2021 Here We Come!

 

2020 was the year of many things. Some planned and expected, like the War and Peace chapter-a-day readalong. But many things unexpected and impossible to plan for as well. 

Who knew that Plague-Lit would become a thing? 

Or that I would waste one whole perfectly good reading month by feeling weird and distracted about a certain virus to the point of being unable to read or blog or focus on anything productive except for another 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle!

How can 2021 possibly compare?

2021 will still be a year dominated by Covid-19 - it's not going anywhere in a hurry folks. Any new vaccine will take time to get out there and there are no guarantees about mutations or other unknowns. I cannot see any overseas travel on our immediate horizon. Even inter-state travel is fraught with uncertainty and quickly changing border rules.

2021 is looking like another quiet, stay-close-to-home year. Which is perfect for tackling some of those reading projects I've been meaning to get to for ages.

Therefore 2021 will be Project-Read-My-Own-Books (PRMOB).

A number of possible reading challenges have already come to my attention and I am creating two of my own.

1. The Hilary Mantel Wolf Hall Readalong: Feb - May 2021
2. The Edith Trilogy Readalong: Oct - Dec 2021

Nick @One Catholic Life is once again hosting his now-famous chapter-a-day readalong. This year we are reading several different books to make up the 365 chapters. 

The schedule looks like this:

• The Divine Comedy: January 1 to April 10 (100 cantos, or chapters= 100 days)
• Quo Vadis: April 11 to June 23 (73 chapters and an epilogue = 74 days)
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame: June 24 to August 21 (59 chapters)
• David Copperfield: August 22 to October 24 (64 chapters = 64 days)
• The Three Musketeers: October 25 to December 31 (67 chapters and an epilogue = 68 days)

I only own two of these books -The Hunchback and DC. Which is perfect for filling in the gap between my two proposed reading projects! David Copperfield will be a reread, but since I last read it in 1988, I'm sure it will be like reading it anew.

Nick is also about to embark on a 4 year odyssey with lucky Jack Aubrey aboard the HMS Surprise. Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander series, or the Aubreyad, is one of my all-time favourites. I first read the series around 2003, when the movie starring Russell Crowe was released. It took me several years to complete, finishing with a huge nautical themed party hosted by my book club! (The series was not a group read, but each meeting, for about three or four years, I began with my Jack update. We all felt it was worth celebrating, with a big HUZZAH, at the end.)

I have no idea if I will be able to keep to Nick's schedule and read the other stuff I want to read, so I will pencil the books in for now and cross my fingers!

What does my reading year ahead look like?

A little like this.

December 2020:

• Tarissa @In the Bookcase: A Literary Christmas 
• The Tailor of Gloucester | Beatrix Potter (1902)
• Christmas at High Rising | Angela Thirkell (2013 - a collection of stories written during the 1930's & 40's and published together for the first time by Virago)
• Plus a few assorted Christmas cook books
• CC Spin #25
• My Love Must Wait | Ernestine Hill (1941)

January 2021:

• First Book of the Year with Sheila
• Master and Commander | Patrick O'Brian (1969)
• Bill @TheAustralianLegend and his Australian Women Writers Gen 3, Part II Week, 17-23 Jan
• The Pea-Pickers | Eve Langley (1942)

February:

• Wolf Hall | Hilary Mantel (2009) | reread

March:

• Post Captain | Patrick O'Brian (1972)
• Bring Up the Bodies | Hilary Mantel (2012) | reread

April:

• Zoladdiction Month with Fanda @ClassicLit 
• The Sin of Father Mouret | La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret (1875)
• 1936 Club with Simon & Kaggsy, 12 - 18th April
• All that Swagger | Miles Franklin (1936)

May: 

• The Mirror and the Light | Hilary Mantel  (2020)
• Liz's 2021 Anne Tyler Reread Project
• The Accidental Tourist (1985) 

June:

• For Lisa's Indigenous Literature Reading Week in early July 
• Benang | Kim Scott (1999)
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame | Alexandre Dumas (1831)
• HMS Surprise | Patrick O'Brian (1973)

July:

• Paris in July with Tamara
• A Maigret or two
• Liz's 2021 Anne Tyler Reread Project
• Ladder of Years (1995) 

August:

• The Mauritius Command | Patrick O'Brian (1977)
• David Copperfield | Charles Dickens (1850) | reread

September:

• Liz's 2021 Anne Tyler Reread Project
• Noah's Compass (2010)

October:

• Desolation Island | Patrick O'Brian (1978)
• Grand Days | Frank Moorhouse (1993) | reread

November:

• AusReading Month
• Dark Palace | Frank Moorhouse (2000) | reread
• Non-Fiction November
• Novellas in November
• German Literature Month
• Margaret Atwood Reading Month
• Hagseed (2016)

December:

• Cold Light | Frank Moorhouse (2011)

January 2022:

• First Book of the Year with Sheila 
• The Fortune of War | Patrick O'Brian (1979)

