Grace Notes @ Snarkattack

You probably think I’ve slowed down with my reading but nothing could be further from the truth! At the moment, I have taken a breather from books to catch up on a large backlog of issues from The New Yorker. I was a ridiculously lucky/spoilt thing and received a gift subscription. It makes for excellent, provocative reading but it’s pretty hard-going!

Tonight, I thought I’d set aside my mags for the graphic novel version of Coraline. I’d seen the stunning film adaptation last year but still hadn’t read the book. I know it might be biased to say so, but Gaiman can’t disappoint.

Coraline Jones is a sullen girl with parents who largely ignore her for their work. Not wanting to wallow, she takes it upon herself to keep entertained by exploring her new environs – an old house divided up into flats. She has wonderfully quirky neighbours who insist upon getting her name wrong and who seem to inhabit another plane of existence.

It all starts with a door that is bricked up. Somehow Coraline is able to go through this door and finds creepy alternate reality versions of her parents who seem terrific compared to her actual reality. She soon learns that they are not all that they seem and her parents disappear. Coraline ends up having to rescue them and other lost souls, all with the help of a cheeky but very clever black cat.

This is the kind of book that would scare the shit out of you, but you would not be able to stop reading, as a child. There are great elements of horror, and some of sadness – the phenomenon of parents not having enough time for their children is all too common these days. Just the other day I heard one of my brother’s in-laws telling her four-year-old to go and stop bothering Mummy and play his Nintendo DS.

It’s nice too because it allows us to imagine what escaping our authority figures might be like, and hints that responsibility is actually pretty hard. After all, parents are too busy for good reason, most of the time.

The book isn’t long, and absolutely well worth reading. P. Craig Russell’s illustrations do it justice – evident from small things like the drawing of the black cat in characteristic poses, and smatterings of Poe-like horror (detached hands creeping about the place). My largely grown-up mind did not want it to finish.

I thought these would be Potter’s take on various nursery rhymes but instead, they are portions of nursery rhymes illustrated, interspersed with Potter’s own. I didn’t find them particularly enthralling, and I really like nursery rhymes and the like. These two books really could have been just one, as they are really very short. Was she doing it for the money by this stage, assuming that I read them in their publication order?

Another Potter book about bullying! A cat gets teased by a mouse, so she teases him back. Not really sure how I feel about that. Again, not one of the greatest in the Potter tales – they’re a bit downhill after The Tale of Little Pig Robinson which was really good.

I warn you in advance, I’ve read the last four of the Potter books but I promise I have been doing some ‘real’ reading – I’m finally halfway through The Duchess, the biography upon which the film was based. I really wish I was ploughing through a novel at present, but I’m trying to get through my unfinished books.

Potter’s running out of ideas, it feels. I didn’t quite expect this to be as short as it was: basically a ‘fierce bad rabbit’ bullies a good rabbit but he gets his just deserts! Serves him right.

If you’re expecting more, that’s it. Of course the rabbits are exceedingly cute.

Pullman’s ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy is probably the most intelligently written children’s fiction/fantasy I’ve ever read. I didn’t find the first one The Northern Lights as easy to read as this one – it’s fast-paced and thoroughly interesting.

It can be confusing at times too – Lyra and Will live in alternate Oxfords and somehow end up in each others’ worlds and move between the two. With this, we also have a thinly veiled critique of the Catholic Church and some concepts relating to physics. Pretty heavy stuff. I read on Wikipedia that Pullman weaves Milton’s Paradise Lost through the trilogy. Sadly, I’ve not read Milton, so I can’t quite identify this.

Gobbled up two thirds of it one insomniac-riddled evening, or rather, morning. I honestly don’t know what took me so long to pick this off my shelf. Can’t wait for the third one, though I’ll be really sad when it’s over…will probably buy those other smaller companion books.

It’s also fantastic to read books for children that doesn’t talk down to them and treats them as the beings they are – capable of extreme intuition and intelligence.

This is the longest story out of all the Beatrix Potter tales. It starts off innocently enough – a pig goes to market to run errands for his aunts, as he is a sweet-natured little piglet. Alas, the market is riddled with dangers that a naive pig might not be ready for.

It also makes references to other famous literary works – poor Pig Robinson gets pretty much abducted by sailors and meets a cat that helps him escape – the cat of ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’ fame. Pig has further adventures on Bong Island, and the reader is told that they should read Robinson Crusoe to find out more.

Anyway, it’s delightful and you should all go out and read it. It proved to be excellent respite from the postmodernist text I’m currently making my way through.

No one likes Ginger and Pickles and they are determined to run their store into the ground, despite their store being cheaper, and letting people buy things on credit.

