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Jasper Jones

2011-01-08T02:15:00.002-05:00

Jasper Jones is a part Aboriginal boy living in a West Australian town in the 1960s. He is used to prejudice. The tale is told by Charlie, a young, bookish, outcast from the same town. Jasper chooses Charlie when he really needs help and this is where the story begins.
Jasper needs Charlie's help desperately but in order to help Charlie has to revise his notion of the world and replace it with something much more complex. His whole life is ineradicably altered by what he finds and this Bildungsroman is carefully handled enough to make us want to go on the journey with him.
My favorite parts were definitely the hilarious dialogue between Charlie and his best friend, Jeffrey Lu. Being Vietnamese is 1960s Australia brings it's own challenges but Jeffrey is up to that. His wit is spot on and there are several laugh out loud moments. Jeffrey is a cricket tragic and is excellent at playing the game. But, of course, the locals certainly don't want to give him the chance.
Charlie's love interest is the fragile Eliza Wishart and there are complications aplenty in their relationship, not the least of which is their social difference. Eliza's sister, Laura, goes missing and Charlie knows more than he can possibly ever tell.
The strength of this novel is not the ,multiple references to 'To Kill A Mockingbird' but the similarities in theme are there, it is the complex relationships between characters that are never typical and the ability to lay bare the adult world that Charlie is prematurely thrown into. It is a plausible depiction of small town life in rural Australia and has enough historical detail to maintain authenticity. The whodunnit factor will keep you guessing and the resolution was not too pat and obvious. I managed to read this in a couple of sittings which is a testimony to it's storytelling abilities. Recommended.

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The Small Hand

2011-01-04T02:50:00.002-05:00

This short novel by acclaimed ghost story writer Susan Hill was recommended as a story about the supernatural that was designed to give shivers up the spine. Unfortunately it fell short. The writing was old fashioned and seemed artificial to a twenty first century reader. The dialogue was stuffy and stilted and I had difficulty empathising with the characters.
It felt a bit like Enid Blyton had tried her hand at writing a short ghost story.
The premise was that the main character Adam Snow, gets lost, finds a deserted house and suddenly is grasped by the hand by an invisible presence. He tells us quite matter of factly that the hand belonged to an invisible body.
He then goes into detail about his work as an antiquarian book dealer and his journey to find a lost First Folio of Shakespeare's works for his client and friend Sir Merriman. This necessitates a visit to a remote monastery, where he is saved from supernatural torment by the prayers of the mute monks. The hand has haunted him intermittently and becomes more sinister in intent, trying to drag him into ponds and eventually, off a cliff. He ends up consulting his brother who had once had mental health issues and repeatedly tried to throw himself off buildings, into oncoming traffic, and, yes, you guessed it, into ponds and lakes. Our hero takes a bit of time to get to the conclusion and I won't give the ending away entirely here, but the whole thing is solved when he revisits both the house and his brother and pieces together the clues. A spirit wants revenge!
Another gothic by numbers I'm afraid. Someone has been reading Ann Radcliffe I suspect. Perhaps to read if you're bored and want something light and not too taxing. All up, it should only take an hour.

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The Slap

2011-01-02T00:02:00.001-05:00

This was an interesting read. Sometimes literary prize winners are books that I don't want to read, like The Gathering, which I couldn't stand. It was with some trepidation then, that I picked this one up in the local library. In fact, I was so unsure that I decided to sit down and read a chapter before I took it home. This one however, was much more fascinating.
The action is set in suburban Melbourne in the northern suburbs, and deals with a family barbecue and the after effects of an incident which occurred there. At first the characters are portrayed as awful, if not downright repellant however we soon see the error of our initial judgements and the writing cleverly exposes our own first impressions and snap judgements, if not prejudices, as we read on.
Hector, a second generation Greek Australian, and his beautiful wife Aisha, a vet, host a barbecue for their friends and both initially have mixed feelings about the event. Aisha is of Indian Australian background and Hector's mother does not accept her very well. The eponymous slap occurs when a spoilt three year old attempts to hit Harry's son with a cricket bat and Harry intervenes violently. Harry, Hector's cousin, is a violent and spoilt man and his family seem a little cowed by him at first. The links between the characters are strained as they grapple with their own moral ideas about what happened and are drawn by family and friendship loyalties.
We read the narrative from everyone else's perspective and in doing so we see their prejudices, backgrounds and foibles. This allows us to develop empathy with each character and in doing so, explore the ways that we react to events and our own moral compass.
The novel isn't at all didactic, it simply holds up a mirror to family life, race, drugs and drink, and relationships with friends and co-workers. It is a snapshot of part of modern Australia and honest and forthright. The multiple viewpoints allow us to see the complexity of living cheek by jowl with others in a multiracial/ multicultural society.
The language was very careful and the picture of the characters deftly wrought.
Now I know why it won the prize.

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Me old China

2010-12-16T00:32:00.001-05:00

The City and The City was an amazing adventure in genre crossing fiction. It did take me a while to get into it, but that was probably more to do with timing than anything else.
Tyador Borlu is a detective in Besz which is a city in which citizens live alongside the citizens of another city which they have been trained to 'unsee'. A woman is killed and her body ends up on Borlu's patch. This Chandleresque section of the novel is the bit that endeared itself to me the least, however there was much more going on.
It turns out that the body came from the other city and Borlu has to travel 'there' to solve the crime. This is where his troubles begin....
He ends up caught in a conspiracy between the cities, and this is where the real metaphysical fun begins.
Mievilles's writing is unobtrusive, but clever and full of linguistic nous. He keeps the tension ratcheted up and the plot convoluted enough to keep a reader satisfied. This is a recommended read.

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The Radleys, Matt Haig

2010-10-08T04:52:00.001-05:00

I just finished this and wanted to blog about it in the heat of the moment. I really enjoyed it on so many levels. It is, on the surface a tale about a family of vampires who are abstaining. Well, the parents are, the kids don't know. All they do know is that they are social outcasts as evidenced by graffiti around the quiet Yorkshire village they live in.
Mum and Dad are in trouble, not vampire trouble, boredom in the marriage trouble. This is not helped by the secrets that Helen is keeping from Peter. The family are all suffering. Things can only get worse. Clara finds out in the most devastating way about her true nature. Then things slowly unravel. Will, Peter's brother turns up to help and really makes things worse. The hidden secrets are about to surface.
The whole thing keeps up a great pace, largely due to the narrative device of lots of short chapters and a great plot. There are lots of references to pop culture from the Enlightenment, through gothic 1980s, to current bands and novels. Lots of tongue in cheek references to famous vampires (Jimi Hendix, Lord Byron!) and the whole thing doesn't take itself too seriously.
At heart it's a live story/morality tale but one that has a light touch.
If you liked 'Let The Right One In' you'll enjoy this one.

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About My Mother

2010-08-22T05:50:00.000-05:00

This play ticked all the boxes. It was sad and funny and paced beautifully. The acting was very good with the wonderful Alison Whyte and Wendy Hughes Huma Rojo,a great actress, as well as hilarious Paul Capsis playing Agrado, the transvestite friend of our protagonist Manuela (Whyte).

