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 Dictionary of Lost Words | Pip Williams #AUSfiction

 

Many years ago, the year 2000 to be precise [I know this because], I read and loved Simon Winchester's The Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder, Madness and the Love of Words. Curiously and more sensationally, it was retitled The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary for the US and Canadian market. Either way it was an utterly absorbing story about the chief editor of the first Oxford English Dictionary, John Murray and one his more colourful contributors, a US army surgeon imprisoned in the lunatic asylum in Crowthorne, Berkshire.

At the time I didn't think about how male dominated the story was. What else could one expect from a story written about the period of time from 1879 - 1915 (the years that Murray worked on the OED before his death on the 26th July)?

Thankfully Pip Williams didn't leave it at that!

One of the main consultants and contributors to the OED was historian Edith Thompson (1848-1929), originally brought in because for her knowledge of historical terms. However, by the C and D volumes she was also proofreading and sub-editing, providing thousands of quotations, along with her sister, Elizabeth Thompson.

Edith, or Ditte, is one of the real characters in Williams fictional story of the early days of the OED. Ditte is the godmother of our fictional protagonist, Esme. Williams weaves Esme's childhood habit of sitting under the sorting table in the Scriptorium, while her father worked above, into an explanation for how and why the word 'bondmaid' came to be missing from the first real-life edition of the OED.

I spent ages searching the internet for more information or a photo of Edith Thompson, but except for a few small notes on the OED contributors page, there was nothing but this one slip in her handwriting. 

These postcard-sized slips, devised by Murray, were used to collect, collate and organise all the words that came in from contributors all around the world. Pigeon holes lined the walls of the Scriptorium (the rather fancy name given to the shed at the bottom of his garden where he worked) where all the slips were sorted in alphabetical order. Every word and quotation was checked and double-checked for relevance, historical accuracy and usage. Many words instigated long debates between the three main editors as they disagreed over what was colloquial, crude or jargon. 

Many words were left out of the dictionary. Each word had to have a history of use and written quotes to back it up. If a word was in daily use, but had no written record it did not get used. Therefore the OED became a dictionary of the words that educated, literate men (and a few women) used and wrote throughout English history.

William's story turns the lens back around to the everyday words that women and the working classes used, as we watch Esme gather and collate her own dictionary of the words not included in the OED. 

Given the time frame spanned in this story, the women's suffrage movement and the effects of WWI also feature throughout. We experience both through the eyes of Esme. Both events provide her with even more opportunities to collect words that might otherwise be lost.

The Dictionary of Lost Words is a wonderful, rich historical fiction that I thoroughly enjoyed reading. I'm grateful that my book club gave me a good reason to finally pick this book up. My only quibble is that I failed to feel a deep emotional bond to any of the characters. I was completely absorbed by the story and the ideas, but I was curiously unmoved by the drama of their daily lives. First person narratives can do that to me sometimes, especially when the narrator is so reserved and quiet.

This book has left me with a thirst to know more about James Murray and his family. All of his eleven children helped work on the dictionary at various times, especially, his fourth daughter, Rosfrith, who spent most of her life working on the dictionary. I'm very grateful to Williams for highlighting the lives and work of the women who were involved in the creation of the OED. 

I'd also be keen to read more about Edith Thompson and her sister. Please let me know if you know of any such books, articles, texts.

Favourite Quote: 

The Kaurna are the Aboriginal people who called this land home before this great hall was built, and before English was ever spoken in this country. We are on their land, yet we do not speak their language. 

Favourite or Forget:

• Definitely a favourite read right now, but I suspect it won't stick in my mind by the time I come to compile my favourite reads of 2020.
• Why?
• Not enough emotional impact.
• But I will ALWAYS be fascinated by the origin story of the OED.
• The various titbits about how the Scriptorium worked will stay with me a long time.
• If I ever get to England again, a trip to 78 Banbury Rd, Oxford, will be on the cards.

The Good Turn | Dervla McTiernan #AWW

Police procedural is not my usual fare, but sometimes book club leads me down a path I wouldn't choose for myself, yet it turns out okay in the end. I very nearly used the 'not enough time' excuse to not read this book, but a recent rainy weekend gave me a chance to check it out. I was curious to see if I could read the third book in a detective series and still follow what was happening (it's a question we often get asked at work - for this series and many others).

I can happily say that The Good Turn can be read as a stand alone story in it's own right, although the main detective, Cormac Reilly obviously has some relationship issues that get played out over the other two stories (The Ruin and The Scholar). 

Galway is the Irish city at the centre of this story featuring a young Garda, Peter Fisher who gets caught up in a case of office politics and corrupt cops. The story is pretty straight forward, but the two main characters in this drama are very likeable (I hope McTiernan creates more appearances for Fisher. I enjoyed watching a young officer learn the ropes).

Not sure what else I can say really, without giving away the story. 

McTiernan's style is easy to read and pretty gentle. She's not an advocate of the red herring (unlike Agatha Christie), there is very little blood, guts and gore and absolutely no intense forensic detail (a big plus in my books!) In fact, it felt like a cross between an episode of The Bill and Ballykissangel. Again, that's a good thing. There was a gentleness, or a kindness inherent in The Good Turn. Even though there were bad cops and bad guys, the general tone was one of people trying to do their best, sometimes in tough situations.

I enjoyed my time in McTiernan's world well enough, but cop books are just not my thing. I don't feel the need to read any more, yet I can see how these books and this author could attract a following. 

McTiernan was an Irish lawyer who emigrated to Australia after the GFC. With two young children, she chose to work part-time and write, eventually securing a publisher, and now a TV deal. She lives in Perth, WA with her young family. I noticed that Garda Peter Fisher mentioned, in passing, something about moving to Australia when he was feeling disaffected with his career path - perhaps McTiernan is laying the ground work for a spin-off detective series set in Australia? I'm sure her fans would be delighted.

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!

2020 | Here We Come!

Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash

Sometimes in this blogging life, the words just won't come.

