Rose has stayed in the area, a successful mathematics professor with an attentive fiancee, and resents her sisters flight from the town. Bean has returned from her high cost lifestyle in New York after being unceremoniously fired from her job and Cordelia may have found a reason to finally give up her gypsy lifestyle and settle for good. Frustratingly, each sister is determined to face their past and secrets alone, ignorant of the similarities she shares with her sisters. Readers will find a lot to love, and relate to, with the family’s bookishness – the books left open around the house, the retreat into the written word when reality seems too much.

She remembered one of her boyfriends asking, offhandedly, how many books she read in a year. “A few hundred,” she said.
“How do you have the time?” he asked, gobsmacked.
She narrowed her eyes and considered the array of potential answers in front of her. Because I don’t spend hours flipping through cable complaining there’s nothing on? Because my entire Sunday is not eaten up with pre-game, in-game and post-game talking heads? Because I do not spend every night drinking overpriced beer and engaging in dick-swinging contests with the other financirati? Because when I am waiting in line, at the gym, on the train, eating lunch, I am not complaining about the wait/staring into space/admiring myself in available reflective surfaces? I am reading.

This is not a hugely taxing novel.  Brown’s style is light and enjoyable, well-versed in the particulars of lovingly antagonistic relationships between sisters. A curious use of the collective narrative voice (“we”) is effective, only sometimes jarring, and allows for us to see how the sisters view each other as a whole. As one of three weird sisters myself, I really liked seeing how the three interacted together, with their parents and as individuals and the frustrations inherent in each of those relationships.

And though I am not usually one for sentimentality or sappy narrative arcs based on the power of forgiveness and love, Bean’s story of repentance and self-forgiveness, even when couched in the alien (to me) language of religion and religious redemption, reduced me to tears. Everything I write seems to be so damned apologetic for being affected by a story on a basic empathetic level. Eleanor Brown makes it easy to relate to these women and their stories, even when they are at their worst. Moments of predictability don’t diminish the strength of Brown’s writing and though it is quite different from what I usually enjoy, The Weird Sisters is a satisfying read.

Written in a diary format, Dangling Man is the story of a moderately intelligent young man, Joseph, who has enlisted in the army but is stuck in some sort of bureaucratic purgatory while the authorities figure out what to do with him. While his colleagues go off to battle, or are stationed around the country, Joseph spends his days in a shoddy boarding house, walking around Chicago, avoiding questions about his current position, having meaningful conversations with himself, looking back over his past, and generally being a layabout little shit.

Joseph considers himself as something of an intellectual, a scholar who had previously found success in rote employment. Joseph’s self-assuredness and confrontational methods of dealing with the world and others brings Salinger’s Holden Caulfield to mind. More appropriate a comparison would be with Frank Wheeler from Revolutionary Road, who also believes that his self proclaimed intellectual ways put him above the less educated. (Although I’m thinking that, as with Caulfield, reading this book at a certain age makes one more likely to relate to Joseph’s outlook.)

As he is in most things, Joseph is conscious of a motive in his choice of clothes. It is his answer to those whose defiant principle it is to dress badly, to whom a crumpled suit is a badge of freedom. He wants to avoid the small conflicts of nonconformity so that he can give all his attention to defending his inner differences, the ones that really matter. Furthermore, he takes a sad or negative satisfaction in wearing what he calls “the uniform of the times.” In short, the less noteworthy the better, for his purposes. All the same, he manages to stand out.

For someone who declares himself intelligent beyond compare, Joseph is not only lacking an element of self-awareness that would make him more tolerable, but unforgivably misogynistic. He is unable to accept his wife Iva’s agency, constantly belittling her with his moods, unable to influence her and shape her into the well-read intellectual he wants her to be. He is given to sudden outbursts of anger and, in one scenario, a strange scene of faux-parental discipline, which are not given the same amount of consideration as the minute actions of others. His diatribes about how the world and his friends, colleagues, family are all deemed lacking and his uniqueness are tiresome and become very tedious to read. When he simply recounts his days or his past, the prose flows better, but for the most part it is difficult to empathize with Joseph and his precarious predicament. Maybe if he didn’t resort to massive generalizations about mankind (while excluding himself from those crude beasts) and unfair criticisms.

Sometimes he manages to appreciate simple serene scenes from his domestic life – such as napping with his wife after eating strawberries rolled in powdered sugar – yet, even this becomes another opportunity for a long pronouncement about … whatever, who cares by this stage. His arrogance and verbosity quickly becomes boring. And yet, though Joseph is an arrogant asshole, and irrationally horrible to those around him, it’s impossible not to feel just a small amount of sympathy with him when he gives up his dangling days and demands to be called up for duty. One is left wondering whether the discipline of army life will be beneficial to him.

So, as it turns out, my trepidations was largely unfounded. Though this is Bellow’s first novel so perhaps his later works will, whenever I get around to reading them, be somewhat more challenging. Dangling Man, while having some moments of insight, didn’t make much of an impression.

The above would have been my review of Gwendoline Riley’s Sick Notes had I reviewed it immediately after reading. However, the more time I have to think over the book, the more unforgiving I become with the cobweb thin excuses for characters, plot, motivation. Once upon a time I probably would have loved this novel, would have become intoxicated with the rhythms of Riley’s language, with the lifestyle of drifting between bars and parks and dusty bedrooms and bars, with her heady take on the thrill and awe of intensely felt attraction.

Esther has returned home to Manchester to live with her friend, Donna. She spends her days drinking a lot and wandering the streets, writing, watching and thinking until she meets and spends a few days with an American musician, Newton. There are hints Esther left in the first place to “sort herself out” though her current behaviour dismisses any recuperation ever having taken place. Her behaviour is abrupt, her conversations stunted – though this seems to be a stylistic choice on Riley’s part, the characters communicate almost entirely in non sequiturs. Esther is prone to vicious outbursts of irrational behaviour that do not seem to be prompted psychologically or emotionally, and without any self-awareness on her part. She is infantilized in speech, thought and behaviour.

