A youth leader's work is never done...treading the waters of some less than good teen pop culture

I'm struggle to write emails right now because my internet connection is playing up so I decided to blog instead.

As I start to be on the older end of the youth leader spectrum, suddenly keeping up with teen pop culture isn't as easy as it once was. Back in the day knowing (or at least having heard of) the TV shows, movies, music and books the teens were in to was second nature- helped by the fact that I listen to triple j and that I don't mind the odd angsty bit of teen drama/comedy on TV or in a film. Until a few years ago, I'd never heard of youth leaders going out of their way to watch, listen to or read what the teens were, and I wondered why anyone needed to. Then Twilight snuck up on me without my knowing about it and Justin Bieber was greeted with mass teen girl insanity when I'd never even heard of him. I realised that I may have lost my teen pop culture knowledge and was left to question whether I should make the effort to get it back.

Is it vital to know what is worth knowing about in the world of teen if you are going to be a youth leader? I'd say no. There are many youth leaders out there who don't. However is it a good idea to let be aware of it? I'd say definitely. Sometimes it isn't really an effort as it is something you'd do anyway- in my case listening to triple j and watching shows like Glee and Dr Who.

Unfortunately for the literary minded out there teen fiction of late (especially the fiction with mass appeal) has taken a turn for the worse and reading it can be quite the chore (Harry Potter isn't really young adult fiction so don't attack me Harry fans- it is good stuff)- where is the new John Marsden? Or next Looking for Alibrandi? At the same time, teen fiction is where teen girls (in particular) are getting a lot of their ideas and hopes from. This was partially in my mind when my book club made read me the first Twilight novel (it was so dreadful that I wasn't going to read anymore of them though I have seen the first three films), and I was shocked by the fact that novel was a testament to misplaced lust, female victimhood, and borderline abusive relationships. You may be thinking that I'm going too far but I read/watch quite a bit of vampire fiction (I considered writing my PhD on it) and I've never encountered a writer who was so unaware of the conventions of the genre that its inherent metaphors were so misplaced as to imply (almost implicitly state in fact) all of these things are normal. What does this knowledge benefit me? It means that I have some idea of where the teenage girls are getting their ideas from and that I can speak in a more informed way to both the teenagers and their parents about the books and whether they should be reading them- personally if teens are reading rubbish like Twilight, I'd say let them read as it is better than reading nothing but at the same time made sure that you (as youth leader or as parent or as anyone who has a role in a teen's life) know what things the books they read must be telling them so you can discuss the inherent issues (you don't have to struggle to read them, a wikipedia summary will probably tell you everything you need to know).Where does this bring me...to a youth leader's take on the new "it" book series for teens- Suzanne Collins's Hunger Games trilogy- be warned spoilers for people who haven't read them.

First published back in 2008, the film of the first book in the series will be out later this year. When describing these books to other adults, my short summary is "It is like Running Man but the competitors are less criminals and more teenagers". For those who don't get the reference have a longer plot summary. Sometime in the future, after the world has been destroyed by nuclear war, the US has been renamed Panem and has been divided in 13 districts (none of them wealthy, one of them supposedly destroyed) and a wealthy Capitol where people are obsessed with appearance and triviality. In order to demonstrate the control of the Capitol each year, two teenagers (one boy and one girl) are selected from each of the 12 existing districts to fight in the Hunger Games- an elaborate reality TV show designed by the Capitol in which the teens kill each other for the entertainment of the citizens of the Capitol and the horror of most of the people in the districts. Katniss Everdeen is 16 when her younger sister Prim is selected as the competitor for District 12 (somewhere in the current Appalachian region) in her first year of eligibility (when she is 12), and Katniss instantly volunteers to take her sister's place- also selected from District 12 is another 16 year old, Katniss's classmate Peeta Mellarck. At the time of her selection, Katniss is the sole provider for her family thanks to the hours she spends hunting illegally in the woods selecting District 12 with her best friend Gale Hawthorne. Under the tutelage of former District 12 Hunger Games winner, Haymitch Abernathy, Katniss and Peeta travel to Capitol, and start the Games though not before Peeta publicly reveals that he loves Katniss. The Games progress and following a trick by Katniss, both she and Peeta survive. The trick of Katniss provokes her forced involvement in the next Hunger Games in the second book and a rebellion across the districts in the third.

I read all three books in one week and I was thankfully that they were quick reads. They are very action packed and if you don't pick at them too much, I'm sure they would be OK or at least the first one would be. I found them full of plot holes. The concept in the first book was interesting as even though it is an old idea, the notion of using teens instead of adults is new. However I cared little for any of the characters (including Katniss and Peeta) nor were they unlikeable enough to interest me (the closest I came to liking anyone was the unlikeable alcoholic, Haymitch), and I couldn't stop myself from asking why certain devices were used and being unable to get past not being able understand little things like how they were filming the Hunger Games. The second and third book are much less interesting, especially if you aren't a massive fan of any of the characters, and the writing quality (which isn't great in the first book) gets worse especially as Katniss swings her affection from Gale to Peeta and back again (I may not like any of them but I think for most of the books she seems to picking the wrong one, and when she eventually wakes up to who the better boy is it is pretty much an epilogue in the third book and then it is only after his brain has been turned to mush and rebuilt). Putting my youth leader hat on, I'd add that these books are bleak in the extreme and at time insanely violent. I would say that they are definitely not for anyone under 12 or 13 (the age at which I read Tomorrow When The War Began which is leans in that direction- though it isn't as bleak or as violent) and even then only for more mature kids of that age as the theme will be too startling for younger or more immature readers. On the plus side, it is better than Twilight. Katniss is a considerable better hero for young girls than Twilight's Bella Swan . Katniss is confident, strong and has a sacrificial love for her family as opposed to Bella's constant victimhood. Both of the significant love interests are better than Edward Cullen as neither openly lusts after Katniss, neither ignores her nor goes out of his way to hurt her, both respect her, and both understand that she is not fully prepared for a relationship with either of them until the end of the trilogy. There are many things wrong with these books but their view of human relationships (especially in a Twilight universe) amongst the principle characters isn't one of them, and even though I didn't love the books, I'm going to watch the films.

Anyhow that me done of the worthwhile-ness of being aware of teen pop culture. I'm off to cleanse my brain from all the teen fiction with the combo of the rest of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Raymond Chandler's Farewell, My Lovely, Jeffrey Eugenides's The Marriage Plot and Terry Pratchett's Snuff.

How it ended....finishing the Novel Challenge

As I sit here wearing a t-shirt depicting the cover of a book I quite like (The Great Gatsby) and watching a mediocre film adaptation of one of my favourite books (the 2008 version of Evelyn Waugh's Bridehead Revisited- despite the presence of Matthew Goode and Ben Whishaw who are two of the best young actors in Britain, it isn't great- that said if you haven't read the book, you must do so), I'm reminded that I haven't let any loyal readers I might have know how the MS Novel Challenge ended up for me. In the end I read 19 books (I didn't finish The Tennant of Wildfell Hall but I'm still working on that) which would have totalled up to at least 10000 pages (probably significantly more) and, including one late direct donation a friend is making, I raised $350!

So much thanks to all who donated and read along with massive journey of books!

This means that whilst the blog will occasionally roam into the land of books (I think I'll be posting something tomorrow that is mildly about books in fact) , that they will no longer be the focus. If you don't want the book blogging to end I recommend the blog of someone I know who is attempting to read through all the "greatest" books ever written- http://rainymondaymorning.wordpress.com/ - currently she is reading A. S. Byatt's Possession. If you just want some book porn and think that my cover pictures did not suffice, check out the tumblr profile- http://libraryporn.tumblr.com/

So to end my Novel Challenge blog I will remind you again to read Marieke Hardy's You'll be Sorry When I'm Dead and, of course, everything ever written by Jonathan Franzen.

Just to end with a photo of some of the shelves of my bookshelf- some people have phobias of this bookshelf falling on them, which thankfully is yet to happen

Week 16 Book 2- The "old" maid wins out

So from a confronting portrait of Australian suburbia to some Austen action with Persuasion.

