I’m not very experienced in reading diaries, unless you include the Penny Pollard and Adrian Mole series when I was a young one. But I’m fascinated by what makes someone decide (or be convinced to) publish their diaries and what makes us, the reading public, want to read them. In saying that, I didn’t read Alan Bennett’s diaries through any call of literary research; I love his writing – prose and theatre, fiction and non-fiction, TV and movie scripts – and would happily devour a collection of his shopping lists if they were offered to me. This particular doorstop had been in the pile for a very long time.
My own diaries, when I have had stabs at keeping them, have been consigned to a ritual burning after not very long, for fear that someone may actually read them one day and realise me for the pathetic creature that I am. When I mentioned this to a friend she said that she shreds hers, so I’m not alone in the feelings of shame and unease. In any case, I haven’t kept much of a diary since I was a teenager and they were all filled with ‘oh my god he is so hot’ exclamations and adolescent outrage at the ridiculousness of the world. I often still find myself outraged at the ridiculousness of the world (and find certain men hot) but I don’t feel as much of a need to record it. I try to keep a journal when travelling, and though the Canada one was completed and perhaps my best attempt at an experience-filled, ponderous expression of the electric currents pulsing through my grey matter, it may meet a similar firey end to its predecessors. We’ll see.
The opportunity to discover what lies beneath the public persona of a favourite or infamous person is too tempting to pass up for many of us. The writing of a diary is often a form of therapy (at least it is for me and I imagine it is for many others, except those meglomaniacal types who truly believe the world is just begging to read their brilliant take on life and what they like to have on their toast in the morning). Journals hold brain dumps, meandering thoughts, vague attempts at trying to explain how one feels and why; they hold secrets, confessions, un-verbalised desires, notions and prejudices. They can hold little reminders of fleeting thoughts, meaningless at the time but spun with significance later.
Mr Bennett’s collection of diaries, essays, articles and notes on his life and career kept me entertained on a 3-day train journey across North America, and warm at night in the Canadian Rockies. He is one of those authors whose books I read with a permanent smile on my face. He’s so clever and funny, so well-meaning, subtle and droll. It didn’t even matter that sometimes I had no idea who these bastions of British theatre and performance were that he was talking about, or quite get a joke about a certain part of England, or that there was a whole lot more in there about Kafka than I was expecting. Writing Home is like all of Alan Bennett’s works, wonderfully clever, insightful and entertaining, with that edge of tally-pip English. I have his second doorstop of diaries and writings in the pile, and that may just get a run over Christmas.
Oh, and for goodness sake, if you haven’t read The Uncommon Reader, bring a little joy in to your life and do so.
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Canadian depository: Book exchange sideboard, Lake Louise Alpine Hostel, Alberta.
This is one of the few books I’ve written about this year, which I’ve been disappointed in. It’s not a terrible novel, nothing of the kind, but like the promise of a cappuccino in North America, I was underwhelmed with what I received.
This could be for a number of reasons, and some having nothing to do with Mr Peter Leonard and his writing. For starters, the book I read before this was Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian which I’m still reeling from. And, a second novel carries a weight. Third, the author is no doubt wedged beneath the heel of his father’s writing boots. How do you scrape yourself out of the shadow of Elmore Leonard? Why, when your dad is such a legend, would you even try this writing caper? I know, I know, when you have to do it, you have to do it. Why do you think I tap out this blog…
I have experienced a past obsession with Elmore Leonard novels – the ‘crime’ ones in particular. A few years ago I would have been able to draw you a mud map of Detroit and its surrounds, so was my attention taken by them. And to be perfectly honest it was Peter Leonard’s parentage which attracted me to his book, Trust Me, and the word on his first novel, Quiver, which I haven’t read. Not that his novels don’t sound like my kind of thing – fast-paced thrillers etc – nor do they sound exactly like Daddio’s kind of thing, (well, you know, he has a few things) but it’s hard to get away from your parent’s reputation.
So here we have Trust Me. Essentially a bunch of not-so-good-guys all trying to get their hands on a wad of cash, that technically belongs to our ‘heroine’ but she’s not really going the right way about getting it back. No one in this story seems to think much through, I’m surprised they don’t all end up on the wrong end of a handgun (though quite a few of them do).
I just didn’t give a particular damn about anyone in this book. Not that you necessarily need to in a crime-y thriller type of thing. But something has to keep you gripped; strapped in for the ride. It might be addictive dialogue, palm-sweating fear, heart-thumping thrills, wry humour, believing the unbelievable, there has to be something. And I’m afraid for Trust Me, there just wasn’t much for this reader. Perhaps whatever I read after Mr McCarthy’s epic story was going to fail, perhaps I was too taken with Toronto and all its distractions… perhaps I wanted Elvis and got Lisa Marie.