I have several posts on the back burner waiting for inspiration, time and for the right words to appear. In the meantime, I will fill the gaps with housekeeping posts and lists.

Once upon a time, I used to join in a ridiculous amount of reading challenges.
I'd read books with colours in the titles, from every country around the world, or all the counties in England! I read by numbers, by lottery, in large groups and small. I filled out bingo cards and joined reading challenges to decrease my TBR pile, my classics pile, my Aussie author pile and my award winning books pile.

They were all fun at the time, even as I knew I had no chance whatsoever, in following through and completing them.

Over my decade of blogging, I've finally learnt what works for me and what doesn't.

Even though all those other challenges were fun, a great way of meeting other bloggers and working through my TBR pile, they ultimately made me feel guilty, obligated and bogged down by the end of the year.

I've learnt that I love:

• a readalong. 
• a slow read.
• historical fiction and classics.
• Australian lit, Japanese lit and award winning books.
• memoirs, history and travel books.
• cook books and my kids books.
• rereading.

Which brings me nicely to my 2020 plans.

I will start the year with Sheila's First Book of the Year photo challenge which will include a picture of me with my next classic for Nick's slow read chapter-a-day readalong, War and Peace.

Together we've read, Les Miserables (very successfully), Don Quixote (less successfully - I bailed halfway through), The Count of Monte Cristo (another big success) and now we have War and Peace to look forward to.

This will be a reread for me.

I first read W&P in the Antipodean summer of 2001. I had just bought my first home and I spent all of the January school holidays either ploughing my way through W&P, painting, gardening or decorating my new home.

My edition was a 1942/1970 Sandstone Publishing one, translated and abridged (yikes! how did that slip by me at the time?) by Princess Alexandra Kropotkin. I raced through the 696 pages, skim reading a lot of it. I can now barely remember a thing.

Between now and January 1st, I will hunt out an edition that has the 361 chapters, as recommended by Nick, and a better translation. The Princess AK and I did not gel at all last time round.
Your recommendations for translations are greatly appreciated.
#warandpeacereadalong

I will then read a Gen III AWW book for Bill in the middle of January. I haven't decided which one yet, but no doubt it will be one of my slimmer options! Maybe The Pea Pickers by Eve Langley, The Dye House by Mena Calthorpe or one of my Thea Astley's.

January is also the beginning of three months of reading Japanese Literature with Meredith.

I have so many options to chose from, I'm not sure where to even start! But I've been craving Murakami recently, so I may go there and I also a number of new releases that I wouldn't mind getting to whilst they are still new!

In February I will complete my own slow read readalong of Moby-Dick.
Now that I have (finally) learnt how to schedule tweets, I feel that the next readalong I host will feature a consistent quote tweeting strategy.

Whatever book I choose for my next hosted readalong, won't be until the second half of the year. Why, I hear you ask?
The reason why should become abundantly clear as you keep scrolling down!

March through to mid April is a One Hundred Years of Solitude Readalong with Ruth and Silvia.

For the life of me I cannot remember if it's this Marquez that I've read or Love in the Time of Cholera. I guess I will find out on the 6th March!

April, of course, is always saved for Fanda and her marvellous Zoladdiction month. I'm reading my way through the Rougon-Macquart series chronologically.

In 2020 I'm due to read the fourth book, La Conquête de Plassans.

July's reading commitment is for Lisa's Indigenous Literature Week early in the month. I plan to read one from my TBR pile and a new release.

However July is also Paris in July with Tamara, when I love to pull out a Maigret or two and maybe a Balzac.

I finish the year with my very own AusReadingMonth in November.

I do enjoy reading non-stop Aussie books for a month, but I find the blogging schedule exhausting. After talking with Meredith, I've been wondering if a more relaxed three month reading challenge would be easier on me, and also easier for people joining in all around the world.

What are your thoughts on an AusReadingSeason from September through to the end of November?

Naturally, new and unexpected reading opportunities will come up throughout the year.

I may try to use Rachel's History Reading Challenge to read The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company by William Dalrymple. A specific challenge may the only way to get through this chunkster in a timely fashion.

Rachel is also hosting a Wolf Hall Trilogy Readalong for those of us wanting to reread Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies before the final book, The Mirror and the Light is published in March.

I'm very, very tempted, except that my dance card is already pretty full for January and February!

Erica has created a Reading Classic Books Challenge for 2020.

• Reading War and Peace will give me a classic over 500 pages and a book in translation. 
• The Zola will be a classic that takes place in a country other than where you live.
• My Gen III AWW book will count as a classic written by a woman. 
• And no doubt my 2020 CC Spins will help me fill out a few more slots on her list.

Finally, my real life book group.
Our Jan/Feb read will be Marcus Zusak's Bridge of Clay and our March read is Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens.

It's just as well I don't really join in reading challenges anymore!!

Confession with Blue Horses by Sophie Hardach

I wasn't sure that I would like Confession with Blue Horses. The blurb and the cover made me think this would be a bit too kitsch or light for my usual reading tastes.

Tobi and Ella's childhood in East Berlin is shrouded in mystery. Now adults living in London, their past in full of unanswered questions. Both remember their family's daring and terrifying attempt to escape, which ended in tragedy; but the fall-out from that single event remains elusive. Where did their parents disappear to, and why? What happened to Heiko, their little brother? And was there ever a painting of three blue horses? 

In contemporary Germany, Aaron works for the archive, making his way through old files, piecing together the tragic history of thousands of families. But one file in particular catches his eye; and soon unravelling the secrets at its heart becomes an obsession. 

When Ella is left a stash of notebooks by her mother, and she and Tobi embark on a search that will take them back to Berlin, her fate clashes with Aaron's, and together they piece together the details of Ella's past... and a family destroyed. 

Devastating and beautifully written, funny and life-affirming, Confession with Blue Horses explores intimate family life and its strength in the most difficult of circumstances.

However, this was chosen as my next book group read and I haven't read very much about East Germany so I decided to tackle it for this year's Dewey's 24 hr readathon.

