Recap

Jam-packed full of well-dressed bibliophiles, the literary nightclub wasn’t what we had expected. Patrick Neate hosted the event, introducing a series of readers like Sam Wagan-Watson (Aboriginal poet) and Anthony Swofford (Jarhead etc). In between, people were supposed to take advantage of the bar and mingle. There was an older crowd. At about 10pm, and mid-way through a live singer’s performance (how rude!) the people started to head home. L and I have ordered a copy of Watson’s book and I will post up some of his clever work soon.

Uni is back. Procrastination is the temptress once again. This semester I’m doing a Victorian Lit course, Ecotexts/Nature and Technology in Writing, an Education unit and a random history unit. In terms of new faces, I sat next to a girl in education, who asked me what indoctrination meant. She also admitted that she doesn’t want to be a teacher. Come again? Surely an arts degree, and then possibly a dip-ed on top would a better pathway if you couldn’t yet envisage yourself teaching.

Reading. Bumping along on the public transport system, I devoured a gorgeous little Korean novel sent my way by Bybee. It deserves its own pocket of cyberspace (a term coined in Gibson’s Neuromancer , so I learnt in Ecotexts). I will blog it tomorrow. Yes I will. This week I must finish All The Pretty Horses . Also, I’m going to sink myself into the acerbic Edwardian wit of Hector Hugo Munro.

Acquisitionist awakes

Irregularity is the key to a student’s sleeping patterns on holidays. The luxuriating laziness fostered in me has been shattered. Today, I awoke early for an education faculty welcome. The realities of classroom teaching were brought to our attention in our instructor’s anecdotes about a troublesome student.

One ringleader of a particular naughty bunch had brought the class into waves of giggles. He had put on a show of impersonating impertinence while she had left the class on an errand. Peering through the door, she caught the student trouncing the classroom, imitating her manner. Battling with the instinctual drive to yell at the student, she commanded him to stand up and stick out his hand. After shaking his hand and commending his dramatic ability, she asked him what else was in his repertoire. He imitated the deputy principal's peculiarities splendidly. Because of the offbeat manner in which she handled the situation, he began to improve his behaviour, pulling his cohort with him. As an aside, this little boy reminded me of the irreverent Trapp of Great Expectations fame.

We had a brief tour of the education building, which is off the main campus. It’s an intimate campus with a cosy library. We also have access to 24-hour computer labs, which are under safe surveillance. This ensures that students who find themselves homeless do not move in to the labs and drown their sorrows with bottle after bottle of gin. Well, that’s another story. So, the rest of the day is ahead of me. Tonight, I’m attending a literary nightclub- supposedly cocktails, funky tunes and bookish entertainment.

Night out at the theatre------ The Lady Aoi by Mishima.

(Picture courtesy of The Sunday Times)


Yesterday evening, L and I enjoyed an exquisite dinner at an Indian restaurant, MM. The lamb dishes were delectable, and the pistachio ice-cream we finished off with was worth being late to the theatre for. We arrived just after 8pm to be told it had already started. Luckily, the show did not actually commence until 30 seconds after we were ushered to our seats.

Rather than crackling with passion as promised, The Lady Aoi fizzled with lacklustre dramatic tension. Playwright Mishima, who I adore for his fusion of the macabre with sensuality, endeavoured to explore the psychological and philosophical domain of dreams. Dialogue was sparse; the philosophical pretensions of the play superficially spread. The actors’ attempts to compensate with overblown performances did not improve the entertainment value. Aoi, hospitalized on her death-bed, is a live and tortured presence played by the convulsive embodiment of Claudia Alessi. Her pervasive pain links the past and present in the realms of memory. Rivaling the audience in her ability to sit silently through the hour-long performance, I sympathised with her plight. Somebody give the poor girl a blanket before she catches pneumonia.

Some small gripes deserve mention- unfortunately the acquisitionist is oh-so cantankerous for one so young. The voices of some of the actors were nauseatingly articulated, either as they tried to project or eschew their Australian accents. However, the costuming was meticulously crafted. Hikaru’s ornamental and oriental-style garb was eye-catching. The dark hooded figure of Madame Rokujo entering the hospital to visit Hikaru, her past lover, was also disarming. The triangular stage design provided a physical map of the love conflict that was to unfold. Special effects did give a scintillating edge to the drama at times.

The chemistry between Hikaru and Madame Rokujo was lacking. The play culminated in a foofaraw of action. Failing to command my attention earlier, all the fuss seemed to demand it. Unfortunately, the phone call revelation at the end which aims to shatter the illusory and real boundaries was about as hackneyed as the flashback boating-days scene. However, the final image of efficiency that the nurse presented was striking as she slowly scrubbed the bloodied stage clean.