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Canadian depository: The Canadian Train from Toronto to Vancouver, day 2.
I don’t know where to begin. I finished reading this book two weeks ago and I’m still speechless (about the book, not speechless in general, that’s impossible). I’m still thinking about it. Still trying to decide things. And still feel ill-equipped to explain it to anyone (except in the barest of terms). All I can say is that Blood Meridian is one of the most powerful novels I have ever read. I am in awe of it. Like Wayne and Garth to Aerosmith … I feel unworthy.
I’m not going to say anything new here – the novel is 25 years old, it’s on many people’s fave list (probably a certain genre of person – see my views on this in a very early post – though I’m starting to wonder about this now), everyone has reviewed it. And I just don’t think I’m capable of expressing what it is I want to express. A case in point: when stirring a tasty no-sugar hot chocolate in a hostel kitchen, I was asked what I was reading by a fellow traveller. On my reply, which I was kind of chuffed to be able to say – cos let’s face it, the answer could have been much less impressive – I was then asked what the novel was about.
‘Um, it’s about this boy who kind of joins a gang, in the wild west, and there’s all this blood and violence, oh and Indians. Comanches. Scalping. More blood. It’s pretty full on.’
Yep, Rhodes scholar.
Let’s not worry about the plot anyway. That wasn’t so important for me. What was important were the characters, the writing, the intensity of the novel and the way it made me feel.
It’s tricky to write about how a book makes you feel. It runs the risk of the ‘I don’t know Art but I know what I like’ genre of discussion. But that’s about all I can explain about this book. I can tell, though probably not show.
When reading Blood Meridian I was compelled to turn the pages, despite often feeling frightened, disgusted, overwhelmed by violence, and despising many of the characters. Like the men in the novel forced by circumstance (and greed) to keep plowing on through a dead, deadly and inhospitable landscape; I was pushed on by an intensity in the narrative and description (oh the descriptions!), by the collection of words on the page, and a strange whirling in my head and thumping in my chest. By a certain disbelief at what was happening and a need to find out what was going to happen next. Like the guns for hire, I felt covered in grime and sweat, stumbling over rocks and spiky vegetation, frightened, desperate and savage. I’m surprised I too didn’t start spitting every five minutes.
And though the book is said to be the Kid’s story, it’s the Judge that stays with you. I’ve read more than a few times that No Country for Old Men’s murdering psycho Anton Chigurh is considered one of the scariest muthas created. Well, the Judge kicks Chigurh to the kerb like nobody’s business. Do you want to meet the devil in human form? Introduce yourself to the Judge – a terrifying, all-knowing, seemingly unstoppable journeyman of evil. Is he Lucifer in disguise? Or is it more terrifying if he’s just a man? There are certainly many references to the lower realms as the band of killers make their way through the American south-west. Hell on Earth? Or is an individual’s existence just a private hell of their own?
Depressed yet?
And yet there is humour in this book. Sure, gallows humour often, and perhaps more of a disbelief at events that leads you to a little breath of laughter in lieu of gnashing your teeth. But it’s there.
For me, raised on John Wayne, Spaghetti Westerns, and Laura Ingalls Wilder, Blood Meridian takes the notion of the Wild West expansion and knocks it on its head and shakes it about til it is beaten and bruised into a weeping lump of degradation. Paint your Wagon? How about you flip it over and use it as a barricade against the hordes of desperadoes – native, Mexican and Americano – riding down upon you in a blood lust.
Is this book perfect? Of course not. You can read the original New York Times review, which contains as much criticism as praise. But I haven’t been stirred up like this by a novel in some time. And that’s always a welcome feeling – even if the stirring puts you off balance a bit, or indeed leaves you lying face down in the dirt, scrambling for breath.
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Canadian depository: Ottawa Backpackers Inn – under the ‘Sierra Nevada’ bunk in the ‘North America’ room. Fitting, non?
Filed under: Australian fiction, Books, Craig Silvey, Reading, child narrators
This is one of those books I almost didn’t read because the gushing had become close to overbearing (I tend to the Public Enemy way of responding to this sort of thing: don’t believe the hype). I mean really, how good can a book be? … Well, of course, we all know the answer to that: pretty bloody good. But was this book?
Let’s face it, any story full of banter between friends, cricket-talk and description, writing and book talk, and a sound argument for why Batman is the greatest superhero ever is going to be a book for me. Fill it with sensitive, funny, conflicted, awkward, brave, smart, endearing teenage-boy characters and I’m all over it.
