tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6020878987023214242024-02-22T02:38:11.051+11:00Red Bluff ReviewKevin Renniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873737997935813248noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-602087898702321424.post-25683163883603158152014-04-08T13:30:00.000+10:002014-04-08T13:30:19.402+10:00Fiona McFarlane: The Night Guest<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">This review is part of the <a href="http://australianwomenwriters.com/2014-challenge/" target="_blank">Australian Women Writers Challenge 2014</a><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.penguin.com.au/products/9781926428550/night-guest" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLhTyklnVzvBNIJnmviuhnoRdq1hhyphenhyphenMOA7k2rYmdw6gWFvDwu6-rNOUDf5z9DHw4eo30mNw-44ShZJ2ACVkcHT1yiqc94Q5K7nPSYFKqKkCMiOxsWd6iUOgFvZwdMLqydNagBrz1hPVdU/s320/The+Night+Guest.jpg" /></a></div><br />
Fiona McFarlane's first novel <a href="http://www.milesfranklin.com.au/2014/bios/mcfarlane" target="_blank">The Night Guest</a> has been long-listed for the <a href="http://www.milesfranklin.com.au/2014/2014_longlist" target="_blank">Miles Franklin</a>, Australia's premier literary award. My local library has it in the Crime section, which is a bit like putting Dostoyevsky there. Some bookshops had a similar issue about whether to put <a href="http://www.milesfranklin.com.au/pastwinners/year_2010" target="_blank">Peter Temple's Truth,</a> the 2010 Winner, under <br />
Literature.<br />
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Nevertheless, its climax and conclusion both quicken the pulse with elements of a classic thriller. This is despite their seeming inevitability.<br />
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We know from the opening lines (and the cover) that this is not going to be the usual trip:<br />
<blockquote style="border-bottom-left-radius: 5px; border-bottom-right-radius: 5px; border-top-left-radius: 5px; border-top-right-radius: 5px; border: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 10px;">Ruth woke at four in the morning and her blurry brain said, 'Tiger.' That was natural; she was dreaming. But there were nosies in the house, and as she woke she heard them.</blockquote>Another tiger comes in human form but by taxi. Frida takes on the role of the seventy-five year-old's carer. It's the beginning of the novel's central relationship that swings between affection and suspicion, kindness and exploitation. With time Ruth comes to regard Frida as her defender but also as a threat.<br />
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Ruth's has been alone since her husband Harry died five years earlier. Her sons, Jeffrey and Phillip, show a passing interest in her welfare from afar. Like many elderly people, Ruth is increasingly trapped in her home both literally and figuratively. She is also trapped in her memories. Even the visit of Richard, a romantic blast from her youth in Fiji, is more about the past than her shaky future.<br />
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Enough potential spoilers for now.<br />
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Fiona's writing has clarity and fluency, not always common in contemporary fiction despite the pared prose. It is easy to be drawn in as its pace increases in the second half. Whilst the final elements of the Ruth's story are not unexpected, Fiona handles them sensitively and without melodrama.<br />
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A very well executed debut that deserves a prize or two.<br />
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</div>Kevin Renniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873737997935813248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-602087898702321424.post-87402960773511747442014-03-02T18:51:00.000+11:002014-03-02T18:51:11.399+11:00A Tribute to Linda Jaivin's Found in Translation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20.790000915527344px;">This review is part of the </span><a href="http://australianwomenwriters.com/2014-challenge/" style="background-color: white; color: #af3e00; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20.790000915527344px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Australian Women Writers Challenge 2014</a><br />
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<b> Translators are not tools</b><br />
[君子不器 Junzi bu qi]<br />
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A Tribute to Linda Jaivin’s <a href="http://www.quarterlyessay.com/issue/found-translation-praise-plural-world" target="_blank">Found in Translation</a>: In Praise of a Plural World<br />
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'Linda Jaivin has been translating from Chinese for more than thirty years. While her specialty is subtitles, she has also translated song lyrics, poetry and fiction, and interpreted for ABC film crews, Chinese artists and even the English singer Billy Bragg as he gave his take on socialism to some Beijing rockers. In Found in Translation she reveals the work of the translator and considers whether different worldviews can be bridged. She pays special attention to China and the English-speaking West, Australia in particular, but also discusses French, Japanese and even the odd phrase of Maori. This is a free-ranging essay, personal and informed, about translation in its narrowest and broadest senses, and the prism – occasionally prison – of culture.'</blockquote>
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The Confucian saying, 君子不器 Junzi bu qi, is not hard to decipher according to Linda Jaivin, just to translate. Take your pick: 'The accomplished/gentleman scholar is not a utensil/pot/tool.' If it’s possible for a woman to be to a ‘gentleman scholar’, then Linda more than fits that tag from her essay for the Quarterly magazine.<br />
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<ial sans-serif="">The contact page on her website is for ‘messages or love letters’. It entices the sender to engage ‘tutoiement’ - the process of using the informal 'tu' in French. We should all pay homage there to her invisible hand behind the subtitles that have enriched cinephiles’ lives for decades. As a former teacher of NESB [Non-English Speaking Background] students and an author and sub-editor with Global Voices Online, this is my response to her essay and my tribute to translators.</ial><br />
<ial sans-serif=""><br /></ial></div>
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In 1980 I attended a matinee Woody Allen doubleheader in Lisbon. The packed house was a clear indicator of his international popularity. I remember laughing loudly during both movies. It was a tad embarrassing for my reactions were slightly ahead of the pack as most of the audience were reading the subtitles. His New York Jewish humour didn’t seem to ruffle the Portuguese audience’s enjoyment.<br />
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<b>Lingua Voices</b><br />
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Our <a href="http://globalvoicesonline.org/lingua/" target="_blank">GV Lingua</a> team has volunteer translators for approximately forty languages. They are as diverse as Aymara, Magyar [Hungarian], Swahili, Bangla, Korean and Amharic [official language of Ethiopia and second-most spoken Semitic language in the world after Arabic]. In addition, posts are also translated into English as all stories on the main section use that lingua franca. Nearly 100,000 translations of posts have been completed since 2006. <br />
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Volunteers choose which ones they will translate. It is a form of feedback that can be a bit disheartening sometimes but that is compensated for when quoted bloggers/ tweeters find their words in two kinds of Chinese, Filipino or Farsi and send messages of delight.</div>
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<b>Word play</b><br />
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As an author and a sub-editor helping with translations into English, my earliest lesson was to avoid puns. Word plays are potential nightmares for audience and translators alike. The most common slang in Oz English can stump even experienced linguists. It belongs in Pandora’s box, with jargon and cricket metaphors, marked ‘never to be opened’. Allusions to Australian Rules football prove even more dangerous.<br />
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When I wrote ‘<a href="http://globalvoicesonline.org/2013/03/21/coca-cola-machine-out-of-order-in-australia/" target="_blank">Coca Cola Machine ‘Out of Order’ in Australia</a>’ it was translated into six other languages including Malagasy, Macedonian and Catalan. In French it became ‘Distributeur Coca-Cola « En panne » en Australie’ [‘Distributor Coca-Cola ‘Broken Down’ in Australia] abandoning the double play on words. The charged word, ‘machine’, just went through to the keeper. That’s wicket-keeper, not goal-keeper, in case anyone is translating this response. <br />
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Neologisms [new words] are an essential element of netizen-speak but they are not universally understood even amongst geeks or tweeps (not to be confused with tweeping). Inevitably we fall captive to the latest. ‘<a href="http://globalvoicesonline.org/2013/01/21/australia-lactivists-demonstrate-for-public-breastfeeding/" target="_blank">Lacticvist</a>’ was impossible to resist when breastfeeding in public hotted up in early 2012 but its rendition as ‘les militantes de l'allaitement maternel’ was a real mouthful. De l'autre côté, ‘<a href="http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/05/30/australia-slutwalks-spread-the-word/" target="_blank">SlutWalks</a>’ was simply incorporated into the German, Italian and French using quotation marks – a very slippery slope indeed for L'Académie français. The Spanish translator was more creative with ‘Marcha de putas’- roughly ‘march of whores’ though it had currency in Brazil by then. Portuguese prefers ‘Marcha das Vadias’ i.e. ‘Bitches’.<br />
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It is often hard to know exactly which connotations attached to words like these, especially in different languages and cultures. Linda observes, "The swearwords and curses of a language expose what is forbidden, what is permitted and what is held sacred in that culture."<br />
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The use of Twitter hashtags presents its own complications. Some tweeters use multilingual tags such as #Syria #Siria #Syrie #Syrien to reach a wider audience but limit the length of the message. Others tweet in more than one language. GV always includes the original text when quoting plus a translation. The 140-character limit adds a challenge normally confined to post titles or headings, where brevity invites wit but not always clarity.<br />
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<b>Lingua global</b><br />
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Linda asks, 'Ĉu vi parolas Esperanton?' When my partner and I visited Iceland in July 2013, we were entertained by an Esperanto choir on the grand steps of Reykjavík’s Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Centre. They were taking a break from the World Congress of Esperanto, which involved over one thousand participants from fifty-five countries. Linda would be glad to know that there were some Chinese involved. Hvað er merking hörpu? No prizes for guessing that one, though harpa has two distinct meanings in Icelandic. <br />
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Sub-editing posts written originally in a LOTE (Language other than English) is both daunting and rewarding. I often use Google Translate to check a word or phrase or to get a better grasp on the context. <br />
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Google doesn’t seem to like Japanese but sometimes gets it right. A <a href="https://globalvoicesonline.org/2013/11/28/tokyo-governor-money-scandal-turns-graphic-meme/" target="_blank">scandal</a> about Tokyo’s governor taking a bribe had this: ‘The document is a note of hand to borrow 50 million yen with no interest, no collateral and no return date set.’ I presumed ‘note of hand’ referred to something hand-written but it turned out to be a legit term for an informal promissory note. I.O.U. might have sufficed even if some readers wouldn’t have understood the etymology. It is a clear forerunner of SMS and twitter-speak.<br />
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<b>"Words have the power to change the way we think."</b><br />
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Meanwhile the Chinese government is trying to eradicate <a href="http://globalvoicesonline.org/2013/09/30/chinese-city-invites-web-users-to-correct-its-chinglish/" target="_blank">Chinglish</a> [中式英語] in a bid to stop people who ‘slip carefully’ in their translations. Chinese netizens are also annoying the authorities by mining euphemisms that Internet surveillance software is not blocking yet. They started using the term “tea talk” or “forced to drink tea” [被喝茶] to describe vigorous interrogations by the internal security police.<br />
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“River crab’ (censorship) and ‘watch uncle’ (corruption) have required <a href="http://globalvoicesonline.org/2012/12/07/top-10-chinese-internet-memes-of-2012/" target="_blank">pest control</a>. Mention of the 18th National Party Congress was banned on Sina Weibo [China’s version of Twitter] and their Facebook equivalent Renren, so it became ‘Sparta’ because of its similar sound. Modifying English words also became a game on Weibo. Freedamn [中國特色自由] is freedom with Chinese characteristics. You can raise the red lantern against China’s censorship by offering a friendly Internet connection for the new circumvention software called Lantern [燈籠]. <br />
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You have to wonder what the Chinese censors would have made of the ChinaSmacks’ translation of the ‘<a href="http://globalvoicesonline.org/2013/11/10/china-vagina-talk/" target="_blank">My Vagina Says</a> - If your vagina could talk, what would she say?’ meme. It certainly went against stereotype: “You need to be invited – to get in!”<br />
