OK, because of my literary schizophrenia, I picked up a completely random book the other day - A book called Down to This by the improbably-named Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall. In 2001 Stall (then aged 27) decided his life was shit and he would go and live for a year in Tent City, in Toronto, among the homeless and perhaps write a book about it.
I was quite transfixed. I'd like the other members of this literary wankfest to read it and tell me what you think. It's spruiked as a memoir and I suppose it is,but it raises on hell of a lot of questions for me.
Stall at no point really, really seems to regret his decision. He never seems to question the validity of his choice or really deeply longs to just go home. He accepts his new life as easily as we accept that what we want to order isn't on the menu today. It is curiously written and perhaps more refreshing that way. He doesn't write the book I expected him to write.
Sure, he describes the people he lives with in details, in depth, but somehow I don't have a picture of them in my head. Nancy, Jo-Jo, Karen - they are all bonkers, one had a baby, one is dying, one fights with two-by-four, one is a hooker - I can't remember which. Maybe all. They are interestingly sad people whose lives have been characterised by violence and abuse. They, in turn, abuse themselves and each other but, like any people, ahve an immense capacity to care and love and look out for others.
Stall, being a well-educated, middle class person just accepts his life in tent city and goes about his way. Sure, he ends up with carbon monoxide poisoning and the shit kicked out of him, not to mention more, but this is his real life. I suppose it shows how much he wanted to run away from his old one. There's crack and coke and booze of all kinds every second of every day. But there's a community and a shit-kicking affection that seems to be missing from his regular life.
And after finishing the book , I don't have closure, and I have been dreaming endlessly about it, to the point that for the last two days I have been grumpy and sleep-deprived. He writes about being cold (remember canadian winter, living in non-waterproof shack that you built yourself/tent), the way that Knut Hamsun describes being starving on the streets on Sofia in the 1800s in his aptly-called Hunger (it's fictional BTW) in a way that you can't help feeling it yourself.
When I read Hunger, I had to get up and make a sandwich every few chapters. I had sympathy pains. And when I read Down to This snuggled up in bed, I couldn't get warm. I am confused by this book. I want to ask Stall a whole bunch of questions. It is a curious tome that really grabbed my attention and I could go on but I don't want to spoil it.
Maybe the end message isn't about homelessness or what Stall thinks about it in the end. I think it's about love and where you find it.
On the courier to the next person who asks. Unless it's Kate. Then I just throw it at her head.
Tuesday, 17 July 2007
Tuesday, 3 July 2007
in a world of danger the pen is still mightier
Every now and again something inspires you to pick up a book that is completely out of character for you. It is completely unlike something you would normally read and you don't even know why you want to read it. But you have to. I felt that way about The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall.
It is a post modern voyage into the conceptual. No, that's not me trying to be smarter than I am, it actually is. You start with a man who wakes up with no recollection of who or where he is. Gradually, through notes left for him by himself before he lost his memory he is introduced to a world in which all the communications, information exchange, relationships, memories, thoughts and ideas between people form a kind of conceptual fluid. In this fluid swim conceptual fish. This particular man, the main character, is being hunted by a shark - it wants to feed on his mind until there is nothing left.
Cue adventure story, clue following and conceptual shark hunting. The great thing about the novel is its premise, the adventure story lost me a little because it felt a bit too Indiana Jones - complete with love interest and humorous side kick. Although the intertextuality of the story was great and made me remember how much I love postmodern writing. Collective subconscious anyone? The brilliance of Hall's tale is based on the idea that words and ideas are powerful and dangerous. The fact that people are impressionable and easily manipulated, that minds and identies are easily fractured.
This is not something I'd normally pick up, but something I'm glad I read. It does have a Da Vinci Code feel to it and it is a film waiting to happen, both of which cheapen it a little. But I'd still recommend it. It's like taking a can opener to your mind.
Incidentally Kate, you might be interested to know that Hall has named Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying by Belle & Sebastian as his main character's theme. Oh yes, film rights on their way.
P.S Might I add that it somehow reads like a manga movie in parts, a comic book in others and a philosophical tome in the rest (that isn't adventure story). It's a good read.
