My second book for Christmas

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Is this starting to sound like a carol you know? Anyhow, I did say in a comment on my first Christmas book post that I had received another book for Christmas, The best Australian poems 2009 (edited by Robert Adamson). DKS’s comment about the value of this annual series to the cause of poetry made me think that I ought give it its own post.

I wouldn’t call myself a poetry expert, but I have mentioned poetry several times in this blog’s short life because I do enjoy reading it and wish, really, that I spent more time with it. Australian surgeon Mohamad Khadra, in his rivetting memoir, Making the cut, talks about the value of poetry, about how each day on his hospital teaching rounds he would begin by having his students recite a poem that might offer some entrée to understanding their patients’ states of mind. His view is that, as doctors deal daily with humanity, they, and by extension we, can learn from poets who have spent lifetimes making a study of humanity. Each chapter of his memoir commences with a poem.

The Best Australian Poems 2009

Cover image (Courtesy: Black Inc)

But I digress. Robert Adamson mentions three poets in the first paragraph of his introduction – Irish WB Yeats, English Gerard Manley Hopkins (one of my favourites) and Australian Meg Mooney – referring to use in their poems of birds and song. He says that there are many birds and lyrics in the anthology. I’m not quite sure why he singles out these two particular ideas in what is a general anthology – but maybe I’ll know by the time I’ve read all the poems?

To make the selection for this volume he “read all the poetry in the print publications as well as many of the electronic journals and even blogs that feature poems”. Isn’t it great seeing the blog world becoming an integral part of the publishing industry! He says about his selection that he “wanted to create a rhythm for the reader: shorter lyrics and some satirical poems, then hopefully a few love poems, poems of weather, landscape poems and, of course, bird poems.” Ah, the birds again…and then comes the explanation:

People ask me, why are so many bird poems being written and published? I have a theory : we miss having poets among us who can imagine that a soul can ‘clap its hands and sing, and louder sing’ [Yeats], that we need to acknowledge visitations by intense psychological presences, and that birds are the closest things we have, more or less, to angels.

Wow! I’m not quite sure how to respond to that.

The anthology commences with a lovely poem by Martin Harrison titled “Word” written for Dorothy Porter, after her death:

in which briefly suddenly one voice’s glimmer is lost

The anthology also includes a poem by Porter and, indeed, contains for the first time apparently more poems by women than men. The poems are listed alphabetically by poet – saves need of an index not to mention the problem of how to sequence the poems (and all those questions about how one poem’s proximity to another will affect its impact or meaning). He has also included a lot of new poets, more perhaps than in the past, as well as the tried and true. And that is how I like it (just as I like a “classical” music concert to mix it up a bit).

I think that’s about enough on a book I haven’t fully read, so I’ll just finish with some lines from Meg Mooney to whom Adamson referred in his opening paragraph:

The large, brown shapes of the wedgebills
their cheeky crests
disappear as I get closer

like they’re telling me
you can’t just look
and expect to see
in this country

(from “Birdwatching during the Intervention“)

The best Australian poems 2009
Melbourne: Black Inc, 2009
239pp.
ISBN: 9781863954525

My first book for Christmas

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I know that Christmas is still over a week away but last night I received my first book of the season…and that, I think, is a litblog-worthy event!

Actually, I tell a bit of a lie, because last week I was sent, by a very kind internet bookgroup friend who knows my likes, the British Library Jane Austen appointment diary for 2010. It is gorgeous, containing Regency era images, silhouette images, and quotes from Jane Austen (from her books and letters). Being an appointment diary it notes standard public holiday dates, but being a Jane Austen appointment diary it also records dates important to Austen’s life – such as the poignant (possibly!):

January 15: I am to flirt my last with Tom Lefroy (from letter to Cassandra)

It is a lovely diary and I shall treasure it way past its expiry date (that is, past December 31, 2010).