Anne Elliot is 27 and is unlikely to ever make a good match. When she was 21 and supposedly much more beautiful, she had been engaged to a naval officer, Captain Wentworth, and, despite of her overwhelming love for him, she had been persuaded to break the engagement because he was deemed not worthy of her hand. Now she lives with her (also unmarried) 29 year old sister and her father in a house that they can no longer afford and which in any case is entailed to a cousin as the three Elliot children who survived to adulthood were all female. Forced to lease the house a naval officer and her wife (who turns out to be Captian Wentworth's sister), the family relocates to Bath though Anne first goes to visit her youngest sister, her husband and her brother-in-law's extended family. The society of Henrietta and Louisa Musgrove (the younger sisters of Anne's brother-in-law, Charles) attracts visits from Captain Wentworth- returned to England and looking for a wife, any wife as long as it isn't Anne whom he is still yet to forgive for breaking their engagement. Anne living for the time with Musgroves and Captain Wentworth visiting them begins to often bring them into contact with each other, and Anne starts to wonder at her lingering feelings for the captain. Tragedy strikes Louisa Musgrove just shortly before Anne moves to her new home in Bath and as Anne leaves she is faced with the possibility that following the tragedy, Captain Wentworth may propose to Louisa. In Bath, she finds her sister and father trying to lean on wealthier relatives in order to appear better off, she reacquaints herself with an old school friend who has fallen on bad times, and she gets to know her cousin who seems to be pursuing her but who she suspects has dubious motives. Then Captain Wentworth arrives in town and......


A while ago, a friend of mine who is more than mildly Austen obsessed suggested that people get together and watch an Austen miniseries one afternoon. Going through her massive collection, we picked an adaptation of Persuasion and I mentioned (possibly ill-advisedly) that I had not read the book. She was shocked as have been others of my acquaintance (including my mother who counts it as her favourite Austen novel). I have always liked Austen but it was just unfortunate for Persuasion that there wasn't a Hollywood version of or a TV adaptation starring Colin Firth whilst I was in year 9 or 10- this was when I first read Pride & Prejudice, Sense & Sensibility and Emma (in that order). Also counting against it was that the next Austen I read was Northanger Abbey which I studied for year 11 and did not enjoy at all. After that I was worried about her remaining two complete novels- a worry that was borne out for Mansfield Park which I started and could not finish a few years ago- so just kept rereading the first three I'd read (I think the count on P&P would be well over 10 times (no that isn't sad!), S&S and Emma both over 5). I feel I owe someone an apology for waiting so long as Persuasion is definitely better than S&S and Emma, and is just about equal to P&P (I'd have to reread to confirm). Firstly move aside Elizabeth Bennett and Marion Dashwood, I have a new favourite Austen heroine. I just loved Anne Elliot as she was so self reliant and so sensible (in the modern not the early 19th century sense of the word). She was just brilliant. Also I can now appreciate more the comment the friend mentioned earlier made on my facebook status a few years ago when, on my 27th birthday, I stated that I was now as old as Charlotte Lucas and would need to find myself a Mr Collins, and she replied that I was also as old as Anne Elliot and should not give up hope of getting a Captain Wentworth. And talking of him, he can't knock my favourite Austen man off his spot (Mr Knightley if you're asking and no I'm not sure why) but he comes close and I may prefer him to Darcy. Ultimately the thing I loved most about this book was how cutting the satire was. Austen was definitely on her game with this one and it may just be the most successfully satirical of her novels. I actually found it the funniest of her novels- not to dismiss P&P which is quite funny in parts. Finally I just love that (being an Austen novel, I'm sure I'm not giving anything away) the "old" maid gets the man she wants and not another Mr Collins. I remember being mildly horrified (though only 15 at the time) when I first read the conversation between Elizabeth and Lady Catherine in P&P when she says that it is unfair for her younger sisters not to be out just because she and Jane did not marry early. I felt like screaming "EARLY seriously! You are 20 and your sister is 22. There ain't nothing late about that!" and Charlotte Lucas's speeches about how she would marry Mr Collins because she wasn't going to get another offer are just heart breaking. I know that was the reality of the early 19th century and that not being married by age 20 or 21 was mildly horrifying to them but it is just so nice for Austen to acknowledge that they could be an exception to the rule (not that Anne, who is 28 at the end of the book, is old by modern standards).

The cover of the version I read

Just 'cause Rupert Penry-Jones is kinda pretty, I haven't seen this version though. I must borrow it from someone.

Next I promise some Anne Bronte which will also be the end of my months of reading....

Week 16 Book 1- Suburbia, kids and controversy

Well once again my friends of the blog world, I lied to you. This week I told you I would be reading Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and I have been. Then again as you can see from the title of this post one out of three don't work-it has kids (well a kid) and controversy but you can hardly describe the moors as suburbia. That's right I've made another diversion from my course. A few weeks ago I ordered a second hand copy of Christos Tsiolkas's The Slap following the debut of the television adaptation- if I'm watching a TV adaptation of a novel, I like to have read the novel or be reading the novel as it goes on. I thought that it would likely not arrive until after October but it arrived on Wednesday and despite being a bit busy I finished it this morning.

For those not in Australia or just oblivious the online debate that is raging amongst ABC viewers about the series, some plot summary action- though for those watching the miniseries be warned there may be minor unavoidable plot spoilage. Greek Australian Hector and his Indian-Anglo Australian wife, Aisha, have a barbeque for their friends and family. At the barbeque, Hector's cousin, Harry, slaps Hugo, the spoilt misbehaving three year child of Aisha's friend, Rosie, and her alcoholic husband, Gary. The child is slapped hard across the face but immediately prior to the slap Hugo was throwing a fit after being dismissed in backyard cricket game, swinging a bat at Harry's eight year old, Rocco, and kicking Harry in the shins. The slap and resultant legal action then resonate through the novel as each chapter follows the later events in the life of someone who was present at the barbeque starting with the events at the barbeque as focused on Hector, then moving to Aisha's unmarried Jewish friend Anouk who wants to be a novelist but currently works for a TV soap and is shagging the show's star, to Harry the self made man, to Connie the 17 year old assistant at Aisha's vet clinic who has been flirting with Hector, to Rosie the hippy mother who dotes on her son and ignores her husband's obvious alcoholism, to Hector's father Manolis who is grappling with getting older, to Aisha who is dealing with the effect of the slap on her marriage and the possibility of divorce, and finally to Connie's best friend and the son of a nurse at Aisha's vet clinic, 17 year old Richie, who is coming to terms with his homosexuality.

The initial suggestion of the title and then the event of the slap is sure to be off putting to some and the mass debate that went on via facebook and twitter after the first episode of the miniseries was none too surprising. Physical discipline of children is a controversial topic especially when the person dishing out the discipline isn't the parent. It is not just an issue of how to discipline but also if you discipline your kids at all. Tsiolkas's intent in writing the novel was to cause this kind of discussion and he succeeds. I personally am going to try to not weigh into the debate too heavily just to preface what I'm going to say by stating that I may not be a parent but were I one I would advocate the parental discipline though likely not of the physical variety. I found The Slap appropriately confronting in parts. I didn't care for Tsiokas's over use of the 'c' word as it is a word I find a bit too guttural for regular use and though it can be employed well if only used briefly for effect (in Ian McEwan's Atonement for example) but it just went a bit over board for me as the characters are middle class suburban adults and only Harry struck me as the kind of individual who would use it that often. I did applaud the point where Aisha recoiled at her husband's use of it. This complaint aside it is a brilliant novel. Sure the characters are largely unlikeable- in particular though at the epicentre for the slap, Harry, Gary, Rosie, and Hugo- but I find unlikeable characters interesting and the characterisation of Anouk, Aisha and Richie (the characters I most liked) I found quite sympathetic in their sections. I think I reacted most strongly against the character of Rosie as the novel's other contenders for least likable were Harry and Gary who I expected to dislike and Hugo who is just a child. For me, the presentation of Rosie wasn't overtly harsh (nor was that of any of the other characters), it was just overtly truthful and I found her extreme earth mother with no discipline lifestyle, her wilful ignorance of her husband's alcoholism and the growing development of a borderline Oedipal relationship with Hugo unbearable. It has been said a lot but I agree that this novel may be one of the most important Australian novels of recent times, if not ever. It perfectly envisions middle class insecurity on many issues and its dealings with the issues of race, wealth, marriage and family are largely spot on. Tsiolkas's prose is almost sublimely honest (except for the previously mentioned complaint). It will definitely be too confronting for many but if you can stomach confrontation and are watching the miniseries I strongly recommend reading the book. If you like complex middle class stories of unlikeable people, then like me you will probably find it very un-putdown-able and I'll stop now before I accidentally give any more miniseries spoilers.

