The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

Remember earlier in the year when I read A Spot of Bother? Right, well, The Corrections succeeded where that failed. I would like to send a copy of The Corrections to Mark Haddon with a 'spot the difference' style questionnaire.

The Corrections includes a whole load of things that I enjoy in books: tales of middle America, mental illness, ponderances on the nature of humanity, wrong and broken sex scenes of more than one kind, hysterical characters, analysis of success and failure, etc. All this, I tell you, as well as words sewn together in ways that make me want to sing, like:

Here was a torture that Greek inventors of the Feast and the Stone had omitted from their Hades: the Blanket of Self-Deception. A lovely warm blanket as far as it covered the soul in torment, but it never quite covered everything.

and

The madness of an autumn prairie cold front coming through. You could feel it: something terrible was going to happen. The sun low in the sky, a minor light, a cooling star. Gust after gust of disorder. Trees restless, temperatures falling, the whole northern religion of things coming to an end.

In The Corrections, Franzen catalogues the offences of life against the mind and body without ever once belittling his characters; using humour among a vast chache of techniques, but not resorting to humour while employing few other tools. (Mark, are you reading this? That's the answer to Question 1.)

Given how I've just raved about it, this will seem strange: I spent every second page of this book thinking, 'I've read this,' and then, 'but I have no idea what happens next...' Which, in essence, is half the reason I wanted to start this blog: I'm really good at writing down the titles of books I read, but I write them down in whatever notebook I happen to be using at the time, 95% of which are somewhere in my mother's garage and, therefore, useless since I am not in my mother's garage. Introducing... the portable book log! - blog! It's what Internet intended.

Thanks to my darling Badger for sending this along.

Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell

Broke is boring, is the conclusion and point of this book. No shit George. Good on you though for putting yourself through grinding poverty to undergo a social experiment and then write an insightful book about it. I have neglected Orwell throughout my reading years, only to finally pick up my dusty copy of 1984 last year. It was like everyone told me it was – pretty good (and now I keep hearing references to ‘thought crime’ in songs; it’s always nice when you get the literary pop culture reference). I wish I had read this when I first arrived in London, because there are so many parallels between mine and Orwell’s (and I’m guessing pretty much all antipodeans that turn up to Old Blighty poor as possums) experience, just to varying degrees. Working as dishpig? Check. Walking to work because you can’t afford public transport? Check. Washing yourself at work because there was no hot water at home? Check (the place I was housesitting, the thermostat broke while the homeowner was away – it was March and freezing). So I felt I could relate to the Paris chapter, and especially the chaos of working in restaurants, with the hierarchy of chefs and waiters. Oh the heady days.

So it seems that being broke in Paris is a whole lot more exciting than being a tramp in London, because that is where the action ground to a halt, and I trudged through the pages to get to the end. I even picked it up one Saturday morning around 9am, read about 3 pages and then fell back asleep, book crushed under me, which never happens unless I’m completely bored, which I was by that stage. I kept waiting for his luck to change, but as he explains towards the end, poverty is an ongoing, relentless cycle, and once you’re there, it’s very hard to get a foot hold back amongst the middle classes, which sadly rings as true now as it did back then.

Streets of Hope by Tim Costello

Odd choice I agree, but for some reason this has been on the back of my ‘to-read’ list for some time. Since the tagline is Finding God in St Kilda and I live very close by in Elwood, I thought I better read up just in case I bumped into him and didn’t recognise the dude (hairy unwashed men in dresses and Birkenstocks are not uncommon sightings in the ‘hood).

I’ve always thought Tim Costello was a pretty interesting guy, especially the whole ‘my brother was the country’s treasurer saving rich people money while I live in a busted old church’ (this book was written before he became CEO of World Vision in the 2000’s). So some of it’s kinda dated, but I really enjoyed reading the history of St Kilda as the go-to place for good times back in the day, and its ongoing reputation as a refuge for all people and things broken. I didn’t know he was also Mayor of St Kilda (back when individual councils each had their own mayor – bureaucratic nightmare) and it seems that he did a pretty good job of looking after his constituents without going all preachy on them. He also practiced by day as a lawyer, which makes me think he may have some sort of mild job schizophrenia. Even worse than phlebotomist/bank teller/editor Hammill here.

