2013 ~ My Literary Year That Was

At the end of each year I love going back and having a look at what books I enjoyed and what I did not.  So, without further ado - what I enjoyed:

Philip Roth

Phillip Roth was a new author for me this year, and I found that I was very comfortable with his writing style.  I read several of his novels, but hands down my favourite was The Plot Against America.  Narrated by a young Philip Roth, I completely identified with this nerdy little boy and his beloved stamp collection (yes, a little known fact about me is my love of stamps and my stamp collection!).  The novel is an alternate history which is seen through young Philip’s eyes as he tries to make sense of the affect of the isolationist Charles Lindburgh’s presidency on his local Jewish community and immediate family prior to America entering World War II.  I loved it.

Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon

I haven’t finished this one yet, but I’m ¾ of the way through it and it deserves a mention here.  I read somewhere that the best way to read a Pynchon novel is just to read the words and if some of it makes sense or connects in some way then good-ho, but if it doesn't just keep reading and try to enjoy his use of language.

 I totally disagree. 

This is my first Pynchon novel, but the best way for me to enjoy Mason & Dixon has been to read it in conjunction with essays and notes on the novel.  Pynchon just gives you so much in a few words; one sentence can hold a plethora of meaning, historical fact, science, humour and innuendo.  After reading just the first chapter I realised that there was something very special about the writing and I didn't intend missing a trick.  I only read three pages a night and then I read through associated notes so that I completely understand what I have read and can research some of the historical and scientific references.

This novel is also an alternate history, as related by the Rev. Wicks Cherrycoke who claims he 'was there'.  With a bit of embellishment for the sake of the children listening to the story we follow the friendship of Mason and Dixon as they complete the famous Mason-Dixon line in America.  There are a few adventures thrown in, and a hilarious segment about a chef and a love sick mechanical duck.  I have never read anything like this before, it’s been a total challenge.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

This was the year that I discovered this awesome poem. I don't really like poetry, although my favourite childhood book was A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson, but Coleridge has a gothic bent which really appeals to my tastes.  When I read The Rime of the Ancient Mariner it totally blew me away, and I have read it and listened to it many times since.

My Post on: Coleridge ~ The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

My Post on: Coleridge ~ The Raven

New Authors

Each year I always try to find new authors to read.  I did try several new ones this year but the stand outs for me were William Faulkner (I read The Sound and The Fury) and Philip Roth.  On the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die listing that I follow Don DeLillo has more books on it than that of any other author so I tried Falling Man (not on the list) and The Body Artist.  Unfortunately I found both of these novels profoundly boring, and the writing style reeked of self indulgence, so I'm very wary of trying another.

The Classic

Cervantes

My 'classic' this year was Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes.  After two or three false starts I finally got into this very funny novel and I marveled at how well the humour still worked today, although I did find the second part of the novel much easier to read than the first part.  Sancho was funnier and more endearing in the second part, and I loved his multitude of proverbs.  There were a couple of very good short stories within the novel (as well as some short stories that totally detracted from it!), one of which was the excellent The Impertinent Curiosity about two friends, Anselmo and Lothario, and an 'indecent proposal'.

 

What I Didn't Enjoy

Apart from Don Delillo, I also struggled with The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde and The Invisible Man by H G Wells.  Out of over 67 books read for the year that’s not a bad failure rate.  With all these novels it was the characterisations which let them down.  Jean Rhys dared to use characters from Jane Eyre and I could not correlate the two stories at all, Jasper Fforde’s characters were just plain silly compared to his other wacky novels, and the character of The Invisible Man was a nasty piece of work through and through and I didn't enjoy reading about him.  Another set of characters I didn't enjoy reading about were those scottish drug addicts in Trainspotting.

My Post on: Irvine Welsh ~ Trainspotting

But, I'm sorry to say (because my love of Stephen King goes way back), my most disappointing read for 2013 was Dr Sleep.  This novel was highly anticipated, especially on the back of the brilliant 11/22/63, but I have to say it – it was abysmal.  The writing style was amateur, the story just plain silly, and using Dan Torrance from the The Shining has now marred this novel for me.  If I mention that I will be shelving my copy between The Regulators (written under Richard Bachman) and Rose Madder, you will 'get' how bad I found it.

