[Insert suitably snappy title here...]

I'm not a fan...

noreply@blogger.com (Kath) — Tue, 03 Apr 2018 08:16:00 +0000

Don’t you think it’s weird that mourning

sounds exactly the same as morning.

One is a reaction to an ending

and the other is a brand new start.

In one, a light extinguishes

and in the other, the sun rises to chase away the night.

To be honest, I’m not a big fan of either.

But as dawn breaks on our new reality without you,

it’s a harsh truth that life goes on.

So, we get up.

We carry on as

we carry you along

with us in our hearts.

Drink the double-shot of reality to kickstart the day as we

brace for the platitudes that are supposed to make us feel better...

“The early bird gets the worm!”

“They are in a better place now!”

Bitch, I don’t want the worm and

who the fuck knows where they’ve gone?

And what place was better than being right here,

alive,

with us?

But we can’t say that, can we.

We are supposed to smile and nod.

Extend our palms

outwards,

upwards,

gratefully receiving these tidbits of tired old bullshit

just because people can’t take a second

to think something original.

They say they don’t know what to say

but here I am, not knowing how to even breathe.

Words have no meaning,

they are lumps of sound

stuck in other people’s throats

as they stare at me blankly, saying “Let me know if…”

Seems like my emotions might be inconvenient.

Gratitude for platitudes is surely

the hardest pill to swallow

when you’re raw and hollow and

all you can feel is a howling depth of sorrow.

Something irreplaceable has been

ripped away from you and

you’re torn up inside but expected

somehow to hide your true feelings.

Why is it that some people disallow grief to show his face?

We all know him - he’s a constant in this race

that we call life.

He’s the counterpoint to joy,

the balance of desolate emptiness to the feeling of being brimful of butterflies and sunshine.

You see, maybe they were onto something when they exclaimed “GOOD GRIEF!”

because grief is the price of loving with your whole being.

We run up a great debt through the act of relating.

Through all the highs and lows -

the frustrating and placating,

the intimating and fornicating,

the instigating and conversating -

our intimacy is tallied up.

Our love runs a tab,

unwittingly, you see,

because we all forget that we’re not actually immortal.

Then the end comes and we are called to account.

Your debt is in arrears, sign here and pay in tears.

So every salty drop is a mortgage of love.

I give it willingly,

for what you meant to me

cannot be matched by any earthly sum.

And so, just like every other morning,

I have to get up and face this mourning.

But, to be honest, I’m not a big fan of either.

Kath Teeboon

03/04/2018

Copyright: the author asserts her moral right to be recognised as the creator of this work. Do not reproduce without express permission.

My friend, grief

noreply@blogger.com (Kath) — Mon, 02 Apr 2018 04:01:00 +0000

We’ve met a few times before, grief and I.

Sometimes, it’s been a passing hello on the street. Occasionally, it’s been a short stay. Other times, grief has taken up residence in my soul. This time it’s the latter.
The return of an old friend.

Late at night, grief comes knocking. When I answer the door, he stands there apologetically with two full suitcases and a carry bag. A long stay, then.
Who is it this time?

In the first hour, denial is a friend to me. She shoos grief away and shuts the door. Assures me that he has the wrong address and she’ll see about finding him somewhere else to stay. It is all a terrible mistake.
She’ll sort it out.

But in the spare room, grief is quietly unpacking his belongings. Settling in. Putting on the kettle. Patting the dog. Making himself at home. As he knocks on the door to hand me a cup of tea, one look says it all.
So it’s true, then.

Organisation rushes in, pushing grief into the corner, demanding the phone calls be made. Messages must be sent, she cries. There are people who need to know and we must step into the role of responsible one. She thrusts the phone into my hand and my fingers blindly dial; a voice that I’m sure isn’t mine calmly speaks.
News breaks, and grief’s empire spreads.

Yet he still sits quietly in the corner. Apologetic that his presence is such a bother. A crumpled black suit hangs loosely from narrow shoulders. He’s a man who is called to do his job but does not enjoy the process. He does it because nobody else can.
Nobody else will.

Wailing and howling, sorrow arrives. Never one to shy away from expression of feelings, he takes over the place. This is his show, after all. He’s the star here. Let there be no death marked without sorrow. Let it out, he says. Let it go. Feel the pain; that sharp, burning, nauseating pain from your very depths.
Let me out.

I reach out to grief and take his hand. Nod my head and pull him into an embrace. I feel his boney shoulders tense and then relax. Welcome back, friend, I whisper. You are not reviled here.
You are the price I pay for love.

Insomnia creeps in and takes over. Tonight will be a night for staring blankly at the ceiling, kicking off the duvet, compulsively checking Facebook. She sits heavy on my chest, bearing silent witness. Somewhere between witching hour and dawn, she slips out.
Uneasy sleep takes me.

Grief shakes me awake just as birdsong starts. For a brief, blissful moment, I am unaware. Then his face comes into focus and he hands me a taste of my new bittersweet reality. It all comes rushing back, and for a moment I am breathless. Behind him, denial, organisation, sorrow, and insomnia sit and wait.

They’re all here to mourn you.

Kath Teeboon

02/04/2018

Copyright: the author asserts her moral right to be recognised as the creator of this work. Do not reproduce without permission.

On redirections and reconstructions...

noreply@blogger.com (Kath) — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 10:53:00 +0000

Yup, I'm back.

"Plan for the best, prepare for the worst" - I forget exactly where I first heard these sage words but it has become a core part of my philosophy for life. I remain extremely optimistic (sometimes disturbingly so) under most circumstances but I always always have an exit strategy for all situations. And I mean all situations, including "I'm sure this surly 350lb gentleman sitting next to me on the bus will move when I need to get off, but just in case..."

Right now I am going through a complete redirection of my life. Due to personal circumstances I have left Taiwan and I am now back in New Zealand, building a new life for myself. I don't want to get into the nitty gritty details of it all, suffice to say that the reason I went to Taiwan didn't quite pan out as hoped but it's really nothing worthy of drama and fireworks - it's just one of those things that happens. Life is messy and it rarely goes to plan - occasionally it even goes skipping wildly off the rails and ploughs straight into the middle of a muddy field. And although I'm not a massive fan of my plans and best intentions being completed turned on their head, I am a fan of staying positive and remembering that as long as life is going then exactly where it is going is just detail and details can be worked out.

So what now? I work out the details of starting again. Happily I have a network of amazing friends that have just been fabulous through all of this, both in Taipei and back here in Auckland, so a lot of the blanks are being filled in a lot faster than I could ever have hoped for. One of the major blanks that I'm hoping to start filling in again on a regular basis is of course this blog, which has been much neglected whilst my life was "Under Reconstruction". I appreciate all of you who have stuck with me and not deleted me off your blog rolls or unsubscribed in the last few months of complete radio silence! It will take a bit of time to get back into the swing of things but I'm sure once everything settles down I'll be back to more regular posting. Keep watching this space...

Before I go to sleep: Review

noreply@blogger.com (Kath) — Wed, 30 May 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Before I go to sleep

SJ Watson

Published in 2011

Published by Transworld Publishers

ISBN: 9780552164139

What are we if not the collection of all our memories. What is the point of life if not to collect these golden (and occasionally not so golden) snapshots and home movies that play in our minds. Surely the reward for age is that feeling of warmth that washes over us when we recall the day we met a cherished friend, or spent the afternoon chatting with our now deceased grandparents. Albert Camus famously once said that “Life is a sum of all your choices.” Our past shapes us in all sorts of different ways, making us the person we see staring back at us from the other side of the mirror. What would life be if we lost the ability to recall this past?

Christine is an amnesiac. Every morning she wakes up to find a strange man in her bed and the shocking realisation that she is at least 20 years older than she thought. An accident in her late twenties has rendered her ability to store newly created memories useless and so every single day she struggles to make sense of the life she has been living since that day. An old scrapbook of photographs and the patience of her husband, Ben, are what buoys Christine through these terrible mornings until one day she awakes to find a disturbing entry in the daily journal she has been keeping as part of her rehabilitation: Don't trust Ben.

