Mister Pip

Lloyd Jones has written a book which until two thirds of the way in, I felt sure would be my book of the year. Seen through the eyes of a 14 year old islander girl in Bougainville, expatriate Mr.Watts is the only white man to remain in her village when civil war and it’s attendant atrocities begin to affect the community.

Reluctantly forced into a teacher’s role in a climate of fear and resentment, Watts does what he can to distract the children by reading them Dicken’s Great Expectations, which comes alive for them. The deadpan reporting of the brutality surrounding them left me in shock, as the awful likelihood of events started to unfold.
Towards the end, it all started to unravel for me, and I powered through to the finish, eager to be done with it. A lot of the tension had fallen away, and although Dickens story seems to be a wonderful theme to overlay and compare to the hopes and dreams of a islander community, it was pushed too far with visits to London and thesis-writing. 3 out of 5 stars.

Prochownik’s Dream

I barraged my way through to the end of Australian writer Alex Miller’s Prochownik’s Dream sometime after midnight last night and I’m paying for it today at work. It’s always a good sign when I’m always wanting to read “just one more” chapter before struggling with sleep and the tangled doona. It helped that the text was widely spaced, the book was in pristine condition, and it fell hot on the heels of a dense, difficult journey through Don Quixote. The main characters are artists, struggling with fading inspiration, their middle age and the demands of their partners and families. The descriptions of the artistic process were convincing to the point that I half fancied I wanted to head out to the back shed and drag out some watercolours afterwards. It didn’t hurt that there were significant erotic tensions between the parties, culminating in an affair which “only an artist would understand”. Towards the end it became surprisingly tense and violent, the artist’s marriage in tatters, just as his commercial success was beginning to happen. Is the writer saying that a married life and a successful artistic life are incompatable? 4 out of 5.

Adventures of a knight-errant

When I paid my $6 for a new Wordsworth Classic unabridged copy of Cervantes’ Don Quixote last September, I had little idea it would utterly consume my entire reading energies for a complete two months. To be fair, my efforts have been a little haphazard, but this week I managed to finish it off; something I wasn’t able to do on my first go in the early 90’s. In fact, I don’t think I got past the first 50 pages. It surprised me that this text was translated from Spanish as long ago as 1700, Cervantes having been born in 1547 and having published it in 1605. Was I really attempting something that old? Isn’t that why I never read Shakespeare?
don.jpg

Within pages I was giggling away in delight, as an absolutely preposterous plot unfolded, involving a simple man who after reading one too many books about knights and chivalry, decides to go adventuring in full knight armour through Spain, five centuries too late, calling inns castles and generally leading a deluded lifestyle, which is on the whole indulged by amused onlookers. Pretty early on he gains a squire (Sancho Pancha), and declares his love for the imaginary and peerless Dulcinea del Toboso. Anything that doesn’t agree with his thinking, he declares as “guided by enchantment”, and he spends his time wanting to starve himself and bang his head on rocks as proof of his loyalty to his lady. Along the way the tiny and fat Sancho gets tossed skyward in a large rug by some hoodlums (much to his embarrassment), they attack some windmills, thinking them to be demons, and Don Quixote cries out a lot, whilst Sancho quoth’s back at him. And really, that’s about it pretty much. They’d encounter strangers, and perform deeds of chivalry in defense of lost honour; be indulged for the endless amusement they brought, and then leave and do it all again. In some ways you could read the first book and stop there, as the rest is no different. The language is extremely interesting and colourful, and I regard it as time well spent. 4 out of 5 stars.

The Book of Revelation

Another 24 hours and another compelling, but unsatisfying novel down the hatch. I can’t keep on going like this. Selected mostly for its likely titilation factor, this is the second Thompson one I’ve read; the first third in breathless anticipation during the 18 days of sexual torture inflicted on a (lucky?) male dancer by 3 young adoring anonymous female captors, the second two thirds in growing frustration as our victim goes about destroying his life, unable to cope with the shame.
thomson.jpg
Aha, so my similar cover tears are all just part of the distressed look. So many of the scenes, particularly those where he relentlessly stalks and sleeps with suspiciously similar women long after his ordeal to sight identifying scars of the original vixens seem made for TV, so it was no surprise to see this one pop up at the recent Melbourne Film Festival. I’m sure it was well attended. The book became tiring to me during the man-sells-all-his-possessions-and-travels-the-world-for-years-to-forget phase, and his inability-to-communicate-a-thing-to-anyone personality left me cursing in frustration. 3 stars.

