Life After Truth | Ceridwen Dovey #AWW

 

I had the pleasure of hearing Ceridwen Dovey talk about her latest book, Life After Truth at a recent work event (the YouTube recording of the event can be found here). By the time she had finished speaking, I knew this would be my next read.

I'm not sure why I've found it so hard to write up my review for this book though. I thoroughly enjoyed it and highly recommend it as a great holiday read. So instead of talking about my journey with the book, I will focus on what I learnt from the author talk, which then informed how I read the story.

Ceridwen evoked a lovely reading memory for me when she talked about one of her inspirations for writing a story about a 15 year reunion at Harvard University. Like me, she had devoured Erich Segal's Harvard stories, The Class (1985) and Doctors (1988) way back when.

I read The Class in the early 1990's. I remember loving the huge rollicking epic nature of the story as we followed the fates and fortunes of five or six Harvard undergrads during their college days and into their adult lives. Back then, the chunkier the book, the better, was my motto! When I googled the book to refresh my memory, I was amazed at how simply seeing the names, Andrew Eliot, Jason Gilbert Jr, Theodore Lambros, Daniel Rossi and George Keller again, brought back so much of the story.

The second inspiration for Ceridwen was her very own 15 yr, class of 2003 reunion, in 2018. All her friends and class mates were approaching 40 and various mid-life crisis were on show -  emotional, hormonal, intellectual, financial and philosophical. 

The class of 2003 had some interesting graduates besides Dovey. Natalie Portman and Jared Kushner for starters. Mark Zuckerberg was in the following year.

Ceridwen stresses that none of her characters are based on real life people.  However, she was drawn to using the polar opposite characters, of a movie star and the son of a President in her story, as she found the contrast appealing. Thanks to her social anthropology background, she likes to write not so much what she knows, but towards what she wants to know. Which is, 'how do people make meaning from their daily lives.' Or how do live the second half of your life differently to the first half.

For anyone who has read Dovey's earlier books, it is noticeable that the voice is very different in this story. It was a deliberate choice, although, also slightly out of Ceridwen's hands, as she finds that writing in different voices and styles comes naturally to her. She considers Life After Truth to be some kind of self-help novel, written in a fog of insomnia. 

She tried submitting and getting one of her books published under a different name to reflect the different voice she had used. But the publishers were not keen for a pseudonym, and neither was Dovey, as she feels that what she does is closer to the literary concept of heteronyms. The publishers were even less keen to go with this idea!

Recently she got around this by creating a story for Audible Originals called Once More With Feeling. It was a story she wrote, in what she describes as a 'warmer more accessible voice', purely with how it would sound, read aloud, in mind. Apparently she has a whole linen cupboard full of such stories, written in different voices, that she doesn't know what to do with.

As for Life After Truth, Dovey considers this her attempt to document the post truth world we all now live in, as well as a little nod towards the Harvard motto, Veritas, and what life is like for it's students after graduation.

Epigraph: 

...the Love-god, golden-haired, stretches his charmed bow | with twin arrows, and is aimed at happiness, | the other at life's confusion.

Euripides, Iphigenia in Aulis 

First Line:

JOMO GÜNTER-RIEHL. Address: 200 Church Street, Apartment 7A, Tribeca, New York 10013. Occupation: Founder & Director of Gem Acquisitions, House of Riehl Luxury Jewelers. Gradutae Degrees: MBA, University of California, Berkeley '13.

Last time I wrote one of these updates it was to brag about my life. 

Facts:

• One of Dovey's favourite poets is Fernando Pessoa - famous for his use of heteronyms.
• She studied social anthropology at Harvard

My Reviews of her Other Works (so far):

• Only the Animals
• In the Garden of Fugitives

#AustralianWomenWriters

The Vanishing Half | Brit Bennett #USfiction

 

I suspect, like me, many of you have heard about the basic premise of this story. The book seems to be everywhere (which is partly why it was selected as our October book club book). It features a fictional town inhabited by African Americans who have light skin, 'lightness, like anything inherited at great cost, was a lonely gift.' People who felt like they could not, and did not, belong in a white world or a black one. Mallard was a town for those 'who would never be accepted as white but refused to be treated like Negroes.'

The story is about identical twins, Desiree and Stella, who grow up in this town. One marries a dark man and has a very dark baby, horrifying the inhabitants of Mallard, and the other decides to 'pass' as white and disappears from all their lives.

However, this is not the only vanishing or 'passing' or pretending to be someone else, that is considered by Bennett in The Vanishing Half.

The idea of 'passing' is examined alongside gender identity, transgender, drag queens and the games that many twins play, pretending to be the other to confuse their family and friends. Bennett also makes one her characters an actor to discuss what is real, what is make believe and our ability to inhabit a character to tell a story. Another character is a 'hunter' who helps to find people running from the law, bad debt and bad people. He helps find those who want to disappear. He understands disguises and subterfuge and the lies people tell when they create a new life. Mixed in with all of this is the common, every day desire we all feel at different points in our lives, to start over - the end of a bad marriage, the death of a partner, to escape childhood friends etc. 

Do we create our own identity? Or do we spend our lives deconstructing other people's ideas of who we are (or should be)?

It was fascinating stuff.

Naturally, the contrast between one twin living a life as an African American and the other as white is the predominate theme. The life of plenty and ease for one, compared to the hard work, living on the edge of poverty and fear for the other. Yet it's not all ease for one and it's not all fear for the other. Bennett's story is far more nuanced than that.

Passing requires one to be constantly vigilant and constantly 'in role'. A back story has to be created and remembered. The fear of being exposed creates tension and keeps one on guard the whole time. It's impossible to relax or feel like you completely belong.

Bennett covers off a lot of very complicated, complex ideas about who we are, how identity is determined or created and how we judge and classify others. She shows us how the childhood experiences of each twin leads to the choices they make. We see it play out again, with their daughters, growing up in very different worlds, struggling to find who they are, where they belong and with whom. The whole idea of nature or nurture is woven through each story line, and each character, in that messy, mixed up way we all experience.

Coincidence plays a part in the story, which could be annoying for some readers. As can the omnipresent narrator. But both devices worked for me. Bennett incorporates both successfully to negotiate the various time jumps within the story, the 'seeing forward and backward at the same time', that allows the reader to see what all the characters are experiencing. We see that 'passing' or changing identity, can be permanent or temporary, tragic or fun. It can be liberating and painful. A relief and guilt-ridden at the same time. 

Bennett leaves us with the lies, or stories, we all tell our selves and our families. Are they really lies? Or are they a natural desire to reframe our lives into the one we really want? That 'better' self that makes us feel whole or complete or more like our real selves? 

Who gets to decide what is real or not, in the first place? The performer or the audience? Are we pretending, performing or projecting? Are they secrets or an act of privacy or a bid for personal safety? Bennett doesn't judge or moralise. She doesn't ask us to condemn Stella for her choices, or Reese, or Barry, or Jude, or Kennedy, or Early or Adele. 