What a great decision!

Yes, it was a lightly told story but it was well-told. There was a sense of it being solidly based on oodles of research without being smacked in the face by said research. It was a quick, easy read that kept me engaged and on tenterhooks for the entire readathon. I had never thought about the number of children that had been taken from their families in the GDR and what it must mean for them now, that modern research techniques are allowing people to find lost children and lost siblings again.

I didn't know that there were people working away at old shredded Stasi documents to put them back together. But reconstructing old documents from the GDR is an ongoing task that helps individuals to recover the story of their earlier lives or those of their family.

By the end, I was very curious about Hardach's own background story. Was there a personal element to this story or was it simply journalistic curiosity. Her online bio briefly states:

Sophie is a journalist and the author of two previous novels, The Registrar’s Manual for Detecting Fraud Marriages, and Of Love and Other Wars. She started out as a news reporter for Reuters in Italy, Japan and France, and eventually settled in London where she now writes for a range of publications. Sophie was born and raised in Germany, and still counts Berlin as one of her favourite cities.

She has written extensively about the German experience in her newspaper articles. I even recognised some of the intimate details in the book as coming from what she had learnt via survivors that she had interviewed.

It's obvious that for Hardach, this journey of discovery is personal and professional. In the London Library Magazine, Spring 2019, Issue 43 - Stories from Behind the Wall (pgs 22-25), she says about writing this book,

I tried to capture the tensions and contradictions of life in the GBR....I wanted to show the coping strategies that people developed, the humour, solidarity, poetry, love and friendship. I grew up in West Germany, but my mother's family was from Berlin and the far eastern German provinces that are now part of Poland and Russia....The Wall has not not been there for longer than it was there. And yet, for those 28 years, it felt permanent, and left permanent marks.

It's that sense of permanent damage that I was left with when I finished the book. Even though, Hardach left us with a hopeful ending in this case, it seemed apparent that most real-life reunifications were far more complicated and distressing.

Timing is everything, they say.
For walls to come down or to read a book at a certain time.
In less than two weeks time, it will be thirtieth anniversary of the Wall coming down.
Opinion pieces are starting to appear as everyone with a story to tell reflects on the various effects and changes since that time. I will retro-add some of the relevant articles below.

I'm now keen to read some of the books and authors that Hardach referenced in her article above - Christa Wolf, Helga Schütz (Gute Nacht du Schӧne 1991), Maxie Wander (Guten Morgen, du Schӧne 1977) and Anna Mundry (Gute Nacht, du Schӧne 1991).

Other books to consider:

• Günter Grass - Germany to Germany
• Wolfgang Hilbig - The Sleep of the Righteous
• Peter Schneider - The Wall Jumper
• Herta Müller - Traveling On One Leg
• Anna Funder - Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
• Christa Wolf - Patterns of Childhood
• Jana Hensel - After the Wall
• Deborah Levy - The Man Who Saw Everything

Movies:

• The Lives of Others.
•  Never Look Away

Opinion pieces:

• German novelists on the fall of the Wall | The Guardian | 3 November 2019 - five authors tell their stories.
• Watching the fall of the Berlin Wall | The Guardian | 9 November 2019 - five German writers share their thoughts.
• In place of Berlin's Wall now stands a barrier of sullen resentment | The Guardian | 10 November 2019 - Neal Ascherson opinion piece.

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo is one of those books of the moment, and one that I have actually managed to read during it's moment! And I can see why so much buzz has attached itself to this book.

It's about sex, desire and what it means to be a woman, told from the perspective of three women that Taddeo has spent years and years getting to know. Years and years of trawling through diaries, text messages and legal documents. Years and years of interviews with the three women and their family, friends and colleagues.

It's an extraordinary, personal and universal journey.

One can recognise aspects of one's younger self in each of the women - their thinking, their actions, the external forces that have influenced them. Fortunately most of us (I think) are spared the traumatic episodes that have come to define the lives of the women in this book. Most women I know have had icky episodes in their lives, but another group of women, live with much larger, darker secrets. This is a book about those women.

'And there but for the grace of god go I' was a common refrain that ran through my mind as I read this book. My family has used this phrase all my life, so much so, that we now abbreviate it to a simple 'there but' and the rest of us then automatically, silently, finish the phrase in our heads.

These women were on the other side of this phrase.

Most young women just want to be loved for who they are, messy bits and all. Getting a boyfriend can become such a huge part of our teen years. This desire can often lead to bad choices being made. These young women just want to be accepted, they want to belong. Like boys of the same age, they often want to break out from their parent's world. They want to experiment, have fun and dabble with bad boys, good boys, girls, whoever will show them some love and affection and desire. They want to find their power, even as they can have it taken away by others or as they give it away not realising what it is that they have. The trouble is the trouble that can happen to girls during this phase is often devastating. The double standard still exist and these girls bear the brunt of social scorn, ridicule and censure.

After almost binge reading the first half, I had to put this book aside for awhile. I was starting to feel impatient and annoyed - at the women in the book, at the world we live in, at men who take advantage, at foolish young girls who make bad choices, at families who don't take better care of their teenagers.

A couple of weeks later, I jumped in again. Once again I was utterly absorbed by Taddeo's amazing story-telling  - but there was also a part of me that was repulsed. The roller coaster ride of compulsive empathy followed by pulling away with annoyance was quite exhausting. Exhilarating and exhausting.

So what did I learn?
Or what did I get out of this all-consuming reading experience?

Firstly, that it is possible to find a book utterly engaging, authentic, intricate, insightful, thoughtful, supportive and non-judgemental, yet aggravating at the same time.

Secondly, that it's possible to describe a book as narrative non-fiction at its finest and utterly pointless at the same time. I say pointless, not because I think these women and their desires are pointless, but because I'm not quite sure what Taddeo was hoping to do with the book.