A few words on the miniseries thus far (well not this week's version of the Connie chapter as I was at work late on Thursday and am yet to catch up on iView), all in all it is a good interpretation of the text (Melissa George as Rosie, in particular, is beyond perfect casting) but has made some weird changes to the book. I'm still yet to figure out why they made the barbeque Hector's 40th as it is just a barbeque and he is 43 in the novel; why they made Rocco 11 or 12 instead of 8; why Anouk's novel is about her, Aisha and Rosie when the plot isn't mentioned in the book; why Aisha isn't Indian. On more significant plot points why they made Connie hate Hector at the end of the first episode (she doesn't in the book, she just gets angry at being dismissed) and why they made Hugo behave so badly at the barbeque that he appeared to be a bit educational disabled (he is "normal" three year old in the book and he doesn't pull up flowers or destroy CDs at the party). I can understand why they might have needed to make Anouk's mother alive (she has already passed away following a battle with breast cancer before the action of the book) and why Rocco ran away (he didn't in the book) as episode padding. My one worry is that when I see the last episode that may have pushed the Connie and Hector thing a bit far- she doesn't see him in the book after the action of the barbeque. Still holding out hopes that it will largely be a good adaptation.

Next up still not The Tenant of Wildfell Hall as not only did I finish The Slap today, I also read Jane Austen's Persuasion in one sitting.

Week 15- Slowly walking through the caste system

After the big ethical challenges of last week's book, I moved onto something I often try to avoid...the Man Booker Prize winner. I've read more than a few Booker Prize winning and shortlisted books (my erstwhile book club went through a period where we seemed to read one after another for what felt like an age). Don't get me wrong, the Booker is worthy prize that recognises worthy literature but often times the "worthy" books shortlisted for the Booker are depression inducing in the extreme (e.g. Schlinder's Ark won the Booker, as did The Inheritance of Loss, Disgrace and Amsterdam). That said I can't write them off completely as they also let Possession, Vernon God Little, The Life of Pi and The English Patient win, and though not completely cheery these have a mildly more cheerful lease on life than some of the others. My Booker Prize resistance is probably one of the reasons The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy has sat unread on my bookshelf for many a year but no longer....

The God of Small Things is set across two time periods. Firstly the late 1980s, when Rahel returns home from the States to India in order to reunite with Estha her twin brother whom she hasn't seen for 23 years after they were separated following a tragic family event- the aftermath of the event and their separation has resulted in the adult Estha not speaking for many years and the adult Rahel being unable to relate well to others resulting in her divorce. The other time period is the 1960s and the story of the events that ended with the separation of Rahel and Estha. The 1960s time period is told out of order so from early on it is revealed that the twins' English cousin, Sophie, died somewhat suspiciously when she was visiting them (Sophie was 11 and the twins were 8) and that the twins' mother felt guilty for this because of a controversial love affair she was having. How the child died, who was involved and who the twins' mother was sleeping with are gradually revealed as the novel plays out, as are the histories of the twins' grandmother, their uncle, their mother and their great aunt, and the politics of communism and caste in that region of India. The focus of the novel ultimately is the idea of love- the twins' fear that their family will love their white cousin more than them, their fear that their mother will stop loving them, their great aunt enduring unfulfilled love for a Catholic priest, the fact that both their mother and uncle married outsiders and ended up divorced, the rules of who can be loved and how, and the injustice that these rules can at times.

Like many "worthy" novels and, in my experience, many Indian novels, The God of Small Things moves very slowly and is often more description than narrative. Thankfully  unlike the similarly slow and similarly Booker winning Indian novel, The Inheritance of Loss, I did not find the slowness quite as painful....in fact I didn't find it painful at all. I was also delighted that this novel was not as depressing as the Booker Prize winning label might make it appear. It is more of mood piece and less of a sequence of increasingly suicide inducing plot points. The slowness of events is compensated by the mild feeling of suspense about the events of the 1960s which is upheld for much of the novel- I guessed who the mother was sleeping with about halfway through and guessed some of the other events that would unfold but was still in two minds about the means of Sophie's death until it was actually revealed. The novel initially starts by alternating chapters between the 1980s with flashbacks and the 1960s without but then gradually is swamped by the events of the 1960s and the 1980s fades into the background. The twins as children (ultimately the side of the twins you see decidedly more of) are delightfully insecure characters and their family is wonderfully colourful even if some members of it are largely unlikable. The idea of caste and the separation of this family as Syrian Christian is fascinating to me as someone who hasn't read much that focused on these ideas in the past. The description that helps cause the slowness is quite vivid and you almost feel as if you are walking the streets and experiencing the events of the twins and their family. All in all a powerful novel but the pace might be a stumbling block for some.

From one woman author to another....possibly to finish off the Novel Challenge, I'm now reading Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall- back to my comfort zone of 19th century female authors. If I do finish it with time to spare, I'll be reading Persuasion to finish.

Week 14- Ethics and Meat

A few posts ago I mentioned that I was heading to the Festival of Dangerous Ideas at the Opera House. The more info on that is that it was to Jonathan Safran Foer discussing the ethics of eating meat taking off from his book of a few years ago Eating Animals. Whilst there I picked up a copy of the book and it is this week's book for my novel challenge (not that it is a novel).


Eating Animals is a examination of the factory farming industry in the States and the effect on personal eating habits that knowledge of the practices of this industry might have on an individual. Foer began research into the meat industry following the birth of his son as he struggled to determine what the most ethical food choice would be for his family. He clearly read at length on the issue, interviewed factory farm workers, activists and family farmers, and visited farms and slaughter houses. He explores all the possible concerns with the industry (animal welfare, environmental, health, etc.) and also presents the process of meat production at some times graphic lengths. Foer reveals in the opening chapters of the book that he is a vegetarian so you can guess where he is going.

So off the bat some disclosure for any who don't know me in reality. Much like I don't recall a time before I wanted to spend time in London, I can't recall a time when I wasn't passionate about the environment- it was definitely prior to high school but I'm not sure how much earlier- nor can I recall what sparked the passion. I do remember when I got into animal welfare issues, I was in year 7 and I read about the animal testing methods being used by companies such as Procter and Gamble (to this day I do not buy their products knowingly- there are so many brands under the umbrella that they can be hard to avoid but I avoid the ones I know- so much so that the smell of Pringles, which I've never eaten, makes me a bit sick). When I was 15, I decided to bite the bullet and declared to my parents that I was embracing vegetarianism- ultimately my mother and I compromised and I just give up red meat. In the last 13 years I have only eaten red meat on four occasions- two by accident, once for a week whilst away with friends three years ago, and once at last New Year's- the latter two to make it easier for people and in all cases I've felt quite sick after the red meat eating. My distance from red meat is so complete that the smell of a butcher shop makes me feel mildly nauseated and has done for about 10 years. I gave up farm salmon 6 years ago, non-free range poultry 4 years ago, and nowadays I usually only eat white meat once a month, if that. I try not to buy leather products, buy soup with animal based stocks in it, cheese with animal based rennet, etc, etc. On the opposite end of the spectrum I also come from a long line of farmers on my father's side of the family.

Disclosure over. This book could be one of the most important and accessible works published on the issue of factory farming. The prose is easy to read, the language isn't over intellectual and the tone, unlike many books and articles on this issue, is not at all forciful or judgemental. Foer concludes that vegetarianism is the most logical response to the horror of factory farming but he does not judge the meat eater or order people to change their food choice. Foer advocates wise, ethical and informed food choice but does not force anyone- his tone when speaking of PETA and other organisations' extreme forcefulness on the matter of veganism shows that he does not agree with that kind of forced conversion at all. He speaks with admiration of several of the family farmers he meets and does not judge them- in fact he applauds them (especially one turkey farmer) for their attempts to ethically keep their animals. The stories of slaughter and animal welfare in the factory farms are sickening at points but neccessarily so. These sections of the book made me profoundly angry, profoundly sad and profoundly ill. The descriptions of an aged cow from a petting zoo licking the face of a slaughter house owner before death and the treatment of pregnant pigs in factory farms both nearly brought me to tears- on both occasions on public transport. Factory farming has to be one of the largest autrocities that the civilised world not just allows but then turns its back on and pretends isn't happening. After one particularly horrible section I rang my father to confirm that I was correct in my belief that our family had never been involved in factory farming and the tone of his voice when he replied showed the similar attitude of disgust to that expressed by the family farmers that Foer interviews in the book when talking about factory farming (our family has farmed wheat, cattle and sheep, and has never (to my father's knowledge) been involved in factory farming). This book is telling the story of factory farming in the States and there are few (if any) countries in the world have a larger market share of meat that comes from factory farms. In Australia the percentage of meat from factory farms is much smaller and the poultry industry is better regulated (as far as I know). That said poultry and pork in Australia is still predominately from factory farms and any Australian salmon sold in supermarkets is. After reading this book I'm giving up poultry and seafood becoming a proper vegetarian- not becoming a vegan as soya/rice based milk tend to make me sick but will be continuing to buy organic vegetarian cheese, organic milk and free range RSPCA endorsed eggs (Foer states in the book that organic and free range are both uncertain terms and this is true but the dairy industry is Australia is much less factory based than in the States, organic does normally mean better treatment for cattle (Foer acknowledges this) and the RSPCA is normally pretty strict on their welfare standard so I trust their recommendation on eggs).

