Holding the Man by Timothy Conigrave

Ahh Penguin Classics. Bringing good stories to the people for under $10. I became aware of this book as it has been turned into a super successful play in recent years (which I haven’t seen but have heard great things about). It’s the true story of the author, a young gay man, and his relationship with the captain of school football team, at Xavier College in Melbourne in the 70s. Not only is John the footy captain, he’s Italian – so his parents go absolutely spare when he tells them he’s gay. Conigrave’s parents are slightly better, but one can imagine how being gay 30 years ago went down. These sections were infuriating in just how small minded people were (and to be honest, probably still are). For a parent to disown their own child based purely on their sexuality is just wrong and stupid.

John becomes a physio and Tim becomes an actor, getting in NIDA and moving to Sydney, where the two “take a break”, which involves Tim getting it on with loads of dudes. They get back together and end up both testing HIV-positive, which back in the day was helpfully known as ‘gay cancer’. The book candidly documents John’s struggle with the disease, as Tim looks after him and tries to block out his own impending sickness.

This book was published just before Conigrave’s death in 1994, but stops after John’s passing – I can’t imagine how heartbreaking it would be to watch your lover of years and years waste away, and also knowing that you had the same illness. It’s a pretty brave book in that it doesn’t gloss over anything, which had its confronting moments to read, but it’s a better book for it. It’s actually not all that well written, with Conigrave’s writing lacking any flourishes, but it has an authentic quality that was quite endearing, and I could see that its material would make for a brilliant play.

I think Conigrave wrote the book that he always wished existed when he was a young guy coming to grips with being gay; and luckily now for a generation of boys it does.

The Boy Next Door by Irene Sabatini

I actually read this book right after Oscar Wao, and they were a little similar in topic (war-torn countries, dictators, snippets written in another language and colloquial references) but this one took itself a lot more seriously. Author Sabatini is from Zimbabwe where the novel is set, and it explores the nation’s identity struggle post-independence through the eyes of Lindiwe Bishop, who is witness to an event that shapes her entire life.

It’s a slow burner, which is a bad pun since the first pivotal moment is Lindiwe’s next door neighbour’s house burning down, killing a woman – teenage occupant Ian is the suspect of the arson that caused the death of his stepmother. It sets off a chain of events that tie Lindiwe to Ian, and the book charts their tumultuous relationship, and the breakdown of the country around them.

Lindiwe works hard to rise above her poor childhood to become university educated and is very aware of her colour and standing in society, while Ian, the white ‘Rhodesian’ wants to pretend the whole world is colour-blind; Lindiwe is constantly challenging him on her struggle to be recognised as equal (such as when they go camping together, and a group of white campers invite Ian to join them for drinks – and tell him he can bring his ‘girl’, or help, along – Ian does nothing to correct them) and the whole book revolves around both of them educating each other.

The period in which the book is set is hugely interesting to me; it’s a turning point in Africa where shit really started to go south. So this is watching it at the beginning, and the first signs of how awful Mugabe’s 30 year rule is going to be are showing.

There are some frustratingly slow moments, and Sabatini is a master of restraint, but sometimes I felt she held back too much with certain plotlines; I’m sure she meant to leave some aspects ambiguous but it meant that I wasn’t wholly satisfied by the end. However, a deserving winner of the Orange Award for New Writers in 2010.

The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman

For some reason, I found the opening sentence of this book one of the most uninspired pieces of prose ever: “Lloyd shoves off the bedcovers and hurries to the front door in white underwear and blacks socks.” Perhaps I don’t like men named Lloyd (Lloyd Bysouth, you’ve scarred me, you primary school pervert). This is a book written by a journalist, which is always dubious; just because you smash out eight 250 word stories a day does mean you can write an awesome novel. And for a stretch, it’s set in the newsroom of an international newsroom in Rome…and what a surprise, the author worked as a correspondent in Rome! Where does this man get his ideas, you wonder in amazement?

The layout is kind of cute, with each new character and their job title introduced by way of a newspaper headline (example: U.S General Optimistic on War – Kathleen Solson, Editor-In-Chief) but the book is let down by what’s in the chapters; namely, some terrible writing. It really would have been better served as a collection of short stories, because with one or two character’s chapters, he really nails them, such as the satisfying set-up and reveal around Abbey Pinnola, the luckless in love chief financial officer, who is burned by an employee she fired – the book really lifts at this point but it’s too close to the end and nothing else is written that well. The men are all portrayed as hardened hacks, and the female chief of staff a total ballbreaker – no breakdown of stereotypes here. Which is a shame, because as a journalist, surely Rachman could have offered a more interesting perspective on his profession than this Year 12 quality offering.

