The Salt Path | Raynor Winn #UKNonFiction

 

It has taken me a while to finish The Salt Path by Raynor Winn, not because I wasn't enjoying it, but simply because it became my walking backpack book. It was the perfect choice. It was a slim paperback (i.e. lightweight). It was about going for a very long walk. It was non-fiction and therefore easy to pick up and put down without needing to remember complicated plot points or narrative arcs. And the gorgeous cover design by Angela Harding was a thing of beauty to savour as a drank my coffee, in my favourite coffee shop. at the end of my walk.

The early pages are a tale of woe and misfortune. Winn and her husband, Moth, are in the 50's and suffer a serious of life-changing blows. From financial ruin, losing their home and discovering that Moth as a life-threatening illness, corticobasal degeneration or CBD. I occasionally felt frustration at their level of trust in the goodness of others (and institutions) and their lack of proper planning and forethought, but there was no denying their deep love and commitment to each other. 

After being made homeless, their young adult children were unable to take them in or support them, as they will still at the university/study phase of life. Some friends helped out for a while, but they did not want to be a burden to anyone. Moth's terminal diagnosis hung over them and memories of the life together in Wales on their farm, were too painful to face every day. So they packed up the few things they still owned, stored some, converted others into walking gear and backpacks, and decided to walk the south-west coast path around Cornwall. A mere 630 miles!

They used Paddy Dillon's little brown book, The South West Coast Path: From Minehead to South Haven Point as their guide. Which meant they had to start their walk, at what is considered, the hardest end first so that they could read the book front to back rather then back to front.

Raynor & Moth quickly discovered that they would not be walking as quickly as Paddy and that his idea of a slight incline was very different to theirs!

Sharing their story with other walkers, was also an eye-opening experience. If they mentioned they were homeless and basically penniless, they were treated as hobos to be avoided and looked down upon. But if they tweeked their story a little they could be seen as heroic, adventurous types to be admired or envied. 

The scenery along this walk is obviously amazing, and I do wish they had included some photos so that those of us on the other side of the world could picture it as we read. Of course, google provides the same service these days. 

The walk was also a lot harder than they thought it was going to be. From blisters, to extreme cold (even in the middle of summer), storms in a barely waterproof tent, and the price of food in many of these scenic, touristy seaside villages. Moth's illness slowed them down as well...for a while. Several weeks into the walk, they both realised that he was moving better, experiencing less pain and seemed to be improving. 

In the end, they had to do the walk in two stages, thanks to the onset of winter. 

Many things were left unsaid.

Did they discover a possible cure or at least, a way to slow down the onset of CBD, by doing this hike? Were they able to find work at the end of the walk? And somewhere to live?

I have to assume that many of these queries will be addressed in her latest book, The Wild Silence, or in the Conversation she had with Sarah Kanowski on ABC radio.

• Shortlisted Costa Book Awards 2018

The Living Sea of Waking Dreams | Richard Flanagan #AUSfiction

 

I know there is a lot of love for The Living Sea in Waking Dreams out there already. 

It's not that I didn't love it, or even admire what Flanagan was trying to achieve, but it's not easy to read a book where you feel like you're being smashed over the head, not just with a hammer, but with the biggest, heaviest mallet that Flanagan could find, on every single page, at every single turn. With such a convoluted title, I was expecting more nuance and intellectual word play. Instead I got whack after whack of anger.

Flanagan has a lot to be angry about.

Last summer was ghastly for all of us in Australia. The bush fires were the worst we'd ever experienced. Our skies were grey with smoke and ash for month after month. The smell was inescapable, the heat was oppressive, the news catastrophic. It was easy to feel like it was the beginning of the end. Or the end of the beginning.

Writing a book while all of this is happening around you, can take its toll. It can be hard to find perspective. It can be hard not to rave and rant in absolute frustration. It can be hard to resist a good old preachy sermon. Flanagan did not resist.

There was nothing subtle in his story about vanishing body parts, a dying mother and a world in flames. The ghastly siblings, Anna & Terzo, who refused to let their mother die with any dignity or grace, were so implausible, I struggled to spend my time with them. Their brother, Tommy, was much nicer company and more realistically drawn, as was Anna's son, Gus. But then, Tommy was the actual carer. He was on hand in Tasmania to care for their ailing mother, while the other two simply jetted in and out whenever there was a problem to be solved. And Gus' response to a world on the brink of catastrophic climate change is to withdraw into a world of gaming and Youtube videos. 

Flanagan ranted several times about social media and smartphone use. Clearly he is not someone who properly understands these online tools. Nothing about the way his characters engaged with their online world actually reflected anyone I know. He had all the right words, but just like Mr Books & I discussing Tiktok or Snapchat or memes with our boys, we show our ignorance at every turn, much to their amusement.

