the reading log (book review) blog: the novel and novella, fiction and non-fiction.

The Facts @ 23 December 2008

cocko — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 10:57:17 +0000

Here are the facts after 102 works:

Right click and save this link for the full readinglist231208.

Richard Flanagan - Wanting (2008)

cocko — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 10:34:34 +0000

NUMBER: 102

Genre:Fiction; Origin: Australia; Pages: 250

Satisfaction rating: 10.0

OVERVIEW:

A young Aboriginal girl, Mathinna, is adopted by the most celebrated explorer of the age, Sir John Franklin, and his wife, Lady Jane, to show that the savage can be civilised. When Sir John disappears while looking for the fabled Northwest Passage, Lady Jane turns to the great novelist Charles Dickens for help. Wanting is a meditation on love, loss and the way life is finally determined never by reason, but only ever by wanting.

MATTHEW’S COMMENTS:

To come

FURTHER REFERENCES:

How important is objectivity, ethics and accuracy in historical fiction?

cocko — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 22:36:08 +0000

Recently I was critical of the semi-historical approach used in Kate Grenville’s latest novel The Lieutenant. However, a couple more books down the track I’m reading Richard Flanagan’s Wanting, another work of fiction based on historical fact. In many ways I think the aspects of The Lieutenant that I think failed are the most rewarding elements of Wanting. I’ll elaborate on this in my comments on Flanagan’s book when I finishing it.

However, my subjectivity of individual books aside, this raises are much more important issue about writers who dabble in historical fiction. A question of objectivity, ethics and accuracy. Grenville and Flanagan are primarily writing for an adult audience, but what of the writers who write for a youth readership. Those in the midst of their education?

Nadia Wheatley does just this. I have never read her books but this interview with her readers she touches on the very heart of the issue. Check it out.

Life: Flanagan

cocko — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 22:10:06 +0000

‘We have in our lives only a few moments,’ said Dickens, but then he stopped. Words for him were songs, a performance. But he was not singing or performing now. ‘A moment of joy and wonder with another. Some might say beauty or transcendence.’ He swallowed. He had been talking about Dora, but now he realised it was about something else. ‘Or all those things. Then you reach an age, Miss Tenan, and you realise that moment, was your life. That those moments are all, and that they are everything. And yet we persist in thinking that such moments will only have worth if we can make them go on forever. We should live for moments, yet we are so fraught with pursuing everything else, with the future, with the anchors that pull us down, so busy that we sometimes don’t even see the moments for what they are. We leave a sick child in order to make a speech.’

Richard Flanagan, Wanting - novelist and environmentalist (1961-)

Carboni Raffaello - The Eureka Stockade (1855)

cocko — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 22:37:53 +0000

NUMBER: 101

Genre: Non-fiction; Origin: Italy; Pages: 200

Satisfaction rating: 3.0

OVERVIEW:

Relating the facts behind the myth, this eyewitness account tells the vivid and accurate story of the horrific 1854 Eureka Stockade, a revolt against police and soldiers involving 120 miners from the Ballart gold mines in Australia that left 35 dead and a legacy of courage and freedom that has shaped ideas of Australian nationhood ever since.

MATTHEW’S COMMENTS:

Every so often you come across a book that you wished you liked so much more than you did. I had this feeling with the novel I read last, James Joyce’s Ulysses, and again with the one that followed, Raffaello’s The Eureka Stockade.

I enjoy reading Australian history, albeit often told through the prism of fiction. However, on this occasion I was drawn to Raffaello’s work as it is the only first-hand written account of the goldminer’s uprising at Ballarat in 1854. An event of mythical proportions in which workers rose against government oppressors in a bloody battle, often coined as the birth of democracy in this country.

It gets off to a great start. In Raffaello’s opening statement he apologises for a poor command of English. But far from a criticism, I think the Italian immigrant is too hard on himself, it is his passionate prose that I found to be one of the novel’s best features. Well, I say that within reason, as he displays a real gift for a turn of phrase, yet the overall structure is fractured and hard to follow.

Despite it’s flaws in narrative, there is no doubt that this is a vital work for any historian of the period. It includes many invaluable insights to how the diggers united, the charter that underpinned their union and the events that led to the riot and its aftermath (including the trial of Raffaello for treason). It also contains many transcriptions of letters and newspaper articles collected by Raffaello.

My major criticism comes from Raffaello’s inability to articulate descriptions of some people and events which would go a long way to helping the reader build a better understanding of the major characters. This has little to do with language but more to do with his seemingly intense Christian sensibilities. He often claims that he wants to ’spare’ the good reader the sordid details. Who knows if the book would have ever been published is the sordid details were included, probably not, but my reasoning behind reading non-fiction is that I do get to hear all the sordid details.

FURTHER REFERENCES:

Honesty: Raffaello

cocko — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 21:53:12 +0000

I undertake to do what an honest man should do, let it thunder or rain.

Carboni Raffaello, The Eureka Stockade - poet and novelist (1817–85)

James Joyce - Ulysses (1922)

cocko — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 09:31:09 +0000

NUMBER: 100

Genre: Fiction; Origin: Ireland; Pages: 950

Satisfaction rating: 5.0

OVERVIEW:

An account of several lower class citizens of Dublin. Bound by Leopold Bloom, Stephen Dedalus and Molly Bloom the novel describes their activities and thoughts from 8am June 16 to 3am June 17 1904.