The Horror

My reading year would not be complete without a horror or two thrown in, but I'm finding it harder and harder to find a new horror to read, or should I rephrase that to 'a readable horror'.

I started the year with The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson but it's such a well known, and well worn, story that I didn't get the thrill I was looking for from it.  My next attempt was Harbour by John Ajvide Lindqvist, but I just didn't 'get it' and it wasn't scary at all. THEN, I picked up a small factual book called Zombies: A Field Guide to The Walking Dead by Dr Bob Curran and a couple of articles in it did unsettle me in the way I was looking for.  I also really enjoyed an old classic The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson which was years ahead of it's time and which completely thrilled me. Cypher the cult classic by Kathe Koja wasn't too bad, but I didn't connect with any of the characters and I also finally got round to reading some once elusive Shirley Jackson novels, and mostly she did not disappoint.

My Post on: Harbour

My Post on: A Field Guide to The Walking Dead

My Post on: The House on The Borderland

My Post on: Shirley Jackson

So, with 2013 winding down, I'm now full of anticipation to my reading year ahead.  I hope it's a good one!

2013 - My Year in Books

Maxine

November Club Meeting and a Dilemma

Our club meeting this month had a 'biographical' flavour to it thanks to a very interesting talk by Stephany Steggall.

Stephany is the author of several published biographies including one based on a member of her own family titled 'Hanbury' One of the Evans Bushmen, and is a recipient of the Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship Award.

Based in Toowoomba, Stephany's research has recently taken her and her sister Helen (proud C&C club member) all the way to beautiful Ireland where the story behind well known Australian author Thomas Kenneally is waiting to be told.

What impressed us most about the art of writing a biography is the pain staking process of meticulous research.  Stephany presented us with a working draft of the opening chapter to her book on Kenneally and, once we had read it, she explained what research had been involved paragraph by paragraph.  It was a very interesting overview.  I should think that we have all read and enjoyed something by Kenneally, and given his success this is certainly a book that is well overdue and I for one am looking forward to the finished product.

It was a lovely evening over all spent out on Helen's deck under her beautiful Poinciana tree, talking about books and writing, and enjoying the various dishes for which we are fast becoming well known for at these home-based meetings.... I am seriously considering changing our name to Caffeine and Chapters Social & Culinary Book Club?!

Our read leading up to this meeting was a sci fi novel and it was good to see that everyone gave this genre a go and hopefully, even though it took them out of their comfort zone, they found some merit in a well written sci fi.

This was our last meeting for the year and now I have a dilemma as to where we will continue to hold our meetings.  We like the cafe atmosphere but our current haunt has decided to employ a singer for some bizarre reason and it has become impossible to even hold a conversation let alone discuss books around the table. Do these cafe's not realise that people would prefer to talk rather than shout over their meals?  It's totally beyond me.  

The Helensvale Library has recently opened and has rooms for hire - but then you need to consider the bond, and the commitment to the hourly rate which would be invoiced to me - book clubs are notorious for having 12 members turn up one month and 5 the next...... meeting at members houses is an option and we do enjoy that now again but it's hard to accept new members when you are holding meetings in your own home.  Where do you and your Book Club meet?  I would be interested in your thoughts........

  

Maxine

Trainspotting ~ Irvine Welsh

Never before have I resented being immersed in the world of a novel! I did not look forward to one minute spent with the characters in Trainspotting – yet I could not put it down.

Written in the Scottish vernacular I initially found it very difficult to read, yet I soon realised that this was the only way this book could have been written.  I soon got into the swing of it though, and when I wasn't reading it I could still hear the characters in my head, and even found myself thinking in the dialect! 

Narrated by way of various short stories by the various characters, I wasn't always sure who I was reading about.  The foul language is very in your face, and the ‘Junkie Dilemma’s’ at times were excruciatingly disgusting.  The most confronting story for me was ‘Bad Blood’.  It is a revenge story, where one of the characters takes revenge on another character who is responsible for his HIV diagnosis. I found it deeply disturbing and even when the twist was revealed at the end, it had gone too far to redeem itself for me.

I can quite honestly say that I did not like this novel at all, but it is the quality of the writing itself that keeps you reading.  It’s all so very real, and it takes a talented writer to make it so. 