Donna has a crush on the boy at the biography desk so we have to go upstairs and walk past him a couple of times.
‘Don’t look,’ she says. ‘We’ll stand by that display table and I’ll just ache in his direction.’

As Newton begins to dissect their dalliance and talking about his other lovers, Esther switches off, unable to look at him or be present in the situation or the conversation, she is unable, or unwilling, to verbalize to him how she feels – and yet she finds herself feeling so strongly attached, even as she recognizes what he is trying to communicate. And, so, after he leaves, she mopes and yearns and drinks a lot and I think it is  supposed to come across as all being so terribly romantic and melancholic but … it’s just annoying. Are we supposed to empathize with or pity her?

Esther seems hopelessly desperate, and surrounded by friendly idiots who only encourage her unhealthy actions, rather than giving her a firm slap in the face and telling her that her one night stand was probably not the beginning of a great healing romance. Her problems are never fully realized, it is uncertain whether she has really come back from New York or is covering up something else – this is not used as a narrative technique, it’s just presented as halfway interesting background for the real story of Esther and Newton’s whirlwind romance and the disastrous aftermath.

The most painful aspect of Sick Notes is that Riley seems content to glorify Esther’s alcoholism, while never naming it as such. It is, albeit, a seedy glamour, but the high gloss of Riley’s prose lends a particular grace to Esther’s problem. Riley’s prose is synaesthetic; you can feel the cold, dreary rain and long for a cup of the ever present tea to warm your fingers, you can smell the dust and the mould of the house, the stench of gin emanating from Esther’s room. Riley’s style is, in places, undeniably lovely and is only saved from becoming irritatingly twee by a few moments of raw honesty.

Though the dialogue feels staged and unnatural, the characters annoying portraits of studied eccentricities, there are some graceful moments in Sick Notes, but as a result of Riley’s writing style rather than content. It appears that a lot of other people really enjoy it, so perhaps I am the lone voice of dissent on this one. Meh.

Isserley is a slightly odd woman who drives along highways in Scotland looking for physically fit male hitchhikers. Through what appear to be casual conversations she determines their drifter status and further assesses their physical suitability, and those that are found satisfactory she takes back to a secluded farm. And that, unfortunately, is as much as I am willing to reveal in this review and I apologize for the vagueness that is to follow. Under the Skin is a novel where the less you know about its premise, the greater the impact on the reader. I was, as mentioned, rather clueless and as a result was very much bewildered, frightened and intrigued by this story, carrying it with me beyond the pages.

Isserley switches the television off. More awake now, she’d remembered something she should have known from the beginning, which was that there was no point trying to orient yourself to reality with television. It only made things worse.

Isserley herself is compellingly strange, marked by an inability to understand simple concepts, unexplained debilitating aches and pains, odd turns of phrase and unfamiliar words, and a ambiguous moral attitude toward picking up the drifters that she begins to question and explore as the novel progresses. Her use of unfamiliar slang (that wordnerds may attempt to look up in a dictionary and become frustrated that it doesn’t appear there) purposely alienates the reader from immediately determining Isserley’s role. At the same time, the peculiarity of the words and images invokes the desire to uncover the truth.

Yet, as you think you’re beginning to understand something, however briefly, Faber turns those assumptions to dust. My original expectations of this book as “psychosexual thriller” in part shaped my reaction to it – everything that happened was much stranger and more disturbing than I could have anticipated. Under the Skin is an artful experience of suspense, as Faber provides just enough without seeming unclear or without direction.

That’s what lying had done to the world. All the lying that people had been doing since the dawn of time, all the lying they were doing still. The price everyone paid for it was the death of trust. It meant that no two humans, however innocent they might be, could ever approach one another like two animals. Civilization!

As well as exploring Isserley’s growing contempt for her employer and her own existence, Faber reveals Isserley’s drifters through brief glimpses of their interior monologues, and by contrasting the cruelty, callousness and sometimes kindness of these drifters with the grisly severity of their fate Faber points us towards our own humanity. The story itself suggests a larger moral implication which is readily applied to our own everyday choices without seeming didactic. However, it would be too simplistic to read Under the Skin as straight allegory, as it manages to be much more complicated than a simple folk tale.

Like a half-remembered nightmare, Under the Skin lingers long after it has ended, the gaps leaving open any number of horrific possibilities. Words like chilling, horrifying or harrowing, and vague reviews like this one, do not do this book justice.

I am returning to the world of book blogging after months of inactivity and private frustration at the lack of an outlet. My reading is not quite as prolific as it was mid-2010, and this time around I’m going to be blogging to keep up with my reading, not reading to keep up with the impossibility of a self-imposed schedule of blogging.

A major thank you to anyone who commented, emailed, tweeted or (nicely!) confronted me personally during my sudden absence. Your words have been most encouraging and if it were possible I’d take you all out for coffee and a long browse through a bookstore.

New books acquired in February 2011

• Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes
• How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn
• Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney
• Brightness Falls by Jay McInerney
• The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
• Collected Stories by Tennessee Williams
• Notebooks by Tennessee Williams, edited by Margaret Bradham Thornton

Not quite as much as I would have usually bought in the past as my bookbuying habits have been severely curtailed for a number of reasons. However, I like to think that this just means I’m more selective about what I purchase. Maybe, maybe not!

I thought this section was going to be blank this week, but thanks to Sunday deliveries in the lead up to Christmas (a simple pleasure, really.) here’s what arrived. Books that seem to wildly contradict the very frustrating reading/blogging rut I seem to be in. Or maybe old Dosty could prove just the cure!

• The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• Essays by George Orwell

Marginalia

I started on my summer project this week. Cataloguing, on LibraryThing of course, all my, and my sisters, old childhood books. We didn’t keep all of our children’s books, but there are still at least three very large boxes to go through. I’ve already found some old favourites, rediscovered long forgotten stories that captured my imagination as a young’n and had some fun looking through the old books. We’ve even got a tattered old copy of one of my Dad’s old childhood books! So many memories come rushing back while going through these books, so many hours spent in their pages, I can only hope that one day my current library will provide the same rush of fond nostalgia.

