tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5189101858060215372024-03-06T14:38:00.577+11:00Classic Readers: ALIA RetireesThis online bookclub is brought to you by ALIA Retirees - library colleagues who enjoy reading and sharing insights.Myleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00192872572021046374noreply@blogger.comBlogger52125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-518910185806021537.post-83879634884245953762013-01-16T12:34:00.002+11:002013-01-16T12:36:19.517+11:00So long, farewell .... After quite a few years convening this online book club on behalf of the ALIA Retirees group, Faye Lawrence and John Kennedy have decided it is time for the club to finish.<br />
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We have been on a fascinating journey through a wide range of literary works from many countries and we hope you have enjoyed joining us on the journey.<br />
<br />Myleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00192872572021046374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-518910185806021537.post-91376032321906625792012-12-15T18:23:00.000+11:002012-12-15T22:00:19.750+11:00The Christmas Books of Charles DickensThe first of Dickens's Christmas books, 'A Christmas Carol', is one of its illustrious author's best known works, famous from the time of its first publication at Christmas time in 1843, and in dramatised form still today a staple of Christmas entertainment on Australian television. But it is one of five Christmas books that Dickens published for the Christmas market between 1843 and 1848. All are novellas, each reaching to approximately seventy pages of small type in the 'Collins Classics' edition. They have certain similarities - in all of them a major figure (though not always the main protagonist) undergoes a change of character which makes him a better man. But perhaps the dissimilarities between them, in what they aim to do and their success in achieving it, are even greater. They are not all set at Christmas time, and it is arguably only in 'A Christmas Carol' that Christmas itself is central.<br />
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The story of how Ebenezer Scrooge is visited on Christmas Eve by the ghost of his former partner, Jacob Marley, and by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Yet to Come, and changes as a result from being one of the meanest and most unsociable of men into a generous and gregarious enthusiast for the Christmas season, does not need to be summarised in detail. It is of course a fantasy, hardly convincing in psychological terms, but to criticise it in such terms would be equivalent to finding fault with Santa Claus or with Christmas dinner. The story has established itself as a part of the celebration of Christmas, and despite elements of sentimentality, particularly associated with Tiny Tim the crippled boy, it is emotionally very satisfying.<br />
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Dickens hoped to repeat its success at Christmas 1844, and he apparently believed that 'The Chimes', published that year, was a finer work. This was not the view of his contemporaries, and it would be hard not to share some of their probable misgivings. In this story it is Toby Veck, a poor but warm hearted porter who undergoes a nightmarish vision, brought on by the church bells under whose shadow he waits for work (and by consuming part of a dish of tripe!). The goblins of the bells sternly rebuke Toby, but the language in which they do so is highly convuluted, and the reason why Toby deserves their censure is very hard to discern. It seems to be that he is too readily discouraged by the disparaging remarks of those who consider themselves his social superiors. The tale is melodramatic, the language somewhat prolix, and the plot emotionally rather unsatisfying. Several upper-middle-class characters suffer no hardships despite their appalling smugness and inhumanity, though it must be said that the satire directed at them by the author is biting, and aroused unease in some of Dickens's contemporaries. In one sense 'The Chimes' does balance 'A Christmas Carol': it is a story of New Year, though it does not mention Christmas.<br />
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The 1845 Christmas book 'The Cricket on the Hearth' was more successful in its time, and dramatised versions of it were popular throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. Again a mean spirted miser is tranformed, though this is not the major theme. The action takes place in late January. Central to it is the dilemma faced by John Peerybingle, a poor but honest carrier, who comes mistakenly to believe that his wife Mary, actually a paragon of all humble female virtue, is being unfaithful to him. Like all the Christmas books this does of course end happily. The verbosity of the style, and the extreme element of melodrama, are likely to deter modern readers, but it is probably the unrelenting and utterly unrestrained sentimentality that they will find most off-putting. The book may have something to tell us about early Victorian tastes, and about Dickens himself, but it is hard to imagine even the more uncritical readers of modern tabloids reading this with any pleasure.<br />
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'The Battle of Life', the 1846 book, is probably the least known of the Christmas books, but initially at least this reader found some relief in its cheerfulness after the relentless mawkishness of the previous story. It also seems to be a promising mystery story, the only one of the five devoid of any supernatural element (though that element is minor in 'The Cricket on the Hearth'). Marion Jeddler, a seemingly happy and vivacious young women, disappears during a Christmas party held to welcome back the young doctor who loves her and whom she is expected to marry. Her whereabouts are a mystery for several years, during which her older sister marries the doctor and becomes a mother. Marion then reappears and all becomes clear: she has left the scene out of affection for her sister, and despite her love for the doctor, convinced that what in fact happened would take place. The reunion scene is played for all it is worth in terms of melodrama and sentimentality, but it is hard to imagine that the resolution of the mystery has ever seemed very satisfying<br />
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The final book, 'The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain', is a grim, slow-moving piece, set at Christmas time. A lonely scholar, Mr Redlaw, who has suffered some vaguely explained misfortunes and disappointments, is visited by a spirit who gives him the 'gift' of forgetting the past, and the associated ability, or curse, of passing it on to almost all whom he encounters. The result is that people become hard-hearted and cruel, sometimes somewhat comically so. The curse is lifted by yet another Dickension paragon of humble female virtue, Molly Swidger, and the story ends with a happy Christmas celebration. The element of melodrama is again striking.<br />
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Posterity has come to regard 'A Christmas Carol' as one of the finest novellas in English, and largely forgotten its four companion pieces. This reader would have to conclude that he sees little injustice in this. The four later books are of some interest as works from their time, though even then they were not resounding successes. Their slow pace, extreme melodrama, and unrestrained sentimentality make them tough reading today.<br />
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<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-518910185806021537.post-3727693744828822862012-11-27T17:03:00.000+11:002012-12-09T15:53:05.607+11:00"The Road to Wigan Pier" by George OrwellGeorge Orwell wrote this work in 1936 following an investigative tour of several Lancashire and Yorkshire mining centres - villages and towns - still suffering unemployment, dire poverty and the effects of the Great Depression. He set out to research the living conditions of these places following a specific commissioning from Victor Gollancz , the left wing publisher of the day. What we have got as a result of this journey and research is a strong work in Orwell's brilliant clear prose of the conditions of the working coal mine along with aching portrayals of the living conditions of the workers and their families and a personal, clear polemic essay to support this research. The book, then is in two main parts 1) portrayal in brilliant clarity of the lives of real people from observation , involvement and interview backed up by actual data on wages, cost of living etc from the mine records and other records in the local library and 2) a strong and intellectual essay on the state of social and political England - with the first part informing the personal opinion essay of the second part. <br />
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The style of the first section is investigative journalism at its very best - the blueprint in fact. Orwell visited miners homes and talked with the families, he went down the coal mines and observed the workers at first hand and presented us with unforgettable descriptions of the way these mines were worked at that time - conditions which I am sure were similar in Australia. He noted the deprivations of the unemployed and the underemployed in those hard time and recorded it clearly and with no nonsense humanity. A most startling fact of the mining occupation was that the miners worked on their knees doing their picking and "filling" because of the low height of the mine roofs . A man could not stand up there. Orwell doesn't dwell sentimentally on this fact - on the contrary his description of the physical strength and ability of the mine worker is discussed with admiration. We learn that these miners were usually of small stature because a taller person such a Orwell himself just could not manage to do the work. He is admiring of the miners lean , strong physiques and their resilience.<br />
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Along with this description of working miners Orwell spends time observing the unemployed such as when competing for waste coal called "scrambling for the coal" . He thought this so amazing that he wondered why it had never been filmed. This scrambling involved people going through the slag coming from the mine for any coal left in the delivery train trucks and with others at the bottom of slag heap (including women and children) scrambling again for any left overs after the higher scamblers ,who had first leapt on to the moving trucks as they arrived, had done their sifting. This way the unemployed got their fuel supplies for free.<br />
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The system provided unemployment benefits enough to just barely feed a family - in fact families as an unemployed group were better off than single unemployed persons who were the very poorest of all . It is clearly shown however that the families with work were better off in every way than those where the breadwinner, ie male miner , was out of work. All housing was rented - mostly public housing owned by the local authorities . Orwell sets out costs of living from his checking of records including rent and reporting from individual householders on their purchases for the weeks food etc.<br />
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Orwells compelling account of these social and working conditions along with the photographs in my complete edition (Secker & Warburg, 1980) presented a strong case of the plight of the mining working class in those very hard times - a classic, absorbingly interesting, journalistic work.<br />
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Then you come to the second part of the book - which is a brilliantly argued essay . The honesty of this part reaches out to one . This partly because of the autobiographical approach of the essay which in turn adds to its gravity and some of its prophetic tone.<br />
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Orwell uses his own life experiences as "test case pieces " (my comment) to stringently examine the English class system . He applies pithy , economical, descriptive terms like "shabby genteel" and "shadowy cast system" with biting yet empathetic effect in this analysis. For instance, Orwell labels his class as "Upper Middle Class" and shows why this is so by autobiographical reference and detail in order to be able to point out what the other classes are. He is concerned about this separation of the classes but realistic that it has a strong systematic hold on people . He is proposing that people of the different English classes should be striving towards a "Good" socialism in order to deliver a fairer society.<br />
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Along with the research of the first part of the book this all underpins his analysis and investigation of the political system and the range of "Isms" occupying the minds of the the political intelligentsia of the time - Socialism, Capitalism, Communism and Fascism . Interestingly he doesn't mention "Democratic Socialism" - too historically early for that term I think. However it is possible to posit that in his overall argument outlining the need for "good socialism " - he is in effect describing a type of "democratic socialism".<br />
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In arguing this way I get the message that Orwell is working hard to show his fellow countrymen that they need to face up to the dangers of fascism in its guises - "National" and"Communist" by striving for the fairer society which good, real socialism can bring. Fascism then is the real demon which horrified him.<br />
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Interestingly, Victor Gollancz , was uncertain about the essay because he thought Orwell was too hard on the middle class , socialists of his day - Keatings "Basketweavers" and that it might anger the regular Left Book Club readers but printed it as is nevertheless. The rest is literary history. And on that note I should mention the social history inbuilt throughout this 100 page essay is stunning.<br />
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I haven't done this brilliant essay justice but I recommend it highly for the joy of its intellectual strength and the pleasure of reading one of the best essayists in the English cannon at his finest.<br />
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Two final comments - there apparently was no "Wigan Pier as such at that time - it was a local joke. (Orwell himself even tried to find the "Pier"at one time).<br />
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Second - the final long paragraph is a neat Orwellian summary and witty predictive 1936 comment which I will quote a little of in the hope you will be tempted to read the whole thing.<br />
"In the next few years we shall either get that effective Socialistic party that we need, …. if not Fascism is coming …..<br />
And when the widely separate classes who, necessarily, would form any real Socialist party have fought side by side … perhaps the misery of class-prejudice will fade away …. and probably when we get there it will not be so dreadful as we feared, for, after all, we have nothing to lose but out aitches."<br />
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Faye Lawrence<br />
<br />Fayehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02024279159956263512noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-518910185806021537.post-84269069794020202872012-10-27T15:09:00.000+11:002012-11-27T17:25:14.520+11:00"Treasure Island' by Robert Louis Stevenson<em>Treasure Island</em> is probably one of the best known novels in English, more famous than any of the works of many authors with a far greater literary reputation, such as George Eliot or Henry James. According to <em>The Oxford Companion to English Literature </em>(7th edn) its 'impact on the popular image of pirates (one-legged rogues, with parrots on their shoulders, in search of buried treasure) has been huge'.<br />
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Yet <em>Treasure Island </em>is a book for children, and was intended as such by its author. It first appeared in parts, between July 1882 and June 1883, in a periodical called <em>Young Folks. </em>It could more accurately be described as a book for boys: apart from the mother of the young hero there are no female roles whatsoever, and she disappears early from the action. This action, in England or on the mysterious island where most of the novel is set, takes place entirely among males, with young Jim Hawkins, the narrator for most of the story, providing the protagonist with whom boy readers can identify.<br />
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The absence of sex is total, but the world described is an often brutal adult one. There is an extraordinary number of violent deaths in the novel, though they are mainly of pirates on whom little sympathy need be wasted, and the treatement of the violence is somewhat sanitised. Drunkedness and its consequences also figure prominently. The novel confronts some harsh realities, notably treachery, despite the inherently romantic motif of a search for hidden treasure with the aid of a fortuitously discovered map.<br />