Following the tragic death of her beloved seventeen year-old son, Manuela leaves her job and takes to the road in search of the father her son Esteban, (Blake Davis) never knew. In Barcelona, she becomes involved with three women in crisis: Sister Rosa (Katie Fitchett) the young nun, a drug addicted actor (Peta Sergeant),who is the lover of Huma Rojo the famous actress. She also recaptures her friendship withAgrado, a transsexual drag queen. Will taking care of these women help her overcome her guilt and grief for a lost child? Just as Manuela’s life begins to have meaning again, her son’s father (Jolyon James) returns and her journey of discovery and forgiveness comes full circle. The story stays on the right side of sentimentality because of the crisp acting and realizes the strength of all of the women it is concerned with.
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Location:MTC

Let The Sunshine

2010-07-31T22:24:00.005-05:00

I approached David Williamson's play 'Let the Sunshine' with some trepidation. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to see a play about Sydney vs Brisbane, given that I live in Melbourne, and I wasn't sure that I wanted to see something that I thought might be a bit parochial and blokey. I needn't have worried.
The one-liners came thick and fast from very early on and the characters were fantastic. The acting was brilliant and even the odd time when they did fluff the lines slightly, it worked because it made it seem authentic.
John Wood, Jaqui Weaver and indeed the whole cast, were brilliant. It was a tale of modern 'star crossed lovers' whose families, though not strictly feuding, had enough political and philosophical differences to make their union fraught with difficulty. The lines were delivered with a very dry wit and the pace was excellent. The two hours went so quickly it was hard to believe we'd just sat that long.
The two families provided a social commentary on environmentalism, politics, consumerism and capitalism and how ones ideals may clash with the reality of contemporary Australia.
Although set in particular places, the ideas would translate anywhere.
Ron and Natasha (who changed her name after the craze for Russian literature) have brought up their daughter to be the modern woman. She's beautiful, intelligent, headstrong and a workaholic. She has the best of everything, except a life. She works 80 hours a week and doesn't have time for a relationship. Unfortunately for her the biological clock is ticking.
Ros and Toby's son is a drop out muso who has never had any success. His upbringing was all about chasing your dreams and not worrying about things like money or ambition. Obviously there will be issues here.
Toby reminded me of a John Pilger type and his wife was warm and understanding. Ron was a typical big- business Queenslander who was all about showing off his wealth, which of course Natasha was pleased to do.
The differences made for great social observation and the dialogue was very witty.
Highly recommended.

Handling the Undead

2010-07-11T05:39:00.003-05:00

John Ajvide Lindqvist's first book 'Let the Right One In' was a wonderful book that took the vampire story and handled it from a completely different perspective. His next one 'Handling the Undead' was also a gripping read. The premise is that suddenly in Sweden .After a horrendously hot summer something goes wrong. All of the appliances in the city refuse to turn off and everyone suffers from a massive headache. Then, the dead come back to life. Some of them even return from the grave. None of them are more than two months dead (thank goodness!) and some have only just died. One of these new 'reliving' has been in a car accident and is extensively damaged. She is of interest to the hospital because she still has some capacity for speech, she is of more interest to her loving husband and young son. Some citizens cope with equanimity when their loved ones return, and some, quite naturally, are very alarmed. The government has to work out how to manage and eventually allows families to visit with their 'relived' relatives. Of course, human nature being what it is, eventually things go awry and then the horror ensues. Lindqvist is notable for writing horror stories where the humans are more monstrous than the 'monsters' and he does this very plausibly.
While I enjoyed this particular book very much, I have to admit, the ending was somewhat disappointing. While I won't give it away, I found that it seemed as if he just wanted to wrap things up and it did not seem as planned as it could be.

The Age, 12 Feb 2010. Pages 4 - 5

2010-02-11T16:20:00.001-05:00

I can't wait for this film to come out. It is bound to be a blockbuster. Alice in Wonderland is one of my favourite children's books and Tim Burton is an absolute favourite director.

The Age
12 Feb 2010

The Ghost's Child

2009-12-30T01:43:00.002-05:00

I really love Sonya Hartnett's writing so I was already anticipating something good with this one. I finally got around to reading it this week and it did not disappoint. It is a magical fable of an old woman who tells her story to a young boy who unexpectedly appears in her house. She tells the story of her love with a man whom she calls Feather and who is wild and untamed. Feather loves her but is unable to give himself to her fully as he is yearning for something else. Maddy's story weaves itself through the narrative in a fairy tale like way and the reader is taken along on what could seem like a far-fetched journey if it was not told by Hartnett. Her prose is spare, but evocative and the reader begins to feel the pain that Maddy feels in her disappointment at not having the love she needs. She builds herself a life around that pain and in some ways it is the making of her. The ending is so bittersweet that I wanted it to continue for longer.
This is a highly recommended fable which adults and older children alike would love.

God of Carnage

2009-09-23T20:13:00.002-05:00

This play was exceptional. The audience laughed the whole way through, sometimes to mask the discomfort of watching the players' lives unravel in the way that they did, but mostly because the lines and the timing were just perfect. Two couples are meeing in the Paris apartment of the parents of one eleven year old boy, who we never meet. He has had two teeth knocked out by another eleven year old, the hapless parents of whom are trying to come to terms with the thuggery. At first this seems like a polite comedy of two sets of parents trying to deal with their offspring and each other but it develops into something much more interesting and hilarious.
Slowly we see the characters' self absorption peel back the thin veneer of respectability and enlightened manners to reveal something much grittier and funnier. The couples' relationships with each other and society is shown as much more complex and as something built on shifting sands. Alliances change as the women identify with each other and then their spouses as the battle lines are drawn and re-drawn. Pamela Rabe, Hugo Weaving,Natasha Herbert and Geoff Morrell are equally excellent in this vicious comedy as they turn on one another with savage wit. There are only a few days left in this one and I'd really like to see it again.
Favourite line - 'everything you say destroys me'

Vonnegut- Cat's Cradle

2009-09-09T05:28:00.002-05:00

The children of the man who created a scientific invention that could destroy the world are the subject of 'John' the journalist's interest in this dystopian novel which I found under Science Fiction at my local library. I'm not sure that it qualifies as Sci-Fi, given that someone has already invented something as dangerous as 'ice nine'; the atom bomb.
The children, a dwarf, a giantess and an infantile man are damaged by their life with their father and later reveal the secrets of his death and the fact that they have each a fragment of ice nine which can, and will, destroy the earth. Our journalist finds them on an island in South America where Frank is high up in government due to the possession of this fragment. All of the characters are deeply flawed, in fact weird, yet the reader can believe in these stunted 20th century monsters. This novel is a rumination on the 'progress' made by science, and in this it is not new. What is new is Vonnegut's way of viewing the world. He is not afraid to tackle the larger issues of his time and this makes him required reading. He also does it with flair and characterstic light touch.

Rockabye

2009-09-02T17:29:00.004-05:00

This was undoubtably the best theatre production all year from MTC. It was funny, well paced, thought provoking and the actors did the whole thing justice.

Sydney is an aging rock star on the brink of reviving her career. However the timing is a bit off considering she's also trying to adopt a baby from Africa.

The lady from Human Services in Botswana is visiting her house and this is where the fun begins. A rock journalist gets a whiff of the story and believes that he has a moral imperative to do something about it. The side story is that of Julia, Sydney's publicist, who wants also to have a baby with her partner. The maid tells her that just because gay women can have babies, doesn't mean they should. She believes that we are defined by what we can't have. The journalist then reveals that he was an adopted baby from Africa and he cares very deeply about the issue. His new love interest, the Human services worker from Africa, argues the other side of the story, the baby will die if no-one takes it.

The moral dilemmas are very carefully handled with humour and pathos and the audience is shown all of the different perspectives equally. This play is a must see.