• The Adventures of Tintin: Red Rackham’s Treasure by Hergé
• The Adventures of Tintin: The Seven Crystal Balls by Hergé
• The Adventures of Tintin: Tintin in the Congo by Hergé

I’m a bit keen on the quiffed boy reporter lately. I’m going to save my Tintin series of posts until 2011, not too far away now scarily enough. The Tintin in the Congo edition is quite interesting, it came sealed and with a red band label on it warning that the content may be offensive to contemporary readers. I’m sure that I’ve read this one before though, so perhaps the label is a result of the recent attempt to censor the book? It is a minor annoyance, but one that fellow book obsessives surely understand, but this book only seems to be available in hardback, whereas all my other Tintins are in paperback.

Marginalia:

Another weekend, another weekend away. This time I was up on the Central Coast of New South Wales for my grandfather’s 80th birthday. It’s always good, though rare, for my farflung family to get together on a joyful occasion. I didn’t get to look in any bookstores – apart from the airport ones while waiting for flights – but I did spot a small secondhand bookstore that I would have liked to have a browse through, alas I ran out of time. I imagine that the book stock in a town where it is difficult to find somewhere to eat out at 7pm on a Friday night would be great! Spoken like a true city slicker, I’m sure.

• The Library of America’s Reader’s Almanac blog looks at the famous inhabitants of Patchin Place in Manhattan, including a tale about Carson McCullers bursting into tears when told to “go the hell away!” by Djuna Barnes.
• McCullers’ short story “Sucker” (which I wrote about here) is now available to read online thanks to the Saturday Evening Post.
• Remember the abnd Victoire with their song “A Song for Mick Kelly” that I briefly mentioned last month? The track is now available to download, thanks to the Village Voice.
• A short piece on the friendship between Carson McCullers and Tennessee Williams.
• Blake Hazard and Mary-Louise Parker discuss Carson McCullers and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.
  
• A beautifully written review of Clock Without Hands on Emyroo investigates.
• The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, book and film, listed as a favourite on Books, books, books.

Photo: “Member of the Wedding”, Opening Night, Ethel Waters, Carson McCullers and Julie Harris, New York City 1950 by Ruth Orkin. I love this photograph so much.

I thought all my Tintin books from an order a few weeks ago had arrived, so when this one turned up in the mailbox it was a very pleasant surprise!

• The Adventures of Tintin: The Broken Ear by Hergé

As for my book blogging dilemma, well. I’ve decided that reading too much about what a blog should be, what should be done to be successful, how often you should post, has had rather a negative effect on my own experience of blogging. Strict posting schedules needlessly stresses me out, obsessing about stats is, frankly, a waste of my time. So, I’m done with it! From now on I’m considering Start Narrative Here an online extension of my offline reading journal, rather than the ubiquitous “book review blog”. What does this mean? Longer and more personal reviews/post-reading write ups, and complete submission to my reading whims and fancies.

(This mini-manifesto is, of course, also subject to these own whims and fancies and perhaps I’ll look back on this as nothing but the rebellious adolescent period of my blog. However, I think it’s an ongoing struggle to evolve, define and grow in my blogging and reading endeavours.)

There are names both familiar and previously unheard of in this collection, unpublished stories are placed equally among those that have been retrieved from hallowed literary journals. These stories cover a wide range of emotional territory and styles, from the funny, the breathless, the painfully sad, the joyous moments, and the horrific. Given the restraints of the short story form however, these explorations of emotions never feel too exhausting or depleting.

Against the darkness, other faces from that shared past occur to my mind with stunning vividness. Even closer, thicker, than the dark is the heat. Another scorcher on the way. Somewhere out there a forest is burning, and a family crouching under wet towels in a bathtub, waiting as their green lungs fill with steam and soot muck. I test the coffee’s temperature. As often happens at this time of morning I find myself in a strange sleep-bleared funk that’s not quite sadness. It’s not quite anything. Through the trees below, the river sucks in the lambency of city, creeps it back up the bank, and slowly, in this way, as I have seen and cherished it for years, the darkness reacquaints itself with new morning.
- from “The Yarra” by Nam Le

My personal highlights, in bullet point form:

• Paddy O’Reilly’s “The Salesman” which, though working on accepted stereotypes of working class suburbanites as brute, racist and insensitive, plays with these expectations as much as it reinforces them.
• Karen Hitchcock’s “Little White Slip”, a nicely unromanticized look at motherhood and the expectations it places upon a woman’s identity, this story ruthlessly cuts through to the pain, the bodily changes, the heightened and sometimes irrational emotional battles and the hormonal impulses without the need to glorify the role of motherhood. Although I enjoyed it, the ending did feel a bit too “and they lived happily ever after”, which detracted somewhat from the powerful depiction.
• Nam Le’s “The Yarra”, probably the longest story in the anthology, is an involved tale about the experience of second-generation Vietnamese men involved in brutal acts of violence along Melbourne’s river. Le wonderfully captures the relentless heat of Melbourne summers which works towards heightening the internal struggle of the protagonist, Lan, whose brother has just returned home after a long jail stint. Both of them are forced to confront their violent past, its consequences and the strength and contradictions of their filial bond.
• Chris Womersley’s “The Age of Terror” is quietly horrifying. What at first seems to be a meditation on aging turns into something else entirely, and it wasn’t until after I finished reading this story that I began to put the pieces together, to see the comparison being made and realize how truly terrifying it is. A difficult, multivalent story that lingers for hours, days after reading.
• John Kinsella’s “Bats” is a lovely and strange story of vanity, youth and attraction. A girl and a boy watch a purple sunset over a mountain and he educates her on the fauna of the inland, culminating in a bat getting caught in her long blonde hair. This may be my favourite story of the collection, simple but rich.
• Antonia Baldo’s “Get Well Soon” is another strong contender for the favourite story though, a beautiful story on living with a family member suffering with depression, how it effects the entire family and exploring the limits of responsibility and the tenacity of faith.