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The novel is set in the second half of the eighteenth century, and one of its great achievements is the success with which its world is evoked. Young readers are not bored with long passages of description, but the environments of the sailing ship and of the island come vividly before us. (This reader did find himself consulting a dictionary for some of the sailing terminology, but in the 1880s it probably posed fewer problems.) It was interesting to note that the island is not the tropic cay of modern pirate movies: its vegetation is more temperate, and it is a hotbed of disease, perhaps a metaphor for the effect of the treasure on many (though not all) who go in search of it.<br />
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<em>Treasure Island</em> is memorable for its characters, particularly, of course, the one-legged Long John Silver with his parrot Captain Flint on his shoulder. But many other minor figures like the blind Pew and Israel Hands, also come vividly, if briefly, to life. Among the more admirable figures one remembers the good-hearted but impulsive and indiscreet Squire Twelawney, and the much more judicious Dr Livesey, whose dedication to his profession causes him to treat even pirates dedicated to his destruction.<br />
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The novel has its 'good guys' and 'bad guys', but the picture presents some interesting modifications. Long John Silver is thorougly black-hearted, but he is also intelligent, often charming, and perhaps not incapable of a measure of decency. In the penultimate chapter of the novel Jim says that he 'has at last gone clean out of my life', but speculates without rancour that he 'still lives in comfort somewhere'. The reader whom he has entertained probably wishes him no less.<br />
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Jim Hawkins himself is in many respects the archetypal plucky young hero. But he is capable of acting irresponsibly, notably when he sneaks away from the besieged camp on what appears to be a rather hare-brained scheme to set the ship adrift. Dr Livesey and the ship's captain do not seem ever entirely to forgive him, and one does wonder if Jim considered whether his plan to maroon the pirates would not also have had the effect of marooning his friends. Stevenson does not dwell on the matter.<br />
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There are more profound novels than <em>Treasure Island</em>. But one does not have to be a boy to find it an unflagging source of enjoyment and pleasure.<br />
<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-518910185806021537.post-36079964365937836112012-09-12T14:52:00.000+10:002012-09-12T14:52:20.047+10:00"Canada" by Richard Ford Richard Ford has a well deserved reputation as being one of the major American writers today. I have found his writing lyrically poetical as well as earthy and grounded in the lives of relatively ordinary people - powerfully evoking a culture and the American landscape . I was intrigued therefore to read his latest work called , <i>Canada, </i> and to try to understand his purpose in this case. However one does learn, I think, that this work is about America and being American also . I will now turn to the book and look at some elements of the plot, style, characterisations and apparent purpose.<br />
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From the beginning <i>Canada </i>displays elements of an unusual action story. The narrator, Dell Parsons, introduces the reader to his family in the first chapter. He tells us right at the beginning that his parents committed a bank robbery in the Montana region in the the nineteen sixties . This sets himself and his twin sister when they were just fifteen, on a strange life course. The intriguingly narrated story gives plenty of evidence of why this has been the case. For example, Dell warns us in the very first paragraph that he is going to tell us about some murders later thus producing an element of suspense for the reader. The first section of the book (almost half) is about the four members of the family and the circumstances leading up to the parents arrest for the robbery . Following the arrest and gaoling of his parents , Dell is whisked away to Canada by a well-meaning friend of the family in order to keep him from child care authorities in Montana. His twin sister Bernie runs away from home herself to California.<br />
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The second part of the book centres on Dell's life in the few years after his escape to Canada to a frontier-like town in Saskatchewan . He is left there at fifteen in the "care" of a hotel owner - a relative of the female family friend who has taken him there from Montana. We learn later she has done this at the request of Dell's mother who is now serving a long gaol sentence. Dell's consequent and sometimes dangerous adventures which find him observing a range of remarkable characters and situations, forms most of the rest of the book. Dell is looking back narrating the story of his past as a contentedly married school teacher in his sixties and as a Canadian citizen. We find that Dell's aim - to live quietly and learn is achieved after he settles in Canada assisted by another benefactor . Throughout all of this , we cant help noting , he is the perfect observer . Dell is telling his story as a now settled sixty year old looking back on these early adventurous years . Overall this is an amazing plot with elements of rite of passage but the strength of the book is with the writing itself.<br />
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Ford is above all else a fine writer and observer of humanity. His has the ability to convey vivid word pictures and the flavour of the environment of the story - both human and natural. He achieves this in <i>Canada </i>as he does in his other many works including the Bascombe trilogy, however for me the narration style in this book doesnt work as well as in other works by Ford. I am not sure why- maybe it was just the tone. <br />
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On the characterisations in <i>Canada </i>I have no misgivings - they are observed and described to perfection especially Dell's family. I thought the voice in this the first half of the book was the clearest and I found special enjoyment in the young, kind and keen observances of the parents as they jockey around each when planning to undertake the desperate robbery.<br />
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One question that kept coming before me with my reading of <i>Canada</i> was about the purpose of this particular story. I dont think it is to tell us about the qualities of Canada as such - only in that it brings out the sense which Americans may have of the safety net on the continent for a country very like their own in many ways and so very close by - something like we might think of New Zealand and like which NZers might think of Australia. It is definitely about memory - perhaps a memory which is a little too good and not quite fallible enough is part of the little problem I have with the story. And possibly there is just too much adventure clouding the observations a bit. Overall I found it a reasonably good read by a superior writer (one of the very best in my view) but not as effective in conveying the essence of being American as in other works of his such as <i>The Sportswriter, Independence Day </i>and<i> The Lay of the Land </i>- these three making up the wonderful Bascombe trilogy which I strongly recommend.<br />
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I would be grateful to hear of any other views - including those which may contradict mine.<br />
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Faye<br />
<br />Fayehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02024279159956263512noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-518910185806021537.post-43189546195762292562012-07-25T19:23:00.000+10:002012-07-25T21:44:59.979+10:00"I for Isobel" by Amy Witting Amy Witting, 1918 - 2001, had written her beautiful little novel of Sydney about young Isobel when she, the author, was a mature woman by any standard . It was published in 1989 when she was 71 years of age. She had her very first story published in <i>The New Yorker </i>in 1965 when she was a 47 years of age and teaching at Cheltenham Girls High School, befriended and encouraged by fellow teacher and established writer, Thea Astley who had admired the story called 'Goodbye, Ady, Goodbye, Joe'. <br />
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Anyhow, when <i>I for Isobel</i> was published it was a recognised success and resulted in most of her earlier work of poetry and stories before then being re-published . Her works include the sequel <i>Isobel on the way to the corner shop, </i>several volumes of poetry including a collected poetical works of 1998, short story collections and two other novels.<br />
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<i>I for Isobel </i> is structured around five chapters which are each like perfectly crafted short stories bringing to life significant stages and awakenings in the life of Isobel. The whole novel comes together when read through as a rare insightful telling of childhood , family relationships and adolescent experiences with a positive, believable ending.<br />
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We first meet Isobel at age nine as she is pondering about and wishing to get a her birthday present (a first) from her parents in the eponymous chapter "The Birthday Present" where they are holidaying at a summer boarding house. Her mother is a jealous, sad woman in an unhappy marriage who uses her often unfair corrections of Isobel, a nine year old, to justify her own unhappy, straightened existence. Isobel's dawning awareness of this as a nine year old is resoundingly stated in this sentence towards the end of this chapter:<br />
"There was not much to cry about, for her mother's intentions were far more violent than her blows. Her hands flapped weakly as if she were fighting against a cage of air"<br />
This book astounds with pictorial and verbal economy in making small scenes such as this so etched, so developmental and real, you can hardly believe it. The story is told from Isobel's point of view but not in the first person. A factor which, I observe, gives a greater weight to the strong dialogue throughout the novel.<br />
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The second chapter "False idols and fireballs" tells a wonderful story about Isobel witnessing a fireball - which turned the "welling storm water rosy red" before her eyes. At the end of this chapter Isobel experiences an awareness of adult fear and subterfuge which is so different from her own - but is it?<br />
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In the evocatively entitled longer chapter 4, "Glassware and other breakable items", Isobel is starting out on her own in the world of work . She is now a school-leaver aged orphan, and being set up in a boarding house in Sydney and a typing job by a friendly-enough Aunt. The characters in the Boarding House and at the Glass Importers where she is working as a typist are very well sketched and add much colour and delight to the story. Isobel's working experiences as a translator of letters from German at the Glass Importers are often humorous - with dry, ironic observant humour being a feature of the writing in <i>Isobel </i>. It is in this chapter that we see Isobel find her feet a bit in the world of young adulthood. Several great scenes are set in a cafe with a group of Sydney University students who befriend her , and from whom she discovers a whole new world of poetry and literature. <br />
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The final chapter 5, entitled "I for Isobel" sees our main character come into her own via a couple of painful experiences including one obsessive , silly behaviour pattern she has set herself - in order, I suppose, to thumb her nose at society and the tough lessons life has given her. In the final sections of the story Isobel comes to a strong self realisation. I found the ending believable because my reading of Isobel's rite of passage, and her analysing of the world around and the experience she was gathering, was that she going to sort things out in her own way .<br />
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I cannot recommend this book more highly. Amy Witting brings an awesome intelligence to the telling of her tales in a prose which is spare, poetical and full of rich images. Various suburbs of Sydney feature in the story and it holds up as one of those novels which can be pointed to as 'being about Sydney'. I enjoyed that part of the book very much too - there are many good descriptions of street scenes, public transport and so on. <br />
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<i>I for Isobel</i> is a work to savour and bears re-reading several times. As a background note on her personality we know Amy Witting is a pseudonym and this choice, as was said in a biographical note by Yvonne Miels of Flinders University, reflects a long held promise to herself to 'never give up on consciousness' not to be unwitting but to always remain 'witting'. I also recommend for any one enjoying this book to have a quick look at some of the entries on various web sites about her.<br />
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For discussion , I would like to ask.<br />
Did you find Isobel a convincing character? <br />
Can you date the settings of the book? I am not sure - I thought the 50s but I havent come across a reference yet.<br />
Do you have a favourite section or incident?<br />
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Faye LawrenceFayehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02024279159956263512noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-518910185806021537.post-26402209081195664292012-06-04T23:22:00.000+10:002012-07-12T17:48:23.875+10:00The Getting of Wisdom by Henry Handel RichardsonA few months ago <i>The Land of Spices </i>by the Irish novelist Kate O'Brien was featured in this blog. This month our subject is an Australian novel which has some similarities to the Irish one. <i>The Getting of Wisdom</i>, published in 1910 by Henry Handel Richardson (1870-1946, real name Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson) is like the somewhat later Irish novel set in a private girls' school whose pupils largely come from privileged backgrounds. Both novels are set in a period not long before the First World War, and the main student character in both comes from a home where there are financial problems not experienced by many of the other students. (It might also be mentioned that Richardson was rather proud of her Irish descent!) <br />
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The differences are nevertheless considerable. The Irish novel has two central figures, whereas <i>The Getting of Wisdom </i>is very much the story of Laura, whose experiences in the novel are to a considerable extent based on Richardson's own as a pupil at Presbyterian Ladies' College Melbourne. For much of the novel Laura is the only school character who is developed to any extent , and throughout the novel, apart from a few cameos, the teachers are all minor figures, or caricatures, like the preposterously formidable 'dragon', Mrs Gurley. Both novels were unpopular with the schools that their authors had attended, but it is far easier to understand the unhappiness of PLC Melbourne. Teachers and pupils at the school almost all seem obsessively snobbish and mean-minded. Until the later chapters it would be difficult to name a sympathetic character. <br />
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Much of the book is the story of the bruising encounters between Laura's unsophisticated impulsive, high spirits, and desire to fit in, and her companions' relentless determination to exclude or ostracise here, often on the basis of evidence that her family in not well-to-do that she inadvertently provides. It is comic, because Laura's is often her own worst enemy, but it also fills the reader with a contempt for those around her who are so eager to take offence. In the later chapters of the book, following a summer in the company of her sister when she comes to feel that little though she may fit in at school, she has grown apart from her family at home, Laura does make some friends and win a measure of acceptance. She gains the friendship of the priggish 'M.P.' and her offsider 'Cupid' by cleverly exploiting M.P.'s wish to be a moral arbiter, and later becomes the chosen companion of the school's most beautiful and most privileged student, an older girl called Evelyn. Richardson makes very clear that Laura's infatuation with the older girl has a strong element of the sexual in it, but the reader may perhaps wonder at Evelyn's choosing Laura as her companion. <br />