Haruki Murakami (Photo by Wakarimasita, Wikipedia, under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0)

And now to the book I received last night. It is Birthday stories, an anthology of thirteen short stories “selected and introduced by Haruki Murakami“. (The givers knew that I like Murakami.) The book was originally published in Japanese, Murakami having both selected and translated the stories from English, but was later published in English with “a specially written introduction”. The stories all deal with birthdays and are by such luminaries as Raymond Carver, David Foster Wallace, Paul Theroux, and William Trevor – as well as by Murakami himself. Each story has a brief – and delightfully personal – introduction by Murakami.

In his introduction to the anthology, Murakami writes that his inspiration for compiling the anthology:

was my consecutive reading of two outstanding stories that happened to be based on the theme of birthday: “Timothy’s birthday” by William Trevor and “The Moor” by Russell Banks. … Both stories left me feeling haunted.

I imagine that there will be various interpretations of “birthday” from the day of one’s birth to those days in which we celebrate our own or the births of others. I rather like themed collections of short stories, and so am looking forward to reading this book – perhaps by dipping into it over time rather than reading it all at once, so you’ll probably hear about it as I go.

Meanwhile, I’m thinking that if these are the sorts of gifts arriving before Christmas, some wonderful delights must be in store for me when the day itself arrives! After all, you can never receive too many books for Christmas – can you?

Haruki Murakami (ed)
Birthday stories
London: Vintage Books, 2004
206pp.
ISBN: 0099481553

A free range Christmas

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Can you think of anything more free-ranging than a concert which includes the Inch Worm song and Blake’s Tyger, Rudolph the Red-nose reindeer and a 13th century Benedictine Nun’s lullaby, and much more besides? I certainly wouldn’t have before we attended a concert on Friday titled A Free Range Christmas by the wonderful Song Company.

The Song Company is an Australian vocal ensemble which was formed in 1984. It comprises 6 singers – and they perform music, often if not mostly a capella, in a wide range of styles. Their website states that they sing music from the 10th century to the present day – well, you can tell that from my little intro to this post can’t you! The website also states that they have an ongoing relationship with Australian poet Les Murray. That explains why our show was introduced by their Artistic Director, Roland Peelman, reciting Les Murray’s “Animal Nativity” poem.

Cartoon singers

Singing-Bunch (by Mohammed Ibrahim, from http://www.clker.com)

Anyhow, we have seen the Song Company before – back in 2003 when they did their Venetian Carnival, a theatrical musical  (or is it musical theatrical?) journey through the music of some of the great composers of Venice such as Monteverdi, for Musica Viva. It was an exciting concert and I’ve wanted to see more of them ever since. Their performances usually include a theatrical element and this was so on Friday night, though it was not quite as flamboyant as the Venetian Carnival.

A free range Christmas comprised a wide range (ha!) of songs about animals – many but by no means all – with a Christmas theme. Several were composed by contemporary Australian composer, Martin Wesley-Smith, including his humorous “Lost snail” and “I’m a slug”. They really did mean “free ranging”! The show was loosely held together by a little running joke to do with a Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer Christmas ornament…and we did eventually get, more or less, a rendition of the song. Highlights for me included a beautiful version of “Wimoweh”/”Mbube” (how many ways can you do this song?), a sung arrangement of Blake’s “The Tyger”, a gorgeous version of my sentimental favourite “Carol of the birds”, and a very entertaining presentation of “The twelve days of Christmas”. Put this together with three men and three women who can sing with great versatility, as well as recite and act a little, and you have a great night out.

Not everyone in our party loved it though. Some thought it a little slow to start – and perhaps starting with a set of serious but beautiful early and lesser known songs was not the way to engage the children in the audience. Some did not like the humour, which veered (though only lightly) I suppose towards the nonsense/silly/music hall variety, but the rest of us thought it just about right for the Christmas season – all the moreso when we repaired downtown for an after-show snack and had to battle our way through multitudes of pub-crawling Santas. Each to his (her) own as they say!