Stella is not made to pay the ultimate price, usually asked of characters in her position. There is no dramatic moment of exposure. There is no guilt-ridden martyr sent back to where she came from, in disgust and ridiculed, welcome nowhere and understood by no-one. The moral of the story is not to stay with your own kind at all cost. It's about making your own life in whichever why that feels right to you. 

There's a whole lot more to say about this story and I'm sure my book club will go there tonight. 

Favourite Quotes: 

• The only difference between lying and acting was whether your audience was in on it, but it was all a performance just the same.
• That was the thrill of youth, the idea that you could be anyone.
• Jude wanted to change and she didn't see why it should be so hard or why she should have to explain it to anyone.
• You shouldn’t tell people the truth because you want to hurt them. You should tell them because they want to know it.
• The hardest part about becoming someone else was deciding to. The rest was only logistics.

The Fire This Time | Jesmyn Ward #NonFiction

It seemed like it was the right time to finally read this book. 

The Fire This Time was first published in 2016, but my edition is a 2019 Bloomsbury publication. The collection of essays and poems is edited and introduced by Jesmyn Ward.

I like to give space to every essay or article in a anthology; to consider each one in it's own right and to take the time to check out a little more about each author. As I was reading these essays, though, it became apparent that there were quite a few US-specific cultural references and current affairs that I was not particularly familiar with. Therefore, my responses below, may include research I did to clarify what was happening or who was being referred to. 

Many of the essays also gave me pause to consider our own creation myths in Australia, and how the past is still being played out in our present day lives.

• The Fire This Times opens with a poem by Jericho Brown, The Tradition. 
• It's a sonnet that beautifully and brutally compares flowers, blooms and earth to black lives. In just 14 lines, he alludes to the tradition of slavery, the desire for belonging and the current loss of black lives. The poem finishes with three names - John Crawford. Eric Garner. Mike Brown.
• John Crawford III was a 22 yr old man, shot and killed in a Walmart in Beavercreek, Ohio, on the 5th August 2014. 
• Eric Garner was killed on the 17th July 2014 in Staten Island after being placed in a choke hold by police. 
• Mike Brown Jr was an 18 yr old young man shot by police on the 9th August 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri.
• Brown is the 2020 Pulitzer Prize winning poet and this poem can be found in his latest collection also called The Tradition.
• I was so impressed by this poem, I've ordered Brown's anthology in at work. 

• Introduction by Jesmyn Ward.
• Begins with the shooting death of 17 yr old Trayvon Martin on the 26th February 2012 in Sanford, Florida.
• Also Tamir Rice a 12 yr old boy shot & killed by police on the 22nd November 2014 in Cleveland, Ohio.
• Mike Brown (see above)
• Sandra Bland was found hanged on the 13th July, 2015, after 3 days in gaol for a traffic infringement in Waller County, Texas. Her death was declared a suicide. 
• Emmett Till was a 14 yr old boy lynched in Mississippi in 1955. His body was found floating in the Tallahatchie River three days after he went missing. According to wikipedia,

The brutality of his murder and the fact that his killers were acquitted drew attention to the long history of violent persecution of African Americans in the United States. Till posthumously became an icon of the civil rights movement.

• She turned to the writing of James Baldwin for 'kinship in this struggle'. 
• He told her that she was 'worthy of love...worth something in this world...[and]...a human being.'
• His book The Fire Next Time inspired the title of this book.
• Which led her to seek out other writers, thinkers, and voices from her generation. Only three of the submitted pieces referenced the future.
• 'It confirmed how inextricably interwoven the past is in the present, how heavily the past bears on the future.' 

• PART I - LEGACY 

• Homegoing, AD by Kima Jones

• A hybrid poem that begins with a prose section about a family funeral and ends with a free form verse about outrunning the 'gators. 
• Jones is the founder of the Jack Jones Literary Arts whose mission is to 'provide publicity services and support for writers who are unafraid. We work diligently to announce book projects to audiences who seek literary art that is unorthodox, underappreciated, and unparalleled.' 

• The Weight by Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah
• Ghansah won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing.
• She is  know for her writing about James Baldwin and his historic home in the South of France, including this piece that discusses her first visit to his home.

'If I knew anything about being black in America it was that nothing was guaranteed, you couldn't count on a thing, and all that was certain for most of us was a black death....a black death was a slow death, the accumulation of insults, injuries, neglect, second-rate health care, high blood pressure and stress, no time for self-care, no time to sigh, and in the end, the inevitable, the erasing of memory.'

• Lonely in America by Wendy S. Walters
• 'I resist thinking about slavery because I want to avoid the overwhelming feeling that comes from trying to conceive of the terror, violence and indignity of it.' 
• New-to-me word - cathexis -  'the concentration of mental energy on one particular person, idea, or object (especially to an unhealthy degree).' 
• Discussion about slavery in the northern states, especially New Hampshire.
• Black Heritage Trail, Portsmouth.  

• Where Do We Go From Here? by Isabel Wilkerson 
• 'We seem to be in a continuing feedback loop of repeating a past that our country has yet to address.' 
• After the end of slavery, came the Reconstruction.
• Then the reversal of black advancement - the Nadir. I had heard of the Jim Crow laws but not the Nadir (1890 - 1940). 
• 'Six million African Americans fled that caste system, seeking asylum in the rest of the country during what would become the Great Migration. Denied the ballot, they voted with their bodies.'
• In the north they met with 'redlining, overpolicing, hyper-segregation, the seeds of the disparity we see today.'
• Wilkerson was the first African American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize in Journalism Feature Writing in 1994.

• The Dear Pledges of our Love: A Defense of Phillis Wheatley's Husband by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers
•  Phillis Wheatley - poet (1753-84)
• The Age of Phillis published March 2020 by Wesleyan University Press - 'imagines the life and times of Wheatley: her childhood in the Gambia, West Africa, her life with her white American owners, her friendship with Obour Tanner, and her marriage to the enigmatic John Peters.'

• White Rage by Carol Anderson
• 'white rage carries an aura of respectability and has access to the courts, police, legislatures, and governors.'  
• for every 'African American advancement, there's a reaction, a backlash.' 
• As an outsider, I'm astounded every time I read how easy it is to manipulate the US electoral system - against African Americans, against women, against the poor and disenfranchised. Our system is not perfect, but we make it easy for everyone to vote. Whether you choose to use that right is up to you. It's a right and a responsibility.   

•   Cracking the Code by Jesmyn Ward
• on the difficulty faced by most African Americans when creating their family tree. 
• and on the unsettling & discomforting information that genetic DNA testing can provide.
• is identity genetics, heritage, personal history, or how others perceive you?

• PART II - RECKONING 

• Queries of Unrest by Clint Smith (poem) 
• modelled after the work of poet Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib
• Maybe, maybe, maybe...
• Maybe I'm scared of writing another poem/that makes people roll their eyes/and say, "another black poem." 

• Blacker Than Thou by Kevin Young
• the issue of blackface, 'passing' and reverse-passing.
• I did not know that Thomas Jefferson had a black mistress, Sally Hemings, who gave him six children.
• Young is the poetry editor for the New Yorker. 