Foer talks at length about the effects of food and food culture on social structure, social decisions and social stories. As Foer correctly states food choices do easily influence others (e.g. my ceasing to red meat food did cut the number of meals involving it for not just me but my whole immediate family when I lived at home; my changing to free range poultry only meant the family switched to free range, organic turkey for Christmas; and often at social events where food is shared my being a "vegetarian" (in loose sense of the word) has meant that one or more vegetarian dishes are ordered in place of meat ones), food is at the centre of community life. Unlike many other issues it is almost true that one person's choice can start to change the choices of many as Foer puts it "We eat as sons and daughters, as families, as communities, as generations, as nations, and increasingly as a globe. We can't stop eating from radiating influence even if we want to". Like Foer I wouldn't want to force anyone to embrace vegetarianism but I do think that this book is a must read and I will likely be forcing people to read it in the near future.

 If you want to hear the talk Foer gave at the Opera House, video of it is available online at http://play.sydneyoperahouse.com/index.php/media/1486-jonathan-safran-foer-fodi-2011.html?catid=&field_name= - I recommend you check it out.

On to my next book, God of Small Things.....

Week 13- Your pocket guide to stalking

Leaving my recent obsession with the novels of Jonathan Franzen behind us, let us all breathe in the air of stalking "fun" that is Ian McEwan's Enduring Love.

On the way back to their London flat from Heathrow, Joe Rose (a science journalist in the mould of a much milder version of Richard Dawkins) and his partner Clarissa (an English academic who works on Keats) stop for a picnic in a field. No sooner do they open their wine and they hear screaming. A hot air balloon has broken its anchor rope leaving a 10 year old alone in the basket in high winds. Joe and several other bystanders run to the boy's aid and attempt to pull on the rope and bring the balloon down. In the attempt one man dies as the balloon lifts in the high wind and the other men let go leaving him to fall to his death. One of the other men who was attempting to help retrieve the balloon, Jed Parry, perceives that Joe is giving him some kind of sign and commits his undying love to Joe. Parry believe that Joe is drawing him in and reciprocating the love he feels. Parry is also a devote believer of his own twisted version of Christianity and he commits to making Joe believe as he does. Parry follows Joe wherever he goes and starts leaving insane numbers of messages on his phone and writing him deranged letters. Joe instantly believes that Parry is highly dangerous but Clarissa and the police won't believe him so the stalking continues and Joe's other relationships start to crack under the pressure of his attempt to prove Parry is a threat.


Awww Ian McEwan... always one for darkness. McEwan's amazingly beautiful Atonement is one of my favourite novels even for its sadness and the only other work of his that I have read is the heartless, depressing but also brilliant Amsterdam. McEwan readers I know are of two camps- the fans who love his work even with its inherent darkness and the admirers who read his work despite the fact that they find it depressing. I think I edge towards the fan side though both Amsterdam and Enduring Love made me none too happy and Atonement makes me cry. Like the other McEwan I have read, I found Enduring Love beautifully written and masterfully crafted. Unlike the others it also had this rapidness to it which was driven by the compelling creepiness of the story. The story of the balloon accident is described vividly that seems like it will be highly significant to the novel and to have it merely act as the catalyst for the later events just shows McEwan's talent. Like many of the books I've read of late I found the main character not the most likeable of people- Joe's treatment of Clarissa grated and he was more than a tad pompous. I did like the character of Clarissa though as she seemed the most rational person in the book- also I've got to support people who work on the Romantics, they're my people. Parry is one of the best and creepiest pictures of a stalker I've seen in fiction and he seriously wigged me out- his overt religiosity will jar with some readers of faith and it did rattle me a bit until I remember that the version of creepy religious fervour displayed by Parry is a common symptom of psychotic conditions and that wasn't McEwan putting all people of faith in the bin of raving loon-doom (or maybe he was but I choose to believe he wasn't). Definitely worth the read and it is a fast read but be prepared for the creep factor.

Also just discovered (or re-discovered as I'm sure I saw reviews for it when it was at the cinema) that there is a movie of Enduring Love which stars Daniel Craig as Joe, Samantha Morton as Claire (not sure why but they renamed Clarissa) and Rhys Ifans as Parry. Can I say (not having seen it) that it looks DREADFUL! Every character is miscast in particular Daniel Craig, usually always a welcome addition to any film, as Joe is supposed to be mid-to-late forties and balding. Reading the user review that comes up first on IMDB makes it sound even worse as whoever wrote this review repeatedly says Parry is gay which is not stated in any way in the book- he is obsessed and in love but he is also insane and the form of his obsession whilst seemingly homosexual is never spoken of in sexual terms in the book. Best avoided like the plague I think.

Done with stalking and with fiction for the moment, next post will possible involve my proselytising about the brilliance of vegetarianism after I finish Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals.

Belated Week 12- More news from the file marked obsessive

A few weeks ago I made the half hearted promise to you the denizens of blogland that I would stop ranting on the brilliance of Jonathan Franzen, that I would not mention his books and that I hold off on reading the copy of Freedom that I had bought until after October. Well as it turns out, I would make a good politician as my promise fades as so many heated election promises, and for you this week I bring you another happy vacation to land of rabid fandom......

The Berglund family made up of Walter, Patty, Jessica and Joey live in the Minnesotan suburbs (like many of Franzen's families). Walter, a passionate environmentalist from a struggling middle class family of hoteliers, has settled for a calm life with the woman he believe is the love his life and he is known by most people to be the nicest person they know. Patty, his wife and the daughter of a rich lawyer and a New York senator, was a champion basketballer in school until she busted her knee in college and since then she has become what she believe to be the perfect housewife. Jessica, their eldest, is all-in-all a overly well adjusted and calm individual whose life is much tidier than those of her family. Joey, the youngest Berglund, is a too cool for school type who starts sleeping with the elder girl next door when he is 13 and moved out of his parents' house and in with his girlfriend, her mother and her step-father when he is 16. Walter's best friend and a regular feature in his and Patty's life is Richard Katz a semi famous musician who cannot commit to a woman, a band or much of anything. The novel enfolds the long story of the Berglunds like a series of Russian dolls on the outer edge the opinions of their neighbours, then the next layer in Patty's retelling (in the third person) of her life story and at its core the stories of Walter, Richard and Joey. It is a struggle for each of these complex individuals to find themselves and, during a time where the American idiom was/is so focused on freedom, it is also an exploration of how we define freedom at difference times and in difference ways whilst constantly questing for some personal semblance of it.

There are many things here that are much like Franzen's other novels in particular The Corrections- the interesting family interactions, the characters who aren't the most likeable of people, Minnesota and the funny....and yes THE BRILLIANCE! When I saw Franzen at the Opera House there was much discussion of this novel being as it is last novel of his to be published. Franzen was impressed when it was noted that this novel is less biting and satirical than The Corrections as many critics/readers seemed to miss this. I have to say clearly they are dolts if they thought that was the path Franzen was retreading. The presentation of all of them shows an immense love of the characters and heartfelt desire to present them as real people going about their real lives, and there is none of the mild tone of mockery and observational distance that is present in The Corrections. The characters are no more likeable than the characters in The Corrections but Franzen is much nicer to them. Franzen does again also show his commitment to dysfunctional people- very clearly here as Jessica (the well adjusted Berglund) almost gets less page space than Patty's estranged sister, Abigail. I felt a connection to all of the principle players as they were just so real though I will say more so to Patty and especially to Richard (not sure what it says about me that for the second time after The Corrections, that I particularly like to commitaphobe who likes girls much younger than himself) than to either Joey or Walter. The book exploration of the theme of freedom is fascinating especially as the characters grapple with their political and personal ideals especially in a post 9/11 world.The prose is profound (AGAIN) and it is very funny, very beautiful and very heartbreaking in parts. I will now stop before I babble....I LOVE LOVE LOVE this book though it is a tiny millimetre behind The Corrections in my opinion but still AWESOME....