Rebecca’s disappointed that I don’t live for these moments of rapture anymore. It’s true. I’m ordinary. I’ve accepted the inadequacies of living. But I can’t sit beside her forever and whisper that discovering the world is a matter of choice. I can’t remind her of the smile on her face when she wore that strapless sea-green dress to her formal. I can’t tell her she’s so alive she just might have to die while I, half-dead, can afford to go on living. And so I leave her, a white frame twisted on a bed, those sharp-angled thoughts cutting into her brain.
- from “Get Well Soon” by Antonia Baldo

It becomes increasingly obvious that guilt features heavily in this selection: the guilt over past mistakes, past sins, guilt over irreversible accidents and damage, guilt over failed relationships, guilt of not living up to social expectations. Is this guilt something that is deeply embedded in the national literary consciousness – from the vicious blights on our national history, to our past as a colony of convicts, a quick overview reveals much to feel guilt over- or is it merely a quirk of editorial selection? Whatever the cause, toward the end of the anthology this recurring theme does begin to feel needlessly repetitious. The guilt is felt, but rarely are actions taken to appease this guilt, these stories prefer to wallow in the personal regrets, as though acknowledging it is repentance enough.

My knowledge of the Australian literary scene is not sufficient enough to comment on any glaring omissions, but The Best Australian Stories 2010 is overall a strong collection, showcasing a wide variety of contemporary Australian storytelling talent, offering readers a number of names to look forward to reading more from in the future.

Surprisingly restrained considering my afternoon(s) spent in Kinokuniya in Sydney.

• Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
• The Adventures of Tintin: The Black Island by Hergé
• The Adventures of Tintin: The Crab with the Golden Claws by Hergé
• The Adventures of Tintin: King Ottokar’s Sceptre by Hergé
• The Adventures of Tintin: The Shooting Star by Hergé
• QI: The Second Book of General Ignorance by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson
• Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
• Fresh Apples by Rachel Trezise
• Girl With Curious Hair by David Foster Wallace

Marginalia

I’ve had an amazing week. Words cannot even begin to express just how great it has been. I saw my favourite band the Manic Street Preachers for the first and second time, met them after both shows, and got a photo with Nicky Wire and James Dean Bradfield. This is a band that has shaped, influenced, changed, and inspired me for over twelve years, so this week was pretty damn important to me and they didn’t let me down. I was on the barrier for both shows, right up the front, screaming and singing my little lungs out. Amazing. And, to have the band be so gracious and attentive to their fans was just a bonus. Meeting fellow fans has also been an encouraging experience.

So, as it was, I didn’t exactly spend much time worrying about blogging. The only conclusion that I’ve managed to reach is that I want to continue writing about books and reading with enthusiasm and sincerity. Posting is going to continue being slightly irregular while I try and “figure things out.” Trust me, I am cringing as I write that. It sounds like the “it’s not you, it’s me” of book blogging.

• The Adventures of Tintin: The Blue Lotus by Hergé
• The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn by Hergé
• The Bee Hut: Poems 2001 – 2008 by Dorothy Porter
• Love Poems by Dorothy Porter
• The Best Australian Writing 2010 box set, including
  • The Best Australian Poems 2010 edited by Robert Adamson
  • The Best Australian Essays 2010 edited by Robert Drewe
  • The Best Australian Stories 2010 edited by Cate Kennedy

That’s right, I’m working on completing my Tintin library. And, to revisit my childhood and build anticipation for the feature film due out at the end of 2011, starting in December I will be reviewing and featuring one Tintin title a week, and maybe working on reading some of the peripheral Tintin material as well. This is by no means an official challenge, there are no “read 3 books, you’re a Calculus; read 10 books and down a bottle of whiskey for each, you’re a Haddock; read each book twice you’re a Thomson/Thompson” levels of participation, but if you’d care to join in rereading this classic series, please do!

Posted on Start Narrative Here this week:

• Praise by Andrew McGahan – for me, this Australian grunge ‘classic’ of doomed love and unemployment in the 1990s didn’t quite live up to its reputation.

Marginalia

My reviews and posting has been haphazard recently, and I’m not exactly sure why. Breaking the first rule of blogging, I do apologize for the lack of regularity on Start Narrative Here lately. I am going to take a break from posting over the next week and take the time to reassess my approach to book blogging and what I want to get out of it. Nothing dramatic, just a very short break to rejuvenate the ol’ blogging mojo.

Normal posting will resume on Sunday 21st of November, with a sensible book haul from my trip to Sydney. Hint that this will not be so: I’ve blacked out the better part of a day for the sole purpose of browsing Kinokuniya.

At first Gordon and Cynthia’s relationship is almost tender, and McGahan nicely expresses the awkwardness and awe of discovering another’s body and how it works with yours, especially with the added interest of disease and skin irritations on display in Praise. But Cynthia’s relentless passion for Gordon’s sex is exhausting, and through constant depictions of their sex life – and there seems to be little else to their relationship, bar heading toward the bottle shop or dealer to stock up on supplies – this quickly becomes boring. As characters, Gordon is too passive and Cynthia too excessive, for them to really work together.

I felt as much love for Cynthia in that moment as I ever had, even in the good times. It was strange and confusing. But when a woman loved you enough to want you to die, it was hard not to love her back.

Like Helen Garner’s Monkey Grip, the main characters are, despite their faults, constantly drawn to each other, their bad habits and behaviour disguised as love, their dangerous or destructive tendencies as alluring, as though theirs is an impossible attraction that cannot be thwarted by logic and will-power alone. I just don’t buy into this idea of l’amour fou any more, the anhiliation of self is too complete.