The race to discover the truth about her relationship with Ben is what gives this book its punch – is Ben truly untrustworthy or is it purely Christine's inability to remember anything that has caused her to question him? It's a fast-paced thriller that keeps the reader engaged and wanting more, but it's not only the question of Ben that keeps the pages turning, it's whether Erica will be able to recover her ability to remember. Memory is a mysterious and ethereal concept that has a hold over all of us and the thought that we could maybe lose it, as Christine has done, is horrifyingly gripping. And it's not just a great premise for a work of fiction – this novel was inspired by those who deal with these challenges in real life. If this subject of amnesia interests you, I would recommend that you seek out Forever Today: A memoir of love and amnesia by Deborah Wearing.

I would recommend this one for the summer reading list – nothing helps a long wait in the airport terminal better than a good bit of fiction in your hands. It's not perfect and there are times when your suspension of disbelief will be stretched (especially if you've got anything more than a passing interest in memory disorders and neurological capabilities) but if you can put that to one side and just enjoy the journey this book will take you on, I doubt you will be disappointed. We all need a bit of escapism from time to time, after all!

Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer: Review

noreply@blogger.com (Kath) — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 09:46:00 +0000

Eating Animals
By Jonathan Safran Foer
Published by Little, Brown and Company
Published in 2009
ISBN: 0316069906

Can you handle the truth? It seems that I can't.

For a long time, I have been bothered by this vague notion that the fact that I eat meat does not entirely jive with the fact that I am not only an animal lover but one of those people who refuses to even kill a cockroach. This isn't for any religious or ideological reason. It's just that I am a huge softie. I want to adopt all stray dogs. And cats. And some of the squirrels in our local park. Of course I can't do this. I am bound by the necessary constraints of a thing called reality (and the protestations of my incredibly patient husband) which dictate that one large dog within one smallish apartment is quite enough.

Reality bites. But I had no idea exactly how hard it would bite me when I borrowed this book from the library. I mean, let's all be honest. Those of us who choose to eat meat rationally know, somewhere in a dark corner of our minds, that an animal had to die for us to be tucking into the juicy steak/ bucket of deep fried wings/ meat pie in front of us. Obvious stuff. Even further back, we probably acknowledge that given the world population and the existence of places called 'meat works' that this process is not likely to be very gentle or even totally humane. But for me, this acknowledgement was pushed way way back behind lots of disused boxes and debris to the darkest annex of my mind called Denial. Cognitive dissonance - the process of two totally opposing views living side by side in one person's headspace. Something has to give.

So why on earth did I decide to read this book? Or at least, attempt to read it because I should be very honest with you all right now: I could not finish this book. I guess it was because I wanted to face the truth. To test my meat eating. To see if I could handle the facts of where our meat comes from.

Test result: Abject failure.
Real life result: I can no longer eat chicken that has been processed through a meat works.

The big problem is that the people I live with are avid carnivores and I need to be able to continue to at least cook with chicken. My proposed compromise on this issue is that I am going to attempt to change the source of the chicken meat. Living, as I do, in a country where I don't speak very much of the language, certainly not enough to engage in any meaningful debate about the whys and wherefores of the origin of any meat with any shop vendor, this is not going to be easy. However, my plan is to try to get my meat from the traditional markets. They have live chickens at the market and they will kill them for you on the spot. Although this may not sound like much of a compromise to some people out there, trust me if you had read the description that I had of how chickens are slaughtered on masse, you might change your mind.

You see, in all honesty, I still want to eat meat. I enjoy it (don't judge!) But now I want to eat meat in a way that causes the least amount of suffering to the animals that end up on my plate. So a quick, individualized kill at the market seems to me, at this stage, to be a better death than one at the processing plant. And I should be woman enough to look my future chicken soup in the eye before I eat it right? We shall see how I really feel about this when I scrape together the courage to actually do this in a few days.

Although I do feel bad that I wasn't able to finish the whole book, but I think that as far as what it's aim was: to make its reader seriously consider their relationship with the food they eat, it succeeded. I'd like to think that Mr. Foer will forgive me for not making it to the last page in light of the adjustments I am making in what and how I eat.

This isn't one of those books that you can recommend or not. It's something that I feel probably every single person should read, at the very least so that they an make some informed decisions about what they put in their mouths every day. It is a hard read, but Jonathan Safran Foer is an excellent writer who makes the topic engaging, thought provoking and best of all, not preachy or guilt inducing. I couldn't handle the whole truth but I don't regret that I have been exposed to it.

Saving CeeCee Honeycutt: Review

noreply@blogger.com (Kath) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 03:00:00 +0000

Saving CeeCee Honeycutt
By Beth Hoffman
Published in 2012
Published by Abacus
ISBN: 978-0-349-00018-3
(Great Britain edition)

Some of us jokingly worry about turning into our parents. It might sneak up on us one day as we are scolding our kids, or during a conversation with friends – all of a sudden something will pop out of our mouths that sounds exactly like them. The echoes of our parents' influence may be unexpected, but for most of us it wouldn't be unwelcome. But for CeeCee Honeycutt, recognizing echoes of her mother within herself is her worst nightmare, and something which has haunted her every day since she read in a book that psychosis may be inherited.

CeeCee has grown up as the sole caretaker for her irretrievably mentally ill mother. Her father, unable to face up to the realities of his marriage, has retreated into his work and is barely ever home, leaving CeeCee to bear the brunt of her mother’s unstable moods and wild antics. Old before her time and robbed of her childhood and all semblance of normality, CeeCee turns to her beloved books and her elderly neighbor, Mrs Odell, for solace and a place of respite. But when she is twelve years old, her already chaotic world is thrown into further disarray when her mother makes a dramatic exit from her life at the beginning of the summer holidays.

As a result, CeeCee is uprooted from all she has ever known and whisked away to Savannah, Georgia, by her Great Aunt Tootie. CeeCee's new world could not be more different from her old life. She has been transplanted into the warm, pillowy comfortable place dominated by a cast of fabulous female characters. It is within this world that CeeCee starts her slow journey towards recovery from the damage done by her childhood and learns the simple joys of friendship and stability.

Although CeeCee's life with her mother reads as a gritty portrayal of what it is like to live with a mentally unbalanced parental figure, her life in Georgia reads more like a fairy tale, a young girl's fantasy escape story writ large. Life in 1970s Georgia isn't perfect, and the racial issues of the time do make an appearance, but more as side concerns to the main storyline. While some may find this optimistic turn of events to be problematically unrealistic, I personally found it fitting. After the brutality of CeeCee's life in Ohio, the magic of Savannah was welcome relief and an utterly charming place within which to spend some time. This novel achieves a balanced mix of opening pathways into conversations about the serious issue of mental illness while at the same time allowing for a thoroughly enjoyable read.

Taipei International Book Exhibition 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Kath) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:25:00 +0000

If there are two words that excite my soul it is "Book" and "Exhibition" being uttered in the same sentence. Last year I wasn't paying close enough attention and I missed it, so this year I was determined to go. I set up my Google Alert in March last year. It worked.

Not knowing quite what to expect I bowled up with fellow book enthusiast, Catherine. She had horror stories from the previous year of having to beat a path through rabid credit card reps so we had decided to combine forces. Luckily for us, this year there were no such reps so we were free to browse in relative peace - you know, as much peace as an exhibition hall can really offer.

As awesome and fantastic as a whole hall filled with books sounds, in reality I find it a little disorienting. There's something about the bright lights and people thrusting pamphlets into your hand that can really put a bookworm off her stride. After two and a half years of living in Asia, you'd think I would be better at the whole "crowd" thing but the truth is I'm not nearly as good as I should be. Especially where buying books is concerned. It's a sensory overload - there are just so many books and not nearly enough time.

Which is not meant to sound like a complaint - it's really not. The opportunity to look at so many English language books all at the same time was really magnificent and there were some really fabulous displays of stationery and arts and crafts related stuff. I ended up purchasing Solar by Ian McEwan and The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley, two books which have been on my "Strongly Desired" mental list for quite some time. I think next time I will set aside more time for this whole experience. I think it's something I'll do in stages next year and now I know what to expect, I can go in with a clearer idea of what I want to achieve.