Currently halfways through Enduring Love by Ian McEwan so will have words on that soon and I'm also about to start on another book from someone I saw talking at the Opera House of late, Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer.

I haven't begged you all for a while but if you've been following the journey of the many books, PLEASE sponsor me (even a couple of bucks would be appreciated)-

http://register.thenovelchallenge.org.au/The-Novel-Challenge/clarewoodley

Belated Week 11 Book 2- Just Kill Him Already

From depression to hatred combo-ed with dirtiness and jokes....Nick Cave's The Death of Bunny Munro...


Bunny Munro is a door-to-door salesman of beauty products. He sleazes his way through the south of England sleeping with lonely wives, lonely single mothers, lonely waitresses, prostitutes, and well pretty much anyone with a pair of X chromosomes. Bunny is convinced his winning charm will work on any woman and when he sees a woman he instantly imagines them naked, in particular one specific section of their anatomy. Somehow he is shocked to discover on his return home from a sales trip that his depressed wife, Libby, (who is off her meds and is long aware of his infidelities) has committed suicide in their apartment- piling the table high with pizzas and bottles of coke to feed their nine year old son, and then locking her in her bedroom and hanging herself from an aircon vent. Bunny collects Bunny Jr and, after unsuccessfully trying to palm Bunny Jr off on his grandmother, embarks on a massive sales quest which is more about him desperately questing for a shag whilst his son sits in their car. Bunny drives from council estate to cheap housing areas, and Bunny Jr sits in the car reading his encyclopedia. Bunny and Bunny Jr keep seeing visions of Libby, and Bunny is mildly obsessed with the stories of a guy in a devil mask who is travelling south and is killing and raping women along the way.

Bunny is pretty much without compare one of the most repellent characters I've ever read. Cave goes to no effort to make this man at all likable especially if you are a woman reading this book- in fact the reverse is true as the book continues and towards the end there is an off hand statement about the fact Bunny date raped a woman once. As he continued to imagine woman by only one section of their anatomy (Cave actually includes an apology to Kylie Minogue and Avril Lavinge- the main objects of Bunny's lust- in the acknowledgements at the end of the book) and to assume that every woman who didn't jump into bed with him was a bitch or a lesbian or both, I started to think I've never been happier with a book's title then this one...come on KILL HIM already! Then was the point where I realised (and I'm sure this isn't giving anything away as it is an uncertainty that will dawn on all) that there was more than one Bunny Munro in the book. Bunny Jr is adorable and oddly naive for the hellish world he lives on the edge of. Bunny Jr escapes into his world of ideas and his dreams of his mother, and you just hope that his father won't rub off on him at all.

I have much love for Nick Cave even if I have much hate for his main character. The book has that perfect Cave-isque combo of darkness, laughs and dirtiness. It is a good companion/contrast piece to The Road comparing Cave's borderline abusive, ignorant father/son relationship on the road with McCarthy's beautiful father/son relationship in the face of adversity and forced relocation. If you are one of the people I mentioned in a previous post who do not like book which are frank about sex, the language of this book (though not the actions, Bunny talk about sex alot and sexualises women to the extreme but very little sex actually takes place) means it is DEFINITELY not the book for you- the same applies if you don't like cusswords as Bunny is a quite liberal with them, so much that his son has picked some of them up. In fact the cover of the edition I own got me to the point of being awkward about reading it outside the house (it is just the picture of someone's crotch which, whilst appropriate considering Bunny's obsession, would have attracted at best odd looks and at worst inappropriate leering on the public transport). Personally hatred of the main character and waiting for his death may not have kept me going were it not for quality of Cave's writing. I will say if you can't survive on hatred for the misogynist horror that Bunny is, you should look elsewhere but believe you me no-one who has read this book (at least based on the reviews I've read) likes him in the slightest.

Not sure where this was the cover as I've only seen two in Australia- the one I read with its crouch picture and one with someone in white rabbit costume

Also just 'cause I can and 'cause LOVE his music, have the film clip for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' Where the Wild Roses Grow featuring Kylie Minogue...not just because it was the one of the two songs that got me initially hooked on Nick Cave's music (the other being His Red Right Hand) but also because the singing budgie needs some redemption after the filth Nick Cave drags her image through in this novel.

Currently mid way through long weekend reading of fun, two books at once...more info soon....

Week 11 Book 1- Read the signs and buy the tissues

No crazy ravings this time around- novels are harder to rant as completely about as memoir from people you admire.

The Book Thief is the story of the young teenage girl, Liesel Meminger, as narrated by Death. Set in Nazi era Germany, Liesel's father is a communist who is arrested by the Nazis. She and her brother are to be placed in foster care with Hans and Rosa Hubermann in Molching- her brother dies on the train and then her mother disappears. Hans Hubermann is a mild mannered house painter who spends some of his nights playing accordian in bars and Rosa Hubermann is a hard woman with a big heart who does laundry/ironing for a living and calls people by insults instead of names. Liesel cannot read but she starts "collecting" books. At night she wakes screaming after nightmares and Hans Hubermann teaches her to read during the night hours when she cannot sleep. She befriends Rudy Steiner- a local boy who wants to be a super star athlete and who keeps trying to get Liesel to kiss him. The Hubermanns collect another stray in the form for Jewish street fighter called Max Vandenburg whose father fought with Hans Hubermann in WW1. Max takes up residence in the Hubermanns' basement and he and Liesel develop a friendship.

I've owned a copy of The Book Thief pretty much since it was first realised but I've never been in the mood to read it even though my erstwhile book club read it a few years ago. As I did a great deal of Jewish history at uni, people tend to believe that I love me a book on Nazi Germany but truth be told like most people I have to be in the mood for something that depressing. More than some books on that era this book has some clear neon signs to where it might end up with the combo of Nazi Germany and children, and the fact that it is narrated by Death. I mentioned in my last post that I'm not a laughing out aloud person when it comes to books, crying in books is however a completely different kettle of fish. If children or animals who I've got to know in the book are harmed I will almost certainly cry and if it is adults in harm's way there is a chance that I will cry at that too. This book is very much hard going towards the end if you are prone to crying whilst reading and don't forget this book is technically for young adults. The horror and sadness aside this is profoundly good first novel from Markus Zusak. The characters are delightful- Liesel is brilliantly precocious; Rudy scrappy and adorable; Hans undeniably honourable; Rosa funny, tough and full of love for her family. The sections of the book devoted the drawings and stories that Max writes for Liesel are lovely- except one (it will be obvious to all which one this is). Liesel's growing love and understanding of the power of words in a country that was partially destroyed by the power of one man's words is a great plot. The book does have its flaws and in my mind the main issue is that it works too hard to fit in the traditional Nazi Germany cliques with its basement dwelling Jew and cruel Hitler Youth leaders. In many ways the Hubermanns' world is too good for the dark world around it. Hans and Rosa (even with her insults) have no grey, they are pretty much all white, and so are most of the main characters as the Nazi juggernaut or support for it is not a factor for any of them. The other main issue is Zusak's translation of the little German he uses. Zusak translate immediately following the German and as most of the German is pretty basic it was like reading the line twice- it would have been better left out or not translated in the main text of the novel. That said nice to see such a quality book from an Aussie author. Definitely worth the read and I think good for the young adult audience it is aimed at but don't forget the tissues.

There is a really cool cover with a girl dancing with Death but this is the cover of the edition I read which is still pretty good

I had to pull my bookshelf apart to find one but I needed a more cheerful book after The Book Thief so my next book is The Death of Bunny Munro by Nick Cave.....

Week 10- Please Marieke you are embarassing me on public transport

It only took two and a half very sleep derived days (I had stuff on both nights and still read until 1am) but I've finished Marieke Hardy's un-put-downable memoir.

You'll be Sorry When I'm Dead is a collection of short snippets of Hardy's life charting from her desire at age 11 to be a prostitute, to her love of alcohol, to stalking her idols, to her friend's battle with cancer and much more. Parts of some of the chapters have been previously published as part of Hardy's column/articles in The Age and Frankie. The chapters are largely unconnected and not in any kind of chronological order. Hardy also gives those she spends words on a chance to rebut or simply add to what she says of them.