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The title of the book is clearly ironic. The wisdom Laura learns is that of outwardly conforming, and saying what her companions expect of her. One of Richardson's achievements is that despite the autobigraphical element Laura never becomes a heroine whose inner strength and genuine moral superiority set her apart. It is quite clear that Laura objects to snobbery and bullying because she is the victim, not because she dislikes snobbery and bullying <i>per se</i>. The final scene, when Laura, having just walked out the school gates for the last time as a pupil, runs joyfully through a park, is somewhat ambivalent. We must wonder how free she really is.<br />
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H.G. Wells is said to have described this book as the best school story he knew. It has been in print almost continuously since 1910, and a new edition, with an introduction by Germaine Greer, is about to appear. It is a splendidly narrated book, vivid, entertaining, and convincing, and impressive in the honesty of its presentation of the flawed but ultimately rather attractive central figure.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-518910185806021537.post-46958907228522822992012-04-03T15:43:00.003+10:002012-04-03T16:31:00.368+10:00A Long Long Way by Sebastian BarryThis novel is the story of a young man who at the age of eighteen volunteers to serve in the First World War. It follows him from before enlistement through most of the war to his death in its final weeks. He fights on the Western Front, and experiences the wellknown horrors of trench warfare in that theatre.<br /><br />A rather similar description could of course be applied to many novels. The classic example of the genre is probably still <em>Im Westen nichts Neues</em> by Erich Maria Remarque, first published in 1928 and translated into English the following year as <em>All Quiet on the Western Front</em>. The question might be asked why we need yet another book on the subject, though arguably the horrors of the mass slaughter of young men who at the start of the war had no idea what they would encounter have a powerful resonance that permits repeated treatments of the subject.<br /><br /><em>A Long Long Way </em> has distinctive features, however. Willie Dunne is Irish, a Dublin construction worker, the son of a senior police officer who is firmly loyal to the British Crown in an Ireland then still part of the United Kingdom. Willie seems to enlist without much thought, in part from a desire to prove himself to his father, who has been disappointed by his dimunitive son's failure to reach the minimum height required to join the police. Willie's enlistment does not favourably impress his girlfriend, Gretta, who feels that it demonstrates a certain lack of knowing his own mind in a man who wants to marry her, and Gretta's ultimate decision to marry another man who has not gone to war forms part of Willie's private tragedy.<br /><br />The fact that Willie is Irish and Catholic, part of what is initially an Irish regiment, is central to the novel, because it leads him to uncertainties and troubles of mind not experienced by soldiers from different backgrounds. Willie finds himself, perhaps a little too coincidentally, marching through Dublin on the day the Easter Rising of 1916 breaks out, and he is soon a bit confused as to where his loyalties lie, something he tentatively indicates in a letter to his father, who responds with fury. One of the successes of the novel is its treatment of this inner conflict: Willie never resolves it, and this is presented in a way that seems entirely convincing.<br /><br />Willie is in some ways an 'everyman' (or at least every Irish World War I soldier) figure, but he comes vividly to life. He is of ordinary intelligence, likeable, brave enough but no hero, often confused, often frightened, but capable of snatching what happiness he can from his circumstances. His letters home are poignant and seem utterly convincing for someone who is, of course, little more than a boy.<br /><br />The book has won considerable praise, though some military historians have pointed to errors of fact, particularly in regard to the command structure of the British Army. The suggestion that towards the end of the novel Irishmen were rarely encountered in the ranks seems exaggerated: 200,000 of them served, of whom 30,000 were killed. It is true, however, that for a variety of reasons, not all alluded to in the novel, recruitment from Ireland became sparse in the last years of the war. (Of course it must be remembered that Barry is writing a novel, not history, though the creator of an historical novel does probably have to observe some of the historian's obligations.)<br /><br />There is much that is powerful and moving in this novel. Not least moving is the way towards the end Willie, having lost Gretta and having being more or less disowned by his father, feels real happiness at getting back to the front and rejoining the few of his longterm fellow soldiers who are still alive. The book is the work of an author well known as a poet as well as a novelist, and the style throughout is poetic. For this reader, at least, the poetic element in the style quite frequently seemed a bit overwrought. An example taken at random is from the opening paragrapy of chapter 20: 'Like an old ash tree he feared he would slowly hollow out, the rot taking him inwardly ring by blackened ring, until the winter wind came and blew him down'.<br /><br />I was moved, and impressed, by this novel, though more on the first reading than the second. I did find that the style tended to irritate slightly the second time round. But I am glad to have read it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-518910185806021537.post-32373230242719532032012-03-14T14:33:00.023+11:002012-03-15T17:22:39.778+11:00The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China by Lu XunI enjoyed this very rich collection which is the complete fictional works of Lu Xun (Penguin Classics Ed'n, 2009 ) . I have just re-read it but I need to say that introducing it for discussion has been more daunting than other books I have jumped in and had opinions about. I think it is the cross cultural experience which makes me timorous so I apologise upfront for any ineptitude of my comments about these stories to anyone more familiar with the cultural and literary background here so masterfully represented. <br /><br />First-we need to note , we are reading a book in translation which rings smoothly in English with fine prose and good story lines and content. There are many favourable commentaries acknowledging the work of the translator , Dr Julia Lovell , a Lecturer in Modern Chinese History and Literature at the University of London. You can find interviews with her by googling her name or the title. She talks of Lu Xun in one of her interviews as China's "Dickens and Joyce rolled into one" because of his range of social comment and criticism and the new form of language in which it was expressed. <br /><br />Lu Xun , 1881 - 1936, came from a privileged background of the classical ,Confucian upper class educational and professional tradition. His break with that tradition to write in vernacular prose rather than using the classical tradition of the time set him apart from many of his contemporaries. Of course it was an iconoclastic period in modern Chinese history so he found both acceptance along with much antagonism at times. I will just add one startling , seminal fact about his professional life and then leave the rest for you to follow through for yourselves either in the introduction to this edition or the many short summaries in the usual google sources. <br /><br /> Lu Xun set out to study Western style medicine in Japan ,which in itself was radical given his family background and expectations. However an epiphany when seeing a Japanese lecturer (during the time of the Russo-Japanese War) showing a film of a beheading of a Chinese Nationalist by a Japanese executioner with a passive crowd of Chinese people watching - changed his point of view. He became concerned with the mental health of his countrymen rather than the physical. He determined to become a story telling writer. <br /><br />Lu Xun met his goal well. His 34 stories in this collected edition are full of irony and black humour . The whole makes up a very rich body of work. He uses his talents to explicate social norms which are stultifying the progress of his people as he sees it. I think he makes many universal observations however despite the special and particular mores of his nation and its immense cultural history. This universality comes through particularly in the rich characterisations of the principal characters and also in the many smaller players in the stories. Ah-Q for instance is so puffed up and stupid he could indeed be a Dickensian player in another setting. I am empathetic to poor old Ah-Q and I think the reader is drawn by this empathy to look keenly at the situations applying to him and what made him the way he is. "Diary of a Madmen" as a comparison is rather Freudian and highly satirical and I am reminded of "A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift . I find Lu Xun uses many vivid literary ways to get his points across. <br /><br />By contrast again some of the stories in the large sub collections in the work "Outcry" and "Hesitation" are poignant and lyrical . Try "My old home" for instance with its nostalgia plus yearning for a new life for a new generation and ending with a beautiful and insightful description of "Hope" as "an intangible presence that can neither be affirmed nor denied - a path that exists only where others have already passed". <br /><br /> The wry humour of "The Divorce" in the "Hesitation" collection makes an observation of the human condition and psyche over and above the sad human comedy and social inequality it evokes.The public authoritarian figures in the story and the economically yet excellently drawn lower class characters just jump from the pages- they are so real and dare I say, modern. <br /><br />The final collection in this complete fictional works of the author is called "Old stories retold". I liked these stories very much - whilst the "creational" mythological ones are a bit obscure, the re-tellings of Daoist, Confucian legendary myths/tales are marvellous. For example, two Daoist tales "Leaving the Pass" and "Bringing back the Dead" are both approachable and strong reminders of the ancient cultural tradition we are reading about. "Bringing back the Dead" - a cautionary tale if ever there was one is told in dramatic dialogue format which would be a perfect little drama piece to enact." Leaving the Pass" about "Laozi" the mythical founder of the Daoist tradition, ca 600 BC is a witty telling of a venture of the Master as he tries to negotiate a Customs House Police Barracks and needs to sing for his supper by teaching his captors the ways of wisdom . I think the joke is that he unwittingly (or not) bored them to tears and was sent on his way. Universality comes out clearly in these re-told ancient myths just as well as with the "modern" tales in the collection.<br /><br />I would recommend the Introductory essay to gain an overview of Lu Xun's career. His avowed position as a social critic and reformer took place throughout the formative and tumultous period of modern China's development with revolutions, civil wars and ultimately the rise of Mao Zedong and Communism . After his death in 1936 he was feted by the Communist hierarchy and became a cultural hero. It is fascinating to consider what he would have thought about it all - he was such a complex man.<br />In the short afterword Yiyun Li ,an awarded Chinese American writer who was educated in Beijing , speaks of re-reading Lu Xun in English "in this great volume of translations and in the original" and coming once again under his spell. She wonders however whether "the posthumous fame would have pleased Lu Xun" She is questioning the role he set for himself and whether literature can change social behaviour as such.<br /><br />In summary , there is perhaps doubt on whether his literary prowess worked to change the outlook or fortunes of the Chinese people but his storytelling has left a very witty literary legacy to ponder and wonder at through the characters and situations he created. I would be very pleased to receive any comments about favourite stories a reader may like to share.Fayehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02024279159956263512noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-518910185806021537.post-7034703688758425432011-12-23T20:50:00.006+11:002011-12-23T21:44:29.493+11:00The Land of Spices by Kate O'BrienBooks discussed in this blog generally fall into one of two categories: they are well-known works from earlier times by writers with an established place in the traditional canon (Austen, Dickins, Conrad, etc.); or they are recent works by writers with a reputation as authors of serious fiction.<br /><br /><em>The Land of Spices </em> by Kate O'Brien (1897-1974) does not fit easily into either category. It was first published in 1940 by an Irish writer who did enjoy a certain literary prestige in her time but who is far from a house name today. The fame she does enjoy is probably due in large part to her reputation as a feminist writer. The feminist publishing house Virago republished <em>The Land of Spices </em>in 2001.<br /><br />Superficially the book is a school story. It is largely set in an Irish convent boarding school run by a French order of nuns in the early years of the twentieth century. One of its two central characters is a pupil, Anna Murphy, who is sent to the school from a disfunctional home at the exceptionally early age of six. A major concern of the novel concerns Anna's growth and development at the school, in the course of which she learns some hard lessons outside the classroom as well as within it. But unlike most school stories, this is not to any significant degree the story of its central character's interactions with other pupils. Anna is neither isolated nor immensely popular: she never becomes the heroine of the school, and we learn relatively little about schoolgirl friends and enemies.<br /><br />O'Brien is more concerned about Anna's relationship with her other central character, the school's headmistress, Reverend Mother Marie-Helene Archer. The reverend mother is a highly intelligent women from a cultivated background in England and Belgium who has entered the religious life rather unexpectedly (for her and others) after a traumatic experience that is only gradually revealed. She brings great abilities to her religious career, but finds the task of heading a convent in the rather raw and unsophisticated Irish environment challenging and unsatisfying. Early in the novel we encounter her writing to her superior in Belgium asking to be relieved of the post. In a curious way the six-year-old Anna leads her to change her mind. It is the first of a number of occasions in the novel where one of the two main characters very significantly impacts on the other, and towards the end of the novel Mere Archer intervenes rather more dramatically to ensure that Anna gets the opportunity to go to university in the face of opposition from her domineering grandmother.<br /><br />This account might well make the novel seem a bit predictable and sentimental: an intelligent teacher recognises intelligence in a young pupil, grows to like her despite their differences in background, age, and status, and eventually enables her to fulfil her potential. The reality in the novel is far more subtle. Reverend mother and pupil do not become close friends and allies: Anna is in fact not especially likeable, and their close interactions are not frequent.<br /><br />Not all the action takes place in the school. We learn a good deal about Marie-Helene's early life in Belgium, and about the troubled home life of Anna and her relationship with a beloved younger brother. There may be parallels between the two characters,but they are far from obvious.<br /><br />O'Brien's success lies in her creating of vivid scenes and convincing dialogue, and in her very shrewd and perceptive evocation of upper middle class Catholic Ireland, simultaneously smug and anxious, in the years immediately before the First World War. There are many memorable scenes, some of them very amusing in a quiet way. The book is not without flaws: the lengthy passages in which the characters are analysed can become a bit tedious, and O'Brien makes no concesssions to the linguistically challenged. The German quotations are short, but it is useful (though by no means essential) to have a reading knowledge of French, for several letters between the Irish convent and headquarters in Belgium are in that language and left untranslated. <br /><br />It is strange to realise now that the novel was controversial, at least in Ireland, when first published. I understand that a copy was formally burnt in the grounds of the convent school O'Brien had attended (and on her experiences of which she drew). There is one brief 'sex scene' of the utmost delicacy, but one suspects the problem was actually the suggestion that the sisters in a convent are capable of jealousies, rivalries, and petty acts of meanness and snobbery.