Toward the end of the novel, as Gordon and Cynthia are separated, Gordon becomes involved with a girl who he has spent ten years nursing an unrequited love for. Yet, when it comes to consummating this love, he just can’t move beyond the idol worship, unable to see her as an independent being. This relationship is much more complex, more cerebral than  Gordon and Cynthia. Perhaps that is the point, Gordon’s attraction to Rachel is purely based on fantasy, so much so that years of imagined intimacy discounts the possibility of it happening; Cynthia, on the other hand, is a woman that demands the physical from Gordon, yet there isn’t a connection based on emotion or understanding. It’s an updated version of the Madonna/whore complex, only this time through a distinctly Australian grunge aesthetic.

I said, ‘Speech is such a definite thing.’
‘So?’
I thought for a long time, staring at my drink.
I started again. ‘Maybe it’s a matter of sincerity. I’m never that certain of anything I feel about a person, and talking about it simplifies it all so brutally. It’s easier to keep quiet. To act what you feel. Actions are softer. They can be interpreted in lots of different ways, and emotions should be interpreted in lots of different ways.’
‘But people are never going to understand you.’
‘People are never going to understand you if you tell them things, either. It’d be even worse.’

I suppose others have used words like “raw” and “gritty” to describe McGahan’s Praise. The style is simple, dialogue coupled with internal monologues, but a high sex-drugs-booze content alone doesn’t make a piece of writing gritty and raw. Gordon’s conflicts and struggles with love and sex conform to expected standards, and there is no enlightenment or possibility of change. Stagnant characters and relationships make Praise a frustrating novel.

Two weeks in a row and no new books? It’s a wonder the publishing industry isn’t in crisis right now.

Posted on Start Narrative Here this week:

• An Eye on Carson McCullers: October 2010 – news, mentions and tidbits from around the internet about Carson McCullers, as well as a review of her rare book of children’s verse, Sweet as a Pickle and Clean as a Pig.
• The Exterminators by Simon Oliver & Tony Moore (2006-2008) – a review covering all five volumes of a graphic novel series about a group of flawed exterminators, reincarnated Egyptian bug worshippers and an army of mutant cockroaches.

Marginalia:

I’m sure you all came across Laura Miller’s controversial Nanowrimo article during the week. Her argument is problematic, sure, but this section jumped out at me:

“Rather than squandering our applause on writers — who, let’s face, will keep on pounding the keyboards whether we support them or not — why not direct more attention, more pep talks, more nonprofit booster groups, more benefit galas and more huzzahs to readers? Why not celebrate them more heartily? They are the bedrock on which any literary culture must be built. After all, there’s not much glory in finally writing that novel if it turns out there’s no one left to read it.”

She goes on to mention a reading challenge as an example of this, but I’m not sure that’s a good example of celebrating readers. Could it be that where the act of writing is aimed outward (outside of the self, toward an audience, toward publication, and so on) the act of reading is more internal, for the self, without larger social connections? Does that make sense? We aren’t celebrated because we, well, we largely read for ourselves, not for other people. Perhaps that’s why the book blogging community is so successful, because of its diversity, community and understanding that we all read different things for different reasons.

For the budget conscious reader, here is part one of Anastasia’s guide to buying books on a budget, and part two, on frugal ways of finding books to read. She mentions BigWords to compare prices, and for Australians I’d recommend using Booko, which serves a similar function, comparing book prices from a number of online stores and listing them from lowest to highest. And best of all, they also include shipping costs as a consideration. Booko’s saved me many dollars, many times. While researching a title we got in at work during the week on Booko, I discovered that a large Australian book chain is selling the same copy at roughly $70 above the retail recommended price. No wonder more and more people are turning toward online booksellers.

Not to forget the writer’s during this intense month of sustained writing activity, Cate Kennedy offers her 10 tips for writers.

I’ve just finished my last assignment of the semester, so I’m all done with studying for 2010 which means a.) work will be intense until the end of the year with the Christmas rush and store events and b.) lots of guilt free reading time! My reading has slowed down considerably since mid-October thanks to last minute studying, but I think that slump is almost ready to lift and I’m up for returning to my voracious reading habit again. I’m still following my “reading only books I own” goal for November, and I’ve got two special, and highly anticipated, books picked out to take with me for my trip to Sydney next weekend.

Volume One: Bug Brothers (Simon Oliver & Tony Moore, 2006) introduces us to Henry James, a convicted criminal who, thanks to his step-father, has taken up the post-jail career of exterminator with Bug-Bee-Gone. Henry is learning the ropes of the vermin killing business with the very possibly deranged AJ. Exterminating is, and take this as a warning readers of a sensitive disposition, gruesomely portrayed. All the vermin are shown as vicious, drooling, diseased and the kill scenes are often full pages that bask in the glory of a successful kill. Only, these vermin aren’t completely innocent. The Bug-Bee-Gone researcher Saloth has discovered a new strain of cockroach that is not only resistant to the best roach poison, but fuelled by the very chemicals intended to kill it, mutated into something stronger and much more sinister than your average roach. The narrative in this first volume is set up so well, with every page come new possibilities and potentially intriguing side stories; such as the mysterious Saloth’s past connection to the Khmer Rouge, or Henry’s prison connection to the Aryan brotherhood, or Henry’s girlfriend Laura’s new job with Ocran – the makers of roach poison that doubles as a narcotic for humans brave enough to indulge Draxx, or the green scarab. All these little hints build anticipation for further volumes. The artwork is strangely beautiful, as though the world is being viewed through sunshine and a haze of pollution, lending it an almost otherworldly, though recognizable, murky hue.