On The Science of Not Reading Books by Amber

Here are some facts:
1. There is rarely a lot of sun where I live
2. When there is sun, I need to be in it
3. There is a relationship between sun exposure and number of books read, illustrated belowSee how, when there's not a lot of sun, like in Winter say, book reading is high. Then, when sun exposure is really, really super high, like when you're on holidays in a hammock, book reading is high, but in the middle, when sun exposure is kind of middling, book reading suffers. That's where I'm at at the moment. All I can do in the sun right now, when it's shining, is drink cider and roll around in the grass. So.

I did read one book, The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al-Aswany and while vaguely enjoyable it really was just a poor man's version of Swimming Lessons and Other Stories from Firozsha Baag by Rohinton Mistry, which is a freaking awesome, Raymond Carver-esque short story collection of untold brilliance. Alaa Al-Aswany's characters were a bit 2 dimensional and his style just wasn't the evocative genius of Mistry. That said, I did hear the dude interviewed on the BBC's World Book Club show and turns out he's actually a dentist, so you know, maybe I shouldn't have expected too much?

In other reading news, I'm completely addicted to reading The Economist and have taken out a subscription. This is complemented by my other dirty little addiction, an economics podcast from NPR called Planet Money. I've become completely fascinated by the idea of economics - HOW DOES IT WORK?!?! What is this mad crazy system of money that makes the world go round? Or not go round, as increasingly seems to be the case? And how in the name of God are all these chumps making arse-loads of money out of a system I don't understand but am completely beholden too? Anyway, I'm loving it. It's like reading takes from another world...

So. In short: I'm reading a really nerdy magazine, and there aren't any books on the horizon for about a month or so.

Yours, with apologies and cute graphs,
Princess Amber Margaret

Holiday Reading Extravaganza by Various

A month-long holiday equates to a grown-up MS Read-a-thon for me. I love nothing more than packing a stack of books, lying somewhere with amazing scenery in the sun and devouring some choice words. You also want to choose books that are good, but not so good that you can’t bear to leave them in the spot that you finished them, ditching some excess baggage and making room for a newbie.

Since I can barely remember some of these, I won’t mess around.

The Lucy Family Alphabet by Judith Lucy

I started reading this on the plane, so it was the perfect pick up and put down type book, essential for when you’re on the move and not needing to get too involved with anything demanding. As Amber observed after reading it, it’s not a real book, which is true – it would have made a better Good Weekend feature. But parts of it were laugh out loud hilarious, probably only because I could imagine her whisky-voiced delivery. Non-Aussie readers would have absolutely NO IDEA what to make of this, and probably the thing I liked most about it was its sense of place; a crazy 70’s Australia filled with racist dads, cocktail franks and bad furniture.

A Song in the Daylight by Paullina Simons

Take the shame. I’m embarrassed to admit that I took this 700 page phone book with me, but I’d read one of hers in Brazil and chowed through it (the much better, or at least at the time, A Girl in Times Square, but on reflection I was probably just desperate for a book in English by that part of the trip). This was total housewife porn, where the woman has the perfect life, with shitty descriptive crap like ‘Larissa didn’t have a single mole marking her alabaster skin’ – who the fuck doesn’t have a mole on their ENTIRE body? Is she a robot? Anyway, it was completely vacuous and the two main American characters died the most ridiculous death in the outback of Australia. The end. Rancid. And I gained about 2kgs back in my suitcase. It was well shameful.

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

This was freaking awesome – one of those ‘It’s raining on my tropical holiday so I’m just going to read this book in 8 hours’ kind of reads. A book where the animal analogies actaully mean something, and aren’t just some lazy author threading. I’ve long had a soft spot for Indian authors (that original voice is like no other – punchy and so descriptive you can smell what they’re talking about) and it really took me from the poverty afflicted Darkness to the pollution filled streets of New Dehli. Take me there now.

Petropolis by Anya Ulinich

Post Chernobyl pulp fiction, of which I cannot recall much, so clearly I didn’t rate it.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larrsson

I personally blame this book for kicking off my ‘Illiteracy Disease’ of the second half of my trip; I started reading this, got about two-thirds of the way through, got to London and then couldn’t read a word that wasn’t accompanied by a glossy picture for the next fortnight. Of course it could have had something to do with arriving in London, but I prefer to blame this book, which was a pretty good plot spoiled by some grossly violent details. Goes to show that when you finally cave and read a book just because everyone you see on the bus is, things will not be pretty and there was a reason you didn’t read the goddamn thing in the first place. This is why I’ve never read Harry Potter and never will.

