On a recent trip to England, I noticed some very innovative approaches to categorisation in bookshops. That's not new, of course. My friend Michael, when he ran Norton Street Bookshop, used to have a section called Economics and Astrology, because in his opinion they were equally rigorous in analysis and predicting future outcomes! This section from Forbidden Planet, in Shaftsbury Avenue, is called Paranormal Romance.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
The opposite of Dewey
On a recent trip to England, I noticed some very innovative approaches to categorisation in bookshops. That's not new, of course. My friend Michael, when he ran Norton Street Bookshop, used to have a section called Economics and Astrology, because in his opinion they were equally rigorous in analysis and predicting future outcomes! This section from Forbidden Planet, in Shaftsbury Avenue, is called Paranormal Romance.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Walking the Camino: a modern pilgrimage to Santiago by Tony Kevin
Tony Kevin is the author of A Certain Maritime Incident: the sinking of the SIEV X, which exposed the tragedy of the drowning of 353 people when their boat sank in the Indian Ocean on its way from Indonesia to Australia. Those people were Iraqui Shia Muslim refugees, mostly women and children, and there is no doubt that the Howard government’s border protection policies were implicated in their deaths. Tony Kevin worked long and hard to ensure that these people’s lives were not written-off as collateral damage the hysteria of the War on Terror.
Subsequently, Tony Kevin suffered a deep personal crisis of realisation when he understood that the incident was part of; “…a disturbing collapse in previously assumed public standards of truth in government and respect for human rights of all in the community.” So, in his own words, he set off, as a 63-year-old, overweight, retired man lugging a sixteen-kilo pack 1400 kilometres across Spain.
This book wouldn’t be an obvious choice for me, but I very much enjoyed reading it, for two reasons. Firstly, the ruminations on a very complex, multicultural, multi-faith Spanish history which prompts the gentle reestablishment of belief in the inherent possibilities of people of all kinds living side-by-side in harmony. And secondly, the travelogue of his epic journey, with its rugged terrain, physical challenges and chance encounters appeals to the wanderlust in me.
Tony Kevin is a deeply religious man, which made this pilgrimage significant to him in a way that it would not for me. And only occasionally did Tony Kevin’s essential conservatism disturb me. And it’s not hidden. He confesses that he is an old-fashioned family man, maybe even a bit patriarchal. Doh! The responsibility seems to be left with the reader to occasionally remember his obviously long-suffering wife, left back in Canberra with small children to care for, while he wanders off to salve his soul. His obvious admiration for the toughness of rural Spaniards shows little understanding of the suffering of women in poor, rural communities. And when he waxes lyrical, in an aside, about the wonders of those areas of Annapurna where there are no cars and everything is carried in by porters, I have to object (I’ve been there myself twice in the last two years and can only be deeply distressed at the sight of men and women carrying 50 kilo’s of dried noodles, lentils and tinned tuna up the side of mountains day after back-breaking day, for the equivalent of $10 a day) Get real, Tony – while the rural way of life has many, many merits, when accompanied by a desire for modern product consumption it spells misery for the poor in general and women in particular.
But that was all a little like having a nagging blister on my heel while staring up at the Himalayas. In the end, the beauty of the Spanish terrain, the wonderful descriptions of local people and fellow walkers, and the gradual restoration of Tony Kevin’s belief in human goodness makes this a terrific read for the armchair traveller.
Subsequently, Tony Kevin suffered a deep personal crisis of realisation when he understood that the incident was part of; “…a disturbing collapse in previously assumed public standards of truth in government and respect for human rights of all in the community.” So, in his own words, he set off, as a 63-year-old, overweight, retired man lugging a sixteen-kilo pack 1400 kilometres across Spain.
This book wouldn’t be an obvious choice for me, but I very much enjoyed reading it, for two reasons. Firstly, the ruminations on a very complex, multicultural, multi-faith Spanish history which prompts the gentle reestablishment of belief in the inherent possibilities of people of all kinds living side-by-side in harmony. And secondly, the travelogue of his epic journey, with its rugged terrain, physical challenges and chance encounters appeals to the wanderlust in me.
Tony Kevin is a deeply religious man, which made this pilgrimage significant to him in a way that it would not for me. And only occasionally did Tony Kevin’s essential conservatism disturb me. And it’s not hidden. He confesses that he is an old-fashioned family man, maybe even a bit patriarchal. Doh! The responsibility seems to be left with the reader to occasionally remember his obviously long-suffering wife, left back in Canberra with small children to care for, while he wanders off to salve his soul. His obvious admiration for the toughness of rural Spaniards shows little understanding of the suffering of women in poor, rural communities. And when he waxes lyrical, in an aside, about the wonders of those areas of Annapurna where there are no cars and everything is carried in by porters, I have to object (I’ve been there myself twice in the last two years and can only be deeply distressed at the sight of men and women carrying 50 kilo’s of dried noodles, lentils and tinned tuna up the side of mountains day after back-breaking day, for the equivalent of $10 a day) Get real, Tony – while the rural way of life has many, many merits, when accompanied by a desire for modern product consumption it spells misery for the poor in general and women in particular.
But that was all a little like having a nagging blister on my heel while staring up at the Himalayas. In the end, the beauty of the Spanish terrain, the wonderful descriptions of local people and fellow walkers, and the gradual restoration of Tony Kevin’s belief in human goodness makes this a terrific read for the armchair traveller.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
The Lost Dog by Michelle de Kretser
Regular readers of this blog will be well aware of my (often fruitless – no pun intended) search for books that explore vegetarianism. The Lost Dog doesn’t give details about the foods the characters choose to eat, but it does advance a very definite humane and positive attitude to animals.