The Hilary Mantel Wolf Hall Readalong: Feb - May 2021

• I read Wolf Hall in 2011 and Bring Up the Bodies in 2012.
• 2021 will make it nine years since I read the first two books. 
• Before reading the final instalment, I want to revisit the first two, to refresh my memory and to see if I still love them as much as I did the first time. 
• I would be delighted if anyone would like to join me on this journey back in time to Tudor England.
• #WolfHallReadalong2021

The Edith Trilogy Readalong: Oct - Dec 2021

• I first read Grand Days and Dark Palace in my late twenties and adored them, particularly Edith and everything about her.
• I reread GD in 2006 and sadly found that somehow Edith and I had gone our separate ways. 
• The books ended up in the big book cull of 2007 as I prepared to move from the country to the city.
• But then in 2011, Moorhouse published the final, long-awaited book in the trilogy and I knew straight away that I wasn't done with Edith after all.
• This trilogy has been patiently waiting to be read complete since 2011.
• If you have a hankering for the League of Nations or would like to read a book set in Canberra and the ACT for AusReading Month, then Cold Light is the book for you!
• Who's in?
• #TheEdithReadalong2021

#PRMOB

#AttackMyStacks

Starting a New Book...

So I've just started reading Siri Hustvedt's latest novel, Memories of the Future.

I'm inclined to anticipate enjoyment of Hustvedt's work thanks solely (so far) on my experience with What I Loved. I feel sure that I will be in for an intelligent, literary treat.

The first chapter has not disappointed.

Metafiction is the name of this game as Hustvedt's story explores a 61 yr old woman looking book on the journal written by her 23 yr old self when she first moved to New York to write.

In a curious, personal, twist of fate, there is a Don Quixote connection right from the start.

Within the journal of 23 yr old S.H. is another story about Ian Feathers (I.F.) - a man whose real 'life was lived in books, not out of them.' A man who took his passion for mystery, unsolved crimes and murder too far. A man who 'lived in a world built entirely of clues.' A man who wanted to live his life through the 'splendid' example of Sherlock Holmes (another S.H.). All good heroes need a sidekick - I.F.'s 'all-important confidante, his Sancho, his Watson,' was/is Isadora Simon (I.S.).

I love it when my book worlds collide, or perhaps, more elegantly, when serendipity steps in to allow one bookish experience to inform the next.

Memories of the Future is also ripe with books within books, or more accurately, poets and their poems.

John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, Barbara Guest and Frank O'Hara. And The Great Gatsby, Balzac, Proust, Gogol, Baudelaire, Laurence Sterne and Plato just to name those referenced in the first 32 pages. But the one that has made several appearances and will obviously play a bigger role as the story unfolds is the Dada-poet/performance artist, Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven.

Who? I hear you ask.

According to the Poetry Foundation, she was a 'German-born avant-garde poet. Known for her flamboyance and sexual frankness, the Baroness was a central figure in Greenwich Village’s early-twenties Dadaism'.

Wikipedia describes her as 'breaking every erotic boundary, revelling in anarchic performance'.

Her friend Emily Coleman saw her as, 'not as a saint or a madwoman, but as a woman of genius, alone in the world, frantic'.

I'm very curious to see how Hustvedt will thread the Baroness' life into the rest of her story.
                     

Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven by Holland Cotter

Fruit Don’t Fall Far
By Elsa Von Freytag-Loringhoven
Translated by Jill Alexander Essbaum

From Daddy sprung my inborn ribaldry.
His crudeness destined me to be the same.
A seedlet, flowered from a shitty heap,
I came, the crowning glory of his aim.

From Mother I inherited ennui,
The leg irons of the queendom I once rattled.
But I won’t let such chains imprison me.
And there is just no telling what this brat’ll...!

This marriage thing? We snub our nose at it.
What’s pearl turns piss, what’s classy breeds what’s smutty.
But like it? Lump it? Neither’s exigent.
And I’m the end result of all that fucking.

Do what you will! This world’s your oyster, Pet.
But be forewarned. The sea might drown you yet.

Not my usual poetic fare, but from what I have seen so far, a fair example of the Baroness' writing. And as S.H. says on pg 53, 'I returned to the sputterings of the Baroness because I regarded her as my archival rescue job, almost annihilated back then, and I wanted to protect her from oblivion with my voice.'

Jennifer @Holds Upon Happiness posts a lovely Poem for a Thursday each week. I enjoy sourcing poems from my recent reads to join in with her as I can.

Stories & Shout Outs #19

During this pause in my writing reviews phase, I will use Stories and Shout Outs to list my week of reading, blogging and other bookish things.

List #1 What I'm Reading Right Now

• Becoming by Michelle Obama - enough people were kind enough last week to convince me to keep on with book this when I mentioned that I had got a little bogged down in the 1980's.
• How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn - #Dewithon19
• Accidental Feminists by Jane Caro

List #2 What I've Finished - Short Stories

Meanjin A-Z 

• Intelligence Quotient by Georgia Blain - not particularly memorable; made me feel lonely.