American Gods

2009-08-31T04:47:00.005-05:00

This is really interesting reading. I love the idea that people bring their gods with them to America and when they stop believing the gods are just stuck there or fade away, bit like Tinkerbell, but much more sinister. Gaiman's characters are fabulous illustrations of America's hidden people. They're fascinating and believable. I haven't yet finished this one, but I am loving it so far. It is way better than Stardust and on par with Neverwhere, which I really enjoyed.
Shadow is seconded by Wednesday, who is really Odin of course, to assist him in the war against the new American gods who are trying to supplant the old ones brought by the immigrants across the millennia. The new gods are suitably modern, clinical, clever and brought into being by technology. This could be read as a diatribe against the modern world, but I don't think that Gaiman is that simplistic. The old gods are also flawed characters but our sympathies lie with them, much as they do with the middle American people that we are introduced to. A cast of hundreds will keep any reader interested. I look forward to seeing what happens with the showdown.
I will try to remember to post when I've finished this one.

Man From Mukinupin

2009-07-01T18:41:00.002-05:00

This musical was unexpected. The players came on stage in white stage make up and proceeded to sing and dance their way through the land near the Rabbit Proof Fence. Small town life was shown as a stage show. The singing was not brilliant and at times was even discordant. The references to Shakespeare were clumsy and il suited and the segments of the play did not seem to mesh together. There were attempts at humour which drew polite murmurs from the audience. The small town characters were typically quirky and stupid which of course hid a darker past. That of the touch of the tar brush. Polly, the main protagonist, is in love with the shop boy who goes off to war. The travelling salesman, who her parents want for her, is in love with her too. At one stage he sings a song to her about 'having another acid drop' this should probably tell you all you need to know.
Maybe it's just an acquired taste, but I was certainly not the only one leaving at intermission.

August: Osage County

2009-06-16T22:11:00.002-05:00

I was dreading this play somewhat as it was midweek, I was tired and I knew that it was a three hour behemoth of a thing and that I had to get up early the next day.
However, it was an amazing piece of theatre. Robyn Nevin and cast were exceptionally funny in their brutality to each other. For my money the play was stolen by Barbara (Jane Menelaus) who was trying to hold it all together until her own family fell apart as well. Her attempts to stop younger sister Ivy (Rebekah Stone) from telling her mother that she is in love with Little Charlie, who it turns out is very wrong for her indeed, are the highlight of an exceptional play. The parents who are 'growing old disgracefully' have had their moments until Beverley, the father of the brood, leaves and dies, having planned the whole suicide even down to getting an aide in to help his wife who is drug addled and ill. The family all get togetherm for the suicide and this is where it all unravels.
Highly recommended

Confderacy of Dunces

2009-05-14T21:12:00.003-05:00

"When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."

The genius in this case is the hilariously pompous and delusional Ignatius J Reilly. He is a grossly fat, incredibly self-centred and self indulgent lazy 30 year old, who still lives with his mother. Ignatius sees the modern world as the antithesis of all he holds dear being an adherent of Boethian ideals. The sheer hypocrisy of this character is astounding and yet the reader really is drawn into following Ignatius' lumbering progress through finding dead end jobs, which he sabotages, to winding up pushing a hot dog cart around New Orleans in his attempt to do as little as possible. However, as little as possible ends up creating as big a possible mess as could be imagined. We are drawn into the mind of a lunatic who believes that he is the only sane person around, and yet all we can do is laugh uproariously.

His slovenly and pathetic mother eventually sees a future for herself away from her son's cruel treatment and eventually succeeds in driving him away from his self imposed cloister of a bedroom. When he takes off with the wonderfully named Myrna Minkoff we cannot but wonder what a sequel would have made of his adventures in New York.

This book is not one to read in a quiet place, you will end up bursting out into laughter. It is incredibly clever and highly recommended reading.

Realism

2009-05-14T21:03:00.002-05:00

A theatre company in Communist Russia who have been, unfortunately, given the dubious honour of creating a performance for Stalin's 60th birthday have more important matters on their minds. This funny farce deals with the ideas of Art and Politics and how to manage the links between them. Stalin has banned the Avant Garde artists of the early twentieth century in favour of Social Realism. Along with the ban comes the communist need to control free speech, in the theatre a contradiction in terms. The actors creating the play have more to contend with than the reports written by the stage manager. the director is missing, the worst is feared, and the cast begin to say things they shouldn't. Miriam Margolyes is absolutely hilarious in this and it was a strong cast performance all round.

See the MTC page and a review here from The Australian.

In the Lake of the Woods

2009-04-27T19:16:00.003-05:00

Tim O' Brien's absorption with Vietnam continues in this murder mystery. John Wade has just lost the election that he has been working towards by a landslide. He and his wife Kathy decide that in order to retreat and lick their wounds as well as to patch up their troubled marriage, they need to take off to the Lake of the Woods. We are introduced to the characters in this setting and then told that Kathy would soon disappear. This is where things start to get interesting in this novel.

The structure of the novel allows the reader to build up a gradual profile of John and his past as well as his relationship with Kathy. We see an increasingly disturbed individual who has suffered trauma, both in the loss of his father and then in Vietnam. He uses tricks, sleight of hand and mirrors to escape the unpleasant facts of his existence. the novelist also uses these same tricks, sleights of hand and mirrors to draw the readers into a kind of whodunnit, which is really a whodunnwhat, as we never really find out what happened to Kathy.

The suspense is carefully managed and we are pulled through the narrative by the chapters entitled 'hypothesis' and 'evidence' which are interspersed with the history of John's life.

It is a fascinating read, but as it offers no easy answers some may find it frustrating.

The Year of Magical Thinking

2009-04-27T19:09:00.002-05:00

Robyn Nevin was extraordinary in this play. That does not mean that I liked her character. She was over controlling and her absorption in her grief eventually gets too tiring. The monologue is very good although at times I did feel that it was patchy. Maybe it was just the effect of all of that grief, it wore me down. I understand the whole 'search for meaning' in death thing, but too much navel gazing gives you vertigo. It was worth seeing, but even more, worth editing.

Moonlight and Magnolias

2009-03-26T04:01:00.002-05:00

Although it had some flat moments this was paced well and very amusing. I was glad that it was in the Arts Centre too, as I'm not sure that the seats in the new Arts Centre were too comfortable. Mind you I didn't stay in them long during Poor Boy, the singing was too offputting. I am not a fan of musicals, when people burst into song in the middle of something I find it too hard to believe.

Anyhow, Moonlight was fun and definitely worth seeing. The timing was very good and the actors kept up the pace well. Some of the lines were a bit lame, but it did not detract too much from the fun.

Frost/Nixon

2008-06-02T21:33:00.003-05:00

The interview between David Frost a lightweight chat show host and Richard Milhous Nixon, the president who came close to impeachment over Watergate, was highly anticipated by some, and laughed at by others. The idea that someone as innocuous as Frost could pull off such an important interview was viewed as spurious. This play takes on the whole history of the interview, from the initial overtures by Frost to Nixon, right through to the aftermath of what became a David and Goliath story.

Frost is played brilliantly in the Melbourne production by John Adam, who captures his dapper image, vanity and optimism, very well. Nixon was brilliantly portrayed by Marshall Napier whose aggressive manipulation of the interview was skilfully done. The cast were sure footed, although there were a few blunders on the opening night, which the audience forgave because the play worked so well.

