Book Drought

I feel like I have nothing meaty to read. There is... you know... stuff to read but it all feels like filler.

That was my briefly typed thought a few days ago. I have since acted on a recommendation and picked up Arundhati Roy's The God Of Small Things. It was wonderful but very intense and deeply sad and I need a break from it, so I am back to my book drought. I finished a bio about Princess Masako by Ben Hill the other day which left me quite sad and listless, so I really need an uplifting or at least a bit cheerful book to read.

And Dorian Gray is going nowhere fast.

Let Go And Breathe

Lessons In Letting Go by Corinne Grant is not supposed to be a horror book but it scared the shit out of me. I have a bit of a tendency to hoard and this book is all about how Grant came to deal her own object obsession. It was really, really scary (but funny at the same time) to read about someone who thinks like me about things only on a more extreme scale. She turned boxes of shit into a feature wall because she couldn't deal with sorting the stuff out and throwing away the junk. I've never been that bad, but I spent the weekend worrying about whether or not I culled enough in the house move, or if I will turn into one of those crazy people like my Great Aunt Dorothy who keep jars of "Pieces of string too short to use". Despite the scariness it was fun to read. A lot of books by comedians don't turn out so well but this was the perfect combo of funny cleverness and actual storyline. Read it! (But make sure you give it away after or you'll feel like a hoarder).

I Forgot About The Garden

In the craziness that is moving house, I have forgotten to keep Girl Booker up to date. I will be stretching my memory a little here but...

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton was a pleasant and engaging read. I feel that she has grown hugely as a writer since this volume was published, as The Distant Hours has so many more intricate layers and secret twists and turns. I am still looking forward to reading her first book, but am a little cautious about it, in case it is too much like a draft of the novel that it could be.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was reading a historical biography. Lady Worsley's Whim by Hallie Rubenhold is one of those books about the English aristocracy written by an American. I don't think a non-English author would write a better or worse book, but they definitely write a different one. The sense of distance is important in fleshing out certain details, and dwelling on particular facts. Rubenhold very skillfully turned facts and data into a story, without making it seem naff or fluffy. It was good to read some historically accurate stuff from Regency England, as I have read so much Regency fiction.

And an update on Dorian Gray: I am stalling badly.

Staring At The Walls

I've been reading Flock, a book by Lyn Hughes due to be published in March 2011. It is about a wallpaper designer, his wife, and their daughter who grows up to become a wallpaper and interiors historian. As a result of cheerful happenstance, today I wandered past a non-fiction title in my new local library: Wallpaper. It's a tiny little thing - the perfect companion piece to briefly dip into for some extra background colour. Both books are about wallpaper, and in an Australian context.

I am finding Flock really enjoyable; I'm racing through it, yet find I need moments of staring-into-space contemplation between chapters. It is a modern Sydney book in that the narrative feels spacious and breezy, reminding me of Indelible Ink (Fiona McGregor) and The Legacy (Kirsten Tranter). However, it isn't set in contemporary Sydney. It's mostly set in the Blue Mountains in the 1960s and the 1980s. Nevertheless, I have a real sense that I am reading about fragments of my life and my experiences.

I've just finished it and it is not about wallpaper at all. It is about love.

I loved it.

The Importance Of Being Wilde

The British toff fiction I mentioned the other day is The Picture Of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde). I had only read the first few pages and was so in love with it that I was already thinking ahead to the Evelyn Waugh's and D. H. Lawrence's that I planned to devour, just so that I could maintain the illusion of being in that world for a little longer.

Now, however, I am up to chapter 5 and I am struggling. To begin with I was dazzled by the viscosity of the sentences and phrases that pitched and rolled flowed through my mind as I read. But now I feel I am being bogged down with annoyingly clever, pithy quips and quotes, and the substance of the book seems to have disappeared.

I have never read it before but of course know the story's basic premise. It seems to be taking an awfully long time to get there. Nevertheless I will persevere because it is a Classic, because it is not too long (finger's crossed for the Anna Karenina currently on my kitchen table), and because Wilde wrote the book before reality TV was invented, so one should be forgiving of what seems to be slow paced.

Who knows when I'll finish it or what i'll think of it by the end... The huge tower of books by my bed is composed of a fair amount of meaty, Serious Literature: Andre Makine, Nabokov, Richard Yates, which will take a lot of time and brain power to get through. Despite that I picked up a couple of new books today and have started reading a historical biography. When I eventually manage to finish one complete book in the middle of this mess i will feel a true sense of achievement but it could take a while so don't hold your breath.

Miss Polly Had A Dolly

Just like Miss Polly’s Dolly, I have been sick, sick, sick. A good excuse for not updating the blog for a while but being stuck in bed with a hideous cold gave me more reading time, so now I have a lot of catching up to do.

There are certain things I am quite happy to read when stuck in bed not feeling well, that I am not so keen on at other times. I started reading The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory and got almost halfway before I realised that I completely hated it. I think I was starting to get better so I became more discerning. Now that I come to write about why I hated the book so much, I realise that it is for the same reason I hated a Peter Carey I was required to read about 10 years ago. Namely, a highly unlikeable character who is at the centre of a tale told in first person narrative. There is almost nothing more excruciating than having to wade through the thoughts and experiences of someone you know you would detest in real life.

