeaks and irritating scratching noises, slow slack grindings, and the throttled rap of straight-pipe mufflers, all at once. And the talk, what there was, came shouted and snappy – easy obscenities and shit laughs. It was an ugly deadly music, the jerky bitter echoes of machines out of sync. A shudder went through me, as if
someone were scratching his nails on a blackboard.
The men walking and the men mounted passed not fifteen feet in front of me. A moult, a smudge of dirt, and a sweat and grit and grease stink covered everything and everyone – the smell of a junkyard in a driving rainstorm. Each man looked over, looked down at me with the blankest, blankest sort of glance – almost painful to watch – neither welcome nor distance. This one or that one did signify with a slow nod of the head or an arch of the brows or a close-mouthed sight, and I nodded or
smiled back, but most glanced over dreamily and blinked a puff-eyed blink and
glanced forward again.

Over the course of the novel, Philip becomes one of these dead eyed men. It’s a slow progression, an unnatural one, the destruction of a soul. As the back cover reads, Philip starts out as a decent guy, an average everyday Joe with a girl back home and a life ahead of him. After one year in the jungles of Vietnam, he is nothing of who he once was and bearing witness to his slow disintegration is difficult.

And I glanced up and down the two rumpled rows of cots, the two lumpy rows of sleepers. What in the world am I doing here? My parents raised me on “Thous-shalt-nots” and willow switches and John Wayne (even before he became a verb), the Iwo Jima bronze and First and Second Samuel, and always, always the word was “You do what I tell you do to.” The concept around our house was everybody takes his own lickings. But what in the name of God had I done to get this one?

Philip starts out doing ambushes: laying in wait all night in the pitch black of the jungle for the enemy to come past and hoping, and praying that he doesn’t fall asleep, doesn’t move, doesn’t screw up or he and his platoon will be dead. It doesn’t sound so bad, doesn’t sound so hard… well that’s what Philip thought too, until he started doing it.

It’s the oldest skill. You think about everything: God and the devil and pussy and what the fuck am I doing here. You sing a song to yourself or crack a joke. You squirm because you’ve got to take a leak, but you hold it until your stomach aches, and wait for morning. And sometimes if you’re a FNG, a fucken new guy, you nod out, thinking the same things you where thinking before – God and the devil and pussy, damn I wish I had some pussy. Then something starts you awake. There is a flash of light, like somebody has cracked you across the face with the narrow side of a two-by-four. You startle. And there it is just the way you left it. The woodline and the bushes and the kanai grass. You sit there red in the face, not because
you’ve nodded off, but because you have jerked awake and made the mistake of
being heard. But it is a trick of the mind. It is only your eyes that have moved. You sit there dumb, like stones and logs, as still as lake water in the moonlight. The movement is underneath – the cool water rising, the warm slowly sinking. All you heard was your heart beating, slamming against your chest, screaming again and again.

Philip’s first kill is long, drawn out; bloody hand to hand combat that culminates in Philip gaining the upper hand and choking the life from an enemy soldier, a kid younger than he. I won’t type out the scene because it is chilling and awful and there is no way that a man can come back from something like that. Worse, he is forced to stay in that cramped, pained position for hours until dawn breaks, with the body of the dead enemy soldier in his hands, his fingers locked around the other man’s neck, the dead stiff eyes staring back at him. When help finally comes and he is free to move, I sense that Philip is not the man who started out that night, he is irrevocably changed and I grieve for him – I grieve for all the young men like him.

Over the course of the year, Philip lives the life of a field soldier and the book holds nothing back, bringing into existence for the reader the reality, brutality, comradeship and compassion that exists in a war such as this. It’s a confronting and challenging read, an insight into experiences that many men would never speak openly about, but that needs to be known.

I highly recommend this novel, but appreciate that it won't appeal to all readers. There are things in this book that would be better left unknown.

Rating: ***** out of five.

BR: Cold Skin (Albert Sanchez Pinol)

2008-09-21T18:16:00.000+10:00

Amazon Link: Cold Skin

The back cover reads:

We are never truly far from those we hate. For this very reason, we shall never be truly close to those we love. An appalling fact, I knew it well enough when I embarked. But some truths deserve our attention; others are best left alone.

On a desolate island at the end of the earth a young man discovers there are things more frightening than solitude.

This book was a quick read, enthralling from start to finish, disturbing and haunting. The writing is solid, eloquent and beautiful and I do it little justice by reviewing the book close on two months after having completed it.

The protagonist is a young man who takes on a role as a weather official on an uninhabited Antarctic island far away from any shipping routes or rescue should events turn sour. He is set down by a sea captain who is also there to collect his predecessor, Gruner, except the man is a slobbering, jabbering, semi-naked idiot, senseless and hostile. The captain leaves both men on the island; the deranged Gruner in the lighthouse and the (unnamed) protagonist in a timber hut on the other side of the island.

All is well until nightfall when, from the waves comes creatures that are reptilian in appearance and treacherously homicidal. Unaware of the danger and entirely unprepared, the protagonist survives the first attack with a mix of sheer will and dumb luck. He seeks out Gruner's help, knowing that the other man has weapons and protection in the lighthouse, but his attempt to seek sanctuary is violently rebuffed.

Only when Gruner's secret alliance with one of the reptilian females, Aneris, is revealed, does the protagonist bargain his safety by threatening the other man's 'mate'. Earning himself an unsteady alliance, he shelters in the lighthouse and works with Gruner to stave off attacks by the creatures, which they come to know as Situaca's, a sub-human lifeform.

A complex relationship develops between the two men and Aneris and later with the children of the Situaca who come onto the island in between attacks. The protagonist attempts to establish an alliance with the creatures, recognising that they demonstrate human-like traits and the capability for compassion toward each other. Gruner, however, is unable to appreciate them as anything more than vile enemies and sets off a reaction of violence and brutality that goes on and on for nights on end, wearing the men down and decimating the island.

At the end of the book, only the protagonist is left to greet the sea captain upon his return a year later. By this time all sanity has left and, instead of leaving as any sane man would do or at the very least warning the new weather official of the fate that awaits him, the protagonist stays and takes on the dead Gruner's role -- that of a deranged maniac who disallows the new weather official access to the lighthouse, the only structure on the island that affords shelter from the murderous creatures.

This book was enjoyable and well written, if not somewhat differnet from what I usually read.

Rating: **** out of five.

BR: Boy A (Jonathan Trigell)

2008-09-09T11:53:00.003+10:00

In 1993 two ten year old boys abducted a two year old boy, took him to an isolated location where they tortured and murdered him. I remember the case well because it shocked and horrified me, but I never could condemn the children who committed this act even if they had known full well what they were doing. Children do what they have learned, and they cope and manifest their emotions in unpredictable ways. Moreover, these two boys were children and there is no way to predict how they will mature. In my experience, children explore their evil sides at a young age and if left untempered, without discipline and guidance, it’s not unimaginable for them to go too far.

I don’t know if the author was inspired by that case, though it seems likely he was, and I commend and thank him for taking something like this and crafting it into a novel that is both moving and disturbing. I also thank Emily for gifting me this book.

In this novel Jack is Boy A, one of two boys who were convicted of murdering a girl their own age. Jack, which is not his real name, and Boy B were pre-pubescent boys when the murder occurred and both claimed their innocence, accusing the other. As an adult, newly released from a life of juvenile detention and prison, Jack is a naïve innocent, unaccustomed to society, its norms, practices, demands. Terry, his advisor, mentor, father figure and legally assigned protector, introduces him to the new world, a boarding house and job. Nothing is too demanding for a socially acclimatized individual, but to Jack the experiences are daunting. I related to this, in a small way, and felt deeply for Jack’s anxieties.

An example is Jack’s first experience of an automatic washing machine. It stalls as he is cooking a meal for himself, so he goes to tend to the machine thinking it will take just a minute, but it all goes awry.

The switch comes away in his hand, leaving a hole. Jack is staring at it when the water starts pouring out on to the floor. He tries to push the switch, which he sees is really a screw-plug, back into its slot. But he fumbles, and it jumps skittishly away, into the water already flowing behind his knees. As he turns to reclaim the plug, Jack sees the flames snaking out of the grill. They lick dark venom on to the clean white of Kelly’s oven. He’s caught for a moment, unsure which disaster to counter first. The fire makes his choice by grasping at the wallpaper. Still holding the plug, Jack leaps to his bare feet, nearly slipping in the water. He turns off the gas and thrusts the burning grill pan into the sink. The fat spits, hissing onto his hand and cheek, but the flames quickly die. Although the water is barely trickling out now, and the floor is already flooded, he screws the plug back in, as tight as it will go.

He slumps down in the pool of water, covering the washing machine’s still-laughing mouth with his back, and holding his burned cheek with his burned hand.

It’s a comedic scene, but so heartbreaking and indicative of how hard he tries and how little he knows.

As he settles in, slowly making friends, learning what he can and can’t do, living with memories of beatings, victimization, suicide ideation and the unabridged hatred of society because he is a convicted kiddie-killer, Jack must call on his tattered inner strength to keep it all together. Most of all, he must keep his past a secret – tell no-one, be careful of everything he does, don’t drink too much alcohol in case his tongue loosens to reveal the truth. Always in the back of his mind is the only option available to him if it all goes wrong: suicide.

After he picks himself up, Jack shaves with his new cut-throat razor. He holds the blade inwards, stroking it with his thumb, feeling the comforting sharpness, so honed it has to be restrained. The razor wants to sever his skin. That’s why it feels so good to shave with. Jack feels alive this close to the choice. He senses intensely the vertigo of possibility – the fear he might go with the urge to slip into jugular. And, having made his decision, not dying makes him feel stronger.

There are too many scenes to quote, too much about this book that can’t be given credit in such a short review. The writing is literary, poetic and melancholy – all the attributes I adore! On every page is an underlying sense of doom, of every high being met by an eventual low, of the promise of an ending that will tear my heart out.

The further I got into this book, the more nervous I became, and the revelation near the end was enough to dislodge me. I must have known it was a possibility but I’d so unerringly longed to believe that it wasn’t, so much so that when it was spelled out, plain and simple, I had to put the book down and process what that meant in the face of all I knew about Jack and how much I had come to love him.

The ending is unclear, Jack’s fate is unclear and it needs to be so. I like to think he finds peace without dying, but I wonder if ever he can. In a world that wishes you dead, how can you ever find peace?

After reading this book I caught up on the fate of the two boys who had murdered the two year old boy, Martin Bolger. This is one of many links about the case and the current status: http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/bulger.asp

I didn’t even have to think very hard to remember the child’s name, which shows how much the case imprinted on my mind. After reading this book, more than ever I hope that those two boys (now men) can find peace in their lives. I doubt very much that either of them will go on to kill again, but will they ever have happy lives, knowing that the world is waiting for them, or someone who knows the truth about them, to slip up. It’s frightening. One of the most frightening things I can imagine.

Rating: *****+ stars out of five. A must read!

BR: Cutting through skin (Michael McCoy)

2008-09-05T10:36:00.001+10:00

The back cover reads:

‘Sometimes I would close my eyes with the tip of the scalpel poised and ready and just feel its progress as it cut through the skin. I’d hold the blade in my hand and press, expectantly and sightlessly through the skin. Feeling the release. Feeling the joy’

With his PhD recently finished, Matthew Bass is adrift in his work as a prosector in the Department of Anatomy. He is attracted to the sexually well-practised Zoe, a fellow cutter with bizarre religious beliefs. Almost willingly, Matt lets lip his grip on reality until, with Zoe’s encouragement, he pushes his newly discovered ideas on life and death to their ultimate extreme.

I chose this book because of the title and the references to the characters being cutters, but they are not the cutters that I am accustomed to so that came as a disappointment.

The novel is written in alternating viewpoints of the four main characters, Matt, Zoe, Frank and Rushworth. Rushworth is Matt’s father and Frank is an academic of similar vintage who is friends with them both, and worried about Matt’s increasingly erratic behaviour. The setting is modern day Melbourne, which was another selling point. It’s refreshing to read novels set in environments I know.

The book opens with Matt walking into a hold-up in progress. The event affects him deeply.

September 22^nd. The day I came to believe was my birthday. My real birthday.

I stopped to get petrol. Pulled up, filled the tank and walked across the concrete from the pump towards the sliding glass doors, petrol fumes rising thickly from my hands in the fat afternoon air. A dog lay asleep just outside the door, her fur twitching easily in her dreams and shining back at me like eddies in a black mirror, before giving way to a row of dry, weathered nipples on her belly. And in her face you could read a perfect, mindless contentment. She was the kind of dog you’d like to whistle into the back of your car and take home with you. To share in some of that mindless contentment.

Maybe five steps from the door I felt a hand on my shoulder, firm and with a purpose to the pressure it exerted, rather than just a blundering push to get me out of the way. Then an instant later there was the gun.

I read this much in the bookstore and decided to buy the book. I don’t regret my purchase, but the story did not pan out as I had imagined. In several places it was bogged down with repetitive prose; characters who engaged in lengthy monologue in their heads, making the reader proxy to their thoughts. Initially I didn’t mind being along for the ride, impressed by the writing style and distinctive imagery, but it eventually grew old.

Also, I lacked the ability to connect with any of the characters in a way that would allow me to care for them, to fear for them, to stand beside them and cheer them on. Aside from the opening chapter – the petrol station hold-up – the remaining chapters were lengthy and dry, driven only by Matt’s unusual behaviour and Zoe’s belief that she was the religious figure Eve and Matt was Adam.

The story took a disturbing direction when Matt’s father dies and Matt breathes in what he believes is the soul of his dying parent. He takes Rushworth’s last breath, seals their lips and sucks it in. If I had been involved with the characters enough to really care about them, then this event would have bothered me greatly, instead it just freaked me out – I mean, who does that!? It’s unnerving.

If it weren’t for the poetic writing style, though arguably a tad overdone, I’d not have finished the book at all. As an example, Matt meets with Frank at the racecourse after having been out of touch for some weeks. This is in Frank’s POV.

‘Morning; Frank,’ he replied, like a working dog. ‘What are we doing here?’

He was all hunkered down on himself as if his bones were chilled through to the marrow. It wasn’t cold, though. No one else was cold. So he had to be hiding something. It wasn’t thermoregulation that was curling him into a ball, it was emotional regulation, you’d have guessed. Or maybe he had his hands stuffed deep in his trouser pockets in an effort to trap the smell from inside his underwear.

I had to smile.

‘What are we doing here?’ I repeated, still grinning. “I thought we could have a chinwag, Matty, that’s what. Sit and natter while God’s most beautiful parade their wares in front of us.’

I stood there in the lower reaches of the grandstand, my arm sweeping across all before us, as if we were in a gallery full of Rembrandts and Picassos and Van Goghs. He sat down next to me, hands still shoved in his trouser pockets and collar turned u against the wind that didn’t blow. He didn’t even look at what I was showing him. Didn’t even know I was trying to show him anything. Not interested in knowing. He gazed at me as though I’d traded my last drop of nous for a bus ticket to an empty circus ground.

The novel definitely is literary in the common sense of the word, being rambling, introspective and explorative of psychology, philosophy and religion, but it lacks an intangible element that would have made it memorable.

Rating: *** out of five

BR: The Inner Circle (Gary Crew)

2008-08-31T09:54:00.001+10:00

This is the story of two teenage boys: Tony who is white, affluent, ignored by his divorced parents and given money instead of love. He moves between his mum and dad’s homes on a roster system, but whether he is present or not seems inconsequential to either of them; and Joe, an aboriginal boy who came to the city for an apprenticeship from a poor but close and loving family, only to lose the opportunity to covert racism and social exclusion. Ashamed of having failed, he holes up in an abandoned pumping station and writes letters of imagined success to his sister so she will be proud of him.

The book is written in alternating points of view; a chapter for Tony and a chapter for Joe. It works well, allowing the reader to get to know each boy and the fears that each keep inside, hidden from the world and from each other.

We meet Tony first:

I heard a story about a little kid who came home from school and found his mother dead on the kitchen floor. A screwdriver was lying next to her and the electric toaster was still on. At least he found her. The day I came home there was only a note from my Dad:

Stan, I’ve had enough. It’s all over. You know where I am. Give me some time then Tony can come. You’ll cope. – Angie.

I was eight. Until then we had lived like any other kid; Mum and Dad, three bedroom weatherboard house with a brick base and tiled roof, an above-ground pool up the backyard. A Holden, Australia’s own car, was in the garage. I was given a BMX bike for my seventh birthday. Dad was a sales rep for a pump company and Mum was always on the phone, making appointments to demonstrate cosmetics. Everything was normal. There was something nice about that; maybe too nice, even claustrophic.

Then Joe:

I was scared as hell when I went out on that catwalk. I’m no hero. At first I thought maybe rats woke me but when I sat up and listened I knew there was someone mucking around in the room next to mine. I’d been half expecting some derelict to wander in sooner or later but sitting there with my scalp creeping I wished it was much later – like never. I waited a minute, hoping whoever it was would shoot through and leave me alone. Then I heard the unmistakable sound of a guy having a pee; I guessed whoever it was intended to stay the night. There was no way I could go back to sleep so I slid over to the door.

Tony and Joe’s paths cross. They have nothing in common aside from their age and emotional confusion – Tony who doesn’t know who he is and where he stands; and Joe who knows who he is but finds himself in a society that doesn’t accept him because of the colour of his skin. Both boys have a lot to learn about themselves, about life, about the future they will carve out for themselves, but mostly Tony for he is the most broken of the two boys. Despite his comparative affluence, access to money, food and scholastic opportunity, none of it meant anything because his parents did not see him. When they split up, Tony became an object to trade, a reminder to his father of the woman who had left him, and to his mother, nothing more than a possession to have for part of the week. When Angie left to be with another man she sought love that her husband and son could not give her – that no-one could give her, and by the end of the book she is an embarrassing example of emotional neediness and despair.

Joe weathers several of Tony’s storms, forgiving and accepting him when a lesser person would struggle to do so. At the end of the book, Joe has found a purpose and place, an apprenticeship with an older man who treats him as an equal and appreciates who he is. Tony is less fortunate and the reader must come to their own conclusions about whether he has the resilience to make it on his own.

This novel is young adult, aimed at a teenage audience (particularly boys) and its messages are strong, simple but not presented in a simplistic manner.

Rating: ***1/2 out of five for an enjoyable read.

BR: Surrender (Sonya Hartnett)

2008-08-29T14:38:00.007+10:00

Amazon Link: Surrender

One word describes this book: bleak.

There is not one single shred of happiness in the entire story, not even anything that comes remotely close. From the opening lines:

I am dying: it's a beautiful world. Like the long slow sigh of a cello: dying. But the sound of it is the only beautiful thing about it.

it goes downhill for Anwell, the protagonist who in the opening chapter is twenty years old and dying. As the story progresses, he imagines events from his past that have led him here, and driven him to what he must do.

This book won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for fiction in 2005. Sonya Hartnett is a gifted writer, her style is enviable and polished, but this book didn't work for me. Don't get me wrong, I adore depressing stories, I hunt those suckers down and consume them like candy, but this goes beyond depressing, it's downright awful -- so awful as to be unbelievable.

It's soon obvious that Anwell (who for part of the book calls himself Gabriel), is mentally ill. Schitzophrenic, I suspect, or something more pathologically unstable than that. The reader relies on him as narrator, but he is patently unreliable and at the end of the book I am uncertain as to what was truth and what was imagined, which I actually do like and one of the reasons why I'm not rating this book lower.

Anwell's upbringing was one of neglect and abuse. His older brother, a boy with serious mental retardation, is left in Anwell's care when their mother retreats to her room and their father escapes the house. Anwell is seven years old. The outcome is tragic and Anwell's future is cursed from that point on (though, arguably, he was cursed from the moment he was born).

As a young teen, he is hounded in school, hated by the townsfolk, misunderstood and belittled by his parents, physically punished for even the mildest of indiscretions. He has no friends, no hope, nothing but misery and anguish... until Finnigan comes along.

Finnigan is a wild boy, dark eyed, dark haired, full of mischief and evil intent. He plays the role of the dark avenger, seeking retribution for anyone who errs against Anwell (who refers to himself as Gabriel, an angel). When the small town is plagued by a series of arson attacks, Anwell knows that Finnigan is responsible and it both thrills and scares him. Over the following years, Finnigan comes and goes, living in the dark forest nearby, a force unto himself and beyond Anwell's influence.

Surrender is Gabriel's dog, but later he becomes Finnigan's. You'll have to read the book to see how and why that happens, and similarly, I won't say anything more about the plot because to do so will give it away.

Unfortunately, I can't say I will recommend this book. It is well written, though I felt that the poeticism of Sonya's writing was heavy handed, and the bleakness over done. Every chance she had to draw the mood into darkness, she took it. I became numb to it, desensitized, like relying on a tool that has lost its shine and sharp edge through overuse.

In reading about the novel, I learn that comparisons are made to 'I am the Cheese', by Robert Cormier. I have read that book and I enjoyed it, and yes, in reflection there are similarities, however Cormier's book worked for me, this one didn't.