I was unfamiliar with the full details of the Watergate affair and as I like to go in cold to plays, I had not done any research. I did worry that it would go right over my head as moments in Stoppard's Rock and Roll had, but I had nothing to worry about. The writer carefully filled the audience in and left nothing out.

The upcoming film of this play should be entertaining; and good political stories aren't always.

The Good Terrorist - Doris Lessing

2008-04-28T05:15:00.002-05:00

This is an old one but I really enjoyed reading Doris Lessing's novel about a group of leftist revolutionaries living in a London Squat in Thatcher's Britain. It could just be at first because I perfectly understood their frustration with the politics of their time, but as I read on it quickly became apparent that I had absolutely nothing in common with the ragtag bunch of middle class and upper class English squatters who dreamed of anarchy and revered Lenin and yet tried to get the IRA to help them to subvert the dominant paradigm. When they were laughed at by the IRA and then the Russians it still didn't dawn on them that their cause was futile.

We are told this story mostly through the eyes of Alice, who is the mother figure of the group. She is in love with Jasper, a love that is happily for her, unrequited. She has a way with people, except for those really close to her, like family. She wheedles the Council until they grant the flat a semi-official status and she works like a trojan to get the place clean so that the police will not bother them. The way that she sees it they are saving a perfectly good flat, that the council scandalously is letting go to waste. The political sensibilities of the core group of squatters are radical enough to ensure that real crisis is not too far off and the story deals with the ideals and hopeless utopian dreams that they harbour. The most important thing about any Doris Lessing book is the psychology, she reads human nature so minutely that there is never a false note. You can believe her people, even if you don't necessarily like them, in fact in this case you can't. It's fairly obvious that Alice is crazy, but Lessing never overdoes this.

I have to admit that I approached it with hesitancy, as I was not sure whether Lessing was going to poke fun at leftist intellectual politics in the eighties, not having read much of her writing before, except for The Cleft,, but she really deals with the whole idea very carefully and subtly and with warmth. I will be reading more of her work.

The Thirty Nine Steps

2008-04-28T04:54:00.002-05:00

Well, this has to be the must see of the season here in Melbourne. I was dubious as to whether Marcus Graham could pull off this type of high camp humour, but he did marvellously. The timing was absolutely brilliant and the audience marvelled at the fast paced high jinks throughout. The 'nod, nod, wink, wink,' references to Hitchock's films had the audience applauding and the plot had enough twists and turns to keep everyone amused.

This wonderful send up of film in the first half of the 20th century was clever from the beginning with the strobe lights recalling early talkies (which thankfully didn't last too long, my eyes couldn't stand it!) to the many tropes seen in British film before 1950. The audience was asked to participate in the action by the actors addressing them in asides and making remarks about the stage set such as when Hannay asks the stage hands who are holding the 'river' a length of silvery satin, up so that he can't cross, to just put it down after making the attempt several times.

The plot is roughly as follows: Hannay, a typical upper class Brit, is bored, goes to the theatre to see Mr Memory a sideshow type character who memorises facts for the audience to quiz him on. A shot rings out and a beautiful, mysterious woman then asks herself back to his flat. He later wakes to find her dead, lying across his lap with a knife in her back. Before she went to bed she mentions a place in Scotland and some spy business. Rather than stay in London and face murder charges he heads off to solve the mystery. There are some hilarious travel scenes where the police believe that they have him only to find him escape through the window of the train and run along the roof. The conveyance of this on a stage is something to behold. The bodies of the actors (of which there are only four!) sway in time to the movement of the train and then Hannay escapes off the Forth bridge and the police give chase. I won't give away the ending, just see it.

Rock 'n' Roll

2008-03-05T20:53:00.002-05:00

God, this play was long. The fact that it came at the end of a very long day at school didn't help and the fact that the friend that I went with had just lost his job and was feeling really out of it also didn't help. But of course none of that had anything to do with the play and everything to do with the way that we recieved it. It was a slow burner and of course that didn't help too much. However, having said that I did enjoy it, but due to the befuddled state of my mind and the fact that I don't know a lot about Czechoslovakia in the late 60s and the communist party there I found it a bit difficult to follow at first and it took a while for me to get a grasp on it.
Sir Tom Stoppard, born Tomas Straussler in the town of Zlin goes back to his roots for this homage to freedom. His hero Jan, played very well by Matthew Newton, is a Czech dissident who after returning home from studying in Cambridge, has his records smashed and is watched by the secret police. We watch his relationship with his former professor, who believes wholeheartedly in the communist system up until their reunion in England in the 1980s. The professor's wife is brilliantly portrayed through her battle with cancer and the scene where she fends off a young academic who is making a play for her husband is a moment of high drama.
The cast are strong and even though as I said earlier, it takes a while to get going, it is worth seeing. The music played throughout is well done and separates the scenes out well. I may need to see it again to get a fuller understanding of it, but that's not the fault of the production.

An Uncommon writer

2008-01-17T04:27:00.002-05:00

Alan Bennett's An Uncommon Reader was an inspired Christmas present (oh, ok, I hinted quite substantially) The power of literature works its mischevious magic on the uncommon reader (HRH) She perseveres after borrowing Ivy Compton Burnett's book from the moblile library parked in the palace grounds and discovers the joys of literature. Of course all of this dedication to literature has a disastous effect on her public duties. And who will sit and discuss Proust with her? It's fun and a quick and easy read that will stay long after the covers are closed. Thanks Santa.

Don Juan

2008-01-17T04:19:00.000-05:00

Don Juan in Soho was an entertaining play with some hilarious one-liners and a talented cast. The plot was fairly standard and as we all know the story we shouldn't be surprised. Unfortunately the casting of Dan Wiley was not as successful as it could have been. He was too comical to be believable as a lothario, how could anyone believe that he was God's gift to women? He delivered his lines with an air of the spoilt boy and not as the street wise man that he should have been. That aside, it was a good play, much, much better than the next play I saw, Season at Sarsparilla. This was tedious to the point of sleepiness, a lady even left halfway through the second act, not to mention those that did not come back in after intermission. It just went on and on about suburban life. That's all you need to know.
My recommendation, don't bother.

too many books - sigh!

2007-10-29T20:58:00.000-05:00

Guess who just had a birthday. And guess who got to cross books off her wishlist. Now the time to read them needs to be added to the list, but I'm not complaining. Thanks Welloflostplots, I'll read the Ondjaate next, after I've trawled through the D H Lawrence Novellas (which I'm not loving) this is a favour read, not really a pleasure read, however, I always like to try something new.
I didn't mind The Fox, however I don't really like Lawrence's dialogue, and after a while his character's tendency towards repitition annoys me. The premise was good, two women, alone, independent and running a farm with little in the way of practical knowledge. The fox becomes a metaphor for the way that the women are preyed upon. They are little but ciphers and maybe that's what Lawrence intended.
I admit, I gave up on The Captain's Doll, even though it had some very sexualised images in the scenery, I didn't have the patience to wait for the climax (ok a low blow).
I will persevere with The Ladybird.