• Da Art of Storytellin' (A Prequel) by Kiese Laymon
• 'voices aren't discovered fully formed, they are built and shaped.' 
• storytelling via hip hop and rap.
• Read - Octavia Butler | Kindred

•  Black and Blue by Garnette Cadogan
•  the art of walking and the difference between walking the streets of Kingston, Jamaica, New Orleans and NYC.
• 'I could be invisible in Jamaica in a way I can't be invisible in the United States.' 
• 'walking is an act of faith...we see, we listen, we speak, and we trust...I strolled into my better self...' 
• 'walking while black restricts the experience of walking...it forces me to be in a constant relationship with others...' Understood. It's the same for most women when walking alone.

• The Condition of Black Life is One of Mourning by Claudia Rankine 
• the beginning of the Black Lives Matter movement - 'an attempt to keep mourning an open dynamic in our culture because black lives exist in a state of precariousness.'
• Just Us: An American Conversation published September 2020 by Graywolf Press.

• Know Your Rights! by Emily Raboteau 
• how to talk to your children about protecting themselves from the police.
• 'this mural struck me as an act of love for the people who would pass it by.'
• Raboteau spotted her first social justice mural and went searching for the others (below).

    

•  Composite Pops by Mitchell S. Jackson
• the importance of father figures to kids, especially boys.
• a lovely homage to the men who mentored him throughout his life. 

 PART III - JUBILEE 

Theories of Time and Space by Natasha Trethewey 

• US Poet Laureate 2012 & 2013 .

• Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry 2007.

This Far: Notes on Love and Revolution by Daniel Jose Older     

• 'unraveling all the creation myths this country has always held most sacred.'

Message to my Daughters by Edwidge Danticat

•  African Americans as internal and external refugees

• 'You think that your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.' James Baldwin

This was an eye-opening read. 

Many of the writers, though, assumed knowledge than many non-US readers may not actually have. I learnt a lot more about African American history thanks to the googling I had to do to find out the who, what, why, where and when discussed in many of the essays. 

Australian history had a brief but equally unedifying experience with slave labour from the nearby South Sea Islands. Given that many Australians are, to this day, completely unaware of this practice, we can claim no moral high ground with regard to race relations or facing the truth about our own history. 

An historical record that only takes note of one side or one version will always be divisive. Books like this, that open all our eyes to another history, another side, another version are important steps towards understanding and acceptance, and hopefully, one day, justice and equality for all.

Highly recommended, but take you time.

Update: 

• Tragically, Jesmyn Ward's 33 yr old husband died in January this year after they all contracted what they thought was the flu. She writes about her grief in a recent Vanity Fair article, On Witness and Respair.
• Respair - OED: noun and verb, meaning the return of hope after a period of despair—only citation for this dates back to 1425. Sadly, it has now fallen out of use. 

The Gravity of Us | Phil Stamper #TeenFiction

Teen romance, The Gravity of Us never quite reached the stars it was aiming for. 

It took me ages to finish this cute story about budding online journalist Cal and 'astrokid', Leon. The romance was sweet, tender and funny and the stuff about NASA's astronaut program that both families were caught up in, was fascinating too, but when I compare it to Oseman's Heartstopper trilogy, it doesn't.

The reader could feel the effort required by Stamper to put the book together. It often felt like he was trying to do too much. But it also had some lovely, lovely moments and ideas around belonging, taking risks and living in the moment. It was also nice to see social media being used by the characters as a positive, pro-active tool to bring like-minded people together and to effect change, although I also suspect, it is this very social media use that will date the story very quickly.

The moments that felt most forced, or clunky, were around Leon's anxiety issues and Cal's reporting, when Stamper's storytelling became earnest and informative. 

So, it's a bit of an odd read really. I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it. I appreciated it's good intentions and tender heart, but sometimes the execution left me cold. I'm obviously not the target audience, having left my teen years behind me many, many moons ago, but at that age I was looking for romances that felt believable. Perhaps that's where this one doesn't quite hit the mark. Everyone was too exceptional to be real.

Fun but forgettable.

Book 13 of 20 Books of Summer Winter

Homeland Elegies | Ayad Akhtar #USfiction

I had to remind myself of the exact definition of elegy as I was reading Ayad Akhtar's latest novel, Homeland Elegies: A Novel. In a promotional video on the Little Brown publishing page, he mentioned this book was not only about that longing for the home country that his parent's generation felt, but an elegiac response to the death of his mother and the decline of his father.

An elegy is a poem of serious reflection written, usually, as a lament for the dead. In more modern terms it can also be a lament for a tragic event, expressing mournfulness and sorrow. Or as Samuel Taylor Coleridge says in Specimens of the Table Talk of the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Vol 2 (1835)

Elegy is a form of poetry natural to the reflective mind. It may treat of any subject, but it must treat of no subject for itself; but always and exclusively with reference to the poet. As he will feel regret for the past or desire for the future, so sorrow and love became the principal themes of the elegy. Elegy presents every thing as lost and gone or absent and future.

Documenting the regrets and desires, sorrows and loves of Muslims in America over the past fifty years is the aim of Homeland Elegies, but most of the drama plays out in more recent times. Akhtar himself is our reference point, as he explores the changes in America post 9-11 and post-Trump, via the lens of his own family. His sense of being 'other' or an outsider informs his perspective. He explores the hope and eventual disillusionment of his parents generation as they struggle to be American, to belong and to be accepted.

The confusion I experienced when I started to read Homeland Elegies was a deliberate device used by Akhtar. It worked. I got very caught up in trying to work out what was real and was not, because the story reads like a memoir. Akhtar is our main character. He is a writer and playwright, who writes about the Muslim experience in America. He is a writer who needs to 'deform actual events enough to be able to see them more clearly.'

I found myself googling Akhtar and reading his wikibio to try to sort out the truth from the fiction. It wasn't easy. Again, it was the video linked above that revealed Akhtar's intent to play fast and loose with the facts, pushing the boundaries between reality and fiction. He wanted to write a story that collapsed real life into a tale. He wanted to confront our fascination with fake news; how a good story has become more important than the truth. Or more accurately, how a good story (or even a bad story) has become confused with the truth until no-one is certain where the truth lies anymore.

It was a discombobulating read.

It was also rather sad. The story revealed a family and a country in decline. It was an indictment on a country that claims to be proud of it's migrant history, accepting the tired, the poor, the huddled masses, the wretched refuse, the homeless and the tempest-tossed. But not really. Unless you happen to be uber-rich. Being non-white and non-Christian and not rich is a problem every single day for anyone who is different. Especially since 9-11. Especially since Trump.

Akhtar has written a fascinating, absorbing and heart-breaking story. 

Facts:

• Akhtar was born 28th October, 1970, Staten Island, New York
• Grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
• Won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2013 for his play, Disgraced
• In 2017 he won the Steinberg Playwright Award
• Homeland Elegies is a September release with Little Brown.