I feel like I'm the one ranting now!

I didn't not like the book. 

It was an interesting read and an interesting concept, with all the vanishings that nobody noticed, that spoke for, or to, something even bigger and scarier that nobody is noticing either. However I felt no emotional connection to anyone in the story, except pity - a huge amount of pity, in fact - for the undying, lingering, suffering, decaying mother. I found myself talking out loud to Flanagan throughout the book, telling him to get out of the way of his own story.

I love it, though, when I discover the title in the story.

It wasn't enough for Terzo that their mother had not died. It wasn't enough that she lived in her sea of waking dreams. In Terzo's view, she had to live like us, rationally, in a rational universe.

Except of course, Terzo's world, or his idea of living, were not as rational as he thought.

In the end, though, the occasional insights and beautiful writing were not enough for me to rate The Living Sea of Waking Dreams particularly highly. 

It astonished her that he had a view as deeply held felt as hers and yet entirely opposite, and which he held with an equal conviction. And in the face of someone who would not be persuaded by her, she did not seek to see the world for a moment as he saw it but instead was simply angry with him that his world was not her world.

I'm in the process of putting together my best 20 reads of 2020. This one will not make the cut.

Epigraph: 

John Clare | Remembrances

To the axe of the spoiler and self-interest fell a prey;

And Crossberry Way and old Round Oak's narrow lane

With its hollow trees like pulpits, I shall never see again:

Inclosure like a Bonaparte let not a thing remain,

It levelled every bush and tree and levelled every hill

And hung the moles for traitors - though the brook is running still,

It runs a naked brook, cold and chill.

Opening Lines:

1.

Her hand.

2. 

It's impossible to say how the vanishing began or if it was already ended, thought Anna.

Other Opinions:

• The Conversation | 8th Oct 2020 | Tony Hughes-d'Aeth

The brilliance of Flanagan’s story and the deep power of this novel is in our witnessing of the end of the world. The death of Francie opens up a black hole in the family drawing Anna, Terzo and Tommy into its implacable singularity.

• The Guardian | 16th Oct 2020 | Beejay Silcox

The Living Sea of Waking Dreams [is] at its best when it balances its vehemence with its beauty, when it leaves space for the reader to wander and wonder – eucalypt leaves swinging down like “lazing scimitars”; a moth thrumming its “Persian rug” wings.

• Lisa @ANZ Lit Lover found more to like than I did.

UK Cover

I've been trying to take a photo of the beautiful green textured feather design on the hard cover underneath the glossy black dust jacket, that would do it justice. You'll have to take my word for it. It's much more interesting than the dust jacket image. The next time you're in a bookshop, carefully open the jacket and take a peek for yourself.

The Spare Room | Helen Garner #AWW

I find reading Helen Garner a curious affair. There's a real push me/pull me effect, that intrigues me and wow's me, then repels me all in the same sentence.

I'm intrigued and wowed by her writing, the turn of phrase that captures a moment brilliantly. There's a candour and earthiness that seems grounded in her strong sense of self. Then there's the confronting intimacy about herself and her friends and family. Such awkward, uncomfortable personal details that make me flinch with their rawness, that seem to suggest someone not so sure of their place in the world.

Over the years, I've been impressed with Garner's habit of tackling difficult topics, especially in her non-fiction, like a father killing his own children after an access visit in This House of Grief. These books seem to suggest, that like me, she is on a constant journey to understand human nature. Why do human beings do the things they do? What are our motivations? What stories do we tell ourselves to make the truth, the hard facts palatable? How do we live with ourselves when we do something bad? Questions to make us confront our own biases and preconceptions.

Last year, I attempted to read her Diaries Vol I, but I had to stop. It felt too voyeuristic, like I was trespassing where I didn't belong. I didn't understand Garner's purpose in revealing such private details. Yes, the names were disguised with initials, but if that letter happened to belong to you, it would be easy to feel betrayed and exposed.

I am friendly with someone who will be an initial in Vol II of Garner's Diaries. She said enough water had passed under the bridge since then, but she does not feel the need to revisit the pain by reading about it. I'm beginning to understand why Garner writes so often of falling out with friends. One person's open frankness is often another persons hurtful loss of trust wrapped up in a sense of disloyalty.

Which brings me to The Spare Room. 

I've been hearing about this novella for quite some time now, and it has been lingering on my TBR pile for almost as long. I assumed it was a memoir from everything I had heard - Helen writing about the three weeks she nursed a dying friend from Sydney, who had decided to try some alternative treatments that had no scientific backing whatsoever in Melbourne.