Favourite Sentences VIII

noreply@blogger.com (Kath) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 15:02:00 +0000

Butterflies sailed across the open field, and the air was tinged with the sweet smell of peaches and warm earth. I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply, letting the scents travel through my body. I was in the middle of an accidental kind of happiness that made me grateful for having a nose.

From Saving CeeCee Honeycutt

Beth Hoffman

Page 234

It's summertime and joy on the page. I absolutely love the way that reading this made me feel.

The Buddha in the Attic: Review

noreply@blogger.com (Kath) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 03:00:00 +0000

The Buddha in the Attic

By Julie Otsuka

Published in 2011

Published by Alfred A. Knopf

ISBN: 978-0-307-70046-9

I purchased this book myself for the purposes of book club.

What possesses someone to pack up everything they own and move to a country they have never been to before, especially when they don't speak very much of the language nor understand very much of the culture of their destination country? Necessity? A dream of a better life? Wanderlust? Love? For the group of young Japanese women in this novel it was a bit of everything. They were to be married to men who they had only heard about through written letters and a single photograph. Leaving their lives, their families, their culture and their comfort zone, they set out across the ocean for America. When they arrived the reality that faced them was devastatingly different to their hopes and expectations.

Through first person plural narration, Otsuka presents the collective experiences of these women, divided thematically by significant events – from their first night as wives to childbirth to their removal from the towns and cities along the Pacific coast during World War Two. As a result of this narrative style and thematic organization there isn't a traditional plot with a beginning middle and an end. Rather the experience of reading the stories of many comes to be almost like a meditation on lives past. The choice to present this material in this way is a wise one, I think, as to do anything other than present the simple facts could create a potential emotional overload for the reader. This is not only because of the number of different perspectives and stories but also because of the confronting nature of the content within.

I remember very clearly the first time I discovered that Japanese Americans and Canadians had been removed from their homes and livelihoods during the Second World War when I read Obasan by Joy Kogawa for a postgraduate trauma literature paper. I'd had no idea that this kind of thing had happened and to be honest, I was shocked by what I learned. It hadn't mattered if these people had lived there half of their lives, or if they had been born there and were therefore citizens – in the wake of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor President Roosevelt authorized the exclusion of all people of Japanese ancestry from the Pacific coastline and housed them in war interment camps inland. Like I said – it's confronting stuff. But let's forget for a moment all of the why's and the wherefores of this decision. Let's hold off on the pointing of fingers and the placement of blame and guilt and focus on what it is that Otsuka is telling us to do – to listen to the voices that couldn't be heard back then.

These voices are not only of the Japanese who were interred but also of their neighbors who were very much affected by their removal. The last chapter is written from the perspective of these neighbors which shows that at first they were worried, upset and guilty about the way the Japanese had been treated. But as time passes and new stores open in place of Mr. Harada's grocery or the Imanashi Transfer, and the Instructions to All Persons of Japanese Ancestry notices fade and blow away with a stronger breeze than usual, so too do the feelings and the memories. People move on. It seems cold but it is after all, human nature to let go of things that do not continue to affect you on a daily basis. Especially when your country is about to become involved in the worst war this world has ever seen.

Otsuka's novella is an attempt to reestablish these lost stories and assure their place within the narrative of America's history. As the title suggests, it is time for it to be taken down out of the attic, dusted off and examined, honestly and with an open heart and mind. As with many novels that deal with subjects of uncomfortable moments in history this is not an uplifting read. It presents us, the present day reader, with a slice of a time gone by told through the imagined voices of those who experienced it. It's a tale of belonging, of inner strength, of cultural struggles and of real life. It's a timely reminder of how far we have come in this world, but also, perhaps, how much further we have yet to go.

Sunday Salon: Making peace with Kindle

noreply@blogger.com (Kath) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 10:11:00 +0000

The Kindle... The end of all real books???!!

"You kids with e-readers! Get off my lawn!"

That's basically what my 2009 post about the digital revolution in reading sounded like. I was the crochety old lady who was more than happy with her good old-fashioned paper books, thank you very much. All this gumph about new-fangled devices for reading, I huffed. I had no need for such shenanigans.... Did I?

By early 2011, I had softened considerably. It wasn't that I was against e-readers you see, I just preferred the entire reading experience. I'm one of those people who unashamedly sniffs books. I buy notebooks when I have no need for them. I like the way paper feels between my fingers. The clinical diagnosis, were I to get one, would likely be Severe Paperphilia. A diagnosis I embrace wholeheartedly - but the question that kept nagging in the back of my mind was, did my love affair with paper necessarily have to be so tightly linked to my love of the written word?

This question was answered at the end of last year, when my beloved husband bought me an iPad for Christmas. This gift came at a time in my life where reading for pleasure had become nearly non-existent due to the required reading necessary for the thesis which had taken up nearly all of my time and severely depleted my reading mojo. It was also a matter of timing - when I was thesis-free (that is, out of my house) and had the mental space for reading I was typically on some form of public transport or at a loose end somewhere. I had fallen out of the habit of carrying a book with me in my bag, for some reason but now, the iPad would be with me pretty much all the time.

Casually, I downloaded the Kindle App. I looked up. Checked behind me. No-one was screaming. I didn't hear any bookstores bursting into flames in the near vicinity. Excellent. Now, to find something to read. I downloaded Book of Mercy - an appropriate title, given my feelings about this whole foray into digital reading.

It was brilliant - not just the book but the whole experience. From click-to-buy to ready-to-read took all of 10 seconds. This is no small thing when, living where I do, the acquisition of books is not an easy task. The closest bookstore with a reasonably decent selection of English language books is a 15 minute bus ride away from my home and the one with the best selection is over an hour away by bus in Taipei. Ordering books online is easy but means waiting for two or more weeks for the books to arrive. Given this, I'm sure you can see why the immediacy of this appeals so much!


My swagload of real books (Image credit: Kath Liu)

Aside from that, the thing I worried about the most was the reading experience. Would it feel cold? Would it be uncomfortable holding an electronic device in my hands rather than a book? It certainly wasn't the same, but there were a couple of unexpected benefits, including the dictionary search function which helped me out on a few occasions as I read Game of Thrones. Highlight a word and its definition helpfully appears at the bottom of the screen. Further, I could add notes or highlight without feeling like I was committing the carnal sin of writing on a book. In fact, the only major downside was the constant distractions from email, Facebook and Twitter notifications. When you're deep into a dramatic moment, the last thing you need to know is that Bob Jones "Liked" your photograph. Easy solution: disconnect from the internet.

So there it is. Who knew. The Digital Dissenter has been turned and having access to e-books has shattered my reading slump. I have embraced the positives of this new way of reading and ceased worrying about my beloved physical book - I reckon those babies are going to be around in this world for a lot longer than I will, and I ain't planning on going anywhere for a good while yet.

And just to make sure, I bought myself a swagload of real books - and delightedly sniffed each and every one of them. Bliss.

Sunday Salon: The secret shame of unfinished books

noreply@blogger.com (Kath) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 06:00:00 +0000

It's confession time. In the last few years since I have had a full workload of both thesis and editing/writing work, I have been a serial non-completer of books. Not bad books. Not because I didn't like them. Not because they were unworthy. Purely because I would get distracted, put it aside, then forget which book I was actually working on and so pick up another. In this fashion, I have left a trail of many partially read books in my wake and quite frankly, I think it's time I put a stop to it.

Just as an aside, I have completed plenty of books during this time also - don't get me wrong. I do have at least enough attention span to complete most of the books I set out to read. But still. There is a noticeable issue here that I feel the need to address. The first step is admitting I have a problem.

Hi, my name is Kath and I'm a serial non-completer.

The next step is to map out a plan of recovery. Below is a list of the seven previously abandoned books I will complete during the year of 2012. I will complete these books despite the myriad shiny new books that come my way, beckoning invitingly. I will complete them despite having to read others for Book Club. I will complete them because they deserve it - they're damn good books and I was enjoying them until... well you know.

1. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
2. The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson
3. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
4. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
5. Possession by A.S. Byatt
6. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
7. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.

Has anyone else had this problem? I'll bet no-one has. I know my audience - the dedication and reading pace of the book blogging community impresses me no end! But if you're out there, fellow non-completer, speak up and join me on the Quest of Completion for 2012. [Edit: looks like I'm not alone! Jillian over at A Room of One's Own has set up a challenge specifically to deal with this problem. Trot on over there and join in!]

The Dirty Parts of the Bible: Review

noreply@blogger.com (Kath) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 02:26:00 +0000

The Dirty Parts of the Bible
By Sam Torode
Published by CreateSpace
Published in March 23, 2010
ISBN-13: 978-1450567633

I purchased this book myself. As an ebook. Again. I know!

Bad: Your parents have a massive row one night which leads to your father getting fantastically drunk and crashing his car into the side of the local church. He is thrown clear but a bird poops on his face whilst he is passed out leaving him blinded.

Worse: Your father is also the Pastor of that church.

Tobias Henry is the only child of an evangelical Baptist pastor father and long suffering mother living in Remus, Michigan. Although he has been raised in the church he has always had questions about the apparent contradictions within the Bible. His father is of the Bible as a literal document of Fact school of thought who (before his extraordinary fall from grace) preached that sex was vile and sinful and that alcohol is temptation from the Devil. How come then, Tobias wonders, are there all these references in the Bible to turning water into wine and some passages that talk of breasts? Having been involved in the Baptist church for a couple of years when I was a teenager, these are questions echo ones I also had, although I was far less concerned than Tobias about the sexual aspects of the Good Book! In the end, it was partially the failure to find answers that satisfied me that was responsible for me deciding that formal religion wasn't a good fit for me.

With these questions in his mind and a need to find a way to support his family now that his father had been thrown out of the the ministry pushing him along, Tobias sets off to Texas. His father has told him of an abandoned well on his family's farm where he hid some money many years before. Thus commences a journey of discovery and learning, guided by the unlikely character of Craw, a homeless man whom Tobias befriends along the way.

What I really connected to within this story was Craw's take on the Bible. He claims that taking the Bible literally is to miss its point entirely, that the meanings of the stories within the Bible are layered within, only found after some digging and thought. This whole idea reminded me of a discussion I had with one of my oldest NZ friends when she visited me here in Taiwan recently about Christianity. Her take is that it is not about judgement or trying to be perfect, rather it is about Grace and faith that what you believe in will ultimately be your salvation. This is an explanation which really struck a chord with me and one I wished far more people shared.

This book is a quick and fun read whilst also giving you something to chew over once you reach the final page. It's a classic coming of age tale with a twist of mysticism with a dash of romance thrown in. If you're looking for a light read with a bit of substance to it, this is a good pick.

Endings and beginnings...

noreply@blogger.com (Kath) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 04:00:00 +0000

What happens when you chain yourself to your desk for a whole month in a desperate attempt to get your thesis written? Well, a thesis, apparently. That and a lot of coffee drinking, which of course aided the cause. I have completed the thirty one days of concentrated writing which I dubbed Thesis Month with three chapters (an introduction, one on DeLillo's Falling Man and one on Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist) which total around 22,000 words, 16,000 of which were written in the last month alone. I still have one more chapter (on McEwan's Saturday) plus a conclusion and all of the suggested revisions from my supervisors to write over the next 20 days but the end is in sight and it looks like it is going to be possible.

This thesis will be, by far, the longest single piece of writing I have ever done. Normally I churn out blog posts or articles that are 1,200 words in length without too much difficulty but despite my love of writing, there has always been this weird mental barrier in my head when it comes to writing anything very much longer. Especially something with chapters. Locking myself away for a month has made me realise, though, that what all of the best writers have said is true: Writing is work and you just have to keep showing up at your desk every day until you get it done. Previously I had tended to be one of those "write when inspiration hits" types which, you can imagine really doesn't work so well when there are strict deadlines and academic penalties involved. Anyway, two more months and this thing will be submitted and I will be free of tertiary study for the first time in 12 years! The possibilities of what I will do with the extra time are endless including reading what I want, whenever I want, purely for the hell of it. Heaven is just around the corner.

In other news, I have been given an exciting new job. The place where I work, The Community Services Center in Taipei, has an English language lifestyle magazine aimed at the international community living in Taipei and beyond. Recently, the editor who had been doing a fabulous job of looking after this magazine decided that she was going to step down and to my absolute joy my boss asked me if I would like to consider doing it. Of course I accepted, joyfully and with many fist-pumps. I have just started work on my first issue due out in February. Yet another reason to get this thesis done and dusted so I can focus my attentions on this new project, also known as My Dream Job.

Once I have got the thesis out of the way I will be spending some time thinking about the direction I want to take this blog in and being more committed to writing it on a regular basis. I have been having a few thoughts about what kinds of books I want to spend my time reading and also thoughts about how much Taiwan I want to include here. But I want to finalise one commitment before I take on another to ensure that both get the love and attention they need. It's almost like I can't really and truly celebrate the new year until I finish the thesis because I can't make new goals and resolutions until I have. But that's OK - it just gives me another reason to pop a cork on a bottle of something a bit special at the end of the February!

I hope you're all well and have had a wonderful Festive Season with your loved ones and that 2012 will be a fantastic year for you. Also I want to thank you for bearing with me during this period of blogging silence - I even gained a few new followers which I am most grateful for. Happy New Year!

Book of Mercy: Review

noreply@blogger.com (Kath) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 16:12:00 +0000

Book of Mercy
By Sherry Roberts
Published in 2011
Published by Osmyrrah Publishing
ISBN: 978-0-9638880-5-1

I purchased this book myself - as an e-book. Cue gasps of horror from those acquainted with my previous digital resistance.

I don't know what this world is coming to. What are the kids thinking? It never used to be like that when I was their age. We were different. More respectful. The youth of today will be the ruin of this place. Have you heard the lyrics of the songs they listen to? Seen the content of the games they play? Someone ought to do something about it....

Thus starts an idea which is skirting into the very dangerous territory of censorship. It seems to me that this concerned hand-wringing that people do about 'the youth of today' is perpetual. People were saying it about us when I was younger, before that they were saying it about my parents generation, and the generation before that. Worse still, now people my age are starting to say it to me about 'kids these days' and look shocked when I flat out disagree. The problem with this world is not aged between 12 and 22, does not attend high school and does not wear hooded sweatshirts and baggy trousers. The major issues within our societies are caused by much older and better dressed forces. But the hand-wringing continues and ideas of what sorts of materials are appropriate for the eyes and ears of the young abound.

Irene Crump is one such hand-wringer, but she's the well-dressed, powerful sort. The most dangerous sort, in other words. She is the Head of the Mercy Study Club, a group of affluent women who meet to engage in educated discussion and participate in fund-raising activities for their community in Mercy, North Carolina. She takes it upon herself to produce a list of books that can be found in the local high school library that she considers 'filthy' and demands that they are removed. Books that contain such things as witchcraft (Harry Potter), profane language like 'hell' or 'damn', teen sexuality (Judy Blume's books) or allegedly encourage disobedient behaviour. She uses her connections and gets them banned. What she hadn't counted on, however, was being publicly opposed by the feisty Antigone.

Antigone is an entrepreneur, has a way with animals, takes in waifs and strays of all species including human, and has a habit of taking off on binge drives. She is also dyslexic, meaning her relationship with the written word in her life has been understandably fraught, however when she hears about Irene's little scheme she refuses to let it stand. Books, she argues, are knowledge and being locked out from them as she has been for most of her life, is something she wouldn't wish on anyone.

