Another Lovely Literary Gilbert

I have closed the black cover of Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall with its very serious, thin-lipped painted lady - two tomes from the nineteenth century dispensed with in a month!

This one is a version of the "who to choose" novel - the handsome exciting man or the sensible good man, but whereas Jane Austen's heroines always seem to have the good sense to see through the hollow charms of these caddish types, poor Helen -Anne's heroine - marries one. I have to say I liked her the more for it. Who hasn't been charmed by a handsome man at some time or other? I also admired Anne for moving beyond the conventions of the conventional romance to write honestly of her observations of relationships at this time. In her introduction she says "I wished to tell the truth, for truth always conveys its own moral to those who are able to receive it. But as the priceless treasure too frequently hides at the bottom of a well, it needs some courage to dive for it". (She has a soft spot for a slightly purple metaphor) Indeed she even hints at venereal disease in Arthur's decline when she says "It is deplorable to see how completely his past life has degenerated his once noble constitution". Or perhaps I am reading too much in to it!

But of course Tenant is foremost Helen and Gilbert's love story and they are both so lovely, temperate and undemanding of each other that when at last the husband dies, they almost miss the opportunity to live a long, lovely temperate and undemanding life together.

The novel has a strange structure. It begins with Gilbert writing an intimate letter to a male friend and about a fifth of the way through the book Helen gives Gilbert her diary so that he may know her sad story. I was fascinated by this as a plot device. At one level I found it very unbelievable - but at another I admired its grandness as a gesture of intimacy.

Through the Looking Glass of Sexual Awakening

I have been too scatty to read lately, so this morning I gave myself the pleasure of finishing this book curled up on the couch with a coffee before life intervened. Actually I read with a sense of urgency as I was somewhat worried about Lily the main character, as it was looking risky for her. (Actually I had checked to see her name on the final page, I am a narrative cheat!)

The book drew me in my its seductive descriptions of Lily's attraction to Ed an artist painting in the street. I liked the descriptions of their erotic world very much - it was understated and honest. There was a surreal quality to the book, at one point in the narrative I wondered whether the strange events were occurring only in Lily's consciousness.

The enchantment of Lily occurs on a number of levels: she enchants others - her ex Hank and the disturbed Martin - and Ed and the creative life - in Lily's case acting - enchants her. In particular her performance of Hermia in a Midsummer Nights Dream, creates a sense of new confidence and possibilities for her, as an artist and as a woman with sexual agency. I liked the interpretation offered of Hermia in this book as a "tough broad". I've always thought of her as a whiny princess, used to having it her own way!

I also loved Lily's relationship with an old older woman Mabel. There's a moment towards the ending of the novel where they escape to bed, surrounded by books.

The book is an interpretation of the Alice in Wonderland quest, where the quest is sexual identity, a confident and in-control womanliness. (Maybe that's what Freud would make of all those holes anyway). I liked it!

Musings from the Nineteenth Century

I have just emerged from 998 pages of Dicken's England - Bleak House! I have discovered Dickens also uses the exclamation mark, but a little more judiciously than Jane Austen. He is fond of it in describing beautiful mornings and gardens. Actually these descriptions are quite lovely. Although it took me a full five hundred pages to get into this novel, in the end I was rather swept away by the tragedy. The Lady Dedlock story was terribly sad and I could certainly see it's cinematic potential. It was a little like the Cohen brothers with the evil petty conspirators such as Bucket and Guppy. It was terribly frightening when Esther went off with Bucket in pursuit of her mother. I do admire that Dickens attempts to write about his whole world. Of course his depiction of women in a little narrow. He does have a fondness for the good orphan and little tolerance for the woman with a cause - poor Mrs Jellaby. Still, Charlie the rights of women and Africans will eventually prevail. It is at least as noble as housework!!