It is a post modern voyage into the conceptual. No, that's not me trying to be smarter than I am, it actually is. You start with a man who wakes up with no recollection of who or where he is. Gradually, through notes left for him by himself before he lost his memory he is introduced to a world in which all the communications, information exchange, relationships, memories, thoughts and ideas between people form a kind of conceptual fluid. In this fluid swim conceptual fish. This particular man, the main character, is being hunted by a shark - it wants to feed on his mind until there is nothing left.
Cue adventure story, clue following and conceptual shark hunting. The great thing about the novel is its premise, the adventure story lost me a little because it felt a bit too Indiana Jones - complete with love interest and humorous side kick. Although the intertextuality of the story was great and made me remember how much I love postmodern writing. Collective subconscious anyone? The brilliance of Hall's tale is based on the idea that words and ideas are powerful and dangerous. The fact that people are impressionable and easily manipulated, that minds and identies are easily fractured.
This is not something I'd normally pick up, but something I'm glad I read. It does have a Da Vinci Code feel to it and it is a film waiting to happen, both of which cheapen it a little. But I'd still recommend it. It's like taking a can opener to your mind.
Incidentally Kate, you might be interested to know that Hall has named Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying by Belle & Sebastian as his main character's theme. Oh yes, film rights on their way.
P.S Might I add that it somehow reads like a manga movie in parts, a comic book in others and a philosophical tome in the rest (that isn't adventure story). It's a good read.
Thursday, 21 June 2007
Wednesday, 20 June 2007
Mother Tongue
This is the first time I've contributed to the CNG Lending Library blog so I just thought I'd share what I'm reading.
I'm about a third of the way through Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue. Anyone who has read Bill Bryson before knows his work is always an entertaining read, and this book in particular is of interest to all my fellow wordsmiths (in fact it's a must-read) - it basically goes into all the intricacies of the English language. Anyone who wishes to borrow it is welcome to do so when I'm done. Here's a passage with which to leave you:
"Even when you strip out its obsolete senses, round still has twelve uses as an adjective, nineteen as a noun, seven as a transitive verb, five as an intransitive verb, one as an adverb and two as a preposition. But the polysemic champion must be set. Superficially it looks a wholly unassuming monosyllable, the verbal equivalent of a single-celled organism. Yet it has 58 uses as a noun, 126 as a verb, and 10 as a participal adjective. Its meanings are so various and scattered that it takes the Oxford English Dictionary 60,000 words - the length of a short novel - to discuss them all. A foreigner could be excused for thinking that to know set is to know English."
I'm about a third of the way through Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue. Anyone who has read Bill Bryson before knows his work is always an entertaining read, and this book in particular is of interest to all my fellow wordsmiths (in fact it's a must-read) - it basically goes into all the intricacies of the English language. Anyone who wishes to borrow it is welcome to do so when I'm done. Here's a passage with which to leave you:
"Even when you strip out its obsolete senses, round still has twelve uses as an adjective, nineteen as a noun, seven as a transitive verb, five as an intransitive verb, one as an adverb and two as a preposition. But the polysemic champion must be set. Superficially it looks a wholly unassuming monosyllable, the verbal equivalent of a single-celled organism. Yet it has 58 uses as a noun, 126 as a verb, and 10 as a participal adjective. Its meanings are so various and scattered that it takes the Oxford English Dictionary 60,000 words - the length of a short novel - to discuss them all. A foreigner could be excused for thinking that to know set is to know English."
Tuesday, 19 June 2007
A Novel approach
So lat night I had an hour or two to myself after the gym and I began work on my masterpiece: The Definitive Australian Gay Classic.
This hasn't been done before, to my knowledge.
It fits somewhere into the same genre of those old Crawford productions like All The Rivers Run. A bit like A Town Like Alice (the second half). A feast of the Baz Luhrmann variety. With a bit of Brokeback Mountain thrown in.
Priscilla Queen of the Nineteenth Century.
In novel form.
Not a movie. Which the above would infer.
I plan to be the Colleen McCollough of homos.
I post this here in the hope it will encourage my fellow literary-types to also write. The Lending Library could expand its borders a little.
This hasn't been done before, to my knowledge.