Favourite Quotes:

• the treachery of an American society that abandoned the weak and monetized the unlucky.
• the incompetence - even malfeasance - so abundantly on display at the municipal level. It was startling to see in this picture of America a nation so much like the one my parents described in Pakistan, where cutting corners, taking bribes, selling perks - all this was just business as usual.
• justice is the will of the strong borne by the weak.
• We were a nation in thrall to our own stupidity.
• students' growing intolerance for difficult ideas....they slap you with moral rhetoric about why you're wrong to make them do something they don't want to do.
• College was now a consumer experience, not a pedagogical one.
• "I'm here because I was born and raised here. This is where I've lived my whole life. For better, for worse - and it's always a bit of both - I don't want to be anywhere else. I've never even thought about it. America is my home."

Book 8 of 20 Books of Summer Winter

The Dutch House | Ann Patchett #20BooksofWinter

The rave reviews are the hardest, aren't they?

It took me a few chapters to fall into this story, but when I fell, I really fell! The Dutch House turned out to be one of those wonderful, rich reading experiences that you wish would never end. Part gothic fairy tale and part psychological study of two siblings trying to come to terms with their loss and grief as they did battle with a wicked stepmother. Eventually expelled from their childhood home, they spent their adult lives searching for forgiveness, atonement and a way back home.

The character driven storytelling was absorbing, poignant and immersive. Maeve and her brother, Danny were characters that felt real - flawed but lovable. Their shared obsession with the childhood home helped them to gloss over their other losses. Money and possessions didn't matter; they simply worked hard and made good on their own. No parent? No worries; they had each other. 

But this is Ann Patchett we're talking about here, so there are many more layers to the story than that. Mothers and mothering played a big role as did materialism, greed and poverty. The different ways that kindness and love can be expressed and then experienced were explored. Do we ever really know our loved ones or do we waste a lot of time and energy trying to make them fit into the world view that we already have?

And we cannot talk about The Dutch House without talking about the house itself. As a metaphor for childhood and mother we see Maeve and Danny's mother reject and leave both the house and the children. As a place of shelter and protection, it clearly moved away from being a place of safety and security after the mother left and the stepmother wheedled her way in. 

As a symbol for self and personality, it's easy to see the Dutch House as an ongoing search by Maeve and Danny for a way back in, for integration. Their sense of being outsiders, abandoned and alone affected all their relationships. The weight of the grudge they carried around almost became another character, like the house. Spending so much time in the car together, looking at the house from outside, facilitated a kind of therapy session for both of them. Although I was in a constant panic that the stepmother would discover them and that things would turn ugly, but that could just be my fear of conflict!

It's curious that a book that seems designed to discuss mothers and mothering is narrated by Danny. In fact, for the first few chapters, I assumed that Danny was a sister, not a brother. He acknowledged that 'after our mother left, Maeve took up the job on my behalf but no one did the same for her'. Maeve considered herself lucky simply because she'd had many more years with their mother than he did. At every point Danny benefited from all the women in his life who took care and made sacrifices for him, but when their mother finally turned up again and Maeve forgave her and immediately moved to recreate a relationship with her, Danny was pissed off that he's been displaced. I accepted that he didn't want to forgive or let his mother back into his life, but I did resent that he wanted to deny Maeve the chance to decide for herself, when it was so obvious that Maeve was dying to feel mothered again.

But maybe that was one of Patchett's points. It's okay for fathers and men to be distant and absent, we can admire them for their ambition and worldly ways, but when a mother does it, she is lambasted and denied forgiveness or understanding.

Maeve and Danny were not the only siblings in this story. We also had Jocelyn and Sandy, the women who helped run Dutch House before and after the mother left, until they were also expelled along with Maeve and Danny. The wicked stepmother arrived with two children of her own, Bright and Norma. None of these characters were fully fleshed out for the reader as we only ever got to really see them through Danny's eyes. He didn't even realise that Jocelyn and Sandy were sisters until he was about 11 yrs old. He simply accepted them, unquestioningly, as part of the fabric of his young life, as most children do. 

I'm glad that Patchett never gave as any insight into why the stepmother was the way she was. She obviously had her own demons to behave the way she did throughout the story, but those demons remain part of the mystery. All we know is that her parenting style also completely alienated Norma and Bright. Bright didn't even return when her mother was ill and dying.

Patchett was inspired by something Zadie Smith said about writing autobiographical fiction, 

She was saying that autobiographical fiction didn’t have to be about what happened — it could be about what you were afraid might happen. She said the character of the mother in Swing Time was autobiographical because that was the mother she didn’t want to be. I thought that was brilliant. It explained something I’d always been doing but had never put into words. I adore Zadie Smith. At that moment, sitting on a stage with her at Belmont University, I thought, I want to write a book about the kind of stepmother I don’t want to be.

Our book group had a great discussion about all the elements in the story and it was one of the few books where everyone agreed on how much we loved it. A number of them had even read the book twice, saying they got so much more out of the story second time round as they were able to tease out some of the nuances even more.

The Dutch House is a keeper. 

I think this is my first 5 star rating for the year.

Favourite Quotes:

But we overlay the present onto the past. We look back through the lens of what we know now, so we’re not seeing it as the people we were, we’re seeing it as the people we are, and that means the past has been radically altered.

There are a few times in life when you leap up and the past that you'd been standing on falls away behind you, and the future you mean to land on is not yet in place, and for a moment you're suspended knowing nothing and no one, not even yourself.

We had made a fetish out of our misfortune, fallen in love with it.

Norma said that childhood wasn’t something she could imagine inflicting on another person, especially not a person she loved.

Facts:

• Finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
• Longlisted for the Women's Prize 2020

Cover Love

• I agree with Ann, this is one of the best covers for a book ever. 
• You can listen to how this came about in this short video.
• It's not often that an author gets to have so much control over what ends up on the cover.
• It's not often that the same cover gets used for the US, UK and Australian editions of a book either.

Book 3 of 20 Books of Summer Winter - I'm a little behind schedule this year!

Rodham: A Novel | Curtis Sittenfeld

What a fascinating premise!

What a fascinating story!

What an amazing story teller!

Rodham: A Novel is hard to define, and even harder to classify or deconstruct. What is real and what is fiction is the thing that haunts you the whole time you're reading this story. At least it did for me.

The idea of sliding doors, alternate histories or the road not taken have always intrigued me, so it was only natural that I would be sucked into Curtis Sittenfeld's world, where Hillary Rodham refused to marry Bill Clinton.

Living on the other side of the world, my understanding of the nuances of American politics is basic, though. I suspect a lot of the references to real life stuff passed me by. Especially once we moved into the alternate story of a single Hillary, forging a career path unhindered by a husband or children (sorry Chelsea). I didn't know enough about what Hillary Clinton actually did do, to know how different things were for Hillary Rodham. Was that youtube video in Ohio something that really happened? Did she really go on a cooking show and was there some gaff about baking cookies? 

So I had to read the book assuming that the basic relationships were based on reality (with family, friends, colleagues, senators, media and backers etc), but that the paths they took were changed by her third 'no' to Bill. 