I didn't find the story depressing, unsetting or objectionable, just... consistently bleak. There were no high points, and no low points because the book started out pretty much as low as one can go. It doesn't get much worse than a character who is paper thin and coughing up blood. In reading this book, I have learned that I need for there to be hope in a story, even if it's misguided (as in 'I am the Cheese') and eventually thwarted, it doesn't matter, I need there to be a reason for me to be drawn through the book. Surrender lacked that, and for all the beautiful writing (because, yes, Sonya really is gifted), without hope there is no point.

As an aside, Spider worked well for me as a film-based example of this type of story -- an unreliable narrator on a platform of crippling mental illness. That film was intricate, sombre, moody and dark, and unashamedly bleak... but it had hope, even if that was all dashed at the end, while it lasted, it kept me connected.

Rating: ***1/2 out of five.

BR: Triage (Scott Anderson)

2008-08-27T14:26:00.003+10:00

Amazon Link: Triage

Mark Walsh wakes on a hilltop in Kurdistan, injured, disoriented, the victim of an artillery attack. As a war photographer, he is no stranger to violent atrocities, death and near misses, but this event disintegrates his mind, leaving him in a stuporous half-state that sees him through his initial physical recovery in a remote, clandestine guerrilla hospital, then his return to Brooklyn where his wife, Elena, struggles to make sense of his symptoms.

As Mark’s physical state worsens and he denies her the full story of how he was injured, Elena pushes him to seek medical help, but Mark refuses, trapped in a body that is betraying him and with emotions that alternately numb and overwhelm him. Meanwhile, Diane, heavily pregnant and the wife of Mark’s best friend and photographic buddy, Colin, fears for her missing husband. Mark and Colin set out to Kurdistan together, but split up before Mark’s accident. Despite Elena and Diane’s fears for Colin’s welfare, Mark assures them that Colin is simply delayed and will return home soon.

Complicating Elena’s progress with Mark is her grandfather, Joaquin, a man who raised her after her own father died in a car accident but whom she disowned after learning of his involvement with war criminals after the 1930’s Spanish war. Joaquin, a self-proclaimed psychologist, established an asylum for officers and soldiers who had committed heinous acts of inhumanity and brutality during the years of fighting. These men, unable to return to their families and too dangerous to be allowed to return to society without psychological intervention, were passed to Joaquin to ‘cure’. And, so he did, according to the history books. Elena is unable to forgive Joaquin for housing and healing men who, she believed, were beyond forgiveness.

After Mark collapses and is hospitalised, his symptoms determined to be psychosomatic, Elena’s mother calls in Joaquin, believing him to be the only person who can heal Mark’s trauma ravaged mind. Joaquin journeys from Spain to Brooklyn, ignores Elena’s attempts to keep him from Mark, and commences his own form of therapy. The journey taken by all three is dark – of solitude and grief, of guilt and laying blame, of denial and ultimate responsibility.

Scott Anderson makes no attempt to gloss over the horror of war, neither does he revert to bloody gore. Instead, he exhibits rare restraint and by doing so he crafts a story that drills to the very core of the reader, leaving much to the imagination, painting scenes and images that are horrific in their ghastly serenity. Mark recalls experiences that are unequivocally stomach churning – no person could witness those events and walk away unscarred, yet Mark tried to… tried and failed.

Scott is a former foreign correspondence, he writes from experience, from the heart, from the soul. It shows in his writing. No-one but a man who has experienced these horrors first hand could write such a jagged, emotionally crippling books such as this.

Few books bring me to tears, this one did. Few books stay with me, a part of me as though they have carved their will into my soul; this one did. I can’t recommend it highly enough, but it’s not a pretty read, not a happy story, though the ending does bring hopeful closure for the three main characters. It is the journey that will linger long after these characters have moved on.

As an aside, while reading this book I had a chance encounter with a stranger on a train who noticed me reading and admitted that he is a photo journalist and had read the book. I was only halfway through and asked him what he thought. He chose his words carefully, spoke in a sparse, measured way (almost pained), and admitted that it was ‘difficult’. I now have a greater appreciation of what he means.

Rating: *****+ (out of five)

BR: The Shiralee (D'Arcy Niland)

2008-08-20T20:34:00.003+10:00

Amazon Link: The Shiralee

A shiralee is a swag, a burden, and Macauley's is Buster, his four year old daughter. Macauley took the child after returning home to find his wife in bed with another man. He took the child to spite his wife, expecting her to come after him, begging for the return of their daughter, but that did not happen. Months passed and still there was no word and as Macauley moved from place to place, living a drifter's life, roughing it with his child in tow, he became accustomed to the company – though he would never admit that to himself, or to Buster.

The book starts off several months after he has left Sydney, after abducting the child and beating his wife's lover half to death. The reader finds father and child on the road, the little girl dressed in shapeless rags, a sunhat on her head, her form near indisguishable as to gender. Macauley is about as rough as they come, and he does very little to accommodate his daughter, towing her along as a stray dog, or an inanimate rucksack. Despite his harshness (that borders on cruelty), I immediately liked this rough, confused, very masculine loner who trusts no-one, spends little time reflecting on his behaviour and sometimes, in brief moments of insight, recognises that he's an A-grade asshole, but does nothing to change it.

The opening paragraphs read:

There was a man who had a cross and his name was Macauley. He put Australia at his feet, he said, in the only way he knew how. His boots spun the dust from its roads and his body waded its streams. The black lines on the map, and the red, he knew them well. He built his fires in a thousand places and slept on the banks of rivers. The grass grew over his tracks, but he knew where they were when he came again.

He had two swags, one of them with legs and a cabbage-tree hat, and that one was the main difference between him and others who take to the road, following the sun for their bread and butter. Some have dogs. Some have horses. Some have women. And they all have mates and companions, or for this reason and that, all of some use. But with Macauley it was this way: he had a child and the only reason he had it was because he was stuck with it.

As he moves from town to town, searching for work, hospitality and money to tide him over, Macauley finds trouble, reignites old friendships and incurs the wrath of strangers. Bubbling below the surface of his man is a brutal violent streak, a rage that Macauley keeps barely tempered. Several men find out the hard way that this is a man not to be crossed, and despite the near lethal beatings he doles out (his daughter witness to some of them) in my mind he remains a good man, fair, honest, with solid instincts. Only once did my judgment waver, when Buster is deathly ill and Macauley chooses pride over an offer of assistance that could save her life. I believe he did the wrong thing by flouting the offered hospitality, but as a vehicle to demonstrate his character arc, it's beautifully executed and a testament to the writer.Pure luck and questionable bush medicine sees Buster through her grave illness, and the reader gains valuable insight into Macauley's state of mind. In contrast, when faced with a similar situation later in the book we are shown he has matured emotionally and learned from the mistakes of others.

This is a rough, simple story, beautifully written, rich with old Australia -- the raw, dusty, unkempt drifter's life that so few of us now could even imagine. The print edition I have is prefaced by an introduction by Les Murray who explains that the author employed some poetic licence in having Macauley solely reliance on walking as a means to get around. In the 50's, when this book was written, Les considers that would have been an unlikely scenario. The factual imperfection does not draw from the richness of the story.

I do believe Macauley is the roughest, hardest, least lovable protagonist I have yet met -- yet I enjoyed every moment I spent with him. It was also delightful to read the dialogue, conversations loaded with Australian slang, so heavy at times that even I, a country girl, had to take a moment in order to understand what was being said.

The characterisations are particularly well crafted, with attention to each and every person with whom Macauley interacts, so much so that they are distinct, imaginable people. This is a skill of which I am most envious.

The door opened and the doorway was plugged with a gargantuan female. This was the woman Sweeney called the Cow. She had a casky bosom, as if stuffed, an uddery bulge against the garish print dress covered with yellow and vermilion flowers. An amber scarf was tied around her head and tucked in, giving her a poly look. Her face was a massive blob of radiant flesh, with the features a long way in from the perimeter as though they had been superimposed, forming a face within a face. There was a vague, elusive doll-like prettiness about it.

Now, imagine if he had just said she was fat! The paragraph that follows offers more evidence of the vastness of this woman, but not limited to physical form. D'Arcy goes to great lengths to bring her alive as a loving, boisterous, incredible woman with a huge heart. I fell in love with her. I wish she were my aunt.

The writing is brilliant: restrained, crisp, accurate and at times heartlessly brutal, in keeping with Macauley's character. This book reminded me of my grandfather on my father's side... though, maybe the character Beauty may have been a closer match.

Rating ***** out of five. (this book should be on school reading lists, bloody violence and all).

BR: Maestro (Peter Goldsworthy)

2008-08-05T21:31:00.002+10:00

Link: Maestro

This book is a Bildungsroman (a 'novel of self-cultivation') that illustrates the growth of a protagonist, usually from childhood to maturity. The protagonist in this book is Paul Crabbe, a self-confident teenager who possesses a rare musical talent that is fostered and encouraged by his musically inclined parents. They send him to a piano teacher, Eduard Keller, an old Viennese man who Paul immediately dislikes and shows little respect. Though self-assured, to the point of arrogance, Paul continues the lessons as his parents wish, and he does what he is told even though he suspects Keller is a Nazi -- a matter of little consequence in modern day Darwin, but of great interest to Paul.

Keller demands that Paul return to the basics, practising notes, playing childish songs. Frustrated and belligerent, Paul reluctantly does as he is told, more for his parents sake than any belief in Keller's talents as a music teacher.

His snooping and library research uncovers a link between Keller and a great composer and pianist, information that Paul shares with his parents who express shock, then jubilation, at having someone so esteemed in their midst -- even better, someone who is now teaching their son. It takes a long while before Paul is able to share their admiration for Keller -- in fact, it is only as an adult, many years later, is Paul able to reflect on all the lessons Keller taught him, about music, about the fine difference between being good and being great. Paul will never be great, as Keller points out early on. He lacks that extra something that no amount of practice and repetition will bring out of him. It's a hard lesson for anyone to learn. Paul imagines he will be a concert pianist, that he will travel the world, playing music that will change people's lives. It is not to be so, and it's a bitter pill to swallow.

Eduard's past is a mystery that Paul spends a lot of energy on uncovering, especially the fate of his wife and child. Immature inquisitiveness propels him to uncover a mystery that he initially hopes will defame his mentor, but as he matures he learns that sordid history is ugly and painful.

Paul learns more about life, love, choices and passion from Eduard, more than playing ivory keys on a piano, and longing for a life of fame and adulation. He grows up, gets married, has children, but never will he forget his Viennese piano teacher.

This book is on the reading lists for high school students, and many hundreds of teenagers have written book reviews and essays about it. It's a good choice for the classroom because it has a subtle message, deeper meaning and layers that can be teased out through discussion. It's the type of book I'd have enjoyed studying at that age, and I wonder why it wasn't on my school curriculum.

I've given it only three and a half stars because it's a safe story, readily digested and lacking the sharp edges that would earn it a higher rating from me. I prefer my characters to be more tortured, more questionning, to live less ideal lives than Paul does, but that's just me.

Rating ***1/2 out of five.

BR: Water for Elephants (Sara Gruen)

2008-08-01T20:28:00.005+10:00

Amazon Link: Water for Elephants

I longed to read this book for almost a year, leaving it on my wish list in the hope that I could pick up a cheap second-hand copy somewhere. But that was not to be so. I finally took the plunge and paid full price when the book came up on a book club reading list, a book club I was thinking of joining. I read the book, enjoyed it, but didn’t go along to the club meeting. I’m an introvert, what can I say!?

I wish I could say I adored this book, that it was worth the months of waiting, of longing for it, of dreaming of reading it, but it wasn’t and that’s not the book's fault, nor the writer, but rather the reality that something sought for so long, once achieved will rarely meet its imagined ideal. Having said that though, the book is enjoyable, well researched, disturbing in places (animal abuse) and has a happy ending for the main characters, not so much for some of the smaller players (no pun intended).

The story starts in a nursing home where Jacob Jankowski is being treated as an old man – which he is. He’s ninety, or ninety three, he can’t remember. The mushy tasteless food that he and the other ‘inmates’ are fed, irks him, as does the requirement to be pushed around in a wheelchair, forced to co-exist with drooling, staring ‘vegetables’ and treated as though he is a mindless child. To say he is recalcitrant is an understatement. If he were more able bodied, he’d be dangerous.

The story is told in flashbacks, memories Jacob has in between experiences in the nursing home. As a young man, Jacob joined the circus, an accidental encounter that nearly saw him thrown from the train he had jumped upon. When asked by the circus hands what he was running from, he says little, but he isn’t running from anything, all he had and hoped for was lost when his parents died in a car accident. His father, a kindly small town veterinarian, more or less gave away all that his family owned through caring for sick animals and accepting no payment in return. Until the death of his parents, Jacob was at Cornwell University studying to be a vet. He intended to work with his father, but that is not to be so. With no money, and in the midst of the American depression, Jacob’s options are gravely limited.

Aboard the circus train, he finds himself among a band of misfits who have segregated themselves into hierarchical bands, a dysfunctional class system where belonging to one subset demands certain behaviour and ignorance of all the other subsets. Jacob is a kindly soul and this does not sit well with him, especially when the lower classes of people are treated with contempt by those who are considered above them.

However, his veterinary training affords him some freedom and respect, though it isn’t enough to save him from painful run-ins with August, a certified paranoid schizophrenic whose wife, Marlena, Jacob (unfortunately) falls in love with.

The story is rich with circus life, the squalid, brutal, unseen side that is painstakingly kept from public view. By far the most disturbing practice is that of ‘red-lighting’. That is the term used when people are thrown from the train as it nears a railroad siding (a red light), thus giving them the opportunity to scramble away and potentially avoid serious injury or death. When times become exceptionally hard, and Jacob’s interest in Marlena is suspected, he is targeted for red-lighting. He is spared by being elsewhere, but two of his friends, a pair of vulnerable individuals who Jacob had been protecting, are not so lucky. Their fate is chilling, as is the treatment of the animals, in particular an elephant named Rosie which Jacob does his best to protect, but does not always succeed in doing so.

Though the book has a happy ending (a little too 'happy', if you ask me, but that's a minor complaint), there are parts that made me angry and sad, and it taught me much about circus life for a less than stellar outfit. This book really did earn the notoriety it gained, and my inability to give it a higher rating is due to my having known too much about it before I started reading. That’s not the book’s fault.

Despite some minor disappointment, it was worth the wait and the read. It is nicely paced, well written, superbly researched and all the characters come to life. Jacob is likeable, consistently portrayed and a character that it's hard not to care for. I'd have preferred the story to have been told in present time, being Jacob's experiences in the circus during the depression. I felt that having him in the nursing home, telling his story in flash-backs, took away some of the tension that might otherwise have been there during the times he was in peril. Afterall, it's dificult to be afraid for someone when you know they live to be 90 (or 93).

Still, it's a good read and I'll readily recommend it to others.

Rating **** out of five.

BR: Autumn (Noel Beddoe)

2008-07-28T13:04:00.002+10:00

Any book that opens with:

‘You fell in love with your balls,’ she said. ‘You fell in love! With your
balls! When you were ten years old!’

is guaranteed to grab my attention. The recipient of this vitriolic rant is Charlie McFarlane, a man on the brink of divorce, helpless to prevent it and weary of trying to hold the relationship together. When his wife leaves him, taking his daughter with him, Charlie offers no resistance, no emotion beyond the tremors in his hands and uncertainty in his gut. Emotionally, he is unresistant, detached, unable to reach into himself to interrogate the physiological response to his wife's departure.

He goes to work, steps through the motions, observes his colleagues and the empty career paths they are on and realises he has to get away. He quits his job, gives a large proportion of his resignation pay to his wife and daughter then heads back to the town he grew up in. What he’s looking for is unclear, and what he hopes to find even less certain, but he ends up staying with an aunt and uncle who force him to take a vacant position at a local school.

In getting to know the children, their parents, the school headmistress and her husband, Charlie thaws. A relationship blooms with the mother of one of his pupils, and soon they are more than friends. As he spends time with this woman and her child, he learns how to connect with a woman, how to care for another and he thinks about his own child and the time he should be spending with her, the gifts he should be buying her, the responsibilities he has as a father to the child he sired.

When the end of his contract as fill-in school teacher comes, Charlie has no reason to stay on and the relationship with the woman ends when she decides to return to her husband, the girl’s father. Charlie goes back to the city, to his wife and daughter, and the book ends with him making a tentative step to woo her, just as he did with the woman in his home town. In being away, Charlie has grown up.

I found it difficult to link the experiences he has (duck hunting, fishing, accompanying a suicidal elderly man to a remote hilltop then watching him die of heart failure) with his emotional growth. Charlie introspects very little, and by the end of the book I felt I didn’t know him any better than I did at the start. Though I prefer books that don’t spell it all out, this one lacked that special something that would connect me to the protagonist. I felt as though I were a detached witness rather than experiencing and living the story with the characters.

In summary, this book was readable, entertaining and had potential, but far less than I had hoped it would be given the recommendation by Tim Winton on the front cover.

This review by Warrick Wynne eloquently illustrates some of the strengths and failings of the novel. The points he makes are useful for any first time novelist to take on board, myself included.

Rating: ** out of five

BR: The Alchemy of Desire (Tarun Tejpal)

2008-07-15T20:32:00.000+10:00

Amazon Link: The Alchemy of Desire

I found this book at a second hand book fair and chose it because of its Indian author. I am eager to broaden my literary catalogue with authors from beyond western shores.

The front cover states that the book was a finalist for a literature prize while the back is filled with praise for what promised to be a luxuriously long novel, tepid with sensuality and rich with intricacies of modern India. Without hesitation, I forked out $7. Despite this book being nothing like what I would ordinarily read, I consider the money and my time (which was considerable) well spent.

The back jacket reads:

"A young couple from a small town in India, penniless but gloriously in love, move to the big city, where the man works feverously on a novel, stopping only to feed his ceaseless desire for his beautiful wife. In time the lovers abandon the city for an old house in the mist-shrouded Himalayas. While renovating their ramshackle new home, the young man unearths a chest full of diaries written by the previous owner. Thrust into another world and time, he slowly uncovers the dark secrets at the heart of her story."

The narrator is nameless, not even referred to in dialogue by another character, yet despite this oddity I had no trouble identifying him. For the first half of the book (or thereabouts), the narrator is obsessed with his wife, Fizz, deliriously so. They make love in every possible manner and, as the narrator convinced me, each time they physically connect the experience is more passionate and erotic than all those that preceded it. Though this is not a pornographic novel and the love scenes are crafted with attention to metaphor and simile, the explicit nature could be off-putting to some readers, and repetitive to others. Admittedly, the copy I purchased has an image of a bee pollinating a flower with a road leading into the distance, but had the cover been that which is shown on Amazon, with the figure of a woman, I would never have bought it – although that cover is definitely more representative of the book's content.

Beyond the love making (and yes, let's be honest, there is a lot of it), the narrator strives to write a sweeping, epic Indian novel while he and his wife are renovating a small cottage in the mountains. As the renovations go on, the narrator and his wife drift apart. Over time it becomes obvious to them both that their love is fed only by lust, if they're not having sex then there is very little between them. The separation is complete when he finds a box of old journals written by the previous owner of the home – an American woman who came to India as the wife of a gay prince. It's not too hard to guess that the woman was more of a sex deviant than the narrator, and soon he is fully immersed in reading of her experiences, so much so that he loses touch with reality.

The second half of the book fills in the woman's life, through the narrator who dreams of her, his dreams being so vivid and intense that he wakes in terror, convinced she has sexually violated him in his sleep. Representative of his carnal desires and increasing dysfunction, he longs for more contact with her, believing that he is experiencing the dead woman's ghost. When, finally, he reads the last journal and the fantasy dies, he comes to the awareness that he is alone, destitute, without his wife, friends, family – so completely has he shut them all out. The final pages have him searching for Fizz, hoping to reconnect, but she is gone and her friends (who used to be his) send him away.

The book opened with 'Love is not the greatest glue between two people. Sex is.' It ends in reverse, with the narrator having learned the greatest lesson of all.

This is a long book with a simple premise: one man's extraordinarily sensual journey to learn the truth about love. If it weren't for the polished writing style, I never could have withstood 518 pages of description, introspection and sex.

The narrator ponders on what is involved in writing a novelAbout writing a novel:

I had once read in school that poets let their poems mature in their head for a long time. Contrary to popular belief, poetry is not an instant inspirational process. Good poets, once lightning has struck, hunker down to wait. They allow all the ingredients to season and simmer to just the right taste and texture before taking them off the hotplate of their imagination and serving them up on paper.

Even after it is off the fire, the dish needs attention. Careful garnishing, decoration, tweaking. When you eat at a master's table, when you read a master's text, you do not partake of something sudden and speedy. Long hours and subtle spices – a lifetime of nuancing – lie behind it. There is no such thing as an instant masterpiece.