Pat Barker - Life Class

2007-10-29T20:53:00.000-05:00

I was really looking forward to reading this one. I am a big fan of Pat Barker and have read all of her previous novels. Like most people I was introduced to her through the Regeneration Trilogy but when I read a bit about her I wanted to read more of her books. I must confess it does have a bit to do with the fact that she’s a Geordie and I was feeling a bit homesick at the time, but anyway, I came to her she has not let me down. I loved the early novels set in Newcastle and the later, more critically acclaimed stuff such as Border Crossing, which has been on the VCE English text list, showed great depth in her writing. She has been willing to tackle big issues in complex ways and deserves a good following. So Life Class was there at Borders Chadstone and I had to get it. I read it in a couple of nights but was left slightly disappointed at the end as the plot just seems to stop. It’s about a young Northern (what else?) man, Paul, who has a calling as an artist. He is accepted into the Slade School in London and thanks to a generous elderly relative who left some money he is able to go and fulfil his dreams. Of course nothing comes that easily. He is mortified by the criticism of Tonks, the experienced art teacher and almost gives up. He falls in love with a girl, after dating her friend for a while, until the friend’s husband beats him up and she leaves to go back up North to escape such a brute of a husband. He begins to form a relationship with Elinor after being invited to her house, along with another admirer Neville Kitt. Neville, Paul and Elinor uncomfortably circle around each other. Neville is well bred and so is Elinor, but Paul is not really of their circle. This is 1914.
Paul tries to join the army but has TB so they won’t have him. He then decides to join as an orderly and later becomes an ambulance driver. He stoically deals with the war and we read his letters to Elinor and hers back to him. Gradually their relationship changes as she falls in with the Bloomsbury set and he is struggling with the horrors of war. Barker’s characters are believable, the flighty and independent Elinor, the insecure upper class Neville (although at times he is a little stereotypical) and the dour Paul. I just didn’t really connect with Paul as much as I would have liked to. I understood that Barker didn’t want to turn him into a cliché by having him traumatised by the war, but I didn’t really feel that he had a lot of emotional depth. Maybe some people don’t, but I don’t necessarily want to read about them.
All in all it was an interesting read, the whole time is interesting, the outbreak of World War I and the beginnings of independence for some women (particularly upper middle and upper class ones) and the whole Bloomsbury set’s idea that they could just ignore the war(!). However, I finished this one feeling a bit unsatisfied. What a shame.

ffun with fforde- ffirst among sequels

2007-10-29T20:48:00.000-05:00

Fforde ffans will not be at all disappointed. This is (to borrow welloflostplots’ phrase) Fforde at his best. We see Thursday as a married woman with a hypertypical teenage son (ok that’s not really a word – but so what). Friday grunts, refuses to wash , sleeps as if it were an Olympic sport and he were in training and refuses to take his proper place in society and get a job. The problem is, his job is to be the head of the chronoguard, and if he doesn’t take it up, then he could be replaced with an alternate him from a parallel universe. If you’re confused at this stage read the first four books and it will make a whole lot more sense. I absolutely love Fforde’s linguistic tricksiness and his sense of the absurd and his ability to create a perfectly coherent world out of something so completely unbelievable and insane. Thursday manages to have the most wonderful adventures with the characters in the Literatec world and I always find myself wishing I could join her, except maybe for the danger. She’s just on this side of believable but thoroughly entertaining. This whole series is brilliant, unlike the Nursery Crime series, which were not as good. Well, luckily for me, I’ve managed to read some fantastic books in the last few months.

Shakespeare - Bill Bryson

2007-10-29T20:45:00.000-05:00

Ok, another book about Shakespeare, what could I possibly want that for? Well, firstly, because it is another book about Shakespeare, and let’s face it, we can’t have enough of them. Secondly, because it’s written by Bill Bryson who just knows how to tell a story in an amusing and eclectic way that keeps his readers with him. One more thing is that although there are lots of books about Shakespeare, from lots of different perspectives, lots of them are not made for a general readership. They’re often written for academics or literature students or conspiracy theorists or something of that nature. Bryson knows his reader pool and we dive in. He gives us nothing new here. He goes through the whole background and touches on the authorship debate and then discusses the plays. He openly acknowledges that it is impossible to really ‘know’ anything for a fact about Shakespeare, but he is a believer and he writes about his love for Shakespeare’s writing. This is well worth the money. Buy it and curl up, then pick up another play or some sonnets and immerse yourself in the bard.

The Road

2007-10-03T02:38:00.000-05:00

Wow! No wonder this one won an award.
It was bleak, terrifying and nervy. At several times in the narrative you find yourself really edgy at the fate of this father and his young son. This post modern-post apocalytic fable really creates a link between these protagonists and the reader. We immediately place ourselves in the narrative and it's an uncomfortable experience. However, this is balanced with real hope. The boy and his father love each other so much that this is the only thing that keeps them going throughout the horrors they experience and bear witness to. Their journey takes them across an America that is dead in every way that matters. The only survivors prey on each other as there is nothing left. The boy and his father have to avoid all human contact if they are to reach their destination. At several points in the narrative I found myself wondering what I would do in this situation. Would I just give up? What is is about human nature that keeps us going? Is it the philosophical idea of the will to live?
It's hard to believe that I read this in one evening. It was truly unputdownable. Read it, I won't give away the ending.
*****

The End of Mr Y - Scarlett Thomas

2007-10-03T02:23:00.000-05:00

Well, I looked around quite a bit to find this one. I'd read a review of it in The Age that said it was quite good so I thought well it looks interesting, I'll give it a go.
As with any new book, when you've bought it you can't wait to get home to crack the covers and begin. I had to wait a little while as it was school holidays and I had a job application to write as well. Once I got started however, I was drawn in easily. It's about a girl called Ariel, who lives in Oxford and is doing a PhD in English Literature focussing on nineteenth century authors particularly those who used scientific ideas and the more arcane idea of 'thought experiments'. It begins with a building falling down and Ariel finding a rare manuscript. This just happens to be one that she is working on, but before you go 'Oh No! too contrived', I have to let you know that there is a good narrative twist that explains this fortunate event. The thought experiment part of the narrative begins to take over and Ariel finds a recipe for a method of entering what the 19th century author Lumas calls the troposphere and the CIA call MindSpace. I've already given too much away now, the astute reader will be able to see the links here.
Anyway, things go along at a cracking pace and the author who likes references to Derrida and post modernity will be satisfied. I do confess to some doubts, religion gets credited with power, the power of human thought, which may be plausible, but not completely satisfying in a novel which references the simulacrum a la Baudrillard so often.

Warning: There was a terrible moment, when I nearly gave up as the plot let me down. At one stage Ariel has met a hunky ex-priest who is smitten by her as he senses she's quite, ahem, experienced. He takes her to a shrine, because she needs holy water. The shrine of St Jude. She asks him who St Jude was!!!! seriously, she's read and studied Hardy, what was Thomas thinking?
Don't let this put you off. It was still an entertaining read and thought provoking too, what more can you ask for on holidays?

Wish List

2007-06-25T23:37:00.000-05:00

My wish list is still as long as it was when I first wrote it. Sadly this is a symptom of an English teacher who reads too many school books and not enough personal reading. I keep hoping that this will change, maybe school holidays.

Sleep Pale Sister

2007-06-25T23:25:00.000-05:00

Joanne Harris' novel Sleep Pale Sister was loaned to me by a student who knows that I like gothic novels. It definitely fit that criteria. It was a nicely gothic tale about a girl who is married to an artist after being his child muse. He is a twisted character (as all good gothic characters are) and he wants Effie for his own purposes, but it's not what you think. She is not allowed to call him by his first name and allowed no intimacy at all. One of his acquaintances, a disolute young man decides to seduce her. The affair brings her into contact with a whole new world and changes her life irrevocably.
This was an interesting novel, although lightweight. The only criticism that I have is that it was gothic by numbers. If you had to define the gothic genre, this one would tick all of the boxes. This led to it feeling a bit contrived. However, don't let that put you off. It was enjoyable.
thanks Pheobe :)

Enlightenment

2007-06-19T21:49:00.000-05:00

This play was really disappointing. I'm not going to say any more. The acting was wooden and so was the set.