Thirdly, what you get out of this book, will depend on which lens you view it through. A feminist lens will leave you feeling enraged. A diversity lens will leave you feeling disappointed. A psychoanalytical lens will appreciate Lisa's ability to get her three women to reveal so many intimate details about their lives, but I'm not sure anyone of these women could be considered archetypes. A Marxist lens will see class and social inequalities confirmed by the different desires that drive these women.

Finally, I learnt that the beginning, middle and the end of a book can produce very different reader responses, in just the one reader! It was exhausting at times, at other times I empathised and recognised certain universal thoughts and beliefs and at others I wanted to shake them all until I could make them see sense, take control of their lives and stand up for themselves.

I also wondered if the one thing these three women had in common were parents, who despite loving their children, were somehow absent or guilty of not paying close enough attention. Whether it was alcohol, mental illness or emotional distance. As Taddeo says is her Prologue,

how much of what I thought I wanted from a lover came from what I needed from my own mother. Because it's women, in many of the stories I've heard, who have a greater hold over other women than men have.

This is not another book that blames women for the problems of other women. It's rawer than that. And more encompassing. It's life;

the beast of it, the glory and brutality. [The] blood and bone and love and pain. Birth and death. Everything at once.

Three Women was my latest book group choice. It generated lots of discussion, although no-one was prepared to be the first to talk about her desires! And maybe that's why Taddeo wrote this book - as a way to provoke a group of women into talking about desire, love and sex.

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin has a fabulous premise - 'if you knew the date of your death, how would you live your life?'

Even before opening the book, Mr Books and I had one of those after dinner, slightly boozy conversations based purely on this premise. Did we really want to know when we were going to die? If you knew, would you make the most of the time you had left or would you spend all that time trying to change the outcome somehow? Would you put yourself in risky situations, knowing or believing that you couldn't die for another few years or so? Would it be a blessing or a curse? What does it say about fate and free will?

I was also rather taken by the cover. Like Varya, Daniel, Klara and Simon, I am one of four siblings. Benjamin managed to capture the fierce closeness and almost inevitable distance that can occur within larger families as well as the various pairings and alliances that form and dissolve over time.

These four siblings all received very distinct death dates. Right from the very start, this knowledge had a profound impact on each of them. So much so, that they were unable to talk about it for years. It wasn't until their father's death, that they all revealed their death date to each other, except for the youngest, Simon, who simply revealed that his fate was to die young.

We then followed all four siblings until their predicted death dates.

Benjamin does great story telling. The book was an engaging, easy read. The siblings felt authentic as fully realised individuals. Except for perhaps, the eldest, Varya, whose story veered off into some odd or convenient (for the author) directions that left this reader scratching her head, wondering where did that came from!

Simon's approach to his death date was the only one that I felt was easy to understand and accept. The question was raised about whether he chose to live the life he lived believing that he was doomed to die young anyway or whether he might have made different choices without that knowledge.

Klara and Daniel's approach to their death dates bamboozled me (if you've read this book & would like to discuss in the comments, please do so, but I will leave the main post spoiler free). I simply didn't understand why they did what they did as their predicted death dates approached.

Which for me, is the fatal flaw with this book.

Even though I thoroughly enjoyed my time between these pages, thinking about the possibilities and consequences of knowing what might happen if you knew when you were going to die, the siblings reactions and choices didn't really address or resolve this in a way I found satisfying. Their actions and reactions felt like the author creating four separate examples that didn't quite gel with their back stories. In fact, the back stories completely failed to enlighten me about the mental health issues and psychological impact of this knowledge. I was waiting for some deep, existential angst that never turned up to the party. Stuff happened, and I couldn't always connect the dots as to why.

The Immortalists turned out to be a fast food story for me. Thoroughly tasty at the time, a guilty pleasure even, but now a few days later, I'm left wanting more and feeling slightly dissatisfied.

I read this for my book group's September gathering.
Book 23 of #20 Books of Summer Winter

The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey

The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey is exactly the type of cosy crime I enjoy reading on a cold, rainy wintery weekend.

Much like the UK series about Maisie Dobbs and the Australian series by Kerry Greenwood about Phryne Fisher, Massey has created the Indian version of these smart, pioneering 1920's women who have the ability to be in the right place at the right time to solve crimes.

Sujata was born in England to parents from India and Germany. She now lives in the US, which may explain why I often felt that the Indian nature of the story was technically correct and well researched, but didn't always feel authentic. I spent most of the book feeling like a tourist, on the outside looking in. I will be curious to hear how one of my fellow book clubbers felt about this though, as she actually grew up living on Malabar Hill in the 1960's.

At times, I had a few quibbles with the 'show don't tell' aspect of Massey's writing and I didn't always feel like I was in 1920's India. Sometimes the dialogue felt awkward and stilted as well. It may have been an accurate reflection of the self-conscious, uneasy tensions that exist when two different classes try to communicate but I'm not sure that's where the problem lay.

However, I cannot deny, that as an easy to read, cosy crime story, The Widows of Malabar Hill was a winner. It has a likeable protagonist in Perveen Mistry and an exotic setting. Being based on versions of a true story gives the book another tick in its favour.

Mistry's backstory was interesting, but at times felt contrived. Perhaps it was all the 'telling' going on rather than showing, revealing and letting the reader get there themselves. Certainly the reader doesn't have to do anything other than just read, Massey does all the work. Despite all the descriptions, I have no residual visual image of the characters or the place. The historical element also felt rather loose. I had to keep reminding myself it was meant to be the 1920's.

I obviously had some technical issues with the writing, but ultimately I enjoyed the story and will probably read the sequel The Satapur Moonstone at some point. You may be surprised to hear that, after all the issues I had with this book, but sometimes a book is just for reading. And sometimes a book leaves you with enough of a warm glow, to make a dreary wintery weekend a little brighter.

Favourite or Forget: I suspect this will fade from my memory fairly quickly.

Food:

My edition comes with a few recipes (of meals eaten throughout the book) at the back. I'm keen to try the Malabar Spinach and Eggs one day.