The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

Ahh the feted ‘Book You Take for the Plane Ride Home’ – possibly the hardest choice of all, but this beauty delivered on so many fronts. It was like reading a hip-hop song, if you can bear with me; original, fierce, lyrical and with something pretty important to say. Diaz as an author from the Dominican Republic has this completely unique insight into the atrocities committed in his country (which to be honest I knew nada about – I suspect his target demo) and is able to create what is almost two tales within one; an achingly funny and tender fiction book about the hapless Oscar Wao, with its pigeon pairing an unflinching non-fiction exploration into political corruption in DR.

Mystery Book by Unnamed Author

DISCLOSURE: This book was a 'gift' from the boss of the company that owns the company that I work for. It came with a syrupy letter saying something about how amazing it is that after working in publishing for so long a book can still move you and aren't words great and aren't we all really priviledged to work here and make books like this bullshit bullshit etc.

I read the book - it was free, afterall - and I know the adage about peering into the gobs of gift horses, but this one, it must be said, came at me with it's mouth wide open and it's rotten teeth and halitosis plain for all to witness. It doesn't take a veterinary denitst to tell you that this 'gift' was as a completely transparent attempt to save money on marketing by having me do it for them for free.

'Fraid not, Mr. Hyphenated-Surname, not this little reader, no Sir. I mean, perhaps if there were a more direct link between sales of this book and my salary, I'd be reading it on the train, offering to loan it to my mum, dropping its name into random conversations with friends etc, but there ain't. So I'm not. There was no offer of commission in the letter you sent accompanying the book so I can only infer that it really makes diddly-squat difference to me what happens to it. Bury it under a pile of compost for all I care.

Also, it was crap. The cover is pretty and very eye-catching, and characters were kind of engaging, but the narrative was, oh, how shall I put this? Shit. Maybe if you hadn't spent so much on the foil on the cover, or let the extent get so out of hand that by half way though I was wishing someone would tear out some of the pages, or if you'd maybe considered being slightly more economical with the chapter heads, you wouldn't need to sell so many copies of it that you'd blatantly attempt to use your workforce, gratis, to start some kind of whisper campaign about it like we're a bunch of teenage girls and this is Twilight. Just a thought.

So, you know, thanks for the book and all that, but far from telling anyone to read it, I'm not even going to tell anyone what it is. I'm shoving it under my compost heap and hoping that, like shit in a garden bed, something useful actually comes out of it. Unless, of course, you'd like to reflect this in my salary somehow? No, didn't think so.

Maybe I'm wrong, and you just really value your workers and really thought this was brilliant and wanted to share it with us? Well then I have another suggestion: next time you want to enourage my love of reading and remind me why I work in this slavishly underpaid industry you could just add the wholesale value of a book (reflective of the staff discount, if you like) to my bank account (you've got the details) and I'll read whatever I like. Thanks.

Girl Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen

“A successful suicide demands good organisation and a cool head, both of which are usually incompatible with the suicidal state of mind.”

HA! I loved Kaysen’s dry and detached observations about being viewed as crazy, even more commendable since this is her story about being locked up in a mental institution for 2 years in the 60’s. She was in the rock-star McLean Hospital, home to fellow nutty alumni such as Sylvia Plath, Ray Charles and James Taylor, and was admitted after a 20 minute consultation with her doctor. Having been diagnosed with ‘Borderline Personality Disorder’, Kaysen seemed to me like a slightly moody, anxious teenager, barely grown and displaying some vaguely subversive tendencies that wouldn’t get a second look at now – she was vegetarian, slept with her English teacher and didn’t want to go to college. She must be nuts, let’s throw her in with society’s rejects.

Becoming a writer, Kaysen tracked down her medical records, which must have been strangely illuminating, since it never really was made clear to her why she was there. She obviously needed some time chilling away from the world, as she didn’t really protest or try to bust her way out, but her story does beg the question – what were her family doing? Why was she there for two years? Answers aren’t all that forthcoming, and Kaysen focuses more on the day to day of being in a loony bin, which she does in an engaging and direct style. There’s an awesome chapter called ‘Velocity vs. Viscosity’ which describes the fastness and thickness of insanity in a way that gave me great insight into mental illness, and the fragility of the mind.