The Women in Black by Madeline St John was my holiday treat, a wisp of a thing really. I bought it at Book City in Shepparton. It was strange seeing how little there was to buy there really and it showed me how much more rich it is having access to the city and its literary riches. The novel reminded me of buying my green coat, that first ridiculous adult purchase. The layby that went forever. It was almost like a sketch of a novel or a screenplay. The characters were diverse and I liked the fragile connections between them. I'm not sure if the lightness of it all was a strength or a weakness. The snippy disingenuous tearoom conversations reminded me of my workplace.

Linda Olson's Let Me Sing You Gentle Songs was deeply melancholy book about loneliness and grief and locking oneself in. Beautiful descriptions of place both in Sweden, London, Japan and New Zealand. Sweden in winter is seen in “a muted twilight where people walked in ankle-deep snow, lifting their feet like wading birds.” In contrast, summer nights in London are “warm, like velvety tepid water.” I also admired Linda's understated descriptions of relationships such as Veronika and her lover's mother and Veronika and her father. These relationships are fragile but still valued. And of course it was a reminder of the transformative power of love! I found this book quite inspirational to my own writing.

April's disappointment was PD James The Private Patient. I felt so excited to stumble across this in my school library as I was 57th on the waiting list for it at my local library! Sometimes I love the certainty of PD James pronouncements on the world and her terribly English sentences. This time I found her irritating. She was quite as sexist as Dickens without the excuse of the nineteenth century to fall back on. Rhoda, a successful journalist with a disfiguring scar left from an attack by her violent father, is by far the most interesting character and she is killed off in chapter two and, of course, the villian of the piece is the repressed spinster.

April Fools's Day

I read The Marriage Club by Kate Legge, a kind of "Friends" (or friends with benefits as it transpires) for the charcoal bob set. It was disappointing. I had loved her Unexpected Moments of Love and was looking forward to this one. The main character Leith was a little unlikable, perhaps all the characters were drawn a little thinly. I guess this can be a trap of the ensemble novel.

Readings on Sunday had lots of tempting things. Perhaps its that time when the books for winter start to emerge. I had a surprising library lesson yesterday with my Year10 English class. They are readers! I found some treats for the holidays, including a Linda Olsson novel Let Me Sing You Gentle Songs which has lovely prose.

Back-announcing March (or late nights on blog spot)

I have just put down Vertigo by Amanda Lohrey. It was compelling and with my teacher hat on I thought what a wonderful text! Oh dear! How to turn that off… it was a great idea to revisit Henry Lawson and wonder … how would it be different now?

With my writer hat on I loved its economy. I loved its subject matter of a relationship that’s not in the heady states of beginning or collapse but in its shiftingly stable middle. The writing was lovely. I Lingered over ever sentence bur still chose to be late to work so I could finish it. The description of the bushfire was great and at its emotional core how children are the heart of it all.

It’s like back announcing on the radio…

and before that there was…

Linda Jaivin “A Most Immoral Woman”. Highly disappointing in the raciness factor. I imagine after “Eat me” everything would be disappointing in those stakes. Also a deeply involving read. A version of the vamp versus the bluestocking debate but fascinating that the work was based on fairly comprehensively archived love letters and autobiographies. I m tempted to go and see Linda speak tomorrow in Carlton. It had that wonderful satisfying oomph factor when I finished it.

An before that there was…

Worldwide Adventures in Love by Louise Wener.

Not at all romantic, a testament to the importance of honesty and fighting the double standard. A lost bub, a malicious brother-in-law, a thwarted sense of adventure and a deep nutty loneliness. That gritty British disconnectedness.

An before that there was…

Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay

It was so strange. When I put this book down I thought “what a great idea”. But then I thought I had had the one fm idea when I was in Shepparton. Dido is a woman unaware of her attractiveness to men but this attractiveness has a destructive quality. Wonderful writing about small town life. The landscape was fantastic especially in the decryption of a canoe trip through the frozen lakes.