Singers:

Clive Birch, Bass
Richard Black, Tenor
Mark Donnelly, Baritone
Ruth McCall, Soprano
Nicole Thompson, Soprano (guest artist)
Lanneke Wallace-Wells, Mezzo-soprano (guest artist)

Little treasures (that’s novellas to you)

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I realised a few years ago that quite a few (though by no means all) of my favourite works of fiction are novellas. I think it’s because I admire succinctness, the ability to convey an idea, feeling, impression in very few words. (By contrast, I love Big Fat Books – which I may post on another day – because you can get down deep and spend time with them like you do with a good friend).

I’m not going to get into arguments about definitions. My definition is simply that a novella is a short book, and that means (ignoring issues of printing styles resulting in different word numbers to a page) one that is under or not much over 200 pages. I’m prepared to be flexible on this! The Wikipedia article I’ve linked to above lists some famous novellas in its opening section. I’ve read several of them – including the Steinbeck, the Conrad and the Orwell – and rather like them, but for some reason they haven’t made it to the list I’ve been compiling over the last few years. And so, here is my list of really special novellas (to date):

The list-maker’s law says that whenever you make a list, the minute you finalise it you will think of more to add to it. I know that – but decided to go ahead anyhow because even though there are others I might wish I’d added, I know that these are ones I’m very glad I remembered. Almost half are by Australian writers, and the majority are relatively recent. I’m not sure whether the latter means that more novellas are written now or that I am reading more of them now? Is it that I appreciate terseness more the older I get? You know, time is running out so why waste words getting to the nub of things? These books, one way or another, get to the nub of things in ways that have managed to capture my imagination and not let it go long after I’ve finished them…and that, after all, is why many of us love to read.

What gives you joy?

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I’ve just watched Andrew Denton interviewing Clive James on his Elders program. He asked James what gives him “joy”, and James replied “the Arts”. James said it didn’t have to be anything particular, it could be Marvin Gaye singing “I heard it through the grapevine” or the Adagio from Beethoven’s Ninth Sympathy or a painting by Toulouse Lautrec (whom he apparently adores). What a great answer! Being the eclectic dilettante (to lay it on thick) that I am, I can relate to that … I just hope all those responsible for funding education were watching. The Arts should be absolutely fundamental to any school program. (Now you know one of my soapboxes).

While James didn’t specifically mention books in response to that particular question, the interview did take place in his library. He is said to own 1000s of books. In response to Denton’s question about how we should judge him if we agree with the idea that we “can judge a man (hmm…) by his relationship to his books”, James said:

Intimately involved I should’ve thought. And this is just sort of the outer limit of the books that I own. And that immediately raises the question, not how many of them have you read – cause I really have read most of them, I’ve been alive a long time now – but how many of them will I read again? And if I won’t, why are they here? …[Answering this question he continued] I just like the look of them. I think the civilisation that exists in the book gets into you through osmosis, I like to have them around.

I hope he’s right … about the osmosis I mean! I sure know he’s right about liking to have them around.

Anyhow, anyone like to share what gives them joy?

Bright star, or a thing of beauty?

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What can ail thee knight at arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.

I have always loved these opening lines  of John Keats‘ “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”. The first two lines with their mystical, but also traditionally Romantic, melancholy, just roll off the tongue. You want to read them out loud. The third line though, with its harder sounds, starts to suggest something different, and this difference is delivered in the wonderful shock of the shorter last line with its more staccato like rhythm. This, by the way, is my rather idiosyncratic introduction to the recent biopic, Bright Star, about John Keats and Fanny Brawne. I’m not being totally idiosyncratic though as several lines of the poem are recited in the movie…

Bright Star, which is also the title of a Keats’ poem, was written and directed by the wonderful Jane Campion (whom we Aussies like to call our own though she was born in New Zealand). According to the credits she based much of her script on a biography of Keats by Andrew Motion. The film is set in the last years of Keats’ life (surely this is not a spoiler?) between 1818 and 1821, so the fashions are exactly those I love – Regency. Through this and a host of other details, the film feels historically accurate – in tone and look at least. I only know the basics of Keats’ life so can’t really comment (without doing a lot of research!) on its veracity to the details of his and Fanny’s story. But, as I’ve said before, I’m not sure that matters if the essence of their story is achieved, and I believe it is.