If you saw the movie version and liked it, it won’t guarantee that you will like the novel.  The movie shows some humanity and humour in the characters, and although there is plenty of black humour in this novel, I could barely find a hint of humanity in it.  A junkie is a junkie, nothing else matters to them except for the next hit.

What a waste of a life.

Maxine

American Pastoral ~ Philip Roth

THIS IS an amazing novel! The emotional impact of it hit me really hard.

Seymour ‘Swede’ Levov is a non practicising Jew who seemed to have it all.  He was the all American boy with blonde good looks, athletic, kind and heir to the successful family glove manufacturing business.  He was also the childhood hero of reporter Nathan Zuckerman who was friends with the ‘Swede’s’ younger brother Jerry at school.  The promise of a good life was all apparent during their school days, and when Zuckerman meets up with him after many years, he can’t believe how good the ‘Swede’ still looks; he has an attractive wife, three smart sons and his calm exterior suggests a life with no worries.  So, when Zuckerman bumps into Jerry at their school re-union soon after, he is stunned to learn that the ‘Swede’ has died from metastasised prostate cancer and that he had had a first wife (the former Miss New Jersey no less) and a daughter whom he had never mentioned at their meeting.  Jerry is not surprised that he didn’t talk about them, and Zuckerman is compelled to delve into the history of this man; piecing together what he can from Jerry, his own knowledge of him from their school days and newspaper clippings.  What he finds is that beneath the perfect exterior was a man who had been emotionally ripped apart.

The backdrop of the novel is set during the Newark riots, the Vietnam War and Watergate.  It was a very tumultuous period that had a profound impact on the Levov family.  the ‘Swede’s’ teenage daughter Meredith, swept up in the anti Vietnam war campaign, brings her protests back to her home town of Old Rimrock by blowing up the local post office, killing one man.  Merry goes on the run and when the ‘Swede’ meets his daughter again she is living in squalor under an assumed name and is virtually unrecognisable.  She had been raped many times whilst in hiding, and the plump stuttering girl is replaced by a skeletal abomination who now follows an obscure religion which denounces washing and eating – for fear of killing living things.  Despite this, she admits that whilst on the run she made (and planted) more bombs resulting in the deaths of a further three people.

The ‘Swede’s’ life is deconstructed in this novel in an attempt to find that point in time in which he began to lose his daughter.  To try and pinpoint that moment when something he did caused her to take a wrong turn in life.  The need to know who influenced this upper middle class girl, because it is inconceivable that she could have made those decisions on her own when she had been given everything in life.

This novel is so powerful, yet beautifully written.  The scenes with the ‘Swede’ and his father discussing gloves, and the manufacture of gloves, were wonderful and the scenes where the ‘Swede’ thinks about key moments with Meredith are disturbing but identifiable.   Here is a man who has it all, and when something threatens to rock his perfect boat he is unable to deal with it.  He is unable to make the right decisions and take a stand, and when he decides to tell all to Nathan Zuckerman at their last meeting, he finds that he is unable to let go of that perfect exterior because he is the ‘Swede’.  Here is a man in turmoil, wracked with cancer, and yet all he can tell Zuckerman is how great his life is and how smart his boys are.

Philip Roth is a recent discovery for me.  I love the ‘Jewishness’ of his writing, and at the right moments he is exceedingly funny.  Recently he has shocked me with Sabbath’s Theatre, The Breast and The Humbling, tickled my funny bone with Portnoy’s Complaint and The Great American Novel and I truly felt the anxiety of the protagonist in Nemesis during a polio epidemic.  But, American Pastoral will stand out for me as being a novel with so much raw emotion that I felt completely drained by the time I finished it.

Maxine

Revenge is Sweet Indeed!

I've just read the poem The Raven.  Not the one by Edgar Allen Poe but the one by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and I really liked its irony so I thought I would share it here:

The Raven

A Christmas Tale, told by a school-boy to his little brothers and sisters.

Underneath a huge oak tree

There was of swine a huge company,

That grunted as they crunched the mast:

For that was ripe, and fell full fast.

Then they trotted away, for the wind grew high:

One acorn they left, and no more might you spy.

Next came a Raven, that liked not such folly:

He belonged, they did say, to the witch Melancholy!