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<b>Barbaros babble</b><br />
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Chinese is one of the United Nations six official diplomatic languages. The others are Arabic, English, French, Russian and Spanish. They are obviously vehicular but they don’t always travel that well. We spent a month in 1996 at a Spanish language school in Cuernavaca, Mexico. The teachers claimed that Cubans speaking Spanish sound like they have a mouthful of chewing gum. At that time my Chilean colleagues and students at Melbourne’s Westall Secondary College tested my tin ear by omitting the end or middle of words and sometimes both. They often contracted two of these into one word. There’s a word for everything in English, often borrowed. ‘Elision’ might fit here or perhaps ‘syncope’.<br />
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Arabic should present fewer difficulties, at least for Arabs. However, a Tunisian blogger maintains that their vernacular can be almost impenetrable at times, even to near neighbours.<br />
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Linda canvasses "linguistic imperialism". English may be the great vehicular language but assumptions about its international currency are hazardous. The term ‘<a href="http://globalvoicesonline.org/2012/01/11/australia-politician-sprayed-over-migrant-deodorant-dog-whistle/" target="_blank">dog-whistling</a>’ originated down under thanks to Prime Minister John Howard et al and has spread to some in the U.S. and UK. One of my posts began :<br />
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“There has been a contest for the worst pun following remarks by Teresa Gambaro [MP who] called for immigrants on work visas to be taught ‘social norms’ such as the use of deodorants and waiting in orderly queues.” <br />
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I was stretching all the rules about language accessibility but you’ve got to have fun. ‘Raw prawn’ and ‘hair of the dog’ were my favourites. My advice: “Check it out while the poop is still fresh”. You wouldn’t be dead for quids!<br />
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<b>Northern Territory lights</b><br />
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Segue to Katherine High School 2002. After sharing my interest in etymology with my Year 8 class, I was approached on lunchtime yard duty by an unfamiliar youth who asked if it was true that I read the dictionary for fun. My confirmation brought the response, “You’re a very sick man!”<br />
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When we were teaching in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maningrida,_Northern_Territory" target="_blank">Maningrida</a> in Arnhem Land during 2003-6, senior students were required to get exemptions to enroll in English as a Second Language [ESL]. For most it was not their second, third or in some cases even fourth or fifth. The indigenous community, and its homelands, has ten or more languages. Some are spoken by one or two extended families yet are healthy, rich and vibrant. Nakkara, with ap,proximately 60 speakers, and Rembarrnga are two of those. The township has a lingua franca but somewhat surprisingly it isn’t the local traditional owners’ Ndjebbana/Kunibidji but rather the other major language of the township Burarra. <br />
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<b>Ars Poetica</b><br />
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Linda explores difficulties with translating poetry. They apply equally to song lyrics. Welsh band Manic Street Preachers’ song ‘If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next' didn’t faze some of our <a href="http://phyasistaderao/" target="_blank">translators</a>. Rezwan did an outstanding job in Bangla, going by my back-translation using Google. However, there was a stumble over ‘fascists’. Most online machines were fooled, ‘phyasistaderao’ being the only stab for ফ্যাসিস্টদেরও. Linda is, of course, no fan of "machine translations".<br />
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<b>Postscript</b><br />
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Finally, some wisdom from multi-linguist supremo, Danica Radisic, GV’s Central and Eastern Europe editor. Recently Niki wrote of her childhood growing up as a third culture kid: <br />
<blockquote style="border-bottom-left-radius: 5px; border-bottom-right-radius: 5px; border-top-left-radius: 5px; border-top-right-radius: 5px; border: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 10px;">
Our parents’ work and lives allowed us to travel to different countries and often live on several different continents throughout our childhood, learn to speak countless languages and move seamlessly between cultures…”</blockquote>
Her ability to converse with someone simultaneously in their respective native languages is awesome. She concludes: <br />
<blockquote style="border-bottom-left-radius: 5px; border-bottom-right-radius: 5px; border-top-left-radius: 5px; border-top-right-radius: 5px; border: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 10px;">
“…this spot on the Word Wide Web [GV] that is a scrapbook of different cultures and opposing views, is where third culture kids come when they grow up.”</blockquote>
The full story is on <a href="http://globalvoicesonline.org/2013/11/19/when-third-culture-kids-grow-up/" target="_blank">The Bridge</a> at GV. Please join our global conversation.<br />
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Kevin Renniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873737997935813248noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-602087898702321424.post-33796220311219240362014-02-09T15:18:00.003+11:002014-02-09T15:18:33.513+11:00Karen Foxlee: The Anatomy Of Wings<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This review is part of the <a href="http://australianwomenwriters.com/2014-challenge/" target="_blank">Australian Women Writers Challenge 2014</a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiptsba-9MoSP1U7e0qIRvu1JQSLC15KG3BAz6xF83jdjMaHAl1QsjzkCXyMQu8eD0Q-Why8O3nkjF3oBc_CvczJOcElTjAPYnyvAni7EiijClcjspNsAo8ot7cw6Dbkp0Ec6SkRkCWTCs/s1600/Anatomy+of+Wings.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiptsba-9MoSP1U7e0qIRvu1JQSLC15KG3BAz6xF83jdjMaHAl1QsjzkCXyMQu8eD0Q-Why8O3nkjF3oBc_CvczJOcElTjAPYnyvAni7EiijClcjspNsAo8ot7cw6Dbkp0Ec6SkRkCWTCs/s1600/Anatomy+of+Wings.jpg" height="320" width="208" /></a></div>
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<i><a href="http://www.uqp.uq.edu.au/book.aspx/836/The%20Anatomy%20Of%20Wings" target="_blank">The Anatomy Of Wings</a></i> is Karen Foxlee's award winning first novel. It is my second favourite Foxlee book, to borrow one of the narrator's turns of phrase. I suspect this comes from reading the second one first. <a href="http://redbluffreview.blogspot.com.au/2014/01/karen-foxlee-midnight-dress.html" target="_blank"><i>The Midnight Dress</i></a> has some similar themes and characters, though that is not meant as a criticism.<br />
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Both are about girls growing up in Australian country towns. The setting of <i>Wings</i> is rooted in Karen's own childhood in the North Queensland mining town of Mt. Isa where suburban houses backed onto the desert. It's emblematic that a funeral opens the narrative in her fictional town of Memorial. Even the water tower, so typical of regional Oz, is a foreboding focal point. <br />
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Of course, her use of symbolism spreads from the wings of the title: Icarus, butterflies and Jenny's beloved birds, even references to the mythical phoenix.<br />
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Underlying these images is a fragility and impermanence clearly linked to the tale of loss. Jenny takes us through the events that lead up to her sister Beth's death and her quest to understand what happened. It is also a quest to get back Jenny's singing voice, with the able assistance of her friend Angela. She's both a best friend and a good friend. Beth's mate Miranda is part of the wrong crowd. Like the protagonist of <i>The Midnight Dress</i>, she is an itinerant moving around country towns in a caravan with her stepmother.<br />
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It's the early nineteen-eighties but Beth is a very 21st century character, a thirteen-year-old growing up too fast without real survival skills. On the surface it's the usual suspects. Sex, grog, and drugs mixed with an overdose of pubescent rebellion. But Beth's aches are deep within:<br />
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...she felt keenly the pain of insects and then the pain of people.<br />
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...she wanted to save everything but couldn't even save herself."</blockquote>
Today she'd be labelled with all sorts of psychological and social syndromes.<br />
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Jenny's teacher knows the real cause of Memorial's, and perhaps the modern world's, troubles:<br />
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"I believe that in the last few weeks none of you, yes, not one of you, have been taking fractions seriously at all."</blockquote>
<i>Wings</i> has two, perhaps three-tiered, narration. As Jennifer explains:<br />
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"I have pieced together with my own two hands. I made from things I saw and things I did not see but later knew. I made from the tatters of terrible things and the remnants of wonderful things." </blockquote>
What she saw is in first-person, with the straightforward voice of a ten-year-old, reminiscent of Scout from <i>To Kill a MockingBird</i>. Now that's not a unique observation but it struck me as I was reading, before encountering similar comments elsewhere. The rest is in third-person, though there is sometimes a strong element of omniscience in these accounts of what happened.<br />
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It is a world of dysfunctional adults. Beth's parents do not know how to communicate with her, much less help her. Her Nanna places her Catholic faith in the wings of angels and patron saints. Her father is the kind of laconic Aussie male who finds little solace in the grog despite his best efforts. Her mother retreats to bed, hiding from a world she has always feared:<br />
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"That's how children die," she said. "They slip and the scissors go into their brains."</blockquote>
The other residents of the appropriately named Dardanelles Court are an eccentric, damaged bunch: two brothers surviving their war legacies; a couple who lost a child and eye contact; an untouchable recluse. In their own ways they share Beth's sad history.<br />
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Don't be put off by the themes of this novel. As a wedge-tailed eagle circles, this tale ends with notes of optimism, literally and figuratively. Pun intended.<br />
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Karen Foxlee has just released a children's fiction offering <a href="http://www.readings.com.au/review/ophelia-and-the-marvellous-boy-by-karen-foxlee" target="_blank">Ophelia and the Marvellous Boy</a>. I look forward to her next adult novel.<br />
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Kevin Renniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873737997935813248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-602087898702321424.post-3571731371687493312014-01-15T16:00:00.002+11:002014-01-15T16:00:34.839+11:00Karen Foxlee: The Midnight Dress<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">This review is part of the <a href="http://australianwomenwriters.com/2014-challenge/" target="_blank">Australian Women Writers Challenge 2014</a><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.uqp.uq.edu.au/book.aspx/1231/The%20Midnight%20Dress" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihaO95Ud-tEwK4NkDr_x23PXPiFptyLhxtujN9Aqfh7dyZ6uZ7CC4kh9UzwGKoGqooI1YgNN7PbbobtH7vvCWpmIiqJlqkoZT-q6vmjB4cHRrhc4uB_0qaer-QyktIdcOQVdwdUQWJhtI/s1600/The+Midnight+Dress.jpg" height="320" width="214" /></a></div><br />
Karen Foxlee was an author completely unknown to me. Why hadn’t I heard of her before stumbling across <a href="http://www.uqp.uq.edu.au/book.aspx/1231/The%20Midnight%20Dress" target="_blank">The Midnight Dress</a> in my local library?<br />
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It’s one of the best reads from 2013. Reading her second novel makes Karen’s debut award-winning <a href="http://www.uqp.uq.edu.au/book.aspx/836/The%20Anatomy%20Of%20Wings" target="_blank">The Anatomy of Wings</a> a must so I borrowed it while it was in [Watch this space!]. <br />
<br />
This story has ingredients that would normally be a turn off: the friendship of two 15-year-old schoolgirls in a small Queensland town; dressmaking; a harvest parade; elements of the gothic and the romantic (in both senses of the word) and the magical; an assortment of challenged adolescent and adult males; a mysterious old woman in a cluttered, ‘mildewy’ house.<br />
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On the other hand, the setting is an obvious attraction. The fictional town of Leonora is on the tropical coast of FNQ (Far North Queensland) where the sugarcane plantations are nestled between the palm-fringed bays and beaches and the mountain forests. Even the caravan park dares to be ‘Paradise’. The climate dominates, especially the wet season: ‘The rain comes in sudden exhausted sighs and spontaneous downpours…’<br />
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It is 1986, the year of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. New girl Rose and local Pearl have innocence and naiveté that match their names, despite or perhaps because of baggage associated with their single-parent families. Their school suitors also lack street-wisdom. Motherless Rose, ‘who is not used to being touched.’ is suspicious of boys. Fatherless Pearl is more gullible. She’s a fan of pulp romance: “You know how in all those books you always end up loving the one you didn’t like in the beginning?”<br />