I must confess that I have a bit of massive hero worship vibe when it comes to Marieke Hardy-I think that much as Hardy named her dog after Bob Ellis, if I owned a pet I might just be inclined to name it after her (if she keeps going on the trajectory she is currently charting)- and that said I'm at the same time mildly jealous of the fact that she has managed to be so awesome whilst being not that much older than me. I came a bit late to the Hardy appreciation party what with The Age being a Melbourne paper and with some of her time on triple j being part of a co-hosting gig with Robbie Buck and Lindsay "The Doctor" MacDougall- I've liked Robbie Buck's hosting skills since I was a teen but took years to warm to the Doctor beyond his being in Frenzal Rhomb and I initially found him mildly annoying as a radio host (put away your pitchforks, time has been a friend to my appreciation of his hosting and I quite like the Doctor nowadays- in fact I was listening to him this arvo). I gradually started to listen to Marieke Hardy on triple j a bit more and found her quite an interesting voice on the radio- partially because she seemed to find similar things amusing to me. Then I became mildly addicted to First Tuesday Book Club and though I didn't always agree with her, at least she wasn't trying to get people to read Atlas Shrugged, and I quite like her accessorising- I really wish I could pull off the massive flower in the hair look anywhere near as well as she does or in fact at all. And that is without mentioning the fact that she wrote Laid (one of my current favourite TV shows), that her twitter feed is one of the most entertaining out there and that she is a contributing editing for Frankie (one of only two magazines I ever buy- the other being Vanity Fair- and truly amazing at that). It was all I could do not to be anxiously lined up at a store waiting for the release of her memoirs but I realised that I'd just started a new job and that if I started it I may have not slept until I finished it, so I tried to hold off buying it for a while. I lasted two weeks before I caved and could no longer resist buying it.

I am one of those people who can find a film, TV show or, in particular, book hilarious without laughing out loud about it. People I know talk about how much they laughed reading a particular book and I respond with "yep that was funny". This book was not one of those. People say that they feel awkward sitting on buses or trains or anywhere public and reading about sex (personally I don't but I can understand why you might) , but on the embarrassment scale this palls in comparison to laughing your arse off in public whilst others go about their business calmly and sensibly. I'm going to make a giant claim and say funniest book I've ever read. I think this may be because Hardy's sense of humour from what I can ascertain is somewhat like mine- a bit bawdy, a bit left of centre and more than a bit unapologetically in your face. This definitely isn't the book for everyone. If you are right wing voting, stay away. If you are offended by humour involving cancer or alcohol, there are other books for you. Most of all, if you find people being open about their sex lives hard to deal with, back away fast- the book includes close encounters of the prostitute kind, swing happy fun, and that's just to name the acts that have a whole chapter devoted to them. You could always selectively just read the chapters on letter writing (this and the cancer chapter were the most hilarious in my opinion), stalking Young Talent Time stars, caravaning with her olds and love of her erstwhile football club (I still cannot believe that Hardy managed to get me not only to read but also to enjoy a chapter devoted to AFL, a sport which I consider second only to curling to be the one of the most ridiculous sports known to humanity). If you still find this appealing, even if you are not as Marieke Hardy enamoured as me, beyond funny it is profoundly well written and in some ways quite brave (a lot of exposure for those cave dwellers (and international guests) who are foolish enough not to know much of Hardy in past) and Hardy's idea of giving people the right of reply surprising works outstandingly.

Second bout of crazy almost stalker-isque gushing over. I'm enjoying The Book Thief very much but I'm going to desperately fight the urge to blubber incoherently about it as I have about Jonathan Franzen and Marieke Hardy's respective memoirs.

Week 9 (a bit late)- How to avoid drooling on the shoes of someone who admire

This is the post you were promised on Sunday but ultimately I was too busy and thought that it might be best to wait until after an event I was at earlier tonight. What event you may ask? Well back in the day (or at least when I was a child) the Opera House was the place for the things like opera, ballet and symphony concerts and little else. Nowadays as good as that all is (except the opera which barring La Boheme isn't my idea of fun) it is much better. In recent years it has played host to Bjork, Massive Attack and the Cure (I was at the 2nd of these but I'm forever kicking myself for missing the other two). It has a yearly festival devoted to graphic art and combo-ing it with music (last year I saw a live reading by Neil Gaiman which was accompanied by the brilliant Fourplay and Kevin Smith talking about his work as a director for literally five hours of geeky brilliance, and this year I saw an animated Gotye concert), another devoted to crazy ideas (I've missed this every year but will finally be going for the first time this year to see Jonathan Safran Foer) and random talks/in conversations from brilliant people. The brilliant people recruited by the Opera House in the last couple of years also happen to be people I somewhat worship- Stephen Fry and Joss Whedon (one of the biggest regrets I have in my life (how little I regret) is missing it) last year, and this year (last week in fact) the profoundly brilliant Alan Ball and finally getting to tonight, my current big time literary crush Jonathan Franzen. I even had the opportunity to getting him to sign my newly brought copy of Freedom but was so scared of a) forgetting my name, b) forgetting how to talk and c) possibly drooling on his shoes, that I ran away. Where is Clare going with this? To the book I read last week which was Franzen's memoir The Discomfort Zone.

Those who have read The Corrections and/or Freedom will likely think that Jonathan Franzen grew up in a crazy house with a odd family (discovered tonight he would call the families in his novels "interesting" not "dysfunctional" so I will honour his stance on this). The Discomfort Zone which was written in the almost ten years between these novels shows that this was not really the case. Franzen's memoir is short tales of segments of his life across many years. He opens with the death of his mother, then moves onto his development of a love of reading through the works of Charles Schulz and his early school years as the youngest by many years of the three sons in his family, then to his involvement with a very odd Christian youth group in his early teens, then to he and his school friends pulling school pranks in the later years of high school, then to studying German at college and desperately questing to get shagged, and finally to bird watching and divorce.

I know all one of you who regularly reads this blog is probably screaming ENOUGH already as I have already read and blogged about The Twenty-Seventh City during this Novel Challenge vibe and since I read it back in January I've made numerous illusions to The Corrections (I mentioned it in the last post even). Sadly for you, there cannot be enough in my opinion. The Discomfort Zone did have its weak points, to my mind particularly the final chapter, but like Franzen's fiction it is honest and funny and astounding. If I didn't already love his talent, I would have simply adored the fact that he loves Peanuts comics (I may read "serious" graphic novels for "adults" but Charlie Brown and co have always been my favourite comics), that he studied German at college (I kept challenging myself to read the quotes from German literature without cross referencing the footnoted translations but in all but one case my high school German failed on me) and that when pulling prank that involved relocating chairs in his final year of high school that he marked the tables with their original location. There is great combination of lightness and soul barring honesty in the way he looks back at his teen years and childhood through the lens of adult experience. I'm not a big memoir reader (though oddly am reading another one right now) as I often feel that they tend to be at least mildly bitter and/or maudlin but this is thankfully miles from being either. I'd recommend it more than The Twenty-Seventh City but less than The Corrections (as I continue on my quest to brow beat everyone I meet to read The Corrections- I cannot believe how few people have read it and if you are one for them seriously READ IT or I may have to beat you round the head with my copy of it when/if I see you and it ain't a small book). That is grading on a Franzen scale though. On a regular scale it is still better than pretty much everything.

With all that gushing praise, you can hardly be shocked that I thought there was too strong a chance of my making a fool of myself if I met him even for the brief moment it takes to sign a book. I have to add this isn't all as I watched him tonight contend with an interviewer who was a) verbose and b) clearly nervous/overawed (the interviewer was so nervous that he accidentally called Franzen, James at one point and this guy writes literary reviews for The Australian so probably meets great writers on occasion...seriously what chance did I have of avoiding foolishness had I shouted down my fears and lined up for a signature). He showed a great for language in the spoken form as well as on the page as he came out with statements like "Twitter is like cigarettes. (mocking Tweeters) I'm too anxious to read a novel so I'll tweet instead" and when he was asked a particularly complex question just as the period for audience questions was due to begin "the red light for audience questions is on so I feel the urge to leave that question unblemished by an answer". He also spoke in favour of ignored writers in particular female ones and against the canon (I know he has done this in the past but the neglect of female authors in recent years cannot be highlighted enough in my opinion and there are large sections of the canon I dread and so am more than happy for people to tear it to shreds). I cannot praise him enough and I'm happy to do so in slightly ambiguous internet land...but as people have said you should never meet your idols and though they were talking of being disappointed in my case it is more about feeling unworthy, talking like a crazy person and/or not being able to talk at all. I will leave my gushing praise with a likely to be broken promise to my blog reader out there that I will try and hold off on reading Freedom until the Novel Challenge is over so I don't feel inclined to blog on it but it is already starring me down so I don't know how long I'll hold out.