Preparation Time: 20 minutes
Cooking Time: 10 minutes
Serves: 2 as breakfast or 4 as part of a dinner
Difficulty: Easy

Here’s a moderately spicy recipe that is a Parsi classic. Malabar spinach, also known as water spinach or poisaag, can be found at Asian grocers and farmer’s markets. Large leaf spinach or swiss chard is a good substitute. You’ll need a wide frying pan with a lid to prepare this dish.

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons canola, safflower or sunflower oil
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 4 curry leaves (optional)
• 2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
• 1 minced garlic clove
• 5 diced Roma tomatoes, or one large tomato
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh coriander
• 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
• 1/4 teaspoon chilli powder
• 1 bunch of Malabar spinach, or substitute greens
• salt to taste
• 4 eggs

Method:

1. Heat oil in a wide, deep skillet over medium-low heat. Add onion and optional curry leaves and sauté until onion is translucent.
2. Add the ginger, garlic, tomatoes, coriander, turmeric, and chilli powder. After the tomatoes are broken down, about two minutes, add the spinach and a few tablespoons of water. Cover with lid and cook for 5 to 7 minutes over low heat, until the spinach is soft. Add salt to taste.
3. Use a large spoon to make 4 depressions in the soft cooked greens. Break an egg over each of these depressions.
4. Cover the pan again. If the lid has a curve on its underside, invert the lid and pour a couple of teaspoons of water into the curve. This addition of water heightens the steaming effect as the eggs poach under the lid. Remember to keep the temperature very low.
5. Peek at the eggs after 3 minutes, and if they are almost set, serve.

Two nights later:

I made an Aussie version of Malabar Spinach and Eggs using bok choy and broccolini. It was perfect for one of our 800 Fast day meals. It was also delicious and the spice mix was great for warming us up on a cold winter's evening.

Facts:

• Cornelia Sorabji was the real life inspiration for Perveen Mistry
• Winner of the Agatha Award
• Winner Mary Higgins Clark Award
• Winner Lefty Award for Best Historical Mystery
• Nominated for the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction

17/20 Books of Summer Winter

Sydney 21℃

Dublin 20℃
Weekend Cooking with Beth Fish Reads

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

Bel Canto was our May book club choice. It was a reread for several of the members, but for me it was my very first time. I'm now wondering why on earth I left it so long to read.

Bel Canto is a glorious story about the power of song to soothe the beast within us all and to bring us together, regardless of class, culture, language or education.

I had no idea what to expect from this story initially; I knew nothing about it at all. I thought, perhaps, that it was a story about the opera. Imagine my shock when the the story begins with a dramatic hostage situation in a South American vice-presidential home one night in the middle of a private party for a Japanese delegation.

The bel canto reference is for the opera singer, Roxane, engaged to sing at the party. Her voice personifies the musical definition of 'full, rich, broad tone and smooth phrasing'. She has the entire party in her thrall, including the future terrorists hiding in the walls waiting to spring out and begin the hostage drama.

Patchett subtly explores the Stockholm syndrome that ensues. In psychological terms it is an alliance between the hostages and their captors designed to act as a survival strategy. Patchett shows us, that in this particular story, it can work both ways as the terrorists also become attached to their hostages. According to wikipedia, Stolkholm syndrome is seen as an irrational and possibly dangerous situation. Patchett shows us the logic, the necessity and the naturalness of this syndrome. It is simply a matter of one human being reaching out, responding to and connecting with another. It becomes inevitable.

Bel Canto is about humanity and what makes us human. It's about the things that bring us together, rather than tear us apart. It's the power of music and beauty to save us all.

First published 2001

Favourite Character: Carmen - brave, smart and caring but caught up in a situation out of her control.

Favourite Quote: "When I hear Roxane sing I am still able to think well of the world," Gen said. "This is a world in which someone could have written such music, a world in which she can still sing that music with so much compassion. That's proof of something, isn't it?"

Favourite or Forget: I will never forget this story.

Facts:

• Based on the Japanese embassy hostage crisis (also called the Lima Crisis) of 1996–1997 in Lima, Peru.
• Winner of the 2002 Orange Prize for Fiction (now the Women's Prize).
• Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
• I was in a choir for several years - we called ourselves Bel Canto.

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

I'm loving Japanese literature more and more. The modern stuff in particular, appears deceptively simple, but as you read, and for weeks afterwards, you become aware of layers of meaning.

The Convenience Store Woman is no exception. On the surface it appears to be a light tale about the life of a young woman who has been a convenience store worker for 18 years. But underneath is all this stuff about Japanese culture, societal expectations, belonging, purpose and how we cope with people who are different from the 'norm'.

Photo by Fancycrave on Unsplash

It's obvious, although undeclared that Keiko is probably on the autism spectrum. She has major issues with empathy, routines and socialisation. Her family have always wanted to 'cure' her. She has spent her life keeping her 'mouth shut' and trying to be 'normal'.

The convenience store is a place where Keiko feels like she belongs. She follows the manual assiduously and learns from (copies) her colleagues in the way they dress, talk, do their hair etc. Routines are her big thing though. She judges weather conditions to perfection so she knows when to stock/promote hot food or cold, she lines up the food in perfect rows, carefully lining up flavours and labels and sorting oldest to newest. She is the model employee and loves her job, finally feeling like she is 'normal' and functioning member of society.

But sadly, society still does not see her as 'normal'. A new employee who pokes fun at the store routines and manual upsets the rhythm of her life and she learns from her sister that, "ever since you started working at the convenience store, you've gotten weirder and weirder."

Keiko's one brief attempt at a relationship shows her what 'normal' might be like, although there was nothing usual or typical about her time with Shiraha in the end. It was an eye opener for her to realise though, that her family and friends were more comfortable with her in an unhappy, dysfunctional relationship and unemployed rather than being happily single and working in a job she loved and was good at. You begin to wonder who the odd people really are after all.