Griffith Review 63 Writing the Country

• Crossing the Line: Unknown unknowns in a liminal, tropical world by Ashley Hay - where I learnt for the first time that "current calculations suggest that the tropics are moving south at around 85km each decade." OMG! Really!?
• Lost and Found in Translation; Who Can Talk to Country? by Kim Mahood - lots of interesting stuff about songlines, stories, belonging, time and memory.

Desire by Haruki Murakami

• The Second Bakery Attack - odd little story about how hunger can drive you to crime or is that how an unfinished crime drives you to hunger?
• On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning - or how you think of the perfect pick up line hours after the event!

List #3 Books in Books

Kim Mahood's essay (see list #2) was full of book references: 

• DH Lawrence, Kangaroo, Sons and Lovers & The Lost Girl. 
• Patrick White, Voss. 
• Randolph Stow, To the Islands, Tourmaline, Midnite, The Merry-go-round in the sea and Visitants. 
• Robyn Davidson, Tracks. 
• Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines. 
• Nicolas Rothwell, Belomor. 
• Philip Jones, Ochre and Rust.

List #4 New to the Pile

Islands by Peggy Frew

The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon

The Feel Good Guide to Menopause by Dr Nicola Gates
Literary Places by Sarah Baxter (very excited about this one - just look at that cover!)

List #5 Shout Outs

• Cirtnecce @Mockingbirds, Looking Glasses and Prejudices has decided to read WOMEN ONLY authors during March in honour of International Women's Day on the 8th. Except for Richard Llewellyn, which I've already committed myself to read this month, I will endeavour to read as many women authors as I can, for the rest of the month.
• Thanks to #Dewithon19 I've just discovered that Chris @Calmgrove has another blog dedicated to all things Arthur called Pendragonry. It looks delightful.

The ones that got away...

At this time of year, more than any other time, I abandon books at a rate of knots.

So many books don't make it past the first cull (cover design and back cover blurb). The second cull occurs at the end of the first page when a huge number of books simply get put back on the shelf for someone else to be tempted by.

A number of books come my way thanks to word of mouth and interesting reviews - these books still have to pass the first page test. Sometimes I know that the writing is just fine and the story intriguing enough that it might work for me, if I was in the right mood for it, but that mood is not right now.

Then there are the ones that take me along for the ride...until about the 50-100 pg mark.

These are the books I want to like for various reasons, but it gradually dawns on me that they're just not working. I continue a little further to see if it's a temporary glitch or not. And then I abandon ship.

Life is too short, and there are too many books I really want to read, to waste my time on one that's not getting me there.

Books that didn't make it past the first cull

• Paris Echo by Sebastian Faulks (I always think that I should like Faulks' work because of my love of historical fiction, but the back cover blurbs never tempt me and my one foray into Faulks' territory, Charlotte Gray, left me cold).
• A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne (another author I feel that I should like, but I prefer his junior fiction for kids).
• two old men dying by Tom Keneally (great cover, except for the uncapitalised title, but the back blurb - meh).

Books that didn't make the second cull

• The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker (sounded intriguing, but the first few paragraphs failed to capture my attention or mood).
• The Life to Come by Michelle de Kretser (maybe, one day).
• Milkman by Anna Burns (will need to be in the right mood for this one).
• Less by Andrew Sean Greer (the first few pages left me sighing and not in a good way).
• The Overstory by Richard Powers (too wordy for my mood on the day I tried).
• So Much Life Leftover by Louis de Bernieres (I loved an adored Captain Corelli's Mandolin so much way back when that I keep hoping one of his other books will do the same. They never have, although I've heard promising things about Birds Without Wings).

The 50 pg cull

• An Ocean of Minutes by Thea Lim (I wanted to like this book & it started off fine, but I eventually realised that I was on the side of the mega-time travelling corporation rather than the annoying, whining protagonist!)

Should I give any of these books a second go in the new year, if the right circumstances or mood comes my way?

I Am Reading...

I'm very excited to have a copy of book 8 of the Rowland Sinclair series in my hands for this NSW October Labour Day long weekend.

The series has had a recent change of cover style. I miss the old art deco style covers, but I think these darker covers show the crime side of the story off more.

My previous reviews for the first seven books plus prequel can be found here, but for now here's a little taster for A Dangerous Language.

Volunteering his services as a pilot to fly renowned international peace advocate Egon Kisch between Fremantle and Melbourne, Rowland is unaware how hard Australia's new attorney-general will fight to keep the "raging reporter" off Australian soil. 

In this, it seems, the government is not alone, as clandestine right-wing militias reconstitute into deadly strike forces. 

A Communist agent is murdered on the steps of Parliament House and Rowland finds himself drawn into a dangerous world of politics and assassination.
A disgraced minister, an unidentified corpse and an old flame all bring their own special bedlam.

Once again Rowland Sinclair stands against the unthinkable, with an artist, a poet and a brazen sculptress by his side.

Gentill's epigraph is one from George Bernard Shaw.

Like Rowland, GBS was anti-war and socialist in nature. One of the meanings of 'fellow traveller' is someone who is a communist sympathiser, but not a member of the Party, which sums up Rowland perfectly.

Time to stop chatting and time to start reading.

#Iamreading
What are you reading?