Blacker was he than blackest jet,

Flew low in the rain, and his feathers not wet.

He picked up the acorn and buried it straight

By the side of a river both deep and great.

Where then did the Raven go?

He went high and low,

Over hill, over dale, did the black Raven go.

Many Autumns, many Springs

Travelled he with wandering wings:

Many Summers, many Winters --

I can't tell half his adventures.

At length he came back, and with him a She,

And the acorn was grown to a tall oak tree.

They built them a nest in the topmost bough,

And young ones they had, and were happy enow.

But soon came a woodman in leathern guise,

His brow, like a pent-house, hung over his eyes.

He'd an axe in his hand, not a word he spoke,

But with many a hem! and a sturdy stroke,

At length he brought down the poor Raven's own oak.

His young ones were killed; for they could not depart,

And their mother did die of a broken heart.

The boughs from the trunk the Woodman did sever;

And they floated it down on the course of the river.

They sawed it in planks, and its bark they did strip,

And with this tree and others they made a good ship.

The ship, it was launched; but in sight of the land

Such a storm there did rise as no ship could withstand.

It bulged on a rock, and the waves rush'd in fast:

The old Raven flew round and round, and cawed to the blast.

He heard the last shriek of the perishing souls --

See! see! o'er the topmast the mad water rolls!

Right glad was the Raven, and off he went fleet,

And Death riding home on a cloud he did meet,

And he thank'd him again and again for this treat:

They had taken his all; and REVENGE WAS SWEET!

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

1791 

Until next time J

Maxine

An Outdated Vision of the Future

I guess you would call Oryx & Crake a Post Apocalyptic novel (a genre I really enjoy) but having just read it, it is my least favourite  in this genre.  

The message of this novel are the questions “how much is too much?” and “how far is too far?” with regards to genetic engineering gone mad.  But, just Google ‘genetic engineering gone mad’ and you will read something far more alarming than any science fiction novelist can dream up – glow in the dark cats, transgender goats, even goats crossed with spiders (and that is just what we are being told about!).  Not to mention the disturbing facts on genetically modified soy and corn.  Time to invest in green houses folks and grow your own fruit and veggies!

The story of Oryx & Crake is told in flash back by post-plague survivor Jimmy AKA Snowman.  Crake was Jimmy’s best friend and Oryx, a mysterious Asian girl with a disturbing past, was the love of Jimmy’s life.  Crake is your standard issue megalomaniac and Oryx is his unwitting tool in his master plan.  Jimmy finds himself the lone survivor of a plague engineered by Crake, and guardian of the ‘Crakers’, Crake’s many coloured Adam and Eve’s genetically engineered to replace humans.

So, what did I not like about this novel?  Well, I guess I felt that it had all been done before, and a lot better.  The warnings and alarm bells have been ringing since before this novel was written, and I didn’t like its outdated vision of the future.  It read like a 1960’s image of the future – all lurid colours, bubble furniture and satirical product names.  In a word – gimmicky.

There were some interesting ideas, but it doesn't compare with say The Road or I Am Legend.

Maxine

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I’m not much of a poetry reader but when I came across Richard Burton reading Coledridge I couldn’t resist picking it up as I loved listening to Richard Burton as ‘first voice’ in Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood.  I didn’t know much about Coleridge at all though I first came across a few lines from The Knight’s Tomb as a chapter heading in Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe ( I was really taken by them), and I’d heard of Kubla Khan via one of my favourite Aussie movies Sanctum.   But, this certainly did not prepare me for the awesome The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and Richard Burton’s eerie recitation makes it a double treat.  I listened to it over and over again.

The poem/ballad was written between 1797 and 1798, and it opens on a wedding guest who is making his way to a wedding feast.  He is stopped by an aging sailor who proceeds to tell him of an ill fated voyage of which he was the only survivor.  At first, the guest is annoyed at being delayed, but as the story unfolds, he becomes more and more in awe of the tale……....

The mariner’s journey began well enough but his ship is blown off course and ends up in the frozen wastes of Antarctica.

          And through the drifts the snowy clifts

          Did send a dismal sheen:

          Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken –

          The ice was all between

Through the mist and fog, an Albatross flies onto the ship and the sailors feed the bird believing that it has improved their fortunes when they are able to steer out of the ice and the wind being in their favour.