Yet, The Spare Room is clearly and determinedly classified as a novel (or a novella). The name of the dying friend has been changed and no doubt, the timeline of events has been fictionalised to fit the constraints of the size of the book, but she is still Helen, living next door to her daughter's family in Melbourne. 

I read another fictionalised memoir earlier in the year, Homeland Elegies. I got completely caught up in trying to work out what was fact and what was fiction. I quickly established that a number of the details had been significantly changed from the author's wikipedia bio, but it became too difficult for me to tease it all out. In the end, I stopped worrying about it and sat back to enjoy the story for what it was.

I found myself applying the same approach to The Spare Room.

As a novella, it ticked all of the boxes. It was under 200 pages - just. There was one central theme or conflict with just one, Helen's, point of view. There was very little backstory, and a continuous timeline. The majority of the book was set in Melbourne, with a brief trip to Sydney at the very end. It would be possible to read this is one sitting, if one had 2-3 hrs in which to do so. But thanks to the subject matter, I was happier reading it over three nights, to fully digest the story and absorb the emotional impact.

The Spare Room is one of the books discussed in The Novel Cure: An A-Z of Literary Remedies by Ella Berthoud & Susan Elderkin. Under 'cancer, caring for someone with', this book is discussed along with Alberto Barrera Tyszka's The Sickness and A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness. They talk about the carer's agonising and the patient's denial. The rage that escalates to self-hatred and the 'bitter humour' that evolves. They finish by saying that this is,

a novel for those inclined to beat themselves up when they struggle to care for their patient 24/7....It's also a reminder that, however serious things are, it helps to laugh.

I came away from the story with a deep disgust for those people who work away in their shoddy rooms, milking sick and dying people of their money, with their bizarre, unverified treatments. 

Epigraph:

'It is a privilege to prepare the place where someone else will sleep.' Elizabeth Jolley

First Lines:

First, in my spare room, I swivelled the bed on to a north-south axis. Isn't that supposed to align the sleeper with the planet's positive energy flow, or something? She would think so.

Favourite Quote:

'What am I supposed to do?'

He put his hand on the dog's head and drew back its ears so that its eyes turned to high slits. 'Maybe that's why she's coming to stay. Maybe she wants you to be the one.'

'What one?'

'The one to tell her she's going to die.'  

Facts:

• Winner, Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction
• Winner, Queensland Premier’s Award for Fiction
• Winner, Barbara Jefferis Award
• Shortlisted, Commonwealth Writers’ Prize
• Shortlisted, Australian Literary Society Gold Medal
• Shortlisted, Colin Roderick Award
• Shortlisted, WA Premier’s Awards
• Shortlisted, NSW Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction

More Reviews:

• Cathy @746 Books
• Bill @The Australian Legend
• Lisa @ANZLit Lovers

#AusReadingMonth2020

#NovellasinNovember

#JustSaying - Stay Calm & Read

Photo by Viktor Forgacs on Unsplash

Jennifer @HoldsOnHappiness wrote a post recently about keeping calm in a world suddenly gone mad. Her simple solution was to stockpile books, not toilet paper. And tea.

It would seem that all the end-of-the-world stories I've read over the years, have seeped into my subconscious, as I would have to self-isolate for well over a year before I even went close to running out of unread books or tea!

But it got me thinking, what WOULD I read if my family had to go into quarantine thanks to one of us being exposed to Covid-19?

Plagues and pestilence have been the scourge of human life since time began. Which reflects the extraordinary number of stories that have been written about this topic since then. As soon as we started recording and remembering stories, natural disasters got the starring role. For instance, plague and pestilence visit the characters on the battle field in Homers' The Iliad. You'll also find a far bit of this going on, with the whole wrath of God behind it, in the Old Testament stories as well.

Giovanni Boccaccio went there in the 1350's after the Black Death with The Decameron, as did Geoffrey Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales. Daniel Defoe gave us Journal of the Plague Year written in 1722 and in 1826 Mary Shelley wrote The Last Man.

More modern takes include Katherine Anne Porter's Pale Horse, Pale Rider (which sounds fascinating by the way - a 1918 Spanish flu story), Albert Camus' The Plague, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera, Geraldine Brooks' Year of Wonders, Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt, Peter Heller's The Dog Stars, Chris Adrian's, The Children’s Hospital, Ling Ma's Severance, and Philip Roth's Nemesis (a polio outbreak story).

If man-made bio-disasters are more your thing then you could try Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake trilogy, Frank Herbert's The White Plague, Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven, Dean Koontz' The Eyes of Darkness, Justin Cronin's The Passage and Stephen King's The Stand.

But would we really turn to plague-lit as a form of comfort during these trying times?

According to Buzzfeed last week, the 2011 movie Contagion is now the second most watched Warner Bros movie and the tenth most popular Apple iTunes movie. Maybe it should be reclassified as a documentary?