John Keats' grave, Rome

John Keats grave, Rome (Courtesy: Piero Montesacro, via Wikipedia, under CC-BY-SA-3.0)

The film has an elegaic feel – in its muted colours, slow pace, and the rather  (unusually so for a period piece) spare music. This spare use of (spare!) music is carried through to the credits during which, instead of music, we hear Ben Whishaw recite Keats’ poetry. Despite its slow march towards its inevitable conclusion, however, the film also has some light moments, many of them in the lovely family scenes which include Fanny’s brother and sister.

One of the endearing things about the film is Fanny’s comment early on that poetry “is a strain” to understand. Poetry is not an easy art form – how many people have you heard say “I don’t get poetry”? – and there is something reassuring in having that validated.  After all, Fanny is, in a way, everygirl – compassionate but also a little wilful, somewhat coy but at the same time rather knowing. She is, as conceived by Campion and played rivettingly by Australian actor Abbie Cornish, entirely believable as a universal teen girl, but one living in the early 19th century.

In a scene between the lovers (albeit an unconsummated love), Whishaw, as Keats, recites the film’s eponymous poem:

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art–
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
…
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever–or else swoon to death.

Here is Keats expressing the paradoxical nature of life and love, the way permanence and impermanence can exist side by side. This is rather poignant given the facts of his life: he died at just 25 years of age but his poetry has become firmly entrenched among our classics.

If you are interested in Keats’ story, or if you like films that slowly but beautifully evoke a past era, then this is likely to be a film for you. If, on the other hand, you like something with a bit of zing and an element of surprise, then you might best look elsewhere… For me though, this film is “a thing of beauty”.

Kazuo Ishiguro, Nocturnes: Five stories of music and nightfall

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Kazuo Ishiguro

Kazuo Ishiguro, 2005 (Courtesy: Mariusz Kubik CC-BY-SA 3.0)

I like Kazuo Ishiguro – and have read 5 of his 6 novels – so I was looking forward to reading Nocturnes, his first published collection of short stories. Nocturnes, as the subtitle describes, comprises five short stories, each focussing in some way on music, and on a day’s end.

The five stories – a couple of them with overlapping characters – are unmistakably Ishiguro. All have first person narrators, and in all cases the narrator is either unreliable or in some other way not completely across what is going on. This is the Ishiguro stamp … as is the overall tone of things not being quite right, of potential not being quite achieved, of people still looking for an elusive something but not necessarily knowing quite what that is.

When reviewing a short story collection I don’t necessarily feel the need to list each story but with there being so few in this case, I think I will, so here they are:

  • “Crooner”: an aging crooner, with the narrator as his accompanist, serenades his young wife from a gondola at a time when their marriage is breaking down
  • “Come rain or come shine”: a nearly 50-year old ESL teacher visits old university friends, only to find that their relationship is under stress
  • “Malvern Hills”: a not-yet-successful young rock guitarist visits his sister and brother-in-law in the country, and meets some Swiss tourists who are also musicians and whose marriage is a little rocky. (Hmm… see a theme developing here?)
  • “Nocturne”: another not-very-successful musician (this time a saxophonist) finds himself in the same hotel as the (now ex-)wife from the first story, while they are both recuperating from plastic surgery
  • “Cellists”: a cellist with potential is mentored by another cellist who is not quite what she seems

While there is a similarity in the tone of these stories, there are also differences. “Come rain or come shine” and “Nocturne”, for example, are a little reminiscent of When we were orphans in the sense that Ishiguro slowly (even in a short story!) but surely leads his characters (and we readers alongside) into increasingly bizarre, if not almost surreal, behaviours. Moreso than the other stories, these two have a comic, albeit tinged with pathos, edge.