Pillowman

2007-05-28T20:56:00.000-05:00

Advertised as Brothers Grimm meets Quentin Tarantino this play did not disappoint. Katurion, played by Joel Edgerton is a short story writer who writes very dark fairytales indeed. He is taken in for questioning by the police of the totalitarian state that he lives in but he is not aware what he is there for. The audience are left wondering while Kym Gyngell interrogates Katurion whose brother is in the next cell. Katurion's brother, Michael, is intellectually disabled but provides the biggest laughs of the whole play. We hear Michael scream and assume he is being tortured to further the enquiries of the police. When Katurion is allowed to see his brother he finds that he was asked to scream to scare Katurion.
The play is threaded through with the dark tales of Katurion that have unwittingly come true. We are told his fabulous tales as we hear about the murders of the children in the neighbourhood.

Pass it on

2007-05-06T20:48:00.000-05:00

At the end of the film 'the History Boys' there's a deliciously ironic moment where the headmaster reads a eulogy for Hector, the General Studies teacher who has died in a motorcycle accident after Irwin, his pillion passenger, 'leant the wrong way'. The headmaster intones that Hector 'loved words' and wanted to inspire a 'love of literature' (pronounced litricha), in his students. The irony is, of course, that Hector wanted no such thing. We viewed him earlier, at Fountains Abbey, telling the female History teacher, Mrs Lintott (Tottie), that he hated the idea that his students would ever say, in their adult lives, that they loved words. Hector's ideas were much more important than that, he wanted the students to feel that someone else's words meant something to them. That the way that they may be feeling at a particular time in their lives may have already been experienced by someone before. He believes that poetry and stories hold a truth that the reader can experience and enjoy. Irwin, on the other hand is a relativist. He teaches the boys to argue against history and to take a point of view and argue it. he believes that 'truth has nothing to do with it'.

Bennet leaves us much to think about after we leave the cinema. We have been entertained by some very intelligent and talented boys who have just been accepted into Oxford. As they sing 'Bye Bye Blackbird' for Hector we consider their attachment to a flawed, yet great teacher. Is this an oxymoron? He was flawed as an individual, but he left a lasting impression on the boys he taught, and not just for his sexual procilivities, which, anyway, the boys were far too sophisticated to be affected by.

After seeing the play I was left with a few small disatisfactions in the film, but overall, it was a very good adaptation. I could have done without the mention of 'Media Studies' which is far too recent. Similarly, the introduction of both the P.E. and the Art teacher were unnecessary and they were really just window dressing. The boys, were fantastic and very believable, and their acceptance of one another was heartening. Not too many schools could boast of students like this, but it is not any less believable for it. Their bursting into song in class was hilarious and a legacy of Hector's eclectic style. It is worth noting that Irwin ends up working for BBC2 and is reported as being journalist rather than historian by Tottie.

Go and see the film. Go and see the play. Go and buy the screenplay (it's on my wishlist)

For more information on the film see:-

http://www.foxsearchlight.com/thehistoryboys/

Enduring Love

2007-04-26T18:18:00.000-05:00

Ian McEwan's novel, which I actually read for work, was an interesting one. It deals with a popular science writer who is caught up in a calamitous situation when out one day taking a picnic with his wife. He is one of five men who try to save a young boy from a ballooning accident. This event proves to be an epiphanic moment for one of the would be saviours and a cataclysm for another.

Joe is stalked by Jed, a sufferer of deClerambault's syndrome, an illness whereby the sufferer becomes fixated on another person, believing that they love them and that the love is mutual. McEwan practices an illusion on his audience by including an appendix ostensibly written by two doctors for the British Review of Psychiatry which completely outlines the case that he has written about in his novel. Several reviewers have been taken in by this clever ruse and it adds an interesting twist to the story.

The writing is beautiful, McEwan deals in the minutae of everyday life with precision and the emotions of his characters are carefully controlled. I do think that perhaps Joe is a bit too controlled, considering this man is ruining his life and his wife suspects him of making the whole thing up. Eventually he sets off on a more dangerous course when he decides that the law cannot help him and there has already been an attempt on his life. This creates more dramatic tension, but I still get the feeling that Joe is much too well behaved. He is the epitome of a middle class Englishman, manners are much more important than anything else.

This is an interesting novel, beautifully written. I guess the main problem with my reaction to it is the fact that I did not really empathise with Joe, I found it hard to believe that someone would react so passively, and of course this is the thing, that is what causes Clarissa to disbelieve him in the first place, I suspect that in this case it is more of a problem with the reader than the writer. Although I enjoyed it, I did not fully believe in Joe.

The unexamined life is not worth living???

2007-04-25T23:54:00.000-05:00

I went to see The Lives of Others yesterday. This is without a doubt the best film I have seen for ages. It kept me on the end of my seat with suspense. The action takes place in East Germany. A playwright is being targetted by the Stasi for several reasons, one of which is that his girlfriend is coveted by someone high up in the State Police and he wants the writer out of the way. We watch in horror as the apartment is bugged and this couple's most intimate details are documented and scrutinised. Weisler is the Stasi agent who is given the task of spying on the couple. He is presented as an automaton, a soulless agent of the state who is so good at his job that he is teaching future Stasi agents. Weisler's apartment reflects his persona, it is devoid of any embellishment or personal detail. He is a man who never smiles or has any 'human' qualities.

Weisler is about to come into contact with a very human couple in Georg and Christina Maria. Georg is a playwright and Christina Maria is his leading actress as well as his lover. Weisler's spying on them allows him to glimpse their intimate lives and he begins to be more than professionally interested. When Georg's friend commits suicide he begins to write an article for Der Speigel about the suicide rates in East Germany. In one of the many moving scenes in the film Weisler listens in as Georg plays a sonata for his dead friend, the sonata is entitled 'Sonata for a Good Man'. The haunting and beautiful music reaches Weisler and we see him feel emotion for what may be the first time. He responds by covering up the fact the Georg is writing the article. This leads to immense complications and many breathless moments for the viewers. The lives of these two men are inextricably intertwined and lead to a stunning finale. I won't give the ending away here but I will tell you that this is must see cinema without the trite ending that we expect in Hollywood . Although the ending is not typical it is uplifting, which frankly after begin dragged through the ugly world of East Germany, I really needed. The film really documents the ways that an inhumane system creates inhumane people and it shows how a society devoid of free speech crushes its subjects. The redemptive power of literature, art and music is the beauty of this film. This Orwellian nightmare is all the more poignant because we know that people actually lived this way. Another link to Orwell is the fact that the novel is set in 1984.

Go and see this film!