It fits somewhere into the same genre of those old Crawford productions like All The Rivers Run. A bit like A Town Like Alice (the second half). A feast of the Baz Luhrmann variety. With a bit of Brokeback Mountain thrown in.
Priscilla Queen of the Nineteenth Century.
In novel form.
Not a movie. Which the above would infer.
I plan to be the Colleen McCollough of homos.
I post this here in the hope it will encourage my fellow literary-types to also write. The Lending Library could expand its borders a little.
Tuesday, 12 June 2007
Down in the Dumps Books
When I’m in a certain mood, by which I mean a bad, sad mood there are always certain books I gravitate towards. Books that tell me what I want to hear, some times, or books that sink into depression with me.
Right at the top of the list for the latter category is Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair, which is also one of my favourite books for any time. It’s a nice, bitter little volume and the literary equivalent of listening to depressing music when you’re already depressed or going out for a drink with someone whose life is just as shite as yours.
Greene’s prose is so lovely and so emotive I often find myself stuck with a quote from this book in my head, or mooching along in the cold, imagining myself as the book’s protagonist in a long overcoat.I’ve tried to write this sort of stuff when I’m quite depressed myself or when things aren’t going well but it never works out - I seem to spiral into self pity and get nothing done but clocking up a lot of couch time. I just don’t know Greene did it and I’m struck down with serious envy.
Anyway, enough of the jealousy - what about you guys? Anything particular that you reach for in time of crisis?
Right at the top of the list for the latter category is Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair, which is also one of my favourite books for any time. It’s a nice, bitter little volume and the literary equivalent of listening to depressing music when you’re already depressed or going out for a drink with someone whose life is just as shite as yours.
“I wrote at the start that this was a record of hate, and walking there beside
Henry towards the evening glass of beer, I found the one prayer that seemed to
serve the winter mood: Oh God. You’ve done enough. You’ve robbed me of enough,
I’m too tired and old to learn to love, leave me alone forever.”
Greene’s prose is so lovely and so emotive I often find myself stuck with a quote from this book in my head, or mooching along in the cold, imagining myself as the book’s protagonist in a long overcoat.I’ve tried to write this sort of stuff when I’m quite depressed myself or when things aren’t going well but it never works out - I seem to spiral into self pity and get nothing done but clocking up a lot of couch time. I just don’t know Greene did it and I’m struck down with serious envy.
“I sat with the telephone receiver in my hand and I looked at hate like an ugly
and foolish man whom one does not want to know. I dialled her number. I must
have caught her before she had time to leave the telephone and said: ‘Sarah,
tomorrow’s all right, I’d forgotten something. Same place. Same time. And
sitting there, my fingers on the quiet instrument, with something to look
forward to, I thought to myself: I remember. This is what hope feels like.”
Anyway, enough of the jealousy - what about you guys? Anything particular that you reach for in time of crisis?
Sunday, 10 June 2007
don't accept books from strangers
My list for the super fun book mart is mostly comprised of books given to me by someone who couldn't be bothered with the trip to Good Sammies. Don't judge me. Please.
1. One copy of Stillness Speaks by Eckhart Tolle. Self help book given to me by my much treasured aunt and uncle who clearly think me in need of unprofessional help. Yes, it is as bad as it sounds. Good to read outloud ironically while drunk. Condition: one small cut in bottom right hand corner - consequence of frantic Christmas present wrapping.
2. One copy of A Month of Sundays- How to go Travelling Without Leaving Town by James O'Loghlin. Condition: Slightly curly corner on the cover as consequence of being stored in a box. Other than that barely been opened. When I travel, you won't see me for dust.
3. Creepers by David Morrell. It is about "urban explorers who illegally enter sealed buildings. . . soon after the group enters it becomes clear this decaying seven-story building holds more secrets than they could have imagined in their worst nightmares." Condition: second hand but looks like its first owner thought as little of it as I did and left it firmly closed.
4. Beneath the Skin by Nicci French. Zoe Jennifer and Nadia are three women with nothing in common. Except for the man who wants to kill them. Ho hum. Condition: practically new- shouldn't have been written.
