The Great World by David Malouf

Rereading a book after 18 yrs is a very interesting experience. It's almost like reading it again for the first time.

This has certainly been the case for me and The Great World.

Thanks to the fact that I write my name, date and place of purchase on the inside cover of all my books I know roughly when I read it. The date inside my copy of The Great World is 22nd Dec 1997, Randwick.

That was back in my teaching days. My sister lived in Coogee for a few years. Every school holidays during those years I would plan a brief visit. I'd spend some time lazing on the beach, catch a movie or two, eat out somewhere exotic and enjoy some shopping. Over summer, in particular, I made sure I had enough books on hand for the 5 week break ahead of me.

I read The Great World for the first time in the summer of 1998. I was still in my twenties (just) and the main thing I remember 18 yrs later is that this book had a profound impact on me. It also led to a long-standing literary love affair with David Malouf.

Before I started it again recently I tried to recall what was it that I remembered so clearly and profoundly. I quickly realised that I had no idea about the plot or characters. I had a vague idea that it was about one of the wars and friendship. The impact lay in the writing.

I was impressed (and at times overwhelmed) by the intelligence of Malouf's writing. His ability to describe an everyday emotion or thought so that you could grasp it yourself blew me away. There was nuance and complexity and humanity. And at times I struggled to keep up.

I was therefore excited and a little daunted to be starting this book again.

The opening line hooked me though. I read it a couple of times and thought, this is what makes a great book - a heart-stopping, breath-catching, let-me-read-that-again beginning.

People are not always kind, but the kind thing to say about Jenny was that she was simple.

Straight away I was reminded of why I loved Malouf's writing.
I couldn't remember who Jenny was, but suddenly I remembered that this was a book about kindness, suffering and what makes us, unites us and divides us as human beings.
This was a big picture story told through the lens of a few specific characters that I was about to get to know again.

The Great World is a war story - WWII and Changi. It is about friendships - the kind that last for ever, the kind that surprise, the kind that develop thanks to circumstances. It is about suffering - inflicted by others and that inflicted on ourselves. And it is about kindness in all it's guises.

The connections, or threads, that link us to each other, to our memories, to our shared histories and even to our future selves are all explored.

My reread was much easier than I remember the first, but my literary love for Malouf remains unchanged. I only wish I had more time to reread his entire backlist a
gain!

The Great World won the Miles Franklin Award in 1991
I read this book as part of my Classics Club challenge and ccspin #9.

The Watch Tower by Elizabeth Harrower

Oh me, oh my!

What a seductive, chilling, creepy, psychological family drama this is.

Set in Sydney during the 1930's and 40's, The Watch Tower follows the young lives of Laura & Clare.
Orphaned when first their father dies. Then abandoned by their incredibly selfish, self-absorbed, negligent mother who leaves them to go off & do her own thing.
But not before she wrecks havoc on her children's emotional lives.

Laura is left always trying to make amends and be the responsible, reliable one. Clare just wants to disappear within herself and avoid all relationships to keep from getting hurt & being disappointed.

Two such lonely, unloved, isolated young women were almost fated to be taken advantage of again.

Enter stage left - Felix.

Laura's enigmatic, much older boss.
Felix - who promises to marry Laura and look after Clare when their mother takes off.

Nowadays we are all conversant with psychological & emotional abuse; we know about alcoholics, personality disorders and control freaks. It is also quite likely that Felix had frustrated homosexual tendencies.

Whatever the disorder or syndrome or illness, Felix slowly, cruelly wears the two sisters down. His hostility, deceits, self-justifications, denials & irrational caprices are as relentless as they are predictable.

Laura is too embedded into this way of life to see a way out, but Clare finds ways to fight back.

It is Clare that provides the hope in this desperate story.

First published in 1966, Harrower writes an engrossing, enraging story.
Firmly rooted in the quiet, leafy Lower North Shore suburbs of Sydney, Harrower reveals what goes on behind (some) closed doors.

I can't wait to dive into Harrower's other books - Down in the City, The Long Prospect, The Catherine Wheel & In Certain Circles.

Highly recommended for lovers of deftly written character studies.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind

After I had finished reading Pure by Andrew Miller, my boss suggested I should read Perfume next.
Then, more recently I read The Last Banquet by Jonathan Grimwood, my boss again suggested that I really should read Perfume next.

And now I can see why.  
Perfume is the kind of book you want to recommend to everyone. No matter what their reading tastes are, everyone is bound to get caught up & swept away by this story.

All three books are set in France, in and around the Revolution. They're all completely spell-binding & fully visceral experiences.

Pure was sights, sounds and smells.
The Last Banquet was taste and smell.
And Perfume (as the title would suggest) is all about smells.

And loneliness, and love, and belonging, and desire.

"It was as if he were an autodidact possessed of a huge vocabulary of odours that enabled him to form at will great numbers of smelled sentences. "
Perfume was first published in German in 1985, then translated by John E. Woods in 1987 (for which he won the PEN Translation Prize). At no point in the story did I notice that this was a translated book. The words, the images and the smells flowed effortlessly and gracefully across the page.

I'm not going to say anymore, because this is one book you have to experience for yourself!

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler

Tolstoy famously says at the beginning of Anna Karenina

"All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is

 unhappy in its own way."

Which is a perfect way to start a post about the Tull family in Dinner At The Homesick Restaurant. 

The thing about Tyler is how well she describes family life.

The odd comment & how it can resonate differently with each person in the room.

How each family members prioritizes their memories to suit their own version of their story.

The set of beliefs that one person develops about family events compared to the others.

How everyone has a different memory and corresponding feeling about every single event that happens (or sometimes doesn't happen) as a family grows up together.

The way siblings rub against each other & how hard it is to break these patterns of behaviour as adults.