History Boys

2007-04-21T20:17:00.000-05:00

I'm a bit behind the times. I actually saw this play last week and I've not yet blogged about it even though I did rave about it a bit through the week. It was a funny and thought provoking play about a group of sixth form boys at a Sheffield school. We were introduced to them through their General Studies class with Hector and old iconoclastic teacher who loves the classics, particularly another old bugger, Auden. He gives the boys lifts home on his motorbike and feels them up on the way home. The boys aren't traumatised by this, in fact they vie for his attention and are very fond of him. Hector teaches the boys to love poetry and classic literature and even teaches them French, much to the disgust of the Head teacher who is unable to quantify Hector's teaching and so brings in a much more educationally acceptable teacher Irwin (Matthew Newton) who knows how to get the boys to pass their final exams and get into the much coveted Oxford University.
Alan Bennett shows his scorn for this character by giving him a job on BBC2 after having him fall of Hector's bike because he 'leant the wrong way'.
The boys are the wittiest bunch and wryly observe the goings on at the school. They are resilient survivors who show us that teachers don't really understand them (with the possible exception of Hector). They are confident and accepting of one another.
The educational debate threaded through the play is particularly apt at the moment given the governmental concern for quantifying everything that teachers do and the possibility of performance pay for teachers who 'value add'. Irwin would get paid under this system as he could be percieved to have taught them how to pass the exams and get into Oxford; Hector would not get paid even though his is the spine that exists in the body of their knowledge and his teaching will continue to support their love of learning. Get that Julie Bishop!
This is a must see play if you are at all interested in education, learning (yes, they are separate things) and like a good laugh. The funniest scene was the French scene where the boys were using the subjunctive to wish for what all 18 year old boys wish for. The head teacher enters the room and the boys become wounded soldiers crying 'Aidez moi!' . They clearly do not need help as they frolic around the room, one trouserless. At several times the audience was convulsed by the wit threaded through the play and it is one that will stay with you for quite some time, much like Hector's teaching I suspect.

The Raw Shark Texts

2007-04-01T23:12:00.000-05:00

Well, I finished 'the Ringmaster's Daugher'. I really enjoyed it. The ending was not at all predictable. It really dealt well with the writer's world and a very unusual character who lived right on the edge of it and yet was eventually too valuable for his own good.

I was reading through the paper at the weekend looking for new books and I found this one. The Raw Shark Texts by Stephen Hall. WOW! I read it in two nights and absolutely loved it. It's a fantastic concept. Part Matrix, part Wizard of Oz, part Jasper Fforde and part Jaws. It was unpredictable and fascinating.
Eric wakes up and hasn't any clue where he is. What's worse, he doesn't have any idea who he is. He finds a series of letters and they lead him to a psychiatrist who he assumes is helping him. She tells him not to open any letters addressed to the 'first' Eric. Which he manages to do for an amazingly long time lulled into a false sense of security by his boring domesticity and daytime TV. Eventually he gets curious and opens some mail which leads him into a fantastic adventure to find the real him. He travels across Northern England looking for one Dr Trey Fidorous and finds Scout (or she finds him). They set off in search of Dr Fidorous pursued by a vicious Ludovicius. (well you'll have to read the book to find out what this is, I can't give it all away) Needless to say this was a masterpiece of modern fiction. I loved the way that it played with the idea that texts were ideas bigger than reality. Hmm maybe they're Platonic forms? anyway it's the cult book of the year.
Must read. Look out for the quirky text layout too.

Jostein Gaarder

2007-03-21T01:12:00.000-05:00

Ok, It's time I got down to business. I'm going to make a concerted effort to make more time for this. I'm reading a book by Jostein Gaarder (did I spell that right, the book's at home and I can't check it) about a boy who lives more in his imagination than in the real world (sounds like me!). He sells plots for stories as a living and is called 'the spider'. It looks very interesting and I've only just begun.

Well, I couldn't leave it at that. The book is called the Ringmaster's Daughter.Here's some background about Jostein Gaarder on wikipedia.
I also found a fabulous picture of him looking like an extra from Abba the Movie.

ZZZzzzzzz

2007-03-18T23:52:00.000-05:00

I'm thinking of changing my name to lazyblogger. I've been merrily working away and forgetting to think. This is a bad thing for a teacher. Actually, it's a bad thing for anyone. I've been reading about Salam Pax (again) in preparation for teaching it with year 12 students. He's very funny and bitchy, which is remarkable given what he was going through at the time.

Kingdom Come

2006-11-10T04:01:00.000-05:00

Here's a new book from JG Ballard. I've just started, so bear with me, I'm also reading some Linguistics stuff and History of the 20th C by Gilbert, oh, what it is to be cultured darling.
Anyway, the Ballard book, it has an interesting premise, a man's father dies in the modern equivalent of a house of worship, the shopping centre but there is something sinister about the centre and the way that it draws people in.....
Yet another dystopia, I do have a penchant for them, but only well written ones. So far so good in this case. Ballard has already got me interested even though I don't particularly like the protagonist. He's a former adman who is looking, not too hard mind you, for his father after his death. In his journey to find out who this man was he becomes fascinated by the world around Metroland. More on the J G website .

Stay tuned weaders.

More from the Underground

2006-11-09T02:24:00.000-05:00

Well, this is proving to be an interesting phenomena. After reading the book, I thought I'd do some research and have a look at what other people were saying. There's a great website run by the author here. This takes you to a page of reviews, the author's comments, a discussion board and a political justiifcation for the book (as if that wasn't obvious).
and then..... Mr Bolt decided to review the book for me. I was obviously very glad to have his view on the whole thing, given that he agrees so vociferously with the political sentiments of the author. Oh, hang on, he really hated it; quelle surprise! He's right of course, what do left-wing, chardonnay swilling, intelligentsia know about books? They always read the wrong ones. Take Orwell for instance, we shouldn't read him, he criticised his own society in a shameful way. tut tut.
Maybe we should all live in a world where we agree with our governments and don't nitpick over silly little things like human rights, and lies, and the moral abyss created by a government that allows other countries to lock up our citizens, without charges, because we may disagree with the political sentiments of the accused (or not accused, as the case may be). Oh dear, silly me, am I using too much hyperbole? Must be reading too much of the Herald Sun's darling of the right again.

Finished McGahan's newie

2006-11-07T01:59:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I did manage to finish this. Well, it had a few interesting twists, some plausible, some not so I'm afraid. the bad guys turn out to be our government after all, I won't give you the details, but hey, it is distopian, you'd guessed that already right?
Our hero, does not save the day, which is refreshing, but he is saved. I won't give away who saved him. Some of the plot events are a little far fetched, even for me, and I like fantasy novels. So it will be interesting to see what the lit crits make of this one.
All up it was worth reading, but maybe my expectations were too high; I loved White Earth and expected a similarly high level of prose and plot. I got the high level prose.

Choose a book....

2006-10-30T20:36:00.000-05:00

It's just so hard to choose books. The problem is that they're often so full of promise and you want to dive in and read all of them. I'm halfway through Andrew McGahan's new one Underground, a dystopian look at Australia in the 21st century. A Prime Minister not too dissimilar to our current one is in power and doing the usual political thing, lying to the electorate (in a spectacular way in this case) and generally looking after their own interests. If you think this is cynical, read it. There's an anti-heroine in the form of an almost albino muslim, who's a young Aussie intellectual disaffected with slack 21st century values and hypocrisy, so in the best of traditions, she joins a jihadist group, who not only want to overthrow Australia, but also 'old' Islam.
The action goes along at a fair pace and as she become embroiled with the main protagonist and narrator, the Prime Minister's brother, or was that bother? they join the Oz Underground.
It's a good read, if a little formulaic at times, with a few interesting, but already half sensed twists.
More when it's finished.