And…

I think I read the new No 1 Ladies Detective Agency. Its very remiss of me to read so many books and not write about them. I loved the crocodile shoes. I also reread Catcher in the Rye and loved it. I tried to start Bleak House by Dickens but almost threw it out the window. All those tedious old men with weird attractions to winsome orphans…. Thank god for the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

February slips by...

February slipped by in a flurry of teacherness - meetings, photcopying, pd. So the resolutions of writing here, writing my novel and not letting work dominate failed miserably. Perhaps March will be more balanced. Still, I am loving teaching context writing - especially to my year 11's. Its making me think about writing and this is helpful. I also loved presenting at VATE - it was challenging and fun working with grown-ups.

AS a reader I have flipped through four books. Three by French mystery writer Fred Vargas.
The first was Seeking Whom He May Devour. What an ominous title! I had been reading admiring reviews of Fred's quirky French thrilers all over the place. The story begins at a gentle pace, ambling around the countryside with the sheep and the wolves but builds to quite a exciting and surprising conclusion. The characters are very real in their flaws and grace despite mostly living out their plan B of life, especially as regards, disappointment in love. From time to time there are quite delicious sentences such as this one "She had a steady static relationship, standing four square like a farmhouse table, a simple wholesome love scrubbed squeaky clean every day". This one was my favourite of the three I have read as the characters were so realised. The connections and parallels in their yearnings lent the book an elegance. The two other books I read were Have Mercy on us All and Wash this Blood Clean from my Hands.

February's reading treasure was a book called Sorrows of an American by Siri Hustvedt. She is such an interesting writer. I had read her book What I Loved a year or two ago and it was soul wrenching. So deeply, terribly sad. Sorrows also charted this territory of sadness but in a gentler way. Erik the main character is living out a year of mourning after his fathers death. His life has many of the challenges of mid life - adjusting to life as a single person post his marriage breakdown and accepting his identity as it is reflected back at him through others. Erik's relationship with his sister Inga is his most nurturing, but in the course of the book he makes attempts to rebuild his romantic life one through fantasy and one through a tentative real world relationship. Sir's writing is so understated and lovely. Her understanding of people is also layered and perceptive. I think this book would be well worth reading again, for the writing.

Musings from the Verandah

The cool change is delicious. I have a wet plait snaking down my neck like a tendrilly vine and I am listening to the leaves rustle on the verandah. Being outside is so interesting. Moments of life stories float over the barking dogs and distant hum of Bell Street. I have decided to keep a blog of all of books I have been reading this year as it is so easy to read wonderful things and then forget them. If I succeed in writing this book - my dream - its paying attention to the words that seems important and after all writing is as pleasurable as reading. More so!

Exclamation marks!!! Why is Jane Austen the only person allowed to get away with this and still be considered a good writer. Certainly narrative ingenenuity can't be her claim to fame. I have had an idea for a while to write a witty piece decrying her popularity. I wonder if Jane Austen was alive today with a room and a laptop of her own would she stay home and watch costume dramas on Saturday night? I think not!

I have just finished Dissection by Jacinta O'Halloran. It drew me in. Her writing is very Chekhovian - beautifully observed ordinariness. The main character is a doctor charged with negligence and tapped in a depression. The blurb praised her "stoicism" and while there's stoicism there for sure there's also an estrangement from her husband and her children. Jacinta is admirable in the understated way she reveals this estrangement. But what struck me most was her character's passivity. Having lost all confidence she is passive in the face of her husband's infidelity and the defence of her negligence claim. At first I found the 43 year old with the lines in the mirror a little cliched and depressing but it was honestly observed. There's a moment where she accedes to her husband's lust for another woman that is very bittersweet. I wonder about this bittersweetness. Is it inevitable? I feel as I crawl along these early years of my forties a loss of sweetness and I want it back really. Could this be something to write about - this longing for sweetness? I would like to read a book like this. Perhaps it could be linked to the trip around australia idea. I'd like it not to be particularly romantic but to be infused with a love of humanity.