<br /><br />I found this a beautifully written and evocative book. I believe it deserves to be far better known.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-518910185806021537.post-28984985253192887112011-12-09T17:57:00.014+11:002011-12-11T15:55:55.768+11:00Tirra Lirra by the River by Jessica AndersonThis short novel was first published in 1978 . I remember reading it about then and being very impressed. My recent re-read left me still very impressed but with a different realisation and thoughts about it. I did not remember ironically enough - just how much it was about memory and the need to put aside painful experience and memory in order to survive at times .However I did remember it gave me a strong sense of the survival drive of the main character, Nora, as she reminiscences and brings out the story of herself as a child, a young person, a confident career woman, and lastly as an older woman . The accompanying theme of self realisation and learning is the main thematic thrust of this novel. By comparison with other more recent writers with high reputations Anderson weaves psychological insights in illuminating prose effectively and without didacticism. It is story telling of the first order.<br /><br />We meet Nora , our first person narrator ,when she is about 70 years of age . She has returned to her childhood home in Queensland after many years living and working in London. As she recovers from pneumonia brought on by her travels she is remembering people and events from her past. Her places of memory are outer Brisbane where she spent her childhood , Sydney where she lived for a few years after her marriage and London where she lived and worked until her return at the age of 70 to her childhood home. Anderson's fine writing illuminates this life and the situations with shining , economical clarity . We get to know Nora as she is growing up and can watch this progress , mistakes etc. <br /> <br />In fact the whole book illustrates a self realisation and insight which Nora is working through - here is just one sentence towards the end of the book which gave me a thrill when I read it . Nora is talking with a visitor , Jack, who mentions a name of someone from her past and she thinks "My globe of memory has given one of its lightning spins, and i am dumbfounded not only by what it shows, but by the fact that it has remained on the dark side for so long". A mystery is beginning to unfold in her mind and we travel with her along the path of memory. The blending of the dialogue Nora has with her visitors over the couple of weeks of her sickness and convalescence , and with her thought processes and observations is the structural basis for the novel and it all works easily and seamlessly for the reader.<br /><br />Another feature of the book which delighted me is the sense of places in the book and the fine graphic descriptions thereof. Details of natural and built surroundings are an important part of memory for our narrator, thank goodness . For instance, we are treated to a wonderful picture of life in some terraces in the Woolloomoolloo area in the thirties which were home to artists, writers ,dressmakers - men and women living and working in the City of Sydney when King's Cross and the Darlinghurst areas were havens for them in a puritanical town. This is an important learning environment for Nora so that when her sad marriage ends and she sails to London she is open to new friendships and experiences. There is a note at the beginning of the book which as well as saying the characters are imaginative constructions notes "only the houses on the point are taken from life" and Anderson brings those Woolloomoolloo houses on the point to "life". I smiled when i read that information after finishing the book and am grateful for her writing about that era and those places with such sensitivity. <br /><br />The evocative title <span style="font-style:italic;">,Tirra Lirra by the River </span> comes from the Tennyson poem <span style="font-style:italic;">The Lady </span><span style="font-style:italic;">of Shallot </span>and its inclusion in the texts fits the themes of the novel very well. The Lady was required to view the beautiful Lancelot and life through a crystal mirror and Nora , lover of poetry and life learner , is shining the mirror on herself and life and getting "it" in a way. Nora at 70 is a bit curmudgeonly but likeable and along with her resilience maintains humour and an interest in people. The people in her life are well drawn too. <br /><br />However the character of Nora is central to the story and is a perfect characterisation. This ability to get to the heart of the female persona with empathy but without sentimentality is a feature of first class female writers. In the Australian context I think of Olga Masters, Elizabeth Jolley and Amy Witting - contemporary with Anderson who are a group to conjure with in this regard. They all published in their later years around about the 1960s to 80s and signified a particular flowering of literature in Australia . Their success and abilities co-incided with the womens liberation movement of that time and I believe the social change was an factor in their success and opportunities - their high literary abilities were strictly their own however. It was just fortuitous in time. <br /><br />Whatever, <span style="font-style:italic;">Tirra Lirra</span> is a strong, evocative , poetically written book of special insight into character,relationships of a wide range ,perceptions, suburban life styles and settings - which has stood the test of time for me.Fayehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02024279159956263512noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-518910185806021537.post-84333716579737158292011-10-12T20:32:00.008+11:002011-10-12T21:30:28.500+11:00Njal's sagaI have just finished rereading <em>Njal's saga</em>. There is probably no book length work I have read, in English or Icelandic, more often since my first encounter with it as an undergraduate student in 1967. I enjoyed it this time, as always, but my enjoyment was tinged with concern. What would any readers of this blog make of it?<br /><br />It was not hard to identify aspects which could be offputting. The genealogies, which the old Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Palsson Penguin version relegated to footnotes, are one. If you know saga literature, there is an interest in encountering names you have met in other sagas, and in tracing interrelationships, but for the reader new to sagas they are probably an irritation. The <em>Njal's saga </em>author's apparent fascination with legal technicalities, which distinguishes this saga from all the others, does have some historical interest and serves to raise the tension before the great fight breaks out at the Althing, but it probably tries the patience of most readers. <br /><br />But perhaps the main stumbling block for modern readers is the seemingly incessant cycle of 'tit-for-tat' slayings, often involving improbable sword strokes which hew off heads or limbs. (They have been described as the fantasies of a people who had to live with blunt and far less effective weapons.) I think one has to accept that this had an interest for the saga author and his original audience that it does not have for us. The original hearers and readers, and Icelanders for centuries afterwards, doubtless believed that they were hearing about the deeds of ancestors. The characters had a reality for them that they do not have for us. <br /><br />Hopefully the modern reader can accept these things as aspects of a literature from a different time and place, and as contributing to one of the glories of this saga, its rich and rounded picture of a society. To a remarkable degree <em>Njal's saga</em> ranges over Iceland, and over virtually all levels of society. It has a rich gallery of memorable characters, and while there are stereotypes, even minor characters are often interestingly fleshed out. (A fairly minor example is Bjorn the White, who when first introduced seems no more than a comic cowardly boaster, but who turns out to be capable of just a little more, and gains stature as a result.)<br /><br /><em>Njal's saga </em> is remembered particularly for its major characters, notably Njall, Bergthora, Gunnar, Hallgerd, Flosi, and Kari. It probably needs to be acknowledges as rather 'masculine' literature, but some of the female characters do take on considerable depth and complexity. <br /><br />Another powerful characteristic is its success in creating memorable scenes. Few readers forget Gunnar's fateful decision to go back to his farm and abandon plans for exile abroad (the wording of which most educated Icelanders have by heart), his last stand in the presence of his treacherous wife, or the burning of Njall, Bergthora, and their family. But even minor scenes can be well done. An example is the first scene in the saga, which sees the brothers Hoskuld and Hrut together at table, and Hoskuld very realistically seeking praise from his brother for his beautiful daughter Hallgerd, then a child. Hrut does what is asked, but cannot quite refrain from adding a note of foreboding, creating for a time a coldness between the brothers. Hallgerd, of course, does turn out to be a thief, and far worse. It is noteworthy that we last encounter her as the friend of Killer-Hrapp, a worthless rogue who is strangely attractive to women.<br /><br />I would share the general view that this is the finest of the Sagas of Icelanders. Perhaps now I am a bit less certain that I would recommend it as the one to be read first. Maybe <em>The Saga of the People of Laxdale </em>, also in Penguin, might have been a better choice. Seriously proposed as possibly having a female author, the saga has a central narrative focusing on Gudrun Osvifsdottir (mentioned briefly in <em>Njal's saga</em>), her four marriages, and her central role in a famous 'eternal triangle'. Or perhaps two short sagas, <em>The Saga of the Greenlanders</em> and <em>Eirik the Red's Saga</em>, translated in the Penguin volume <em>The Vinland Sagas</em>, might be a better place to start. They tell a fascinating story about the Norse discovery of America about the year 1000 and the attempts to found a settlement there, but they are also interesting stories of family life in Greenland and the attempted American colony.<br /><br />I do look forward to reading some reactions to this saga.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-518910185806021537.post-62574930274389022572011-10-06T16:40:00.003+11:002011-10-06T17:34:18.384+11:00Icelandic sagasThe Icelandic word 'saga' has found its way into English and most other Western European languages. It means 'narrative' or 'history' and is used today in Iceland both for histories and for novels. But when speakers of English refer to 'the Icelandic sagas' they normally have in mind prose narratives composed in Iceland during the Middle Ages. Generally they are thinking primarily of one genre in particular, referred to in English as the 'Sagas of the Icelanders' (or as the 'Family Sagas', though this latter term is somewhat out of favour as many of the sagas in questions focus on individuals, or the inhabitants of a district, rather than on a family).<br /><br />There survive about forty 'Sagas of Icelanders'. All are anonymous. During the second half of the twentieth century the usual view was that they were mostly composed in Iceland during the thirteenth century, but more recently the idea that they may be largely fourteenth century in their present form has gained currency. These sagas deal mainly with the deeds of people who are said to have lived in Iceland during a hundred year period, the so-called 'Saga Age', extending from about 930, shortly after the initial colonisation of Iceland was completed, to 1030. Thus the sagas are dealing with a period several hundred years before the time in which they were composed. Clearly it was regarded by later generations of Icelanders as a seminal period.<br /><br />Two questions have long exercised the minds of saga scholars. Are the Sagas of the Icelanders history or fiction? And are the sagas as we now have them literary compostions by writers not very different from modern authors, or should they be regarded as faithful reproductions of oral stories told around the firereside by storytellers? The general view today is that there may be elements of history in them, but that what we have are in large measure works of fiction (a little like modern historical novels), and that while the sagas doubtless owe much to oral tradition, the versions we now have are in large measure literary compositions.<br /><br />The Sagas of the Icelanders are works from the European Middle Ages, but they are unusual for their time. They were written by Christians but they are not overtly religious, nor do they have the aim of hammering home a moral. They strike modern readers as realistic narratives, though emanating from a society a bit more superstitious and credulous than our own: ghosts may briefly appear, and wise men and women may have some ability to foretell the future, but we are not in a world of superheroes and dragons, nor do they deal with chivalric knights and beautiful princesses. The Sagas of the Icelanders deal with the feuds of farmers and farmer's wives, and the men and women we encounter in them are readily recognisable to any reader of modern novels.<br /><br />Icelandic narrative prose is one of the glories of saga literature. English translations inevitably cannot do it full justice, though good English translations do a reasonable job. The prose is remarkably lucid and subtle, and well suited to the presentation of dialogue, which is prominent in most of the Sagas of Icelanders. Saga objectivity is famous: we as readers seem to be presented with the facts as an observer on the scene might encounter them. We are not generally told how to judge a character, or how to respond to a scene. We are not told what characters are thinking: we have to work it out from what they say and do. (In fact there are subtle clues as to how the writers want us to react, but they are indeed quite subtle.)<br /><br />'Njal's saga', at which we will be looking in Classic Readers this month, is the longest of the Sagas of the Icelanders - about 300 pages in the Robert Cook translation for Penguin Classics. It is almost universally regarded as the finest of these sagas. It has some features that may deter modern readers, such as the large cast of characters with names unfamiliar to English speakers, and genealogies that usually accompany the introduction of a significant figure into the narrative. But its characterisation is exceptionally rich, and it tells a powerful and moving story which moves inexorably to a satisfying conclusion, providing a vivid picture that extends beyond Iceland to Norway and Ireland at the time of the famous Battle of Clontarf in 1014.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-518910185806021537.post-37740856913961005892011-09-30T15:36:00.010+10:002011-09-30T17:55:50.022+10:00"Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck"A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green." This evocative first line sets a strong tone for "Of Mice and Men" which is continued throughout the short novel. The clarity of scenery along with ominous possibilities and yearnings are present on every page of this beautifully realised, theatrical story. The arresting title comes from a Robert Burns Scottish poem "To a Mouse" . A translation from the second last stanza has the line "the best laid plans of mice and men" in it - referring to the way schemes go askew and leave us nothing "but grief and pain". It is most apt for this tragedy.