If I had 2-3 weeks off work, where I had to stay quietly at home I would have no trouble filling my time. I have several unopened jigsaw puzzle boxes, cupboards full of our favourite DVD's (for when Netflix falls over due to high demand!) and mountains of unread books. But I do feel sorry for my more extroverted friends. Two weeks stuck at home is their worst nightmare!

I might be tempted to reread King's The Stand. But I'd like to think I would use the time more fruitfully and finally tackle some of those more challenging books on my TBR like, Ducks Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann and Milkman by Anna Burns. Or maybe I will finally read all those delightful Angela Thirkell books stacked under by my bed for reasons of pure comfort and escapism.

Have you prepared your self-isolation reading list yet?
What are you looking forward to reading if you suddenly get two weeks at home?

For more Bookish Covid-19 posts try BethFishReads food post and Paula's positive spin here.

Lenny's Book of Everything by Karen Foxlee

I fell in love with Karen Foxlee's writing in 2014 when I read and loved Ophelia and the Marvellous Boy.

A Most Magical Girl confirmed her ability to move me with her words. So much so, that I acquired her YA backlist to read...one day...!

So I was thrilled to discover recently that she had a new book, Lenny's Book of Everything, due out later in the year. When an ARC turned up last week with my reps tear-soaked tissue rave about how good it was ringing in my ears, I popped it on top of the TBR pile for the weekend.

All the PR on the inside covers suggested that this would be Foxlee's 'break-out book', the one that would finally tip her over into the big time (where I've always thought she belonged, by the by).

The opening sentence told me they were correct.

Our mother had a dark heart feeling.

Straight away I had that lovely goosebumpy shiver of anticipation feeling that happens oh-so rarely these days. I knew this book was going to break my heart yet I couldn't stop myself. Even when that breaking my heart feeling almost got too strong, I couldn't look away for long. Because Foxlee breaks your heart so tenderly, so hopefully, so sweetly that you can't not go along for the ride.

Every life has times of sadness and darkness, stories like this remind us that despite the darkness, within the sadness, there can be kindness, loving and beauty. This is what makes our lives worthwhile, this is what gets us through the bad times.

Foxlee also reminds us that words have power. They have meaning and purpose. Some people choose to put that power and purpose to a negative use, but Foxlee shows us the positive, glorious, wondrous nature of words and knowledge. Words that illuminate, uplift and provide hope are her speciality. Her words enrich our lives and fill our souls with joy.

I know, I'm gushing! But I'm not the only one smitten.

The book is full of gushing quotes:
Anna McFarlane (publisher, Allen & Unwin) - it raises spirits while it breaks hearts.
Eva Mills (publishing director) - broke my heart (in a good way!)...a deep understanding of humanity.
Juanita Keig (account manager) - importance of kindness and human solidarity.
Radhiah Chowdhury (editor) - soothes even as it relates the most unutterable pain.

Karen Foxlee's note tells us that this story about 'an encyclopedia set and a boy who kept growing' has been in her head for quite some time, and that when she 'finally sat down to write it, Lenny was there waiting for me. I felt immediately comfortable in her voice.' It shows.

The complexities and nuances within this story have been woven in seamlessly and apparently, effortlessly by Foxlee. Her characters are fully realised with whole back stories just sitting out of sight, influencing all their actions and reactions. The push and pull between her characters as they rubbed up against each other on a daily basis, felt so real and so natural. They loved, they annoyed, they cared and they hurt each other.

Foxlee said she was trying to explore 'love in all its forms' and how wonderful it is to be alive and that 'even in the darkest hours, there's always hope'. She succeeded.

Although Foxlee is Australian through and through, she has set this story in the 1970's in New York City. I've never lived in NYC, but I now feel like I have, at least, in this one little pocket of NYC so vividly described by Foxlee.

The rest of the story details I leave for you to discover yourself.

Not many books make me cry out loud - I can count the contenders on one hand - but Lenny's Book of Everything made me blubber. Yes, my heart was broken, but it wasn't unbearable. My heart was full of love, wonder and hope too and my heart was mended, again.

The comparisons to Wonder, The Boy in the Striped Pyjama's and The Book Thief are spot on. They are all very different stories, told in very different ways, but they all share an authenticity and tell an emotional truth that is universal and enduring.

The final hardback cover will look like this:

If you'd like to read about the creative process that made this stunning cover, read about it @Things Made From Letters.

Lenny's Book of Everything is a Nov 2018 publication Allen & Unwin.
Book 20 of #20booksofsummer (winter) WAHOO!!
Temperature in Northern Ireland 19℃
Temperature in Sydney 18℃