How the one who often manipulates and deliberately hurts the others, usually turns into a victim in their own memory.

How we set out to be different from each other, but catch ourselves sounding more alike with the passing years. 

Tyler captures all these odd moments and conversational cross purposes so deftly. She draws out the hidden meanings and lessons. She exposes the prejudicial blind eyes. And she tugs on the eternal family rubber band that keeps pulling everyone back in. 

Some of the scenes and some of the personal revelations are painful.

Recognising parts of yourself & your own family on paper is confronting. Especially when you feel you've got to a point in your life when the childhood stuff shouldn't matter any more.

But of course it does. The childhood stuff comes back with a vengeance when you become a parent yourself; it comes out every time all or part of the family gets together; it comes out in your choices of friends, partners, where you live, how many children you have and it intensifies as the death of your parents approach and beyond. 

And that's what Tyler describes so subtly and so painfully in Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. 

      This is a must for lovers of Alice Munro, Richard Yates, Wallace Stegner, Anita Brookner and Elizabeth Strout.

Top 50 (Australian) Books to Read Before you Die

In preparation for AusReading month in November I will be posting lists of books & awards to help those of you on the other side of the world with your book selections.

The above link will take you to the master post. You can add links back to your own blog posts about your experiences during AusReading Month.

There aren't many Australian book lists that don't have Tim Winton's Cloudstreet sitting at the #1 position. This particular poll was no different!

To celebrate The National Year of Reading in 2012, the First Tuesday Book Club gave all Australians a chance to vote for their favourite Australian book.

They counted the votes and compiled a list of the " 50 Aussie books you must read before you die."

I've highlighted the books I've read from this list in red. Sadly I've only reviewed one of them on this blog. I'll try to add a few more as Friday Flashbacks between now and then.

The Top 50 books were -

Cloudstreet – Tim Winton
The Book Thief – Markus Zusak
A Fortunate Life – A.B. Facey
The Harp in the South – Ruth Park
The Power of One – Bryce Courtenay
Jasper Jones – Craig Silvey
The Magic Pudding – Norman Lindsay
The Slap – Christos Tsiolkas
The Secret River – Kate Grenville (reviewed)
Picnic at Hanging Rock – Joan Lindsay
Seven Little Australians – Ethel Turner
My Brother Jack – George Johnston
My Brilliant Career – Miles Franklin
True History of the Kelly Gang – Peter Carey
Eucalyptus – Murray Bail
Power Without Glory – Frank Hardy
The Broken Shore – Peter Temple
Monkey Grip – Helen Garner
The Riders – Tim Winton
The Tree of Man – Patrick White
The Fatal Shore – Robert Hughes
Unreliable Memoirs – Clive James
The Tall Man – Chloe Hooper
The Man Who Loved Children – Christina Stead
The Dressmaker – Rosalie Ham
The Fortunes of Richard Mahoney – Henry Handel Richardson
The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith – Thomas Keneally
Capricornia – Xavier Herbert
Wake in Fright – Kenneth Cooke
Ransom – David Malouf
The Year of Living Dangerously – C.J. Koch
The First Stone – Helen Garner
Gallipoli – Alan Moorehead
Maestro – Peter Goldsworthy
The Monkey’s Mask – Dorothy Porter
Wanting – Richard Flanagan
Come In Spinner – Dymphna Cusack & Florence James
Grand Days – Frank Moorhouse (brief review)
1788 – Watkin Tench
It’s Raining in Mango – Thea Astley
Riders in the Chariot – Patrick White
Carpentaria – Alexis Wright
The Tyranny of Distance – Geoffrey Blainey
That Deadman Dance – Kim Scott
For Love Alone – Christina Stead
An Intruder’s Guide to East Arnhem Land – Andrew McMillan
The Life – Malcolm Knox
The Watcher on the Cast-Iron Balcony – Hal Porter
Here’s Luck – Lennie Lower
Visitants – Randolph Stow

The First Tuesday Book Club has now changed it's name to The Book Club. They review contemporary and classic books as well as International and Australian titles. Click on the link above to see their reviews.

Looking For Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta

This weeks Friday Flashback has become a modern day Aussie classic in a very short period of time. It won the CBCA award for older readers back in 1993. And it was made into a movie in 2000 with Melina Marchetta writing the screen play.

It was via this movie starring Pia Miranda, Kick Gurry, Greta Scacchi, Matthew Newton and Anthony LaPaglia that I first came across this book.

I was already in my thirties and hadn't read any teen literature for a decade or so. But the movie looked like fun, so I watched it during the summer holidays.

It was so delightful, so heart-breaking, so heart-warming and so full of Sydney that I was won over from the start. The next day I went to my local bookshop and purchased a copy of the book.

The book and movie are a little different, but with Marchetta at the helm for both, the heart and soul of the story remains the same. And the heart and soul of this book is Josie Alibrandi.
This is her coming of age story. This is her family, her friends and her Sydney.

If you haven't read this book or seen the movie, then put it high on your list of things to do this weekend.
You wont be disappointed.

The Library Lion by Michelle Knudsen

Everything about this charming picture book screams 'classic'!

Yet The Library Lion was only published in 2006.

This is a picture book for older readers (i.e. readers who can sit still for a longer period of time) as there is more text than you find in most picture books these days.

What follows is a very sweet tale of a lion trying to find a place to belong (a library), the adjustments he has to make to fit in with the rules of the library, the opposition he faces by some who already belong and think that he shouldn't and the acceptance and understanding he eventually inspires in everybody.

The final few pages cause me to tear up every single time I read it, but then the theme of belonging has been one of my life-long personal issues!

The old fashioned style illustrations, the quaint, gentle story and the universal themes of belonging and acceptance all add up to a modern day classic in the making.

I love it and hope you do too!