<br /><br />The novel was published in 1937, early in Steinbeck's career. It tells a poignant story of two itinerant farm labourers in California during the Depression years looking for work and yearning and hoping to save for a better life with a small farm they could call their own. They are an unusual couple - Lennie is large, powerful, lumbering, friendly and slow witted whilst George, his companion , is wily, short and dedicated to looking after Lennie. George has promised Lennie's dying Aunt who was Lennie's only relative and carer, that he would always look after Lennie for her. George keeps his promise on a day to day basis with forbearance and at the climax carrying out a dramatic and ethical dilemma action with selfless love. <br /><br />The story of two such men may not sound very exciting but it is. A key to this reading satisfaction , along with the strong visual nature , theatricality and central ethical drama, lies with the insightfully drawn characters. I cannot think of many better novels in this regard. There are no caricatures here but real people representing human endeavours : longings and hope , jealousies, kindness, meanness, cruelty, weakness and strength sketched economically and supported by keen dialogue. The story has been successful as a stage play , movie films and opera. It is very adaptable to these story modes and as I see it the fine characterisation is a key here. <br /><br />Steinbeck's portrayal of the slow witted Lennie and his relationship with George cleverly depicts for us the complexity of human self knowledge and cunning in connecting with the" other". Lennie needs George and George , in his own way ,needs Lennie . There is a particularly poignant section of the book where the only Black person on the farm who is everyone's rouseabout , tells of how the Blacks have been moved off the farms in the area and he, Crooks , is alone . He bemoans the fact that none of the white men listen to him or talk with him. He muses regretfully to simple Lennie "George can tell you screwy things , and it dont matter. it's just talking. It's like bein' with another guy . That's all" We get such a graphic picture of isolated loneliness in the racist context told with breathtaking economical dialogue. We learn indirectly that several of the men in the bunkhouse are somewhat envious of Lennie and George and their friendship and the way they need each other. <br /><br />The scenes shift quickly in this novella - and after that scene above with Crooks the drama heats up and Lennie who does not know his own strength and has an obsessive interest with softness in all living things, mice, puppies and fatefully the soft hair of women. The only female character in the story, the wife of Curley, a boss, is central to the sad ending of the story . She is simply but sympathetically drawn as a dissatisfied wife looking for excitement. Whilst this is a stock characterisation in a way - this description of her after her accidental death pulls our sympathy in a different direction " Curley's wife lay with a half covering of yellow hay and the meanness and the plannings and the discontent and the ache for attention were all gone from her face. She was very pretty and simple…."<br /><br />To me this book is above all about relationships - and the essence of them. Steinbeck has captured so much of this in "Of Mice and Men " to put it in the classic, treasure category. A book to be savoured.Fayehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02024279159956263512noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-518910185806021537.post-35161632650352886152011-07-16T16:15:00.022+10:002011-07-29T15:45:15.701+10:00"The Secret River" by Kate Grenville<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="http://images.theage.com.au/ftage/ffximage/2008/09/19/grenville_wideweb__470x386,0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="163" src="http://images.theage.com.au/ftage/ffximage/2008/09/19/grenville_wideweb__470x386,0.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>"The Secret River" by <a href="http://kategrenville.com/">Kate Grenville</a> was first published in 2005 to critical acclaim. It is an historical novel set around the Hawkesbury area near Sydney in the first two decades or so of the nineteenth century. The main character is William Thornhill ,who was transported to New South Wales aboard the ship <span style="font-style: italic;">Alexander</span> “for the term of his natural life” for stealing some timber he was delivering as part of his work as a ferryman on the Thames. His wife Sal, a free woman, was allowed to come on the transport to Sydney too - in a separate section of the ship. <br />
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In the first chapter “Strangers” we meet William lying awake beside his sleeping wife and new born child in a wattle-and-daub hut in Sydney in 1806 listening to the eerie sounds of this new strange place . He gets up from the bedding and goes outside into the night and comes face to face with an Aboriginal man - the “strangeness” of it all is palpable. This first chapter sets out the tone and the powerful themes of the book - fear, courage, ambition, greed,usurpation, misunderstanding and the great difficulty of communication across cultures .<br />
<br />
After this first chapter the book goes back to London and places the story in its context with what life was like for William and Sal growing up and marrying, leading up to their transportation to New South Wales . The research undertaken by the author illuminates this background chapter in an exciting way. We feel we know these people through their young life stories and expectations and therefore have empathy with them as they struggle to work out an existence in the new colonial settlement of Sydney.<br />
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The main adventurous part of the novel however takes place in the Hawkesbury River and upper reach farmland area near Sydney . William gains his emancipation certificate after a few years in Sydney and moves to the Hawkesbury , takes up some land and plies his old trade of ferryman by shipping farm produce from the farms to Sydney which hungers for it and returns with goods for the settler farmers. Life is very hard for these river settlers who for the most part have simply squatted on these lands , fenced them rudely and started out growing corn etc. The Aboriginal owners who live in and around the countryside and the river area foraging, fishing, hunting, camping and celebrating are pushed further and further away with often tragic outcomes. <br />
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The central tragedy in the story is a massacre by the settlers of an Aboriginal clan who were seen as the enemy - a very sad story of violence and counter-violence. William takes part in this tragic violent act , albeit reluctantly . It has a lasting effect on him. <br />
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However the story moves on as do the dispossessed Aborigines . The Thornhill’s prosper and set themselves up with a comfortable life with their five children. At the end we see an ageing William sitting on his sandstone verandah at "Wiseman's Ferry"looking pensively through a telescope at the wooded cliffs wondering if “they” were there.<br />
<br />
“<span style="font-style: italic;">even after the cliffs had reached the moment at sunset where they blazed gold , even after the dusk left them glowing... even then he sat on, watching, into the dark”</span>.<br />
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This descriptive language ,whilst economical throughout the story , lends the book its special beauty both in the sketching of the natural surroundings and in setting up the relationships and the inner thoughts of the main characters. <br />
<br />
The characterisation of the Thornhills , William and Sal, their children and the other settlers is very believable. Sal, for instance, is striving to return home to London and we learn she sees herself with “a five year sentence” before she can achieve her dream , yet we know William is yearning to be a landowner and make a new life for himself and family. Each is nervous about their separate dreams and careful to protect each other from the other’s yearnings as they toil to live in the very harsh circumstances for the first several years. There are caring people among the settlers as well as selfish, unthinking and at times violent people . Grenville brings these minor characters illuminatingly to life and the story is the richer for this. <br />
<br />
All the more remarkable ,then, was the decision by the author to not use pidgin English for the Aborigines in the first encounters in order to gain as much verisimilitude with what would have been happening and how the experience would have been from the settlers point of view and the Aboriginal people of the area. I think this works and we see the Aboriginals in the story as real people - caring for their way of life . Their tragedy of being misunderstood , treated condescendingly and often with contempt and violence gives the story much of its poignancy and power.<br />
<br />
Kate Grenville wrote another book about how she came to this story and the research she undertook for it - “Searching for the Secret River” . This is recommended too because it brings out so much of interest for the reader about the writing of engaging historical fiction. There was some controversy with some historians at the time of publication - Grenville was thought to have claimed too much historical significance for the novel. “Searching....” is a very thorough answer to this issue in my opinion. We know , for instance, that Grenville’s ancestor was Solomon Wiseman who settled in the Hawkesbury area and is remembered in the town name of Wiseman’s Ferry. Wiseman , a Thames ferryman, was transported for theft , along with his free woman wife , Janet , in the <span style="font-style: italic;">“Alexander”</span> which was an actual convict ship . The Wisemans arrived in Sydney in 1806. The author’s research in London for original records and local colour is well set out in this latter book too. Grenville has said in answer to the controversy that she does not claim her novel as a work of history as such and that there has been some misunderstanding of her words in an interview re the historical nature of the work. Her website contains this information and story for anyone who wishes to explore this further.<br />
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However in the end what we have is a work of fiction , beautifully written and realised ,informed by research and strong personal interest. It brings a section of Colonial Australian history to life and allows the imagination to ponder the circumstances surrounding these people both colonisers and original owners with empathy and some wonder.Fayehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02024279159956263512noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-518910185806021537.post-28755082366306536722011-06-22T17:17:00.009+10:002011-07-29T15:47:39.721+10:00'Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead' by Paula Byrne<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.harpercollins.com/harperimages/isbn/large/1/9780007243761.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://www.harpercollins.com/harperimages/isbn/large/1/9780007243761.jpg" width="206" /></a></div>Unlike the subjects of almost all the previous postings to the Classic Readers blog, the book now under consideration is not a novel. It is instead essentially a biography - of the novelist Evelyn Waugh. But unlike several earlier biographers of the novelist, Paula Byrne very deliberately sets out not to provide a 'cradle to grave' account of her subject, but instead to focus on his relationship with a family and the stately home of that family, and to explore the ways in which that relationship fed into the creation of what is probably Waugh's most famous novel, <i>Brideshead Revisited</i>.<br />
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The family in question is the Lygons, the children of the seventh Earl Beauchamp, and the house is their country house Madresfield, commonly referred to by the family and their friends as 'Mad'. Waugh first visited it as a young graduate in 1931, and over the next few years he was a frequent visitor who greatly enjoyed the opportunities to partake of its comfortable aristocratic splendour and spend time with the family, and in particular three of the daughters, with at least two of whom he developed close and lifelong platonic friendships. The situation at Madresfield in the early 1930s was unusual, in that neither the earl nor his wife was present, and the young people had a fully staffed and functioning major English country house at their disposal. The earl had left England in disgrace to avoid the legal and social consequences of a homosexual scandal, and his wife had divorced him and moved with her youngest son to a house near a home of her brother, the Duke of Westminster, the earl's fiercest enemy. Waugh had known two of the Lygon brothers William and Hugh at Oxford, and had been particularly close to the younger, Hugh, generally agreed to be the main model for Sebastian Flyte in <i>Brideshead</i>, though at least one reviewer has expressed misgivings regarding Byrne's ready acceptance of the view that the two were involved in a homosexual relationship.<br />
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Paula Byrne vigorously asserts in her preface that she is writing a new kind of biography, and states that the heyday of the comprehensive biography is past. This has clearly somewhat riled some reviewers, who claim that most of what she presents is not new, though they acknowledge that she has ferreted out some previously unknown details, notably regarding the divorce of the earl and his wife, and Evelyn's Catholic confirmation in Rome. Whatever the merits of this criticism, Byrne had undoubtedly written a lively, entertaining, and generally very readable book which evokes the world it describes very vividly.<br />
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I found particularly fascinating the parts dealing with Waugh's boyhood and his time at Oxford, and the account of the Lygon family before Waugh's first visit to Madresfield. The narative of the visits, and his interactions with the Lygon's during the few years between 1931 and the house's passing into the ownership of the eldest Lygon son and his wife on the death of the seventh earl, is interesting, but perhaps the detailed account of this world of nicknames, in-jokes, and special jargon which united the participants does untimately become just a little tedious. The milieu described does seem to have been rather frivolous and self-indulgent.<br />
<br />
A significant part of the book is involved in tracing the links between the Lygons and the characters in <i>Brideshead Revisited </i>, and between the house Madresfield and Brideshead in the novel. The existence of such a relationship has been known from the time the novel was first published in 1945, and Jane Mulvagh dealt with the topic in her book <i>Madresfield</i>. The extent to which one feels such analysis contributes to a literary appreciation of the novel will depend on one's approach to literary criticism. I had a literary education which discouraged exploration of such parallels and insisted on a focus on the novel itself, but it must be admitted that Byrne presents a lot of interesting material.<br />
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Eveyln Waugh (1903-66) has a reputation as a considerable writer and a rather unpleasant person - snobbish, rude, and curmudgeonly. Byrne sets out to correct this view of his personality, and she provides much evidence that he could be a loyal and generous friend. She suggests that to some extent he became a victim of a persona he created, acknowledging that it did in fact largely take over his being later in life, when he found himself increasingly out of sympathy with the postwar world and the post-Vatican II Catholic Church.<br />
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<i>Mad World</i> is an easy and entertaining read. For this reader, it dragged just a little in the middle, but it was thoroughly enjoyable as a whole.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-518910185806021537.post-56324765916076720822011-04-07T17:01:00.021+10:002011-05-31T15:46:54.042+10:00"The Brothers Karamazov" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="http://www.mythosandlogos.com/dostoyevsky2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://www.mythosandlogos.com/dostoyevsky2.jpg" width="160" /></a></div>Reading this grand and long work for the first time achieved a long term ambition of mine - and I am glad I have read it at last. I read <br />
a Penguin edition published in 2003 , translated by David McDuff in 1993.<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">The themes and story line</span><br />
The book explores a number of strong themes including - ethics and patricide , jealousy , religious commitment and doubt, guilt and redemption, childhood and children, psychological insights into an individual's behaviour , exploitation of lower classes and women and a time of political change and social change. It is often deeply philosophical and then by contrast becomes , in the second half especially , a very dramatic story. This story revolves around a family of reasonable but not great wealth consisting of a father and his three sons . The story is set in a small town community in Russia . The central drama is the murder of the father and the consequent suspicion of patricide by one of his sons.<br />