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Edie Baker, Rose’s mentor, is more suited to the nineteen century, even her name is somewhat archaic. [In the 1950s we all seemed to have an elderly relative living in rural Australia named Edie.] She lives with the legacy of a father scarred literally and figuratively by the First World War and a mother who passed on her dressmaking skills, the family home and a mountain retreat.<br />
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Foxlee uses a consistent structure with each chapter named after a stitch. There is a short passage using a subjective narrator who explores the central mystery - a missing girl. At times it addresses the reader directly with tantalising teasers such as the beginning sentence: ‘Will you forgive me if I tell you the ending?’, or later ‘What if they made a different decision right then? What if Rose could go backward?’<br />
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The other part of the chapter is a more detached sequential telling of the tale. Clues, red herrings and potential spoilers are scattered through both, resembling Agatha Christie at her best. Enough said about the plot.<br />
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Karen’s style is very modern, with the prose stripped of adjectives. At the same time it feels like it could have been written in the 1980s. The elegant simplicity of the language belies a strong poetic quality. [Grumpy old blogger alert!] Anyway, what’s not to enjoy about a story of relationships without smart phones and social media.<br />
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The thrill of the hunt is a major aspect but this book doesn’t really fit the crime genre. It is essentially about that cliché of all good novels, the human condition: friendship, rites of passage, sins of the fathers, the cruelty of fate.<br />
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We are asked, “What if everything could be changed?’ Why not it’s just a story. Yet this one ends on an affirmative note bringing us full circle: “And so it begins.”<br />
<br />
</div>Kevin Renniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873737997935813248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-602087898702321424.post-10499801060373821872013-12-20T20:43:00.000+11:002013-12-20T20:43:18.449+11:00Anita Heiss: Am I Black Enough for You?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">This review is part of the <a href="http://australianwomenwriters.com/2013-challenge/" target="_blank">Australian Women Writers Challenge 2013</a><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.anitaheiss.com/am_i_black_enough_for_you_.html" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguQn4GzZ1G3xdsymAGQYEm7IYBfMdPv630FemID7QDVnbVi9jd_Yh913IKHGCuAvs8Bp6YOrcoPL3lmOt6VbVPYzfJS7bxs8tsPcxHCBK597XTP_QBZDKaKA4lvo08xgmel-d-NMhGi_s/s1600/AIBEFY.jpg" height="320" width="207" /></a></div><br />
<a href="http://www.anitaheiss.com/" target="_blank">Anita Heiss</a> is an Australian writer and proud Koori woman. Koori is a general term for the First Peoples (aka Aborigines or Indigenous) of New South Wales and Victoria.<br />
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<i>Am I Black Enough For You?</i> is a memoir interweaved with an account of a controversial racial vilification court case. It is ironic that the latter has spawned this book. We should be grateful to the Herald and Weekly Times’ political commentator and blogger, Andrew Bolt, that he has unwittingly enabled us to:<br />
<blockquote style="border-bottom-left-radius: 5px; border-bottom-right-radius: 5px; border-top-left-radius: 5px; border-top-right-radius: 5px; border: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 10px;">“…come to appreciate without criticism or concern, the diversity and complexity of Aboriginal identity in the twenty-first century, and that the power of self-identity and representation is a right we should all enjoy.”</blockquote>Anita’s story is a window on what defines her identity. Family is central to her being; especially her parents - aboriginal mother Elsie and Austrian immigrant father Joe. You’ll have to read the book to discover the incredible people who make up the rest of her kin. <br />
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Her Aboriginality is solidly connected to country, namely Wiradjiri land. She also has strong links to Gadigal country through as a long-term Sydney resident. She is keen to point out that she is an urban dweller who is no fan of camping in the great outdoors.<br />
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Anita is definitely a 21st Century citizen of the world. She travels extensively both inside and outside Oz. She has most of the modern neuroses including concern about body image and a love of shopping (her Westfield Dreaming). Her personal and professional networks are huge, especially her “tiddas” [sisters]. Her support group includes a life coach. Her biggest hero is Oprah Winfrey whose “self-faith and optimism” get a big tick. In fact, at times this book feels a lot like a self-help tome. <a href="http://anitaheissblog.blogspot.com.au/" target="_blank">Her blog</a> was an outcome of Oprah’s Oz visit in 2009. It is ‘largely about gratefulness - hers and others - but she also posts about things important to her including books, reading, literacy and Aboriginal arts and culture’. <br />
<br />
Anita is not just an author of non-fiction, historical fiction, poetry and children’s books, she writes a sub-genre of 'chit-lit' (commercial women's fiction), dubbed 'choc-lit' by one of her mates. She has been an academic – her PhD was in Media and Communication focusing on Aboriginal literature and publishing. Her ongoing interests include indigenous literacy and reconciliation. <br />
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Her experience as an activist and in social commentary certainly came in handy when Andrew Bolt decided to indulge in some of his own. On 15 April 2009 he penned a highly contentious newspaper article (It’s hip to be black) and blog post (White is the new black). Anita was one of several prominent people whom he accused of being “professional” aborigines who identify as such to help their careers. She joined a group who took legal action against Bolt and his publisher under <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/rda1975202/s18c.html" target="_blank">Section 18C</a> of the Racial Discrimination Act:<br />
<blockquote style="border-bottom-left-radius: 5px; border-bottom-right-radius: 5px; border-top-left-radius: 5px; border-top-right-radius: 5px; border: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 10px;">(1) It is unlawful for a person to do an act, otherwise than in private, if:<br />
<br />
(a) the act is reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people; and<br />
<br />
(b) the act is done because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of the other person or of some or all of the people in the group.</blockquote>It is the so-called ‘vilification’ section. Heiss describes Bolt as:<br />
<blockquote style="border-bottom-left-radius: 5px; border-bottom-right-radius: 5px; border-top-left-radius: 5px; border-top-right-radius: 5px; border: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 10px;">...an outspoken denier of climate change, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations" target="_blank">Stolen Generations</a> [link added], and now, the right of for Aboriginal people to self-identity.</blockquote>Many have gone a lot further in questioning his issues with race. Their case was upheld in September 2011 but has continued to be controversial. In fact, it is very topical at present as Australia’s new Prime Minister Tony Abbott promised before the recent election to <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/09/27/changes-racial-discrimination-act-mooted" target="_blank">repeal</a> this section to “champion free speech”.<br />
<br />
Moreover, the Attorney General, Senator Brandis, has made the very controversial appointment of Tim Wilson as ‘freedom’ commissioner at the Human Rights Commission (HRC). In his role at the right-wing think tank <a href="http://www.ipa.org.au/" target="_blank">IPA</a> (Institute of Public Affairs) Wilson has argued in the past not only to get rid of Section 18C but also to abolish the HRC itself. Free speech should make for some spirited discussions around the table there. He famously tweeted in 2011:<br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">Walked past Occupy Melbourne protest, all people who think freedom of speech = freedom 2 b heard, time wasters ... send in the water cannons<br />
— Tim Wilson (@timwilsoncomau) <a href="https://twitter.com/timwilsoncomau/statuses/127208106517213184">October 21, 2011</a></blockquote><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script><br />
Anyway, there are plenty of views in <i>Am I Black Enough for You?</i> and Anita's blog as well as <a href="http://theconversation.com/andrew-bolt-racism-and-the-internet-3626" target="_blank">elsewhere</a> online. She sees it as being about "finding a balance between freedom of expression and racial discrimination" but there are plenty ready for an argument about that.<br />
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Despite the serious nature of the issues raised, this is a most readable and enjoyable book. Anita’s direct and open style, coupled with her sharp sense of humour, make her upbeat approach to life highly infectious. <br />
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By the way, my answer is Yes!<br />
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</div>Kevin Renniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873737997935813248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-602087898702321424.post-39860496330249206192013-12-17T22:19:00.000+11:002013-12-17T22:19:54.940+11:00Australian Women Writers: Hannah Kent's Burial Rites<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">This review is part of the <a href="http://australianwomenwriters.com/2013-challenge/" target="_blank">Australian Women Writers Challenge 2013</a><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://draft.blogger.com/This%20review%20is%20part%20of%20the%20%3Ca%20href=%22http://australianwomenwriters.com/2013-challenge/%22%20target=%22_blank%22%3EAustralian%20Women%20Writers%20Challenge%202013%3C/a%3E" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLLvTeo4v1h6bXGfjvgN2ZCP5ltkm-OCLX3QszqheBKR39R2_P7FTgcxeSIxdXcKsKGjyaLuo5Gc4sveqAFBmL5euKiwZty_0P8_jexK3AWqFyGIZuCrJNIvOcAf67es0mjRrY8Gyi2tw/s1600/Burial+Rites.jpg" height="320" width="210" /></a></div><br />
<b>Burial Rites: coming ready or not!</b><br />
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Hannah Kent's first novel Burial Rites has captured the imagination of potential readers in Australia with long waiting lists for reserve copies at local libraries. It is an ambitious and substantial offering set in an unlikely time and location.<br />
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We are taken to rural Iceland in 1829 where Agnes Magnusdottir awaits her execution for a double murder. One of the victims, Nathan Ketilsson, was her employer and lover at the time. <br />
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It is based on a true story that Hannah has researched in detail. If you're expecting a crime thriller, forget it. The unfolding of Agnes' part in the deaths certainly presents a mystery of sorts, though none of the revelations are particularly surprising or startling.<br />
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Her developing relationships are key to her transformation. She stays with district officer Jon Jonsson’s family, awaiting her fate. There she talks with a young assistant rector Toti whom she has requested as her spiritual advisor. In addition to his role as ‘confessor’, Jon's wife Margret and one of their two daughters Steina, help to bring Agnes out of herself.<br />
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We also get first person accounts of her life past and present. From these, we learn more about the factors that have driven both her inner-life and her working-life.<br />
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Agnes is literate and well-informed for a farm worker in a remote northern part of a very remote country. The rural setting plays an important part in the novel. After her degrading imprisonment, Agnes gradually revives as she resumes her life as a farmworker. <br />
<blockquote style="border-bottom-left-radius: 5px; border-bottom-right-radius: 5px; border-top-left-radius: 5px; border-top-right-radius: 5px; border: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 10px;">I feel drunk with summer and sunlight. I want to seize fistfuls of sky and eat them.</blockquote>Of course, this stay is not meant to last. As summer slowly fades to autumn and finally the symbolic and literal winter, the landscape and the weather reinforce the harsh and dark nature of this tale.<br />
<blockquote style="border-bottom-left-radius: 5px; border-bottom-right-radius: 5px; border-top-left-radius: 5px; border-top-right-radius: 5px; border: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 10px;">Snow lay over the valley like linen, like a shroud waiting for the dead body of sky that slumped overhead.</blockquote>Life in the miserable interiors of the farmhouses, where much of the story takes place, underscores the bleakness of their rustic existence.<br />
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On top of this, the illnesses of Margret and Toti are a pervasive reminder that violent death is not the real challenge for these communities. Death and religion are ever-present as the Icelandic Burial Hymn emphasizes:<br />
<blockquote style="border-bottom-left-radius: 5px; border-bottom-right-radius: 5px; border-top-left-radius: 5px; border-top-right-radius: 5px; border: 2px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 10px;">O Grave, where is thy triumph?<br />
O Death, where is thy sting?<br />
Come, when thou wilt, and welcome!<br />