Self left feeling hollow, the audience also did not appear to be enamoured with The Lady Aoi. A few snickers escaped at the ostentatiously ‘erotic’ moments in the play, and several old dears in the audience covered their ears as the loud music threatened to damage the tympanic membrane. Although not a memorable performance, I’m glad I went because I would’ve been disappointed not to have seen a Mishima offering. It was a visual feast with a nutrionally- deficient main course.

Spring Snow

My introduction to Mishima came in the tautly composed The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea, a novel of nihilism and violence which unsettles the reader. On finishing the book of an evening, sleeplessness ensued. The bitterness of humanity glimpsed in the last pages left the stomach riddled with unease. Coming across Spring Snow in a bookstore I took it up to the counter, not knowing much about it. The young man at the counter had read it, and recommended it highly. Interestingly, he said it did not have the violent elements I expected. Violence is superseded by the piquancy of desire in the first book of the Sea of Fertility tetralogy.

Passion unfolds in a sensual frisson as the entanglement between aristocratic lovers Kiyoaki and Satoko engages the reader with its impossibility. Kiyoaki is a young man of delicate constitution. Spoilt by his family’s ascendancy and the misfortune of personal beauty he is characterized by capriciousness of feeling and action. His affection for Satoko paralyses him, and he treats her selfishly. Satoko, a beauty from an old and disempowered family receives advances of marriage from a royal suitor. Receiving no objection from Kiyoaki she pursues the elopement. Unfortunately, Kiyoaki’s lack of foresight lands the lovers in a compromising and doomed affair.

The novel left me with a desire to read more Mishima. Fortunately, I’m attending a Mishima play next week. I also plan to see a production of Pride and Prejudice. This week of theatre will be refreshing considering my lack of theatric entertainment of late.

Lackadaisical Lady

The last week has been one of reading paralysis. Like the inevitable dilemma of the ice-cream store, I have the problem of Too Much Choice. The days are dissolving as the university semester fast approaches. The lovely blogger Bybee has sent me a Korean delight, The Other Side of Dark Remembrance by Lee Kyun-Young. I look forward to dipping into the ‘mundane yet confused life of a metropolitan salaried man.’ I also *have* to read McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses because someone gave it to me in my philosophy class last semester. And my bookish expectations tell me that I’ll be galloping through the rest of the Border trilogy after reading the first offering.

I’m reading Jay Rubin’s biography of Murakami entitled Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words. The title notes the musical metaphors that infuse Murakami’s works. Having a keen interest in music, Murakami managed a jazz bar, where he indulged his penchant for Western literature, reading voraciously when he could. The biography captures the banality of Murakami’s career changing moment of epiphany. Beer-in-hand at a baseball game, the sun shining down, he decided he could write a novel at the age of 29. Murakami’s upbeat novels reflect the tempo of modernity. Indeed Murakami’s plots have fluidity, taking different courses of action, in rifts and fugues of improvised drama. Murakami actively disliked Yukio Mishima (p15). It’s interesting that although Murakami highlights his desire to avoid the Japanese condition, his novels have nuances and ideas that aren’t inherent in Western literature. Notably in Norwegian Wood, there seems to be a consciousness of a debt for happiness, and the sense of death as a live and pervasive presence.

In regards to my reading regime, I need a solid plan of attack. The three books I’ve just mentioned I will knock down. I also hope to review Mishima’s Spring Snow, which I finished recently. Has anyone else read this gorgeous book, or the others in the Sea of Fertility tetralogy? Tomorrow, I’ll head into uni to check out the course book offerings. One of my units is Victorian Literature, which will inevitably feature chunksters. I’m doing another course on nature and writing, which looks intriguing. Looks like a fun semester!

International bookclub initiative

IDEA: Reading Across Borders Book Group.
GENESIS: F for international reading savvy.

I took the Guardian World Book Day Quiz and have discovered that despite appearances, I’m internationally inept. Yeah, results so embarrassing that there will be no sharing of scores. With a remedy in order, I fired off an SOS in SMS form to some of my bookish friends.

I didn’t join the Reading Across Borders challenge. Flexibility wise, I don’t want my reading to be too encumbered. Genius for planning, the ironic feature ascribed to me in my name analysis, is but an illusion. Even my haphazard grocery manner is ridiculed by my housemate as ‘stream-of-consciousness shopping’.

Instead, I’m initiating a book group with some close friends of stellar literary caliber. All have worked at bookstores before or are current booksellers. (Not a prerequisite though, interested parties!) So, forget Nabokov’s jibe at the ‘deadly conventionality’ of bookclubs.