What ensues is a battle of both willpower and political power - the right to freedom of speech versus the right to protect the minds of the young from harmful materials. While I certainly agree there are limits on what children should be exposed to, the definition of what is harmful is a tricky one and it's inevitably tied up with politics and conservatism. I really think that people over-estimate the ill-effects of listening to songs with swearing in them, or knowing about sex at a young age. I grew up listening to all sorts and reading all sorts. One of my favourite songs when I was 11 years old was Deep by East 17 and it was entirely about sex - although I didn't know it at the time. Goodness only knows what anyone thought when they heard me tunelessly singing lyrics like "Yeah I'll butter your toast/ If you lick my knife". I haven't ended up a pervert nor did I let anyone 'butter my toast' until a much older age. I read my first sex scene when I was around 13 I think, entirely by accident. I picked a book that belonged to my mother off the book shelves one summer holiday and started reading... Nothing terribly explicit, my mother certainly wasn't one who enjoyed Mills and Boon, but enough to give a wide-eyed girl on the verge of adulthood a bit of an education. Again, seems I haven't come out any worse for it.

This book has fun characters, a good plot line and it moves at a pretty snappy pace. Overall, it was an incredibly enjoyable read which I was surprised about, to be honest, given that the listing price on Amazon was US$0.99 (it has since returned to its regular price of US$5.75) and that I had heard nothing about it. It was refreshing to prove my inner book snob wrong and find a cheap, unknown digital book that had me enthralled until the very last page. It wasn't high literature but I didn't want it to be. It was a great escape into a good story which is ultimately what reading should be all about.

Sunday Salon: Caution! Thesis in Progress.

noreply@blogger.com (Kath) — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 15:13:00 +0000

We're finally at that magical stage, folks, when the months of reading and thinking and changing directions and reading some more is coming to fruition: the real writing of my thesis. Don't get me wrong, I've been banging away on the keyboard for quite a few months now but now I can feel it all pulling together. It's making sense. It's going in a logical progression. I can see the map to the finish line. Thank Gawd. I'm taking December to focus exclusively on final write up (yay for supportive bosses!!) so hopefully by the time new year rolls around I will be all but done. That just means being a hermit for a month. Wish me luck.

In other news, it is time for Le Grande Book Club Nominations. Although I already have far too many ideas (I have a list of 7 possibles, limit per person is 2) I would like to humbly ask you to suggest others or give feedback on my choices so far. The list is:
Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
The Submission by Amy Waldman
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
The Marriage Plot by Jeffry Eugenides
Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs.

Also, it was my birthday this month so hubby took me to Sun Moon Lake here in Taiwan to celebrate. It was startlingly beautiful so I wanted to share a few pics here with you...

The lake at dawn

Heading off for a day up the mountain

Looking across the lake

Coming down the mountain on the gondola

Hope everyone is well and enjoying November!

Burned by the Blurb

noreply@blogger.com (Kath) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:06:00 +0000

Image credit

Oh, that feeling of anticipation as you open up a new book. The delicious smell of the print floats off the pages, inviting you in as you settle down into the corner of the couch to start what you're sure will be a beautiful new relationship. Perhaps one for the ages! With cup of steaming tea by your elbow and dog snuggled up on your feet, you turn to the first page. Ah, bliss... Part way through the book, however, you realise that something is amiss. Something, somewhere is not quite ringing true. While it's not bad, this book is not going in the direction that you thought it would be - at least the direction you thought it would be when you read the blurb on the back...

About eighteen months ago, I read A Gate at the Stairs in preparation for my thesis about post-9/11 literature. I had heard rave reviews about it and so I was really looking forward to digging in. As is my habit, before I started reading it properly, I read the synopsis on the inner flap of the cover (I'd splashed out and bought a hardback - that's how much I'd wanted to get my hands on this book) to get an idea of what I was in for. This is where my problems began. You see, this 300-word synopsis of the book was, in my opinion, completely misleading. I don't mean "misleading" in the Star Wars is a tender love story set in the Bronx during the 1930's kind of way. I mean more in the main relationship in Star Wars is the brotherhood between C3P0 and R2-D2 kind of way. I was expecting, and therefore looking for, the wrong plot line and in the end, the story I ended up reading didn't resemble the one I thought I was going to read at all. As you might imagine - vague disappointment ensued.

You could very well argue that it was my fault to go into something with expectations and assumptions and smugly claim some tripe about making an ass out of you and me - yes yes all of this is true - but really. Who among us buys a book, let alone reads it without at least checking out the back cover? I know I never do. Normally, this isn't a problem but this time I was well and truly burned by the blurb. It turned what I thought would be a fabulous book into an unsatisfying reading experience, but through no fault of the novel itself.

Luckily, there is a happy end to this story. I just re-read it, freed of the false impressions of the previous reading and enjoyed it far better this time. I did enjoy it last time but without that thundercloud of "I've been duped!" hanging over me, this time I was able to fully engage in the brilliance of it. In fact, the difference in reading experience was so striking that it got me wondering if anyone else had ever had this kind of problem before with any other book or if anyone had actually read this book (and synopsis) and had no problems whatsoever. Or have you had this problem and had the chance (or inclination) to re-read the book to see if you could fix the issue?

The Glass Castle: Review

noreply@blogger.com (Kath) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 14:12:00 +0000

The Glass Castle

By Jeannette Walls

Published by Virago

Published in 2005

ISBN: 978-1-84408-182-0

I read this book for book club and purchased this book myself. I was not paid for this review.

When a well-meaning parent who has done nothing more outrageous than apply some necessary discipline gets “I HATE you! You're ruining my life!!” thrown at them by their offspring it must really really sting. I'm sure that part of the parenting experience (of which I have not partaken as yet!) is to develop the ability to shake this kind of thing off but still. It's got to hurt. Especially when you happen across a memoir such as this about parents that really were, in many ways, ruining their kids' lives – yet these kids seem to raise far fewer protests in this book than the average teenager would in a calendar month.

When I first started thinking about this book I was in two minds as to whether this memoir displays the immense resilience of children or the worrying enmeshment that often happens within dysfunctional families. When you've been dragged from pillar to post by your emotionally immature and responsibility-shirking mother and father, experienced neglect, witnessed violence and endured the most abject poverty, to come out as well-adjusted and normal as Jeannette Walls is no mean feat. From the outside, it seems that despite the occasional rays of warmth and love that provide light relief throughout what is undeniably a very grim tale, the behaviour of her parents is unforgivable. You have to wonder how on earth she has come through all of this and been able to write such a balanced view of her life. In the end, however, I decided that although the enmeshment is definitely there, it would be doing this book an immense injustice to focus on that rather than on the resilience of Jeannette and her siblings.

The second in a family of four kids, Jeannette was daughter to Rex and Rose Mary – both highly intelligent people who simply did not fit within regular society. Rex dreamed of being an entrepreneur, of building his glass castle – a solar heated mansion for his family, of striking it rich in the gold mines but his addiction to alcohol as well as his near complete failure to apply himself left those dreams in the dust. Rose Mary was a prolific artist who just could not see the point of domestic chores and the hard work of raising four children when she could be working on her next painting. During Jeannette's childhood they lived a nomadic existence, moving from place to place across the desert until they finally, incomprehensibly, settled down in her father's loathed hometown of Welch – a damp and by all accounts fairly dire small town in West Virginia in the vice-like grip of joblessness and poverty. This is where they remain for the majority of Jeannette's adolescence and where, I feel, the magic slowly drains out of her view of her parents, especially her father whom she had always idolised.

In an interview about this book, Jeannette points out that although some people may see the concept of the glass castle as just another of her father's drunken promises that was inevitably broken, you can also choose to see it as a hope for the future. It's all a matter of perspective. Despite this viewpoint being incredibly hopeful and uplifting, personally I can't buy into it. Her story made me very angry, frustrated me beyond belief and broke my heart. I despised her parents for their selfishness and the pain they had visited upon their own children – the best part of the whole story in my view was the fact that she and two of her siblings, Lori and Brian, banded together to help each other escape from their destitution and build a better life for themselves in New York. For me, the hopeful thing is that these kids got out and went on to flourish proving that nobody is necessarily defined by their circumstances or their past if they are given a chance to break free of it. I suspect that everyone who reads this will have their own reaction to it based on their life experiences which is what makes this book so worthy of picking up and reading.