Never let me go

With unusual vigour, I stayed up till midnight or so, and polished off a novel in just over 24 hours earlier today. I can’t remember the last time I’d been compelled to keep on going like that – it says a lot about the flow and simplicity of the book, another of the 2005 Booker shortlisters by Kazuo Ishiguro.
ishiguro.jpg
You might think that because I gobbled it up like a stack of Pringles, that I would be wildly enthusiastic, but I’ve had half a day to settle down and consider things. If I hadn’t read Margaret Atwood’s Handmaiden’s Tale only 6 months ago, I would be frothing about this one to all and sundry, but the storyline and style of this one was so similar that I started to compare them long before the end. And this one wasn’t quite as good. And then I thought about how complex The Sea was, and how the choice of phrases and language was a lot more satisfying. And suddenly it felt like a 3 instead of a 4.5. This story of a group of human organ donors bred for the task was idealistic, compelling and ultimately sad. The most interesting elements were the surprises about what their true purposes were, and the dignity issues surrounding human organ cloning. Whilst it was an engaging read, the frustrating relationship triangle between Kath, Ruth and Tommy became repetitive and pointless after awhile, and such a depressing ending was a bit much for characters who were doomed anyway. 3.5 stars for this one.

The Sea

I remain entranced by the Booker Prize and finally snared a copy of last year’s winner for a measily $4.95 on Ebay. Even for me, this one seemed uninspiring – a dull cover, and old-school author and a routine storyline, so it sat on the shelf for months.
sea.jpg
I was nearly half way through before I felt I had settled with the rhythm of Banville’s writing, and from there on, it was an enjoyable ride, and I tried to slow down and savour things. It’s hard for me to believe that the story could be anything but largely autobiographical, as the convincing language of “the Colonel” and audaciousness of pre-teen Chloe rang true. Likewise the depiction of his growing helplessness during his wife’s sickness, the Murnane-like fascination with memory recollection and of early erotic awareness. Only the surprise ending felt engineered and fake to me. I didn’t come away from this book wanting to recommend it to frends – I never do that anyway, but I can see why it was in the shortlist – there are no flaws or mistakes, though another choice would have been more inspiring. Respectfully 4 stars.

Strong sense of the familiar

Sometimes you pay a price for loyalty and seeking completion. Nine days into our holiday I completed “Strong Motion” which appears to be Jonathan Franzen’s first novel and I found myself questioning my decision to read his books in reverse order, even at $7.95, discounted from $22.
strong.jpg
To make a reasonable quote out of it, it felt like the Hardy Boys on enviro-steroids as the surprisingly unlikeable seismically qualified Renee and selfish lovestruck Louis expose bad corporate waste disposal practices that end up befouling Boston. It felt like teenage fiction after my recent Patrick White experience, and I’m glad to be rid of it. Onwards and upwards from here – 2 stars.

Enduring and revealing

This morning at 10am, I found myself at the end of a thoroughly pleasant book of short pieces written by Gerald Murnane called Invisible Yet Enduring Lilacs. I’ve written about him before, but that was before this latest, and most revealing work to date – some transcripts of talks, and articles from the late 80’s till now. Despite what he says, I have always considered his work to be autobiographical, and this book was even more so. It seems he is preparing to depart the world of writing for good in his mid 60’s and this book is his way of clearing out the little pieces that he hadn’t got round to publishing before, so in parts it reads like a valedictory speech. He makes dramatic statements about the way he goes about writing (manual typewriter, 1 finger only,many many redrafts), and the way he has limited his physical life so that he could continue to write about his internal life (never owned a TV, never flown on a plane, can’t swim, no visits to museums/galleries). I found myself wondering whether these are deliberate sacrifices he has willingly made for his art, or the confines of a person scared to try something new, or so comfortable with the familiar that even curiosity has been banished for fear it will spoil the party.
enduring_lilacs.jpg
I forgot to mention – the man is obsessed with the Hungarian language nowdays also. I admire Gerald Murnane a great deal, and I identify with his stories because there are parallels with my own, having both been brought up as strict Catholics and living very near each other in the northern suburbs. Sometimes the repetitive overlapping nature of his sentences start to drive me batty, but most of the time his themes, honesty and candour are highly intoxicating to me. I give this 4.5 stars for all the new things I learnt about his life and his teaching methods. If this is supposedly his second last book – what could the last possibly reveal?