I assumed that all the conversations were purely imagined and the sex scenes nothing but fantasy! Please let the sex be nothing but fantasy. It was like reading about your parents having sex. You know they probably did it, but you definitely do not want to know any of the details. Ever!

After reading a couple of other reviews (Susan @The Cue Card and Girl With Her Head in a Book) I believe that being on the other side of the world and far removed from many of the incidents and people referred to, I did miss some of the cleverness and the humour. I spent a lot of time worrying about what was real and what wasn't. And I certainly found the middle section of the book rather dry and dull, as only stuff about politics can be dry and dull to the outsider.

It wasn't until we got to Trump and more recent times, that I was able to appreciate the changes that rippled out from that third 'no', to bring Rodham to her third run at the presidency in 2016. It was highly amusing seeing Trump's own words being used against him here, to support Rodham against her long-ago ex, Bill Clinton, who was running against her in the Democratic nominations. With Trump's support, Rodham was able to move into the White House on her own terms!

One of the things I really enjoyed about the book, was the thinking involved in Hillary's decision to leave Clinton back in the 70's. For two pages, Sittenfeld's shares the internal dialogue of a woman torn by her love for a man and her growing concern about his philandering ways. Should she stay and accept his wandering eyes (and hands and lips and penis) or should she go? Should she stand by her man or put her own needs first? Which choice could she live with? 

In the book, she decides (with Bill's support) that she should go her own way. This changes everything (and sometimes) nothing for both Hill and Bill. 

Sittenfeld said in an Esquire article in May 2020,

it's really thinking about fate versus free will and the butterfly effect and how potentially small choices that any of us make can have... Do they have huge consequences, or does our life resemble itself no matter what small choices we make?

I'm not sure that I believe in fate, or soul-mates or even that everything happens for a reason. Even though my life story with Mr Books could be held up as a perfect example of all three. In the end it's the stories we chose to tell ourselves about our lives that make all the difference.

In real life Hillary chose to stand by her man, warts and all. The love they felt for each other was strong enough to get them through the tough times. The compromises made, were ones they chose to live with. They embraced the life they made together. I don't imagine that they have ever imagined different lives for themselves than the one they have lived through together. They do not seem to be the kind of people who live with regrets.

Sittenfeld has not imagined a world of regret either. Instead, she has cleverly shown us how a completely different life might be possible. How bit by bit, experience by experience, it's possible to evolve into someone else if another path was taken.

I found Rodham to be fascinating in a voyeuristic kind of way, sympathetic in a very human way and fun and delicious in a rather daring kind of way.

Book 2/20 Books of Summer Winter

Redhead By the Side of the Road | Anne Tyler #USfiction

I don't know why I've been dragging my feet about writing this post. I loved this return-to-form story by Anne Tyler, one of my favourite character-driven authors. Perhaps, it's simply because I don't have a lot to say about it. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I loved how Tyler teased out the unique behaviours of her main character and embedded him firmly within a large, messy, chaotic family that was full of love, even if somewhat suffocating at times. I loved the resolution to this slim tale and can highly recommend it to those of you who love a gentle exploration of a sympathetically drawn character. What more can I say?

The Redhead By the Side of the Road, without giving anything away, is actually a fire hydrant that our slightly myopic protagonist, Micah mistakes for a child in a hoodie, every single morning when he runs by without his glasses. Its a gentle nod to the main theme of the story. Perception, and how we see ourselves and how others see us in return. One of my all-time favourite book themes! And one that Tyler has mastered. 

Like many of her stories, absence or loss is the driving force behind helping our protagonist to change. When Micah's girlfriend calls things off, he cannot understand why and it takes him a while to understand that the weird feelings going on for him are grief and heartache. Or, as Micah, so eloquently says late in the novel, "I'm a roomful of broken hearts." How could you not take him back?

My one and only beef is that Redhead By the Side of the Road is not as meaty or as angsty as her earlier books. I guess it's a good sign that she has worked through her childhood issues and found a more peaceful writing place, but I do still love a rich, engrossing read full of childhood angst!

Anne Tyler has published 24 novels, of which I have now read four (plus seen the movie for An Accidental Tourist). Tyler, like myself, is the eldest of four children, But unlike myself, she grew up in a Quaker family in a commune in North Carolina. She didn't attend formal schooling until age 12, where she found herself in the outsider role. She feels this has helped her to be the writer she is today.

 

I believe that any kind of setting-apart situation will do (to become a writer). In my case, it was emerging from the commune...and trying to fit into the outside world.

She graduated high school at age 16 and moved to Duke University on a full scholarship. In 1963 she married Taghi Modarressi, an Iranian psychiatrist, at age 22. They moved to Baltimore and had two daughters, both of whom she eventually enrolled in the local Quaker school, even though she no longer felt it was something for her.

Although her parents were believers, she gave up on religion when she was seven, the age she feels was in some ways "the climax of my life, when you finally know who you are. I started thinking very seriously about God and I thought I just can't do it, so that was sort of that."   The Guardian | Lisa Allardice | 14 April 2012

Tyler's writing is classified as literary realism. She has won and been nominated for numerous awards, including the Pulitzer (1989), the Women's Prize for fiction and the Booker.

Tyler doesn't see herself building up to "the great book." "I think of my work as a whole. And really what it seems to me I'm doing is populating a town. Pretty soon it's going to be just full of lots of people I've made up. None of the people I write about are people I know. That would be no fun. And it would be very boring to write about me. Even if I led an exciting life, why live it again on paper? I want to live other lives. I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get. Writing is my way of making other chances. It's lucky I do it on paper. Probably I would be schizophrenic--and six times divorced--if I weren't writing. I would decide that I want to run off and join the circus and I would go. I hate to travel, but writing a novel is like taking a long trip. This way I can stay peacefully at home." Anne Tyler, Writer 8:05 to 3:30 by Marguerite Michaels | 8th May 1977 | NY Times

Clock Dance
The Beginner's Goodbye
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant

Where the Crawdads Sing | Delia Owens #USfiction

When one sets out to read a book, you enter into a contract of sorts with the author. You agree to be apart of their world and to go along for the ride. As I've discussed before, we all have our own criteria by which we judge a book and whether we will pick it up off the shelf, or not. Or whether we will look inside it, or not. Or whether we will read beyond the first page, or not.

We all have expectations that we want a new book to meet. We all have moods and daily lives that dictate what might appeal at any certain time in our life, or not. When you find a book that grabs you from page one and you agree to go with the author all the way to the end, it's a truly magical moment. I usually know from page one, if this will happen or not.

Not all the books I read are Literature with a capital L.
I enjoy lighter reads, comfort reads and pot-boilers at times. The Jonathan Coe trilogy I've been reading recently are lightly, humorously written. They are flawed, but utterly, utterly engaging. I have agreed to go along with Coe's premise and we have a lot of fun together. I love the early Liane Moriarty books for the same reason. I am prepared to be entertained by her, and entertain she does.

Both these authors write with a warmth and affection that sucks me in from the start.
But I will not suspend believability for anyone. I can live with obvious. I can live with tropes and stereotypes. And I can live with working out what will happen early on, simply to enjoy the 'I knew it! I told you so' at the end. But I have to believe. It has to be plausible.