Perhaps I’m just being a grumpy pseudo-Marxist, but what is wrong with these people/animals? Ginger and Pickles work hard and are generous to their customers. Their shop eventually folds and the townspeople are forced to shop at Tabitha Twitchit’s more expensive shop and she does not offer credit! Ginger becomes stout and Pickles becomes a gameskeeper (which immediately made me think of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, another novel about the difference between the various social classes).

Not one of my favourites from the Potter collection.

This is one of the sillier Beatrix Potter tales.

A cat invites a dog over for a party. The dog worries that she will be served mouse pie, and so sneaks her own pie into the cat’s oven to cook. Dog ends up eating cat’s pie, but then worries she has accidentally eaten a metal patty-pan in the process. Cat’s party is thrown into disrepute as she has to call the doctor for the idiotic dog.

I’m sure that this is all just a comedy of manners and very much indicative of the time Potter lived and for this reason, I’m not sure it really works as a story for children. One of the Potter tales I’ve least enjoyed, but then that could be because I was taught to suffer whatever the host(ess) served up.

Excellent revision and introduction on this important facet of Western cultural theory, with great everyday, down-to-earth examples. I already knew Catherine Belsey, its author, as an esteemed critic and am really pleased with how approachable she made everything sound. As a result, I now have passing knowledge on Lacan (less so on Lyotard, but that’s due to lack of exposure on my part).

I’ll be buying up more of these beauties for reading. It’s a great series.

Last year, I bought a joint subscription to the Adelaide-based Wet Ink and Melbourne-based Overland journals.

I’ve received all four issues of Wet Ink and must say the first issue was appalling. I didn’t find any of the contributions engaging, professional or enjoyable. The second issue is much better but there are still several pieces which have that not quite professional feel about them.

Overland, however, is a completely different case. All the pieces in the first issue received – fiction, articles, poetry, reviews – are of an extremely high standard and very thought-provoking. The piece I liked the least was one about blogging. The writer took a tone that I felt a little inappropriate – he was some sort of self-proclaimed expert on blogging and tried to explain the merits of blogging to a wider audience, but in so doing, came off as patronising. Especially when it can be assumed that Overland’s readership would be pretty intelligent and tech-savvy (for instance, the writer attempts to explain ‘trackbacks’ but not once does he actually identify them as such. Even the most basic of bloggers would be familiar with this term, surely?).

Am hoping to do another post on other Australian literary journals I’ve had the pleasure of reading a bit later. There are quite a few excellent ones about.

I was lucky enough las year to go to some Melbourne Writers’ Festival events. Apparently Melbourne is a designated City of Literature by UNESCO. I understand one has to bid and pay an exorbitant amount for this privilege.

The first event I went to with Ryan & T was a special screening of The Leopard at ACMI, directed by Visconti, and based on the novel by Lampedusa. Italian neo-realist cinema is quite a treat and I’d been wanting to see this film for ages but it rarely shows (and you can tell by the print, it’s not in fab condition). The Leopard is about a time in Italy when the aristocracy no longer enjoys the prestige it once used to – the working classes are tired of all the corruption and privileges afforded to this social class when in effect, they do so little for it and are lucky merely to be born in the right circumstances. The main character, played by an exceedingly debonair Burt Lancaster, is in an odd position in that he realises his nobility is on the way out.

I was hoping to read the novel before I saw the film, but time did not afford me that pleasure. Nevertheless, the film is an excellent piece on social history. A few of the ball scenes were a little long, but to be honest it’s hard to fault Visconti.

The second event was an all-day workshop with the American poet Emily Ballou, who has written a verse novel about Darwin. The workshop was held at RMIT City campus, which is pretty easy to get to via public transport.

This is probably one of the best workshops I’ve been to – she introduced me to so many exercises and prompts which is perfect for people who go through terrible bouts of writers’ block. We wrote poems based on…

- words plucked out of the dictionary at random
- picture prompts – a magazine page from National Geographic as inspiration
- taking an existing piece of literature and creating a ‘found’ text by striking out words from the given passage
- writing a stanza in addition to one written by the participant next to us

I have at least three poems from this workshop that I can work on, so I was pretty chuffed.

Last event, which I had so much fun at was the official launch of McSweeney’s 32, at The Toff In Town, in the city. All eventgoers got a copy of the beautiful quarterly – and they’ve never, ever launched outside of the States! Everyone seemed pretty excited.

The editor, Eli Horowitz was in attendance to talk to us, as were two of the contributors to read passages from their stories. Then there were a few acts – Suitcase Royale (surreal comedy act), The Bent Leather Band (instruments of electronic and leather-bound manipulation), and a fellow who read a cyberpunk manifesto (even though I swear one already exists, by Donna Haraway). There were some really cool steampunk furnishings on stage, too.