A journey with the Vivisector

This all started in a convoluted way a few months back, and it ends today with a book summary from me. It began with a ploy that has no doubt been going on forever; someone wanted to setup some experts for a fall, and make them look ridiculous to the public. Call it the Tall Poppy syndrome or the flattening of societal tiers in general that seems to be going on nowdays – no-one is beyond challenge. I suspect we all fear that our bluff will sometime be called in our area of interest – for me it would be beer or wine styles – a blind tasting is a slightly scary prospect! In the book world, the latest victims were in January this year in the U.K, when someone tried it on a bunch of publishers and then again in Oz a few months later. The Australian newspaper picked a chapter from the revered 1973 Nobel Prize-winner Patrick White’s The Eye of the Storm and submitted it to a bunch of publishers under the guise of a new writer Wraith Picket. Predictably, it was unanimously rejected. Apart from the storm of protest about it being a cheap stunt and discussions about how writing has changed, and what publishers want and sell nowdays, some folks on Sarsparilla began wondering why no-one ever read any Patrick White anymore – and formed a readers group for his books, which I joined, having read only one of his works previously (The Tree of Man last year). In short order there was an online vote, and I found myself sizing up yellowed five buck copies of 1970’s The Vivisector in the musty basement of an Elizabeth Street bookseller in September.
vivisector.jpg

As for the book itself, I finished it two days ago, and it was a bit of a relief in some ways because so much of the second half was a tortured journey of an ageing artist that it exhausted me. But the genius of the writing and wordplay in parts was astounding. I can’t remember being so blown away before by simple phrases and nuances as I did in this book. It sounds like a wanky afterthought, but I should have marked up relevant sections for further rereading or requoting. I’m picking it up and flicking through it now and all sorts of warm memories are flooding back as the troubled, searching life of artist Hurtle Duffield returns to me. I’ve read a few of the other reader’s blog posts about the book, and they do it very elegantly, I’m going to be crude and quick. White writes about the life of a man who indulges his need to create art to the point where all of his relationships suffer as a result. He uses people (in particular girlfriends) for his inspiration and at times cruelly vivisects them on canvas. He becomes very famous and his works sell well but is largely unconcerned about the monetary and status gains this brings. He has a sexual and artistic relationship with a young girl, who he recognises is the love of his life, but by then she is an acclaimed pianist, and they resort to loving letters from afar. In the last few disorientating, scattergun chapters, he seems to use his impending death as the final inspiration for his magnum opus, and paints a work depicting god in a brilliant indigo colour. There seems to be so many symbols and themes in this book that are linked to the politics of the time and the suffering of the artist, that I feel out of my depth in identifying or discussing them. Some of the points made are lengthy and don’t contribute well to the story (i.e the tangential trip to Greece, and the mysterious Mrs. Volkov being revealed – I still don’t know what the significance of that was) and profound statements are made by unlikely characters. I get the sense that White specialised in making complicated, worldly stories and then would muddy up the waters for flavour, so is anyone ever going to work it all out? I doubt it. I give it 4 stars and hope that someone can be arsed writing up a Wikipedia entry for it.

Meeting a man whose universe centres on Bell Street

On Sunday morning at 10:15, I sat in an inapproriately dark room at the Malthouse and watched a former favourite author Gerald Murnane be interviewed as part of the Melbourne Writers Festival for $18. It has been 5 years since I picked up one of his books, and that one was a little patchy, but I’m glad I went to see him, because he’s a rarely sighted species who was modest, funny and wonderfully eccentric. murnane.jpg
Central to most of his work are the mental mappings he makes between the events of his life and the way events are recorded and recalled in his memory. For instance he mentioned that he conceives of his life as one long journey down Bell Street between where he was born and where he lives now – with the cross roads being the hobbies and diversions of his life. His writing is very much like that – a fascination with direction and geography and the significance of this. Living in the same northern suburbs as myself, I connected with this when I first discovered his writing, and continue to do so when I have thoughts about the property I owned in Northern Bendigo for 3 years. Afterwards I lined up and had him scratch “For Darren” on the title page of his acknowledged second last book “Invisible, yet pervasive Lilacs”, and said a few nervous words of thanks. For a man who “hasn’t written a book that ever made any money” he was charming and inspiring, and I was in a great mood all day afterwards.