I love Craig Silvey’s writing because I love reading good dialogue and there is a lot of that in this book. It’s strong, funny, informs us of the characters and progresses the plot. I adore the way Jeffrey and Charlie converse.
When reading Jasper Jones I could smell the eucalyptus, hear the cicadas and taste the dust in the back of my throat. Maybe because I was far from home when reading it I was more attuned to these aromas of Australiana wafting through the novel, but I suspect it was more to do with Mr Silvey’s writing.
I’m a little bit in love with all three of the boy-characters, for different reasons. Charlie for his brain and slight awkwardness, for his phobias and uncontrollable adolescent reactions; Jeffrey for his enthusiasm, bravery and sport-loving; Jasper for his strong-silent-type qualities, for his survival… plus he sounds pretty hot. Jeffrey is certainly my favourite – he’s fantastic, hilarious, a gem of a character. I adore him. Though of course he prefers Superman, which is where I must side with Charlie…
I devoured this book in three sittings, which for me is frickin’ fast. Backpackering in Nova Scotia, I had no interest in those pastimes the young kids like to participate in during the evening hours. Pub crawl? Oh no, I have a book to read.
I’m glad in the end that I missed reading Jasper Jones when everyone else – including my book group – was reading it. Sometimes when a book is buzzing you can get caught up in everyone else’s enthusiasm and in some ways, that can deplete your individual enjoyment of it. You have to cast the experience within the group (you remember who liked it and didn’t, forget whether your favourite bit was yours or someone else’s). I now understand their enthusiasm, but am secretly thrilled that I had the Jasper Jones experience to myself.
If you haven’t read it, go and get yourself a copy. Pronto.
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Canadian depository: Bookshelf at Charlottetown Backpackers Inn, Prince Edward Island.
Filed under: Books, Books and Television, Tony Hill, Val McDermid, thriller
After a lengthy decision-making process of trying to work out which books to take with me on an overseas holiday (and some inspiringly creative packing), temptation stared me in the face at the airport when I saw that a new Val McDermid book was out. Bugger the embargoed boxes of the new Dan Brown waiting to be opened (yawn). I pushed the security guards protecting the Decoder out of the way to grab my copy of Fever of the Bone. If you like your thrillers intense and twisted, a long unrequited romance, protagonists with clear flaws, are a fan of TV’s The Wire in the Blood (even if it’s just cos you have a thang for Robson Green’s eyes) then Val McDermid’s Tony Hill series are for you.
The latest book in this psycho-detective thriller series was up to her usual standard and to be able to crack it open on the plane as soon as I had fastened my seatbelt, set my holiday off to a fab start.
So how do you choose the books you take on holiday? It’s the result of an odd and lengthy equation of desire and practicality, times the amount of space you have in your suitcase divided by the length of your holiday and squared by how fussy you’re going to be about what you read while on r ‘n’ r. (I hope it is all very clear to you now that I’m posing as an artsy fart and am secretly a mathematical genius.)
So yes, I am carrying several books with me on my trip and leaving them to the winds of various locations as I finish with them (the books and the locations). It’s tough. I know I have said before that I’m not overly sentimental about keeping books but the novels I have brought with me are written by some of my very favourite authors. This is what I went for: four books I have been hanging out to read, one I’m assured will be excellent, one to dip into something new. And of course the airport buy. As I’m mostly writing these entries a couple of weeks after finishing each book, I can tell you that I will have to be replacing most of them when I get home. But that’s the financial burden I was willing to make for creating space and alleviating luggage weight as I travelled. And of course, to read what I wanted.
I suffer from a little known phobia of being caught short without anything to read. So much have I trained myself to be a constant reader (that’s for the Crows Nest folk) that I really do panic if I suddenly have to get a train somewhere and I am without reading material. What the hell will I do for twenty-five minutes on my own….!?
Travelling solo, my books have enjoyed accompanying me to high tea at an olde worlde hotel, breakfast at a diner, lunch at a posh restaurant, dinner at a pub, several hostel common rooms and kitchens, and on oh so many buses and planes. More sociable than an MP3 player, you can retreat to the book if feeling loserly at the table on your own, but discard it when conversation or distraction arises, you can carry it as an intellectual prop, or whack it down for show and employ it for the great ice-breaking qualities a book holds. I’ve used it for all these, and many other, handy uses. Most of all, as an entertaining security blanket. Some people need to know they have their phone on them at all times, others a watch or special piece of jewellery. I just need to feel that familiar weight of bound pages in my handbag and I’m a happy woman. Wherever I may be in the world.
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Canadian depository for Fever of the Bone: Ocean Island Backpacker’s book exchange cupboard, Victoria, Vancouver Island.