MATTHEW’S COMMENTS:

So here we are, number 100 in my reading log of the last three years. For such a milestone I needed a novel with few rivals. I chose Ulysses, referred to by many as the greatest work of the 20th century. For the last couple of months I’ve been eager to pull it off the shelf. Despite the anticipation, and subsequent achievement of reaching the goal, it has taken me a further two weeks after putting the book down to collect my thoughts.

I wasn’t, and in fact I’m still not, really sure where to start. In writing this, two loads are bearing down on me, firstly, the need for some recovery time from which to reflect, and secondly, the acknowledgment that we are talking about a book held in such high regard by so many, its legacy looms large. But after worrying about the selection of my words I’ve realised that I’m just a fence sitter.

The analogy I’ve been using to describe reading the book is that of a marathon runner who has only ever trained for a sprint. This is not a comment on the length of the work, but rather Joyce’s complex narrative of interweaving characters, disparate locations, frenetic structure and challenging language. In hindsight I wasn’t prepared. I’ve read some of his contemporaries (Beckett, Woolf, etc) but the onslaught of Joyce’s is another league altogether.

Yes, this is a crudely funny story centered around the often pathetic adventures of Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus. But their relationship is only part of the journey. Broken into 18 episode over the course of a single day, Joyce takes us on a rollercoaster of craft. From perplexing passages tapping into a stream of consciousness to finely crafted debates of nationalism, Joyce certainly offers much to the fanatic and academic. I am neither. I can see that this is very clever, but to me the changes in style between each episode is so dramatic that it damages your enjoyment of plot and character.

Of the 930 pages in my Penguin edition, I would say that I was engrossed in only 300 hundred of them. With the rest I continually ran the risk of falling into autopilot, letting the sentences wash over me with little comprehension. Nevertheless, when I say engrossed I mean it. For example, the introduction of Bloom in episode 4 is a burst of colour, it is impossible to fault the description of food, both its consumption and expulsion. Two other highlights are in Bloom’s detached seduction of a young girl in episode 13 and Bloom’s drunken hallucinations in a whorehouse in episode 15. But never is Joyce more impressive than in the newsroom of episode 7 where the reader is served the narrative in bite-sized classified ads, and in episode 17 told entirely through one question and answer after another, surely some of the greatest wit ever written.

I would like to say that those readers without the stomach for a long distance race that could enjoy Ulysses by fishing out these passages, but really it doesn’t work like that. I believe that you do need to read the whole thing as episodes will no doubt pack their biggest punch when building to a greater understanding of our protagonist, Bloom.

Was it all worth it, maybe, maybe not. There is a lot of books in this world. But I did run the race, I did make it to the finish line, but in the end I was so focused on breathing that it was only on rare occasions that I broke through the pain barrier, just enough to keep me going, but not enough to attempt the race again. Despite claims that the Ulysses gets better with every read, I think I’m just going to chalk it up to experience and move on to another classic.

FURTHER REFERENCES:

Hallucinations: Joyce

cocko — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 22:56:25 +0000

…Bloom is bisexually abnormal. He has recently escaped from Dr Eustace’s private asylum for demented gentlemen. Born out of bedlock hereditary epilepsy is present, the consequence of unbridled lust. Traces of elephantiasis have been discovered among his ascendants. There are marked symptoms of chronic exhibitionism. Ambidexterity is also latent. He is prematurely bald from selfabuse, perversely idealistic in consequence, a reformed rake, and has metal teeth. In consequence of a family complex he has temporarily lost his memory and I believe him to be more sinned against than sinning. I have made a pervaginal examination and, after application of the acid test to 5427 anal, axillary, pectoral and pubic hairs, I declare him to be virgo intacta. (Bloom holds his high grade hat over his genital organs)…

James Joyce, Ulysses (Episode 15) - Irish novelist, poet and short story writer (1882-1941)

A Letter From Richard Flanagan

cocko — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:02:39 +0000

This week Richard Flanagan was profiled on Australian Story. The program is televised on Mondays at 8.00 pm, and repeated on Saturdays at 12.30 pm, on ABC 1. You can also watch Australian Story on ABC 2 on Thursdays at 8:45pm, Fridays at 5:30pm and Saturdays at 7:30am and 8:00pm.

Stories are ‘narrated’ by the subjects themselves. The program aims to present a varied and contrasting picture of contemporary Australia and Australians from many different perspectives and to contribute to the wider spectrum of coverage of issues and individuals. Since it first aired on May 29, 1996, the program has won many professional awards including seven Walkley Awards and four Logie awards.

Richard Flanagan is a Rhodes Scholar, an adventurer, and an internationally acclaimed author.

A hearing impediment meant he was ‘virtually deaf’ for the the first six years of his life. But at the age of seven he wrote a letter in which he predicted his own success as an author. Recently, he’s been involved in helping to write the screenplay for the epic new Nicole Kidman-Hugh Jackman movie ‘Australia’. But in his own home state of Tasmania, he’s been accused of treachery because of his environmental activism.

In the program, he talks about writing, campaigning to protect forests, and working with Baz Luhrmann on the keenly awaited ‘Australia’. Singer Paul Kelly introduces the episode. See it.

James Joyce reading from Finnegans Wake

cocko — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 01:29:08 +0000

I’m still trying to work out if Finnegans Wake is harder to read or listen to. Make of it what you will.