The technique Ishiguro uses to present his notions of failing or missed potential is one common to most of his writing: he explores and exposes the gap between appearance and reality. This gap is given literal expression in “Nocturne” where two would-be stars are both bandaged for most of the story as a result of their plastic surgery, but it is there in all the stories: from the first story’s Tony and Libby Gardner who are separating for the most “superficial” of reasons to the last story’s self-described virtuoso cellist. It is found in Ray Charles’ version of the title song in “Come rain or come shine” “where the words themselves were happy, but the interpretation was pure heartbreak”. This gap is also conveyed through the prevaricative words commonly used by Ishiguro’s narrators, such as “I guess”, “perhaps”, “maybe” and “probably”:

I guess it showed in our music (“Crooner”)

Perhaps it was simply the effect of receiving a clear set of instructions (“Come rain or come shine”)

Maybe they were just tired. For all I know, they might have … All the same, it seemed to me (“Malvern Hills”)

… that probably means … and Maybe it was plain spinelessness. Or maybe I’d taken on board … (“Nocturne”)

Maybe there was a tiny bit if jealousy there … and … well, maybe there’s something in that (“Cellists”)

Ishiguro’s hallmarks of misconceptions and misconstructions, assumptions and self-deceptions are all evident here…sometimes in the narrator, sometimes in the other characters, sometimes in both.

The stories stand alone but, somewhat like Tim Winton‘s The turning, there’s a feeling that these stories go together, not just because of the recurring characters in two of them, and the apparent similarity of setting in the first and last stories, but also because of the recurring musical motif and the consistency in theme. If I were a musical expert rather than dilettante I might have tried to relate the five stories to some sort of musical structure but, fortunately for you, I am just the dilettante! That said there are some neat little links between the first and last stories which round them off nicely, just like a well-conceived piece of music.

There are no twists in the tail or crashing codas in these stories. This may disappoint some readers but, for me, they are deliciously conceived quiet, subtle stories that cleverly draw you into their characters’ lives while at the same time leaving you with the impression that you should keep your distance lest you too suffer from their malaise and disappointments.

Kazuo Ishiguro
Nocturnes: Five stories of music and nightfall
London: Faber and Faber, 2009
221pp.
ISBN: 9780571244997

Six months old today!

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Precious things: My kids and some of my toppling TBR piles!

I started writing this blog six months ago today – and what a fun experience it’s been, not only because I’ve enjoyed forming my thoughts into some sort of coherent (I hope ) whole, but also because it has introduced me to a vibrant, welcoming and encouraging book blogging community. I put off starting a blog for a long time exactly because I feared being caught up in another community – not because I hate community but because I feared spreading myself too thinly. Well, I probably am spread a bit too thinly across all my interests and enthusiasms but I don’t regret starting blogging for one minute. And for that I thank you lovely bloggers who have taken the time to read and comment on my blog and, where I’ve needed it, to offer help and guidance. Thankyou!

Like most bloggers – I think – I am interested in who comes to my blog and what they come for. My most popular post by far (and “by far”, I mean so “by far” that there’s not another post within cooee) is my post on the film Coco Avant Chanel. The post is about the “biopic” but the searches that lead to it all seem to be for Coco Chanel herself. I’m truly gobsmacked. And moreso because this post has not one comment on it. Curious, as well as gobsmacking.

My second most popular post, if you can call it a post, is, not surprisingly “Who am I?”. My third, though, intrigues me again. It is not one of my Australian posts (my Winton post comes in fourth) but my post on the Indonesian book This earth of mankind by Pramoeyda Ananta Toer. All I can think is that he continues to be studied internationally and hence the slow but constant hits on it. I’m not going to bore you by listing all my top ten posts and analysing them, but they are an eclectic lot and include posts on:

  • the indigenous poet Kath Walker (aka Oodgeroo Noonuccal),
  • the Aktimate speakers I bought for my iPod,
  • the Sydney Blue Gum, and
  • the one on Jane Austen that mentions The Times newspaper of 1785. I have no idea why people are searching for  “The Times 1785” but they are, and they get my post. I wonder if they are happy when they get there? I’ll never know cos they never tell me…

And that, I suppose, is the rub. We know more or less what those who comment think but what about all the others? Who are they? Did they find our posts useful? Ah, sweet mystery of life ….