I didn’t get to go to as many events as I wanted, but the MWF was ridiculous fun. Bonus for being able to give Emily Ballou a lift to another MWF event, and she was adorably clad in Emily Dickinson-inspired attire (I believe she was reading her work). I really need to track down a copy of her verse novel on Darwin and recommend other poetry-inspired folk do so too.

More Beatrix Potter delight! I don’t necessarily know that this was Samuel Whiskers’ tale as it seemed to have lots of cats in it. Notable moment included poor dear Tom Kitten nearly being turned into kitten dumpling to be gobbled up, and also getting ’smuts’ (chimney ash) all about him. Of course he gets saved, which is the important thing!

I don’t have many of the Potter books to go…I’ll feel a bit lost once I finish them all. I’m really glad that Tom Kitten reappeared. Peter Rabbit appears in other tales too.

I struggled greatly with this book. I’m not sure why I read the first two thirds so quickly, because I did actually find it quite disturbing: nearly all the main protagonists are wicked, miserable people. A lot of their misery is of their own making and for this reason, it’s hard to look upon them in a sympathetic manner. The last third or so I really had to push through.

I don’t get the aura of Byronic hero around Heathcliff. Were it not for Mr Darcy’s social standing, I would that it would be more appropriate for Darcy (of Pride and Prejudice fame). Cathy I find equally unlikable as a supposed heroine.

Interestingly, I think Brontë predates or rather anticipates Ibsenian (and then Zolaesque) naturalism in that the sins, afflictions and pecadilloes of the parents are visited upon their progeny. Yet again another reason why this classic was not overly enjoyable.

Make no mistake though: Brontë is an astute observer and chronicler of human nature – interesting given that she was quite reclusive. Characters like Joseph are so vivid and believable. It’s worth reading, but probably not unless you’re in the mood for it. I think of it as a bleak, wintry read.

I am desperately trying not to start new books, but rather finish the ones I do have in progress. Very hard given that my mind is racing and wanting to fill itself with new ideas at the moment (poststructuralist book, I’m looking at you).

After reading a bit of Wuthering Heights, decided to wind down with another delightful Beatrix Potter tale. This one is an extension of the nursery rhyme ‘To market, to market / to buy a fat pig! / Home again, home again / jiggety-jig!’ and quite enjoyable, though it does make one a little sad at the thought that these adorable piglets could end up as bacon – for example, when the farmer pinches Pigling Bland in the ribs to see if he’s ‘ready’.

Interestingly, Beatrix herself is also present in the story. It is obvious that for all of the stories I’ve read thus far (I’m about halfway through the complete box now), that she is the narrator, but in this one, she is part of the action, so to speak.

I tell you, I’ve never seen anything quite so adorable as pigs being drawn running on their trotters! Very, very cute.

Last month or so has seen me well productive! Have been writing and reading like a demon.

A couple of days ago, I sent a fresh poem to my online chum @gabfran who keeps a terrific blog called Law and Shoes. Sure, I might be biased as to why I think it’s a good blog, but let me try to persuade you otherwise:

1. it’s a themed blog – this lady loves shoes.
2. oddly enough, we garner personal history through her relationship with the various pairs of shoes she owns
3. she frequently has guests posting about their shoes

Themed blogs, and hers is definite inspiration, is one of the reasons I decided to start writing mini-reviews on books I read this year.

When I woke up yesterday, I found that she did me the honour of posting my greenstick poem (which has a good lack of shoes in it) on her blog. I very rarely post my own work here so I must confess it was quite a nice surprise.

I’d love to know what you all think. I’ve started editing it, so in my mind, the ‘more definitive’ version looks a little different to what is there.

Also, it’s still in baby stages but two of my closest friends and myself have started a food review blog called Eat, Drink, Stagger. It thus made my day when The Local Taphouse featured my newbie Ale Star post on their blog. Makes me wish I took better pictures of the beer bottles! But, no matter, from here on it’s nothing but improvement.

Grant at FoodStuffMelb was kind enough to do a shout-out (cheers, we’ll be adding FoodStuffMelb blog to our blogroll as soon as we get that sorted!) for us. Grant was a chef in a former life, and occasionally reviews eateries in Melbourne. I like his blog because even though he has ties to the food industry, he is warm and approachable. I’ve pestered him with my blog comments and he always responds.

So yeah, if you’re looking for some good, theme-focussed reading, there’s some suggestions!