This book probably wouldn't be a good choice if you're looking for for something light. It is heavy-going and for some people it will touch a raw nerve but above all it is an unforgettable tale of the strength of the human spirit. It's a book that will stay with me for a very long time.

The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise: Review

noreply@blogger.com (Kath) — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 02:07:00 +0000

The Tower, the Zoo and, the Tortoise: A Novel
By Julia Stuart
Published by Doubleday
Published in 2010
ISBN: 978-0-385-53328-7
(Originally published in Great Britain in paperback as Balthazar Jones and the Tower of London Zoo)

I own this copy which, incidentally, is a First American Edition. I wasn't paid for this review but owning a kind-of-first-edition makes up for that. Also it's September's book club book.

None of us know what life will hold for us. When we're young and invincible, we have no clue what curve balls life will throw at us. This was certainly true for Hebe and Balthazar Jones, whose once intense love for each other has been torn to shreds by the loss of their only son, Milo. Thrown apart by their grief, they mourn separately in the same dank tower within the Tower of London where Balthazar is a Beefeater (the official guardian of the Tower of London sort, not the steak-scoffing variety). Hebe is unable to comprehend her husband's apparent lack of grief for the son he had loved so dearly and the obsession he has harboured ever since that terrible day that Milo passed away with collecting various types of rainfall in Egyptian perfume bottles.

When Balthazar is asked to take charge of the relocation of animals that were gifts from various heads of state to HRH Queen Elizabeth on account of his owning the oldest tortoise in the world, he is initially reluctant. He already has enough trouble making it through each day as it is but takes on the responsibilities as he believes it will ensure he won't be fired for his recent appalling record with catching pickpockets. As time passes, he relearns his ability to love through his connection with the animals, including a bearded pig that was not supposed to be taken to the Tower, and the heart that had been frozen with grief starts to thaw.

The drama of at the Tower of London is not limited to the Joneses alone. Ruby Dore, landlady of the Rack and Ruin, the pub within the Tower walls has just discovered she has returned from a holiday to Psain with a little more baggage than she had hoped for. Meanwhile, Reverend Septimus Drew, who is madly in love with Ruby, is living out a secret life in his spare time between preaching and exorcising the various residential areas of the Towers. Outside of the Tower walls there is Valerie Jennings, a woman of 'considerable girth' who works alongside Hebe at the London Underground Lost and Found office, meticulously logging all found items and attempting to reconnect them with their owners. Pursuing her is the tattooed ticket inspector, Arthur Catnip, who only gets the nerve up to ask her out when he comes to the counter to find her stuck in the front end of a pantomime horse's costume.

This novel is a charming blend of mad-cap characters, their messy lives, British history, and a bit of romance. It's a book that will draw you in and create a world that you won't want to leave. I absolutely adored this book from beginning to end, even though I did sometimes find the descriptions a little heavy-handed or repetitive in parts (the phrase 'fulsome buttocks' should never be used more than once within a novel, it ruins its effectiveness). If you're looking for something that is a bit mad that's fun but still has emotional resonance then this is the book for you. It's a gem to rival the crown jewels themselves.

Sunday Salon: 9/11 and its literature

noreply@blogger.com (Kath) — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 04:24:00 +0000

Ground Zero
Image Source: Here

Ten years ago today I was dragged out of my bed by my mother. She was saying something about "You have to see this!" and "Oh my God!" Through the haze of my attempts to wake up, I saw on the television the footage of a plane flying into the side of a building and then, horrifyingly, its collapse with people still inside. Immediately, I was awake. All of the questions that everyone else who was seeing this for the first time came falling out of my mouth. I was rooted to the spot for the next half an hour taking all of the information in.

I was in my first year of studying at university, a couple of months shy of my 19th birthday. My abiding memory of that day was sitting around in the quad with my friends, all of us trying to comprehend what had happened and what kind of effects it would have on our lives. We had a Statistics exam that evening. I remember that the majority of the class bombed and I always wondered if our lecturer realised why that probably was.

Ten years later I'm still transfixed by the events of that day as post-9/11 literature is the focus of my thesis. I've read a raft of novels that I consider to be post-9/11 - that is, literature that directly represents the events of the day or the effects on society after the events. I'm more interested in reading novels that register the after-shocks as I always think that seeing what happens after is far more informative than the fiction that tries to re-create what was undeniably a terrible event. So since this is my "Special Topic" of interest, I thought I would create a post-9/11 reading list. To honour the memory of those who perished in the collapse of the towers, the attack on the Pentagon and in the flight that went down in Pennsylvania, I believe it is best to keep on thinking and keep on asking questions.

Fiction:

Falling Man by Don DeLillo

A Disorder Peculiar to the Country by Ken Kalfus

Man in the Dark by Paul Auster

The Zero by Jess Walter

Ghost Town by Patrick McGrath

Saturday by Ian McEwan

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

I haven't read these yet but I hear they're worth a look -

Terrorist by John Updike

Submission by Amy Waldman

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathon Safran Foer.

Also, go over to The New Dork Review of Books for this thoughtful and interesting post about what we should expect from fiction about this subject.

What is your favourite post-9/11 novel?

Where does inspiration come from?

noreply@blogger.com (Kath) — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 03:49:00 +0000

Divine inspiration
Image source: Lviv Polytechnic National University

I've read a couple of great posts lately on the subject of writing, one here at Books and Bowel Movements and another at The New Dork Review of Books and Greg from The New Dork Review's reply to my comment got me thinking about something. All my life I have always had this idea that to write a great work of fiction in any format, you need to have a story bursting out of you, something almost alien that consumes you and takes over the function of your hands as you frantically type away, creating a masterpiece. To be honest I have no idea why I think like this because I know, logically, that writing is work. You produce the first draft, then the second and get feedback and rework it and rework it until it's something that you're willing to release into the world. I do this all the time with my non-fiction writing so why have I got myself in such a twist about the fiction writing aspect? Is this idea that all great novels start out as a story begging to be told within the author just a myth? Who started this myth?

I was reviewing my archive of bookish podcasts while I was pondering this when I had a vague recollection of something I heard a few years back from Alice Walker so I went back and listened to it.

"I prepared by changing my life almost completely. I was living in New York City, I was an editor at Ms. Magazine, I was married... and I knew that I could not write this story which started coming to me in the actual voices of the people... I knew I couldn't write it in the city because of the tall buildings, the noise... I also knew that I could not remain with my husband because the world that we had was charming and good but not large enough for these people and he would not have been able to understand them and he would not have been able to understand who I was to write this, so I got a divorce... we sold our house, eventually got my half of the money from the house, moved here. The people of the story, they were very real to me. They loved the beauty of San Francisco... a lot. They didn't like the earthquakes though so I knew then I had to take them out of the city to the countryside."

Alice Walker, speaking about writing The Color Purple

BBC World Service "World Book Club: Alice Walker"

Released as a podcast 18 November 2008

Small wonder, listening to this, that I have this embedded idea when I heard such a highly respected author saying she was so inspired that she had to get divorced, quit her job and move cross-country! Then I wondered if I had heard this from other authors and found this from J K Rowling...

Sue Lawley (DID presenter): I've heard writers before, Joanne, say that stories come into their mind and demand to be written. Is that how it was with Harry?

J K Rowling: Absolutely. It was, yes. I was 25 when I had the idea for Harry and I had been writing, if you include all of the embarrassing teenaged rubbish, for years and years and I had never been so excited by an idea in my life. I'd abandoned two novels for adults prior to that, actually the second novel I was still writing when I had the idea for Harry. For six months I tried to write them both simultaneously but then Harry just took over completely.

J K Rowling speaking about writing Harry Potter

BBC Radio 4 "Desert Island Discs"

First released 5 November 2000

If we consider here what Alice Walker and J K Rowling have said, then it really does sound like a story moves in from some other place and takes over. It's the divine inspiration idea that's been around for centuries. It's a perfectly lovely idea, of course for those who want an easy explanation of how and why art of any kind is created and why it is that some art affects some people more deeply than others does. However, for those of us sat in front of a blank computer screen with only a cold cup of coffee to hand and a defiantly blinking cursor tormenting us, it's not much comfort. What are we supposed to do? Sit around and wait for inspiration to strike? Where does this inspiration come? New York city, like Alice Walker? On a delayed British Rail train, like J K Rowling? Personally, I couldn't think of two more diametrically opposed locations in terms of potential for inspiration. What do we do in the meantime?