Volume Two: Insurgency (Simon Oliver, Tony Moore, Ande Parks and Chris Samnee, 2007) continues with this narrative set up and builds on our knowledge of the characters. We’re introduced to a new love interest for Henry, Page – a literary hooker that works within the constraints of fulfilling sexual fantasies taken from literary works, proposed as a preferable option compared to the corporate career-minded Laura. An issue featuring complementary storylines that compare and contrast Page and Laura, after Laura and Henry have broken up, allows us to see the differences and similarities between them, but issues raised here are hugely contradicted by later storylines. Meanwhile, at Bug-Bee-Gone, the mutant cockroaches are infiltrating essential infrastructure and it is up to Kevin, Henry and Stretch to do the dirty work involved in clearing them out. The Exterminators really revels in the detritus of both humans and and plays on the base disgust we tend to have for bugs, rodents and vermin.

Volume Three: Lies of Our Fathers (Simon Oliver, Tony Moore, Mike Hawthorne and John Lucas, 2007) finally delves into Saloth’s back story as he fabricates his refugee past for a date. An encounter with a past comrade forces him to confront that past, and vows to never let it jeopardize his life’s work again. One of the most disturbing scenes in the series occurs in this volume, as a young boy who has just had his eyes operated on has consistent itching beneath his bandages. Just don’t expect there to be fully healed wounds and cheer beneath those bandages. Oh, and there’s another fantastically gross scene involving the resuscitation of a pet hamster. Despite some brilliantly disgusting moments, here is where the series really began to fall apart for me, as contradictions arise and problematic turns of events just aren’t as strong as those that preceeded them. Laura is set on a rape revenge path and viciously murders her boss – an image that contradicts completely with that we have of her crying to her mother and worrying about her career. And why is it that rape is used as a dramatic trope so often for female characters in graphic novels? It’s offensively reductive, and cheaply used as a convenient plot point. Though the plot twists are unpredictable and no character safe from death, it doesn’t feel like as cohesive, it seems directionless and as a reader, I lost trust in the storyline.

Volume Four: Crossfire and Collateral (Simon Oliver, Darick Robertson and Ty Templeton, 2008) features a really cool one issue story about Saloth and Stretch (the spiritual zen cowboy type who is also, if you’ll pardon a brief outburst of fangirlishness, really effing hot.) in a desert casino for a pest control convention, where more is revealed about Stretch’s shady past. This issue almost made me regain my faith in the story, but I’m thinking it was the combination of a story completely separate from the main narrative and artwork by Darick Robertson of Transmetropolitan fame that made me enjoy it so much. The rest of this volume focuses on a neighbourhood gang war over Draxx drug dealing, and the introduction of Draxx into black neighbourhoods by the Aryan brotherhood. This reads like an attempt to give The Exterminators more of a social slant, but I’m not entirely convinced. Too much of the dialogue and slang rely on painfully outdated stereotypes.

The final installment of the series, Volume Five: Bug Brothers Forever (Simon Oliver, Tony Moore, John Lucas and Ty Templeton, 2008), sees the epic showdown between bug and man that the series has been leading up to and … it’s disappointing. Again, some single story issues are entertainingly horrific, but the main narrative loses momentum as it draws to a close. The main issue is that the delineation between good and evil in The Exterminators is too convenient. The good guys – the Bug-Bee-Gones and associates – have their morally murky pasts and stories, but the bad guys are purely one dimensional. How can you create sympathy for a cockroach? It lacks the moral weight to make it truly engaging, and there never seems to be any doubt that the good guys are going to come out on top, albeit with significant losses. The final pages emphasize that this is just one battle won in a larger war of man against nature. More insight and exploration of the fascinating characters and less on the bug versus man battles would have made The Exterminators a triumph. As it is though, it’s a moderately entertaining graphic novel series that has hints of unfulfilled greatness.

• A tongue-in-cheek look at the vintage paperback cover of the Heart is a Lonely Hunter.
• Laura Cude’s short essay titled “Carson & Marilyn: Tyranny of Girlhood & Sexual Maturity” on Her Circle Ezine.
• A song on Victoire’s debut album Cathedral City is called “A Song for Mick Kelly” and PopMatters make the connection with the character from The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.  This interview with the band confirms this link, and calling the song an imagined version of “the kind of music [Mick Kelly] would write if she had been given the chance.” A live version of the song is available to watch on YouTube.
• A self-proclaimed “yankee” author on Southern literature, including McCullers.
• Suzanne Vega talks a little bit in this interview about her upcoming McCullers play.
• Judd Apatow has included the Carson McCullers short story, “The Jockey”, in the new book he edited called I Found This Funny: My Favorite Pieces of Humor and Some That May Not Be Funny At All.
• A McCullers inspired tattoo.
• A walking tour around Brooklyn Heights discusses the infamous Middagh Street house that McCullers lived in with W.H Auden, Gypsy Rose Lee & others and other literary luminaries who resided in the area.
• The Ballad of the Sad Cafe in the context of gothic literature.
• An introduction to Oak Hill Cemetary in Nyack, where Carson McCullers is buried.
• A review of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter from 100 Books in 100 Weeks.
• Who knew the house in North Carolina where McCullers worked on The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is now an Indian restaurant?
• McCullers is briefly mentioned in this article on writers and uncertainty, “What We Teach When We Teach Writers: On the Quantifiable and the Uncertain” by Sonya Chung.
• Mick Kelly from The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is also namedropped in an article on the young female protagonist.
• As reported by the Carson McCullers Centre, Bo Bartlett has painted a portrait of McCullers that is on show at PPOW Gallery, New York. You can see the portrait, titled The Lonely Hunter, here.
• Genevieve pointed me toward this Rumpus article, “Lunch With Carson“, on McCullers, Marilyn Monroe and Isak Dinesen’s famous luncheon and the parallels of their lives. The image above is from that afternoon.
• The Australian television First Tuesday Book Club recently released a book with short essays from panel members and guests talking about their favourite books, A Book to Love. I was having a flick through it at work the other day and noticed that not one, but TWO author’s had chosen McCullers as their favourite. Christos Tsiolkas picked The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and Augusten Burroughs chose The Member of the Wedding.

Anything I missed? Let me and other McCullers fans know in the comments.