5. Cathedral by Nelson Demille. March 17 is a day when everyone, everywhere is an honorary Irishman. Everyone except IRA man Brian Flynn. Cosmopolitan called it a "bulldozer of a book". Need I say more? Condition: third hand - could do with some semtex.
1. One copy of Stillness Speaks by Eckhart Tolle. Self help book given to me by my much treasured aunt and uncle who clearly think me in need of unprofessional help. Yes, it is as bad as it sounds. Good to read outloud ironically while drunk. Condition: one small cut in bottom right hand corner - consequence of frantic Christmas present wrapping.
2. One copy of A Month of Sundays- How to go Travelling Without Leaving Town by James O'Loghlin. Condition: Slightly curly corner on the cover as consequence of being stored in a box. Other than that barely been opened. When I travel, you won't see me for dust.
3. Creepers by David Morrell. It is about "urban explorers who illegally enter sealed buildings. . . soon after the group enters it becomes clear this decaying seven-story building holds more secrets than they could have imagined in their worst nightmares." Condition: second hand but looks like its first owner thought as little of it as I did and left it firmly closed.
4. Beneath the Skin by Nicci French. Zoe Jennifer and Nadia are three women with nothing in common. Except for the man who wants to kill them. Ho hum. Condition: practically new- shouldn't have been written.
5. Cathedral by Nelson Demille. March 17 is a day when everyone, everywhere is an honorary Irishman. Everyone except IRA man Brian Flynn. Cosmopolitan called it a "bulldozer of a book". Need I say more? Condition: third hand - could do with some semtex.
Thursday, 7 June 2007
Super Fun Book Swap Mart # 2
Ok. I'm unwilling to part with a much as I previously thought but I have:
1. Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (Johnsy has already requested)
2. Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (I have two copies and I hated it)
3. Property by Valerie Martin (Winner of Orange Prize 2003. Not my bag, baby)
4. The Wings of the Dove by Henry James (A rather nice copy, but I can't do it.)
Free to good homes. please take them. please.
1. Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (Johnsy has already requested)
2. Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (I have two copies and I hated it)
3. Property by Valerie Martin (Winner of Orange Prize 2003. Not my bag, baby)
4. The Wings of the Dove by Henry James (A rather nice copy, but I can't do it.)
Free to good homes. please take them. please.
Super Fun Book Swap Mart
Kate and I have just been talking about going on a massive book-buying spree, but I have just realised that I really do not have any more room left on my bookshelves and the catbox couldn't possibly accomodate another lot of furniture. However, there are a few books I would willingly part with in order to make room for preferred one. These are ones I started and never finished, books I hated, odds and sods. I am already sending a duplicate copy of Hitchhikers Guide to Johnsy tomorrow, so I suggest this: Everyone does an audit of their bookshelves and advertises their extraneous wares on the CNG library blog. Books are free to good homes although swapping is encouraged.
I shall post my audit tomorrow. It will probably start with Henry James' Wings of a Dove.
I shall post my audit tomorrow. It will probably start with Henry James' Wings of a Dove.
Thursday, 31 May 2007
has it come to this?
A used book seller in the States has started burning books in protest at the declining value of the written word. Tom Wayne had thousands of books in storage and tried to give them away to thrift stores or libraries but was told there was no room in the inn. So he burnt them. Well, he burnt some of them before the fire department forced him to stop because he didn't have a burning permit.
He told spectators "This is the funeral pyre for thought in America today".
All I can ask you is: on a scale of one to ten - how horrifying do you find this?
He told spectators "This is the funeral pyre for thought in America today".
All I can ask you is: on a scale of one to ten - how horrifying do you find this?
Wednesday, 23 May 2007
Tell me honestly...
When to blazes is everyone finding time to read so much?
I have barely started a book I received a fortnight ago and am thoroughly enjoying!
I think I have too many commitments. I need to shed something. I used to find hours and hours each week. I used to finish books in a sitting. (The first time ever, for any book of length, was Roald Dahl's Matilda. Don't know how old I was but I just devoured it!). But now... now I can barely find five minutes!
So tell me... when are you stealing five minutes?
I have barely started a book I received a fortnight ago and am thoroughly enjoying!