And sex:

I took the hard little ball of her ankle in my mouth and sucked it so fully that it acquired a deeply erotic dimension. I then journeyed to the promise of her fleshy calves and sucked them so fully that they became sexual organs. And then I slowly curved around the shin and ascended the dome of her knees, resting at the peak, mouth open and lips moving. Descending on the other side I banked to the back and drove my tongue flatly down the smooth highway of her inner thighs, eyes set firmly on the dark line of the final ranges. And so I journeyed slowly, seeking the source of the musk; and as I closer and closer and the flesh grew and grew and the musk grew and grew, my control began to waver. From my mouth I became my nose. From handing out pleasure I began to hunger for it. Window by window, my thinking mind shut down. Reason, intellect, analysis, perception, speech – everything went, one by one.

I was now an ancient beast, on all fours, prowling in pursuit of a spoor and a secret place.

Outside the pale of civilization.

An animal no longer to be denied.

And when I had drunk on the source, deep and long, I was nothing but a tumescence. I rose behind her and seeking traction held her at the waist, and as she looked down the rolling green slopes all the way to the sweltering north Indian plains, I began to move in the oldest dance of all.
The wind carried her moans to all corners of the subcontinent.

Rating: ***1/2 out of five.

BR: The Heart of the Matter (Graham Greene)

2008-06-15T17:53:00.005+10:00

Amazon Link: The Heart of the Matter

Lietenant Scobie is a weary man, second in charge to the Commissioner of a small British colony in Africa during the second world war, he yearns for peace, for an emptiness of being… for death. His wife, Louise, is a sad, needy woman who in her own way yearns for peace and who draws heavily on Scobie’s spirit and energy. She seeks from him the love and support he is incapable of giving – arguably, that anyone is capable of giving, yet in a symbiotically dysfunctional manner her desperation gives Scobie the purpose to keep on living.

Wilson, a young officer recently posted to the coast, has his sights set on Louise after they spend an evening together over poetry and wine. Wilson is a sensitive, emotional, literary type who is neither masculine enough nor focused enough to challenge Scobie or to win Louise’s heart. He tries but serves only to embarrass himself and alienate Louise even further. Scobie intervenes, trying to bring the two together because he feels Louise would benefit from Wilson’s company, but even that fails.

When Scobie is passed up for an opportunity for Commissioner, he cares little but Louise cares a lot. She fears that she is not well thought of, that her appearance, her manner, her interest in books and poetry set her apart from the other women in the small colony. She pleads for Scobie to send her away so she may gather her thoughts. A holiday, she argues, would do them both the world of good. Scobie can’t afford to pay for his wife’s passage off the coast, let alone afford to go with her, but he promises he will make it happen. He lies and offers soothing words that calm her, but the reality is that he doesn’t have the money and has no legitimate way of getting it.

He asks for a loan, for an advance on his retirement fund, and is refused because he has drawn on it before when his daughter died and his wife fell ill. Yusef, a fat Arab businessman and renowned swindler, is Scobie’s only option. A transaction is set up, one with no strings attached, but of course there is no such thing in the colonies.

Wilson keeps close tabs on Scobie, which does little more than irritate and bemuse the older man because he has never stood in Wilson’s way, despite knowing his intentions. Scobie is a man who seeks only to see his wife happy, even if that means seeing her with another man – it would relieve him of the burden of responsibility, but Wilson is too inept and Louise too inwardly wounded for the liaison to prosper.

While Louise is away, a ship sinks at sea and a bedraggled, half-dead boat-load of survivors reaches the coast. Among them is a woman, Helen Rout, recently married and just as recently widowed. Scobie spends time at the hospital and an attraction forms between he and the much younger Helen. It burgeons into a brief affair, one which lightens Scobie’s spirit even as the guilt of adultery drags him down. Meanwhile, Scobie's interaction with Yusef is brought to the Commissioner's attention (by Wilson), and questions are raised about potential misconduct.

Louise returns, forcing an early termination of the blossoming love between Scobie and his younger lover. Though cleared of any wrong-doing or improper association with Yusef, and offered the Commissioner’s position, a ranking that carries much prestige and respect, Scobie is overwhelmed by shame at his act of adultery and turns inward. Wilson takes advantage and steps up to reveal his true feelings for Scobie’s wife.

‘That night when I got back,’ he could feel the awful immature flush expanding, ‘I tried to write some verse.’

‘What, you, Wilson?’

He said furiously, ‘Yes, me, Wilson. Why not? And it’s been published.’

‘I wasn’t laughing. I was just surprised. Who published it?’

‘A new paper called The Circle. Of course they don’t pay much.’

‘Can I see it?’

Wilson said breathlessly, ‘I’ve got it here.’ He explained, ‘There was something on the other side I couldn’t stand. It was just too modern for me.’ He watched her with hungry embarrassment.

‘It’s quite pretty,’ she said weakly.

‘You see the initials?’

‘I’ve never had a poem dedicated to me before.’

Wilson felt sick; he wanted to sit down. Why, he wondered, does one ever begin this humiliating process: why does one imagine that one is in love? He has read somewhere that love had been invented in the eleventh century by the troubadours. Why had they not left us with lust? He said with hopeless venom, ‘I love you.’ He thought: it’s a lie, the word means nothing off the printed page. He waited for her laughter.

‘Oh, no, Wilson,’ she said, ‘no. You don’t. It’s just the Coast fever.’

He then blurts out that her husband has been unfaithful, but she is unmoved. If she believes it, she gives no sign, but Scobie is already proactively self-destructing, his demise exacerbated by complications with Yusef that lead to the murder of Scobie’s servant, Ali, a young black boy who had been with him for 15 years. Only when viewing the body does Scobie realise he loved the boy and that he is (indirectly, but justly) responsible for the death. Guilt descends like a deathly veil, bringing with it a heavy perception of how God suffers for Scobie’s human failings.

Scobie thought, if only I could weep, if only I could feel pain; have I really become so evil? Unwillingly he looked down at the body. The fumes of petrol lay all around in the heavy night and for a moment he saw the body as something very small and dark and a long way away – like a broken piece of the rosary he looked for: a couple of black beads and the image of God coiled at the end of it. Oh God, he thought, I’ve killed you: you’ve served me all these years and I’ve killed you at the end of them. God lay there under the petrol drums and Scobie felt the tears in his mouth, salt in the cracks of his lips. You saved me and I did this to you. You were faithful to me and I couldn’t trust you.

‘What is it, sah?’ the corporate whispered, kneeling by the body.

‘I loved him,’ Scobie said.

Though not particularly religious prior to this, he grasps at the opportunity to self-flagellate and condemns himself to death so as to relieve God, and the two women he considers he has mortally wronged, from the burden of his existence.

Before suiciding, he goes one last time to Helen, more for himself than for her, but she is not there.

I must leave some kind of message, he thought, and perhaps before I have written it she will have come. He felt a constriction in his breast worse than any pain he had ever invented to Travis. I shall never touch her again. I shall leave her mouth to others for the next twenty years. Most lovers deceived themselves with the idea of an eternal union beyond the grave, but he knew all the answers: he went to an eternity of depravation. He looked for paper and couldn’t find so much as a torn envelope; he thought he saw a writing-case, but it was the stamp-album that he unearthed, and opening it at random for no reason, hhfelt fate throw another shaft, for he remembered that particular stamp and how it came to be stained with gin. She will have to tear it out, he thought, but that won’t matter: she had told him that you can’t see where a stamp has been torn out.

There was no scrap of paper even in his pockets, and in a sudden rush of jealousy he lifted up the little green image of George V and wrote in ink beneath it: I love you. She can’t take that out, he thought with cruelty and disappointment, that’s indelible. For a moment he felt as though he had laid a mine for an enemy, but this was no enemy. Wasn’t he clearing himself out of her path like a piece of dangerous wreckage? He shut the door behind him and walked slowly down the hill – she might yet come. Everything he did now was for the last time – an odd sensation. He would never come this way again, and five minutes later taking a new bottle of gin from his cupboard, he thought: I shall never open another bottle. The actions which could be repeated became fewer and fewer. Presently there would be only one unrepeatable action left, the act of swallowing. He stood with the gin bottle poised and thought: then Hell will begin, and they’ll be safe from me, Helen, Louise, and You.

The saddest part about this whole book is that in the end, life goes on without Scobie. It is reprehensible that a life can be so easily lost, that an individual allowed to so deeply care for others yet to show such little compassion for himself.

Only the priest, a man who Scobie confessed to about his sins, offers a shred of understanding and compassion for a man who no-one understood.

'And at the end this--horror. He must have known that he was damning himself.'

'Yes, he knew that alright. He neer had any trust in mercy -- except for other people.'

What is the point Graham Greene was making when he wrote this book? Essays about the author suggest that he suffered from depression, bipolar disorder, lived a roller-coaster of despair that creativity helped (in some respect) to alleviate. I understand that. I think a lot of writers can. But to dismiss this work as the writings of an unhappy mind is to miss the deeper meaning.

Greene was Catholic, apparently fascinated by the interplay between good and evil, and the inner workings of a human soul. I have not been raised in a religious manner and do not understand the intricacies of religious practice, especially not of the Catholic faith with its stern obedience to ritual and God's law, but this book was very much about one man's faith and his despair in the light of what he perceived to be his faithlessness. Scobie considered himself a failure, to those who relied on him, who loved him, and especially to God. No matter what way you look at it, that's a hell of way to suffer, to so deeply believe that one's life is so bereft of worth that death is the only way to cleanse the stain from those you love.

Worse, it was all for nought in the end. Scobie thought he could save his wife from suffering by having her believe his death was accidental, but she was smarter than he gave her credit for.

I wonder whether Greene believed that death was Scobie's only option? Did he consider, when writing this work, of offering Scobie a way out, some kind of salvation? He must have, because Scobie himself considered it, he even longed for it, and he suffered for those thoughts too.

Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia:

Whatever Greene's writings and personal feelings toward the story (he hated it and idly suggests that an earlier, failed piece whose place was given to The Heart of the Matter may well have been a better work), the themes of failure are threaded strongly throughout. Each character in the novel, be it Scobie or Wilson, fails in their ultimate goals by the end of the book. Scobie's ultimate sacrifice, suicide, fails to bring the expected happiness he imagines it will to his wife and despite the fact that he tries to conceal the secret of his infidelity with that ultimate sin, the reader discovers that his wife had known all along.

Similarly, Wilson, the man who is pursuing an adulterous affair with Scobie's wife, an affair she refuses to participate in, is foiled at the end of the novel when Scobie's wife refuses to give in to his advances even after Scobie's death. Other instances of failure, both subtler and more obvious, can be seen throughout the work, lending it a muted, dark feeling.

The Heart of the Matter is not just about failure, but about the price we all pay for our individualism and the impossibility of truly understanding another person. Each of the characters in the novel operates at tangental purposes which they often think are clear to others, or think are hidden from others, but are in fact not. This is illustrated wonderfully by Scobie's attempt to hide his affair from his wife, thinking that being a policeman should give him the edge, but whose failure is evident in the following passage;

"'Did you know all the time - about her?' Wilson asked.

'It's why I came home. Mrs. Carter wrote to me. She said everybody was talking. Of course he (Scobie) never realized that. He thought he'd been so clever. And he nearly convinced me-that it was finished. Going to communion the way he did.'"

(Graham Greene, ed Philip Stratford, "The Heart of the Matter," The Portable Graham Greene. Penguin Publishing, p 301.)

This is the kind of book I'd enjoy working through in a bookclub. Do bookclubs read Graham Greene!?

Rating: ***** out of five, because it made me think.

Alan Marshall Short Story competition

2008-05-26T19:36:00.003+10:00

I arrived home tonight to two letters in my mailbox, one a letter from one of my credit card companies with a terse reminder that my card payment is overdue, the other an envelope with the Shire of Nillumbik logo on it. I looked, looked twice, looked again. Oh no, this was it -- my first short story competition attempt, it's fate held within a business sized cream envelope.

I imagined winning. I imagined being shortlisted. I imagined recieving a commendation, some words of praise, of encouragement, of success. Such is the support I receive from Emily, the flattering feedback from Suzi, the general comments given to me on the critique group that read Iris before I submitted her, that I could hardly imagine not being recognised in some way. Yet, despite my false confidence, any form of recognition seemed too good to be true.

The letter, two pages (double sided), advised the results, the judges report, the list of stories and authors who had so impressed the judge that she wrote glowing words of encouragement. Judging was difficult, Cate admitted, the quality of entries was exceptionally high. Over 600 short stories were received. She was given a short-list and of those she laboured for weeks to choose the winning entries.

Mine was not among them. Iris, I quickly learned, had failed to impress.

Surprise came first, then disappointment, then a brief flush of shame for having thought she had a chance. I have such a rich source of encouragement in Emily that my confidence in my writing has outstripped the reality that I'm just another person with big dreams and some talent... but not enough to win, not enough to receive a commendation, probably not even enough to have made it into the shortlisted pile for Cate to read. But, you know what, despite how much I really wanted some recognition from some faceless stranger whose work I've never read, I'm relieved the wait is over. I'm relieved that I know.

I think nothing less of Iris. I think nothing less of my writing. I think nothing less of my dreams, of my future, of the certainty that one day I will have my moment in the light, just as Emily will have hers. Our boys, our characters, they matter.

I long to read these winning entries. I know they will entrance me just as they entranced Cate. If Iris was better than the winners, then she would have won. She did not, but that does not devalue her, or me. There's room for us all. And, even if there isn't, even if my writing is seen only by Emily, by my friends and a few people on a critique group, the fact remains -- I write because I have to. Just as a painter paints, an artist creates, a writer writes... this is my duty, it is my life.

To the winners of the Nillumbik 'Alan Marshall short story competition', I tip my hat to you and am proud that my little story was judged along-side yours.

BR: Holes (Louis Sachar)

2008-05-16T18:30:00.001+10:00

Amazon Link: Holes

The back cover reads:

Stanley Yelnats isn't too surprised to find himself at Camp Green Lake, digging holes in the dried-up lake bed, day after scorching day. After all, his family has a history of bad luck.

The boys at Camp Green Lake must dig one hole each day, five feet deep and five feet across. But what are they diggting for? Why did Green Lake dry up? And what do onions and lizards have to do with it all? The answers lie in Stanley's own past...

I found this book at 'Back to Booktown 2008' in the nothing over $1 section. I paid 50 cents, knew up-front that it was a kids book, and really wasn't expecting too much from it. Now, I won't lie and say it's a literary masterpiece, but it is a damn good read. Equally entertaining for kids and adults.

Stanley Yelnats (his name can be spelled backwards) is a fat kid with a strong sense of family loyalty, and a solid belief in superstition, particularly a curse that was put on the family some years before. He finds himself at Camp Green Lake, a detention centre for delinquent boys, after being wrongly accused of stealing a pair of running shoes... no ordinary running shoes though, of course. He accepts his fate, convinced that this is all just part of the curse and that as long as he's careful, avoids the deadly spotted lizards and doesn't upset the warden, he'll get out of it all unscathed.

The boys aren't just made to dig holes because it exhausts them, keeps them occupied and shapes them into better people, no there's a bigger game at play, one which proves to be potentially deadly.

Coincidence plays a big part in this story, with unlikely connections proving paramount to the plot and to Stanley's fate. Each revelation is handled well, hinted at before connections are made, and the underlying logic (though realistically implausible) is convincing within the established scenario.

The story moves quickly, with equal measure of action and interaction between the boys and the adults. A serious undertone of social inequality and child neglect is dealt with so as to not overwhelm younger readers, but while not ignoring that this is a real issue for many teenagers of Stanley's age. This is a great read for kids, and equally enjoyable for adults.

Rating: ***1/2 out of five.

Five Bells (Kenneth Slessor)

2008-05-13T07:45:00.002+10:00

Five Bells (Kenneth Slessor, 1939)

I heard this poem for the first time on Radio National yesterday while driving back to Melbourne after spending Mother's Day weekend with mum and family. The poem is stunning -- haunting, tragic and beautiful and as much as I wish to copy and post it here on my blog, I understand it to be under copyright to the Slessor family and to reprint it (as has been done on other websites) would be offensive to the poet's memory and his family.

The poem is available in Kenneth Slessors 'Collected Poems', published by Angus and Robertson, or it may be heard from the Radio National podcast for the next month or so.

The poem is melancholy, driven with grief, confusion, loss and despair. It is a confronting illustration of death, of the moments of dying and the dissillusioned haunting experienced by those left behind. To hear it read out loud, read properly by a speaker versed in the nuances of poetic rendition, is to experience its complete bleak glory. I consider it to be impossible for a listener to come away unaffected or unchanged.

I have no aspirations toward poetry, but quality literature has a degree of poetic union and poetic verse slants toward literary story telling. Where the line between the two blurs is where you'll find me, transfixed, entranced, bewitched by the wonderment of words.

BR: The Riders (Tim Winton)

2008-05-12T17:45:00.004+10:00

Amazon Link: The Riders

The back cover reads (in part):

“Fred Scully eagerly waits in an Irish airport for the arrival of his wife and seven-year-old daughter. He envisions a new life ahead of them, a fresh start in an old farmhouse that he’s been renovating during the weeks they have spent apart. But something goes catastrophically wrong. His daughter emerges inexplicably alone through the airplane terminal’s glass doors, and Scully’s life goes down in flames.
Thus begins The Riders, a dark and powerful journey into the obsessive psyche of a man in search of a woman vanished. It is a tale of the ghosts that plague relationships; of revelation sought in places and people; and of redemption found in the determined will to carry on. Epic in its sweep yet gripping in its details. The Riders is storytelling at its most haunting.”

This story can be summed up in a few words: a man searches for his missing wife, daughter in tow. The book is more, so much more.

I can recount the plot for it is simple, the settings I can list off for there are many, I can even outline the progression that this character takes from loving, hopeful, thankful (a touch disbelieving at his fortune to have such a beautiful wife) to desolate emptiness. What I cannot do is justice to Tim Winton’s writing. To capture that, you must read this book yourself.

Here is an excerpt, quoted at length so readers may see the beauty in the detail.

In sleep Scully felt like a flying fish, a pelagic leaper diving and rising through temperatures, gliding on air as in water. He heard the greater oceanic static. He felt seamless. Weightless, free.

He woke suddenly with Billie’s face close to his, her eyes studying him, her breath yeasty with antibiotic. She ran the heel of her palm across the stubble of his cheek. Her skin was cool, her eyes clear. The surf of traffic surged below.

‘I’m hungry,’ she said. ‘I feel ordinary again.’

He lay there, muscles fluttering, like a fish on a deck, feeling the dry weight of gravity, the hard surprise of everything he already knew.

Mist lay across the soupy swirl of the Seine. It hung in the skeleton trees and billowed against the weping stonework of the quais. The river ran fat with whorls and boils, lumpy with the hocks of sawn trees and spats of cardboard. He felt it sucking at him, waiting, rolling opaque along the iced and slimy embankment. It made him shudder. He held Billie’s hand too firmly.

‘This isn’t the way to Dominique’s,’ she murmured.

‘Yes it is. More or less.’

In every piss-stinking cavity the mad and lost cowered in sodden cardboard and blotched sleeping bags. Out of the rain and out of sight of the cops they lay beneath bridges and monuments, their eyes bloodshot, their faces creased with dirt and fatigue. Was it some consolation to imagine that Jennifer might be here among them? Did the idea let him off, somehow, take the shame and rage away? These faces, they were generic. Could you recognise a person reduced to this state? Maybe he’d walk past her and see some poor dazed creature whose features had disappeared into hopeless fright. Would she recognise him, for that matter? Was his face like that already?

Beneath the Pont Neuf he stepped among these people and whispered her name. The stoned and sore and crazy rolled away from him. Billie tugged at his hand but he stared into their eyes, ignoring their growls of outrage until a big gap-toothed woman reared and spat in his face. Billie dragged him out into the faint light of day. She sat him down in the square at the tip of the island, and pressed the gob away from his face with his own soiled hanky. He let out a bitter laugh. She hated to see the way he trembled. She hated all of this.

Scully looked back toward the bridge. Something in the water caught his eye. Something, someone out in the churning current. He shrugged off the child and went to the embankment to peer upstream. Dear God. He saw plump, pink limbs, tiny feet, a bobbing head. He wrenched his coat off. Please God, no.

‘Sit down, Billie, don’t move! You hear me? Don’t move from this spot!’

He edged down the slick embankment, grabbing at weeds and holes in the cobbles. The current was solid. He looked about for a stick, a pole, but there was only dogshit and crushed Kronenberg cans. Close to the water he found a ringbolt and he hung out precariously from it, titled over the water, reaching with one arm as the tiny pink feet came bounding his way. The steel was cold in his anchored hand. His face stung. His heart shrank in his chest. He saw ten perfect toes. Creases of baby fat. Dimpled knees. He poised himself, seeing his chance, and in one sweeping arc he reached out – and missed. Oh God! His fingers sculled hopelessly on the water. And then he saw it clearly as it floated gamely by – cherry mouth pert and cheeky, plastic lashes flapping as it pitched, cupped hands steering it through the soupy convergence at the end of the island.

‘I’m not really into dolls,’ called Billie, standing precariously close to the edge. ‘But I’m glad you tried.’

Scully hung there panting, the sweat cold on him already. He hated this town.

Some readers have found this story to be incomplete. Too much is left unresolved, they say, there is too much mystery for it to be a fulfilling story and yes, I can see why might they feel this way, however I don’t agree.