The narrative is completely ramshackle, switching from parts of his life story growing up in suburban Blackburn, to St Kilda history, then to full on theology which was a bit much for me to stomach. While trying to figure out why prostitution is so rampant in society and on the streets of St Kilda, he writes “Pulling and pushing the right tabs of flesh are a much inferior way to inflame the erotic passions than the lost romantic arts of poetry, song and spiritual celebrations.” Ummmm, no, Rev Tim, I think you’re mistaken (or maybe you’re just pulling the wrong tab of flesh).

I tried to read this with an open mind, and I’m sure as I get older I’ll want to explore my spirituality; but I’m probably never going to want it in a uniform style. I did agree with Tim on this though – “Spirituality is the consistent application of one’s values.” That I can roll with.

Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

Nice one, book. Fricking nice one.

Let me say this - without being in any way callous, or uncaring, or derogatory, or compassionless, or any of those other nasty things I would immediately think if I heard someone say this, let me say this purely from the perspective of narrative and theme - I am kind of bored of Books About The War. You know the ones, about The War? With the Jews? And the Germans? The one in Europe, about 70 years ago? Yeah, that one. The one that, without really knowing anything, everyone knows too much about, and without really understanding everything, everyone has read about 1 million times in a thousand different ways.

Please understand that I am in no way indifferent to the suffering, loss, dehumanizing events, grief, torture, destruction and death related in the Books About The War. I am not 'bored' of The War. I am merely bored of Books About The War. I'm not saying people shouldn't write them, or that people shouldn't read them. I am merely saying that I am bored of reading them. I am bored of reading their blurbs, reviews, award announcements etc.

On reflection though, perhaps what is most boring about Books About The War is that, despite the details of suffering, loss, dehumanizing events, grief, torture, destruction and death these stories tell, we're still fighting wars. We still manage to resort to war as a means to an end, even when we know that that end is suffering, loss, dehumanizing events, grief, torture, destruction and death. Why read countless books on the topic, learn about these things from a multitude of different angles, hear the same stories from different voices, if we refuse to learn anything from them?

This book is about The War. But it is not A Book About The War. This book is incredible. It's a book which, at its heart, is about people, which I suppose is also what war is about: When was the last time ants, or spiders, or trout or emus or pythons or chickens or sheep went to war?

This book asks what it means to love someone, how to love someone, how to know when you love someone, and how to face the questions any answers to these questions raise. This book asks what it is to be a human, and what on earth you can do about it if you find that you are.

It is a wonderful, glorious, magical thing. And I bought it for a pound. Amazing.

Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig

Guh. Ugh. Ahhhhhhhh. You know that feeling when you pour yourself off a bus at the end of a really long bus ride, possibly taken overnight, in a bus with no suspension and a tv blaring at you in a foreign tongue? That's kind of how I feel after (finally) finishing this book. Also, during the bus ride the guy across the aisle was snoring and I woke up dribbling on myself.

I first became aware of this book at about 15, when I seem to recall having read the title in the liner notes to a CD / in an interview with someone insufferably cool. Whatever stopped me from reading it then deserted me at some point because recently when I came across it on my mate's bookshelf, I (mistakenly) thought it was time.

It was not time.

I'm not saying it's not interesting: the dude is discussing the whole basis of Western thought, the subject/object divide, the notion of Quality and the God head, and also teenage boys and insanity. It's just that, well, it's not good. The narrative structure and devices are clunky, the prose inelegant and the characters flat. He picked a tough subject. And he failed.