Her attempts to be 'normal' didn't worked. Certainly the scene with her sister and crying baby nephew shows us, the reader, how far from normal human reaction Keiko really is. Her thought processes at this moment are rather startling and concerning; I would certainly not be leaving my baby alone with her!

And this is where Murata has cleverly left it open for us to sometimes feel fear of Keiko and her robotic, almost psychopathic tendencies, but mostly we feel concern for her and just want her to be accepted for who she is. In the end, we're on her side, just wanting everyone to stop dumping their issues about 'normal' on her, so she can be happy in her work.

The convenience store is where Keiko belongs, and when she finally realises that her "very cells exist for the convenience store," we know that she will be as okay and as happy as she possibly can be. She knows what she is and she's content with that and no longer cares what anyone thinks. In the end this is a love story - a love story between a woman and her convenience store!

Favourite Passage:

For the human me, it probably is convenient to have you around, Shiraha, to keep my family and friends off my back. But the animal me, the convenience store worker, has absolutely no use for you whatsoever.

Go girl!

Favourite or Forget?

I loved this slim story a lot. It has given me a lot to mull over about society, appearances and conformity. It was weirdly comic with a dark, almost gothic edge to it. It's a favourite but I will not be rereading it. I will pass it on to my fellow book club members to read for our April meeting.

Facts:

The Convenience Store Woman won the 2016 Akutagawa Award.
Won the Foyles Book of the Year for Fiction 2018.
Picked as one of the New Yorker's Best Books of 2018.
Longlisted for the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award.
It was Murata's tenth novel.
Throughout her writing career, Murata has worked part-time at a convenience store in Tokyo.

Translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori

Portobello Books 2018

First published: 2016

pages: 163

Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton

I suspect I'm going to be the lone dissenting voice when it comes to Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton.

This is a debut Australian novel garnering a HUGE amount of attention and rave reviews. In the lead up to our Christmas rush at work last year, this is the book many, many locals were asking for. Customers were returning to tell us how much they ADORED the book and every second book club, including mine, seemed to pick it for their summer holiday read.

I was thrilled that I was going to have a good excuse to make time for this book and I couldn't wait to get stuck into it.

To start with what I loved:

• The cover - just gorgeous, vibrant and psychedelic. The blue wren makes sense once you start reading. For an in depth look into how cover designers settle on the finished design read this fascinating piece from the Australian Book Design Association. They interviewed Darren Holt and Claire Ward, the Australian and UK designers for Boy Swallows Universe (as well as other designers for other books).
• The writing - Dalton took my breath away. I was completely and utterly WOWED.
• The protagonist, Eli Bell is a wonderful narrator. His voice is believable, charming and unique.
• The introduction of ex-con Slim Halliday as Eli's babysitter added a quirky touch.
• I loved the themes - a young boy looking for a 'good man' to love and model his life on, brotherly love, redemption and protection, a young boys fierce need for mother love.
• Early on I also began to suspect that this book was also heavily embedded in real life events.
• Slim Halliday was a real criminal who did his time in Boggo Road Gaol.
• How much else was real?

However around the 50 page mark, the underbelly criminal stuff started to take centre stage. Drugs, drug running and drug lords took over the story. Because I now suspected that this was based on a true story (I hadn't googled at this point) I made myself keep reading even though, every single extra sordid drug reference and act turned me off more and more and more. 

I've always believed that if someone actually had to LIVE through something ghastly, the very least I can do from my safe, white, middle class home, is read about it with understanding and compassion and a huge dose of gratefulness for my very ordinary upbringing.

True crime is not my usual genre, but I have been known to be fascinated by the occasional story. We watched the second season of Underbelly that starred Matthew Newton which was centred around the murder of Donald Mackay in Griffith in 1977, but I haven't been able to watch any of the other seasons. I also haven't got into Breaking Bad, The Sopranos or Orange is the New Black.

However, with Boy Swallows Universe, I got to a point, about 100 pages in, where the amazing writing and the affection I felt for the two brothers, wasn't enough to sustain me through the relentless criminal activity. 

I admire Dalton for finding such an incredible way to process the trauma from his childhood. There is so much love for this story 'out there', that I'm sure it will pop up in most of the Australian book awards this year. It deserves it too. The praise being heaped on it, is valid, but the content is just not my thing. There are so many books, about topics that I have way more interest in, waiting for me to read them, that I don't want to give too much time to one of those that just fails to fit the bill...for me.

Boy Swallows Universe has just been shortlisted for the Indie Debut Fiction Book Awards.

I've labelled this with the Did Not Finish tag, but it was more a case of skim reading the last three quarters of the book before slowing down to read the last chapter properly.

March update: I gave this to Mr Books to read because I suspected that he would love it. He did.
He felt the criminal activity was within context and didn't dominate the story. For him, the story of the boys, the search for goodness and what makes a person 'good' and the power of redemption were powerful, moving themes.
He was surprised I couldn't finish it, even though he has had years of watching me hide behind pillows and my hands in violent movies! (We're rewatching Game of Thrones in preparation for the final season. Because I know what's coming, I'm spending even more time behind the pillows than I did with the first viewing, when many of the violent/cruel scenes caught me by surprise. I also know to leave the room whenever Bolton walks on screen).

Facts:

• Longlisted for the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award.
• Winner 2019 ABIA Book of the Year Award | Literary Fiction Book of the Year
• Winner 2019 Indie Book Award
• Winner 2019 UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing | NSW Premier's Literary Awards
• Winner 2019 People's Choice Award | NSW Premier's Literary Awards
• Winner 2019 ABIA Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year
• Longlisted for the 2019 Miles Franklin Literary Award
• Shortlisted for the 2019 Colin Roderick Award

The Secrets She Keeps by Michael Robotham

I'm not usually a big reader of crime fiction.

During my younger days I enjoyed a good mystery wrapped up in an adventure series (thank you Trixie Belden and Enid Blyton) and I still love to delve into the psychological reasons why people do the things they do (Maigret fits the bill here). Cosy crime is my favourite though, especially if it's dressed up as historical fiction (Maisie Dobbs, Rowland Sinclair & Phryne Fisher) but straight up and down crime is not usually my thing.