This book is about experience, about living, dreaming and doing, giving our all (every tiny fragment of our being, and more – so much more) in the hope of winning that which we seek. Scully’s emotional erosion is difficult to witness, even worse is the effect on Billie, his daughter. Anyone with half a heart wishes for a happy ending, or at least an explanation, something to fill the gnawing questions that slice the insides of these characters and eats like acid into their souls. But, they don’t get their happy ending, they don’t get answers and neither do we, but I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Rating: ***** (out of five).

Near mid-year update

2008-05-08T15:38:00.003+10:00

It’s the beginning of May 2008. I made clear goals for this year and, as a checkpoint, I shall review progress thus far.

My goals were:

Complete the first draft of my novel:
I estimated I would need to write another 80,000 words. I’m now at the 55,000 word mark with an expected end point of 120,000 words. So, apparently I have written 15,000 words in four months. That’s 3,750 words a month. Hmmm… I somewhat doubt the accuracy of that, but I’m not in a rush to complain. However, in order to reach my goal by the end of the year I must write (on average) 8,125 words per month. Well, geez, looks like I better get busy!

Write nine (original) short stories (in addition to Iris):
I seem to recall that I’ve written two. One a short story composed entirely of dialogue, and another written as a prompt at the Best Friend’s Holiday Retreat. Neither are competition-worthy.

Submit Iris to the Alan Marshall Short Story Award:
Well, yay, I have done that. I haven’t heard anything yet, and I’m not holding my breath.

Submit five short stories to competitions:
See note above. Can’t submit what doesn’t exist. *smacks own hand*

Enter The Age short story competition:
Again, as above. Anyone seeing a pattern here!?

Read 60 (fiction) books (and blog-review each one):
I’ve read 18 (an average of 4.5 per month). That’s not bad considering that there was one month when I read just one. So, I just need to up that by one book a month and I’ll meet my goal. That’s easy! I love reading! And, as my earlier blog illustrates, I have no shortage of reading material!

Read 10 (non-fiction) books:
I can’t recall that I’ve read even one, at least not through to completion. This may not have been a realistic goal, given that I read for research but rarely information gathering requires reading an entire book from cover to cover. Most non-fiction books fail to hold my interest for that long, and reading just so I can tick off from a list does not seem a good use of time.

Anything else to be added that has been missed:

This is a good time to consider whether my goals are comprehensive enough. I didn’t include anything around time management, though that has been a troubling issue for quite some time. For much of last year I rolled out of bed anywhere between 6am and 8am (or later), and staggered into work anywhere between 8:30am and 11am (if I got there at all). Some days I wrote, most days I didn’t.

Since Emily left at the end of March, I have established a routine of waking to an alarm at 5am, either getting up (or, if I’m feeling unwell, then snoozing for another 30 to 45 minutes), and leaving for work at 7am. I work through until 4pm and am home at 5pm. Most nights I’m in bed by 9pm. It’s a routine that works, makes me feel good and has ample time for writing and reading.

It’s a great achievement, one I thought impossible given my long-established distaste of anything that resembles routine. It’s to be celebrated, rejoiced, spoken of with much pride! However, now that I have this great new habit, am I using it to write?

*shuffles feet, chews fingernails, avoids eye contact*

The fact of the matter is that I’ve managed to turn my 2 hours of a morning into even more procrastination time. I get up, turn on the computer, check emails, reply to any I’ve received (or make new ones if I’ve not received any), then (because it’s normally gone 6am by this time and I’ve not showered, gotten lunch ready or done anything else I have to do before I leave), I procrastinate for another 15 minutes (web-surfing, reading media websites, etc) before finally heading off to the shower and then rushing around because I’m running late.

Great little habit that one. *rolls eyes* I really am my own worst enemy.

So, instead of beating myself up over this, I shall focus on how great it is that I have established a habit of getting up early. *pats self on back* And recognise that I need to fine-tune that so that it is productive time. That’s the easy part, and this webpage has given me some great ideas: Create a Morning Writing Ritual

With appropriate credit to Leo Babauta, here’s my plan:

1. Prepare the night before:

- tidy desk, remove all unrelated material, leave only items needed for writing
- set out hot chocolate, mug, spoon, small saucepan for boiling milk
- prepare lunch/snacks for work and set aside clothes for next working day
- pre-writing prep (notes, connections, a basic idea of what I’ll write in the morning)
- Aim to be asleep by 9 pm

2. Set a time to start:

I set my alarm for 5am, so I will stick with that and then see if I can make it earlier. Maybe I’ll set it ten minutes earlier each week and see how that goes. To start things off though, tomorrow morning I shall rise at 5am, get everything ready for work, make my hot chocolate (Haighs, I’m spoiling myself!) and sit down at the computer and force myself to write.

3. Get your coffee first:

I don’t drink coffee, so I’ve bought some Haigh’s hot chocolate. Yum!! That on its own will be enough to get me out of bed!

4. Don’t check email or RSS feeds:

This is going to be harder. I LOVE hearing from my friends, especially Emily, but... *deep sigh* I mostly receive emails during the day, and I can easily respond to them of an evening. There’s no real reason for me to be focussing on emails of a morning. It’s just willpower, and keeping my eye on the goal of my novel completed to full first draft by December 31.

5. Clear away all distractions:

Since I’ve moved my study into the old spare room, this is a lot easier to achieve. I look at a beautiful big green wall. As long as the desk is tidy, then there are no distractions (aside from the ones I find online, and the ones that my dog present to me in the form of toys, balls, a hairy butt to be scratched).

6. Just write:

Thirty minute blocks work well for me, so I shall do that. The breaks between the blocks must be small though. A break to get a drink, go to the toilet, find more food, that’s all. No more than five minutes each time, preferably even less than that. I have to be strict about this because I am so easily distracted.

7. Celebrate when you’re done!

Woo hoo, once I’ve spent and hour and a half writing, I get to go to work! *groans* However, I do get to walk to the station and then read my book on the train, so I guess that constitutes some form of a reward. Best of all though, I get to have a sense of achievement, and the knowledge that even if I do absolutely no writing for the remainder of the day it won't be a major travesty.

8. Practice

Every day, regardless of what day it is, this must be my routine. This will be broken only by social activities where I’m up too late the previous night to wake up early the following day. Unfortunately, I need 8 hours of sleep or else my immune system starts eating itself, literally. I am such a nerdy hermit though that there will be a rare day when this habit is broken.

I'll report back in a week or so to say how I'm going. I trust I'll bring good news and an improved word count (maybe even a new chapter!)

BR: Gravity (Scot Gardner)

2008-05-06T18:31:00.003+10:00

Book Link: Gravity

Adam Prince is 18 years old, suffocated by small town life and desperate to escape the responsibilities placed upon he and his father to care for Simon, his brother and an intellectual vegetable since an accident claimed the older boy’s best friend and almost his life. Adam’s mother, overwhelmed by Simon’s disabilities and in receipt of minimal (at best) assistance from her husband and Adam, throws in her apron and heads for the city.

The story opens with Adam in the small town’s local pub, getting tanked, then stumbling outside to contemplate his life as he throws up in the street. Bullant, his best friend and confidante tries (in a bloke-like, ineffectual way) to help, but Adam isn’t ready to talk, to share his feelings, to untangle the confusion that’s twisting him up inside.

He declines Bullant’s help, gets into his ute and drives out of town, almost crashing the vehicle once then waking after having crashed it for real. He’s uninjured, without a car and in trouble with the police. Unable to deal with the fallout and needing some time to think, he takes off to Melbourne in search of his mother, intent on bringing her home.

Despite the dark start to this story, recollections of brutish injustices suffered at the hands of his brother and a series of experiences that should have elated him yet left him feeling empty, once Adam hits the city his luck changes. He lands a job, makes friends, attracts the eye of a woman who treats him like an untouchable sex-toy. He doesn’t much complain.

Interactions with his mother foster a growing sense of appreciation and empathy, interspersed with bouts of volatile misunderstanding.

Mum’s lips disappeared into her mouth. She strode across the flat and exploded. ‘I sat out there for three hours. Three hours! I couldn’t even sit in my car. You had those keys, too. Ignorant, selfish, inconsiderate child.’

She was shaking. Her words tapered to a spitting whisper and I thought she was going to hit me. I knew if she hit me, it would be over. The sorry in me had gone. Now I was buoyed by my own anger. If she hit me, I’d hit her back. Force ten. I’d break her and there’d be no going back from that. She’d go down.

Over the space of a week, Adam finds himself, his truth, his calling and his true love (though she was there the whole time). The story is nicely paced, beautifully written, illustrative of country life and layered with honest introspection and revelations. Adam is a smart kid, loyal, honest, he’s been raised well and has a strong instinct and self-motivation to act when he sees something has to be done. He is a son any parent would be proud of. I adored him, felt for him, had my throat tighten when he was struggling to find solid ground, and my heart swell when he demonstrated his instinctive altruism.

This is a coming of age story, a feel-good, hopeful tale tinged with sadness and loss, with regret and the reality that the past cannot be changed, no matter how much we wish it could. Despite this being a young-adult novel and myself somewhat older than young adult, I fell in love with this story, with Adam, with his journey to find himself. I highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys strongly written character drama, enriched prose and a young protagonist who is as inspiring as he is flawed.

My only criticism is the degree of personal transformation over such a short time period, and the convenience of some of the events and friendships that enabled it. However, stranger things have happened so my rating drops only half a star.

Rating: ****1/2 out of five

Back to Booktown 2008

2008-05-03T18:48:00.001+10:00

With a name involving 'Booktown', how could I possibly resist!? I invited Tara along, a writer friend who I met through the Supernatural fandom. Despite my warnings that I would buy lots of books, she could end up being my pack-horse and be relegated to wandering aimlessly behind while I salivated over book titles, she willingly agreed to come along. I collected her from her home at 8:30 and off we went in search of the Western Freeway and an eventual turnoff (somewhere past Ballarat) to Clunes.

I had music in case we couldn’t think of things to say, but we talked so much my throat got sore. We discussed everything from amusing brother-antics to television, books, writing, travel… I’m sure we left no stone unturned and the 2 hour drive simply flew by. Before we knew it, we were in Clunes.

The town’s main street had been cordoned off, turned into an impromptu open-air mall with food stalls down the centre and a band playing country music songs. We parked and started down the hill. They were running a free shuttle bus to ferry people around to the various venues, but it was never anywhere we needed it to be, and the different points of attraction weren’t that far apart so we walked.

First stop was a bookshop. Fancy that!? *lol* Despite seeing many books that could have taken my interest, I bought only one for $8, Jackson’s Track. Tara found a book on Ewan McGregor, so we both did good!

Down the street we trundled, stopping for a quick photo of a local sign as it featured the surname of one of the characters from Supernatural. We must never forget our roots.

Around this time I discovered that the little camera I brought along was useful only as a paperweight, and not really a very good one at that. Tara immediately nominated herself as tour photographer, which pleased me greatly. These photos attest to her ability to do a good job, and again I thank her.

At the junction of the main road through town and the main shopping strip was a lady sitting behind a card table with a stack of brochures and a cash box. Uh huh. It didn’t take much intellect to figure out that there would be no free programs for these little chickens. We kept on walking.

A book stall drew me like a bee to honey (or a wasp, but more on that later), but the books sucked and we didn’t stay long. Further along, more bookstores and then a small park with food stalls. I insisted we stop to eat, because… well, it had been such a long time (2 hours) since I’d eaten breakfast and I was ravenous! I got a Tuki Burger and Tara had baked potato. So, what’s a tuki burger, I hear you say? Hmmm… yummy!! It’s barbeque trout (fish) in a sour dough roll with salad and lemon/pepper dressing. Good gosh, it’s divine. And the fish has no bones, so no chance of me choking. I was the guy’s first customer and he delivered the treat to our table (plastic picnic table on grass) and then dropped by when I was smacking my lips and licking my fingers to ask how it was. I gushed. He beamed. It was all good.

We got a chocolate fudge treat for desert wherein I was told that the organisers had experienced difficulties with electricity, and then, behind us, the coffee man’s generator spluttered and died. Everyone seemed to be taking the power difficulties with good grace though. The street had a small town atmosphere with friendly people, lots of smiles and a general sense of ease and companionship amidst a shared love of books.

While we ate, the band, with a woman in the lead, crooned out a country version of Robbie William’s ‘Angel’. It’s one of my favourite songs and they put it out on a torture rack, stretched it until it wailed, screamed, cried for mercy. It wasn’t the highlight of the day.

From there, more bookstores. Seeing a pattern yet? *lol* I lose track of what I bought where. Oh, but one little treat was a tiny alley with tressel tables, people squished in so hard I could feel them breathe beside me, and books… books… books! Needless to say, I examined every one of what they had on offer, and scurried away like a packrat with my loot. One regret, I overlooked a book, noticed it only when an older woman had picked it up and was reading the back cover. She put it back down and I (with shameless lack of hesitation), grabbed it. Then guilt settled like a weight. She looked at me. I looked at her. You know, that moment when strangers connect. I caved in, offered her first pick. We did the courteous dance for a while, but eventually I bowed out gracefully, with no book. I felt like a better person, but I didn’t get the book. *gnashes teeth* Next time, I take no prisoners!

We extended our exploration, finding books in the old town hall, the library, historic buildings that were a treat to explore even if there had been no books. At each stop, my bags grew heavier. Tara volunteered several times to carry things and eventually I took her up on her offer, then joked that if some fell out (with help), I’d never know. Coincidentally, less than two seconds after me saying that, the plastic bag she was carrying split down the side and two books popped out onto the grass. I stared, agape, afraid of my psychic power.

We continued on, books safely stashed into new plastic bags, and more being added at each stop. Eventually, wearied and needing a toilet break, we headed across the bridge in search of the bowling club, a venue we knew was holding writer’s talks at 2pm. It was just about 1pm by this point.

At the toilets, I commented that we’d not come across the CFA’s ‘nothing over $5’ stalls yet. I figured that we must have already done them but they just weren’t well signed. We went into what we thought might be the bowling club, instead to find tressel tables upon tressel tables of books. My Lord, there were books as far as the eye could see! Tara laughed. I squealed. In we both went.

Books were $1 or 50 cents. I expected to get armfuls and was wondering how to carry them all back to the car, but I ended up with only 7 or so. I must be too fussy.

Outside was a sausage sizzle. The grilled onion smell was driving us insane, so we stopped for lunch. As we ate, we were visited by wasps. At one point I made complicated airplane actions in the air with my sausage in an attempt to dissuade the marauding wasp. It worked. Then it went for Tara. *grin*

From there we went to the bowling club, listened for a while to a poetry recital by Anthony Lawrence where I discovered that I enjoy poetry when its read out loud. Anthony’s poetry had a dark mysticism, maudlin and beautiful. I could listen to him all day, entranced.

Tara and I stayed until he finished, which was only a short while because it was getting cold and we’d gotten there too late to get a seat inside, and there really wasn’t anyone speaking that we couldn’t live without hearing.

Back up the hill we went, carrying our bags, talking about books and writing. That conversation lasted all the way home, and then some. It was a great day.

Here's the loot! Well, not all of these were bought in Clunes, only about 18 of these were, but they've all been slotted into my bookshelf. Yes, these three tightly packed shelves are books I have yet to read. *contented sigh* I am such a nerd! :-D

BR: An evil cradling (Brian Keenan)

2008-05-01T21:48:00.000+10:00

Amazon Link: An evil cradling

There is no easy way to review this book, no simple manner by which to encapsulate the brutal horror of experience that underlies it.

This is a true story, written by one man as self-confessed catharsis, among other things. It’s not a pretty read. It’s not joyful, enlightening, encouraging… it’s shocking, terrifying, disturbing. Instead of giving me insight into one aspect of terrorism, abduction by Muslim extremists so they may bring awareness to their plight and achieve a greater standard of living, it served to illustrate the sheer pointlessness of these actions. Though this book, and one man’s perceptions and interpretation of his experiences cannot be taken to be representational of all terrorists and their motivations, it painted a disturbing picture of some individuals as being poorly educated, brain-washed, fear-driven drones whose lives are in service of a God they do not understand, and whose sexual and violent impulses are basal at best.

In our present state of living under a thin static of feared terrorism, it is frightening to imagine that people like this are our enemies. They are to be pitied, yet their monstrous ability to take life is inarguable.

The author, Brian Keenan spent four and a half years in captivity. He was abducted in Beirut and held in Lebanon, passed between different groups and locations, all the while given no certainty of his release, or of his life. Some of that time he was on his own, kept in a tiny, filthy cell, fed once a day, told nothing, afforded no protection from temperature extremes, fear, the terrifying ramblings of his own mind.

He was a writer before capture, a poet and essayist, recognised and awarded for his natural talent. This natural ability proved to be both a blessing and a curse, for without a means by which to escape his own mind, he turned inwards, his imagination a cruel tormentor until he managed to grasp it, use it to his advantage, afford for himself a quieting, a reprieve from insanity.

For most of his captivity, Brian was housed with a British journalist, John McCarthy. Though both men came from different countries, had dissimilar experiences, and arguably given the unrest in Northern Ireland and the comparative peace in England, could have been at odds with each other, they bonded and relied on each other for companionship and maintenance of sanity. Often times they were kept in confined spaces, cells no larger than the average bathroom, their only provisions a mattress and whatever junk they could squirrel away and turn into games or utensils.

Their basic need for food, clothing, sanitary access, was reliant on the men who held them. Though Brian did not experience torture, in the true physical sense of the word, he was often the victim of his pride and of circumstance, and endured serious beatings, some doled out by a sadistic guard who, plagued by feelings of inadequacy and sexual repression, bolstered his manhood by inflicting pain.

The book is more introspection than action. Brian spends a lot of time thinking things through, his life, his circumstances, the greater worldview and what may be to blame for the present unrest between cultures. He is a smart man, and so is John, so when they are celled together, their conversations were deep, their reliance on each other buffered by elaborate trading of insults. It’s impossible not to care deeply for them all, and at one point they witness the beating and inhumane isolation of an American prisoner, a quiet, gentle man (already suicidal) who the guards suspected as a spy. The cruelty of the treatment and the mental fragility of the victim affects them all deeply. I, the reader, safe in my home with my dog at my side, cried. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever read.

As much as this is a difficult book to review, it is also difficult to rate. I can’t say I enjoyed it, but I read it in one day and couldn’t rest until it was finished. I believe I’m a better, more informed, more empathic person for the experience and for that I am grateful. However, the increased knowledge that this book provides also dislodges an uncertain fear inside of me, the distant threat of terrorism, of disruption to my safe little world. That fear is not only selfish. It enrages my sense of a just right for all human beings, that cruelties such as this can occur. I wish common understanding would resolve it, but there is no reasoning with some people, with their beliefs, their mindsets, and this book evidences that.

Rating: ***** out of five.

BR: The Bird Artist (Howard Norman)

2008-04-30T20:51:00.001+10:00

Amazon Link: The Bird Artist

The novel opens with a confession, the protagonist, Fabian Vas, is a bird artist and a murderer. The setting is a small cod fishing village on an island province of Canada, replete with unique characters and scandal, including adultery (of which Fabian’s mother is one of the key players). The time is the early 1900’s.

In a voyage of recollections, Fabian shares his thoughts, dreams, experiences in a matter of fact way. He appears to be resigned to much of what happens, helpless beneath it, as though he has no hold of the rudder of his life. He is dedicated only to his art, the painting of birds and his dream of one day being recognised as a renowned bird artist. Though, as his idol, mentor and tutor by correspondence points out, he may be lucky to make enough money to supplement his income because his talent, though natural, is far from astounding. He takes this ego blow in his stride, consuming cup upon cup of coffee, while he fine-tunes his craft.

When his parents arrange a marriage to a near relative, a girl he has never met and will not meet until their prescribed wedding day, he accepts it with muted dismay. He has a lady friend (lover), Margaret Handle, a young woman with a damaged past, alcohol addiction and a way of telling it just as it is. When she learns of Fabian’s intended marriage, she is angry, hurt, revengeful… Fabian in contrast is listless, taken aback by Margaret’s rage. Though surely he must love her, he gives no indication of it.

In today’s society he may be taken to be a momma’s boy, incapable of making his own decisions, but I think it’s deeper than that. I consider Fabian to be a young man who wishes for a peaceful life so he can paint his birds. He goes with the flow, taking the easier route to avoid confrontation, and I can’t fault him that.

Fabian’s father leaves to hunt birds, the bodies of which will be sold to fund Fabian’s marriage, and his mother, Alaric, immediately finds loving companionship in the arms of the lighthouse keeper. It is an affair that she flaunts, and for the first time Fabian has a firm opinion on what is right and wrong. It is as though his mother’s marital treachery sparks an inner resolve, something formerly lacking and that he needs in order to grow. His anger grows slowly and culminates in murder, the death of a representation of his mother’s betrayal – the final breaking of the apron strings that keeps him weighed down as a boy.