What is really interesting though, is a) how many people rave about this book, and b) the fact that in the edition I read, a 25th anniversary edition, they included excerpts from the correspondence between the author and his editor. It's rare to get these insights into how these relationships work unless you actively seek them out, but I can imagine that in a book of this scope, the working relationship here was crucial. It's nice to see that acknowledged in print, even if in this case, I don't think it produced very readable results. Seems I'm in the minority here though.

I haven't had a great year of it in the reading stakes, on reflection. No pressure, next book, but try not to piss me off.

An Inconvenient Child by Sharyn Killens

The worst autobiography I’ve ever had the displeasure of reading was Scar Tissue by Anthony Kiedis, lead singer of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Not only was it self-indulgent, boring and full of stories about shagging anything that moved, the ghost writing was so bad that I’m pretty sure a dyslexic ten-year-old could have done a better job. The Inconvenient Child is not as dire as that particular effort, but it didn’t really grip me either. I think it’s a great example of what happens when an ordinary person tells an extraordinary story – the book turns out……a bit ordinary.

So the true story is amazing – white Aussie chick gets banged up by hot American Navy Man in the late 1940’s. Navy Man sails home, leaves woman to have illegitimate coloured child alone during the rollickin’ good times of the White Australia policy. Woman refuses to acknowledge child as daughter, puts her in several horrific girls’ homes throughout the years, gives her presents on intermittent visiting Sundays, won’t tell her what her father’s name is until after he dies and screws her up royally for life.

Author Sharyn Killens is now in her early 60’s, and has come to terms with her past and found a sense of belonging meeting her half siblings in America. There’s a refreshing lack of self-editing of events from her past (which sometimes you feel the subjects of autobiographies must be tempted to do, wiping out mentions of incidents that may depict them in not so flattering light, which is probably what I would do) - it’s all laid out bare here which I thought was pretty brave. There’s not much imagination in the writing itself, but I guess when the truth is so entertaining, she didn’t feel the need to embellish any further. I’m sure writing a book about your shitty childhood works out to be far cheaper than going to see a shrink.

The Spare Room by Helen Garner

Let's just get this out of the way - I loved this book. Loved like it will sit in my middle book shelf, be re-read every couple of years and lent out to friends with a stern look and strict instructions on its safe return.

It’s the kind of book you devour in one sitting, which is pretty easy to do as it’s about 200 pages of size 14 font, almost like the big sister of a short story (by this logic, why aren’t novels just called ‘tall stories?’). If it’s a novel at all is put in question not only by its length and Garner’s more recent forays into non-fiction (which she is also damn good at) but it’s confusing to me that the main character is a 50-something writer called Helen who lives in Melbourne. For Chrissakes, call the woman Kate, Penny – but not after yourself! It’s a mere quibble since the book is a gem.

After the hard slog of my last reading adventure, I really enjoyed not being able to put it down and save some more for later. I was going to give myself book heartburn – quite literally. The Spare Room did what a good book should, which is leave a little imprint on you that makes you smile on the tram a few days later, or has a character that reminds you of someone you love, and it brings that person back to life for you, for a wonderful fleeting moment.

It was my Gran who revisited me as I travelled through main character Nicola’s struggle with terminal cancer, the ever familiar doctor’s appointments, her annoying but understandable grim optimism that her quack Vitamin C treatments are working her avoidance of death. It makes you wonder how you would cope if you were the one diagnosed.

Despite knowing the likely outcome of the book from the off-set, Garner creates this hyper real suburban world, where Nicola’s best friend Helen can only cook and change sweat drenched sheets to help her, helplessly watching as Nicola weakens with the passing weeks. Garner is a brutally honest writer, and some of the emotions are so raw and disarming – Helen’s anger at Nicola for not facing up to the likelihood of death, admitting she’s unable to cope with looking after her as she declines, and Nicola’s admission that no-one has ever asked her how she feels, so she just pretends. The part where Helen squeezes a glass of fresh OJ for Nicola, who drains it and says “That was the best orange juice I think I’ve ever tasted” was so fucking tender it made me want to cry. It summed up what your best friend will do for you when in need, and how sometimes the small things are like gold.