The Distant Hours by Kate Morton (due for release in November) was a great book to read while not feeling 100% “the thing”. It was very easy on the brain but actually had a lot of stuff going on. Such a book is, I feel, deceptively hard to write as well as being the most fun to read. Without going into too much detail I’ll just say that it was well layered, full of fleshed out characters and very, very Gothic. I enjoyed it so much that I am now reading her previous novel The Forgotten Garden.

Always on the lookout for an easy read when I am overtired or not well, I recently reread a book that I first came across about 5 or so years ago. Although I used to reread constantly when I was a child and teenager, it isn’t something I tend to do these days. Mostly this is down to the fact that I am gripped with a panic that I will never, ever, ever be able to read even half the books in the world that I would like to; there isn’t nearly enough time!!! At times it feels as if every single reading choice is precious and must not be wasted. I feel guilty reading something for a second time.

This time I felt compelled. It was the first time in several years that I had reread something other than Georgette Heyer, which I consider “throwaway” reading anyway. This time the book once more by the bed was The Lost Art Of Keeping Secrets (Eva Rice). All the way through The Distant Hours I’d been reminiscing about this book. The atmosphere of “1950s: cakes and crumpets for tea” was conjured equally evocatively in both novels. Maybe it’s partially down to all the books about English boarding schools that I read as a child but there’s something about this vibe that I find completely comforting and utterly entrancing in equal measure.

I am still not totally up to date with all that I've read in the last 6 weeks or so but i am going to publish and be damned. Hopefully, I will manage to get around to a full round up in the coming weeks. Currently in the reading works is a newly rekindled fetish for early to mid 20th Century British toff fiction and what - for want of a better phrase - I am going to call pulp non-fiction. Details to follow!

Tinkers and Inkers

There is nothing better than reading a book you enjoy so much that you can’t stop talking or thinking about it. It doesn’t happen nearly enough but I just love it when I am in the middle of a book that I think about idly through the day; longing for the moment when I can snatch a few minutes to read a little more. Once I have finished a book like this I am often disappointed in whatever I happen to read next. Recently, I have been fortunate enough to read two excellent books back to back.

First I read Indelible Ink by Fiona McGregor, a Sydney author, followed by Tinkers by Paul Harding, which has just won the Pulitzer Prize. Being such different books, and especially enjoyable for markedly different reasons probably helped me to appreciate each fully because I wasn’t comparing them closely and finding more favour with one than the other. In a very broad way I would have to say that I liked Tinkers for style and Indelible Ink for content.

I felt completely immersed in the world of Indelible Ink; a Sydney that makes sense to me. McGregor captures the sense of being in Sydney like no other book I can think of. Her characters are so realistic that they both reminded me of specific people I know, and felt like rounded and complete individuals know to me as real people, not just two-dimensional sketches delivering dialogue and performing actions. While I was reading it I went to a couple of places mentioned in the book and very mildly freaked out; I almost expected the streets to have changed since I saw them last, as though the book had happened to them.

Another manifestation of McGregor’s brilliant ability to create such an “on point” sense of place is the contrast in feeling between the North Shore and Inner City suburbs that she brings to life. “Crossing the bridge” is a real and metaphorical boundary to breach for Sydneysiders and it is depicted here in a way that makes real the metaphorical; it is common for residents to complain about having to “cross the bridge” (no matter which side they are starting from) and McGregor manages to colour in the spaces between such a thin sounding complaint. North and South/East/West really are two different worlds. People think differently, the streets and houses look different, the atmosphere is – somehow – completely distinct.

The result of a story based around such lifelike characters playing out their dramas in a cityscape that so closely reflects my own home brought an immediacy to my reading of the novel. I’m not able to separate my knowledge and experience of Sydney from my appreciation of the book. I think that it would still be a great read, although perhaps not quite as gripping or all-consuming. So far I have only heard Sydney-centric feedback and I look forward to finding out how readers unfamiliar with life in Sydney respond to Indelible Ink.

Tinkers was a delight to read. I read the tiny little US edition (just before a local Australian release in standard small-format paperback). It really is impressive packaging design. Being slightly shorter, it is closer to a square shape and makes the book fell hugely covetable. Reading from it and holding it is like handling a secret little treasure.

“A literary meditation.” This was how I described the book to Tallboy and it seems to perfectly sum it up for me. It is quite easy and gentle to read but I found myself pausing to think about the images, ideas and themes explored. Harding very subtly slides them into the narrative almost unnoticeably, so that all of a sudden several ideas have slipped through that need to be mulled over. For such a short book, it took a long time to read – almost a week. But this wasn’t a struggled read; it was a very calm and pleasant perambulating read.

Once I had finished Tinkers, I wanted to read something equally literary and well written. I thought about Richard Yates as I have a volume of collected stories of which I have only read a fraction. I realised that I didn’t want the magic of Tinkers to fade so quickly, and decided to read something light and rather silly before tackling the Yates. It turned out to be a good tactic, and good old Georgette Heyer came to the rescue once again. Now I feel refreshed and ready for another meaty read.