The story plays out with some predictability, given Fabian’s initial confession, but this by no means detracts from its quality. Instead, I was drawn along, fascinated by each nuance that determines the fate of the characters. And, the characters themselves are the real shining stars of this novel. Each is drawn with fine detail, a sparkling clarity that sets them apart as whole, living, breathing people. So fine in fact that I researched the author’s technique and found (unsurprisingly) that he spent extended periods of time in remote communities, just like the one that featured in this novel. The authenticity shows, it really does. It’s a quality to aim toward.

This article is fascinating: http://www.pshares.org/issues/article.cfm?prmarticleid=4377 It gives the Howard Norman’s history, how he came to write ‘The Bird Artist’ and other information about his life and approach to writing. Reading this makes me long to break out of my safe little life, my reliance on procrastination when things get hard, and the false belief that I have a whole life in front of me in which to achieve my goals. I don’t. It’s now or never. It’s time I realised it, not just in my head but in my heart.

Rating: ****1/2 out of five stars.

BR: The Greenhouse (Susan Hillmore)

2008-04-22T20:45:00.000+10:00

Amazon Link: The Greenhouse

...moving and poetic...The Greenhouse should be read for the beauty of its descriptions, its original vision, and its complete lack of vulgarity, rare in a contemporary novel.--The Literary Review

Written in omniscient point of view, this novella spans a woman’s life and just beyond, until the thing she most cherished is destroyed.

Vanessa is born into a well to do family, ostracized by her father due to a birth defect that crippled one leg, she hides (and is hidden) from society until, eventually, she is left alone as her family dies or moves away. The greenhouse, a stately, gothic structure, is the focus of her devotion, the reason for her life. She tends the plants within as though they are her children, and would die to protect them. When an intruder comes onto the grounds, stalks her and eventually rapes her, Vanessa secludes herself in the house and the greenhouse aches for the loss.

From the rape, a child is born – a boy with dark eyes and hair like his father, similarities that the greenhouse notices and fears. The child grows, competing for his mother’s attention and often-times failing. Vanessa loves her son, adores him, but parents him badly, giving him free roam, leniency beyond acceptable levels, and turning a blind eye when he misbehaves – she focuses the attention he needs on the greenhouse, and the boy notices. Soon, he is beyond her control and her beloved greenhouse becomes the focus of his rage.

The ending is far from cheery, downright maudlin actually. None of the characters achieve respite from their respective traumas, and the greenhouse, the focus of the novel and the main protagonist, meets a grim end.

But, the story is well written, and as reviewed it is moving and poetic. I read it for that reason alone, and it was worth it.

Rating: *** ½ out of five stars.

BR: A window across the river (Brian Morton)

2008-04-19T20:37:00.000+10:00

Amazon Link: A window across the river.

The back cover reads:

Isaac and Nora haven’t seen each other in five years, yet when Nora phones Isaac late one night, he knows who it is before she speaks. The two rediscover their love, and Nora, a writer, is soon on fire with the best work she has ever done. Absorbed by her writing, she doesn’t realise at first that her story is a fictionalize portrait of Isaac, exposing his frailties and compromises, sure to be viewed by him as a betrayal. The conflict tests the limits of their relationship and raises deeply complex questions about how we remain faithful to our calling if it estranges us from the people we love.

Nora has a gift, though it seems more a curse. She is a writer, a gifted one at that, however her creativity is restricted to portraying those she loves. The more she cares about a person, the more able she is to characterize them (often unfavourably) in her stories. To this end she seems more a biographer with a creative whim, than a writer.

It is a writer’s responsibility to give life to their characters, to make them living, breathing, solid people for a reader to interact with, however a writer’s true worth comes from their ability to synthesis their experiences, interactions, observations, into characters whom are new, unique, whole-souled individuals who exist as though they are real, yet they do not exist anywhere else. They may possess similar traits to living people, to loved ones, or acquaintances, but they should not personify them. If they do, then it’s not fiction, it’s something else, journaling maybe, or a form of real life fan-fiction.

I found it difficult to like Nora. She cared for others, had genuine feelings for others, yet could not prevent herself from betraying them through the written word. The novel cover raises the question of whether we can remain faithful to our calling if it estranges us from the people we love. Though, in this novel’s universe, Nora’s writing was well accepted, even rewarded, I found it hard to accept her as a fiction writer.

I felt closer to Isaac, a long term friend of Nora’s who has always imagined that one day they would live happily ever after together. Isaac is a photographer, in his early forties (whereas Nora is 35), skilled but not blessed with some intangible quality that would make his work magnificent. He feels that failure, and observes younger artists who achieve greatness with comparative ease.

Nora and Isaac are flawed, no more than you or I, and no less than. Nothing startling happens in the story, no great drama, no unraveling of dark secrets, no big mysteries, just two people trying to work out their place in the world, and how their creativity (their art) fits into that. Both characters made generalizations about others in their world – younger and older people, those who were alone and those who were not. Nora, especially, viewed her peers in a harsh light, and often-times she cast that on herself.

It’s an entertaining read, well written, engaging and thought provoking. I couldn’t help but wonder about my own place in the world, my commitment to achieving my dreams, my future and what it might hold.

Rating. ****1/2 (out of five).

BR: Bitters End (David Owen)

2008-04-15T20:11:00.000+10:00

The back cover reads:

Shattered by the bizarre death of his fiancée, Raoul abandons civilization and drives inland. Forced by a compulsion beyond grief, he is drawn into the harsh country, an unfamiliar, sun-scorched world of vast space and very few people. He settles at Hurrah, a dilapitdated property surrounded by five hundred acres of wasted stubble and nothingness, a dead, parched hell on earth. There he retreats into loneliness, the isolation and hardship of his life cocooning him from the demands of memory and time.
Until one day out of the endless haze of the horizon walks Julia, mysterious, beautiful, escaping from her own secret torment….

Bitters End is a haunting, mesmerizing novel about love and loss.

How could I resist buying this!? The book is all that, and more. Raoul is grief stricken, compassionate, lonely. His wife died in an unimaginable (darkly comical) workplace accident and the media made jokes. To escape the torment, Raoul escaped the city and ended up on Hurrah, a property just as abandoned and desolate as his emotions.

The nearest town, on which he relies for water and supplies, fosters suspicious hostility, and his neighbour, a camel breeder and crazed recluse (the type of man he will become if he stays on Hurrah), is the closest thing he has to a friend… and that’s not very close. The only person he cares about is his younger brother, a comparative success, different in all ways from him and someone whom he cannot bear to disappoint. He worries over how to tell Emerson about Maisie’s death, how to give the impression of healthy grief, of prosperity, of all that an older brother should be. He settles on false optimism, and a letter that he knows will take months to reach its destination.

Then Julia arrives, a vision of beauty, an unlikely event that is almost surreal. She carries a mystery, a story of persecution and something more – an unimaginable horror that no sane man could accept. In her, Raoul finds peace, companionship, purpose… and ultimately insanity. When Emerson comes to the property in response to his brother’s letter, and with problems of his own, he is ill-prepared for what he finds.

This is a novel that demands a second read. The ending is abrupt, incomplete, yet satisfyingly mysterious. What actually happened? What was real, what wasn’t? It’s up to the reader to decide.

The writing is nothing short of stunning – it’s impossible not to feel the heat, the desolation, the compounding grief of this man... his pain is all around, in the words, between them, layered.

The sun had become molten and obese in its descent towards the western ridge. It threw great blood orange patterns across the sky, emphasizing the landscape’s vastness over which brief, elongated shadows crept. The farmhouse and sheds cracked loudly as they cooled. Hordes of tiny insects filled the air, as they did at the end of every day, until the atmosphere took on a vibrating quality. Patterns that were neither shadows nor life forms infected the sudden and stark tranquility of relative coolness. It had always been a strange and uplifting moment for Raoul: the soil and its inhabitants breathing a collective sigh of relief. The patterns were earth scents, dry, dusky, faintly aromatic.

I wish, one day, that I could write so well.

Rating: ***** (out of five)

BR: Fly Away Peter (David Malouf)

2008-04-08T06:44:00.002+10:00

Amazon Link: Fly away Peter

“For three very different people brought together by their love for bihrds, life on the Queensland coast in 1914 is the timeless and idyllic world of sandpipers, ibises and kingfishers. In another hemisphere civilization rushes headlong into a brutal conflict. Life there is lived from moment to moment.

Inevitably, the two young men – sanctuary owner and employee – are drawn to the war, and into the mud and horror of the trenches of Armentieres. Alone on the beach, their friend Imogen, the middle-aged wildlife photographer, must acknowledge for all three of them that the past cannot be held.”

Jim, employed by Ashley Crowther to record all the bird species that visit Ashley’s property, is uncomplicated. He takes each day as it comes, content with the small beauty around him, fascinated by the intricacies of life. He knows a lot about birds, and avoids thinking too hard about those things that he doesn’t understand – like his father, a brutal, unloving man who is best avoided. When war reaches Australia, Jim thinks little of it. As time moves on, the conflict an ocean away becomes unavoidable.

Jim joins up. He does so without too much real thought, and Imogen (his photographer friend, an older woman who lives by her own dreams and defies rumour) is dismayed. Ashley similarly is sent overseas, but he joins up as an officer.

The second half of the book illustrates Jim’s experiences in the trenches, with the mud, blood, the unimaginable carnage. The horror drags on for months, and little by little Jim comes apart. His narrative is fixed, focused, like a record snagged on the same groove. If he engages in battle, or kills anyone, it’s not known, though it is expected that he does. He observes and experiences the battle with the same detached devotion that he observed the birds on the beach in Queensland, it’s horrific, a study of the brutal destruction of a man’s soul, and ultimately of his life.

The book is shorter than I imagined it would be, and in some places it seems scant, devoid of detail. The ending leaves a bitter aftertaste and a realization of truth. No book about war can ever leave anything but, yet the novel goes beyond the actions and experience to the truth that the ‘past cannot be held’.

Rating: ***1/2 out of *****

BR: Be Near Me (Andrew O'Hagan)

2008-04-04T20:25:00.003+11:00

Amazon Link: Be Near Me

“When an English priest takes over a small Scottish parish, not everyone is ready to accept him. He makes friends with two local youths. Mark and Lisa, and clashes with a world he can barely understand.

Be Near Me is a story of art and politics, love and change, and a book about the way we live now. Trapped in class hatreds, threatened by personal flaws, Father David begins to discover what happened to the ideals of his generation.”

Andrew O’Hagan crafts a real world, a seaside hamlet in the Scottish isles, and inhabits it with a flawed priest, a protagonist who I slowly grew to like, to respect, to understand. David, a fifty-something year old, spends a lot of time reflecting on the past, on his childhood, his mother (a successful romance writer who provided him with financial certainty but very little emotional support) and a present day world that makes little sense to him. He values books and fine wine, his love of the latter not enough to suggest alcoholism but more than that expected of a parish priest. In fact, many of his approaches to faith are out of sync with the expectations of his flock, his peers and mentors.

When the locals fail to accept him, some going so far as to threaten and curse him for being English, a pompous outsider who has no place on Scottish soil, he finds companionship with the only other outsiders in the small community – two young people, Mark and Lisa. The youth are fifteen years old, Lisa young and impetuous, overly emotional and taken to shifting loyalties when she doesn’t get her own way, and Mark, a self-absorbed hoodlum who seeks out David’s company in preference to people his own age. The friendship leads to trouble and revelations that I didn’t see coming, but in hindsight were always there.

“Troubles like mine begin, as they end, in a thousand places, but my year in that Scottish parish would serve to unlock everything. There is no other way of putting the matter. Dalgarnock seems now like the central place in a story I had known all along, as if each year and each quiet hour of my professional life had only been a preparation for the darkness of that town, where hope is like a harebell ringing at night.”

Initially I found the book to be slow, overly descriptive in setting and too full of characters and recollections. I continued to read even though it was a challenge to my concentration. Around a third of the way through, this changed. I went from reading because I had picked it up and the writing really was masterful, the author well respected and I felt it to be educational to keep reading… to enjoying and engaging and glowering each time I reached my station and had to put the book aside.

There were some aspects of the novel that I could not fully appreciate. For instance, David held a dinner party for his peers and over wine they discussed politics, war, America’s role in Iraq and the influences that shape modern Scotland. References were made to politics, religion, philosophy and I could only read as an observer, unable to engage in the narrative, unable to have a well developed opinion or to even understand some of the comparisons that were made. I felt uneducated, almost stupid, yet I realise I should not. Politics, religion and even philosophy interest me in a general sense, but not specifically. I tune out, I guess I’m like Mark in that respect, I absorb only that which is of personal relevance to me.

Overall, this is a book that deserves a second read (maybe even a third).

Rating: ***** out of five.

BR: Hatchet (Gary Paulsen)

2008-03-25T12:43:00.000+11:00

Amazon Link: Hatchet

Brian, a thirteen year old boy en-route to his father’s home in Canada, survives a plane crash that kills the pilot. Injured, alone, relying on his wits, memories of wilderness survival programs he has seen and hints he has been taught, and with only a hatchet given to his by his mother, he must find food, shelter, inner courage to prevail. He does and his story, though rushed and simply told, is effective.

Brian learns about his environment through observation and error. He notes the day he transitions from the old Brian – a city boy, ill-bred for the hostile wilderness and destined to succumb to his surroundings – to an intuitive, attuned being whom is at-one with nature, able to hunt, interpret, evade.

At the conclusion of the story Brian retrieves the survival pack from the plane, a feat made possible by a violent storm. The pack provides a bounty of equipment, dehydrated food, provisions that would see him survive much longer, if not for the onset of winter, and a fortuitous rescue.

At the beginning of the story the reader is informed that Brian’s parents are divorcing. He focuses on this, replaying the preceding events over in his mind, trying to attribute blame, and to understand it. This aspect of the story seems forced, inserted to strengthen Brian’s character maybe, except to me it felt awkward. The story would have been stronger without it.

In all a quick, entertaining read. ** out of ***** stars.

My novel has a title!

2008-03-22T17:54:00.006+11:00

This weekend Em and I work-shopped and I now have a title for my novel. I’m ecstatic! Twenty-Six Days had worked as an interim title however it didn’t encapsulate the tone and theme. The new title does. We were so delighted with what we both achieved (me with a title and she with a clearer structure) that we rewarded ourselves with a night off, and then a day off to go book-shopping. The day off was somewhat unplanned and no fault of Em’s, I was too lazy to get working so we went out instead. Also, I blame the sunshine. Melbourne doled out the most perfect blue sky today. It would have been sinful to have wasted it. So, we trawled several discount second-hand stores for books, even stooping so low as to drop in at the local rubbish tip recycling centre. Our efforts paid off. For under $100 we netted over 40 books. And I even managed to tick one off my wish-list.

On the novel progress front, things are going well. See, how generic a statement is that!? But it is true. I’m feeling comfortable and confident about where my boy is at – although he most definitely is neither comfortable nor confident with his predicament, poor boy. I’m finalizing chapter seven and have a rough sketch of some of the dialogue for chapter eight. I envisage the word-count to run to about 120,000 words which I then will pare back. My estimation skills are sorely lacking though, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it makes 150,000 before I consider it to be ‘done’.

Honestly, I can’t imagine it being finished, though I know that it will be. I can’t imagine not having this character in my head, nor can I imagine how the story will be resolved. I have an outline, a structure, an impression of how the novel will conclude, but not the detail. I can envisage the climax – I can see the two main players, I can even feel the atmosphere but what they will say, how it will play out, what will ultimately happen is unchartered territory. I joke to Em that I’m not even sure that the protag will survive, but I hope he will. I imagine I will write several alternate endings until I hit upon the one that resonates. I’m excited about that, yet in no great hurry to get there. I must cover a lot of ground before I’m ready to tackle the ending.

I feel sure that one day this novel, or a novel that I write, will be published. It no longer feels like a dream, but rather an eventual reality. I have Em to thank for that – for believing in me, for encouraging me, for enabling me to see that my writing has merit. Will I ever make enough money from writing to quit work and write full-time? I don’t know. I’m not sure I’d ever want to. As much as I resent work, it offers a valuable mind-switch away from my characters. There’s only so much of my boy I can take at any one time. I love him dearly, but he does my head in.

On our trip to Tasmania this past weekend, we stopped in at a town called Penguin.

I fell in love with the place. It was the first town we stopped in and we watched the sun rise across Bass Strait. I imagined retiring there – having a little house, a dog, some chickens, vegetables, a little writing/reading group and a regular ferry-crossing to the mainland to keep in touch with family and friends. It’s a dream. An expensive, out of reach dream at the moment, but a dream nonetheless. I even bought a small stuffed penguin that is a fabric symbol of this dream. If I ever do this, then I won’t be the first writer to have kicked off from the mainland to take up residence on the Apple Isle. It’s the type of place that invites creativity: quiet, friendly, wild – my kind of paradise.

BR: PAN (Burney Dibble)

2008-02-26T09:58:00.000+11:00

John Reynonds, a scientist who is denied peer recognition for a previous achievement, sets out to produce evidence of the difference between two closely related species: humans and chimps. So devoted to his theory, he thinks little of murder and thievery of a newborn child. His conscience, if he ever had one, is lost beneath the need for the adulation of his peers. His wife, spineless and devoted, assists him, encourages him, condones his heinous acts.

They steal a newborn baby girl, a backroom caesarian section on a woman who knows and trusts them. She is told that her baby was stillborn. The baby, Penelope, is raised in complete isolation – ho human interaction, little external stimuli, only gloved hands that teach her sign language and speakers in the walls so she can learn to speak. When the girl is five John goes to Borneo to steal a baby chimpanzee – a newborn male who is stolen from his mother with callous indifference. The baby chimp, Hermes, is raised like a child, allowed free roam of the Reynold’s house, permitted interaction with human children while Penelope is shown videos of chimp interaction.

When Penelope is fifteen and sexually mature Hermes is introduced to her. Several months later she is pregnant. The real story starts here. From this cross-species fertilization Pan is born, a boy who is neither man nor beast, but is both.

From a young age Pan is aware of something being not quite right, but it’s not until he is a teenager that his ‘parents’ reveal the truth. He strikes out on his own, determined to find a way to live and his attempts are understandable and distressing. I wished for him to find peace, and I guess eventually he does.

The latter section of the book had several typographical errors, but more heart and emotional substance than the earlier parts.

This was a quick read, aimed at a younger audience and demonstrative of the importance of ethics in science. I know there are people like John Reynolds out there and while I can loathe them, I can’t deny that human advancement, comfort and health is attributable to their lack of moral obedience. It’s sobering.

Rating: **1/2 out of *****

BR: Happy Baby (Stephen Elliott)

2008-01-22T18:04:00.000+11:00

Amazon Link: Happy Baby

Theo started out a regular kid in a big city, yet, thirty years later the boy, who is now a man, is broken, self-loathing, reliant on sadomasochism as an antidote to the torment he feels inside. He invites – seeks out – dominant women and accepts their abuse, their cruelty, each partner more vicious than the last. Why? By the end of the story you will know why, and it'll make sense. You'll wish it didn't.

When we meet Theo, he has just left his last ‘girlfriend’ a woman who burned his hands with a lit cigarette until he screamed because she knew he would not return to her. He is searching for inner peace, love, resolution. It's hard to imagine these are things Theo will ever find.

The story, told in reverse, unfolds like a bleeding rose, slow motion of a life unraveled before it ever began. We learn of Theo’s parent’s in the middle of the book, but do not meet them until almost the last page. Similarly, we experience Theo’s childhood as an orphan in America’s child protection system: a violent, indifferent world where social workers are burned out, children are treated as inmates and protection comes in the form of a sexual predator who rapes Theo in exchange for protection from bashings by older boys. There’s very little joy in this man’s life, the only high points are drug, alcohol or pain induced haze where he can escape the gnawing pain.

The reader is thrust into a world of sadomasochism, sexual deviance, drug abuse, violence -- the dark, murky underbelly of society that many of us wilfully ignore. This is a world I don’t fully comprehend, or even condone, and I found it confronting… yet, as I got to know more of Theo’s life, his personality, the degree to which all independence and self-preservation had been denied him, his choices make sense. I wish they didn't, but they do.

“I want to tell Ambellina something, but I don’t trust her. She squeezes the handcuffs closed on my wrists. She also has a blindfold, which she wraps over my eyes. She runs tape over my mouth and I start to shake my head no and scream but it’s just muffled and she’s telling me to shut up again but I can’t. I knock into the wall. Bang my head against the wall. Everything inside of me is black and rushing forward, stopping in front of that big wad of tape. She pins me with her leg while she chains my ankles. I’m telling myself not to scream but as I struggle the handcuffs get tighter, cutting the circulation to my wrists. I keep screaming strange, muffled sounds into this tape. I can’t control myself. My mouth fills with glue. And she’s slapping me and punching me. “Stop it,” she says, reaching between my legs, squeezing hard, her other fist landing against my eye. “Stop it.” It’s like glass, like a car crash, like being held underwater.