Next, I'm reading two books at once, both by Australians in fact, and I blame another idol of mine, Marieke Hardy, for the two books at once vibe as she just had to release her memoir the other week and I just couldn't wait any longer to get me a copy. So the next post will either be in The Book Thief or Marieke Hardy's You'll be Sorry When I'm Dead- likely the second one as even though I started The Book Thief several days ago and You'll be Sorry When I'm Dead today, I'm quite powering through it.

Belated Week 8 Book 2- Evolutionary Biology and Art

Busy week and so delayed couple of posts (one to come tomorrow). First book finished just under a week ago was Jostein Gaarder's Maya.


An English man called John Spooke (later revealed to be a author) opens the novel by introducing (and preempting the fact he will be bookending) a long email by Frank, a Norwegian evolutionary biologist, to his estranged wife, Spanish palaeoanthropologist, Vera. John doesn't explain how or why he has the email, or a postcard from Frank to Vera, he only reveals that he and Frank met on a small island in Fiji. Frank's email details what happened in Fiji. Frank had been travelling through New Zealand to research lizards and to escape the memory of his separation and the death of his small daughter (and deal with the fact he will soon see Vera at an upcoming conference), and he decides to spend a few days at a eco-tourist resort on the small Fijian island of Taveuni- the island lies directly on the international date line and supposedly is very beautiful. On the island he meets a weird collection of characters; John Spooke- an English novelist working on a documentary on the turn of millennium (the novel is set in 1998) and mourning the death of his wife, Bill- an overbearing American retired industrialist, Laura- an Australian hard core environmentalist addicted to her Lonely Planet guide, an Italian sailor, some American honeymooners, and, most importantly, Jose and Ana- a mysterious Spanish couple who are a journalist and flamingo dancer respectively. Frank uses his knowledge of Spanish to eavesdrop on Jose and Ana as they wonder the island sprouting odd sayings that only they can understand about religion, science and philosophy. He and John are both fascinated with the Spanish couple (though John cannot understand them) and both believe that Ana is oddly familiarly though neither can figure out from where- when Frank catches Ana and Jose nude bathing he even realises that her face may be familiar but her body oddly isn't. In the evening the whole cast of characters sit around the dinner tables and discuss the origins of life and their own religious views. Frank develops an attraction to Laura with her dual pigmented eyes and her stubborn beliefs- the novel's title comes from several things amongst them Laura's brahman belief system. Frank also spends his nights philosophising with a gecko who has invaded his hut - he names the gecko Gordon after the gin brand of a bottle the gecko wraps himself around. It is much talking of philosophy, evolution and religion. Trying to determine, why we are here, why we think humanity is so important and what is the meaning of life is.


Well Gaarder's meaning of life is much longer than Douglas Adams's answer but it is almost as inexplicable. Gaarder made a massive splash with Sophie's World and most people haven't read far beyond that. A few years ago I suggested The Christmas Mystery as an easy Christmas time read for my then book club and most people weren't huge fans- I have to say I think it is decidedly better than Twilight which they all made me read (I got my revenge at length for that one by speaking their ears off for about an hour about how much I detested it). Personally I like Gaarder but I will say a lot of his books took more than one start for me to get into- this is my second attempt at Maya, The Castle in the Pyrenees I have yet to come back to, and The Orange Girl took three attempts before I got through it and loved it. In my last blog, I said that I couldn't feel much for the principle characters in The Beautiful and Damned. Thankfully Frank is most more appealing mainly because I like characters who have stuff in common with me even if it is something minor- e.g. I loved the character of Clare in The Time Traveller's Wife because she spelt her name the same way as I do and I loved the wholly unlovable Chip in The Corrections because he was an academic who spoke in the kind of language I was taught to speak as an Arts graduate/ PhD student- Frank won out as an evolutionary biologist which but for the choice of the humanities over science might have been my career path. I found most of characters interesting and the philosophising thought provoking and still quite like Gaarder love of being more than a bit meta. I also loved that Frank named the gecko Gordon- I'm not sure if The Wall Street illusion was intended but it made me laugh. A few minor points, read The Solitaire Mystery (my favourite Gaarder novel) first as Gaarder has a few philosophical points and minor plot point that he returns to repeatedly in his novels and many of these were first found in The Solitaire Mystery. Following that I had a massive annoyance with the character of Laura, not her stubbornness or her views but the fact that Frank says she is Australian and then it is VERY quickly revealed that she is from the US and that she has only been in Australia for a few months- it would be very foolish for anyone to mistake an American for an Aussie!

In good news for people who aren't yet sick of me talking about books, the Novel Challenge has been extended by a month so you get one more month of book related blogs. Tomorrow all about Jonathan Franzen's The Discomfort Zone....

Week 8 Book 1....It's about time those jazz babies grew up

In what has been a very hectic week for me, I'll somehow manage to read two books, and likely start on a third. More on the second one later but first F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Beautiful and Damned.

The Beautiful and Damned is one of Fitzgerald's two vaguely autobiographic novels (the other being Tender is the Night). It is the story of Anthony Patch and Gloria Gilbert- somewhat modelled on F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda...before she went somewhat off the rails. Anthony and Gloria are the perfect jazz era couple. Anthony was orphaned as a small child and raised partly by his prohibition loving wealthy grandfather and mainly by private schools in Europe and later Harvard. In his 20s, he spends his days lazying round his New York doing nothing and then at night he emerge to go out on the town with his friends, Dick Caramel (an aspiring novelist) and Maury Noble (Anthony's best friend and like Anthony, he does pretty much nothing all day). One day he meets Dick's cousin, Gloria, a Kansas girl who has gained a name around New York as a bit of party animal. Gloria is beautiful but cold and though she has dozens of men questing after her, she doesn't want to settle for any one man yet. Both Anthony and Gloria declare that they will never marry. Gradually this is forgotten as they fall for each other and ultimately marry. The problem is of course that these jazz darlings are under the surface pretty much just grumpy teens and their marriage quickly flounders as she wants to live beyond their means and he just starts to drink more and more.

I came to F. Scott Fitzgerald late. Many people land The Great Gatsby as a study novel in high school but alas it was on the lower level course the year I finished high school and so I studied works from prior to the 20th century and then just to add some "fun" Waiting for Godot (that play still fills me with a cold dread). I finally read The Great Gatsby last year and I thought it was masterful- I don't think it is the best novel ever written or the "Great American Novel" but it's up there. Whilst I was travelling last year, I read Tender is the Night and I thought it was better than Gatsby (disagree if you must but it's a greater novel in my books and is knocking on the door of being one of my favourites). I found The Beautiful and Damned somewhat of a let down after Tender is the Night. I think it is largely because I didn't warm (in a good or bad way) to either of the main characters until quite late in the piece when I developed a tiny slice of sympathy for Gloria. I found them both so profoundly childish and so completely in denial about the realities of life that I just wanted to scream "GROW UP ALREADY!"- especially by the end of the novel when she is approaching 30 and he has already passed it. The only minor thing that get my attention early on is the half hint that Gloria might have got an abortion which was only notable because she and Anthony hint at not wanting the baby they think she might be pregnant with and then said pregnancy disappears without further mention, and abortion was just SO beyond illegal even in the period in which the book is set- oddly fascinating methinks.

The writing style is good and it is easy to read but I'd be shocked if anyone had as much affection for this as Fitzgerald's other works. I did like the minor characters in particular Dick Caramel and Gloria's friend Muriel but they couldn't completely redeem it. I also will say that I wasn't a fan of the section of the novel where Fitzgerald decided to write it like a play instead of a novel. Good compared to some fiction, even some fiction that would be deemed "classics", but it has none of the pathos of either Gatsby or Tender is the Night, and the characters cannot hold you as Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan and the Divers do.

It's the last month of the crazy novel fest I feel I should add. First book of the last month (I finished The Beautiful and Damned on Wednesday but didn't have time until now to blog) is Jostein Gaarder's Maya which I will probably finish tonight so you may get a new post tomorrow....who knows?

Week 7 Part 1- Spilling a paint can on dystopia

OK I'm back up to feeling pretty much 100% and I think some of the thanks is due to this week's first book- Jasper Fforde's Shades of Grey.