However my book club chose Michael Robotham's The Secrets She Keeps as our latest read. I didn't read the last book club book, so I felt compelled to do better this month.

Mr Books is a big fan of Robotham, but I approached reluctantly. The story is told from the alternating perspectives of Agatha and Meghan, two women with very big secrets to keep, whose lives are on a serious collision course. The cover told me that baby snatching was going to be the crime at the centre of this story.

I thought I had it all worked out very early on. The first part was a 'who-dunnit' and I thought I was being inordinately clever by working out who and how so quickly. Except, suddenly, by the midpoint so did everyone else. Which is where the story became more of a 'why-dunnit', the tension ramped up several notches and I found myself reading until 1am to find out what happened next!

Although I didn't really like any of the characters, I felt a lot of sympathy for the crim. She was one damaged woman, who made a lot of very poor and very dangerous choices. Robotham portrayed someone suffering from a severe personality disorder very realistically, albeit with the necessary literary exaggeration to make for an interesting tale.

Apparently the story of a baby being kidnapped from a hospital was based on a true event from the 1990's (perhaps this one).

The Secrets She Keeps was a true page-turner, but for me, it's also like eating fairy floss. Fun while it lasts, but not very satisfying in the long run.

I don't mean to sound like a genre-snob; everyone reads for different reasons, and it's truly wonderful that there's a book genre to suit everyone's needs. Mr Books loves this kind of stuff, along with political thrillers, Scandi noir, courtroom dramas and Underbelly style true crime. He reads it to relax at 5am when he can't get back to sleep. He likes an engaging story, straight-forward, but clever writing, language that has been pared back to the bone and a well-constructed, well-paced plot with complex, believable characters. Robotham ticks all these boxes.

It's just that in this short time I have on this planet to read all the book I want to read, I don't want to spend too much time on books that aren't really my thing. I read to find beauty, elegance and kindred spirits. I read to get lost in another's world. I read for intellectual stimulation. I read to find answers to life's big questions. I read for comfort and emotional connection.

Which makes me wonder why other people read?

Do you read like Mr Books, for the pure pleasure of escapism, like me, for the pleasure of connection and beauty, or do you have your very own reasons to read? Why do you read what you read?

The Child in Time by Ian McEwan

The Child in Time was my latest book club read and one of McEwan's earlier works that I had yet to read. For this particular book club gathering we agreed to extend the meeting to include a viewing of the BBC movie starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Kelly Macdonald.

I thought it might be interesting to do a before & after type post to compare the two mediums for telling this story.

I finished the book last weekend. During the week I jotted down these thoughts about McEwan's 1987 Whitbread award winning book:

My previous experiences with McEwan helped me to ride through the consistently inconsistent feelings that his books always seem to evoke in me. I find him to be such a frustrating writer - moments of utter brilliance that leave me breathless and wowed followed by rambling, self-indulgent musings about time, memory and love. Normally I love rambling musings about time, memory and love, but McEwan struggles to find the point, any point, for the reader to catch ahold of (at least this reader anyway).

The car crash in The Child in Time had all the early makings of the infamous ballooning accident in Enduring Love, but somehow the scenes featuring the loss of the child left me cold. The pacing and voice wasn't quite right - I couldn't really engage. I fully expected to feel the panic, the fear and the disbelief but instead I was kept firmly at arms length. Perhaps it was McEwan's way of showing us Stephen's way of grieving. He kept busy, searching and questioning. By trying to fix the problem, bloke-style, he kept his grief at bay, sedating it with alcohol and routines.

Meanwhile Julie allowed herself to succumb to her grief. She embraced the grieving process, chick-style, although it also had the same outcome as Stephen's way, in that they both ended up isolated and alone. The difference being that Julie chose her isolation, it was part of her plan to deal with the pain and loss she was suffering.

Stephen floundered his way towards letting go and acceptance, whereas Julie understood that this was exactly the process she was going to have to work through.

There was some weird shit going on with time that almost made this a ghost story or a time travel story or even a homage to Benjamin Button. A dream-like or perhaps nightmarish quality infused the story. Puzzled by the whole Charles and Thelma storyline though.

The links between the loss of a child with governmental child care policy and the innocence of childhood felt rather clumsy to me. As did the comparison between (bad) city life and (good) country life. In the city we saw the breakdown of transport systems, the rise of poor people wearing beggar's badges to identify them and regulate their movements and invasive technology. Politicians practised disinformation and deception on their constituencies, authoritarian ideals were becoming the norm and the weather seemed to be unpredictable. Meanwhile our characters who returned to the country were searching for an innocence and purity of old. Nature acted to comfort and solace our characters. It worked for Julie, but not, ultimately for Charles.

I have no idea what year the book was set in? It felt slightly futuristic, yet old-fashioned as well. The badges for the poor added to this uncertainty. Beggars badges were phased out of the UK a century or so ago. But they provided another example of an authoritarian government. The kind of government that peddles in disinformation & propaganda & nationalistic policy. Sounds remarkably familiar!

Was the PM gay or was the PM a woman? No name or pronouns used. Was this McEwan's political novel, having a go at Thatcherite England?

I enjoyed the happy-ish ending. I didn't need to know the sex of the baby (but I assumed it was a boy - having another girl would have been too painful. I want Stephen & Julie to be able to enjoy this baby without constantly comparing it to the one they lost).

THE FILM

So first - Cumberbatch - excellent choice for Stephen. He did that British, stiff upper lip, slightly weedy, prone to drinking too much when melancholy character so well. However, in the book, I found it hard to care for him beyond the surface empathy that his loss evoked. In the movie, Cumberbatch was able to convey so much more of Stephen's interior life via his gestures and expressions.

Extra scenes helped to connect the dot that were confusing in the book.

The film had to make some visual leaps of faith - they assumed the PM was male. They also made it clear that the new babe was a boy. The extra bits with the ghost-like boy gave the film a narrative cohesion that the book just missed.