Secure in Christ I sing.</blockquote>But this is not a morality tale. Good (or god) does not necessarily trump evil. Redemption is far more elusive. We are left to wonder what it means to be ‘ready’ for our burial rites.<br />
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However, there is a villain in the person of district commissioner Bjorn Blondal, who could sit comfortably in judgment with the self-righteous in Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible. He is someone who “wants to set an example”. Blondal has much to protect as Toti’s visit to his property reveals.<br />
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The first two-thirds unfold slowly but it is worth the effort. Its powerful concluding chapters are both disturbing and uplifting. <br />
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Life and death – coming ready or not.<br />
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</div>Kevin Renniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873737997935813248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-602087898702321424.post-48895276345619818602013-09-17T15:19:00.000+10:002013-09-17T15:19:01.461+10:00Hanifa Deen: On the Trail of Taslima<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://draft.blogger.com/a%20href=%22http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taslima_Nasreen%22%20target=%22_blank%22" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1figvAF7RSKzMTv0YeAzYo4o7SlTxp4oz_KXzG7IJIdIz-mOILNI8bGsdrpXo4HTMxm4Upt9Ecej4F6iPR7OmrIag32iWUo3wGuMoZ7WXGGAUDjMU_ca42Z3ESoyi-3P3ZQ9QV_vyi70/s320/TheTrailOfTaslima_Large.jpg" width="210" /></a></div>
<br />
Hanifa Deen’s quest to unravel the story of Bangladeshi dissident <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taslima_Nasreen" target="_blank">Taslima Nasreen</a> (Nasrin) has been a glorious obsession for nearly twenty years. The publication of <a href="http://www.hanifadeen.com/" target="_blank">On the Trail of Taslima</a> has finally put that fixation behind her.<br />
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Since Taslima hit the headlines in the western media in 1994, Hanifa has sought out the key players around the globe to document their firsthand accounts. She first met Taslima in 1997 in Sweden, her country of refuge. <br />
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This book is an update of her 2006 The Crescent and the Pen: the strange journey of Taslima Nasreen. Hanifa describes her story as:<br />
<blockquote>
"A behind the scenes account of what really took place during the 'save Taslima Nasreen’ campaign that captivated the world in the 1990s, brings to light a complex narrative filled with larger-than-life personalities with their own agendas and shifting loyalties. Nothing is what it seems."</blockquote>
The central theme: Why was Taslima so readily embraced by the international community of human rights advocates, freedom of speech organisations, humanists and liberal media? Hanifa dubs them the dragon slayers.<br />
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When she went into hiding in 1994 and sought asylum outside her homeland, Taslima was accepted by many as the new Salman Rushdie. In fact Rushdie was one of the first to be recruited in her support. Moreover, the excessive zeal of many of her early supporters resulted in unfair comparisons of Bangladesh with Iran. <br />
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We meet a host of potential heroes/villains. Among her first champions was journalist Gabi Gleichmann who was head of Swedish PEN (Poets, Essayists and Novelists). The international organisation’s motto is ‘Promoting Literature, Defending Freedom of Expression’. It is the world’s oldest human rights NGO. It is not surprising that they had the ear of the Swedish government who offered the exile a home. <br />
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As a poet and essayist, Taslima’s prosecution in Bangladesh for blasphemy made a natural fit. Hanifa presents Gabi as a key mythmaker and dragon slayer who became disillusioned with the fictional aspects of her media profile that he had helped to create. Taslima is a larger-than-life character but not the one that many, including Gabi, were expecting when she ‘escaped’ to Europe. <br />
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Other key players in this saga include feminist Meredith Tax, Taslima’s publisher Christianne Besse, and New Yorker Warren Allan Smith. Early support also came from Reporters Sans Frontières (Reporters Without Borders), Amnesty International and numerous humanist and rationalist groups. Taslima’s vocal atheism attracted many who thought of her as a natural ally.<br />
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Hanifa Deeen has tracked down most of the important dragon slayers over the years. Her face to face interviews are remarkable, not just for the candour she haselicited from them, but also for the human portraits she has penned of these fascinating individuals.<br />
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The Bangladeshi end of the Trail has dimensions that readers can tease out for themselves: the still pending court case; her early writing career and notoriety; her family and three husbands, the complex web of religious, cultural and political life in South Asia. The author has made numerous trips to Bangladesh and found important ‘local’ voices in other parts of the world.<br />
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Her final word on Taslima the ‘victim’ comes from Eugene Schoulgin, Norwegian writer, PEN activist who has extensive connections with the Islamic world:<br />
‘She is a victim of everyone’s expectations, the political manoeuvres of the West and a victim of her own pride’.<br />
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Anyone who is involved with human rights advocacy or freedom of speech campaigning should put this book on their must-see list. Its 260 pages encompass a detailed, thoughtful and passionate exploration of this remarkable writer. The ‘carousel’ that just keeps revolving as a visit to <a href="http://taslimanasrin.com/" target="_blank">Taslima's website</a> well attests.<br />
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<div style="background-color: #d9ead3; border: 1px solid; padding: 10px;">
"<a href="http://www.hanifadeen.com/" target="_blank">HANIFA DEEN</a> is an award-winning Australian author who writes narrative nonfiction and lives in Melbourne. She now works full-time as a writer, which she sees as the perfect medium for a woman with an irreverent tongue, a maverick Muslim perspective on life, and a passion to subvert stereotypes wherever they lurk."</div>
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Kevin Renniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873737997935813248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-602087898702321424.post-63871636263485942972013-01-23T14:31:00.000+11:002013-01-23T14:31:56.897+11:00Australian Women Writers: Laraine Dillon's The Pitts in Paradise<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">This review is part of the <a href="http://australianwomenwriters.com/2013-challenge/" target="_blank">Australian Women Writers Challenge 2013</a><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.copyright.net.au/details.php?id=139" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8xOLVvH_w2LGwJGC80TOWJTBqqG9HcbrFIy8ZIFWy5KYfJLznzKhSCJgBjgYhjLdaFsrSbFcruZHOdzFrvT8bWddY0CC9DVpCFzf1c267NU8slVrVLruRWxF_UzY2ajAuZX14A1XTUj4/s1600/The+Pitts.jpg" /></a></div><br />
In her sequel to <a href="http://redbluffreview.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/australian-women-writers-laraine.html" target="_blank">The Easement</a>, Laraine Dillon’s writing career has blossomed with <a href="http://www.copyright.net.au/details.php?id=139" target="_blank">The Pitts in Paradise</a>. It is the second in her ‘Travelling North’ series.<br />
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Maggie and Max Stewart have resumed their northward quest to Port Douglas and beyond. This time they get as far as a beach near Proserpine, just near the famous Airlie Beach resort. <br />
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In contrast to the somewhat slow start to <i>The Easement</i>, the opening hot dream is followed by some not-so-steamy sex. A less than promising response to Maggie’s advances finally gets some poetry: “there was movement at the station”. But sex is something left to your imagination. For heavens sake, this is a family story. Even the roughest characters are only allowed to yell, “Oh, f..k!”. “Bugger!”, on the other hand, is quite acceptable.<br />
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Like its predecessor it’s a frantic comedy, packed with the kind of characters you would only meet in the top end. The undercover police are the exception. ‘Hollywood’ is not your typical copper from tropical Oz. <br />
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Mind you they haven’t even reached FNQ (Far North Queensland) yet. It’s just the Whitsundays. Anyway, it is still the home of cyclones, Ross River fever, the deadly stinger irikanji jellyfish, sleazy males and women with attitude. True to Laraine’s style, we meet a cast of hundreds. Very few of them are people you’d want to spend your dream holiday or sea change with.<br />
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The timeframe is a little mixed up. Narrator Maggie writes a diary entry for 1997 yet Paul Keating still seems to Prime Minister. Nevertheless, the banana republic reference is very apt. It’s a world of dodgy operators, especially their first contact, sleaze bag Toby Tyson, who has more than one proposition for the Maxwells.<br />
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We encounter lots of new Pitts, relatives of their former neighbours at Reflection Bay, and some old ones as well. They have charming names such as Moth who ironically is not a fly-by-nighter. All seem to have been brought up on kickboxing rules.<br />
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Reg (Pitty), the manager of the Paradise Cove Resort, welcomes them to the “Redneck Riviera”. He’s the kind of bloke who says “blimey” without a hint of self-mockery. Strewth!<br />
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The extended Stewart family and their allies create the usual pandemonium but they are much closer to the normal end of the spectrum than the fun loving, sun loving and sometimes gun loving locals. Maggie even gets to learn what a real nature lover is.<br />
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Laraine is a visual writer, of the action madcap genre. Her plot and characters emerge from a comic Australian cinema tradition: Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Muriel’s Wedding, The Castle and Crocodile Dundee, to name but a few. In both of the novels, real estate plays an important role but so do weddings and funerals, plus lots of food and drink. Maggie says she prefers funerals. Coincidentally, so does Casper, an elderly local who quenches his thirst by attending every wake in the area.<br />
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Maggie is very politically correct. Must be her indigenous heritage. However, she is a true member of her baby boomer generation, being more PC in her attitudes than her language. The male gossips are allocated to the "knitting circle". Her idea of “dark forces” is an unusual one to say the least, a term borrowed from her bigoted mother. Maggie has known for some time that she has “a touch of the tar”.<br />
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With shades of Priscilla, it is inevitable that we meet Frankie again, the gay staff member from Maxwell’s restaurant. He’s one character who doesn’t get accused of being “homo faux”. If you’re new to this terminology, you’ll just have to read the book or google if you must. There is also a new chapter in the LGBT story, with a lesbian couple joining the Stewart circle.<br />
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Maggie is a hoot. Or is it really Laraine, who shares much with her protagonist. In fact they seem to be morphing, as Maggie embraces the essentials of Write Your Own Story and becomes a diarist. Her autobiographical title is Once Upon a Dreamtime.<br />
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Maggie is also a bit of a dag, with echoes of Lucy aka Lucille Ball. She doesn’t hurry - she boot scoots. You never know when she might slip into slapstick or get tied up in some harebrained scheme. However, she’s not beyond a bit of self-analysis and wonders about her “changing demeanour” – what Max calls “mingling in something that does not concern” her. Fortunately, she is able to put her “new” attitude down to menopause.<br />
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Plot and character connections come together in Laraine’s signature frenzied finale, with a king tide of revelations and reunions. It’s a big, mostly happy, family that would fill several resorts.<br />
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Let’s hope that when the Maxwells finally get to Port Douglas, they are not too disappointed that it has more in common with the crowded Sunshine Coast than the tranquil world of Leo McKern in the movie <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094176/" target="_blank">Travelling North.</a><br />
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<i>The Pitts in Paradise</i> is just the paperback to slip into the backpack when you’re heading up north.<br />
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Thanks to the Queensland publishers <a href="http://www.copyright.net.au/" style="background-color: white; color: #af3e00; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; text-decoration: initial;">CopyRight Publishing</a> for the complimentary copy.<br />