I’ll Give You a Nickel & Dance You a Jig: Sweet as a Pickle and Clean as a Pig by Carson McCullers (1964)

As I mentioned in a recent Book Loot post, I recently bought a copy of McCullers’ rare book of children’s verse from 1964 Sweet as a Pickle and Clean as a Pig. There doesn’t seem to be much on the web about it, other than the fact that it exists. Most of the copies on AbeBooks go for at least $100 Australian, and while I do obviously love McCullers, I just couldn’t afford to shell out that much for one highly collectable book. Nonetheless, I kept a regular lookout for copies for sale and with some nifty searching skills, thanks to my library services course, came across a copy that was listed as “Clean as a Nut” rather than Pig and much cheaper than other copies so I snapped it up. I didn’t expect the quality to be too great for the price I got it for, I thought maybe it would be an ex-library copy or significantly damaged but when it arrived it was pretty much in perfect condition! A very lucky find.

These are children’s rhymes so there isn’t the same level of depth of human understanding here, but McCullers seemed to, even in her later years, have a firm grasp on the curiousity of childhood. Many of the poems are ponderous, sort of like a child-like daydream about the contradictions of the world, like, wondering who on earth put the “D” in Wednesday or if Santa will miss a friend’s house because he doesn’t have a chimney? Some of these poems even retain the strong connection and sense of the American South and family, such as in “Olden Times” when a child listens to her mother speak about her childhood. Seasonal events are given just as much importance as the everyday. There’s an understanding, even here, of the misfits, such as in the tale of the naughtiest boy in school Sport Williams:

Oh! Sport was a bad boy.
No one loved him but his mother.
And when he was suspended, she said “He was not
A bad boy,
But a sad boy…” because
No one loved him but her, his mother.

This is, and this is a completely biased opinion, a lovely little collection of childlike rhymes. The illustrations by Rolf Gérard are charming, black and white crayon styled drawings with splashes of orange or green. My favourite poem of all from Sweet as a Pickle and Clean as a Pig is “Song for a Sailor” which I think fits in so well with McCullers’ oeuvre, it covers imagination and love, the disparity between reality and imagined perceptions – though maybe not as beautifully expressed as in her fiction, the simplicity shows the same childlike, outsider point of view that we’ve come to associate so strongly with McCullers.

Song for a Sailor
I’ve never seen the ocean,
I’ve never seen the sea,
But once I loved a sailor,
And that’s good enough for me.

While Sweet as a Pickle and Clean as a Pig may not be an essential book for understanding McCullers and her writing, it is a genuinely lovely and simple book of poems, sure to evoke pangs of nostalgia in anyone.

Nope, none! Zilch, nada.

Reviews posted on Start Narrative Here this week:

• The Wild Things by Dave Eggers - this hip adaptation of Sendak’s iconic picture book didn’t quite live up to my expectations.
• How It Feels by Brendan Cowell – actor/director/screenwriter turned novelist Brendan Cowell stuns with his debut, a tough look at masculinity and friendship in Australian suburbia.

Marginalia:

I had originally thought about announcing November as “No-new-book-November” this year, but I know myself too well, that’s never going to happen. Plus, I’m going away in a couple of weeks and that means there is always a portion of the travel budget put aside specifically for exploring new bookstores. So, that idea was never going to fly. Then I started thinking about why I maybe didn’t want to buy any new books – because I don’t read the ones I already own. Most of the books I’ve read lately come from the library – and I’m never going to give up library resources obviously – but what’s the use of relying solely on the library, when I have a fantastic collection of unread books available to me already. Of course, library books also come with the looming due date so I always feel inclined to read them before any that I own.

So, I’m not limiting my book buying habit this month, instead I’m resolving to read mainly books that I already own. I’m returning the unread library books and turning to my shelves. And my desk. And my haphazard stacks along the walls. October was a pretty average month for me reading-wise, so hopefully I’ll find something exciting, inspiring, frustrating or just entertaining.

Image credit: You will not escape by Francisco Goya, Caprichos, from Le peintre-graveur illustré (The painter-engraver illustrated) Vol. 14, by Loÿs Delteil, Paris, 1922. Found via Old Book Illustrations.

On the night of receiving their final school results, Neil Cronk and his friends indulge in drugs, booze, violence and, almost but not quite, sex. This is not the final adolescent party before emerging into calm, well-behaved adulthood; this is an evening that has irreperable repurcussions for all involved. This section is told with the vital energy of youth, that feeling of invincibility and that actions have no consequences. Thought much of the focus is on Neil’s sexual failure with his girlfriend, Courtney, the real highlight is Cowell’s sensitive, though uncompromisingly honest, take on male friendship. The friendships between Neil, Gordon and Stuart are refreshingly free of pretension, Cowell transfers the  middle-class, outer suburban male voice and attitude seamlessly onto the page. Though the events of their wayward adventures aren’t of the magnitude of those that will follow, significant changes are already taking place within the characters.

The evening deepened and dipped as everyone packed off into cliques and corners, merging with those they had formed an alliance with over the past one to thirteen years. If adolescence was a war zone then fashion and music were both protection and artillery: they kept us safe and offered us a position to fire ourselves from.

As Neil breaks from his planned life of university and city living and instead studies drama in Bathurst, Cowell brings in some of that pretension that comes with university, and in particular, the Arts. Neil turns from the slightly weedy cohort of his friends to a unrelentingly egotistic and self-involved prick, yet it’s an evolution that makes sense considering the difference between his university crowd and those he left behind. Back home, major changes are taking place, but Neil is too absorbed with the rituals and institutionalized weirdness of his life – seeing it almost as more enlightened than, for example, Gordon going into business. Again, on the eve of graduation and his final performance piece, Neil is shattered by the news of a friend’s death.

As an adult in London with a moderate degree of theatrical success, Neil still maintains a strong connection to those he left behind. This adult section is told in a sometimes disconcertingly fractured way, as the narrative moves between the past in London, the past before the wedding, and the present, it is easy to lose track of where exactly Neil is. Nonetheless, the dramatic events of this section – death, break ups, watching a friend marry your ex-girlfriend, drug use, abuse and recovery – carry great emotional weight.