I think I have too many commitments. I need to shed something. I used to find hours and hours each week. I used to finish books in a sitting. (The first time ever, for any book of length, was Roald Dahl's Matilda. Don't know how old I was but I just devoured it!). But now... now I can barely find five minutes!
So tell me... when are you stealing five minutes?
Monday, 21 May 2007
Presents for Bookworms
At some point this afternoon, you will each receive a CNG Lending Library Commemorative Gift. Use it wisely. Word out.
Tuesday, 15 May 2007
communion of literature
Just a quick note to point out that the latest instalment of Yann Martel's suggested reading to Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper is out: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, by Agatha Christie.
I've never read any Agatha Christie, which is probably an admission that will see me thrown from this venerable forum. I suppose there are things that just wouldn't occur to you to read for whatever reason - that's what makes this arrangement we have here a good one. We all suggest things that are new and different to each other, give 'em a go and see how we enjoy it.
I've never read any Agatha Christie, which is probably an admission that will see me thrown from this venerable forum. I suppose there are things that just wouldn't occur to you to read for whatever reason - that's what makes this arrangement we have here a good one. We all suggest things that are new and different to each other, give 'em a go and see how we enjoy it.
I'd also like to draw your attention to Martel's comments on second hand books that made me want to shake his hand.
Monday, 14 May 2007
Australian Literature
Some of you are probably going to want to ask, "does it exist?" or will say, "that's an oxymoron".
Perhaps you're right. But given that the lovely Kemery has just refused a copy of We Of The Never Never which my Grandmother gave me for Christmas (which she had purchased as a secondhand volume herself some 15 years before and had left on her shelf until she gave it to me, and which I found on the weekend under a pile of paperwork at the weekend) I was wondering if there ARE some Australian classics anyone thinks we simply SHOULD read?
Come on. There must be one.
Mustn't there?
Perhaps you're right. But given that the lovely Kemery has just refused a copy of We Of The Never Never which my Grandmother gave me for Christmas (which she had purchased as a secondhand volume herself some 15 years before and had left on her shelf until she gave it to me, and which I found on the weekend under a pile of paperwork at the weekend) I was wondering if there ARE some Australian classics anyone thinks we simply SHOULD read?
Come on. There must be one.
Mustn't there?
Does this sound like the worst book ever?
Trading Places …
The Secret Lives of a Brothel Owner and a Priest!
Respected Western Australian author, Maurice Czarniak has just released his exciting novel, Accidental Discovery. This quirky, original work of fiction centres around Brendan, a handsome Catholic priest, who wants to leave the church due to his emerging sexual desires. As fate would have it, Brendan has a chance meeting with businessman and brothel owner, Jack – a series of unpredictable events culminate in the two men swapping roles.
The tale is rapidly propelled along in exciting and dangerous directions when it is discovered that Brendan has supernatural powers! Converting the brothel into a sex therapy clinic, and pseudo-priest Jack delivering his ‘original’ version of a Sunday sermon, makes for entertaining and compelling reading from start to finish!
Accidental Discovery is an original tale, with fast-paced good humour and passionate romance steeped in mystery – an impressive new novel indeed!
I can't even begin to list the things that are wrong with this synposis. Or the scenarios I would have to find myself in before reading it is an option.
It's out through Zeus Publications people, in case you cared....
The Secret Lives of a Brothel Owner and a Priest!
Respected Western Australian author, Maurice Czarniak has just released his exciting novel, Accidental Discovery. This quirky, original work of fiction centres around Brendan, a handsome Catholic priest, who wants to leave the church due to his emerging sexual desires. As fate would have it, Brendan has a chance meeting with businessman and brothel owner, Jack – a series of unpredictable events culminate in the two men swapping roles.
The tale is rapidly propelled along in exciting and dangerous directions when it is discovered that Brendan has supernatural powers! Converting the brothel into a sex therapy clinic, and pseudo-priest Jack delivering his ‘original’ version of a Sunday sermon, makes for entertaining and compelling reading from start to finish!
Accidental Discovery is an original tale, with fast-paced good humour and passionate romance steeped in mystery – an impressive new novel indeed!
I can't even begin to list the things that are wrong with this synposis. Or the scenarios I would have to find myself in before reading it is an option.
It's out through Zeus Publications people, in case you cared....
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