Aussie Author Challenge

I am joining this challenge a little late in the day in June.  Aussie Author Challenge is being hosted by Booklover Book Reviews.  As it is halfway through the year I will commit to the "tourist" level and read three Australian books by three different Aussie authors.  I will increase the challenge for myself by the authors needing to be new to me.  I am currently reading "My Love Must Wait" by Ernestine Hill a novel about Matthew Flinders.  I also want to read some Peter Carey as I have not read any of his work yet.    I feel this challenge is a wonderful way to highlight the many excellent Australian authors.  And it will keep me on track for the rest of the year to read more of them.

Antipodean Childhoods

Antipodean Childhoods

As I shiver through an Aussie winter I found this post on the New Yorker fiction blog: The Book Bench about two authors reminiscing about  hot childhood Christmas rituals in Australian, very heart warming.

The New Yorker is a wonderful source of many things bookish.  Also note they have an excellent montly fiction podcast you can subsribe to for free through iTunes or listen to straight from The New Yorker website.  The podcasts features a different author each month who reads a favourite short story from the work of another author, and provides comment on the story.  I love these podcasts hosted by The New Yorker's fiction editor Deborah Treisman

Henry James "The Turn of the Screw"

The Turn of the Screw is a novella by Henry James first published in 1898.  This is the first work by James I have read.  The shorter length allows a good introduction to the author's work without becoming too overwhelmed by his challenging style.

The plot is ostensibly a rather sophisticated ghost story.  I say ostensibly because the plot itself is ambiguous.  If anything Henry James's The Turn of the Screw is one of the most reviewed and debated fictitious works you could think of.  The story begins at a Christmas house party where tales involving the appearance of apparitions are being discussed.  It is suggested that when such reports involve an apparition appearing to a child the atmosphere is heightened thus giving the effect "another turn of the screw."

One of the guests at this party tells a story from a manuscript that was given to him many years earlier by its author, a governess.  What unfolds is her version of events at Bly where she is put in charge of two orphaned children.

The style of the story can be described as late Victorian Gothic. With that, it has the obligatory large, many roomed spooky house, stern housekeeper and pretty children.  As mentioned before on this blog, I will always try to avoid spoilers because I do believe they diminish the pleasure of reading a book for the first time.  For this review that is a difficult promise to keep because the story is so perplexing.  I will avoid further discussion of the plot specifically, but highly recommended, once a reader has made their own way through "The Turn of the Screw" a perusal of the many discussions available on the internet regarding the interpretation of the story.

Having said that I am going to put a slight spoiler warning here.  Because I think to discuss the merits of the novella further may amount to a slight spoiler for some.  The ambiguous round about writing style, which is something I want to discuss, is to a purpose that does intersect with the plot.  So if you want to read the story without any premonitions as to the purpose of the ambiguous style, skip the next paragraph.

Henry James plays around with first person narrative. The beginning, at the Christmas gathering is told in the first person from the perspective of a guest who is hearing the story.  Once the telling of the manuscript begins the first person narrative switches to the voice of the governess.  Of course the first person narrative lends itself beautifully to the experience of a ghost story.  James also uses it to increase the confusion and tension around what is actually happening.  There are uncertainties about what we are being told.  The ultimate conundrum persists long after one has finished the story.  The enigma at the heart of the story, much more than the ghostly apparitions is what keeps the reader awake at night long after the story is read.  It is not straight forward.  I think we have become used to far more simplistic uses of first person narrative trickery in modern story telling.  Henry James is a conjurer here, it is very smoke and mirrors.  There is no "ta dah!" at the end.  The reader has to work harder than that.

The whole thing is hard work in many respects.  The challenge is not so much in the words used: you do not need a dictionary at your side.  The difficulty is the complicated sentence construction:

"How could I put even a little of that article into a suppression of reference of what had occurred?  How on the other hand, could I make reference without a new plunge into the hideous obscure?  Well, a sort of answer, after a time, had come to me, and it was so far confirmed as that I was met, incontestably, by the quickened vision of what was rare in my little companion."  p. 79 The Turn of the Screw.

Obscure indeed, no?  The reading often feels like two steps forward and one step back, in terms of understanding what is going on.  But then there are also many delightful turns of phrase:

"Whatever he had been driven from school for, it was not for ugly feeding."   p.78 The Turn of the Screw 

This is a reference to young Mile's exquisite table manners.

