Bits, or perhaps bytes?

I’ve got several reviews backed up but I need to carve out something that vaguely resembles spare time, in order to get around to posting them. So for today all I can offer is a few cools links I’ve stumbled across recently.

First off check out this rather interesting article I stumbled across whilst procrastinating at work. The article takes the p.o.v of both a (fictious) publisher and a librarian, and discusses some experiences and issues of the both these book centred professions.

Also, I noticed that The Monthly Magazine has put up a great video of Alain de Botton talking about the pleasures and sorrows of work – go check it out, or if you’ve read the book, tell me what you thought?

 Lastly, and due to access issues this will be directed mostly towards Aussie readers, has anyone read Steve Carroll’s The Lost Life yet? I’m super intrigued and am wondering what others think.

Summer, come back!

So it’s official, winter has arrived like the unwanted house guest it is, with my corresponding bad mood riding pillion. The nose-diving temperature has brought with it stinging sideways rain and obnoxious winds that are scaring my stoic little seedlings into surrender. I’ve unpacked my woollies, started making curries,  pondered my new beanie friendly winter ‘do’, and am now busy moping around wishing for a transfer to Hawaii. Whilst I sulk for a little longer, I thought I’d have a go at this great meme I’ve been seeing around of late.

1) What author do you own the most books by?

After consulting my various bookcases, its turns out that I have an equal number of Edmund White, Haruki Murakami, Francoise Sagan and David Malouf; with five books each.

2) What book do you own the most copies of?

Dracula. I have an old Penguin classic edition with a tacky 1970’s cover; a Norton critical edition I used at University; and a more recent graphic novel version.

3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?

To have bothered me I would first have had to notice, which I didn’t, so no.

4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?

I’ve just finished reading Sense & Sensibility, so this week I’m going to say Colonel Brandon.  I have quite the thing for unruffled yet passionate men, who are as good with their hands as they are with their heads. If he looked and sounded like Alan Rickman in Emma Thompson’s fantastic adaptation, well that would be fine too!

5) What book have you read the most times in your life (excluding picture books read to children)?

Probably Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. I’m completely in love with this pretentious fantasy land of academia, with its cultish mysterious professor and his band of eccentric scholars. I would love to dive into this book and wax philosophical with Henry, speculate about the twins relationship with Richard, get drunk with Francis, and while away a morning trading laughs with Bunny; all in between indulging my intellect in the kind of obscure study that wealth affords.

6) What was your favourite book when you were ten years old?

Probably something by John Marsden, Robyn Klein or perhaps Judy Blume.

7) What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?

In the last year I read Anne Tyler’s Digging to America and was bored rigid. Feeling that I needed to give this author another chance to impress, I then read Ladder of Years, but I was still completely unimpressed. I don’t know if that makes these books bad, its just they weren’t my cup of tea.

What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?

Patrick White’s The Tree of Man, or maybe Richard Flanagan’s Wanting.

9) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?

That’s a lot of pressure for one book to live up to! To be honest I have enough trouble recommending books to friends whose tastes I’m familiar with, let alone force a book into a strangers hands and demand they read it.

10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature?

I have no idea! I think I’ll leave such decisions up to those people at Nobel Prize HQ and continue to float along on my cloud of ignorance!

11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?

I’m one of those people that tends to initially resist film adaptations of books. I have to hear good things from several reliable sources before I can bring myself to go see it. I guess this is my way of guarding against the images of the book that I’ve constructed in my head, because they tend to get muddied after seeing the film. So I guess that’s a long-winded way of saying that I don’t have any books I want to see made into films!

12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?

Well I’ve always said The Secret History, but with the films right having been sold long ago, and constant rumours of people being attached to the film, I suspect it’s only a matter of time.

13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.

I once had a dream in which T.S. Eliot was sipping tea in my living room and telling me off about something, the subject of which I cannot for the life of me recall. All I can remember is his stern, unwavering gaze shrinking me with every minute that passed.

14) What is the most lowbrow book you’ve read as an adult?

Well I did read The DaVinci Code once to see what all the fuss was about, and I have also read several of Jodi Picoult’s books in my short time as an ‘adult’!

15) What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?

Michel Foucault’s The History of Western Sexuality in three volumes. Parts of it were as impenetrable as a Bob Dylan lyric, and I think I went a little bit crazy trying to get a full grasp of what he was saying. It’s was like trying to swim in treacle.

16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you’ve seen?

The Bell Shakespeare Company puts on two Shakespeare plays a year here in Australia, but they are usually the better known ones, so I can’t say I’ve seen any of his more obscure stuff.

17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians?

No idea. I’ve not read widely enough of either to have an opinion.

18 ) Roth or Updike?

I like both for different reasons.

19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?

I like both, but if I had to choose one it would be Sedaris.

20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?

But I want to play with them all!

21) Austen or Eliot?

See above

22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?