I’m on the floor and Ambellina is on the mattress, my face between her legs when she rips the tape off my mouth. I feel the skin of her thighs. It feels warm and it feels like it is everywhere around me and I’m floating and breathing somehow in this dark pool. “Do you want me to take the blindfold off?” she asks and I whisper no. But it hardly comes out so I shake my head no and she touches my hair. I’m damp. I feel her body moving around me and the dark room. I feel safe. She says something about her child. A girl. She sounds sad but I can’t make out what she’s saying. Something about her husband and her child. She’s very sad about something."

Stephen Elliott weaves wonder with his words, never debasing Theo’s experiences with smut or sentimentality, or distilling them into tawdry melodrama, instead he crafts with careful precision, giving every scene richness and emotion. It came as little surprise to learn that this is a semi-biographical work, this is written by a soul laid bare, and I dare anyone who reads to not understand, to have empathy, to feel anger at the lives that are destroyed by a system that cannot cope. I give thanks that however difficult my life has sometimes been, it could have been much worse.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars. Beautifully written, meaningful and thought-provoking. A must-read for anyone who cares about the human soul.

New Year's Resolutions

2008-01-19T20:24:00.001+11:00

It’s 2008, 19 days in and I shall now record my new year’s resolutions for posterity, or prosperity, or, if I should be so lucky, for both.

This year, I shall achieve the following:

complete the first draft of my novel (another 80,000+ words)
write nine (original) short stories (in addition to Iris)
submit Iris to the Alan Marshall Short Story Award (due Feb 22^nd)
submit five short stories to competitions.
enter The Age short story competition (with the best of the ten)
attend ‘Writers at the Convent’
read 60 (fiction) books (and blog-review every one of them)
read 10 (non fiction) books

In case I start thinking this is unachievable, let’s reflect on last year.

Last year I achieved the following:

wrote 40,000 words (30%) of my novel (including outlining and research)
completed two original short stories (2000 words each). One is ‘Iris’.
completed two fan-fiction novellas (one at 22,000 words and another at 28,000)
completed four short stories (fan-fiction) (3 x 1,500 words and another at 5,000)
wrote 35,000 words of an incomplete fan-fiction story.
wrote around 10,000 words of additional material (drafts, excluded scenes etc).
blog-reviewed many of the books I read.

That’s about 150,000 words for 2007, excluding blog entries which in themselves are a form of creative writing. Averaged across the year, that gives me 400 words per day. Wow. That’s surprising given that there were times when I wrote nothing for up to three weeks at a time.

On the reading side of things, I read 30 novels. I also read some non-fiction, some journal articles, newspaper articles (my new form of procrastination), fan-fiction and blog entries, but I don’t count any of that. Isn’t it any wonder I have sore eyes!?

For the novels alone, that’s about 8,700 pages, according to Anobii.com’s calculations, which (at an average of 250 words per page) is 2,175,000 words. Steven Barnes suggests that for every 1,000 words a writer writes, they should have read 10,000. Surprisingly, my stats look pretty good there.

So, if I boost my reading to 60 books a year (double what I did last year), then I should be pumping out 1,000 words a day. Admittedly, this is what Steven Barnes suggests and I’ve always considered it an impossible dream… yet, it seems I’m halfway there. Of course, none of this would have been possible without Em who cajoles, encourages, threatens and inspires me into putting my butt into the chair when I'd much prefer to watch television or stare at drying paint. I only hope I can do the same for her.

BR: Wake in Fright (Kenneth Cook)

2007-11-22T09:32:00.000+11:00

Amazon Link: Wake in Fright

The back cover reads:

“In one magnificent rough-and-tumble of a first novel, the gargantuan flavour of the Australian outback, its sick heat and its people. Like quicksand their animal customs, their animal women, their perverts and their stupendous, overpowering hospitality drag innocent, city-bred John Grant down to his ruin – and beyond.”

John is a school teacher in a remote outback town. The story starts on the last day before summer break, as the students file out of the dusty classroom, John considers the summer ahead of him – a long idyllic break in Sydney, his hometown and a place he pines to return to full-time. To get there he must catch a train to the nearest town then catch a bus across the desert to Sydney. He has enough money for both journeys, and a pay cheque he can cash once he reaches Sydney.

When he reaches the next town he is parched and frustrated. The bus doesn’t leave until the next morning. With a night to kill, he books into a hotel and goes to the bar for a drink. He’s not interested in socializing, just quenching his thirst and passing time before he can escape the barrenness. After one drink he is offered more, encouraged to share a beer with the locals. It would not be good manners to decline, in fact, it would be downright offensive. John doesn’t want trouble, and he is thirsty, so he agrees.

Soon, he’s had too many, he’s hungry and isn’t thinking straight. The local policeman offers to take him to a place that serves great steak – a dusty back-end of a hotel where a game of Two-up is in progress. The steak is bad, the policeman abandons him and John is drawn, moth-like, into the game. It’s a serious affair, almost ethereal in its intensity. He drinks more, bets and wins. He now has enough money to live it up in Sydney. He bets again, and again, drunk on money and out of his head on alcohol. Soon enough, he loses and staggers from the venue. Back at his hotel he considers what just happened. He takes out his pay cheque, thinks about it, goes back to the venue and cashes it in.

The story, written in sombre tones, an almost hallucinogenic quality to John’s experiences, goes into dark territory from here on out. John loses all his money, and with no way to leave the town he’s trapped in a hell-hole of his own creation. A local man takes pity on him, takes him in, gives him a bed and more alcohol. John readily imbibes, fragmenting his already hazy intuition and leaving himself even more vulnerable.

He is pushed into joining a hunting party, a group of older men who take him out, shove a rifle in his hands and teach him to shoot kangaroos. It’s not hunting though, it is carnal slaughter – horrific, bloody, a deranged, alcohol driven orgy of unimaginable violence. John is both sickened and thrilled. Despite dreadful unease about the acts and his companions, he participates then relies on alcohol to numb the horror of what he’s done.

Eventually, after a black-out whereupon he wakes with a hollow sense of something being amiss, he abandons the house and attempts to hitch a ride to Sydney. It does not go to plan. Before the book ends John will hit the depths of despair. It will take more than the kindness of strangers to save him.

This book shows a darker side to the outback, beyond the glossy postcard pictures and cutesy tales of small town hospitality. Country living sets aside the gentility of suburbia, favouring a rawer, animalistic nature to its inhabitants. The book is well written, a fast read but well worth it. The writing is powerful and polished, and no other book has managed to turn my stomach with scenes of graphic horror than the frenzied killing sprees that John is drawn into.

There’s a nice blend of introspection and a well formed logic that sees this story through. John spends most of the book in a drunken daze, yet instinctually he recognises he’s in trouble. The reader, from the very first page, is drawn forward by that same recognition, and left with a sense that something more disturbing may have occurred, something that eroded the very fabric of who John was.

BR: Whitecap (James Woodford)

2007-11-15T08:24:00.000+11:00

Link: Whitecap

I sought out this book, lured by the premise of an albatross researcher: an isolated scientist devoted to enhancing seabird knowledge. I hoped to be bewitched by imagery, offered insight into an ornithologist’s life, the inherent isolation and conflict with those who oppose protective measures. I expected heart-felt dedication, conflict, tragedy, redemption. I expected a character I could feel empathy for, could cheer for, could cry for, and who exhibited a ferocious love of albatrosses, an arguably blinker-visioned determination to protect them at all costs. Or, something like that.

Digby (Dig) lives in a fishing town, a narrow economically biased society where his work would surely set him off-side with at least some of the locals. Yet, somehow, he manages to remain below the radar, in fact, if not for one scene where he goes out to tag and release birds, the reader may be forgiven for forgetting why he even lives there. This scene gave me a taste of what might have been:

One of the most captivating features of the wanderer is its eyes – so brown they are almost black, the colour of tannin-stained water. Only after staring into many birds’ eyes was Dig able to detect their almost-invisible pupils. Seeing himself in her eyes now was like looking through a fish-eye lens, with everything reflected in a brown mirror. The bill was an impressive pink, with a tube-shaped nostril on either side, like submarine torpedo launchers. The bill’s edges were knife-sharp and, as a scavenger, engineered to sever both bone and flesh in a single slash.

For Dig, holding a wandering albatross was a moment when the world seemed to stop. A spell had been cast, and every sense narrowed to what was in his arms. Even Whiting’s chatter as swhe went about measuring and recording, seemed kilometres away. He could see tiny feather lice moving in the albatross’s down and could feel that, beneath the mass of feathers, this was a slight and elongated animal. He buried his fingers two knuckles deep into the down and felt its neck, which had the fragility and beauty of a child’s.

Instead of just focussing on Dig and the birds, the offers up a mystery (an unusual leg tag on an old bird suggests foul play years earlier). The many characters serve as suspects (and inherited victims) in the sinister wrongdoing of the past.

Subplots effectively highlight the daily woes of fishermen (and women), their dysfunctional relationships, the underbelly of crime that seeps like cancer into the town. There is also a hinted lesbian affair between a female sea-changer and one of the local women (I’m not sure which one, it got confusing by the end), and the haphazard romance between Dig and the fisheries officer, or was it the fishing trawler operator? Hmm…

One aspect makes this story painfully memorable: Billy, the ten year old grandson of an aged fisherman, and his preventable fate. Billy is misunderstood, sensitive, abused. From the moment he is introduced to the reader, there is a sense of impending tragedy. Though the boy’s fate is predictable, the reality of it comes as a sensory shock.

James Woodford succeeded in his portrayal of a child in peril – the consequences of a community turning a blind eye to wanton abuse – yet I’m left wondering what purpose it served. It was horrifically dramatic, yet the only plot effect seemed to be to be Dig’s bedding of the fisheries/fishing trawler chick. Until that point their relationship had been tentative, at times outright hostile. I guess there is nothing like a sobbing, distraught man to soften a woman’s heart!?

The story is weakened by short scenes, alternating points of view, too many characters (which are poorly defined) and an overall lack of depth. It reads as an overly long synopsis, but is lacking the heart that could have made it shine.

Overall, an enticing premise but a disappointing execution.

** (out of *****)

BR: Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living (Carrie Tiffany)

2007-11-02T18:28:00.000+11:00

Amazon Link: Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living

The novel starts in 1934 in the Victorian Mallee, a thin-skinned dry land not so far from where I grew up. Robert, a man with scientific ideals and a knack of knowing a soil’s origin from the taste of it, and Jean, a woman with determination and skill with a sewing needle, meet aboard the Better Farming Train (a moving display, of sorts, that chugs through the Victorian farming country bringing new science to remote families). There’s a Japanese chicken-sexer on board, several men of various skill, a carriage of swaying wheat growing healthy and strong through the addition of super phosphate to the soil, and three women who coach the fairer sex on matters of domestic duty. I never knew such a thing existed, but now I do, thanks to Carrie Tiffany.

Robert and Jean’s first meeting is passionate, but near silent. Somehow, with few words, they recognise a shared dream – a future where he will grow wheat and she will bake test loaves from the flour to demonstrate his theories. Robert buys a property in the Mallee, near Wycheproof, and they start growing wheat in accordance with Robert’s rules for scientific living.

It’s a period in between wars, when the addition of chemicals to the soil is new, drought is rampant and babies die from nutritional deficiencies. These are hard times, the extent of suffering and stoicism is foreign to me and I am granted a new appreciation for these tough men and women who shaped this country – even if we can now recognise how wrong the farming practices were:

“… You can’t farm properly with paddocks full of dead wood. Your first duty as farmers is to completely clear the land. Once you’ve got nothing between yourself and the soil – that’s the time for agriculture.”

We now know better… or we think we do.

Jean and Robert do it tough in a land that betrays their dreams. Robert is a quiet, honorable man with high ideals and emotion that runs deep, but he lacks in the romantic area and fails to connect in meaningful ways. Jean loves him regardless and is dedicated to making their partnership work even if he offers her little support.

This is not a romance, nor is it a story that ends happily. It's not what I'd consider a tragedy, rather, it is a reflection of real life, of farming life in a time of minimal prosperity. There are many references to towns that I know, and I appreciate the research that had to have gone into crafting this novel. Even the dust storm that swept through the mallee reminds me of images from old newspapers, and brings the taste of dust to my lips from dust storms that swept through my home town in years past.

On the downside, I would have preferred to spend more time with these people -- more time in experiencing their lives, the events that shaped them, that drew them to the eventual conclusion. The logic, progression, characterisation is strong, but at times I hoped for a little more introspection. Overall, it's an enjoyable, enlightening read with unique, well formed characters.

Rating: *** (out of *****)

BR: A Separate Peace (John Knowles)

2007-10-31T20:37:00.000+11:00

Amazon Link: A Separate Peace

Gene is an insecure teenager, unable to accept the friendship of a talented, athletic, confident boy, Phineas, as being without dubious intent. The year is 1942 and both boys are students at an elite private boys’ school in New England. They are one year away from being of age to enlist for war. While the seventeen year old seniors engage in physical conditioning in preparation for battle, Gene and his friends enjoy comparative freedom, and they, under Finny’s inventive guidance, take full advantage of it.

These are smart, well behaved boys, respectful and capable. Finny is a star athlete, handsome, optimistic, cautiously reckless but never hurtful or cruel; Gene’s academic success and natural intelligence has him on track to be star of the school. They are equals, admired, respected and full of potential, yet Gene fails to recognise his worth and, in a moment of unthinking selfishness, he sets the stage for tragedy.

This isn’t a novel about regret, or guilt, or tragedy (though it is all those), it’s about growth, how people shape the lives of others, of how a boy becomes a man in the shadow of war, of how friends shape friends, and how people mature through the influence of others.

Philosophy, psychology and history combine to form the layers of this book, and it would take multiple readings to uncover them all, to reflect, mirror-like, the lessons within the words.

Until now, in spite of everything, I had welcomed each new day as though it were a new life, where all past failures and problems were erased, and all future possibilities and joys open and available, to be achieved probably before night fell. Now, in this winter of snow…, I began to know that each morning reasserted the problems of the night before, that sleep suspended all but changed nothing, that you couldn’t make yourself over between dawn and dusk. Phineas however did not believe this.

There are very few books I would consider re-reading, that I can say without doubt are capable of changing my view of the world, of my place in it, of life -- that are so powerful, yet subtle, that one reading of them fails to capture all but the most obvious of their nature. This is one.

Rating: ******* (out of *****).

BR: Maralinga, My Love (Dorothy Johnson)

2007-10-30T19:48:00.000+11:00

Book Link: Maralinga, my love

During the 1950s and 60s the British tested nuclear weapons at several remote sites in South Australia. Much secrecy surrounded the tests, the extent of contamination and the effectiveness of the British clean-ups. This novel, a fictional account, explores one man’s experiences at Maralinga and his resultant passion to see the truth revealed and remedial work carried out.

The protagonist in this novel, Graham Falconer, a twenty-one year old Australian, works with for the British at Maralinga to set up the test sites. He and his mates are told little about the tests and reassured that the work they do is safe as long as they follow the rules and take precautions. Their behaviour is monitored, regulated and any breach (including helping dispossessed Aborigines) is punishable. Displays of friendship (mateship) is discouraged and division is marked between the ranked British officers and the Australians. It's not what the Aussies are used to, and many take out their frustrations in violent brawls that end before they've even begun. It's a forced environment, and many can't wait to get out.

Graham keeps his head down, thinks of his soon to be wife in Melbourne, and does his job. He befriends an Australian physicist, Charlie Hamilton, and is assigned to work with him. They witness the first detonation together and Graham is awestruck by the power, the sheer destructiveness of it. As the months go by, more tests are carried out and Graham moves between ranges, recording radiation in the fallout zones.

In 1963, the British go home, leaving the Australians to clean up. Graham is part of the clean-up crew, and when he finds unusually high radiation readings in areas considered to be safe and cobalt pellets in the fallout zone, his indifference turns to concern.

The novel follows Graham over fifteen or so years, through his marital life, his return to school to study for a physics degree, his graduation and employment in England and Australia. Maralinga drives his career and leads him into government where he hopes to uncover the truth.

This is a fictional account based on the author’s research of atomic testing at Maralinga and sites nearby. While an entertaining (and disturbingly informative) read, the novel lacked clear time transitions, relying on events rather than reminding the reader of dates or the ages of the main characters. Some minor technical issues also bothered me, including the overuse of exclamation points in dialogue, and the skimpiness of dialogue. Whenever the characters sat down to talk, the narrator stepped in and summarized the dialogue, thus denying the reader the experience for themselves. I enjoy good dialogue, and I missed it in this novel.

Worse though, it seemed that Dorothy opted to sit on the fence about this matter. Despite Graham's persistence in putting himself through school so he could exert influence, his efforts lacked conviction, the story lacked real meat. Overall, I had hoped for more.

Rating ** (out of *****)

BR: Of a Boy (Sonya Hartnett)

2007-10-24T08:56:00.000+10:00

Book Links: Of a Boy (US title: What the birds see)

Nine year old Adrian, abandoned by his father, his mother incapable of caring for him, lives with his grandmother (Beattie), a hard – but not unloving – woman who struggles to connect with, and nurture the quiet, sensitive boy. He calls her grandmonster, but not to her face.

Rory, Beattie’s twenty-five year old son and one of her three dysfunctional children, lives with them. He exists as a broken shell after driving his sports car into a telephone pole, a reckless move that cost him his best friend. The other boy did not die, but death, Rory thinks, would have been the better alternative than the living, breathing vegetable he became.

Every character in this book is broken, dysfunctional, wounded in some significant way. As most of the characters are children, it makes for a hard read, but a necessary one.

The story opens with the disappearance of three children, the Metfords, who headed out to get icecream and never came back. Adrian fears that he could disappear, just like those children did, and he wonders why anyone would want to steal a child. He thinks he has nothing to offer, he thinks he’s invisible… often-times he wishes he was.

This is a sad story of a lonely boy cast off onto a caregiver who loves him, but doesn’t want him. He is well cared for, loved, tended to, like a garden, but he is a boy who needs more… much more.

The winner of several Australian literary awards, shortlisted for another, this is a novel that sliced into my chest, carved it up and left me bleeding for days after reading it. Its subtle power is inspiring, and devastating.

The writing... well, it speaks for itself:

Adrian shrugs, hopelessly confused. Joely is touching her nose with her tongue, chin tilted to the clouds. Giles gazes at nothing with the absent expression of the bored toddler; he balls a hand into his sister’s palm and hangs his weight off it, sleepily closing his eyes. The ironwork contorts round the faces of the children, frames them with wrestling coils. The evening has come down heavily, a haze of pearly-grey. Few cars travel this nowhere road, and the cold birds are all silent. Adrian comes cautiously forward, touching his wrists to iron. His lips and eyelids feel like icy wounds, his breath lingers under his nose. He hears himself asking, ‘Where did you come from?’

I have no more words… this book hurts, but damn, it's good!

Rating: ***** (out of *****)

BR: Eucalyptus (Murray Bail)

2007-10-19T08:06:00.000+10:00

Amazon Link: Eucalyptus

A man, who has a daughter (Ellen) and an obsession with collecting and growing eucalypts on his New South Wales property, announces that a suitor who can identify every one of the near 500 species, will win the hand of his daughter. The girl, an unusual creature, skin speckled with brown and a habit of walking around her father’s vast property stark-naked, is disinterested in her father’s challenge.

Men come from miles; she dismisses them all, unaffected by their failure, unimpressed by their various shapes and sizes. It seems no man, aside from her father, could achieve such a feat, until Mr Cave, a eucalyptus expert from Adelaide, sets up residence in the farmhouse and proceeds to work his way through the paddocks of trees. He shows real potential, and Ellen is worried.

Another man, a mysterious drifter, appears on the property and bewitches her with stories. As Mr Cave toils through day after day of naming species, this nameless stranger occupies Ellen’s thoughts and entertains her with quiet tales of lost love, missed opportunities, failed romances; people from cities she has never seen. She is intrigued, and she is falling in love.

I won’t ruin the ending for anyone who cares to read, but this is a modern fairytale with improbable events and odd characters. The writing is lyrical, the story interspersed with stories inspired by eucalyptus species, the narrative etched with wistfulness.

I started off with great interest, impressed by Mr Bail’s writing style and delighted by the Australian setting and focus on eucalypts. As an aside, for a while I thought I might be an ecologist/botanist, and so I have a greater interest than the norm in native plant and animal species. Now that I’m a writer, I appreciate writers who capture our native landscape and highlight it.

My favourite scene in this book is one where the writer focuses attention on the River Red Gum, a tree I would happily be buried under (or have my ashes scattered under… whichever).

The most common eucalypt in the world is the Red Gum. Hundreds on Holland’s property alone followed the river. And yet – small example of the unexpected – for all its widespread distribution, it has not been found in Tasmania.

Over time the River Red Gum (E. camaldulensis) has become barnacled with legends. This is only to be expected. By sheer numbers there’s always a bulky Red Gum here or somewhere else in the wide world, muscling into our eye, as it were; and by following the course of rivers in our particular continent they don’t merely imprint their fuzzy shape but actually worm their way greenly into the mind, giving some hope against the collective crow-croaking dryness. And if that’s not enough the massive individual squatness of these trees, ancient, stained and warty, has a grandfatherly aspect; that is, a long life of incidents, seasons, stories.