For me, overall, the work is worth it.  James does create a very tense atmosphere, loaded with longing, uncertainty and frustration.  And yes, the frustration I think is often mirrored in the reading experience itself.  There is something marvellously clever in a tale that allows distinct multiple interpretations and I suspect that this was the author's intention.  We can only suspect what James's intention may have been because in his own comments on the interpretation of The Turn of the Screw, he is also deliciously ambiguous.

Teaser Tuesdays (June 8)

Teaser Tuesdays (June 8)

Teaser Tuesday is a fun bookish meme hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading.  The idea is to open the book you are currently reading at a random page and share two teaser sentences from that page.  Of course the teaser should avoid being a spoiler. And please include the title and author so others can read the book if they wish.   Here is mine for this week:

It was plump, one afternoon, in the middle of my very hour: the children were tucked away, and I had come out for my stroll.  One of the thoughts that, as I don't in the least shrink now from noting, used to be with me in these wanderings was that it would be as charming as a charming story suddenly to meet someone.

p 15 The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

I am really enjoying this story.  The language is long winded but delicious.

Jack London "The Call of the Wild"

What a surprise package this book turned out to be.  I absolutely loved it.  The Call of the Wild is about Buck, a large domesticated dog who lives a very comfortable life in California.  A disreputable servant of his master, sells him into servitude to pay a gambling debt.  Poor Buck is taken to work as a sled dog in the Yukon territory of Canada during the Klondike Gold Rush at the end of the nineteenth century.  Buck's life as a working dog is fraught with danger and hardship but he adjusts to life in the harness, in the frozen wilderness, and starts to experience yearnings to be free in the wild as his ancestors once were.

I was completely captivated by Buck and his experiences from the first page to the last.  Jack London takes us inside Buck and his metamorphosis from domesticated dog to wild hunter.  The action sequences in the novel (and there are many) are brilliantly told.  It is really edge of your seat stuff.  The language is simple, beautiful and evocative.   The fights, the ceaseless toil and the flights through the forest in pursuit of prey, are incredible.  I can see all of it as I write this now.  Jack London's writing is magic; you don't even notice the writing.  The reader is effortlessly transported to the frozen north and can hear every gnashing of teeth and cracking of the whip.  The writing is tight, not a word wasted.  It is so real.  Yes I haven't gone mad, this tale, told from the point of view of a dog is very real.  And not only is it real but as the reader I cared so much about this dog.  I don't even like dogs that much for goodness sake, but Buck well and truly found his way into my heart.

The novel is quite violent in parts.  The dogs are subjected to vicious cruelty by some of the humans in the story. There is also an ongoing struggle for supremacy amongst the dogs themselves.  It all works and adds to the tension, but I think children would find it all a bit much.

The themes explored in the book include loyalty, bravery and love.  In many way these themes are amplified because we see them enacted through Buck.  Then there is the "call of the wild" itself.  The idea that we carry buried deep inside, something elemental and essential from our ancestors that links us to nature, exploring new frontiers and a kill or be killed way of life.  But yes I know I am going on. I can't really explain why The Call of the Wild works so well, and why the trials of Buck moved me, except to suggest that it is a simple adventure story brilliantly told.

Isabel Allende "Eva Luna"

This is the first Isabel Allende novel I have read.  Allende is a Chilean novelist.  Eva Luna was first published in 1985 and is translated from the original Spanish.  The story is set in an unidentified South American country and follows the adventures of orphaned Eva.  Set against a backdrop of political unrest and upheaval,  Eva who is born into poverty and uncertainty, uses her talent as a story teller to deal with the tragedy and oppression that besets her early life.

This is a very readable and enjoyable novel.  The strength of the story lies in the world Allende creates.  She makes ordinary things seem extraordinary and magical.  This mirrors Eva's own internal world where she finds strength in the midst  of poverty and danger, by summoning up spirits and stories from her past to envelop and protect her.

Several themes are explored in Eva Luna.  Perhaps most central is the plight of women in countries where there is political instability.   Allende skillfully explores issues of gender, poverty and identity.  Despite these serious themes, there is nothing depressing or preachy about Eva Luna.  At the heart of the novel is Eva's ability, through story telling, to strengthen her own resolve and enchant those she meets.

I did not feel especially connected to Eva or any of the characters, but what kept me involved with the story were the different worlds that Eva inhabits which in turn inform her internal world and dream scape.   These include the hot, noisy and filthy city; the dusty, lonely town and the wet, luscious jungle.  There is a joyful earthiness to Allende's writing that is truly captivating.  Her style is both mythical and visceral, and totally transports the reader to another world.  Surely this is the hallmark of a true story teller.  I look forward to diving into Isabel Allende's other novels.

The Bookshow Blog

The Bookshow Blog