The look on the mariner’s face as he is telling this takes on a look of horror, and the wedding guest is aghast –

“God save thee, ancient Mariner!

From the fiends, that plague thee thus!

Why look’st thou so?” – with my cross-bow

I shot the ALBATROSS.

(I was chilled at those words.)

The horror of what the mariner has done begins to manifest itself.  

And I had done an hellish thing,

And it would work ’em woe:

For all averred, I had killed the bird

That made the breeze to blow.

The ship finds itself in a still sea, with no wind and a red hot sun beating down day after day.  The crew begins to run out of water –

Water, water, everywhere

Nor any drop to drink

- and as the sailors struggle on they know who they need to blame for their misfortunes –

Ah! Well a-day! What evil looks

Had I from old and young!

Instead of the cross, the Albatross

About my neck was hung.

(What a powerful verse!)

On the horizon a phantom ship is spotted, and as it nears the crew wonder if they can see ‘Death’ in female guise on her deck, as one by one they expire from the heat and thirst.

The souls did from their bodies fly, -

They fled to bliss or woe!

And every soul, it passed me by

Like the whiz of my cross-bow!

The wedding guest becomes afraid, thinking that he is in the presence of a ghoul, but the mariner assures him that he did not die with the men.  Instead he found himself totally alone on the ocean, a tortured soul, with only the bodies of the dead crew for company………………. 

No matter the heat and lack of water, the mariner cannot die. Watching the playful sea snakes one day, and feeling awed by their beauty, the mariner is moved to prayer.  It is then that he is freed from the weight of the Albatross from around his neck.  Released from his burden, the mariner slumps into a refreshing sleep, and when he awakes he finds that it has been raining and that the water buckets are full.  Although he can hear the wind, he can’t feel it, yet the ship has begun to move.  He realises something supernatural is afoot when the dead sailors begin to rise.

          They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,

          Nor spake, nor moved their eyes;

          It had been strange, even in a dream

          To have seen those dead men rise

The dead sailors start to work the ropes, and steer the vessel, yet still no breeze reaches them.  The mariner tells the wedding guest –

We were a ghastly crew

and the wedding guest is terrified and he tells the mariner that he is frightened of him.  The mariner sets his mind at rest by telling him that they were in fact –

A troop of spirits blest

The ship sails on for a while but comes to a stop.  The sun beats down upon the crew, and suddenly the ship moves again, the sudden action causes the mariner to fall in a swoon.  He comes to at the sound of two spirit like voices –

“Is it he?” Quoth one, “Is this the man?

By him who died on cross,

With his cruel bow he laid full low,

The harmless Albatross”

A softer voice says –

“The man hath penance done

And penance more will do.”

When the mariner awakes from his swoon, the ship is moving in more favourable weather, but he finds the dead sailors are standing together fixing their stony eyes on him.  He realises that he will never be forgiven for shooting the Albatross.  Eventually the ship reaches the harbour from where they had first departed and as the dead lay down upon the deck the mariner sees seraphs rising from their bodies up towards ‘heaven’.

A rowing boat comes from the harbour, steered by a pilot accompanied by his boy and a religious hermit, and they are amazed at the dilapidated state of the ship.  As they pull up alongside she suddenly breaks apart and sinks in raging waters.  They see the mariner’s body floating by and they pull him into the boat.  The pilot suddenly has a fit, his boy goes crazy thinking the mariner is the devil, and the hermit begins feverishly praying.

Safely back on land the hermit asks the mariner –

                                             “What manner of man art thou!”

At this instance the mariner feels compelled to tell his tale.  Since that time, on a sudden, the mariner feels a strong compulsion to tell his story again. And, so, the wedding guest is only one in a long line of listeners.  The mariner leaves him with the following parting advice –

He prayeth best, who loveth best

All things both great and small;

For the dear God who loveth us

He made and loveth all.

The wedding guest no longer feels the desire to join in the wedding feast, and –

A sadder and a wiser man

He rose the morrow morn.

What an amazing poem!

I just HAD to share it J

Maxine

PS you can read the full poem here The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and enjoy the beautifully eerie illustrations by Gustav Dore who also illustrated Edgar Allan Poe’s work.