Importantly, there’s the lost dog himself. The book is structured into ten chapters charting the ten days Tom spends looking for his canine companion. He searches and worries and loses heart and searches again in a way which reinforces the significance of the dog in his otherwise messy life. In desperation, Tom calls his estranged ex-wife to confess that he has lost the dog. He ponders on the efficacy of telling his mother. But it takes until page 287 of this 342 page novel for de Kretser to write; “ …to love even one animal boundlessly might make it unthinkable to eat any.” She goes on; “When eating out with friends, Tom had noticed the fashion for naming the animal that had supplied a dish. I’ll have the cow. Have you tried the minced pig? An ironic flaunting was at work: I know very well that this food on my plate was once a sentient creature, and that doesn’t bother me. Euphemisms are symptomatic of shame; to avoid them was to deny shame, deflecting it with cool.” (That last part, thinking that meat-eaters are ashamed, is almost Pollyanna-ish of her in my opinion, but then I am in a state of continuous incredulity at the persistence of meat-eating in otherwise thoughtful egalitarian people.)
de Kretser creates Melbourne with great affection, almost nostalgia. She describes the neon signs, graffiti, railway lines, old warehouses ripe for developers with a sense of gloom for what is being forfeited to an increasingly profit-driven world. Her characters see the value, the quirkiness and novelty of recycling. The way they utilise other people’s junk is a critique of our wasteful society. Another issue close to my heart.
What else is the novel about? Art and creativity feature large. Nelly, Tom’s (oblique) love interest, paints pictures and then takes photographs of them, destroys the original painting, and shows the photographs. There’s something here about authenticity, about the reproduced contemporary life.
The writing is beautiful. In an interview on Radio National’s Book Show Robert Dessaix twitters on as only he can about the exceptional way she uses language – and for once I agree with him. Rather than say something is like another thing, for example, de Kretser describes a particularly uptight man as; “an umbrella tightly furled.” You know she is referring to that event known as “9/11” when she writes, almost casually; “On the September night when he stood in a bar with Nelly watching towers sink to their knees…” de Kretser has a way of capturing the quintessential in the everyday.
Quibbles? Well, there is a mystery in the book involving the disappearance of Nelly’s husband, which de Kretser appears to explore almost nonchalantly. I wonder if she thought she needed to include something more plot driven, but in the end it didn’t sustain her interest? The husband himself was a highly unlikely partner for Nelly, unless the point was that she changed greatly after his departure, but that’s never made clear. And, only occasionally, that wonderfully lyrical descriptive talent can come across as too clever by half.
But that’s all very minor. The Lost Dog is a great book by a writer who is growing stronger with each novel.
Importantly, there’s the lost dog himself. The book is structured into ten chapters charting the ten days Tom spends looking for his canine companion. He searches and worries and loses heart and searches again in a way which reinforces the significance of the dog in his otherwise messy life. In desperation, Tom calls his estranged ex-wife to confess that he has lost the dog. He ponders on the efficacy of telling his mother. But it takes until page 287 of this 342 page novel for de Kretser to write; “ …to love even one animal boundlessly might make it unthinkable to eat any.” She goes on; “When eating out with friends, Tom had noticed the fashion for naming the animal that had supplied a dish. I’ll have the cow. Have you tried the minced pig? An ironic flaunting was at work: I know very well that this food on my plate was once a sentient creature, and that doesn’t bother me. Euphemisms are symptomatic of shame; to avoid them was to deny shame, deflecting it with cool.” (That last part, thinking that meat-eaters are ashamed, is almost Pollyanna-ish of her in my opinion, but then I am in a state of continuous incredulity at the persistence of meat-eating in otherwise thoughtful egalitarian people.)
de Kretser creates Melbourne with great affection, almost nostalgia. She describes the neon signs, graffiti, railway lines, old warehouses ripe for developers with a sense of gloom for what is being forfeited to an increasingly profit-driven world. Her characters see the value, the quirkiness and novelty of recycling. The way they utilise other people’s junk is a critique of our wasteful society. Another issue close to my heart.
What else is the novel about? Art and creativity feature large. Nelly, Tom’s (oblique) love interest, paints pictures and then takes photographs of them, destroys the original painting, and shows the photographs. There’s something here about authenticity, about the reproduced contemporary life.
The writing is beautiful. In an interview on Radio National’s Book Show Robert Dessaix twitters on as only he can about the exceptional way she uses language – and for once I agree with him. Rather than say something is like another thing, for example, de Kretser describes a particularly uptight man as; “an umbrella tightly furled.” You know she is referring to that event known as “9/11” when she writes, almost casually; “On the September night when he stood in a bar with Nelly watching towers sink to their knees…” de Kretser has a way of capturing the quintessential in the everyday.
Quibbles? Well, there is a mystery in the book involving the disappearance of Nelly’s husband, which de Kretser appears to explore almost nonchalantly. I wonder if she thought she needed to include something more plot driven, but in the end it didn’t sustain her interest? The husband himself was a highly unlikely partner for Nelly, unless the point was that she changed greatly after his departure, but that’s never made clear. And, only occasionally, that wonderfully lyrical descriptive talent can come across as too clever by half.
But that’s all very minor. The Lost Dog is a great book by a writer who is growing stronger with each novel.
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