Told over these three major transitional stages in Neil’s life, How It Feels is a brutal look at masculinity in contemporary Australia. Though there is much to cover in terms of youth, love, loss, heartbreak, success, failure – the running theme throughout is the male experience of contemporary life. Cowell’s narrative voice is strong, at times raw and confrontingly masculine. Issues such as home and the past are deftly dealt with, but what resonates is the connection we have to the place we grew up, despite how far we run from it or how much we try to deny it, and how this place and its people define us. To say this is a strong debut is understating the point, How It Feels is ruthless, wrenchingly felt and truthful, yet not without the necessary light to guide us through.

They gave me another chance, and I am eternally grateful. It is easy to jump out of the village, move to the cities, and spend your time poking fun at the little places we hail from and their routine ways, but deep down inside you know that’s where the real people are, the truly decent souls, and you fight and fight to deny it, until you need them so bad it hurts.

[Disclosure: publisher supplied proof copy from work. How It Feels is released by Picador Australia through Pan Macmillan Australia in November 2010, ISBN: 9781405039291. View the How It Feels book trailer on youtube.]

When considering the figures involved in the film and associated products, this book included, it’s not hard to see who was the real market: film directed by Spike Jonze, known for his cult films Being John Malkovich and Adaptation and music videos, co-written by Dave Eggers of McSweeney’s and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius fame and soundtracked by Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Is it as simple as pulling together a few generational icons to repackage a cultural artefact to an older market?

One might think that a boy who was out in the snow for so long would get cold, but Max was not. He was warm, partly because he had on many layers, and partly because boys who are one part wolf and part wind do not get cold.

The Wild Things introduces us, once again, to Max, a product of divorce and television, trying to adapt to his mother’s new boyfriend and his older sister’s change in attitude. This first section of the novel returns us to the boredom of childhood, of being slightly outside understanding and being of the adult world. Max doesn’t fully comprehend the world outside of what it means for him, considering things only so far as according to how they effect him. In a plain, yet engaging, style, Eggers captures the focus and energy of beiing a kid, the moments of great certainty, as well as frightening uncertainty.

Max misbehaves. He floods his sister’s bedroom as revenge for ruining his igloo. He bites his mother for trying to control him. And then he runs away, and after many days and many nights of sailing, finds himself in a land among the wild things. I do like that Eggers doesn’t give us any explanation, that we’re left to our own devices to draw our own conclusions, if we even want to. As he claims his royal right over the group of wild things, he learns about responsibility for others, the repercussions of personal failure. It is an updated, modern fable, but – and maybe this is a sign of losing touch with my own “wild thing” – ultimately I preferred the real world aspects of the novel, the acknowledgement and exploration of the subtle trauma of being young and negotiating the world.

So he had a choice. Would he stay behind the curtain and think about things, marinate in his own confusion, or would he put on his white fur suit and howl and scratch and make it known who was boss of this house and all of the world known and unknown.

Despite Eggers’ admirably sincere writing style and his ability to capture the nuances of childhood boredom, The Wild Things reads too much like the film – both visually and the characters themselves. It is easy to be cynical about the circumstances of the novel’s production, but The Wild Things, as a novel, does seem extraneous.

• Sweet as a Pickle and Clean as a Pig by Carson McCullers, illustrated by Rolf Gérard
• Jack Kerouac: King of the Beats by Barry Miles
• William Burroughs: El Hombre Invisible by Barry Miles
• Burmese Days by George Orwell
• The Clergyman’s Daughter by George Orwell

The most exciting acquisition this week would have to be finally getting my hands on a copy of the long out of print Sweet as a Pickle and Clean as a Pig, Carson McCullers’ book of children’s verse for a reasonable price. I’m going to write a bit more on it in my end of the month McCullers round up, but for now I will say that it is totally adorable.

Reviews posted on Start Narrative Here this week:

• The Accidental Billionaires: Sex, Money, Betrayal and the Founding of Facebook by Ben Mezrich – the story behind Facebook, and inspiration for the movie The Social Network, is presented in an annoying, pretentious style but rich in human drama.
• Life Sucks by Jessica Abel, Gabe Soria and Warren Pleece – vampires working in convenience stores for Romanian vampire masters? Like Reality Bites with vampires, but lacks the charisma or charm to make the romantic angle connect emotionally.

Marginalia:

I am currently pining for Sydney and greatly anticipating my trip there in a few weeks to see the Manic Street Preachers, and so much of my internet browsing has been preoccupied with finding things to do, places to eat, bookstores to explore while I’m there. Nonetheless:

• Alexander Chee On Teaching the Graphic Novel. I never got to study graphic novels at university, but this piece did remind me of a subject I took called “Game Studies” which was studying, analysing and critiquing video games and their surrounding culture. This also included a class excursion to a games arcade! I know it sounds like it was just another waste of time Arts subject, but it was actually the most challenging, intellectually stimulating, encouraging and fun subject I ever did in my degree. Off topic.
• Martin Amis on Philip Larkin’s letters to Monica Jones in the latest collection Letters to Monica.
• This week I also discovered a little piece of Melbourne history on Project Gutenberg: Cole’s Funny Picture Book No. 1! I loved reading this stuff as a kid and earlier this year learned a bit more about the man behind them, iconic Melbourne figure Edward William Cole. Here’s an excerpt from a poem he wrote featured in the Funny Picture Book, called “Value of Books”:

BOOKS therefore, are, of all man buys,
The choicest thing on earth,
BOOKS have, of all his household goods,
The most intrinsic worth.

BOOKS are the greatest blessing out,
The grandest thing we sell,
BOOKS bring more joy, BOOKS do more good
Than mortal tongue can tell.

Image credit: Northern portion of Cole’s Book Arcade, Melbourne, Australia from Project Gutenberg. If only I could time travel!