Sometime in the not too distant future, "something" happened which caused the progress of society to halt and humanity to start devolving. Set at least 500 years from now, the humans of Fforde's novel have decreased ability to view the full spectrum of colour, pupils of their eyes are so tiny that they cannot see at all in the night and who live in a world that I imagined to be somewhat like the village Belle lives in Disney's Beauty and the Beast as the conveniences we have today have been removed by "leapbacks" by the government (items that have been leapbacked include bicycles with gears, most cars, all but one train line, most phones and the computer)- also there is a severe spoon shortage plaguing humanity. The world is run on a strict set of rules established by Munsell (named after the colour system) who is the founder of the society as seen in the novel. The society of the novel also runs along strict class divides based on the level of an individual's ability to see colour and what colour that is (people can see one or two only). People are split along colour lines into primary and secondary colours and grey. Peoples' names are derived from their colour, the towns and villages are ruled by a head prefect who is purple and three other prefects from the three primary colours, and the greys, who cannot see colour, are the lowest of the low and are therefore the workhorses on whom society is built. Yikes a lot of backstory!

Now to the actual plot, 20 year old Eddie Russett is or was a red on the way up. He is on the verge of his Ishihara- the test that establishes how strongly you see colour and what colour you can see (named for the colour blindness test of the same name)- and is sure that he will register a high enough percentage to be a red prefect one day. He is also on a half promise to marry Constance Oxblood- a strong red from a line of strong reds (unlike his Russett line which has some grey in its recent past)- and yes arranged marriage and doweries are back in favour by the future in which this novel is set. Unfortunately Eddie cheesed off some big wig in his hometown of Jade-On-Lime and so has to accompany his father (a swatchman i.e. a doctor) to the far off town of East Carmine to regains some humility by conducting a chair census. On the way as a chance encounter he meets Jane G23, a grey with a "cute" nose who threatens to break his jaw, and he is smitten. He and his father arrive in the backwaters of East Carmine to discover that the swatchman his father is supposed to be filling in for has died following self- misdiagnosis, Jane G23 is their maid and there is a naked man (who for the sake of Munsell's rules must be treated as invisible) living in the upper floor of their house, and don't forget the locals are just the right mix of the odd, the insane and the scamming. Pretty soon, Eddie is being scammed out of his return ticket to Jade-on-Lime, finding that anything can be sold in East Carmine, and that society might not fall into the clear rainbow he thought it did.

So why the sudden addition of what is clearly a quite complicated bit of sci fi/fantasy to my list of novels? I picked this up a few weeks ago- after setting the list- and it has been lying in my flat calling to me to read it since them- seriously it talks or maybe it's just the insanely colourful cover. I've found that there are three schools of thought on Fforde's novels-the enlightened, the dimwitted and the unaware. The enlightened (yes that includes me) have read more than one and love the crazy postmodern worlds and are happy to suspend their disbelief and go along for the ride; the dimwitted just don't get it; and the unaware haven't had a chance to yet as they haven't read any yet (if you are in the latter camp, do yourself a favour and find a copy of The Eyre Affair- it'll change your life). This book represents the first in what will be a new series for Fforde following the Thursday Next series and the Nursery Crime series and I would warn that it probably best to get into Fforde's other series before attempting this one as it is a bit of a leap if you aren't already aware of what to expect from Fforde. I'm going to steal from the critics whose comments are on the copy I read and add a bit to the mix when I say it is part Orwellian dystopia (the critics said 1984 and I agree but the oft repeated Munsell catch phrase of "Apart We Are Together" did remind me a little of the way the sheep repeat "Four Legs Good, Two Legs Baaaaad" in Animal Farm), part Wizard of Oz (after Glinda hits the Technicolor switch) and part Hitchhiker's Guide (the spoons thing- oddly at this very minute talking to someone on facebook about younguns being ignorant of Hitchhiker's Guide)- critics also compared it to Brave New World but I've not read it (please don't comment on that being a crime, I'm well aware it being one). I'm looking forward to the sequels especially as I quite liked the characters of Jane (though she was a tad predictable by the end), Tommo (he reminded me of Colin from Press Gang) and the Apocryphal man, and there are several things left up in the air that are quite intriguing- also I want to meet an orange, if there was one in the novel, they got lost somewhere as I don't remember them. I'm trying not to give too much away here because the book should best be read to be comprehended and I thought it was brilliant so I want you to have the same experience. I just hope that the sequels get out there because there were a few books in the Thursday Next series which were promised but never arrived (though there were of course other books in their place). As final note, I will give away the delightful facts that English sheepdogs are called Dulex dogs and as I suspected when reading it, Wikipedia confirms that East Carmine is probably in Wales.

See colourful cover....is it talking to you too?

Next I'm back to the list, back with classics and back with Americans as I dive into F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Beauty and  Damned.

Week 6- Adding some reality to the mix

Hello people of blog land from the world of constant pain. That's right it's over a month since I displayed my deft skills of walking and fell and mashed my face somewhat, so it must be time for another injury. I've managed to mysteriously strain my trapezius muscle or at least that's what my self-diagnosis tells me, and have had shooting pain across my shoulders and up the back of my neck for three days (FUN!). The whole thing is made mildly worse by the fact I have no clue how I wound up with said injury but enough complaining from me and on to this week's book- Talking about Jane Austen in Baghdad by Bee Rowlatt and May Witwit.

Talking about Jane Austen in Baghdad is a collection of emails between the two authors which came about under some odd circumstances. Bee Rowlatt is a journalist for the BBC World Service and as part of this job in early 2005 she was contacting people in Iraq to discuss the aftermath of the US invasion. May Witwit, a lecturer at an all female English college in Baghdad, was one of the people she contacted and after the interview was over they remained in touch and became close friends- all via email. The two women talk about lives and the contrast between Rowlatt's life as a suburban London mother of three (the youngest of which was born during the time of their email correspondence so Rowlatt spends some of the book on maternity leave) and Witwit as a lecturer in a war torn country where she and husband are often woken by bombs and there are death threats being levelled at academics, people who are of Sunni not Shi'ite descent (like her husband) and women who opt not to wear long sleeves and an hijab in the streets and who drive themselves to work (like she does). Very quickly the tone of the emails moves beyond just the simple sharing of lives and the two women start working on a plan to get Witwit and her husband out of Iraq.

As someone who was strongly opposed to the US invasion of Iraq (don't get me wrong, Saddam needed to go but this wasn't the best way), it was fascinating to read the post-invasion opinions of someone in Baghdad. I picked this book as one for the Novel Challenge on a whim and was a little worried that, even though it was a true story, parts of it might to a bit too chick-lit for my liking and that it might downplay the effects of the war. It doesn't and the lives of both of these women are quite intriguing. Both women are very genuine and honest in their correspondence and even for the sections of the book when Rowlatt is a housewife, both are very focused on the importance of both work and family. The scars of the invasion will clearly be with Iraq for a very long time and Witwit spends a lot of her emails attempting to reconcile her dislike of the old regime and the fact that life under the new regime is actually often worse for the day-to-day lives of many ordinary Iraqis. Though the war and its after effects linger on, the news stations of the world have begun to forget about it (except when a coalition soldier is killed) and this book is strong reminder to the West that all these years after Bush Jr declared the war over, it still rages on the streets of Baghdad (granted the book ends in 2008 but I'm sure much of what it describes is still going on). It is an enlightening read and reminded me that the reality of war as told by those experiencing it directly conveys the situation with so much more poignancy than fiction ever could. I was somewhat reminded of both The Diary of Anne Frank and Zlata's Diary (you may not heard of the second one but it was one of my favourite books in the latter years of primary school, it is the diary of a girl in Sarajevo during the war in Balkans in the early 90s), however though I would recommend both of those books to teens (in particular teen girls) this is very much for adults and I think women in particular should find themselves a copy.

On a side note, this book would largely not have been possible without the work on a brilliant charity organisation that I had not previously been aware of. The Council for Assisting Refugee Academics (CARA) helps academics who are forced to flee their homelands following a government crack down and/or massacre of academics. It was founded to assist academics in 1930s who were fleeing fascist regimes in Europe and nowadays it is doing a lot of good work in Iraq. For more info check out their website- http://www.academic-refugees.org/ . Yes I know I'm plugging for MS Australia with this Novel Challenge but as a possible future academic, I can't help but give CARA some publicity.

I'm now starting on something completely different and not on my original list of books- Jasper Fforde's Shades of Grey.