In the film Charles refers his role in the Childcare Book as a joke book which gave me a clearer understanding of what his issues may have been. It didn't even occur to me in the book that his childhood may have been overly authoritarian and harsh, I assumed it was more of a mental illness affecting his behaviour, or perhaps I missed that bit?

The film was softer on the separation and distance between Stephen and Julie. They saw each other a number of times and had regular phone contact. In the book they were far more isolated and alone with their sorrows. The book highlighted how they had to work their own stuff out, on their own, so they could come together again at the end, stronger and more grateful. The film suggested they both just needed some space.

No car accident in the film. Why did they leave it out? Why did McEwan include it?

I felt more emotional throughout the film.

The film helped me to make more sense of the book. But the book explored the layers and themes more than the film. The film was a human drama. The book was more about ideas and politics.

The movie is well worth a watch, but pack a tissue.
The book is not my best McEwan, but it's also not my worst.

4/20 #20booksofsummer (winter)
 11℃ in the Blue Mountains
 18℃ in Northern Ireland

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt

Patrick DeWitt is a Canadian author who now lives in Oregon, USA. The Sisters Brothers won the 75th Canadian Governor General's Literary Awards and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize and the 2012 Walter Scott Prize.

The Man Booker shortlist synopsis states that,

this dazzlingly original novel is a darkly funny, offbeat western about a reluctant assassin and his murderous brother. Oregon, 1851. Eli and Charlie Sisters, notorious professional killers, are on their way to California to kill a man named Hermann Kermit Warm. On the way, the brothers have a series of unsettling and violent experiences in the Darwinian landscape of Gold Rush America. Charlie makes money and kills anyone who stands in his way; Eli doubts his vocation and falls in love. And they bicker a lot. Then they get to California, and discover that Warm is an inventor who has come up with a magical formula, which could make all of them very rich. 

What happens next is utterly gripping, strange and sad. 

Told in deWitt’s darkly comic and arresting style, The Sisters Brothers is the kind of western the Coen Brothers might write – stark, unsettling and with a keen eye for the perversity of human motivation. Like his debut novel Ablutions, it is a novel about the things you tell yourself in order to be able to continue to live the life you find yourself in, and what happens when those stories no longer work 

It is an inventive and strange and beautifully controlled piece of fiction and displays an exciting expansion of Dewitt’s range.

I confess this type of story is not my usual fare, but sometimes a book benefits from a little detective work before reading. 

I had tried to read UnderMajorDomo Minor a couple of years ago after Mr Books raved about how much he enjoyed it. But I couldn't get into it at all. When my bookclub assigned The Sisters Brothers as our February read, I knew I would have to work at finding a way in. I kept putting off reading it and when I bumped into a couple of bookclub members in a local cafe who were both struggling along at the halfway mark, I knew this book was going to become my very own personal challenge.

So, I fell back onto good old-fashioned research.

I discovered via Wikipedia that The Sisters Brothers was inspired by a Time–Life book on the California Gold Rush, which deWitt found at a garage sale.

My back cover quote from the Financial Times informed me that it was,

a witty noir Don Quixote...a blackly comic fable about emptiness, loneliness and the hollow lure of gold.

I have never read Don Quixote, so I read it's wikipedia summary and learnt that,

1. Don Quixote doesn't see the world for what it really is
2. it's a parody of the romantic/chivalry style that was popular at the time
3. it features quests, adventures and episodes
4. fantasy versus the real world
5. famous quote 'tilting at windmills'
6. spawned it's own adjective 'quixotic'
7. was an example of a picaresque novel

What on earth is a picaresque novel?

I'm glad you asked!

The Brittanica website says, 

The picaresque novel (Spanish: picaresca, from pícaro, for "rogue" or "rascal") is a genre of prose fiction that depicts the adventures of a roguish hero of low social class who lives by their wits in a corrupt society.

Image source

I now felt ready to begin my journey with Eli and Charlie Sisters.

Eli is our faithful but disaffected narrator. We quickly learn that he is kind-hearted, sensitive and not at all keen to continue life as a hit-man. He is burnt-out and reminded me somewhat of Jules in the movie Pulp Fiction who also wants to retire from his life of crime.

Eli's voice is rather dry and wry, deadpan yet melancholic. The fraternal relationship is the heart and soul of this wild west picaresque (yes! she used it in a sentence! new word bonus!) as the title suggests.

Charlie is a harder case to crack. He's the older brother who watches over (bosses around) his adoring younger brother. As their journey proceeds, Eli is forced to see Charlie more realistically and less idealistically even as Charlie undergoes his own life-altering event.

Their bizarre adventures, weird coincidences and chance meetings move us from Oregon to California via saloons, shoot-outs and drunken binges. A crying horseman, a cursed hut and a one-eyed horse cross our paths. A couple of unexpected intermissions are thrown in as well.

DeWitt was asked about these during an interview with Mumsnet,

I tend to work from a place of instinct rather than intellect. I like mysteries, in the work of others and in my own work as well. It's common for me to write sections that don't serve a specific purpose but feel necessary to me, and the intermission sections are good examples of this. I can't say that they propel a narrative or 'do'anything, but I find them crucial in fleshing out the landscape, illustrating its strangeness and "dangerousness".

The Western style that dominates the first two-thirds, suddenly changes to a sci-fi thriller when the brothers finally meet up with their latest target - a mad scientist type who has created a crazy toxic potion that finds gold.

A Telegraph review at the time described the book as Laurel & Hardy meets Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, with a Little House on the Prairie ending. It's all of that and more.

I found myself thoroughly enjoying the ride that DeWitt took me on. Eli's narration is funny, poignant and insightful. The research helped me to get passed the hurdles that affected some of my fellow book-clubbers. It was a case of a little bit of knowledge going a long way.

A movie starring John C Reilly, Jake Gyllenhaal and Joaquin Phoenix is due later this year. I may even be tempted to go and see it.