Stories are the glue that binds this book together. Without the stories -- related only by their having been inspired by a particular eucalyptus species -- there would be no story.

This book won literary awards. Despite the quality writing, I can't quite see why. I appreciate its uniqueness, the depth of research, the well crafted writing, but I had hoped for more.

Rating ** (out of *****)

BR: Romulus, My Father (Raimond Gaita)

2007-10-14T20:10:00.000+10:00

Amazon Link: Romulus, My Father

Written as a recollection, not as a present experience, this story spans 50 years in just over 200 pages. There is no room for detail, for sharing the journey, rather the reader bears witness and connects through empathy. It’s like sitting in an older person’s living room and listening to their life story – something I very much enjoy doing if the experiences are vastly different from my own, and these are. Through Raimond’s words, he offered me an opportunity to witness his childhood, the observations and interactions he had with his parents, family friends, and the wider relevance of immigrants assimilating into the Australian culture – something my own mother and grandparents did around the same time as Raimond’s.

Romulus Gaita (Raimond's father), an immigrant to Australia from Yugoslavia, lived an unthinkably difficult life. Raised with violence, Romulus knew pain, hardship, living without. He strived to shield his son from the same and this book proves his success. Through Raimond’s memories, I developed a deep respect for Romulus, his family, the people he interacted with and for the toll mental illness takes.

Romulus chose a passionate woman in Christiana (Raimond’s mother), but she came with huge problems. Romulus’ pride, his high morals, his honour, prevented him from blaming her for her failures (and there were many), and it also had him supporting her when she betrayed him to another man (many other men, it seems). A lesser man would have cast her aside: Romulus did not because he said there is no worse fate than mental illness, and Christiana was deeply unwell. The pride and compassion of this man was inspirational, it highlights the difference between cultures and the generosity of spirit that allowed him to co-exist with Australians who did not immediately appreciate and share those virtues.

Raimond writes with pride, with strength, and I can’t help but share the admiration he holds for his father and for the people he writes about. As a child, Raimond experienced grief, loss, abandonment, confusion that no child should ever experience, yet he never doubted his father’s love for him, and he was never without support.

This story is amazing, made all the moreso because it’s true.

Rating ***1/2 (out of *****)

BR: The Speed of Dark (Elizabeth Moon)

2007-10-10T19:17:00.000+10:00

Amazon Link: Speed of Dark

In the future, science has progressed to enable people to live longer, to pay to have their brain chemistry altered so that they may enjoy greater longevity and functionality. People who commit acts of savagery are not locked in prison cells with violent recidivists, they are re-programmed, their antisocial urges removed so that they may be returned to society. In many other ways this future is no different from our present… except if you happen to have been born with autism. In this new reality, the youngest autistics are in their late twenties because autism is a treatable condition.

Lou Arrendale is 35, too old to have been given the treatment that autistic toddlers receive, but too young to be gravely dysfunctional. He works with a small group of other autistics on pattern recognition, doing work that normal people cannot do. His employer provides appropriate office accommodation, a gym with special equipment, piped music, individual offices with cheap gadgetry which allows Lou and his colleagues to manage their overstimulation. When Mr Crenshaw, a new executive with an eye for the bottom line, sets about cost-cutting, he targets the autistics. New research offers a cure, a way for them to become normal, able to function in society, to read non-verbal cues and to work without the special devices and concessions that they are currently provided. Crenshaw threatens Lou and his colleagues with termination unless they agree to the program. It’s unethical and unlawful, and it threatens Lou’s entire way of life, but Crenshaw is not the only individual gunning for Lou, targeting him because he is different. But Lou is not a victim, and he is not the moron that some people expect him to be.

Life is confusing for those of us who can process external stimuli in a way that is considered normal. We respond to facial expression and body language on an instinctual level. Lou can’t – every interaction is a struggle, facial expressions all look alike, abstract verbal constructs are confused by false meaning and illogical phrasings, and the randomness of human behaviour offers him little option for pattern recognition and forward projection. But he manages, and he manages well. Ultimately, the decision of whether to be ‘cured’ of his autism is his to make, and he makes the right decision for him. I can’t help but sense the underlying longing that the author must have for her own child (who is autistic), a wish for a cure maybe.

A cure does not change who Lou is, it changes only his ability to perceive the nuances of human interaction and thereby gives freedom from pretense. Until society embraces difference, in all its forms, people such as Lou will long for a cure, a reprieve from trying to be what they are not – an opportunity to be who they were meant to be. It’s unfair, but I applaud Elizabeth Moon for telling it like it is. There is much to be learned from this book, the least of which is an acceptance of diversity – an acceptance of ourselves.

Rating: ***1/2 (out of *****)

BR: Born Twice (Guiseppe Pontiggia)

2007-10-02T20:20:00.000+10:00

Amazon Link: Born Twice

When Professor Frigerio’s second-born child, a boy, is born developmentally challenged, Frigerio questions the role he played in his son’s fate. He cheated on Franca, the boy’s mother and his wife, while she was pregnant. Maternal stress can contribute to a foetus’ development. He knows that, and suffers for it.

The story spans thirty years, taking erratic jumps back and forward as Frigerio seeks to understand his son’s limitations, and to accept them. I’m unsure he ever truly succeeds -- I'm unsure anyone can.

I found this book challenging, distressing, it hit home in a way that I had not imagined it could. At times I longed to reach in and throttle Frigerio for his emotional ineptitude, his damned selfishness! But, in hindsight,I understand him, I sympathise with him, even if I (at times) hated him.

Arguably, he mistreated his son, Paolo, left the boy stranded in a body that betrayed him and offered little parental support. When Paolo was young Frigerio wanted a photograph of him sitting on a beach. Paolo’s body refused to accommodate the father’s desire, but instead of accepting that and opting for a different pose, Frigerio persisted, ignored his son’s distress and propped him up like a doll. The boy was afraid, unable to control his muscles, he continually fell each time his parents removed their physical support. They kept trying, despite their son’s distress, consumed by their desire for a photograph they could be proud to display to their friends. I’m afraid that admission set my nerves on edge and darkened my perception of the events in the novel.

Paolo seemingly thrived despite his parents’ issues, but imagine how he might have blossomed if his father had dragged his head out of his own ass long enough to see beyond his son’s shell to the spirit within. At times he did, there are moments in this novel where Frigerio got it right, even though he wished for his child to be ‘normal’, he accommodated his son’s differences and supported him.

In reading, I wished for Frigerio to move to a point where he would love his child unconditionally, where he would be thankful for Paolo just as he was. Frigerio never reached that point, and in hindsight, I was delusional to believe he could – to believe anyone could. It’s not human nature to embrace difference, most people aspire to the norm. Seeing that in Frigerio raised some tender issues for me, but it’s nothing that I don’t feel for myself. If I were in Frigerio’s position, I’d feel the same way, and that was the hardest thing for me to accept.

Aside from the heated emotional reaction that I experienced (which is a testament to the writing style, I must admit), the book is well written. The choppiness of the telling was a little off-putting, but the word choices, the similes, metaphors, the author’s vocabulary is delightful.

I want to say I hated this book, because I did. It opened old sores, made them weep, made me ache with a sense of helpless injustice. With the benefit of reflection, and some emotional distance, I see it’s not all that bad, and Frigerio isn’t an evil, sadistic bastard who had no sense of empathy for his son. He’s a human, and the story is truthful… and the truth hurts. But, I’d prefer literary honesty than a feel good ‘happily ever after’ with no basis in reality… even if it makes me feel like a rotten piece of crap for a while.

I’m going to give this a high rating (despite my initial desire to set fire to it), because it’s well written, it’s real (Frigerio is flawed, despite his intellect), and the territory it covers is a bitter reality. I may disagree with Frigerio, but I can’t fault his truth. For that, I give this four stars. Who knows, maybe I’ll read it again and unwedge my own head from my ass, just like I wanted Frigerio to, maybe that way I'd be less like him and more evolved. It's food for thought.

Rating: **** (out of *****)

BR: The Broken Shore (Peter Temple)

2007-09-23T20:58:00.000+10:00

Amazon Link: The Broken Shore

Peter Temple writes with a succinct eloquence: simple beautiful words that craft a tapestry of emotion, imagery and sensation. Though this is a crime novel (a genre that I tend to avoid) it’s the beauty of the writing and the Australian setting that makes this an incredible read.

Joe Cashin is a senior detective with the Victorian Police, a smart man with a nose for the darker side of life. He can tell when a person is lying, and is ceaseless in his persistence for the truth. This dogged intensity earned him a high profile in the force, the respect and disdain of his colleagues, near cost him his life and (arguably) resulted in the death of a young officer who walked too closely in his shadow. Wracked with pain and guilt, his confidence abraded, Joe keeps the peace in Port Monro, a small coastal town where nothing much happens. In his spare time he restores his late father’s house and tries not to think too much. He’s in stasis, but life won’t leave him alone.

The murder of an elderly millionaire pushes Joe back into the job and shines a media spotlight on Port Monro. When three local Aboriginal youths are connected to a watch thought to be stolen from the dead man, Melbourne put Joe in charge to bring the boys in. With aboriginal deaths in custody a hot political topic, and one of the youths the cousin of an up and coming politician, it is imperative that the intercept is done right. It isn’t. It goes awry – a brilliant, bloody disaster. Two of the boys are killed; the third left injured and traumatised. Police harassment drives the boy to suicide. The police are cleared, claiming they acted in self defence in difficult circumstances and the locals (racist and intolerant) consider that justice has been served. Joe doesn’t think so, and works to uncover the truth.

In many ways this is a crime novel, and if it weren’t for the simplistic beauty of the writing, I would not have been so engaged. I focussed on the writing, on Joe, the characters with whom he directly interacted. Early on in the book he takes in a swaggie, a drifter with no fixed address: Dave Rebb. Softened by the trauma he endured, Joe offers Rebb a job instead of locking him in the cells and running background checks. In Rebb, Joe finds a friend. It’s tentative, masculine, painfully hesitant, but Joe connects and accepts. The subtly with which Peter draws the relationship between these two men is inspiring.

There is a love interest, the legal counsel who acts for the Aboriginal boy and an old school friend of Joe’s. This aspect felt just a little convenient, as though Peter offered her up to remind readers of Joe’s heterosexuality. To me, that was never in doubt.

The non-speaking stars of the novel are the protagonist’s two dogs: poodles. They feature in many scenes, yet never own any of them.

The dogs were tiring now but still hunting the ground, noses down, taking more time to sniff, less hopeful. Then one picked up a scent and, new life in their legs, they loped in file for the trees, vanished. When he was near the house, the dogs, black as liquorice, came out of the trees, stopped, heads up, looked around as if seeing the land for the first time. Explorers. They turned their gaze on him for a while, started down the slope.

The harsh coastal landscape brings an extra dimension, conveying a maudlin tone, oppressive weight, darkness.

Cashin drove to Port Monro down roads smeared with roadkill – birds, foxes, rabbits, cats, rats, a young kangaroo with small arms outstretched – passed through pocked junctions where one or two tilted houses stood against the wind and signs pointed to other desperate crossroads.

An early reference to the abduction and rape of a male police officer by three men, and the officer’s later suicide, warn that this is a tale of moral indecency where humanity’s most basic decencies are cast aside. It follows through. The truth behind the elderly man’s death is unimaginable… but possible. The horror leaves no character unaffected, or uninvolved.

Every Australian who enjoys reading quality fiction should read this book. Sue Turnbull tells you why. If you're not Australian, read it anyway.

Rating: ****1/2 (out of a possible *****)

BR: Falling Boy (Alison McGhee)

2007-09-13T20:45:00.000+10:00

Amazon Link: Falling Boy

Joseph, is a sixteen year old boy who, as a result of an accident, is now in a wheelchair. He carries a burden of guilt, of responsibility toward his mother who, as the book progresses, we learn has a mental illness. Joseph was her carer (of sorts) until the accident, now he lives with his emotionally distant father in the US Midwest, a long way from his home state of New York where his mother has been hospitalised.

He has two close friends at a café where he works: Zap a 17 year old boy and the café owner’s son. Zap is tall, lean, strong, all the things Joseph used to be before the accident. Zap watches out for Joseph and tries to act as a buffer between the world and Joseph’s inner turmoil. Enzo, a nine year old girl who asks too many questions, burns with an inner rage and confusion that initially makes her a character to dislike, and then a character to feel empathy for.

Much of the story occurs in the café. A few regulars, oddities in themselves, pass by and interact with the three main characters, but though this is Joseph’s story, it’s the others whom are just as wounded as he. Enzo needs Joseph to be something more than he is, and her continual prodding at him spurs his own emotional journey. Zap carries his own secret burden which becomes clear toward the end, just as the truth about Joseph’s accident is also revealed.

This is a satisfying novel about teenagers (and a child) dealing with adult issues of abandonment, responsibility and guilt. It’s impossible not to feel for these kids, and the conclusion brings explanation and a realistic way forward.

Well written and nicely paced.

Rating: *** stars (out of a possible *****)

BR: The Road (Cormac McCarthy)

2007-08-31T17:50:00.001+10:00

Amazon Link: The Road

The Road is a literary masterpiece, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2007. The back cover (inside and out) is littered with praise from reviewers the world over. More adulation is printed on the inside face, and on the first three leaves of the novel.

But... evidently, I am an uncouth illiterate who just doesn’t appreciate quality literature.

It’s a good read, but I don’t agree with all the hype. The writing is masterful, yes. The imagery challenging and hurtful, yes; and the story maudlin – but it didn’t eat at my heart; it didn’t corrode my senses; it didn’t make me weep as I thought it would.

Technically, the author’s exclusion of quotation marks for dialogue took some getting used to. In several places I had to re-read to judge who was speaking, boy or man. That annoyed me. I don’t like being annoyed when I read. I expect grammatical conformation, so that I may lose myself within the words, not be forced to fuss about the edges trying to figure out what the author meant.

The story seems… starved, somehow, bereft of meaning, of progression. From the first page to the last, the characters stayed the same: the man dying, the boy grieving. Then, at the end, when the father dies, another man comes along to miraculously save the child. Through the novel, every person they had met had meant, or caused them harm, yet here appears a saviour on the horizon before the father is even truly cold. Maybe I’m thick and this had some spiritual significance, but to me it seemed contrived.

I can appreciate that the author broke away from convention to craft this novel, and he is to be applauded for that, but as a moving piece of literature, a testament to the peril of our times, a measure of humanity… it didn’t work for me.

Rating: *** (out of *****)

BR: Smoking Poppy (Graeme Joyce)

2007-08-31T17:25:00.001+10:00

Amazon Link: Smoking Poppy

Dan Innes is a father, his two children, Phil and Charlie are young adults, independent, wilful, detached. Somewhere along the way he lost the connection with his kids, more recently he lost a connection with their mother. Now, with books as his only friend, he plays weekly trivia with a group of people he doesn’t like, and pool with a man he hardly knows. That’s just how he likes it.

When he receives word that his daughter, Charlie, is in Chang Mai prison, Thailand, for opium smuggling, he sets about going to save her. He intends to go alone, but Mick, his trivia and pool partner (and self-proclaimed best friend) buys himself an air ticket and a seat next to Dan. Phil, a fundamentalist Christian, once told of his sister’s situation wrings his hands and prays to God. He declines the invitation to join his father, claiming responsibilities to his ministry, his congregation, his faith. Dan is unimpressed and tells him so.

Several days later, all three men board the plane, Mick and Dan seated together, Phil at the back with his bible and devil talk. Phil gives no indication of what changed his mind, in fact, he says very little. Mick, on the other hand, is loud and obnoxious, making fart jokes and flirting with the air-hostesses. Dan seeks distance from both men with a selection of library books by authors with opium addictions. He tries to understand his daughter’s descent, how she turned from a sweet child into a nose-pierced, Oxford-educated, societal vagrant… and now a drug mule. He finds no answers in the books, and soon enough he and his maligned companions are in Chang Mai, a seething bustle of glitter and debauchery, sex-workers so desperate that they cling like the sweat on Dan’s skin. Phil, convinced he has entered Hell on earth, near comes undone, Mick revels and Dan struggles with nausea and fear.

The prison visit with his daughter is a welcome relief to the agony of waiting, but it brings an unpredicted twist that throws Dan off-balance. Mick takes charge, revealing the depth of his friendship, while Phil teeters on the brink of spiritual meltdown.

This marks the beginning of Dan’s journey to reconnect with his children. In the jungles of Thailand, amongst poppy fields, ancient tribes corrupted by western ways, a culture he can barely understand, and companions who love him more than he knows, Dan learns about family, about love, friendship, sacrifice and fatherhood. There are glimpses of the supernatural, a study into the relationship between adult men, humour so dry that I laughed out loud, and uncertainty so real that my nerves scraped against the brittleness of it.

Graeme Joyce writes beautiful prose that brings the senses alive. Reading this novel in late-winter, Australia, I felt the suffocating closeness of high humidity, the jangled fear and perilous danger these men are put in. The novel is unpredictable, the pace not too fast to lose the depth of the story, but fast enough to keep the reader buoyant and turning pages.

Dan is such a rich character that it’s impossible not to empathise with him. He’s flawed, harsh and misguided, intelligent in mind, rich in soul, stunted in heart. Mick and Phil are frustratingly lovable, so flamboyantly unique that their hearts beat upon the page. Charlie is misguided but inspirational. Saving her life is the focus of this book, but it’s not the journey -- it's far richer than that.

Rating: ****1/2 (out of *****)

BR: Nobody True (James Herbert)

2007-08-23T13:24:00.000+10:00

Amazon Link: Nobody True

Written in first person, the narrator, James True, is dead. During life he was capable of undertaking out of body experiences, all beyond his control. It first happened when he was seriously injured in an accident, then it happened when he slept, then it was if he day-dreamed. At age thirty-two, he left his body one night after a particularly stressful work-day and when he returned he had no body to go back to. It had been mutilated beyond recognition. So why wasn’t he dead?

Turns out poor James not only has to deal with his untimely demise, but the apprehension of a serial killer and the protection of his family (wife and daughter) from similar fate. It's a good premise, but it falls short.

I was introduced to James Herbert (JH) through ’48, a fast-paced novel that I particularly enjoyed because it didn’t claim to take itself seriously. I suspended belief and was hooked into the imagery and the fast pace. The story was predictable, but I didn’t manage to lose interest between figuring it out and having it spelt out. I can’t say the same about this book. But, when trapped on a plane on a flight across the Pacific Ocean, it’s funny just how interesting a book can be… even a book such as this.

I do enjoy JH’s writing style, though it's less polished than I remembered it being. At times he resorts to blatant word recycling which made me cringe. I chose to believe that it was deliberate and that later in the book the repetition would have significance, but that wasn’t the case.

Repetition also arose in the form of the (now dead and in spirit form) protagonist’s experiences of moving through time and space. He lost time, had black-outs, experienced a kind of particle dematerialisation when he passed through solid objects, and gained an unsettling empathy when he passed through living beings. Throughout the novel the reader is repeatedly reminded of this. Very little distinction is given to each experience, and the protagonist doesn’t learn anything new each time, he just re-hashes what he (and we) already know. By 2/3rd’s of the way through the novel, I was skimming.

The conclusion was predictable, the action readable but not exciting. I found it difficult to form empathy for James, a spirit who could experience emotional pain but otherwise could not be harmed. And his family, who I should have cared about, were not particularly likeable.

In all, this was a passive read, but it wiled away time.

I have JH book on my bookshelf, Once, but I shall let some time pass before giving it a try.

Rating: ** (out of *****) stars.

BR: Reservation Road (John Burnham Schwartz)

2007-08-18T06:40:00.000+10:00

Amazon Link: Reservation Road

Three characters, their lives intertwined by tragedy, seek to heal. All three are parents, two of a boy who is killed in a hit and run, the third of a boy of the same age as the victim but whose life has been filled with violence and despair. There are no heroes in this book, and the tone is dark and melancholy. I dare anyone to read without shedding a tear, or at the very least feeling a constriction in their chest as the pain these people go through.

The novel is told through three differing viewpoints, with a chapter devoted to each point of view. I found this approach to be confusing at the start, but only for the first chapter or two. The reference to another death of a family member that preceded the hit and run served to muddle the initial scenes, but all soon became clear and I settled into the (at times) morose story that was to unfold.

This is a realistic and heart-breaking narrative of grief, of the ramifications of tragedy on a family unit. It is also a journey of growth for the character that is responsible for taking the boy’s life. The only perspective on all of this that we don’t personally gain is that of the eight year old daughter, the sibling of the boy who died. Her parents never stop loving her however their ability to give her the emotional support she needs is challenged by their own grief.

I finished this story with a lump in my throat. It is raw, it is painful, it is challenging to experience the depth of suffering that these characters endure. And it’s all set around a small community where lives are intertwined, secrets are kept and putting on a brave face is exceptionally difficult.

I highly recommend this book. The writing is stunning: beautifully chosen words that cut straight to the heart. It’s not flowery, or wordy, or trying to be anything other than honest – painfully honest. And it’s breathtaking to read.