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</div>Kevin Renniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873737997935813248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-602087898702321424.post-63925273959333931982013-01-16T21:10:00.001+11:002013-01-16T21:10:56.363+11:00Australian Women Writers: Laraine Dillon's The Easement<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">This review is part of the <a href="http://australianwomenwriters.com/2013-challenge/" target="_blank">Australian Women Writers Challenge 2013</a><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.copyright.net.au/details.php?id=108" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqnl3Fhhnr5XDQGMAb21aD6rYARQK8cDfSVnKV9H-6IQ_l155uoSxtV0E5Fw5pygsMcx5E5v_Cw-dJwmJm1poh_o4iIHN7UVHa3ARsX4INc4oAm8m81o2U2F5ItgXsDQs_yf5RXTcii0k/s400/The+Easement.jpg" width="277" /></a></div><br />
Queenslander Laraine Dillon's first novel, <a href="http://www.copyright.net.au/details.php?id=108" target="_blank">The Easement,</a> was obviously bubbling in the back of her mind for many years. Published in 2008, it is a passionate and irreverent tale of moving to the seaside in the late 1980s.<br />
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After a slowish start dealing with shifty real estate agents and lawyers, first person narrator Maggie Stewart takes us on a whirlwind adventure. It is shared with laconic husband Max, complete with his silver hammer, daughter Amber and a family that extends exponentially as the story progresses.<br />
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It is the world of the 'white shoe brigade' who were known to sell land below the high-tide mark in the Sunshine state. Probably still do. This is not a tale of the Aussie battler. The magnificent seascapes of Reflection Bay are viewed from their swimming pools. But nor is about the silver-tails. Our heroes are the aspirants making good.<br />
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Their eccentric neighbours, the Pitts, are the vehicle for much of the dramatic tension and a considerable amount of farfetched farce. The Stewarts get lots of help in creating mayhem from their friends, especially Irish lawyer Markus and his wife Madonna, and a group of Harley bikers known as the Ulysses Club.<br />
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What 21st Century novel would be without some cuisine flavour. The staff of their new restaurant 'Maxwell's' also come to the party, lead by the stereotypical gay Frankie.<br />
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The pace gets more frenetic and the plot farcical, as the climax explodes at a wedding and an auction. To quote Maggie from earlier in the story, things are "all over the place like a fart in an colander".<br />
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Laraine certainly enjoyed writing The Easement, so I'm looking forward to her latest The Pitts in Paradise. Just hope she can spare us the camel scene this time.<br />
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A major theme involves connections with the indigenous world, with Duncan Ryan as a very modern aborigine. Identity and land rights are important aspects. Laraine dedicates the book to her family and her ancestors but "sadly" she has no indigenous ones that she can find.<br />
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Thanks to the Queensland publishers <a href="http://www.copyright.net.au/">CopyRight Publishing</a> for the complimentary copy.<br />
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</div>Kevin Renniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873737997935813248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-602087898702321424.post-76891347267189201332013-01-13T13:07:00.001+11:002013-01-13T13:07:14.018+11:00Australian Women Writers: Kylie Ladd's After the Fall<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">This review is part of the <a href="http://australianwomenwriters.com/2013-challenge/" target="_blank">Australian Women Writers Challenge 2013</a><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://kylieladd.com.au/After-The-Fall.aspx" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAnDo2_8CbN2k-_8hvPqRtOr1hVHNQYFEJSjRZvRYhh9bPGh48Xz6blei8xSK4sVZQowULaNQkawWvBDh0tvWWmFUrx5w2rWAFPuAx2USHFG-zyl4z0AKe-yiB5qR1w5n0S6dMEbvPbqw/s1600/After+the+Fall.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<a href="http://kylieladd.com.au/After-The-Fall.aspx" target="_blank">After the Fall</a> is a romance about couples. There are two married couples at the centre of the story. Plus two people from these couples make a third, of the extra-marital kind.<br />
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If you're into the contemporary romance genre, then Kylie Ladd's first novel may be for you. The existence of a hot, tangled affair that threatens both marriages is made clear from the start. The main characters are straight from comfortable, educated middle-class Australia: a pediatrician, an advertising exec, an anthropologist and a geneticist.<br />
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We experience the unfolding events in detail from first person narrations by the four principals plus some of their friends. Chapters vary from a paragraph in length to several pages. These different points of view create a sense of multiple realities. Fortunately, with one major exception, the plot does not rely on misunderstandings based on misinterpretation of what is actually happening.<br />
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Kylie's background in neuropsychology plays little part in helping the reader to understand why apparently rational people make seemingly irrational decisions based on being in love, the quality of the sex or what used to called pure animal magnetism. <br />
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There are a lot of sexual encounters in the novel but by and large we are spared much of the intimate detail. The first kiss is probably the hottest moment of the story.<br />
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We get close up to a range of human attributes from altruism to egoism, from passion to stoicism, from bubbling self-confidence to personal insecurity.<br />
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There is plenty here to keep your interest but the insights don't add a lot to understanding what makes modern relationships succeed or fail. Or what drives seemingly self-destructive behaviour in those relationships.<br />
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</div>Kevin Renniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873737997935813248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-602087898702321424.post-44478873955263403172012-12-30T16:58:00.001+11:002012-12-30T18:01:56.717+11:00The Rise of the Fifth Estate - Greg Jericho<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1dPkxD5Cs0EFLKDVuqo7A1z9xi-lmW-EjuGI5lb7i95ClHd74720W-3TVc-YMj-yXweuTR49o_EdWi__8oEa0_DIwxjbZjUqu7RrOASn2eYGnZAoR6bcsbBKc2pGj_E1M-F-5gnS8X_g/s1600/FIFTH+ESTATE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1dPkxD5Cs0EFLKDVuqo7A1z9xi-lmW-EjuGI5lb7i95ClHd74720W-3TVc-YMj-yXweuTR49o_EdWi__8oEa0_DIwxjbZjUqu7RrOASn2eYGnZAoR6bcsbBKc2pGj_E1M-F-5gnS8X_g/s320/FIFTH+ESTATE.jpg" width="205" /></a></div><br />
There's a touch of irony in Michangelo's David gracing the banner of Grog's Gamut, the humble blog that slew the mainstream media goliath during the 2010 Australian Federal elections campaign. His post <a href="http://grogsgamut.blogspot.com.au/2010/07/election-2010-day-14-or-waste-and.html" target="_blank">Election 2010: Day 14 (or waste and mismanagement – the media)</a> famously attacked the performance of the national press gallery. It was a gem:<br />
<blockquote>Here’s a note to all the news directors around the country: Do you want to save some money? Well then bring home your journalists following Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard, because they are not doing anything of any worth except having a round-the-country twitter and booze tour.<br />
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It is a sad thing to say but we could lose 95 percent of the journalists following both leaders and the nation would be none the poorer for it. In fact we would probably be better off because it would leave the 5 percent who have some intelligence and are not there to run their own narrative a chance to ask some decent questions of the leaders. Some questions which might actually reveal who would be the better leader of this country.</blockquote>Now Greg Jericho has reloaded his slingshot to venture onto the field of the printed page. <a href="http://scribepublications.com.au/books-authors/title/the-rise-of-the-fifth-estate/" target="_blank">The Rise of the Fifth Estate</a> is much more than a Cook's tour of 'social media and blogging in Australian politics'. It is a detailed and well-researched look at how the new social media world is changing politics down under. Fans will know that Greg loves a deep dip into data in his blogging.<br />
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A hard-copy book about bloggers and twitterers/tweeters may seem a bit bizarre in the digital age. (There is an e-book version of course.) Even so, it should be on the bookshelf of every journalist and top of every journalism academic's course reading list. It is a fitting addition to that niche genre <i>Oz books about new media</i> begun by Antony Loewenstein’s <a href="http://www.bloggingrevolution.com/" target="_blank">The Blogging Revolution</a> in 2008.<br />
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This is a thoroughly readable account of the rise of the political blogosphere and twitterverse in Australia where "we find a coverage of politics that is now broader, but with more niches; that is more intense, but also more reasoned". It lists 324 blogs, ranging across small amateur ones, the occasional politician and think tank, group blogs and professional journalists. (Two are mine.) <br />
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He explores the history and nature of the blogosphere, the apparent lack of women bloggers and its prickly relationship with mainstream media. The web is a fast moving target. Some blogs such as <a href="http://larvatusprodeo.net/">Larvatus Prodeo</a>, that are referred to in the present tense, have been archived recently. Stoush.net has not posted since 2010.<br />
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Greg discusses the use of pseudonyms at length. He has a very personal stake in the issue of online anonymity. It is the one planted in his back by journalist James Massola of the <i>The Australian</i> newspaper when he <a href="http://grogsgamut.blogspot.com.au/2010/09/spartacus-no-more.html">outed</a> author of Grog’s Gamut in September 2010. This skirmish in <b>The MSM v Bloggers</b> wars was a backhanded compliment of sorts that has had its upside in Greg’s new media life.<br />
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Followers of Greg’s twitter account will know that he’s a sports aficionado who is often overly keen in sharing American football scores and other minutiae. His running commentary echoes Latika Bourke’s media conference reports. The sports interest helps to explain his tweepy competitive streak. <br />
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There are plenty of examples of social media as a combat sport in Fifth Estate. Two chapters explore this often “cretinous” pugilistic pastime: <b>Never Read the Comments</b> on trolling the blogs; and <b>One, Two, Three, Four, I Declare a Twitter war</b> on the not-so-sociable media exchanges. It is not normally a place for the faint-hearted.<br />
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There is a fairly short examination of the impact of twitter on politics in general and voting behaviour in particular: <b>How Many Votes Are There on Twitter</b>. He’s a fan of hashtags but not <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23auspol" target="_blank">#auspol</a> which Greg sees as a cesspool. I find it’s best to filter it by searching only the Top tweets.<br />
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The one area of omission in this book is a detailed examination of the impact of Facebook on Australian political discourse. Online campaigning, such as the anti-sexism <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DestroyTheJoint" target="_blank">Destroy the Joint</a>, has taken off on Facebook. DtJ currently has over 22,621 likes, compared with just 4352 Twitter followers. Along with <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SackAlanJones" target="_blank">Sack Alan Jones</a> (21,004 on FB) issues related to sexism in Australia have received a much higher profile.<br />
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A quick peek at Greg’s Facebook account helps to explain this gap, as he is not a frequent user of that platform. This is also in keeping with his original desire to have an anonymous presence on the web. However, FB is a strand in the political helix that cannot be ignored in the growing complexity of the online political space.<br />
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Facebook aside, Greg Jericho is the consummate online practitioner. He has more than maintained that high standard in print. He's definitely someone worth getting connected with, even if you might start a barney together.<br />
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</div>Kevin Renniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873737997935813248noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-602087898702321424.post-38665786622575116012012-12-28T13:03:00.000+11:002012-12-28T13:03:00.038+11:00Australian Women Writers: Kathryn Fox's Skin and Bone<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">This review is part of the <a href="http://australianwomenwriters.com/2012-challenge/" target="_blank">Australian Women Writers Challenge 2012</a><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAtBaCIAWEWa8IFVEDry7xIMz7B9f5rBf0BnMQEygVYRMhrrwNpy74QH0-0YL3Q94mYIW19eEroDxJ0KMSOTcsWuj_Q6u4yMRBGc-I0FHl82vegaKs_N_1LMZBk5KMXqOBCp5GqoMJJPY/s1600/Skin+and+Bone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAtBaCIAWEWa8IFVEDry7xIMz7B9f5rBf0BnMQEygVYRMhrrwNpy74QH0-0YL3Q94mYIW19eEroDxJ0KMSOTcsWuj_Q6u4yMRBGc-I0FHl82vegaKs_N_1LMZBk5KMXqOBCp5GqoMJJPY/s400/Skin+and+Bone.jpg" width="263" /></a></div><br />