Melbourne's Macdaddy of Murder Brutalises the Bard

2006-08-18T18:13:00.000-05:00

If you think that this title is overdone - see the film.
Went to see the new Melbourne production of Macbeth on Monday night. I thought it might be interesting to see a Melbourne version. All I knew was that it was set in Melbourne's gangland and kept the Shakespearean dialogue. I thought that it started out ok. A bit brutal, but nothing outrageous. However... it did get worse.
The Cawdor pub in a Melbourne lane was amusing, The Cumberland Hotel, a bit try hard, but Dunsinane as a Melbourne home in a leafy suburb? Then I wasn't prepared for Gary Sweet as the king, or Mick Molloy as one of the body guards, but the best piece of miscasting was Kim Gyngell as Lady Macbeth's physician. Unfortunately, by that stage the audience howled.
Highlight of the film - Macduff and Cumberland come barging through the gates of Dunsinane in a logging truck - with Birnam Timber written on the side!
A close second - Lady Macbeth dying in a bath of blood with designer cuts on her wrists artfully exposing one nipple.
Eugh! moment - Macbeth has an orgy with the three nubile witches, one of whom keeps hissing, in his living room, after drinking their potion, which they've cooked up on his dining table. He licks his lips after the drink and says something like 'yum' and then proceeds to have sex with all three of them. When we first meet the witches they're in a cemetary hacking apart statues and spraying red paint into their eyes (and hissing). They're dressed in school uniforms!
Macbeth and his lovely wife are also heavy drug users. Our first memorable moment with her is a shot of her lying in a bath (she takes a lot of baths!) stoned out of her skull and nearly dead.
Well, it was interesting and original, though not necessarily in a useful way. some of the violence is too much, and yes, I do know that Macbeth is a violent play, but watching Mick Molloy garrotte Macduff's wife while groaning sexually was a bit too much.
Avoid this if you like the play, watch it if you like violent films with drugs and sex thrown in for good measure.

Middle East and Australia

2006-07-24T22:55:00.000-05:00

Has anyone been really concerned about the effect of the Hezbollah vs Israel whole thing's effect on the media in Australia? Andrew Bolt was whipping up nationalistic fervour in the paper last week by stating that Lebanese Australians with dual citizenship should not be entitled to Australian protection but that Lebanon should help them instead as they are there and not here. Yeah, like the Lebanese government is in a position to help its citizens in this dreadful attack on their land.
Even worse than this has been Alan Jones' tacit approval of the nutjobs that ring him up to pour yet more vitriolic abuse on 'foreigners' who wish our country to help them. n.b. 'foreigner' in this context only applies to people of middle eastern appearance.
Unfortunately not too many mainstream media outlets have been challenging these views. This would have been a perfect opportunity to promote some tolerance. Stay tuned for more in this worrying trend.

2006-07-24T22:53:00.000-05:00

Monday, July 24, 2006

High Noon and Alice is sleepy
Jeff Noon's fabulous Automated Alice has been taking up my time lately. This man knows how to use words. I'd read his 'Vurt" first a few years ago, which helped towards the end of this book but 'Alice' was very different to this.
The voice was very cleverly borrowed from Lewis Carroll but the wicked sense of homour behind it was something else. Alice is in Manchester in 1989 and chasing a parrot instead of a rabbit. the parrot asks her riddles which she has to solve to get back to her aunt's house in Victorian suburban Manchester. However, as with Carroll's world, nothing is as it seems. People are hybrids of humans and animals, and in some cases inanimate objects. Ever seen a half-man half-sink? Alice fails to be too shocked by these things, even landing in a basement full of venomous snakes doesn't rattle her(uggh!) I won't give the ending away, but it's a recommended read.

Ranter Bolt who'll he pick on next?

2006-07-12T03:04:00.000-05:00

Bolt's rant on Picasso surpasses even his own record for Hyperbole. His vitriolic abuse of the dead artist was based on the fact that an exhibition of his work is currently in Melbourne. He starts off by calling him a 'fascist bastard' and then a warmonger who did not even sign a petition to save a Jewish friend when his friend Cocteau was organising it. The fact that he painted 'Guernica' did not suffice to give him credibility as an antiwar artist!
I just don't get it, what does Bolt think that he is arguing about? what is it with his fear of anything left-leaning? Why is it that he feels it is his duty to vociferously rant about anything that comes close to being a critique of his arch-conservative world-view?
I am thankful for one thing. Without him, teaching people hyperbole would be impossible! He oozes drama when he gets going; it's worth reading him just as a really obvious example of exaggeration and repetition.
It's worth checking his facts too if you have the time and the inclination. Robert Manne is one who has taken the time to check his facts and he tries very hard to take Bolt to task. Bolt, however, won't play. See the article at Crikey.com's fabulous website. If you're going to put your views out there in such an outrageous way you should be prepared to argue the point when challenged.

You taught me language and my profit on't is I know how to curse

2006-06-19T00:19:00.000-05:00

There have been lots of discussions about 'The Tempest' lately around here. The quote by Caliban really got me thinking about the ways that languages interact and whether one's culture is so embedded in a language that it would be damaging to a whole group in society if they were to lose their native language. Australia has been named as one of the places where more languages are being lost due to the aggressive nature of English Language to dominate all that goes before it. A quick flick on the internet shows you how prevalent English is. Even languages that try hard to resist are not completely successful as their young people decide that English is much cooler. A good example of this is the French. They love their langauge, they gave us great thinkers such as Derrida and Foucault whose thinking was quintessentially French. they have tried to rid themselves of English notoriously through large government bodies designed to 'fix' their language. However, French textbooks today will contain phrases such as 'Le Weekend' and 'Le sandwich'. Kids say things are 'cool' and 'ok'. The Academie must be turning in it's grave! If the French can't beat this language colonialism what hope do Aboriginal Australian language groups.
Australians are the most assertively monolingual people in the world. Aboriginal languages are seen as hard to learn and difficult to pronounce. What hope have they got. Will be be living in an Australia that is happy to call a small country town 'Warragul' ( a Koorie word for dingo), but refuses to allow a voice to the many languages that people need to use to define their culture?

The Future is Here

2006-06-14T02:33:00.000-05:00

Well I finally finished reading Gibson's Neuromancer. Phew! The Wachowski brothers really owe him a debt. This was amazingly fast paced and exciting reading. The universe is an amazing place as he imagines it. I don't really know if I'd like to visit though. It's scary that a lot of this stuff was so prophetic. I found it hard to realise that it was written way back in the eighties and a lot of the concepts that he imagined have become reality. There was an article in today's paper about robots that the military are using to defuse bombs. The company design them for the military, although they hope to design 'Avatars' for domestic use.They are to be personal carers. This raises all sorts of philosophical issues for us. Hmmm, worth thinking about.

Gibson's Matrix

2006-06-12T02:49:00.000-05:00

Reading Gibson's Neuromancer I'm struck with how similar this is to The Matrix films. Yes, I came to this late in life. I never read much Sci-Fi, to give it a genre, except for Vurt, by Jeff Noon. I'd tried to have a look at Gibson's Pattern Recognition, but didn't have the patience (sigh). I'm enjoying Neuromancer though, this could mean a lot of time spent trying to find a hiding place so that I can finish it. I can recommend Vurt if you like to read cyberpunk/sci-fi stuff. It's about a post-apocalyptic Manchester and the lives and drugs etc. that go on there. I actually read it on a course in Northern English Literature at Uni. For someone who has grown up on traditional literature it's a great change. Anyway if anyone has read anything similar and they want to recommend something I'd be happy to add to my reading list. I've included a link with an interview of Gibson's new book. Here.