The only complaint I had was about the ending. The book finishes abruptly. It seems incomplete, as though there should be another couple of pages. I’m not saying that it isn’t complete as a story, it is… in fact I learned all I needed to know about what happens to the characters. What happens next is up to me to decide as a reader, and I really like that. But, the writing up until that point had suggested that there might be a little more of a conclusion.

Having said that, the story still rates very highly for its ordinariness, its tragedy, its emotion. It’s a gut-wrenching read, and as I said before, there are no heroes, just ordinary people in exceptionally difficult circumstances. It’s a reflection on humanity, and for that it’s a powerful novel. And the writing style itself is outstanding!

It's cold and wet and I'm unmotivated.

2007-07-19T08:15:00.000+10:00

All my plans to get up at 5am every morning, to write for two solid hours a day, to get to at least 25,000 words by the time I fly out… well, it’s not happening. Between the 13^th July and the 16^th July, I wrote nothing. I thought about writing, if that counts, and I researched (and that does count), but I didn’t write a thing. For the week or two before that, I got very little done as well. In my defense, I had a busy weekend with family… however, if I were a dedicated writer, I’d have fitted in some time somewhere. The fact that I didn’t is what bothers me.

I had a burst of activity on the 17^th, on a sick day from work and the worst weather day this city has seen for decades. I stayed bundled up at home, half asleep, and eventually dragged the story out and started working on it at about 4pm. I managed around 1,400 words in a few hours of erratic bursts… but it got me started into the second chapter, and it’s boosted me up a lot.

Oddly enough (or maybe not odd at all), this chapter is taking a different direction from that which I intended. My protag is making his issues clearer, and what I thought would bother him actually isn’t it at all. I guess when I’m not writing my brain is still chugging over, thinking about things and processing alternatives. Still, I’m dissatisfied with my progress. It feels like I could do a whole lot better than I am doing.

I want to be a writer that writes every day. One who has a consistent pattern: who forces her butt into the chair no matter how tired she feels, or how unmotivated. Problem is, I *want*, but I don’t do. I engage in a cycle of creative bursts interspersed with long breaks where I have little energy (physical or creative). For the past week, even when I’m awake, I’ve felt tired. Exhausted actually, like my muscles are lead and my head is filled with cotton wool. It’s not so bad now as it has been, and my excitement for going to see Emily and staying with her for a month is helping a lot.

You know, I blame the weather. I struggle to maintain motivation during winter. I always have. My energy levels are, in a large way, determined by sunlight. If it’s a dark cloudy day, I sit around and watch tv or I sleep. If it’s a bright sunny day, I get up and do things. If the weather changes during the day, goes from bright sunny to dark and cloudy, my enthusiasm switches off.

In reflection, over the past two weeks I’ve felt mildly depressed. Having experienced depression in the past (and serious bouts of it), I can safely say that I’m not clinically depressed, but my energy and motivation is way down. And, that affects what I achieve and consequently my self-perception.

Maybe I have a mild case of Seasonal Affective Disorder… there I go with my self-diagnosis. But it’s a possibility, I guess. The past two weeks have thrown us into real winter. Bitter cold, darker days… until just now, I hadn’t put it all together, but it does make sense. Even as I sit here typing this it’s 8am on Thursday morning and there’s no sun, just a pale grey cloud blanket. I feel drugged. I could quite happily retreat to the bed and sleep all day.

But, whatever is going on with my moods, in three days time it won’t matter because I’m going to America for a month and it’s summer over there!

See, I’m feeling much better already!

BR: Prey (Michael Crichton)

2007-07-13T12:29:00.000+10:00

Amazon Link: Prey

At times this book read more like ‘New Scientist’ than a novel, yet never once did it lose my attention. In fact, it kept me riveted! I don’t, however, profess to actually understanding it all… though I appreciated the general concepts. Seems that partially completed science degree came in handy for something.

Crichton injects a satisfying balance of humanity, frailty and courage to his protag. We meet Jack as an unappreciated house husband. An intelligent man, an expert in computer engineering using biological principles, he was unfairly dismissed from a high-tech silicon-valley company after becoming aware of a colleague’s impropriety. Before he could take action, he was fired and his reputation tarnished. Getting another job proves difficult, and now his life revolves around caring for his three children and deciding on what colour table napkins he should buy. It’s hardly satisfying, yet he takes to it with gusto and parents his children with a firm, fair hand.

His wife, an executive of Xymos, a nanotechnology company also based in Silicon Valley, begins to display unusual, erratic behaviour. Working long hours, belittling Jack, over-disciplining the children: Jack suspects her of having an affair, but he is unwilling to face her, or investigate counselling or legal options. His sister accuses him of being too passive. Yes, this might be true. Jack takes his wife’s abuse, apologises for things that are not his fault, and observes her unsettling behaviour with little attempt to counter it. He experiences self doubt, and uncertainty about his future, but no-one can blame him of this.

He is not a wimp, but somewhere along the way he lost control of his own direction, and he seems unsure of exactly how to get it back. The decision is made for him when Ricky, a senior subordinate in his old company, phones him for help. They are working on a project for Xymos, using code Jack created, and a small team that Jack used to lead. It’s an uncomfortable situation, but soon that’s the least of Jack’s concern. What begins is a roller-coaster ride for Jack, where he shows true courage and intelligence in a situation that is so horrific because it’s a scenario that is possible.

For action and high thrills, this novel delivers. For characterisation and seeing Jack overcome his inertia, it excels. Most of all, this novel is disarming. As a work of fiction based on scientific fact, the possibility of a scenario such as this actually occurring is not beyond the imagination. Therein lies the true merit of Crichton’s talent.

I walk away from this novel caring about Jack, horrified by what he experienced, encouraged by his strength of spirit and will. He is a smart man who shows true courage and the ability to think fast when faced with the unthinkable. Yet, he is not infallible, he's a 40 year old flabby gutted computer nerd with a family and a wife he barely recognises. He is an ordinary guy, and that’s what makes this work.

My only complaint, on reflection, is that the novel felt a little rushed. I believed how Jack worked things out, however when the action first started I momentarily felt as though I’d missed something. It's a minor gripe, but I wouldn’t have complained if the novel had been padded out with an extra 50 or so pages, in the centre somewhere, just to slow things down a little and allow me to better absorb the interrelationships and the science. But, this is a minor complaint. Overall, the novel is outstanding and I shall be looking for more stories from Michael Crichton… though maybe not those ones which I’ve already seen the movie for.

BR: Naomi's Story (Jon Casimir)

2007-07-11T16:12:00.000+10:00

Book Link: Naomi's Story

This is a delightful, heart-warming read, something a little different from my usual choice of horror, psychological thriller and action. It’s nice to mix it up a bit. Throw in something different to the compost heap that is my writing mind.

Jon Casimir decides, even before his daughter is conceived, to keep a diary that he can pass on to her to show how loved she is. He never expected his wife, Helen, to experience such a traumatic pregnancy, and he never imagined that his baby would be born with serious health issues. Jon handles it well, but not without heart, tears and humour, and it’s his sensitivity and ability to keep his head up even when he and his wife are emotionally shredded, that makes this book a quality read. And, at times, he portrays himself in a less than bright light, and he is to be admired for his honesty.

From the outset, I fell in love with Jon’s writing style. His words flow easily; honestly, so raw that it’s hurts to witness his heartache, his helplessness to protect his baby from suffering. He carries this as a crushing weight at times, feeling that his role of protector and father is denied because of something he has done – some failure, weakness, inherent flaw that left his daughter vulnerable. It’s misplaced, of course, but guilt manifests in unfortunate ways, and when he asks a doctor which of the parents find it hardest to cope with child illnesses, it’s unsurprising to learn it’s the fathers.

In no way is this book maudlin. Jon’s humorous, dry sarcasm and self-depreciation lightens what could be a torturous read. He recognises how things could be so much worse, and aches for those who aren’t as fortunate as he and Helen… and Naomi.

The funniest part: as an Australian about to go to America for a month, I laughed out loud at Aussie-Jon visiting a Los Angeles supermarket just to ogle at the huge variety of cereals. I’m going to check this out myself. See if it really is true that the US excel at variety… I mean, how many types of cereal can there be? In a week and a half, I will find out for myself. I can’t wait!

Top-down writing

2007-07-11T08:18:00.000+10:00

My enthusiastic idea of getting up at 5am every morning and writing for at least two hours every day hasn't worked out yet. I got sick. I feared it might be another form of procrastination, because my brain can be sneaky that way, but my brother is also ill with similar symptoms so I figure maybe it's a viral thing. It's still annoying though. All I want to do is sleep... and that won't pay the bills or get my novel written.

So, since my last blog posting, I've managed only a few hours scattered here and there. I have, however, managed to finish the first chapter. At just over 12,000 words it feels more like it should be split into two, but there isn't any logical place to split it. Em has read it and given me feedback and I can hardly stop smiling. She's always honest with me, and I trust her inherently... and, she represents my final reading audience. If it works for her, I know it works. And that is a great feeling! Finally, I feel as though I know Codee. Really know him, and it seems that is now evident in what I write. I can't even begin to explain how great that is!

I have also settled into a writing approach to each new chapter (each new scene). I'm using a top-down approach (to borrow a software development term). That is, when I start writing I know the starting point, the end point and an overview of what needs to happen in between. I put that all on the page, and often it's about 500 words or so. I then nibble into that depending on what takes my fancy. Over the following weeks (I'm hoping to get this down to one or two weeks rather than four or five), I flesh this out by building up each scene segment, layering, expanding and moving things around. I view the entire scene as individual blocks. I work on each block, commit myself fully to that single block, until I've got it as good as it can be. Then I move on to another block. I connect them as I go, or sometimes, if I'm struggling with a connection, I highlight the text in yellow and leave it, knowing I'll have to go back at the end.

It's an approach that I'm sure other writers use. It's not the 'keep writing and don't look back' approach that is often recommended. I've tried that approach, and it's just not me. Living each scene for several weeks is the only way I can really engage. It feels good to have reached this point, to finally know my writing style and be able to honour it. To know it works and the end product is something I am proud of.

Now, I just need to routinely get up at 5am and work for two solid hours every morning. Using this top-down approach every day will make my writing even stronger. I know it will. I just need the energy to be able to do it.

And now I'm reading...

2007-07-04T17:56:00.000+10:00

I have started reading ‘Naomi’s Story’ by Jon Casimir. It’s loosely termed a pathography (true stories told by sufferers of illnesses or by those affected by the illness/death of a loved one). This book is Jon’s diary of anticipation leading up to, and experiences and emotions following, the birth of his first child. A little girl born with Oesophageal Atresia .

The book opens with: January 10. 9:46pm. Just impregnated your mother. Feeling good. Off to the pub to brag about it to my friends… Okay, none of this is strictly true (I have no friends), but it seems a good way to start.

And instantly I’m hooked. Jon’s natural, easy-going voice is immediately endearing. He’s a sweetie. I fear this guy is going to break my heart once the bad things start to happen, and this is a story where bad things do happen. I do not know the outcome, whether Naomi lives or dies. I hope (beyond all hope) that she lives, but I refuse to find that out until I have read this story. Reading Bryce Courtney’s ‘April Fool’s Day’ about his son’s heroic experiences with haemophilia was draining… but uplifting, I expect this to be the same. I just hope I don’t cry on the train. That could be embarrassing.

BR: Bag of Bones (Stephen King)

2007-07-04T17:44:00.000+10:00

Slow moving, but generally worth the read. I quit halfway through, switched to an action novel which cleared my head and allowed me to continue the slow trudge.

The best thing about this novel, aside from reaching the end (660 pages… it could have been pared back to 450 and I would have been happy), was its intricacy. Almost everything tied in to the end. Of course, for a novelist like Stephen King, I would expect nothing less. However, I found the protag’s involvement left me feeling uneasy. Could Mike have figured everything out sooner and prevented much of the bloodshed? I found Mike to be too blasé about some of the things that happened to him, around him. Yes, they all turned out to have significance, but for a long while he ignored things that he really should have worked much harder to understand. Clues that he tried to find answers to, but then gave up.

In fact, he accepts (with little regret) that the answers were so close at hand but he was distracted from searching for them. Admittedly, the distractions were significant, but there were still large gaps where Mike could have picked up the puzzle pieces and figured things out. Another factor that detracted from my enjoyment was the (almost) apology that SK makes (through Mike) in the epilogue. I won’t ruin it for anyone who wishes to read, but Mike (who was a novelist) mused on the convenience of another character’s death. It neatened things up, removed him from a moral dilemma, and it did feel staged, as though SK couldn’t bring himself to allow this scenario to continue. It is said that a story tells something of the author, I wonder if this tells something of SK?

Mike was an enjoyable guy to get to know. He was real, human, and his reactions were, on the most part, believable. His pace and speed of reaction was slow, however it could be argued that the supernatural influences that bore down on him were smothering his natural inquisitiveness, his natural instincts.

I did enjoy the book, and I did care for Mike, but nowhere near as much as I care for most of DK’s characters. Mike was put upon, troubled by his wife’s death – maligned by it actually, however aside from this single event he had no other emotional depth. Mike’s only psychological hitch was his inability to ask for help, or to express his emotions to others. This was never explored, never explained – even to those whom were in grave danger and *should* have been informed of the potential threat. I expected Mike to journey through this, to be forced to ask for help at the end… but no, he continued to keep much of what was happening to himself and consequently tragedy befell those around him because of this selfishness. Was this a flaw on SK’s part? Did he put that in as a way to illustrate the type of man Mike was? I thought this would be Mike’s journey (growing up and learning to ask for help -- to let other people in to the struggles he endured), but no. Not at all. In fact Mike had no personal journey, he didn’t grow, he didn’t change, he just was.

Or, again, was this a tactic to show how the evil spirit controlled Mike, dominated and directed him? I’m not so sure… if it was a matter of control, then Mike could have been overpowered long before the climax.

DK’s characters grow and change. They learn. I think this is the basis of my dissatisfaction with SK. His characters don’t grow, they just are. The books I enjoy the most are those in which characters evolve. It's often subtle, but there is some kind of shift. Even ordinary guy turned into hero to save a loved one, or a hero revealed to have a deeper psychological impetus for his courageous drive, or a weak character who has to find strength to save themselves. No, not Mike. He just trundled along, self-absorbed, focussed on his own loss, his own desires.

Or is *that* the point? Does SK write characters who aren't entirely likeable? Though, I had the feeling we were meant to like Mike.

Even in ’48, with Hoke who killed without a backward glance, he had a journey. He stayed in that city for a reason, he endured the awful uncertainty and the constant threat of death for a personal reason, he wasn't just an adrenalin jock. We learn this at the end. That made me care for him, remember him… Mike Noonan, not so much.

I’m glad I finished the book. But I will focus on other writers for a while rather than attempting to return to another SK novel.

600 words

2007-07-01T20:05:00.000+10:00

My 'write-all-day-Sunday' sort of flushed itself down the toilet. But my car is fixed, at least we hope it is. There were two things it could be, the coil or the distributor. Chris and Steve changed the coil, so now it's wait and see if that fixes it. The car starts, drives, runs fine... but it did this morning as well after it had been left to cool down overnight. So, we'll see.

Yes, writing... well, I got some done. 600 words to be exact, well, give or take. Not quite what I had hoped for, but it has been another busy day with the car, Chris, getting things ready to go overseas. It's surprising all the little things that have to be done... little things I didn't even think of. Like asking the neighbours to keep an eye on the house. Ross dropped by while Chris and Steve were fixing the car, so I nailed him! He'll keep an eye out for any big furniture trucks trying to take things away. It's a good street though, so I figure it'll all be okay.

The car breakdown brought a resolution to the 'what do to with Paddy' dilemma that has been causing some angst between my mother and I over the past few months. I now don't trust the car, and am unwilling to give it to her because I can't promise it won't break down. I told her, and she near danced (maybe she even did, she did sound awfully pleased!), she admitted she had been dreading having it, and so it's with much relief that I have a resolution to that. It means more travelling, and the car will stay down here while I'm away and I'll travel up to her before and after my trip, but that's okay. It's a final decision, and that's the main thing. Plus, it's mum's birthday the weekend before I fly out, so I'll go up and visit with her for the weekend, leave Paddy there and then have a whole week to mourn his absence before I fly out. I swear, I'll be phoning her every night for updates! He better behave!

Hopefully something can be worked out so he can be back here for when I return, otherwise it'll be six weeks where I won't have him with me, rather than just four. That'll be hard. Real hard. I'm missing him already and he's asleep under my feet right now, my foot rubbing his belly.

Realistically, I don't expect to get much writing done between now and flying out. But I'll try to squeeze some in, here and there. No reason for me not getting lots of reading done though... especially on the plane. I just have to choose what book will be best... or books. Hmm... I'm sure I could get a lot of reading done in 24 hours. Who needs sleep? Eyeballs? Movement? Air!? Ack! I hate flying!! No, I lie. I like taking off and landing, but the bits in between are hard.

I'm not writing... why!?

2007-07-01T10:46:00.001+10:00

It's Sunday morning and I have a whole (well, mostly) day to write. Yet, here I am updating my blog with titles from my bookshelf (yes, it's procrastination, but it's something I have wanted to do since I set up my blog... see, I can even justify this to myself!), wondering when my brother will come around to fix my car (so I can chatter with him and his mate), eyeing the kitchen and wondering if I should do some cooking/cleaning/eating, looking at Paddy and his sorrowful (take me walkies) face, figuring that the heating is on far too high cos I'm overly warm and really need to get out of my pyjamas and into something half decent... but most of all I NEED TO WRITE!

So, why aren't I?

I haven't written in almost a week. Or does it just feel that long? No, I think it is actually that long. And writing is like diving into a cold swimming pool when you haven't been swimming for quite some time. It takes some courage, and the initial immersion is a shock. There is truth in the advice of writing everyday, except I suck at that.

Okay, now it's almost 11am. Enough procrastination. I'm going to get dressed and get serious. I'll check in later with my revised word count... or tales of how I procrastinated the WHOLE day away!

BR: '48 (James Herbert)

2007-07-01T08:36:00.000+10:00

Amazon Link: '48

This book opens with a bang, an exhilarating near-capture of the protagonist, Hoke, an American pilot living in war-ruined London amongst hundreds of thousands of time-charred corpses. In this novel, in 1945 Hitler unleashed a virus that decimated all blood groups except for AB type. Hoke has AB type blood, and he’s been on the run for three years from a slow-dying group of crazies known as Blackshirts… they want his blood for their leader (a blood transfusion which they believe will save his life and their own. It's false science, but logic and reason don’t mean much to these people. They will do anything to get that blood – to get Hoke.

The novel is fast paced and exhilarating. The scenes of death and suffering are shocking, but the descriptions never become stale. Herbert has a gift of making every scene vibrant, and the horrific, crumbling corpses that pervade almost every moment of these character’s lives, are newly disturbing every time I was faced with one (or dozens, as the case may be).

Hoke is a hardened man, he keeps his grief (and feelings) at a distance, but he is not inhuman, and as the novel progresses and the hunt becomes increasingly dire and complicated, Hoke is run ragged – physically and emotionally. It is late in the novel that we learn the truth of what he has endured, and it’s not pretty.

If I ever live to write action sequences even half as good as these, I’ll be a happy woman. But, until then, I’m going to search out more of James Herbert’s novels. His is a writing style that I could quickly learn to love.

On the negative, the novel is short, it is what I consider to be a thrill-and-spill, that is, it gets the blood pumping but doesn't leave a lasting impression. There is no deeper message here, at least I didn't gain one, and there's little emphasis on characterisation. This purely is action-adventure, and it works. It really does work. If I read too many of these kinds of novels though, I think I'd have a coronary. Maybe SK's slow pace isn't so bad afterall... sometimes.

Reading and writing (or not)

2007-06-29T07:20:00.001+10:00

I've bundled up the Bag of Bones and set it to one side. At the station last night I had the choice to perservere with the (steady as she goes) book, or to pluck out one of my new shiny novels that I'd bought and start on it. Easy choice really, so now I'm reading '48. Wow! What a change of pace!! So much action that I may need a coronary bypass just to cope with it all. But it's good. Real good!

I updated my novel word count this morning, however I haven't written anything for a couple of days now. Work is crazy and my OLP has flared up which tends to wipe me out. My specialist thinks that another auto-immune condition is working behind the OLP to weaken my system which, in turn, causes the OLP to flare, but it's all rather vague. Like my brain at the moment. So, this weekend will be a break weekend. At least Saturday anyway. I'll aim to get back into the novel on Sunday.

Emily read the first part of my revised chapter one and her feedback gives me great confidence that I'm making the novel better, not worse. So that's hugely encouraging! It's hard work though. Such hard work. It was such a relief to learn that it's paying off. Even if I think I have driven myself into the ground.

So tomorrow, no writing at all. I plan to go shopping for a few things that I need for the States, plus I have to take my crazy pooch to the park, make sure not to slip and fall on my ass after all this rain (great for our catchments by the way, not so good for sure walking), and maybe I'll read, read, read, bum around, catch up with Em on chat (hopefully she'll be around), that kind of thing. But no writing. Just for one day. Sunday, however... I'll crack the whip on myself again.

At least that's the plan.