I like to take comfort from this quote from Khaled Hosseini. To me, this is a more realistic tale of how a great book came into being. It started off with an idea from the piece of news that the Taliban were going to ban kite-flying in Afghanistan, something which was personally significant to Hosseini since he had loved to do this when he was younger. From there, he said, it grew.

"So then I sat down, and I thought I would just write this whimsical story about kite-flying in Kabul... and of course, stories take a life of their own and gradually what started as this little kite story became a 25-page short story about this kind of complicated friendship between these two boys, this doomed friendship. And it became a story about cowardice and betrayal and honour and guilt and forgiveness and so on. And then the short story sat around for a couple of years until the March of 2001 when my wife discovered it and read it... and then I revisited the story and realised that even though it was really flawed it had a big heart and maybe the nucleus of what could become a really interesting piece of longer fiction. And that was the basis for the novel."

Khaled Hosseini, speaking about The Kite Runner

BBC World Service "World Book Club: Khaled Hosseini"

Released as a podcast 27 May 2008

From an idea to an abandoned short story to a hugely successful novel. It took was his wife's interest and enjoyment of the story for him to realise that this story was one that had massive potential, that 'big heart' despite all of the flaws that he could also see in it.

I know that all stories have to come from somewhere, but I'm starting to think that they don't have to necessarily be that lightning strike of inspiration. Perhaps not everything we write is going to be that number one bestseller or Booker Prize winning story. Maybe we need to write a bunch of so-so stories before we can write the really good one. In the same way that you would never imagine that you'd go out and run a marathon with no prior training, maybe I should reconfigure my view to think of all writing as training for the 'big event', that hoped for and dreamed of published book. I mean, seriously. Even J K Rowling said that she'd been writing for 'years and years' before Harry came along and do you think that Alice Walker never wrote anything before The Color Purple? Exactly. I don't doubt that they really did experience that extraordinary 'boom' of inspiration but looking at Hosseini's story, it doesn't seem like it is as necessary as I once thought it was. Sure you need an idea, but that idea can just as easily germinate from a small seed as it can be transplanted into your brain.

Looks like I just need to get myself into training for when that idea comes along.

How about you? What do you think of the "story that just had to be written" idea?

Where is home?

noreply@blogger.com (Kath) — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 09:47:00 +0000

The mind, once expanded to the dimensions of larger ideas, never returns to its original size. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

Auckland City seen from the North Shore

For me, this one quote perfectly sums up what it feels like to return to your country of origin, be it permanently or for a quick visit, after a period of living overseas. For me, it feels like something has grown and it no longer fits like it used to, like a favourite t-shirt you used to wear all the time that accidentally got shrunk in the wash. Of course, the process of change from being overseas is a lot slower and more subtle than an overnight laundry incident and you often won't even realise that it has happened until you go back for your first visit. The process of trying on your previous life for size, as it were.

When I'm asked where I'm from, it's a challenge to answer in absolutes. I was born in Cornwall, England but I did all of my teenaged growing up in Auckland, New Zealand. I was already a bit of a mutt before I moved to Taiwan but now I feel like I've morphed into something else entirely but goodness knows what that actually is. All I know is that when I went back home to NZ for a visit recently, I felt different. Stretched. Slightly misshapen. A little odd. There were the obvious things that happen that made me notice, like the fact that I forgot that in NZ you follow road traffic conventions and keep to the left on escalators (in Taipei it's the reverse and you stay to the right-hand side) and I was shocked and appalled by the cost of living and how it had risen since I had last been back - mind you I don't think you need to have left the country to feel like that when inflation is 5-6% per annum and wage increases are 1-2% per annum.

But there were other things that made me feel weird, like after having had a couple of glasses of wine at the wedding I was there for, I found Mandarin phrases bubbling up through. I found myself nearly saying "為什麼?" (wèishéme?) instead of "Why?" and other strange linguistic anomalies. I found myself feeling unusually intimidated by hoodie-wearing youths even though I knew that they weren't at all dangerous. I found myself feeling like a stranger in a place where I used to be absolutely comfortable - feeling exactly the same way that I did two years ago when I first moved to Taiwan. I guess if I was going to be staying in NZ longer than I was you'd say I was experiencing reverse culture shock but since I was only there for a week, I'll just call it feeling out of place in a familiar environment.

It's a fairly lonely experience too. There you are, feeling like a fish out of water and everyone else around you has no idea you're feeling like that. Why would they? You've come back home. It's natural for them to assume that you feel like you've just slotted straight back into your old life and everything feels comfortable and familiar. So how was I supposed to tell anyone? If I responded to "I bet it feels good to be home!" with "Actually it feels really weird and I don't feel like I fit in here anymore..." then I run the risk of accidentally offending someone or making it sound like I wasn't enjoying the fact that I was back in NZ which I was, absolutely. Being back and seeing all of my dear friends and spending time with family was fabulous. The ability to shop in regular stores who carried my size was brilliant. Going to the supermarket and seeing more cheese than you could shake a stick at was lovely. Nothing was wrong with New Zealand, what was wrong was me.

Living overseas changes you, it has to - you have to adapt to a new environment, usually learn a new language and get used to all sorts of crazy things. I mean, this makes sense logically but the emotional reality of these changes can sometimes be harder to accept. Going back to NZ pointed out to me that I wasn't the same person who left in 2009 and that felt very strange. If I wasn't that person anymore then who was I? Where did I fit in? Where was home really at? There is something rather unsettling in not really knowing which country is your home but it's also kind of exciting because it opens up all sorts of possibilities. If I can count England, New Zealand and Taiwan as my 'homes' of various types then doesn't that mean that ultimately anywhere we choose to settle could be considered home? Life without boundaries can be terrifying but also freeing. Maybe that old t-shirt no longer fits but there are many more out there that will.

Have you ever had this experience of going back to a place you used to live in and feeling like a stranger? How did you deal with it?

Sunday Salon: Desert Island Books

noreply@blogger.com (Kath) — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 05:29:00 +0000

As a kid, one of my favourite radio programmes was Desert Island Discs, a BBC Radio 4 production that has been running since 1942. The basic format is that a well-known guest is invited onto the show and asked to imagine that they will be stranded for an indefinite period on a desert island with 8 pieces of music, one book of their choice, The Complete Works of Shakespeare, the Bible or other relevant religious/philosophical work and one luxury item which must be inanimate and of no use to escaping from the island. In between explaining their music choices, the guests talk about their lives and since this programme is basically an institution, they've had just about everyone you can think of on there. Imagine my delight, then, when I found out that I could subscribe to the podcasts of current episodes AND access the archives all the way back to 1998.

Which got me thinking - how about the literary version? What if instead of music you had to choose books to take with you?

Book choice one: Malory Towers by Enid Blyton

This hardback book is a compilation of the first three Malory Towers books, one that I read many a time during my childhood. There was something magical to me about the escapism of boarding school stories. I loved being at school (the nerdiness started young) and thought that eating meals, being at school after the sun went down and then sleeping there with all of my friends would be fabulous. Now I'm a bit older and wiser I can see that boarding school would likely not have been all it was cracked up to be in my head but if I'm going to be stuck on a desert island, I figure escapism to a magical place of my childhood might be just what the doctor ordered.

Book choice two: Adrienne Rich's Poetry and Prose (selected and edited by Barbara Charlesworth Gelpi and Albert Gelpi)

I'd always been one of those 'girls can do anything' kids and when I got to university and started studying for my Bachelor of Arts, I was exposed to a wealth of ideas about feminism. When I continued on to study Literature papers in my Grad Dip Arts (to make up for the fact that, oddly, I did no undergrad Lit papers in my BA) the interest continued and grew and I focused a lot on the literature of women. This book was a required text for one of my papers and one I really enjoyed for the fact that you could dip in and out of it and it always gave you something to think about. I know that if I'm going to be alone with nothing but trees to talk to for an indefinite period of time, I'll need something to keep me thinking to stave off the insanity!