Books will be chosen in advance, with each member getting a turn at choosing a letter and a book. Choose a letter, and commence a country or regional exploration. Select an author’s work from that place which is not too difficult to obtain in translation. C- Canada (Oondatje) China (Xingjian), Calcutta (Singha), Carnavon (ahem). Monthly meetings will be over coffee with the possibility of national themed cuisine to mix it up occasionally.

Does anyone have any ideas or experience with organizing book club gatherings? If so, feel free to comment with any suggestions.

The current list of bookish babes is as follows:
E--> E is my character crush; the forest girl featured in my previous post. Impossible to get a date with, but hopefully I’ll be able to talk her into coming along. A real treasure. She once imparted a distilled gem of alternative health wisdom, namely, that one must avoid drifting into delusion.

L-->Ever the discerning reader, L has superior aptitude for making recommendations. Her book selections will be delightful. A seriously serial bibliophile, she always has several books on the bookstand. Currently reading The Girl who Played Go. She is sharp and informative. Just when you thought you were the only one, she’s guaranteed to know something about a given topic.

C-->The crazily talented vacillator, C is equally old/young, erudite/puerile, spatial/verbal. My witty wingman and a creative genius. My mind would have been even more culturally deficient if I hadn’t met her.

Acquisitionist- me. self-indulgent bloggerette.


Oh my, I’m an excited acquisitionist!

Illusionist: Character study (Paul Auster, Book of Illusions)

Paul Auster may be the absent author in your local bookstore. Auster, with his compelling prose, is a nonpareil with the kleptomaniacs. In a discussion between bookstore manager Tom Cushman and Paul Auster, Cushman notes that Auster’s books are frequently stolen:

“we had like 7 authors that we had the most popular stolen books, and out of the 7, Paul Auster was actually the only living author. He had the distinction of being the only living author who was most stolen.”

Auster’s novels have an urbane, worldly feel. Unfolding with the accelerated pace of everyday life, coincidences and diversions provide entertainment. Like in De Lillo’s works, Auster’s novels are suffused with engaging yet aloof prose. Caustic and intelligent characters create an intriguing fictional world.

The Book of Illusions is a fascinating study of grief and obsession. Tragedy, with its heavy permeation, weighs down on the protagonist. Carefully etched-out life plans are shattered; predictability a past attraction. Nine to Five. Annual Leave. House and Kids. These vestiges of normalcy are replaced by the unregimented expanse of free time.

Living-room mourning and day-time despair. The protagonist, hermit-like, vegetates on the couch, watching TV and old movie reruns. Unexpectedly, laughter is triggered. The protagonist’s interest is captured by a lesser-known comic, Hector Mann. The human element is reconnected, and he decides to pursue the comic’s works further. Spurned on by a desire to travel and write, the protagonist embarks upon a study of Mann’s films, penning his biography.

Considering I’m only a few chapters into The Book of Illusions, a comprehensive review is impossible. So turning it over to the reader- who captures your interest? If you were a writer, who would you like to conduct a character study of? It could be someone you know, a stranger, or the man who sells you fruit. If I could write, a fictional fleshing out of the eccentric E would be in order. A nervous wreck, she’s Croatian-Ukrainian with a gorgeous smile. She’s a writer who came back to civilization from “the forest”, a hideaway where she spent six months alone, trying to write her novel.

Quiet American review, Graham Greene.

Inspired by Sara’s review, I decided to pick up Graham Greene's The Quiet American for myself. As she noted, although the novel is a political picture of America’s involvement in the Vietnam War, these details enrich rather than encumber the reading experience. An older journalist, Fowler, revisits the love entanglement involving his mistress Phuong and Pyle, a zealous and idealistic journalist. Fowler’s role as a correspondent aids the first-person narration as he recounts without taking sides. His point of view is a springboard to show how personal responsibility overlaps with global considerations.

Pyle, described as a ‘quiet American’ is a symbol of America’s insidious impact upon Vietnam’s history. He orchestrates a Third Force to battle Ho Chi Minh’s forces and the French and her allies. In the early stages of the novel, Pyle’s innocence is described with a sense of foreboding:

‘Go in and find a table. I had better look after Pyle.’ That was my first instinct-to protect him. It never occurred to me that there was greater need to protect myself. Innocence always calls mutely for protection when we would be so much wiser to guard ourselves against it innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.’ 36

The unreality of war--the emotional distance between military and civilian is captured by this theme of innocence. Actions performed without regard to effect show the lack of understanding. Chilling imagery is conjured by Greene’s sparse writing style. A metaphoric depiction of bodies strewn in a ditch as an irish stew haunts the reader. It represents a hodgepodge cross-section of society who have unwittingly become part of bloodshed. The love relationship between Phuong and the two journalists highlights the impact of French colonialism and the reality that no matter how impartial Fowler seeks to be, neutrality is unattainable where human emotion is involved.