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Leading up to this drama , which includes the collection of evidence and a long court room scene, there are whole chapters and passages setting out the background of each of the main characters and the social and religious world surrounding them . For instance , we dont just hear about the monastery and monks who are important in the early part of the story , we receive extensive insights into their dogmas and practices . There are whole arguments put before us of the way to salvation and otherwise. In fact the extent and intent of the religious discussion in the book surprised me . I think a reader of Victorian English classic fiction is not really familiar with this depth of discussion about conscience, for instance. I became enmeshed in the very "Russian" atmosphere depicted here which was a large part of the enjoyment. <br />
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Humour and farce are also strong characteristics of the novel. The rollicking nature of the work at times amuses considerably and gives balance to the starker aspects of the social scenes and the story itself. A series of Chapters in Book IV called "Crack-ups" presents some humorous and even ridiculous scenes in drawing rooms and other settings involving affairs of the heart and various mix-ups. It is pertinent to note here that one of the sub-plots revolves around the rivalry of the father of the family and one at least of his sons for the love and affection of Grushenka a worldly , yet put-upon young woman . I found reading about her and watching her reactions , as described by the narrator, particularly insightful into the restrictive yet changing society we are presented with. Here I would like to mention that I also found the work distinctly full of the sounds of society - the talking , calling out and singing of the people and other sounds of the countryside and the town. It resonated very strongly for me.<br />
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<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Some of the Characters</span><br />
The father of the family, Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov exploits his own sons , is self indulgent , and , has been indifferent to and at times cruel when bringing up his sons. We meet this ageing patriarch at a slightly more sympathetic if pathetic , vulnerable time of his life . He delights in almost childlike , outrageous behaviour at the expense of others . His personality casts a strong and ambiguous shadow over the drama.<br />
His three sons are Mitya, Ivan and Alyosha . Mitya , the eldest , was the child of Fyodors first wife and Ivan and Alyosha are the sons of the second wife. Both of the mothers died before their sons were grown up and the boys were looked after by foster parents . Mitya has a full-on personality a little like his father but he has a kinder nature . He is accused of the murder but who is really guilty and of what does guilt consist? Ivan is very thoughtful and working painstakingly through the philosophical considerations of an atheist. Alyosha is saintly by comparison to his brothers and considers becoming a monk but decides against it. He forms a vital link with all the players in the story . Smerdyakov, thought to be an illegitimate son of Fyodor who keeps him as a servant, is more than likely the actual murderer. Of the female characters , Grushenka ,is perhaps the most fascinating whilst several other of the women have relatively minor but socially poignant roles. One of the sub-plots revolves around a group of school boys and the lingering death of one of them - with the boys characters and roles dealt with in some depth.<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">A note on the structure and influences </span><br />
The story is told to us by a narrator who is in turn a character. He has opinions and observations about what is going on which are entertaining in themselves. He has been described in the introduction to my edition as a sort of "grotesque… Hoffmanesque" character. He is conservative and sometimes crabby, particularly about women . The author's voice comes through as well at times and the result is a mixed, far from simple rich sound and a scenic tapestry - requiring one to concentrate and listen well. It is worth the effort may I add. It was originally published in serial sections over about 18 months . It was then published in book form in 1880 only a few months before the author died. Dostoyevsky experienced deep tragedy in his life including penal servitude in Siberia and the loss of a dear young son from epilepsy just before he started on this work. He went on a pilgrimage to a hill top Orthodox monastery before he started the novel when grieving for the loss of his son. These experiences are said to have informed some of the action and concerns of the work.<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">My overall impressions</span><br />
"The Brothers Karamazov" introduced me to a new and unexpected reading experience - even "War and Peace" did not prepare me for the richness of style and range of emotions set out for us in this tragic family saga. There are many sub-plays going on and it deals a lot with personal psychology. There are also wonderful descriptions of Russian small town life, the countryside and the ways of going about day to day life to fill many a novel. The inter- reactions of groups of characters including inter-generational ones are engrossing , sometimes dangerous, and also often tender. <br />
One is of course reading a great classic in translation . The David McDuff translation read lyrically and well - further evidence for me that the work is lyrical in the original also. It is a kaleidoscopic work and I know I cannot do it justice in these few words - I hope to give you the impression however - this is a major reading adventure.<br />
As someone reasonably familiar with the English Victorian classics , "The Brothers Karamazov" (1880) was different from the English greats of the near period , Dickens and Elliot for instance , - engaging yet a little difficult too. It required concentration and imagination to picture the amazing social and action scenes and follow the philosophical arguments and thought processes of the characters. I would be delighted to hear from any other reader who is familiar with the work and to hear of your reactions.Fayehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02024279159956263512noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-518910185806021537.post-87402833583162539882011-03-29T14:34:00.007+11:002011-04-08T11:44:45.068+10:00Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.coverbrowser.com/image/time/6-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://www.coverbrowser.com/image/time/6-1.jpg" width="151" /></a></div>Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) the Polish born former merchant seaman and ship's captain who learnt English as an adult and established himself firmly in the canon of great English novelists, was irritated when admirers used to ask him 'when are you going to spin us another yarn of the sea'. His annoyance was understandable: far from being a casual spinner of tales, Conrad was the most painstakingly and consciously artistic of writers. But the thoughtless questions were at least somewhat understandable: Conrad's novels do often concern the sea, and they are very often set in parts of the world which in his time seemed exotic to British and American audiences.<br />
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<i>Heart of Darkness</i>, a short work probably best described as a novella, is mostly set not at sea but on a great unnamed river (in fact the Congo in what was then the Congo Free State, a vast African domain brutally ruled as a private estate by the Belgian king Leopold II). But the setting is certainly exotic, and in a literal sense the journey up river is a journey into the interior, or heart, of what in 1899, when the work was first published in part form, was often called the 'Dark Continent'. It involves encounters with naked black people who are unquestionable presented as primitive and cannibalistic, and an attack by them on the Europeans' steamer is a major incident in the book. But a lot more is involved, and <i>Heart of Darkness </i>has become one of the most discussed and debated books in the 'canon' of twentieth century literature. <br />
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Darkness is a pervasive element in the book. The African jungle is dark and sombre, its people lack the civilisation of Europe. But Europe and Europeans are no strangeness to darkness. The book opens with night falling on a ship moored in the Thames, where the narrator Marlow relates the story to four listeners, and a major scene towards the end takes place in a darkening drawing room in Western Europe. We are reminded that the Thames and England probably once seemed as dark and frightening to visitors from Rome as Africa does to people of the narrator's time. The symbolism of light and darkness in the novel is a major element. <br />
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More important than physical darkness is the darkness which can overwhelm the human soul. The purpose of the river voyage is to bring out from the interior a man called Kurtz, who is said to be behaving very strangely in his isolation from all other Europeans, and who, it emerges, has used barbaric brutality to make himself into a sort of god for the native people. Kurtz, however, is in many ways an exceptional person, intelligent, multi-talented, and idealistic. He towers above the other Europeans Marlow encounters in Africa, who emerge as petty, stupid, indolent, and greedy. It could be said that Kurtz (despite his intellect, or because of it) has entered into a personal heart of darkness, and gone mad as a consequence. His last words as he dies on the voyage back to the coast -'The horror! The horror!' is a comment on what he has found. <br />
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T.S. Eliot used a black servant's announcement 'Mistah Kurtz - he dead' as an epigraph for his major poem 'The Hollow Men' but arguably the novella is more about the journey of the narrator Marlow than about Kurtz. Like many other aspects of the book, the impact of Marlow's physical and spiritual journey is not easy to summarise concisely or with confidence. Certainly the journey profoundly affects him, and makes him more dissatisfied with life in Europe, but it is difficult to know what to make of the climax of a strangely memorable scene near the end of the book, when Marlow falsely tells Kurtz's fiancee that her intended died with her name on his lips. A desire to spare a grieving women further grief? A chivalric wish to help her maintain her illusions? A failure in honesty and courage on the part of Marlow? A reflection of his awareness that only those who have been to the heart of the darkness within themselves and within humanity can really be expected to understand it, and it is pointless to try to explain it? <br />
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Some have seen <i>Heart of Darkness </i>as a book condemning colonialism and imperialism. Certainly it gives no nobility to the Europeans in Africa, emphasising their rapacity, and suggests that the Africans who accept European ways become rather ridiculous figures. The Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe famously denounced the novella as racist, denying Africans a voice and a humanity, and we must probably conclude that in his attitude to them Conrad was of his time, or only a little ahead of it. <br />
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<i>Heart of Darkness </i>is not always easy reading. It is immensely vivid, but the piling up of detail came seem overwrought, as no less a figure than F.R. Leavis suggested. It is an enigmatic work in many ways. But at the end of the few hours required to read it one feels sure one will never forget it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-518910185806021537.post-82906358068105739282010-12-19T23:01:00.003+11:002011-02-28T09:30:04.242+11:00The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://images.smh.com.au/2010/10/13/1985704/Howard-Jacobson-420x0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="145" src="http://images.smh.com.au/2010/10/13/1985704/Howard-Jacobson-420x0.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>In October this novel won its author the 2010 Man Booker Prize for fiction. It was highly praised by the judges: Andrew Motion, the chair of the panel, described it as ‘a marvellous book: very funny, of course, but also very clever, very sad and very subtle. It is all that it seems to be and much more than it seems to be. A completely worthy winner of this great prize’. Much of the published critical reaction has also been very enthusiastic. However, a check of customer reactions on the Amazon.com website tells a different story. There is certainly some enthusiasm, but a lot of the commentators speak of their disappointment, and of finding the book tedious, boring, and impossible to finish.<br />
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Although by his own admission not an observant Jew, Jacobson is a writer very conscious of his Jewish background and heritage, and this, apparently like many of his other books (though <i>Redback</i> set in Australian academia is an exception) focuses very much on the experience of being Jewish today. Set in London, its primary focus is on Julian Treslove, a melancholy middle-aged and middle class man who seems never to make much success of anything he tries. Prominent in the novel are two Jewish men, both recently widowed, the elderly Libov, who once had a successful journalistic career which brought him into contact with celebrities, and Samuel Finkler, a former schoolmate of Treslove’s but now a media celebrity on the basis of his work popularising (and trivialising) philosophy. Treslove and these two frequently meet together, and could be regarded as friends, though there is a good measure of rivalry and jealousy in the relationship between Treslove and Finkler.<br />
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Central to the novel is Treslove’s mugging one evening by a woman, who says something to him which he interprets as possibly being ‘You Jew’. This heightens in Treslove a desire to possess qualities he believes Jews to possess, and to become a Jew himself, a ‘Finkler’ as he calls it in his own mind, and much of the novel, which has little in the way of a ‘story line’, is concerned with his exploration of what being Jewish involves. (Perhaps surprisingly, the theology and religious beliefs of Judaism has little role in this. The emphasis is on social and attitudinal aspects of Judaism.) There is much introspection on Treslove’s part, and he and the reader encounter a great many varieties of Jewish experience, much of it involving anxieties and misgivings. A group called ‘ASHamed Jews’, in which Finkler plays a major role, though not without challenge, is prominent. This takes place against a background of significant anti-Semitism, which several of the Jewish characters, and one strongly suspects the author, see as a major problem threatening the physical and social well-being of Jews in countries like Britain today.<br />
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If the frequent suggestions that the novel is ‘very funny’ encouraged anyone to read it in the expectation of a good laugh, he or she would be disappointed. There are amusing moments, but much of the humour consists in the presentation of the bizarre, the offbeat, the hyperbolic – such as the Jewish man trying to reverse the physical effects of circumcision. Some critics have praised the characterisation, but readers may find it a problem that the characters are presented with little warmth or humanity. Treslove is a rather tiresome ‘loser’: he does not conspicuously display qualities of decency and honesty which redeem other losers in literature, and the fact that women are attracted to him, albeit some briefly, and two have borne sons to him, strains credulity. Finkler is frankly rather unpleasant, and Libov does not emerge far from the ‘elderly Mitteleuropa Jew’ stereotype. The female characters rarely if ever become more than foils to the men – this is perhaps most noticeable in the case of Hephzibah, who becomes Treslove’s partner in a relationship which seems to offer remarkably little to her.<br />
