Best Aussie fiction of the 21st Century (so far)

Those switched on peeps over at Spike, (the Meanjin blog) recently lined up a panel of Australian writers, critics, authors and bloggers, to give their vote on the best (so far) of  21st Century Australian Fiction.

Other than being wildly entertaining, the aim of the exercise is to get a feel for the direction Australia fiction is currently moving in, by examining the stories that have struck a chord with readers thus far. The countdown begins today with a third place tie between The Slap, The Boat, The Turning and Gould’s Book of Fish.

I agree with the selection of The Boat, but am not entirely convinced about the inclusion of The Slap. Mixed reviews have left me ambivalent to The Turning, however after reading James Bradley’s thoughts on it, I think I will have to grab a copy and see for myself. Ditto for Gould’s Book of Fish.

The exercise is based on a similar one conducted not too long ago over at The Millions, where they listed the top 20 Best Fiction of the Millenium (I’ve managed four of the twenty). I was especially chuffed to see that Deborah Eisenberg’s Twilight of the Superheroes made the cut. I’ve just finished reading it and think it is marvellous (review to come).

Go check them out and watch your TBR pile magically expand.

Reading trails

My reading this week has been scrappy, confined strictly to cyberspace and squeezed in around a conga line of deadlines. Artist Jeremy Mayer sculpts using old typewriters to create full-scale, anatomically correct human figures. The detail is stunning and I love the way these sculptures look so futuristic, yet are constructed using outdated technology. I also stumbled upon this B.R Myers’ article on the growing pretentiousness of American literature. Scathing ingly funny, I got a good chuckle from it, while it also provided me with an answer of sorts to a question I’ve been wondering for sometime; why book stores divide their fiction sections into  ‘fiction’ and ‘literary fiction’. According to Myer’s, award stickers and big words play a part.  I also enjoyed Sonya Chung’s  inspiring post about how she became a writer, as well as  Stephen Elliot’s wonderful essay why I write, which is a moving and insightful look at a life anchored by writing.  After reading both of these I picked up the pen again for the first time in ages without feeling a sense of dread.  The arrival of the new Readings catalogue and the sudden spike in temperatures has got me thinking about my summer reading list.  While I’ve started mentally collating my list, I think some more ‘research’ (read: cruising book stores) will be crucial to its formation.  Lastly, check out this cool website: i love typography.  Erik’s passion for type is highly contagious and I spent a great deal of my work week surreptitiously exploring all the nooks and crannies of this site and thinking a great deal more about the typefaces I interact with on a daily basis. It even inspired me to change the font I work with in all my documents; I settled on Georgia. I’m sure that says something about me typologically speaking!

Great to hear Nam Le’s debut collection of short stories The Boat, named 2009 winner of the Prime Minister’s award for fiction. While I’ve not found the brain space for much blogging of late, I have been squeezing in reading around the edges of my working life and recently read The Boat, and was bowled over by Le’s vivid and assured prose and the audacious scope of his storytelling. From Columbian assassins, to coastal Victoria through to Hiroshima just before the bomb, I was moved and convinced by all Le had to offer.

I always figured my propensity for constant e-procrastination was a sure sign that I was not cut out to be a writer; happily I was mistaken:

http://meanjin.com.au/spike-the-meanjin-blog/post/spike-comp-the-daily-grind/

Mangled language

Just when I thought Team Plain English was starting to gain the upper hand, I endured this in a “strategic partnerships” meeting today:

“Lets leave the exact nature of the “Programmatic specificity” aside for now, and focus our attention on idenitfying the “low-hanging fruit”  and “program synergies” that are avaliable to us in “resetting the policy relationship”.

I was so disgusted with myself for having understood everything that was meant by that statement, that I wanted to  throw myself on the boardroom table shrieking, “what have I become!” until hoarse. Of course my inability to pay my rent if my ‘outputs were redistrubted more efficiently’ ultimately stopped me.