It was a bit of a whim to get this: a gorgeous and far-too-trendy-for-me blog I read did a feature on this and I knew I just had to have a copy. It was quite a while before it became available, and when it did, I snapped up a subscription.
Remedy Quarterly is inspired by a time contemporaneous to my parents’ time – when your mum had daggy but inexplicably alluring collections of recipe index cards and cookbooks accidentally kept from your local library (well, my mother has late 70s-early 80s cookbooks that look like they were from our local English library! oops!). I don’t know what it is about those damned cards that fascinate me so – they looked so exotic (though in hindsight, they aren’t at all), even though they are not necessarily things I would ever make for myself.

I admit it, RQ is trendy, but it’s also gorgeous. There are heartwarming stories and recipes. All of the recipes published have a personal history attached to them. Don’t think I’ll be making curry turkey anytime soon (too hard for me!) but am so going to try corned beef pie, and the chilli. Mmm.

I know the publication is US-centric, and for that reason, some of the ingredients I found confusing. What I’d give to have a Melbourne-centric issue as a special!

My favourite piece was about the Barbados-born crossing guard. He sounds like such a warm man, chatting to the locals, and giving one of the contributors some ingredients for old-school remedies. It’s also a wonderful reminder that community spirit is not dead, at least not in some parts of the world.

Ravenously read through this fantastic first issue, and look forward to the next three issues of my subscription. I do feel spoilt.

It has inspired me to ask my mother if she has those gloriously outdated recipe cards. They seem appealing to me, all of a sudden. I’ll post some pictures if I unearth them, pretty sure they made the trip from England to here.

This isn’t the most recent issue but I’m carefully working through a backlog of (excellent) Australian periodicals and Heat 19 was one on my nightstand.

It begins with some sad reading – Judith Beveridge recalls her close friend Dorothy Porter, who sadly passed away due to complications with breast cancer last year. Porter is one of Australia’s best known female contemporary poets, and sought bring attention to the verse novel form. She’s probably best known in the non-poetry public for The Monkey’s Mask, which was adapted for film.

The anthology stands at 200+ pages but I devoured it greedily, over half of it last night. There is a subtle thematic undercurrent that links all the contributions. If I had to pick my favourite, it would Jasmine Chan’s poem ‘Tyrant’. Honorable mention to Tim Thorne’s ‘Easy Sushi in 7′ for making me crave Japanese something chronic!

So yes, if I had the money, I’d be subscribing to Heat, and definitely recommend it. It’s a beautiful publication.

I hadn’t heard of Fanny Hill till I saw it at a bookshop and read the blurb – it sounded pretty raunchy, so I bought it. It’s actually listed in Boxall’s book of 1001 books to read before you die.

It’s almost a guilty pleasure reading it – it is so entertaining and I just gobbled it up. Normally books on revered lists are a bit of a chore to read, I admit it. This one, not so. A country lass comes to the city and finds that she must support herself. She is initially taken in by a lady who basically tells her she has to put out, or get out. Knowing nothing of sexual delights, an older, more experienced girl shows her…

Thus begins Fanny’s memoirs: lots of physical love, lots of perving, a bit of spanking, a dash of homosexual love, and there’s even time for a happy ending when Fanny isn’t telling us about the encounters she has with ‘ivory maypoles’. Giggle.

Yeah, of course I loved it.

I got this for my partner for Christmas and I figure if he’s not going to read it, then I’m perfectly happy to dip into it every now and then.

T. S. Eliot, while being one of the most famous exponents of Anglo-American modernist literature, is ripping good fun in this small volume of poems about cats. When I read these poems, I feel like Eliot just gets cats. I chuckle with all the wonder of a child at rereading them.

This version which seemed to be new is illustrated by Axel Scheffler. If you’ve never read Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, then definitely seek out an illustrated edition. These poems also form the basis of the musical Cats. Again, this is another book that seems meant for children, but is equally fabulous for grown-ups.

More Neil Gaiman, more Dave McKean. It took me a while to fully embrace the grim world of a boy remembering his childhood spent in Portsmouth – at first it seemed slow-paced, and the art is schizophrenic, and very, very creepy.

What I like best about The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr Punch is that it focusses on what must seem to be an innate fear we all have – what on earth is it about fairgrounds and carnivals that we all find so sinister? I actually spent my summers in Portsmouth when my family still lived in England, and I was terrified of the carousel. I was scared of the actual ride, it being so high and so fast, and also of getting lost and being separated from my parents. I didn’t often have separational anxiety, so even today this strikes me as odd.

In any case, McKean and Gaiman do a fab job of tapping into this almost primal fear. One cannot help but wonder how much of Gaiman’s childhood is in Mr Punch.