Oh pick a time, style or location and I’ll have a huge yawning gap! The only two areas of reading that I’d consider myself comfortable with would be late 19^th Century -early 20^th Century English Literature, and Australian Literature. Outside of that I’m quite illiterate, but I’m working on it!

23) What is your favourite novel?

You know I tend to have favourite writers rather than favourite books. Some of my favourite writers at this point in my life would be: Edmund White, Patrick White, Janet Frame, Evelyn Waugh, T.S. Eliot, Cormac McCarthy, Jane Austen, Haruki Murakami, and Douglas Coupland. I wonder how different this list will be in ten years time!

24) Play?

At the moment, it’s Louis Nowra’s Radiance

25) Poem?

At the moment it’s The Thought-Fox by Ted Hughes

26) Essay?

I enjoy pilfering through the essays found at Arts & Letters daily.

27) Short story?

Anything from David Malouf’s Every Move you Make.

28) Work of nonfiction?

John Vincent’s The Intelligent Person’s Guide to History.

29) Who is your favourite writer?

See Q23

30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?

You know I’d have no idea really. What is the definition of an overrated writer? Overrated according to whom? It all seems so subjective to me. There are a lot of writers out there whose ability according to literary taste-makers falls short of some ill-defined benchmark, but you know at the end of the day people are buying their books in droves and connecting with their stories, so I don’t know. I think the short answer is, as I’ve just demonstrated, I’m completely lost when it comes to these kind of arguments!

31) What is your desert island book?

The complete Lyrics of Bob Dylan. That would keep me interested, frustrated, ponderous and imaginative for quite some time!

32) And… what are you reading right now?

Sonya Hartnett’s Of a Boy, Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, The collected Poems of Ted Hughes, and a biography of Hughes written by Elaine Feinstein.

Perhaps not on a first date…

I’ve been slowly making my way through Elaine Feinstein’s highly engaging biography of Ted Hughes this past week. As I’m fortunate enough to own the Collected Poems of Hughes, I’ve been trying to read his poems in a kind of parallel chronology to the events of his life, which is proving deliciously satisfying. Today’s reading saw the introduction of Sylvia into Ted’s life with the sort of OTT drama that seems to only happen in biographies of creative types.

After spotting Sylvia at a Cambridge party and admiring her ‘flash’, Hughes quickly extricates himself from his date and flocks to Plath.  She plies him with flattery and the next thing they are drinking brandy and chit-chatting in the next room. Remembering his ditched girlfriend he excuses himself not before as Feinstein writes:

“he kissed her, ‘bang smash on the mouth, as she describes it in her journal, then ripped her hairband off and her favourite silver earrings. The journal entry continues with him ‘barking’ his intention to keep what he had taken, and kissing her neck. In response, Plath bit him so long and hard on his cheek that blood was running down his face when they returned to the other room.” (p48)

Hughes later described it as:

“as a swelling ring-moat of tooth-marks

that was to brand my face for the next month”

Yikes! Now that’s taking the term love-bite perhaps a little too literally…

Lest we Forget

Its ANZAC day here today and for the first time I attended this morning’s dawn service held at the Australian War Memorial. Canberra’s weather is nothing if not predictable and right on cue it has embraced autumn with overenthusiastic fervour. Arriving at the War Memorial at 4.45am, the pre-dawn air was heavy with the scent of last night’s rain and the wind enveloped my unprotected face and ears like an icy whisper. The lit Memorial stood out in the darkness almost ghoulishly, whilst directly behind us, Parliment House watched over with its lit protective arms. I was anticipating that the service was going to be incredibly moving, but I was still unprepared for the emotion it stirred within. Its was a bit of  a trip for me to be standing there reflecting back upon a past that is only accessible to me through the hard work of gallery curators and my own imagination, whilst five metres away from me sat veterans whose heads were full of the images crafted so deftly by historians in textbooks.

The service itself was a powerful juxtaposition of beauty and solemnity as the first slivers of dawn stole quietly over the prayers, the memories of the speakers, and the proud erect figures of those current service men and women. Prior to the commencement of the ceremony I had been speaking to the women next to me, whose great-grandfather and father had served and whose sons were currently serving in the armed forces. As the first notes of the last post broke out across the parade ground, glistening tracks were evident upon her face in the light of the candle she held, and I wondered what this day meant to her. As we stood for two minutes silence reflecting upon that moment the only sound that could be heard was the clanging of the rippling flag against the flagpole as it fought the wind.  I can only imagine what a moving affair it must be for those that take part in the dawn service at Gallipoli Cove.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

Lest we forget.

If you have the time check out this ANZAC multimedia from the SMH – its wonderfully touching.

One-hit wonders

I came across this interesting little read today.

 I couldn’t help but wonder if Anne Sewell’s and Slyvia Plath’s inclusion in such a list is a tad unfair. Given the permanence of death, is it fair to  consider someone a one-hit wonder if they are physically incapable of producing anymore work?