Countdown of a bibliomaniac: TBR

Bibliomania is a lifelong, crippling, bank-emptying disease. Symptoms include paroxysms of excitement on entering a bookstore, choice of handbag according to book crammability, and piles of books encroaching on the limited surface area in your abode. Piles like forts, comforted by their permanence in the booklover’s heart. Jumbled insights into bibliophilic madness. Unhealthy side-effects include book binges and dust. Lots of dust.

The uninitiated, on entering a bibliophile’s house will often inquire, “Have you read them all?” Impossible, since the rate of acquisition often exceeds the consumption of the bookworm. I discovered this gem in V.S Naipaul’s The Mystic Masseur, in which books are ostentatious, their mere presence revered as purveyors of intellectual fortitude:

Beharry nibbled. ‘I was just showing the pundit the books I does read.’
‘Read!’ Her tired face quickened with scorn. ‘Read! You want to know what he does read?’
Ganesh didn’t know where to look.
‘He does close up the shop if I don’t keep a eye on him and he does jump into bed with the books. I ain’t know him read one book to the end yet, and he ain’t happy unless he reading four give book at the same time. It have some people it dangerous learning them how to read.’ 70.

On my fiction shelves, I have 232 fiction TBR. Not formidable enough to discourage more book buying. Why? Some books on my shelves are non-identities. They’ve lost all appeal to me. I don’t know what possessed me to accumulate seven Atwood titles because desire to read her has dissipated. Whilst doing the count I did discover some neglected reads such as Ishiguro’s The Unconsoled and Kingsolver’s Pigs in Heaven, which have been surpassed by neoteric purchases. So, how is everyone else going with their TBR collection? Any interesting must reads that you have come across?

LOVE IN THE BOOKSTORE: BOOKISH RELATIONS

I sell books for bucks part-time. Our staff is a thoroughly attractive bunch. One girl, the lovely J, a fresh-faced, green-eyed, luminescent beauty, often finds herself approached by hopeful suitors. One day, a Jasper Fforde signing sci-fired up readers, the bookstore abuzz with the chattering commotion of fans. J stood sentinel, directing them into lines. She was approached by a man who asked her if Fforde would sign a book by a different author. Unfortunately, he had left his Fforde collection at home, he stated, with a strange conviction in the normalcy of this explanation. Odd request, but she had encountered it before. Advising him that Fforde would probably sign it, J told him to line up and check with the author. The man did not move on but instead, looking at her expectantly, asked her to sign the book for him.

“I don’t quite understand you” J replied, thinking he was one of the mild weirdoes that bookstores inevitably attract.

“I was wondering if you could sign my book” he repeated, “and…just underneath add your phone number” he said self-assuredly.

She chuckled gently, replying, “A for originality, but I have a boyfriend”.

“You can’t help but try” he said, walking away, his pride consoled, having elicited a giggle from a pretty girl.

The bookstore. A place for a bibliophile’s solo discovery. A pick-up joint. Most that enter enjoy reading. But is a love connection based on literary preference a risk worth taking? Journalist Marieke Hardy investigates this question in the Age article Left on the Shelf. She recalls her past bookish liaisons:

“Joel insisted I bone up on Bulgakov; Matty read Bukowski and then wrote countless pages in a similarly liquored-up style; Simon swore by the dusty prose of Tim Winton.”

In search of a literary lover, she attends a literary speed dating event in the hope of meeting, perhaps, an absolutely edible Vonnegut reader. Painstakingly, she chooses her book, Confederacy of Dunces, with awareness that reading taste speaks volumes about a person. The timer ticks, and the bibliophiles circulate:

"Men come and go; pages whirring. The music stops and starts. One by one, I am presented with a variety of male courters holding a variety of novels. David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species. In Cold Blood. The Michael Palin Diaries.

"Oh, lovely," I say when I see the Palin. "What's it like?".

He glances down at the shiny hardback. Picks absently at an Angus and Roberston price sticker.

"I don't know, I haven't read it. To be honest I just thought it looked OK so I picked it up on my way here and ..." he trails off, shrugging.
There is an awkward pause.

"So what do you do?" he asks eventually, trying to surreptitiously look down my top before our five minutes is up."

Loveless, Marieke Hardy emerges despondent. She muses that “an adoration of fine scribes can be such a random gift”. Consolation affords itself in the form of empty pages of possibility. Random moments on the train line, dinner parties and future novels offer opportunity for literary entanglement. Indeed, although most would not choose their nearest and dearest based on reading matter, it thrills the booklover’s heart to have a ‘you too?’ moment with another reader.