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Perhaps the greatest success of the novel is in its treatment of male grief. Neither Libov nor Finkler had a perfect marriage relationship, though Libov came a lot closer than the frequently unfaithful Finkler, and each feels quite complex emotions as they come to terms with their loss. Jacobson must also be credited with writing prose that is invariable lucid, and which carries the reader on even when he or she is suppressing an inward groan when yet more angst rears its head. The Finkler Question is probably to be regarded as a work for the connoisseur, no more readily and instantly enjoyable than the new classical music composition that the orchestra conductor slips in between the Rossini overture and the Tchaikovsky symphony, but it is interesting as an example of what expert opinion regards as outstanding novel writing at the beginning of the twenty-first century.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-518910185806021537.post-44193813558021079112010-11-20T12:16:00.007+11:002010-12-02T13:37:12.066+11:00Sense and Sensibilty by Jane Austen<a href="http://johngushue.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/jane_austen.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 217px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 154px" alt="" src="http://johngushue.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/jane_austen.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Oh - isn't it great to read Jane again? I have enjoyed myself very much in this reading. I hope some of you are enjoying it too and will share some thoughts and favourite scenes or passages with us. This book should be shared aloud. I confess it took me 50 or so pages to get back into the rhythm of her prose but once having achieved that I smiled and sometimes laughed all the way through the book.<br /><br />Sense and Sensibilty (1811) was Austens first published novel . The story centres around the Dashwood young women , Elinor and Marianne , their mother , a step brother and his family and a host of family friends and occasionally, would-be enemies. It is a first rate domestic comedic drama with a very simple plot line - and there in lies the genius. The dialogue between the characters and the musings of Elinor , her sister and others bob along with wit, incisive observation on character ,in the small and larger matters of love life , enough to delight anyone. The main twists in the story are related to who is going to marry who and the very important associated issue of how much money each couple is going to have for their reasonably relaxed and indolent lifestyles. In this novel as contrasted with some of the later novels - Emma for instance- no one is observed, even obliquely , working at earning a living - men or women. Whatever farming supervision and management is undertaken on estates owned by some family members gets very little or no mention - it all gets done out there somewhere but doesn't impinge on the plot line at all . We don't meet any dependent governesses needing salvation or support either.<br /><br />But who do we meet ? A wonderful array of people who in the course of the novel exhibit for us love, selfishness, wisdom, cunning, generosity, meanness, cleverness, stupidity etc etc. In fact just about all the juxtaposed qualities used by many of us in our day- to- day lives. If the social scenery we are observing is relatively contained, even by comparison with other Austen novels, it is so so stylishly presented from the point of view of Sense and Sensibility. I think the very restricted view concentrates the minute observation so clearly. I particularly love the author's obvious delight in summarising foibles so well. One passage among many illustrated this point well for me - a summary of the characters of two of the least attractive women in the book , Lady Middleton and Mrs Dashwood junior - the wife of the step brother , not Mrs Dashwood senior - mother of Elinor and I quote:<br />"There was a kind of cold hearted selfishness on both sides, which mutually attracted them; and they symathised with each other in an insipid propriety of demeanour, and a general want of understanding". Ch 34 - Ouch.<br /><br />Austen , in this early novel, uses this strong criiical approach to behaviour and communication to bring home her acute observations time and time again - but , of course in the end the good girls get the right husbands . But then also, the more selfish ones manage allright also - particularly if they have a good income. This work is possibly the most romantic of her novels yet spiced with the most acerbic observations of relationships, interdependence and enlightened self interest. A passage toward the end of the novel shows this intent very clearly . Lucy Steele ,a young woman of no fortune who needs to marry well , curries favour with her wealthier relatives and family acquaintances to get by and move in "Town" (London) circles .She successfully and surprisingly marries Robert Ferrars, a man of good income, by a circuitous and dubious route - much to the shock of most of the people who know her. The author summarises as follow and I quote:<br />"The whole of Lucy's behaviour in the affair, and the prosperity which crowned it, therefore, may be held forth as a most encouraging instance of what an earnest, an unceasing attention to self interest, however its progress may be apparently obstructed, will do in securing every advantage of fortune, with no other sacrifice than that of time and conscience" Ch 49. Ouch again.<br /><br />I just love it - do you?<br /><br />Going back to look at some of the other characters - First , the sisters Elinor and Marianne are central to the story . We have the opportunity to view their romances through a range of betrayals and misunderstandings to eventual successful marriages at the end of the book. Elinor is a typical Austen heroine - wise and her family's rock of sense. Marianne is lovely but with a little too much sensibilty although very kind hearted and bright . Mrs Dashwood senior, their mother , loves her family of three daughters unselfishly .We know very little about Margaret , her youngest daughter, mostly because she is not of marriagable age and therefore of no use to the storyline. Mrs Jennings , a would-be duenna with wealth to spare, is a great character who bubbles along talking and indulging in written communication continuously. Her misunderstandings are an important humorous element in the novel. There are a range of fairly cardboard cut-out men who have important associatve roles too in exemplifying mores of selfishness and occasionally , nobility.<br /><br />I think you will be pleased with this book about a certain class of English country folk at a certain stage of society going about the important task of achieving and arranging marriages by one of the best novelsts ever. Love to hear your take which will be bound to be different from mine.Fayehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02024279159956263512noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-518910185806021537.post-84596242043327483912010-10-21T17:35:00.009+11:002010-10-26T16:01:16.532+11:00Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2006/06/23/Dickens_060621091932018_wideweb__300x300.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 188px; height: 188px;" src="http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2006/06/23/Dickens_060621091932018_wideweb__300x300.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />In June and July 2010 a dramatisation of the Charles Dickens novel <em><a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/963">Little Dorrit</a> </em>was shown on Australian television. The dramatisation was the work of Andrew Davis, famous in part for his dramatisation of Jane Austin's <em>Pride and prejudice. </em>Being based on a far more sombre work, Davis's <em>Little Dorrit </em>inevitably lacked the grace and good humour of his version of the Austin novel, but it produced several hours of very watchable television in a lavish production which generally adhered closely to the novel (though there were some fairly minor changes: Mrs Merdle, for example, is last seen in the television series amusingly planning a 'midlight flight' along with the daughter-in-law she despises, carrying what portable property she can salvage from the financal wreckage of her husband's bank. In the novel she settles into genteel poverty, accepted by High Society as a victim of a villainous husband.)<br /><br />The novel originally appeared in monthly parts in 1856-57, when Dickens (1812-70) was at the height of his powers, but we encounter it now in a long volume (of over 850 pages in the Penguin edition). It was relatively unpopular when first published, being widely criticised for its somber tone and excessively complicated plot. More recently, however, several critics have argued it is among the finest of Dickens's novels, and even his best work. One doubts, nevertheless, that it is among the better loved or better known of his novels.<br /><br />The novel is set, mainly in London but also in France and Italy, about 1825. The plot is elaborate, and the novel is in a real sense a mystery story. The plot opens in a prison, and prisons, particularly the London debtors's prison, the Marshalsea, figure prominently. Amy Dorrit, 'Little Dorrit', the eponymous heroine, initially appears as the daugher of a longterm Marshalsea prisoner. Imprisonment is in fact a major theme of the book, and we see that in all sectors of society, from high to low, among good and bad, people are prisoners. Little Dorrit's father and brother, Arthur Clennam, the novel's hero, and the villainous Rigaud, alias Blandois, are among those who are literally prisoners at one stage or other, but the fabulous wealthy financier Merdle, who generally holds himself as if he were being taken into custody, is clearly a prisoner of his own dishonesty and deception, and the fanatical religious puritain Mrs Clennam (who appears to be Arthurs' mother until late in the novel) is a prisoner both of her ill health, which apparently keeps her confined to one gloomy room, and of her gloomy and vengeful religiosity.<br /><br />A great range of social classes and categories of people appear in the novel, and this vivid richness is one of the pleasures of reading it one hundred and fifty years after it was written. Dickens shows, sometimes in ways that stretch credulity, that quite unlikely people are related, sometimes by family ties, more often by sharing a common fate (as when the crash of the Merdle bank brings down high and low). The novel can indeed by sombre, particularly in its first half, sub-titled 'Poverty' and largely set among those living hand to mouth in the bottom rungs of society, but it can also be highly amusing and entertaining. The pretensions of those who pride themselves as being 'Society' are amusingly satirised. A well-known feature of the novel is the 'Circumlocution Office' a far more biting satire on the civil service of the time, presented as existing only to prevent anything useful being done in Britain and to feather the nests of the extended Barnacle family that controls it. (Opinions will probably differ, but for this reader the Circumlocution Office satire was rather heavy-handed and soon became unfunny and unconvincing.)<br /><br />One cannot long consider the novel <em>Little Dorrit</em> without considering the character Little Dorrit. A small, frail young woman in her early twenties she is very much in the tradition of Dickens's blameless, meek and gentle, pure and noble heroines. We are told<em> ad nauseum </em>how small and how good Little Dorrit is. One might describe her as saintly, except that most real saints seem to have relatively flawed personalities by comparison (and, except in one melodramatic scene near the end, when she is confronted by the puritanical Mrs Clennam and utters some banal pieties, Little Dorrit is not portrayed as religious). The unrelentingly sentimentality lavished on Little Dorrit is probably a stumbling block for most modern readers, and given that other novelists of the period, such as the Brontes and George Eliot, were able to give their readers far more human female characters, it probably reflects Dickens's willingness to pander to the sentimentality of his mass audience (and perhaps his own curious ideas about ideal womanhood). It must also be said that the melodramatic ending of the novel is far from convincing, even if we take into account the belief of time in the reality of coincidence in human life.<br /><br />Reading <em>Little Dorrit</em> is a major project, and not always an easy one. Dickens's prose is unfailingly graceful, except when he deliberately mades it otherwise for effect (as in Flora's amusing but also somewhat poignant monologues), but his sentences can make demands on us to which we are not now accustomed, and the sentimentality is offputting. But one does feel in the presence of a major work, and moments of real enjoyment are far from rare.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-518910185806021537.post-13005149822507540192010-10-01T15:36:00.014+10:002010-10-17T13:39:26.341+11:00"Running in the Family" by Michael Ondaatje with commentary by Faye Lawrence<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2lj1uWy4TZMIemyWNt3Ypxtf-pnEdGyW9HQZ4SKFz5MDgXeTY-oW-c3ckAJrQk3ys8K8DlftTARTJWarrTctGd9Ea7lfEyLnXwKx7wnzWiqanuVDG07O_ihLCi1JOFsmUvv_aUYphRe8p/s320/ondaatje.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 277px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 287px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2lj1uWy4TZMIemyWNt3Ypxtf-pnEdGyW9HQZ4SKFz5MDgXeTY-oW-c3ckAJrQk3ys8K8DlftTARTJWarrTctGd9Ea7lfEyLnXwKx7wnzWiqanuVDG07O_ihLCi1JOFsmUvv_aUYphRe8p/s320/ondaatje.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div>Michael Ondaatje is well known for his Booker winner, the novel "The English Patient". . As well as being a very successful novelist he is a noted poet, literary editor, academic and film maker. Ondaatje was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka , in 1943 , moved to England with his mother and attended senior school there before migrating to Canada. He became a Canadian citizen in the 1960s where his literary talents have been recognised with many awards. He lives in Toronto.<br /><br />"Running in the Family" , published in 1982 , is a memoir about his family in Sri Lanka which reaches back and forwards over several generations to tell a highly personal , yet historically and culturally fasinating story . It has all the hallmarks of a poet and imaginatve novelist - wonderful imagery, incredible story-telling , atmosphere you can feel, emotion and humour. Ondaatje tells how he was drawn to travel to Sri Lanka to re-connect with his family and his roots by a "the bright bone of a dream I could hardly hold onto". The memories , smells and sounds of Sri Lanka called him . He writes of "wanting to touch them (his relations) into words".<br /><br />A special feature of this lyrical , explorative memoir is the story of Sri Lanka itself . The physical, cultural and historical background is beautifully , often humourously and graphically portrayed. One is constantly reminded of the physical surroundings - heat, rain, floods, cool shade, wonderful animal life , colonial architecture , spices, tea plantations , winding roads, jungle , plants, flowers etc.<br /><br />In this sensual setting we hear equally wonderful stories about recent generation family members no longer alive .The recollections by friends and relatives of the authors father and maternal grandmother and both amazing and touching. The Grandmother is depicted by relatives as an Aunty Mame character with a penchant for picking flowers from friends or public gardens and presenting them as gifts. The stories are gleaned from family members and friends recollections as the author travelled around and visited many places in this small and vibrant island which he knew as a child - and in the hands and mind of the poet novelist they take on a fictional/family legend quality of sometimes alarming and always entertaining qualities .<br /><br />Interwoven with the more fanciful, entertaining family stories is the authors visceral , dreamlike recollections , reconstructions and analyses of the family history going back some centuries but mostly looking back at two previous generations. At times the reader can be puzzled by the multiple story tellers Ondaaatje is employing in the narrative - however it tends to fall into place as you go along . I was confused at times but delighted overall and found the style and technique added to the character of the relatively small memoir - aptly so about a small but altogether fascinating country.<br /><br />I was intrigued by the historical vignettes about Sri Lanka which come through the memoir via the family background. You get a tantalising view of the colonial past and the multicultural legacy of centuries and centuries of migration , conquest and assimilation - often via poets or writers of the past. I dont mean to give the impression that there is an attempt to chrionicle this long, fascinating history but the author in talking of his family connections going back centuries does offer some intriguing insights into its nature , its difference, its fascination for locals and foreigners.<br /><br />There is one particular chapter "Don't talk to me about Matisse" which delighted me with the literary refrences and feel for the place. In this chapter the author writes of an ancestor Dr William Charles Ondaatje, a Tamil, who was a Director of the Botanical Gardens in the mid 19th Century "who knew at least fifty-five specimens of poisons easily available to his countrymen" and wrote them up in journals. D.H. Lawrence found Ceylon very difficult and in typical style strongly wrote of his feelings and distaste. Michael Ondaatje comments in this context "Heat disgraces foreigners" The lyrical , often sad Ceylonese poetry quoted contrasts with these observations. The line"Dont talk to me about Matisse" comes from such a poet.