For such a major, best selling book, I managed to hear very little about Where The Crawdads Sing. Readers have merely gushed about their feelings about the book - all glowing - without revealing any spoilers. They all insist I should read this book, that I will love it, it's the best story they've read in a long, long time and they can't wait to see the movie version of it.

So when my book club nominated Where The Crawdads Sings as our March book, I was happy enough to go along with the hype. I was curious to see what all the fuss was about.

I knew I was in trouble from the first page though.

I wasn't seduced by the writing or the story. Well-worn tropes and stereotypes abounded and by the 30% mark I was getting angry at the lack of believability. I seriously thought about stopping, but I didn't finish my last book club book either. Guilt set in and I started skim reading.

For my own amusement, I decided to make predictions (**below**) about what I think will happen.

**My guess is that Kya will be hassled by Chase as they become young adults, she will fall in love with Tate, but there will be issues about whether she deserves to be loved or not. Chase will take advantage of her somehow, until she snaps and kills him. She has obviously done a good job of covering it up, so I am curious to find out how the bumbling police officers work it out.**

So why does Where the Crawdads Sing resonate with so many readers?

I can see that the nature writing might be lovely in places. I googled the Great Dismal Swamp, and I can see that it is (now) quite beautiful. It's history as a hideout for runaway slaves, outcasts and hermits is fascinating stuff. I'd love to watch a wildlife/social history documentary about the area.

Great Dismal Swamp, North Carolina

Murder mystery is a genre that has wide appeal, as is the overcoming poverty, hardship and ghastly childhood trope. Books about prejudice, social injustice, domestic violence and war veteran PTSD can enrage, upset and move us. They can open our eyes and hearts to those living a life different to our own. However, romanticised versions of 'white trash done good', like this one, do little to advance that cause. The nature/nurture debate is also one that can attract a lot of interest, but I still insist on believability for this to be effective as a trope. The Reese Witherspoon book club nod obviously boosted book sales too.

**At the 60% mark. If Kya keeps quoting Amanda Hamilton poems, I may have to fling my book across the room! And enough with all the nature similes about animals killing their mate after sex - we get it. We get it!**

**90% mark. Really! She wrote a book!! Three books!! I flung MY book across the room!
Kya's chat with Jodie about isolation, and the consolations of nature, might have been moving, but the Jodie scar memory, just before he turned up out of the blue, was so clunky and so convenient, I flung my book again! And don't get me started on the totally unbelievable provincial court room drama!**

**100% At least Tate agreed with me about how awful the Amanda Hamilton poems were! I had my satisfying 'I knew it' moment. I'm just surprised it took everyone else so long to work it out. And why isn't there an online outrage about the protagonist getting away with pre-meditated murder?**

I have now found another reviewer (Lit & Leisure) who failed to be captured by this book so now I don't feel so alone in my stand.

I usually shy away from negative reviews, because I rarely read a book these days that I don't want to read. Thanks to my day job, I have a wide array of book choices that can be picked up and put down without any financial sacrifice. If I don't like a book, I simply stop reading and find a book I do like. Where the Crawdads Sing is a book that wouldn't have passed my usual 'first page' test. But since I felt compelled to read this for book club, I persisted.

Not every book can suit every reader.

I certainly don't want to trash someone else's favourite book of all time, but I do feel a little disheartened that such an ordinary book can gain so much attention. Maybe in these difficult times, though, an easy to read, romantic murder mystery is the escapism ticket that many readers need.

I'm curious to hear why some of my book club members loved this book so much, and why some are saying it's the best book they've read in a long time. I remember being just as confused and bemused by the success of Fifty Shades of Grey years ago. It's great that these books can get so many people reading again, I just wish they could be ones that were better written!

Nothing to See Here | Kevin Wilson #USfiction

Nothing to See Here made nine of the 'best of' lists as compiled by Kate at the end of 2019, with comments like 'laughed so hard', 'a most unusual story of parental love' and 'hilarious' leaping out at me everywhere I looked.

I was expecting a belly laugh or two, at least. But no. It was way too sad for that. Even though the story was told with a tender, light touch, and some of Wilson's phrasing and imagery was amusing, I couldn't bring myself to laugh at the plight of any of these loveless characters, all so desperate to find someone to love them and care for them properly.

From the Senator, who had the emotional life of a gnat, and ran for office simply because of family tradition, to Carl the body guard, who just did what he was told. Madison and Lillian, the best friends from high school, from vastly different backgrounds, but both with equally shitty parents. To the poor, poor ten year old twins, who could burst into flames when angry or upset, but not be harmed, who watched their mother kill herself and then got stuck living with their crappy grandparents, until their father, the Senator, finally brought them home.

But not really home. A house on the family estate that has been converted to withstand fire and be very private, where they could be looked after by Lillian discreetly, away from the public eye.

In some ways this is a story about parental love. Lillian's growing love for the twins gives her life meaning and purpose. Her own dysfunctional upbringing allows her to empathise with the twins, and once the bond is formed, makes her determined to turn things around for them. The twins, in turn, trust her because of her vulnerability. They can sense her desire to protect them (in a way she was not protected) against all odds. Madison has a similar relationship going on with her own young son, Timothy. Determined to do better than her own upbringing, but also determined to get ahead with a career and life of her own. She is able to spin a story at the drop of a hat, a valuable asset for a politician's wife!

As much as I enjoyed this book, and was utterly engaged in the story from start to finish, there was nothing hilarious about this level of human damage. There is humour in the set-up and the satirical gaze at politics, privilege and power. It's also amazing how quickly you accept that children can self-combust.

Nothing to See Here is an unforgettable book. It was the perfect choice for a mini-break weekend away. Mr Books and I can both recommend it; just don't expect to laugh.

Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson #USfiction

I'm struggling, at the moment, to find the right words to describe my reading experiences, yet at the same time, I'm going through an amazing reading phase, with three back to back stunners. Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout, Girl, Woman Other by Bernardine Evaristo and now Red at the Bone.

My journey with Red at the Bone began about three months ago when our rep gave me an ARC and said 'watch this one, it could take off.'

I then spotted it on several of the lists that Kate @Books Are My Favourite and Best listed on her list of lists for 2019.

When I finished Olive, Again the weekend before Christmas, I wanted something completely different, new and slim. Red at the Bone jumped out of my TBR pile for all those reasons...and I'm so glad it did.

But how to review such a splendid reading experience?

Normally I avoid Goodread reviews and other blogs until after I've finished reading and reviewing the book myself, but when I'm struggling to write, I will turn to outside sources to find inspiration, or in this case to find a spark to fire me up.

Most of the reviews reflected my time with the book. They loved the writing style, they loved the family and their strength and resilience.

However, one reviewer caught my eye. She talked about the misery heaped upon misery that made it impossible for her to read or enjoy this book. I was left wondering if we had even read the same book! As the day wore on, I could feel a response forming, a rebuttal building up that had to be proclaimed.