Kiwis have style!

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Kiwi silhouette

Kiwi (Courtesy: OCAL via Clker.com)

Much as I, an Aussie, hate to admit it, those New Zealanders have style! Kimbofo has just posted, on her Reading Matters blog, New Zealand Book Council’s current promo – take a look here. Beautiful isn’t it? It springboards from Maurice Gee’s novel Going west – which reminds me that I really must read the Maurice Gee in my TBR pile soon.

On its website, the Book Council says that its mission is:

to inspire more New Zealanders to read more; to promote reading in general, but particularly to represent and promote New Zealand writing and writers – our own artists, stories and points of view.

I have not read anywhere near as many New Zealand books as I should (would like to, even!), but I have read some, most memorably:

I would recommend all of these, for different reasons. Clearly though, there are some big gaps here: the first one I should rectify is the aforementioned Maurice Gee. And, while talking about New Zealand writers, I have to admit that a few writers we claim as Aussies originated in New Zealand, including much-loved author Ruth Park and the poet and editor Douglas Stewart.

Hmmm…the more I think about it, the sooner we annex New Zealand as Australia’s 7th state the better! I’m sure Lisa at ANZLitLovers would agree!

The trouble with audiobooks (for me)

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Headphones

Listening (Courtesy: OCAL on Clker.com)

Once was audiobooks were used primarily by visually impaired people and travellers, but with the rapidly increasing miniaturisation of audioplayers, audiobooks are now being “read” by people going on walks, working out in the gym, doing housework, sitting on public transport, or even working at their computers. In other words, people listen to audiobooks pretty well anywhere that they can. I am not, however, one of them. In fact, I can count on one hand (excluding snippets heard over the years on radio) the number of audiobooks I have “read” (or is that listened to?). Do you “read” an audiobook? How differently do you experience a book when you listen to it versus read it?

For me, the experience is so different that when I am in a listening situation I prefer radio and music to books. And here is why (but please, this is a purely personal thing – it is about how I like to enjoy books and is in no way intended to be prescriptive about how everyone should enjoy books):

  • I like to see the words – know how they are spelt and so on – partly, but not only, because this can be critical to my understanding (particularly with authors who engage in wordplay).
  • I like to stop and think as I read – ponder about a phrase or an idea, and even flip a few pages back sometimes to check a link that I think the author is making.
  • I like to make notes as I go and, if I own the book, I do this in the book – making notes helps me remember what I’m reading, and helps me write a blog or prepare notes for later discussion.
  • I don’t want to miss visual clues – some authors, and particularly post-modern ones, use visual clues and games to add to their text, but there are other more subtle visuals in “normal” books that you miss in an audio version.
  • I don’t particularly like it when a reader acts out the voices in a book – it distracts me from my own understanding of the text. The reader for the audiobook of Ruth Park’s Swords and crowns and rings (link here is to ANZLitLovers review), for example, irritated me intensely with her voices and dramatisation, though as she wore on I got used to her because it is a great story!
  • I like the physicality of the book (though I can probably relinquish this in the same way that I am pretty happily converting from CDs to iTunes for my music).

All this said, I have enjoyed a couple of audiobooks. The outstanding one was Roald Dahl reading his own Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Authors readings their own works can be a hit-and-miss affair, but Roald Dahl was perfect. I heard snippets of Barack Obama reading his Dreams from my father on the radio and thought he also read his own work beautifully. On another tack, I enjoyed hearing Mary Durack’s memoir Kings in grass castles when we did a long long family trip several years ago.

Audiobooks clearly have their place. They work best for me when they are memoirs or simple plot-driven books rather than literary fiction, and so on the next very long trip we do I’ll probably seek out some memoirs. I also know that I will be very glad of their existence when (or, hopefully, if) my sight fails me. But, otherwise, I will be sticking to reading rather than listening…and this means that the technology that is likely to attract me is the eBook. I can see myself trying them in the not too distant future.