Kathryn Fox's <a href="http://www.kathrynfox.com/index.php/novels/skin-and-bone/" target="_blank">Skin and Bone</a> is a good choice for summer holiday reading if you're into crime thrillers. Her third book, published in 2007, is comfortable but not challenging.<br />
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Its young female detective Kate Farrer has most of the characteristics expected of the hero in this genre. She's recovering from a traumatic close-shave that has left demons that she'll have to face. She is a loner, both personally and professionally. And of course she has a new partner at work.<br />
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The cover promises a protagonist to rival a Cornwell or Reichs character. Farrer doesn't make a very enthusiastic silent witness, in fact she'd rather skip post-mortems of burnt bodies. There is plenty of forensic detail but none of the pathologists plays a critical or central role in the story, unlike her first two novels.<br />
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With regard to detail, it is disappointing that firefighters are referred to as fireman by the author.<br />
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Don't try to second-guess the plot too much, as much of it is a bit too predictable. Just go for the ride.<br />
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The style is Modern Fiction 101. Is it the lack of adjectives that makes it difficult to bring up a mental image of the main characters? <br />
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This novel would probably make a thoroughly watchable tele-movie where those aspects could be developed. In fact the book is more skeleton than skin and could have been fleshed out a bit more.<br />
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</div>Kevin Renniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873737997935813248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-602087898702321424.post-71119922378948241712012-12-22T18:38:00.000+11:002012-12-22T18:38:57.281+11:00Australian Women Writers: Georgia Blain's Candelo<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">This review is part of the <a href="http://australianwomenwriters.com/2012-challenge/" target="_blank">Australian Women Writers Challenge 2012</a><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCXpq6JjP4BBdj-vSX3pYL-dQ6iJobvEUOivNlbNeGgpPxroR8yRRaI9pQYZhVpShyphenhypheng217beG-8H5mjBn0MOd-Ntqy15XXtv9Xpg5roDh00-I7_c8g4meWntdlygWrx-TIZUIDnQnGBFE/s1600/Candelo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="300" width="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCXpq6JjP4BBdj-vSX3pYL-dQ6iJobvEUOivNlbNeGgpPxroR8yRRaI9pQYZhVpShyphenhypheng217beG-8H5mjBn0MOd-Ntqy15XXtv9Xpg5roDh00-I7_c8g4meWntdlygWrx-TIZUIDnQnGBFE/s400/Candelo.jpg" /></a></div><br />
There are mysteries at the heart of Candelo. Violetta takes her family on holiday at Australian coastal town Candelo: narrator Ursula who is fourteen, her brother Simon and younger sister Evie. They are joined by Mitchell Jenkins who Vi is fostering. Mitchell's magnetic presence changes their lives, and his own, irrevocably. <br />
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The story moves between Candelo flashbacks and Ursula as an adult. Her troubled relationships with Vi and Simon are reflected in her struggle to make sense of her own life and loves.<br />
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Ursula blames her mother, believing that Vi put her political activism ahead of her children. As she explores both past and present, we visit many dark places and wounds that could not heal without the kind of openness that none of them have displayed.<br />
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There is some hope at the end, if not resolution. Prepare to be challenged.<br />
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</div>Kevin Renniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873737997935813248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-602087898702321424.post-47395930004140810272012-12-22T16:10:00.001+11:002012-12-22T16:10:55.604+11:00Australian Women Writers: Mariam Issa's A Resilient Life<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">This review is part of the <a href="http://australianwomenwriters.com/2012-challenge/" target="_blank">Australian Women Writers Challenge 2012</a><br />
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It is a cross post from <a href="http://thinkbrigade.com/africa/mariam-issa/">ThinkBrigade</a>.<br />
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<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5e6066; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://thinkbrigade.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Resilient-life-books.jpg" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.2s linear, color 0.2s linear; background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #217dd3; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-6799" src="http://thinkbrigade.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Resilient-life-books-300x228.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 1px solid rgb(235, 235, 235); display: block; float: none; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; margin: auto auto 15px; max-width: 599px; outline: 0px; padding: 4px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="400" /></a></div><h4 style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5e6066; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1em; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A Tale of Two New Years</h4><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5e6066; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">On New Year’s Eve 2009, fireworks in the Melbourne suburb of Brighton threatened to re-open old wounds from Mogadishu 1991. Somali-born Mariam Issa struggled to overcome memories of war nearly 20 years earlier. It was not typical of her. She describes herself as someone “who goes out with a smile”.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5e6066; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Mariam’s life has been a series of new years: changing countries, changing cultures, changing roles and responsibilities. Her self-published autobiography <a href="http://resilientlife.com.au/" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.2s linear, color 0.2s linear; background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #217dd3; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank" title="">A Resilient Life</a> was launched at the old Brighton Town Hall in Melbourne’s bayside suburb on 4 December 2012. It is self-published by <a href="http://www.harsonsgraphics.com/" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.2s linear, color 0.2s linear; background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #217dd3; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank" title="">Harsons Graphics</a>.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5e6066; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">It was a large crowd for this kind of event: family, friends and people from the local community. This is a stirring example of Mariam’s belief in a “resilient and adaptable community”. She stresses the importance of breaking barriers. Her life so far has certainly fitted that tag.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5e6066; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Her inspiring speech at the book launch is captured in this video:</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5e6066; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br />
<iframe 1="/iframe" class="iframe-class" frameborder="0" height="338" scrolling="no" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/_DwJTPe4yEg?list=UUQXlM05FH3pR46a0lOhH9nA&hl=en_US" style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="500"></iframe></div><h4 style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5e6066; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1em; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Growing Up in Africa</h4><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5e6066; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Mariam was born in Kismayu, Somalia, in the tumultuous year of 1968, before moving to Majengo in Kenya where she started school. The importance to Mariam of Hooyo (her mother) and Ayeeyo (her grandmother) is reflected in the book’s dedication and her vivid memories of these strong women throughout the book. With Hooyo’s support, Mariam managed to finish secondary school despite strong opposition from her father.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5e6066; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">As a young woman, she moved once again to join her husband Mohamed in Qatar. A move back to his hometown of Mogadishu was short-lived. While her husband was away, the outbreak of war forced Mariam to flee to Kenya, with her two small children Abdul and Abdi. They faced a four-day ordeal on a leaky, overcrowded boat with little food or water. It almost ended in disaster when the authorities at Mombasa tried to prevent them from landing.</div><h4 style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5e6066; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1em; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A New Continent</h4><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5e6066; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Eight very tough years in Kenya as refugees followed. The family of seven, including their daughters Sumaya and Sarah and third son Yusuf, finally emigrated to Australia in 1998 through the family reunion scheme. After 14 years in Melbourne, Mariam has completed what she calls her “integration project”, which has certainly had it challenging moments.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5e6066; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://cookwithmariam.com.au/index.php?c=1021" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.2s linear, color 0.2s linear; background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #217dd3; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank" title=""><img alt="Cook with Mariam" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-6805" height="314" src="http://thinkbrigade.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Cook-with-Mariam.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 1px solid rgb(235, 235, 235); display: block; float: none; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; margin: auto auto 15px; max-width: 599px; outline: 0px; padding: 4px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="400" /></a><br />
She has re-invented herself once again. Now she is a budding entrepreneur with a cooking school <a href="http://cookwithmariam.com.au/" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.2s linear, color 0.2s linear; background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #217dd3; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank" title="">Cook with Mariam</a> and a passion for permaculture. She shares these interests with a group named RAW (<a href="http://raw-australia.org.au/" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.2s linear, color 0.2s linear; background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #217dd3; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank" title="">Resilient Aspiring Women</a>), which has been developing a community permaculture garden.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5e6066; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Her detailed accounts are well worth reading. “I don’t have to talk about myself anymore,” Mariam said at the launch event. “Read the book if you want to know about me.”</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5e6066; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Her priorities in life are clear: family, friends and community; religion and culture. Like most Somalis, she is a practising Muslim. Two factors that have also helped in her journey have been her lifelong love of reading through her access to English books and her independent spirit.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5e6066; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">At the launch, Margaret Gambold praised her friend:</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5e6066; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 30px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“Great fortitude, bravery and determination mark Mariam’s journey – and over the intimate times we shared I grew to immensely admire her – one could say – tunnel vision to integration – despite any and many obstacles.</em></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5e6066; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 30px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">She is in every way one of the pioneers for all African refugee women. A leader, an encourager and most of all a caring and sharing individual who has opened the gateway for those who dare to follow.”</em></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5e6066; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Mariam talked of Somalia’s culture of storytellers and the way it helps to humanize, empower and educate one another. “We can visit one another’s reality with compassion … and just understand the other person.”</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #5e6066; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">It is impossible to believe that Mariam will stop talking about her remarkable story. To learn more, you can obtain a copy of <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A Resilient Life</em> <a href="http://resilientlife.com.au/" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.2s linear, color 0.2s linear; background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #217dd3; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank" title="">here</a>.</div><br />