I didn't know whether to feel sad or envious that someone could see the events depicted in this novel as misery upon misery. Had this reviewer had such a fortunate life that they and their extended family had never experienced any of the things within this story? Or was there something else at play that I wasn't aware of?

In the lifetime of the three generations in this particular family, we had some racial and gender discrimination events, a teenage pregnancy, a move, illness, some LGBTQ issues and eventually a death or two. We also had love and hope and resilience. We had a family living in the times they were born into as gracefully as they could. Different personalities coped in different ways. The times they lived in impacted on the choices they could make.

This was a family that valued hard work and education...and family. Because ultimately, during those times in all our lives when things go pear-shaped, it's the love and support of family that gets you through. I couldn't see any of these events as misery heaped upon misery. I just saw well-lived lives full of the joy and drama of human existence. Things most of go through at different times.

I understand that a structure that jumps between time lines and points of view is not for everyone. If it's just a device to hang a story on, then I get frustrated too, but Woodson used the different time lines and points of view to circle around one big event, that changed everything for those left behind. The poetic writing style may not suit everyone either, but I love elegant distillers of beautiful language, so I happily went along for the ride.

I didn't know anything about the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, but I do now. It wasn't necessary to have a full understanding of this event, to appreciate the choices the family made, as the story was about the consequences of those choices rather than an expose of the event itself. It was simply part of the family back story, much like the Depression and WWII informed my grandparents and parents views of the world. A powerful memory for those who lived it, but fading to insignificance for the generations that follow, who have their own demons or life-changing events to negotiate. Woodson was adept at exposing this generational divide.

As an outside observer, I'm acutely conscious of the race issues that plague America. They play out on our screens, in the books we read and on the news. In Australia, we have enough of our own issues to go on with, yet somehow, the American experience seeps into ours as well. Such complex topics are not easy to solve or discuss and they attract a wide variety of opinions, including the 'let's draw a line in the sand and call it done' approach. Simplistic solutions like this will never work all the while there are people alive who remember. Because memory becomes story, which then gets passed down from one generation to the next. All the while there is memory and story, that line in the sand will constantly shift.

However, we can choose which memories we turn into stories. And we can choose how to tell those stories. We can choose what lessons we want to learn and which ones we want to pass down to future generations. Woodson has chosen trauma triumphed by love.

I for one, will be looking out for more work by Woodson. Her voice and style appealed to me and I want to know more.

Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout #USfiction

In some ways this will be the easiest book response I've ever written. Quite simply, Olive, Again is all the same wonderfulness that was Olive Kitteridge. If you loved the first Olive; you will adore the second.

I don't want to say too much so as not to spoil your own reading experience. Except that Strout has once again employed the use of short stories to tell us about Olive. Most of the stories are from Olive's perspective, but there are some from her family and various other town people. Olive has a cameo appearance in these particular chapters as we get to see her through the eyes of others. In one memorable scene, Olive is also given a chance to see herself through the eyes of someone else.

One of the special delights, for me, was suddenly realising that we were getting a brief glimpse into lives of the Burgess boys and Amy & Isabelle years after the events that Strout wrote about in their books. These intersections felt perfectly natural and reinforced the idea that all our small stories are interconnected and woven together in ways we can never dream of or fully comprehend.

Olive has mellowed somewhat with age and she has finally learnt the value of moderation - she no longer has to say out loud every single thing that pops into her head.

Strout also explores the ageing process in unsentimental terms. Not only with Olive but the other characters that flit through the story.

However since the words are still failing me at the moment, let me list some of the comments that others have written about Olive, Again on Goodreads.

Jacqui - Sometimes a book is just so perfect that it feels wrong somehow to break it down, as if by doing so one destroys the magic or fails to capture what makes it so special.

Jaline - The world within and the world without.

skilful
keen observer
larger than life
subtle
wrenching emotional honesty
emotionally radiant
fierce
compassionate
beloved curmudgeon
recalcitrant
psychological complexity
indignities of ageing
autumnal years
profound loneliness
estrangements and secrecy
vulnerable
authentic
meticulous
magnificent
tour de force

To finish I will leave you with the words of Strout herself on why she felt compelled to write a sequel for Olive.

The New Yorker | Elizabeth Strout on Returning to Olive Kitteridge | Deborah Treisman | July 29, 2019.

I never intended to return to Olive Kitteridge. I really thought I was done with her, and she with me. But a few years ago I was in a European city, alone for a weekend, and I went to a café, and she just showed up. That’s all I can say. She showed up with a force, the way she did the very first time, and I could not ignore her. This time, she was nosing her car into the marina, and I saw it so clearly—felt her so clearly—that I thought, Well, I should go with this.

Facts:

• Strout's 'guilty reading pleasure' is War and Peace.
• Her greatest influences are William Trevor and Alice Munro.
• She has not yet read Moby-Dick.
• Won the Pulitzer Prize in 2009 for Olive Kitteridge.

Favourite Quote: 

All love was to be taken seriously.

My response to Olive Kitteridge.
And The Burgess Boys.

Moby-Dick - Check in Post #1

I've been so absorbed and fascinated by these early stages in our #MobyDickReadlong that this first post has come along much faster than I initially thought. I may, or may not, continue this level of enthusiasm as we go along!

Below are my notes and research, favourite quotes and points of interest...with a few challenges (in  bold) for you to join in.

Etymology & Extracts:

• the work of a consumptive "He loved to dust his old grammars; it somehow mildly reminded him of his mortality."
• GAWURA - whale in Dharug & Dharawal language - my Aussie contribution to the list. 
• What is the indigenous word for whale in your local area?
• the sub-sub-librarian "random allusions to whales".
• "Prior to the whaling era, Nyungar people, including the Mineng, had traditionally consumed whale meat only on an opportunistic basis when animals stranded on the beach or carcasses washed ashore. When this vast bounty of meat became available, it acted as a trigger mechanism for nearby groups to gather and feast. Meat was roasted or eaten raw and the people rubbed blubber on to their bodies. There was a festive air to the week-long gatherings." (Nebinyan's songs) My Aussie contribution to the extracts. 
• What's your favourite whale extract, quote, poem that wasn't included in Melville's list?

Jibbon Aboriginal rock engravings in Royal National Park, south of Botany Bay. Photo: David Finnegan

Chapter 1: Loomings

• I was challenged by Nancy to find the symbolism behind the names chosen by Melville. 
• "Call me Ishmael" - A biblical name meaning ‘God has harkened’. 
• A name that symbolises orphans, exiles, outcasts & wanderers. 
• Refers to Genesis 16:11 ‘Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael.’
• description of depression - "whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul".
• humour - "Pythagorean maxim" - a reference to Pythagoras' dislike of beans because of their relationship to flatulence. 
• A fart joke in the first chapter. Nice one Herman!
• philosophy - 
• "the ungraspable phantom of life"  
• "there is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid".
• rhyming - "I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts." 
• I only noticed the lovely rhythm between these 2 sentences when I listened to the Whale, Whale, Whale podcast on Wednesday.