Book choice three: Selected Poems of Anne Sexton (edited with intro from Diane Wood Middlebrook and Diana Hume George)

Expanding on the point above, this book was also a required text. Sexton's poetry isn't exactly of the uplifting variety so it's more likely that I'll be reading it on the beach in the day time rather than by the camp fire at night but it's got a lot to it so will give me something to think about.

Book choice four: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Some books you can read and read and they never get old. For me, Wuthering Heights is one of those books and it's not because I wish that I could have a dark and moody lover named Heathcliff brooding over me. The main reason I love this book is the atmosphere, the stormy Yorkshire moors, the old stone houses and the creaking gates in the wind... *shiver*. Absolutely fantastic!

Book choice five: The Last Empress: Madame Chiang Kai-Shek and the birth of Modern China by Emma Pakula.

I'm noticing that a lot of my choices are non-fiction and/or educational. This one is all about the wife of Chiang Kai-Shek, the first President of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Apparently she was something of a power-house and by all accounts, one helluva interesting lady so I thought why not take the time to learn something about the history and formation of my husband's country of origin from the perspective of one of the most powerful women at that time.

Gribbin Head Lighthouse
Image credit: Wild About Britain

Book choice six: Lighthouses by Jenny Linford

Growing up on the rugged and beautiful coastline of Cornwall means I have salt water running through my veins. I never feel more alive than when I'm standing on a cliff top, looking out over the ocean, preferably with a good strong breeze blowing through my hair. As a result, when I moved away from the Cornish coast to the more sedate (but still beautiful) coastline of Auckland, I became a little obsessed with lighthouses. My old office at Massey University was plastered with pictures of lighthouses, and since I worked in a Psych department there were of course more than a few Freudian explanations offered for this love of mine! Nothing Freudian about it, honest. I just find them evocative and beautiful and they remind me of romping along the cliff paths in St. Austell Bay towards Gribbin Head.

Book choice seven: The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton

This book was recommended to me by a friend but I haven't read it yet. I figure that if there is ever a time I will need to be consoled, it'll be when I'm stuck on a desert island.

Book choice eight: The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

My father read this to my younger brother and I when we were kids. I loved the book, I loved the movies and it's a massive book which means it will keep me occupied for a while. There's nothing like a bit of Mordor to distract from the fact you're stranded, right?

Luxury item: Unlimited supply of writing supplies.

What would some of your Desert Island book choices be? Luxury item?

Expat Women: Confessions - Review

noreply@blogger.com (Kath) — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 05:30:00 +0000

Expat Women: Confessions - 50 Answers to Your Real-Life Questions about Living Abroad

By Andrea Martins and Victoria Hepworth

Published by Expat Women Enterprises Pty Ltd ATF Expat Women

Published in May, 2011

ISBN-13: 978-0980823608

The Expat Women website (www.expatwomen.com) is a website that aims to equip women living expatriate lifestyles with knowledge, resources and an online support network in the hope that this will enable them to live fulfilling and enjoyable lives at their various overseas locations. This book is a result of the compilation of fifty reader's real-life 'confessions' about their lives and the issues that typically plague those who live the expatriate lifestyle.

The book is split into six sections covering settling into a new country, questions of career and money, raising children abroad, relationship issues, other common issues associated with living abroad and of course the inevitable return home. Each question is given a positive and helpful response, focusing on plans of attack and solutions whilst still retaining a strong grounding in reality.

The questions covered range from the everyday struggles to the darker realities of life such as infidelity and teen suicide and although certainly not all of them will be relevant to all who read this book at one time, this seems to be an excellent resource to dip into on the occasion that you're feeling a little lost or in need of guidance. The most consistently made point in the whole of this book is need for a social connection. Going overseas to live may seem like a glamourous lifestyle to those we have left behind but in reality it can be isolating and scary, especially if you're living in a country where you don't speak the language or understand the culture. Meeting others who you can connect with and who can relate to your experiences is an essential part of settling into and living a meaningful existence in your new country which is one of the driving forces behind The Community Services Center - Taipei, were I work.

There is one issue that I had with this book, however. Despite its global reach of looking at the lives of women in loads of different countries, I felt like it was really focusing on one particular sort of expat woman, namely those who have moved abroad due to a corporate contract. Which isn't to say that this group is not worthy of focus but there are other women living lives overseas who don't fit this category. What about those who moved overseas to teach? What about those who are doing missionary work? What about those, like myself, who are 'foreign spouses'? What about overseas-born folks who have come back to their parent's home country to explore their cultural roots? Perhaps I'm asking too much for one book to be able to incorporate the views and experiences of such a diverse range of women but then again, aren't we all women who are expatriated even if we're not living what is commonly understood to be the 'expatriate lifestyle'? I think, in the spirit in which this book is written, perhaps the best solution based answer to this expat confession would be to suggest that there is room for a future book: Other Expat Women: Confessions Continued...

But despite the fact that one size doesn't fit all, there are plenty of people I know who will find this book a very useful addition to their bookshelf. Whether you're thinking about moving overseas, newly arrived or even been overseas for a while now this book will have something to offer. It doesn't matter where you are in your life, the main message of this book is that you can and will succeed and find happiness and that there are others out there who know exactly how you feel.

Amy Chua talks to the Guardian

noreply@blogger.com (Kath) — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 12:02:00 +0000

I found this last night and thought you guys might find it interesting... Click here for the podcast. Having listened to it I'm not entirely convinced she's as 'self-deprecating' or 'humbled' as she claims... let me know what you think once you've had a listen!

Cleopatra's Daughter by Michelle Moran: Review

noreply@blogger.com (Kath) — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 08:04:00 +0000

Cleopatra's Daughter
By Michelle Moran
Published in 2010 (Reprint)
Published by Broadway
ISBN: 978-0307409133

I read this for book club, bought it myself and was not paid for my review. So, for the love of it, basically!

A couple of weeks ago, I gave myself two glorious evenings of dedicated reading. The TV was off, husband was away for work (in Bali, the lucky bugger!) and the dog was curled up next to me on the couch in front of the air-con unit. This book was the result.

When Octavian, who later came to be known as Augustus, defeated Marc Anthony and Cleopatra, he took their three children back with him to Rome. Sadly the youngest didn't make it, leaving only twins Selene and Alexander, the last of the Ptolemies. They both struggle to come to terms with their losses - parents, siblings, kingdoms, power, dignity - but the one who struggles the most is Selene, from whose perspective we are told the story.

Selene was a funny character for me. She was really difficult to like a lot of the time and even though I could sympathise with her on having had a rough time, I just couldn't forgive her haughtiness and arrogance. Mind you - had I been the crown princess of Egypt, I may have been a bit up myself too. I found her brother and twin, Alexander, far more likeable. He seemed more willing to adapt and reach out to others and he showed Selene nearly boundless patience.

This story tracks the twins as they move from childhood to adulthood, kept as guests within the household of Octavian. Despite Selene's strong desire to one day return triumphant to Egypt, they are forced to settle in to the rhythm of the life set out for them and get used to life in Rome. [This is the point I resist using the "when in Rome" joke.] They make friends with gorgeous Marcellus, the heir apparent to Octavian and the spoiled Julia, who much to Selene's chagrin, has been engaged to Marcellus since they were kids. This story line alone would probably have been plenty for this book but Moran has chosen to add the additional plot of the Red Eagle, a undercover rebel who opposes slavery and leaves posters around Rome inciting civilians to protest the injustices of the city. Who this rebel is provides additional intrigue along the way but I actually thought it ended up making the plot a bit unwieldy.

This book was a nice quick and easy read that would suit a lazy day on the beach or curled up next to the fire (depending on the season). I enjoyed it well enough but it certainly didn't wow me. Good solid historical fiction.

Do you think historical fiction is a good way to access the past? Or do you think that learning about the past through fiction risks clouding the truth?