</div>Kevin Renniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873737997935813248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-602087898702321424.post-20777134172220539902012-12-15T18:22:00.000+11:002012-12-15T18:37:43.812+11:00Australian Women Writers: Romy Ash's Floundering<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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This review is part of the <a href="http://australianwomenwriters.com/2012-challenge/">Australian Women Writers Challenge 2012</a><br />
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<a href="http://textpublishing.com.au/books-and-authors/book/floundering" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMMIPS7tzeajHZlFT7baQNMG64c8uvfyTn1ygBK78IEHqHIyV0bkdEfpKN1Qz0pVhmkVKl7N7R1yIfNT4BeBa3nmCtnzB6MZhNeNxNwhDkd2XOfY4gFYuJaNPARWTIhn3i7o6eqmNw-yc/s400/floundering_coverhigh-res-192x300.jpg" width="192" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.romyash.com/">Romy Ash</a>'s <i>Floundering</i> is a first novel. It's a relationship road story. Narrator Tom, and his older brother Jordy have been living with their grandmother. They are spirited away by their dysfunctional mother Loretta across the Nullabor to Western Australia.<br />
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The beach caravan park, where they camp up, is no place for things to go wrong in her last ditch attempt to get back into their lives. It's home to sundry misfits who present a frightening introduction to the darker sides of humanity.<br />
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Tom leaves childhood behind as the boys face some rude awakenings and loss of innocence. The arid, stark landscapes are a fitting backdrop to the harsh reality in which they find themselves. </div>
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Kevin Renniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873737997935813248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-602087898702321424.post-6809651403306062032012-05-19T15:02:00.001+10:002012-12-15T19:56:59.423+11:00Australian Women Writers: Anna Funder's All That I Am<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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This review is part of the <a href="http://australianwomenwriters.com/2012-challenge/" target="_blank">Australian Women Writers Challenge 2012</a></div>
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<a href="http://annafunder.com/all-that-i-am/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_qzyWlJLDo1ne-vHcqb3TUgLshj0pPjCtVuqfZab4IpZ1cKll6RU1ZKL4q0BUFETnXxDO7xqJD5olLdVb_X-njlEdA-kwjwIWYgd3gYm7CGkRAWIxX6QUMaEWL03xqB1W7X11GnSpnIQ/s320/allthatiam_007.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>
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Anna Funder's <a href="http://annafunder.com/all-that-i-am/">All That I Am</a> deserves it's place on the <a href="http://www.milesfranklin.com.au/news">shortlist</a> for the 2012 Miles Franklin award.<br />
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Her first novel, like her acclaimed non-fictional <a href="http://laborview.blogspot.com.au/2008/07/stasiland-price-of-protecting-state.html">Stasiland</a>, has a weighty theme with a bitter German flavour. At its heart is the life and death of radical activist Dora Fabian from the two narrators Ernst Toller and Ruth Becker/Wesemann. The first person chapter-about accounts chart their futile struggle in fighting the rise of Nazism between the world wars. <br />
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All that we are not stares back at all that we are.</blockquote>
Though many of the characters are based on real people, it is a work of the imagination rather than just an historical drama.<br />
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At its core the story is about love. The dominance of cousin Dora in Ruth’s life is balanced by Dora’s on-again off-again love affair with Toller. It’s politics as personal.<br />
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At the end of our lives it is our loves we remember most, because they are what shaped us. We have grown to be who we are around them, as around a stake.</blockquote>
I found the book hard to put down yet hard to write about. It compels us to confront many of the dark threads of the twentieth century: the horror of war and failure of the peace; the popularity of fascism and anti-Semitism; the complicity of many in the British ruling class and elsewhere; the brutal, calculated march by the Nazis to the final solution.<br />
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Also at its centre is the plight of German refugees from the Third Reich. Their attempts to warn the world of the impending tragedy were sometimes met with deportation. The disturbing question of why people choose to close their minds is one that resounds too loudly in our century.<br />
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It is not that people lack imagination. It is that they stop themselves using it. Because once you have imagined such suffering, how could you still do nothing.</blockquote>
This is not meant to be a review. There are numerous quality reviews online. The following interview with Anna Funder canvasses many aspects of the intersection between history and fiction, plus the writer’s art. Anna also talks about her friendship with the real life Ruth and her Australian connection.<br />
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We should pay tribute to people, like those in the novel, who stand up to the jackboot with ideas not weapons. Those who give all that they are.</div>
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As I was writing this learned that All That I Am has been awarded the <a href="http://www.publishers.asn.au/">Australian Book Industry Award</a> for Book of the Year 2012.<br />
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Kevin Renniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873737997935813248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-602087898702321424.post-40841761570120019772012-03-24T21:08:00.002+11:002012-12-15T19:57:28.663+11:00Australian Women Writers: Jaye Ford's Beyond Fear<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://www.jayefordauthor.com/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="288" src="http://www.jayefordauthor.com/source/images/illustrate/coverInline.jpg" width="188" /></a></div>
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This review is part of the <a href="http://australianwomenwriters.com/2012-challenge/" target="_blank">Australian Women Writers Challenge 2012</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.jayefordauthor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3&Itemid=8">Beyond Fear</a> was Jaye Ford's first novel, published in 2011. It's promoted as a crime story but is essentially a psychological thriller.<br />
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The first part is tightly written and builds the suspense and tension very effectively. Jaye's style is minimalist with hardly an adjective or adverb crowding out the action. Her dialogue is also to the point and flows quite naturally.<br />
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The two protagonists Jodie and Matt are flawed by their respective violent histories. Much of the psychological exploration centres on their attempts to overcome their inner fears, hence the title.<br />
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The novel is too long for my tastes. Once the bad guys bring the inevitable shift from potential to real threat, there is one anti-climax after another without the anticipated resolution. The suspense is drawn out and there are just too many false finishes. But then this is not my preferred genre. The twists and turns clearly appeal to others as it has sold well and been translated into six languages. <br />
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It's a scenario that could make a successful movie with tight direction and editing.<br />
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Jaye made an short interview for her publisher Random House about writing the book:<br />
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There is an excerpt from <i>Beyond Fear</i> on her <a href="http://www.jayefordauthor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3&Itemid=8">website</a>.<br />
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Her latest offering is <a href="http://www.jayefordauthor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=19&Itemid=9">Scared Yet?</a>, which has similar themes.<br />
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Kevin Renniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873737997935813248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-602087898702321424.post-57290318991942166752012-03-05T14:40:00.001+11:002012-12-15T19:58:00.742+11:00Australian Women Writers: Gail Jones’ Sorry<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://rha.chookdigital.net/titles/9781741666632.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://rha.chookdigital.net/titles/9781741666632.jpg" width="254" /></a></div>
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This review is part of the <a href="http://australianwomenwriters.com/2012-challenge/" target="_blank">Australian Women Writers Challenge 2012</a><br />
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It may seem a big ask but every Australian should read Gail Jones’ novel <a href="http://www.randomhouse.com.au/books/gail-jones/sorry-9781741666632.aspx"><i>Sorry</i></a>. <br />
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Set in Western Australia, it covers the depression and war years from 1930 to 1945. Anthropologist and Great War veteran Nicholas Keene takes his wife Stella to the Kimberley near Broome to study “the natives’. Their daughter Perdita is born there and increasingly relies on local aboriginal people for the care that her dysfunctional parents are unable to give her.<br />
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It’s a story about relationships: family, friends, and community. It is fundamentally about the lives of outsiders: the dispossessed, the isolates, those who live on the fringes of society, the unseen and the unheard.<br />
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If sorry is just a word as some politicians have argued, words are central to this narrative. Language is at its heart: written, spoken and signed. Books are central. Nicholas is a great book collector. Perdita and her aboriginal friend Mary are “hidden in the valley of pages”. Ironically, Mary reads about Captain Cook as Perdita follows Dickens’ ill-treated child David Copperfield. <br />
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The girls are not just linked through their love of literature. They become sisters within the aboriginal skin system, establishing relationships and obligations that continue to be important throughout the story.<br />
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Despite her difficulty understanding Heart of Darkness, Conrad’s classic holds a special place for Perdita. It has numerous parallels to <i>Sorry</i>: the isolation; the treatment of the indigenous people; the horror within and between individuals.<br />
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The bard and his “big questions” strut across this antipodean stage throughout. Stella retreats further and further into Shakespeare as her own mental state collapses: Hamlet, Lear, Othello and the MacBeths. Fittingly, Perdita’s name comes from The Winter’s Tale.<br />
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Mary has a literary theory that “when people read the same words they were imperceptibly knitted”. They share “ imperceptible continuities and inspiring revelations”. One of her favourite books is the Lives of the Saints, a Catholic tome intended to both inspire and frighten its young readers. Later it helps to knit the girls together when they are separated. However, Perdita is not won over by the nuns’ quest to save her “immortal soul”.<br />
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Despite all Stella’s soliloquies, <i>Sorry</i> is steeped in silence. Perdita’s other friend Billy is a “deaf mute”. She is condemned to her own form of invisibility by a severe stutter that starts dramatically when she is ten.<br />
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Perdita explores her own theories. She questions whether reading is “a channel, somehow, between author and reader, an indefinable intimacy, a secret pact?” <br />
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Gail Jones establishes much of her intimacy through the use of Perdita’s first-person passages that are far more revealing of her inner life than the more matter-of-fact third person narrative. <br />
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Gail’s use of language is unusual. Her vocabulary would be familiar to readers in the 1930s but she brings an original style that sometimes demands a lot of her audience: <br />
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“In the smaller community of three, taut with conjugal unhappiness and the burden of an unacceptable child…”<br />
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“Stella’s words still carried sensuous violence. She performed virtual murders as other women did gossip, and she had been seduced not by the comedies, but by the horrors of the tragedies; not by the love sonnets, melliferous and sweet, but by those that dealt with the morbid erosions of time. Unmaking obsessed her, and the making of nonentity.”<br />
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“Afraid of slumbery agitations…”</blockquote>
Dreams and memories are a vitally important part of these agitations. While Stella dreams of snow falling in the desert, Nicholas' nocturnal wandering takes him on a very unsatisfactory visit to an aboriginal campfire. In fact snow is the final image of Perdita’s recollections.<br />
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In her concluding A NOTE ON ‘SORRY’, Gail explains the significance of the word for indigenous people in Australia. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s historic <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations#Australian_federal_parliament_apology">apology to the stolen generations</a> did not come for another year. The novel has many messages but these are channelled through the personal rather than the didactic. It is “a story told in a whisper”.<br />