Chapter 2: The Carpet-Bag

• Compounds and alliteration - "the swinging sign had a poverty-stricken sort of creak to it."

Chapter 3: The Spouter-Inn

• Fanda found a version of the painting that Melville spent almost two pages in describing! 
• "in a great hurricane; the half-foundered ship weltering there with its three dismantled masts alone visible; and an exasperated whale, purposing to spring clean over the craft, is in the enormous act of impaling himself upon the three mast-heads."

Aaron Zlatkin, The Spouter-Inn–Revealed, oil on canvas, 1996

• word play - "a boggy, soggy, squitchy picture".
• "skrimshander" (see image below)
• Bartender called Jonah!
• Bulkington - 
• "this man interested me at once; and since the sea-gods had ordained that he should soon become my shipmate (though but a sleeping-partner one, so far as this narrative is concerned)." 
• A tall man with "noble shoulders and a chest like a coffer-dam", "fine stature" - bulky in fact?! 
• And mysterious - "slipped away unobserved", "I saw no more of him till he became my comrade on the sea."
• Queequeg symbolism - 
• name is devoid of any meaning. 
• He's a symbol of all mankind, exotic and foreign, pagan with Islamic beliefs, democratic, equality, bringer of knowledge, source of enlightenment, resourceful and loyal, based on Te Pehi Kupe.
• "Ignorance is the parent of fear."
• "Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian."

Chapter 4: The Counterpane

• Homo-eroticism - "I found Queequeg's arm thrown over me in the most loving and affectionate manner. You had almost thought I had been his wife."
• lots of references in this chapter to 'civility', 'savages', 'propriety', 'indecorous', 'breeding' 
• Who is civilised and respectful and who is not?

Chapter 5: Breakfast

• philosophy - "a good laugh is a mighty good thing".
• Queequeg not only shaves with his harpoon, he eats with it as well!

Chapter 6: The Street

• "any considerable seaport will frequently offer to view the queerest looking nondescripts from foreign parts."
• "harpooners, cannibals and bumpkins".
• "and the women of New Bedford, they bloom like their own red roses".

Chapter 7: The Chapel

• foreshadowing - "by the murky light of that darkened, doleful day read the fate of the whalemen who had gone before me. Yes, Ishmael, the same fate may be thine."

Seaman's Bethel, New Bedford, 1968

On Podcasts:

• I have now listened to the first six chapters of the Moby-Dick Big Read. I really wanted to like this format. I liked the idea of having famous people and regular people read a chapter each, but as Fanda has already mentioned, the quality of the reading and the production is uneven. It feels redundant to read and listen to exactly the same thing. So I am abandoning the Big Read for now, but will keep it in reserve for some of those detailed whaling chapters I keep hearing about, where I may like to read and listen at the same time.
• However, it is worthwhile to visit the webpage for each chapter just to see the 136 amazing artworks collected there. Below is the example from Chapter 1.
• They also remind us that "The slaughter of whales continues. Every year, over 2,000 whales are killed for profit." They provide a place to donate to help stop whaling if you wish.

Albus, 2009 by Marcus Harvey
Courtesy of White Cube

• The podcast I will continue with though is Whale, Whale, Whale. It is an annotated reading of each chapter. Kevin invites friends in to discuss each chapter with him, so that the reading is interspersed with questions, answers, observations and modern takes on the old language. On a car trip on Wednesday, I had the chance to catch up on the first seven chapters. So far they have gone into all the notes covered in the Power Moby Dick site plus with humorous asides. They have managed to compare Ishmael to the TV character Frasier and the Spouter-Inn to the bar in Cheers. They have also discussed that loving or hating Moby-Dick is a choice, 'the slog is real, but it is the thing that makes it.' Right now, I couldn't agree more. The only downside is that Kevin has only got to chapter 32 and seems to have run aground back in February. I will be getting on twitter to encourage him to set sail once again.

Adaptations: I'm starting a list of book adaptations of Moby-Dick. Please let me know if you come across anymore.

• And the Ocean Was Our Sky by Patrick Ness, 
• Railsea by China Mieville, 
• Ray Bradbury' Leviathan '99
• The Whites by Richard Price 
• Geronimo Stilton Classic Tales graphic younger reader version 
• Kit de Waal's Becoming Dinah

Articles: Thanks to the 200th anniversary of Melville's birth on the 1st, a number of articles blossomed online. A selection is included below.

• Subversive, queer and terrifyingly relevant: six reasons why Moby-Dick is the novel for our times by Philip Hoare 30/7/2019
• He calls Moby-Dick 'the Mount Everest of literature: huge and apparently insurmountable, its snowy peak as elusive as the tail of the great white whale himself.'
• 'Not only is it very funny and very subversive, but it maps out the modern world as if Melville had lived his life in the future and was only waiting for us to catch up.'
• He compares Ahab's chase of the white whale to George W. Bush's hunt for Osama Bin Laden and Trump's obsession with building a wall.
• He says that Moby-Dick 'is a metaphor for a new republic already falling apart, with the pursuit of the white whale as a bitter analogy for the slave-owning states.'

• How Herman Melville's 'Moby-Dick' anticipated modernist writing by Jochen Kürten 31/7/2019
• Kürten says that only 3000 copies of Moby-Dick were sold during Melville's lifetime. He was not rediscovered until the 1920's.
• He 'broke away from traditional story telling methods of the day' utilising 'different interpretive possibilities'.
• He claims that Melville 'anticipated Franz Kafka's prose & the existential currents in philosophy.'

• The Encyclopedic Genius of Melville’s Masterpiece: On Moby Dick as a Way of Seeing the World by Suzanne Conklin Akbari 1/8/2019
• She claims that she is haunted by sections of the book - including the Extracts - where she sees 'order just beneath the surface'. Melville's 'encyclopaedism promises that there is a system of order.'
• Melville's lens is the whale. She calls him an 'architect not builder'.
• Compares Melville's lists to Bartholomaeus Anglicus - De Proprietatibus rerum (On the Property of Things).
• 'As readers, we inhabit a peculiar place in time, both anchored in our time and also adrift within the time of the book'.
• Suzanne has her own literature based podcast called The Spouter-Inn.

• Herman Melville is 200, but 'Moby-Dick' is very 2019 by David Shaerf 1/8/2019
• Shaerf focuses on the universality of Moby-Dick - 'Melville wasn't simply writing about whales, he was writing about the human condition (and whales).'
• 'Melville covers topics such as race and religion, gender and sexuality, environmentalism and politics in ways that seem much more aligned with contemporary sensibilities than the more puritanical mindset that prevailed during Melville's lifetime.'
• Melville was aware of the social norms he was questioning 'I have written a wicked book'.
• Shaerf has also produced a film Call Us Ishmael -

How is your Moby-Dick journey going so far?

I'm thrilled to have so many of you reading along with me and joining in on twitter and instagram. My challenge this week is to take a photo of your edition of the book in the wild - preferably near a body of water, since "meditation and water are wedded for ever"! Share on your favourite social media site.

Remember to pop your blog links for #MobyDickReadalong posts here.