<br /><br />"Running in the Family" then is not the usual run- of- the- mill family memoir .The reader goes on the explorative journey with the author and picks up a lot of information on the way about this multicultural , unique part of Asia with which Australia has many close connections - not only from this difficult current time but of the past 50 or so decades .For instance I was motivated to follow up on the Sri Lankan Cultural groups and found from my google search that Melbourne has a large community of citizens of Burgher origin from Sri Lanka - folk with some Dutch background . Yasmine Gooneratne , a Professor at Macquarie University ,and a fine novelist in her own right is mentioned in the book as supplying information and background. Sri Lanka is then more than just a sum of its parts - it is a significant and influential part of our world. Michael Ondaatje in his exploration of his heritage has opened this up to me. I hope it met his needs in finding his roots.</div>Fayehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02024279159956263512noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-518910185806021537.post-37650253987543258882010-08-09T17:28:00.012+10:002010-08-11T16:21:54.582+10:00Coonardoo by Katharine Susannah Prichard - commentary by Faye Lawrence<a href="http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/images/portraits/A110299.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 169px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 264px" alt="" src="http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/images/portraits/A110299.jpg" border="0" /></a>I have just returned from a trip to the Nothern Territory where I had nine days visiting dramatically beautiful and highly significant cultural sites in Kakadu and Litchfield National Parks. I re-read "Coonardoo" as my evening reading whilst I was travelling around this region which was both a poignant and poetically apposite experience to add to the magnificence of the terrain and the cultural intensity of the country. The novel is set in Northern Western Australia however the countryside is sufficiently similar to be evocative of the country I was in.<br /><br />Coonardoo is the Aboriginal heroine of the story which was first published in 1929. It is a tragedy and a love story. The love story is particularly remarkable because it was between an Aboiginal woman and a white cattle station owner. As is often mentioned, the fact of sex between Aboriginal women and white men was not unusual in the remote parts of Australia at that time but a story of actual love was daring in the extreme and caused somewhat of a scandal.<br /><br /><a href="http://kspf.iinet.net.au/katharine/index.html">Katharine Prichard</a> was writing of her time as any writer would be but she was stretching the imaginitative limitations at the same time. The passages where the love between the two is explored are few in the book but they are strong and touching. Throughout the book we are constantly reminded of the womanly affection and love which Coonardoo has for Hugh - the station owner - whilst the love Hugh has for Coonardoo has to be explained in the context of his (and white Australias) limited understanding of the Aboriginal society. Hugh cannot entirely face the fact of his deep affection until towards the end of the novel. Hugh's morality, meaning that he will not live in partnership with an Aboriginal woman, is explored warts and all by Prichard. Hugh is a decent man by the standard of the day , kindly and respectful to his Aboriginal indentured workers which in turn adds to the poignancy of the situation. Coonardoo is a tragic victim as much of his decency as of the overall racism , ignorance and roughness of the remote country. An excellent essay on the novel "Coonardoo" by Drusilla Modjeska for the 1990 edition outlines this thesis very well and is recommended.<br /><br />The novel is remarkable on several other levels - we are treated to poetic descriptions by Prichard continually . She paints clear exciting pictures of the scenery, the birdlife and the atmosphere. One description of heat in this country shows off her wonderful writing and observation and I quote from Chapter 19. "The air, at a little distance, palpitated, thrown off from the stones in minute atoms, visible one moment, flown to invisibility the next. Weaving with the sun for shuttle. the air spun heat which was suffocating." and then a little later in the paragraph "And stillness, a breathless heaviness, drowsed the senses, brain and body, as if that mythological snake the blacks believed in, a rock python, silvery grey, black and brown, sliding down from hills of the sky, were puttting the opiate of his breath into the air, folding you round and round, squeezing the life out of you"<br /><br />This one example of her powerful descriptive writing also serves to bring out a couple of other strong points about the work. Namely that it is of its time - mention of "blacks" collectively and other terms are stated simply and leave a modern day Australian somewhat shocked. But along with this there is the honest attempt to give the Aboriginal way of life as she saw it and researched it a dignified and very significant part in the story. It is a view from "the homestead verandah" of inter-relationships of the two cultures but it is a very empathetic and intelligent one. Prichard lived at Turee station in the Kimberleys for several months with some family friends and was inspred by her time there .She had known very little of Aboriginal culture or Station life before this . She had gone there from Perth to have quiet time to finish "Haxbys Circus" but stumbled upon this incredibly rich aspect of life in Australia which provided her with the background for this inspired, imaginative work. The detail she absorbed of Station life, white Australian prejudices and ignorance , Aboriginal life, storyline and language, droving and horsebreaking etc are woven into the story with great skill.<br /><br />The characterisations in this two culture novel are inevitably uneven. We know a lot about Coonardoo but we cant know her thoughts very well - because the author will not have her think like a white woman . There is therefore an uneveness in the portrayals of the main Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal characters . The Aboriginal characters other than Coonardoo are depicted by their actions set in cultural patterns . In this context they are honestly drawn and illuminate the Aboriginal tapestry of this story and are vital to the richness of it. However they are not characters perhaps in the usual novelistic sense.<br /><br />Of the white characters , Hugh is somewhat problematic but his mother , Mumae, who valiantly worked the beloved catlle and horse station, "Wytaliba" whilst Hugh was away at school hovers over the story even after her death. Mumae is portrayed as an astute "verandah" observer - a decent hard working woman of the outback who treated her Aboriginal workers (indentured who work for food only ) with kindness but firmness as if they were children . She is pivotal to our understanding of where the story is going. In death she hovers ,it is believed ,over all in the guise of white cockatoos. Other white characters are intriguing - Sam Geary - awful but honest, Cock-eyed Bob, Saul, Hugh's wife Mollie who is well drawn, Phyllis, Hugh's Kimberley loving daughter - all add to the many dimensions of this fine and highly readable. novel.<br /><br />I recommend this fine novel by a writer of rare sensitivity for her time who is , I think , being rediscovered. She is one of those very special women writers who have contributed so much to the Australian cannon by their sensitivity to the country and people and by their rich talent.Fayehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02024279159956263512noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-518910185806021537.post-35878693242846291732010-06-25T14:45:00.006+10:002010-10-14T11:40:52.613+11:00The Quiet American by Graham Greene<a href="http://s3.amazonaws.com/findagrave/photos/2001/272/5204_1001858512.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 247px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 313px" alt="" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/findagrave/photos/2001/272/5204_1001858512.jpg" border="0" /></a> <div><div>First published in 1955, <em>The Quiet American </em>is probably one of the best-known and most admired of Greene's many novels. It is based in part on the writer's experiences as a reporter living in Saigon in the early 1950s. The setting is Vietnam during the war between the then colonial power, France, and the Viet Minh, the largely Communist rebel movement seeking to end French rule, in the period shortly before the definitive French defeat iat Dien Bien Phu n 1954. But in another sense the setting could be said to be what has often called 'Greeneland', the exotic, corrupt, decadent world of several of Greene's novels. (The Mexico of <em>The Power and the Glory </em>may spring to mind.) However, to say this is not to imply that there is something formulaic or unconvincing about the novel's portral of Vietnam, which in fact comes vividly to life for readers of the novel. It may be a bit of a cliche, but one does feel almost able to see the colours and smell the smells of the times and places Greene evokes.<br /><br />There are a few memorable minor characters, such as the Pascal-reading, devoutly Catholic senior police officer Vigot, but this is essentially the story of three people. The narrator, Thomas Fowler, is a middle-aged English reporter, cynical and a bit world weary but happy enough living an unambitious life in Saigon with Phuong, a young Vietnamese woman. Into his world comes Alden Pyle, the 'quiet American' of the title, an idealistic Harvard graduate convinced that he has a mission to help Vietname by fostering a 'Third Force', a democratic nationalism which will provide an alterantive to both colonialims and Communism. Pyle also develops an interest in Phuong, and determines, with temporary success, to win her away from Fowler, with a view to marrying her and taking her to America. Central to the novel is the relationship between the two men, not really a friendship (despite Pyle's earnest efforts) but never really open hostility either. At one stage Pyle saves Fowler's life during a Viet Minh attack, and at the end Fowler appears to be complicit in Pyle's murder, having discovered that Pyle's activities include supplying the wherewithal for a rebel general to mount murderous attacks on Saigon civilians. Fowler decides that however noble Pyle's motives may be, his actions make him a menace that must be removed.<br /><br />It has been suggested that the three main characters, Fowler, Pyle, and Phuong, to some extent 'represent' Europe, the United States, and Vietnam (or the colonised Third World more generally). There is probably a measure of truth in this, but the two men at least are individualised sufficiently to make them more than stereotypes. Phuong is a more problmatic case, and there have been accustations of both sexism and Orientalism in her portrayal. We do find statements like this comment by Fowler to Pyle on Phuong: 'She'll suffer from childbirth, and hunger and cold and rheumatism, but she will never suffer as we do from thoughts, obsessions - she won't scratch, she'll only decay.' However, it must be kept in mind that though Fowler is the narrator, he is also a character with biases, and that he cannot just be assumed to be presenting the author's views for us to endorse.<br /><br />When first published the novel was denounced by some as being anti-American. Certainly it suggests that in some respects American idealism of the kind Pyle represents is likely to create greater suffering and mayhem than cynicism and pragmatism. But today it is difficult not to see the novel as more prophetic than ideologically biased. We inevitably read it in the light of the Americans' own war in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s, and its pictures of the French, fighting what is clearly a losing war while pretending officially that all is well and victory is folllowing victory, is uncannily reminiscent of what we know was to come later, in the years leading up to the ultimate American defeat. (Some might see disturbing parallels to the Afghanistan war of today.)<br /><br /><em>The Quiet American </em>may not display the most profound characterisation. Its picture of the Caodaist religion (which still claims seven to eight million adherents in Vietnam) may be a comic opera travesty. But is a beautifully written book, vivid, entertaining, thoughtful, and very enjoyable despite the disturbing elements of its subject matter.</div></div>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-518910185806021537.post-91853277798746406692010-04-14T17:29:00.016+10:002010-06-04T09:24:50.821+10:00Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell<a href="http://reviewsbylola.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/margaret_mitchell-295181639_std.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 198px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 220px" alt="" src="http://reviewsbylola.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/margaret_mitchell-295181639_std.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div>I read this very well known and loved, <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/5748409">Gone with the Wind </a>- published in 1936, for the very first time just recently and I am glad I did - all 1,000 plus pages of it. It is a very exciting story , very well written backed by incredible research and based around personal background knowledge. It is peopled by several memorable characters , with a mighty setting around a great historical event which all makes for a tale on a grand scale. For me however the most outstanding and enthralling aspect of it all is the fictionalised historical background to the Amrerican Civil War from the point of the view of the South and in particular the aftermath Reconstruction period and its affect on Southern society. This was a part of this terrible war history that I was ignorant about . I am sure we are getting a very Southern view of this period from <a href="http://www.margaretmitchellhouse.com/cms/About+Margaret+Munnerlyn+Mitchell+/238.html">Margaret Mitchell </a>, a proud and biased Southener, nevertheless it is fascinating one and has made me more aware of the background and some of the differences, sensibilities and perceptions in US Society even today.<br /><br />Margaret Mitchell obviously knew this society so well - and even though she was writing about an earlier generation -it reads , in some ways, like a personal account of these happenings. The background detail of the society is incredibly strong . The desciptions and insights into Plantation life and the City of Atlanta are engrossing. All the prejudices about race, the impossible ideal of the southern white belle , the southern white male who must bear arms and fight to defend his and his family's honour against lesser mortals and northeners at any time , the fearful Ku Klux Klan - are so clearly and powerfully displayed in this story. The film was very good , followed the story quite well but it didnt really bring out the points about Reconstruction, Racism and and the Society mores near as well as in the book. Apparently this was a deliberate decision by Director Selznick- the racism and Southern bias was just too mush for his and Hollywood's sensibilities - the film came out in 1939 and was an instant success as was the book. We know Margaret Mitchell took 10 years to write it and that she published no other novels. The sales and the film made her very wealthy.<br /><br />Re the characters one could go on and on about them - Could someone like Ashley really exist outside Scarlet's imagination ? Is Melanie too good for words? I understand that most young American women of the 50s and 60s considered Melanie was the main heroine to be admired and emulated whereas recent surveying in US schools has young women choosing Scarlett as their favourite and most admired character in the book. Margaret Mitchell is said to have thought Melanie was the main heroine - the perfect example of Southern womanhood - but I suspect Scarlett developed a life of her own for the author. For me, some of the very best minor characters are the white older dowager Women of Atlanta society - they are drawn affectionately by Mitchell - warts and all and are essential to the "feel" of the place. The sad racism means that none of the black characters can be believed - charicature and stereotyping are the norm .<br /><br />My main thought is that one can enjoy and read this for the excitment and grandeur of the story and the clever writing however a current day reader gets most from it as as a major social and historical novel giving special insight into the regional mindset of some folks in the Southern (Dixieland) States of America. I think it is well worth reading. I would be delighted to hear from others about their experiences of reading it recently or years ago.</div>Fayehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02024279159956263512noreply@blogger.com5