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Coincidentally, I read Gail’s account of the 1942 Japanese bombing of Broome on 3 March, the 70th anniversary of the attack. Sixteen flying boats were sunk with dozens killed, including many Dutch civilians. The remains of the planes can be visited during very low tides, as we did a few times when living in Broome in 2007.<br />
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In another coincidence, the last chapter begins with the words of the title of the last novel I reviewed <a href="http://redbluffreview.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/australian-women-writers-denise-leiths.html">What Remains</a>. There is a note of hope to finish - "something venerable and illustrious beneath such waste" beyond the horror. The final word is “peace”.<br />
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By the way Sorry is also a bit of a murder mystery. Enjoy!</div>
Kevin Renniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873737997935813248noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-602087898702321424.post-15115252322472540462012-02-22T13:16:00.001+11:002012-12-15T19:58:33.329+11:00Australian Women Writers: Denise Leith's What Remains<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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This review is part of the <a href="http://australianwomenwriters.com/2012-challenge/" target="_blank">Australian Women Writers Challenge 2012</a><br />
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Denise Leith’s novel <a href="http://www.deniseleith.com/books/what-remains">What Remains</a> is first and foremost a love story. Its final chapters are a moving account of the realisation of a friendship that smoulders throughout the novel.<br />
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It is also a war story, set in many of the worst conflicts of the last twenty years. It begins and ends with Iraq: Bush Senior’s Gulf War and W’s shock and awe invasion and occupation. It takes us to the darkest corners of human behaviour in Bosnia, Chechnya, Afghanistan, and Rwanda especially. <br />
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We are not spared the horror. The church in Nyarubuye will haunt the reader as it does journalist and narrator, Kate Price. Denise’s exploration of the nature of evil is very confronting. How can anyone machete or rape a child? <br />
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At the same time she examines the forces that attract correspondents and photojournalists to cover the barbarism we call war. For photographer Peter McDermott, “This is who I am. This is where it begins and ends for me.” Terms like Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome can never do justice to the prices they pay for this deadliest of careers. Her earlier <a href="http://www.deniseleith.com/books/bearing-witness">Bearing Witness</a>: The Lives of Correspondents and Photojournalists is a non-fiction analysis of this phenomenon.<br />
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I am reminded of Australian combat cameraman <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Davis_(cameraman)">Neil Davis</a> who received worldwide acclaim for his work in Vietnam and Cambodia during the Indochina war. It was a fatal addiction - he was killed in Bangkok in 1985 filming an attempted coup.<br />
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It is Denise’s first novel. Her lean, economical style is reminiscent of that other witness to war – Ernest Hemingway. You won’t find many adjectives or adverbs or transitional words. Although it sometimes lacks the polish of a practiced professional storyteller, its rawness creates much of its power. She concentrates on small details of people and places to create the big pictures of a world gone crazy. Photographs and pictorial memories are key elements. In addition, the first-person narrative is well suited to its emotional purposes – self examination and self discovery. <br />
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The novel is old-fashioned in several ways. It’s easy to read and often hard to put down. Denise creates intimacy through the subtle use of the senses rather than bedroom gymnastics. She doesn’t do hot sex scenes.<br />
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On the other hand, it is very modern. It begins and ends with email.<br />
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The climax is not unexpected. It is foreshadowed throughout the book. What remains? A day after reading, it is the people who wake each day in places the places and situations that most of us could not even imagine.<br />
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PS Yesterday we had the opportunity to hear and meet Denise Leith at a Beaumaris Books’ evening event at one of the local cafés Malt. Her thought-provoking talk helped to inform this review.</div>
Kevin Renniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873737997935813248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-602087898702321424.post-35157684398344223472012-02-12T16:14:00.001+11:002012-12-15T19:59:04.363+11:00Australian Women Writers: Amanda Lohrey's The Philosopher's Doll<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This review is part of the <a href="http://australianwomenwriters.com/2012-challenge/" target="_blank">Australian Women Writers Challenge 2012</a>:<br />
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[Warning: As they say in cinema reviews, this post may contain spoilers.]<br />
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It may have been a mistake to follow Marion Halligan’s<i> <a href="http://redbluffreview.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/australian-women-writers-marion.html">Valley of Grace</a></i> with another novel that has a philosopher who doesn't want to have children, and a tense encounter with confit de canard.<br />
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In fact the first part of Amanda Lohrey's <i><a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?id=XhdWAAAACAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s">The Philosopher's Doll</a></i> is entitled 'Duck'. Despite the weak pun, it is the most satisfying section of a book that has a split personality. It has strong echoes of some of Philip Roth's better writing. <br />
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Melbourne academic Lindsay Eynon is not ready to commit to parenthood. Not even his besotted student Sonia can distract him from his speculations about the meaning of reality and existence. Through his teaching we encounter Descartes' and La Mettrie's attempts to unravel the same puzzles. Rumours of René's mechanical doll resurrect the Enlightenment disputes between science and religion. Are we humans just machines that bleed? The theories of his compatriot and follower, La Mettrie, sow questions about the animal soul.<br />
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Appropriately named, the next section 'Dog' explores communication breakdown, as husband and wife secretly pursue their separate agenda. Lindsay takes a bizarre detour down the Great Ocean Road to doggy breeding land. His disturbing experiences there should have been an omen. Yet like a Thomas Hardy character who has seemingly lost both commonsense and freewill, he can't help himself.<br />
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At the same time Lohrey constructs a pregnancy testing manual, as Kirsten turns to medical science as a substitute for sharing or ethical decision-making. Perhaps her work at what used to called a home for juvenile delinquents clouds her judgment a tad.<br />
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Just as the story approaches what should be its climax, there is an abrupt change of voice. Sonia emerges from nowhere to give us not one but two coda (should that be codas or code?). The abrupt jump from third to first person narrative challenges our understanding of earlier realities, especially Lindsay's point of view. This literary device is both intriguing and annoying.<br />
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This final third of the novel recounts Sonia's attempts to reconcile her obsessive youth. In 'Dildo' the reader does not get the hoped-for climax. At the very least, we learn that old dogs can be taught new tricks and younger ones old. The writing and style fall off, though this may be caused by the change of voice.<br />
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Nevertheless, we don't actually find out about the dog's fate until the actual coda, 'Torque'. Amanda's metaphors take a final twist as precision flying is used as another literary stunt. Sonia seems incapable of taking cardiologist and pilot David Goodman's advice: "...if you rely on your instincts you'll crash". La Mettrie's fatal dish of pheasant morphs into the latest pregnancy as "Headlong we began our descent." It's a soft but unsatisfactory landing.<br />
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If only the dog could speak. Latro ergo sum.<br />
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Whether you remember this novel fondly or not, will probably depend on your reactions to its concluding sections. Unfortunately you can't choose your own adventure and discover an alternative resolution. Don't be deterred - give it a go. Amanda's writing is very readable, original and thought provoking.<br />
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Kevin Renniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873737997935813248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-602087898702321424.post-45654434710594388642012-01-30T17:27:00.000+11:002012-12-15T19:59:42.519+11:00Australian Women Writers: Marion Halligan’s Valley of Grace<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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This review is part of the <a href="http://australianwomenwriters.com/2012-challenge/" target="_blank">Australian Women Writers Challenge 2012</a>:<br />
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Marion Halligan’s <i>Valley of Grace</i> (Allen & Unwin 2009) is a tender and warm treatment of many of life’s challenging aspects: love, relationships, procreation, care of children, religious belief, personal and cultural legacy. To name just some of her major themes.</div>
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The novel is set in France, a marked contrast to some earlier works such as <i>The Point</i> that take place in Australia. Its history, culture and architecture occupy much of the story. The presence of a celebrity academic philosopher in the story is emblematic of this context. </div>
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The French fixation with Louis XIV, the Revolution and the German occupation is never far away. The present is still haunted by the ghosts of partisans and collaborators alike. </div>
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Interaction with the built environment is also a key element, whether it be homes, renovations or public buildings. So are books and art. It wouldn’t be France without an Art exhibition even if the paintings of flowers fails to inspire. The bookshop, Le Vieux Latin, has a more authentic flavour.</div>
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Yet it is the personal that most absorbs Marion. She explores the nature of relationships: love, partnership, monogamy, brief encounters, infidelity. These include single gender partners, both gay and lesbian. The influence of parents is also an essential part of the lives of many of her characters.</div>
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Begetting and care of children is a central theme. Whether planned, accidental or unwanted, procreation is pervasive. Whether it is love child or wild child, the flotsam and jetsam of human desire wash up at regular intervals. We encounter sexual exploitation, shocking amorality and complex moral dilemmas. Marion is not afraid to explore the dark side. The treatment of children damaged by disease or by those who should protect them is a disturbing aspect of the narrative. </div>
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Religion is never far from the surface. The title comes from the Val de Grace, a Paris church built by Anne of Austria to commemorate the birth of her son Louis XIV after twenty-three years of marriage. The mummified hearts of the royals were apparently used in paint mixture for Art works during the revolution. It’s a metaphor that doesn’t quite gel. A trip to Lourdes for a son and ailing mother brings a strange encounter but no revelations.</div>
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Given Halligan’s interest in cuisine, it is surprising that food does not bring more joy in this French setting. The culinary fare is disappointing: unappetising lunch at an upmarket restaurant; a housewarming offering of sushi; steak and chips chosen over “excellent tripe sausages” at a corner bistro. It seems that fois gras and confit of duck cause indigestion for the expectant mother. The best eating happens on a honeymoon in Turkey. (A portion of Louis’ heart is also supposed to have been eaten but this bizarre gastronomic incident is not mentioned).</div>
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Two other aspects of the novel were annoying. Firstly, it has too many characters that are often just loosely connected. Secondly, just too much happens. In some ways <i>Valley of Grace</i> is more a series of vignettes than a coherent novel. Less in greater depth would have been more satisfying. But don't be put off. Her intimate but fluid style makes for a good read.</div>
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For all the human failings she presents, Marion Halligan leaves us with hope, hope for “happy beginnings… when a child is born.” Hope to build on.</div>
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Kevin Renniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01873737997935813248noreply@blogger.com4