I Hope This Doesn't Find You

Next on my list of the CBCA Older Readers Notables is Ann Liang's I Hope This Doesn't Find You. Since I began this list, the official shortlist for the awards has been released, and it includes three books I've already read -- A Wreck of Seabirds, Birdy, and Comes the Night. I was disappointed that Deep Is the Fen missed out -- I wish Lili Wilkinson would get more recognition from awards committees.

I Hope This Doesn't Find You didn't make the shortlist cut, either, but my friend Cathy who is a librarian at a girls' school tells me Ann Liang's books absolutely fly off the shelves, so maybe she doesn't need any extra help! This novel centres on high-achieving, self-effacing private schoolgirl Sadie Wen, who has endured a ten year rivalry with her co-school captain, the insufferable (but weirdly hot) Julius Gong. Julius inspires such strong emotions in Sadie -- it's because they hate each other, right? Right?

I found this book a bit of a weird reading experience because, although Liang explicitly says it's set in Melbourne, it seems to float in a strange unanchored American-ish location, where there is a palm-lined beach two hours from the city, people say Mom and math, students aspire to attend Harvard and Berkeley and older brothers live in college dorms. I found this disorienting, but Cathy assures me it works for Liang's young readers. For me, the will-they, won't-they romance took a while to get going, and I was more interested in perfectionist Sadie's urge to control and solve every problem, while never admitting to any weakness in herself. Her dilemma is symbolised early in the novel when a secret cache of draft rage-emails are unwittingly sent to the whole school, and everyone learns what Sadie is really thinking.
 

Prep

It's official: my mild crush on Curtis Sittenfeld has turned into a full-blown passion. Her smash debut novel, Prep, which is surely at least semi-autobiographical, follows diffident, middle class, Mid-western student Lee as she navigates a posh East Coast boarding school. I never wanted this novel to end. I was totally absorbed in Lee's agonising social awkwardness, her desperate attempts to fit in. As someone tells her towards the end of the book, 'You should have realised you're not that weird, or that being weird is not that bad.' (I'm paraphrasing.)  

Lee's experience at boarding school reminded me of my own life at residential college. At one point, Lee begins cutting people's hair; it gives her a social role, a confidence, an identity. That reminded me of the way I used to tell fortunes for my fellow students with tarot cards. The section where Lee faces expulsion from the school because she's failing pre-calcuus was viscerally distressing (mind you, I can't see how she could go from utter bafflement to a B or C the next year without ever actually understanding what she'd missed). The stakes are very low throughout -- no one's life is ever at stake -- but Lee's misery and joy are so closely observed that we feel her pain and delight in our own body.

I was fascinated to discover that Ault, the posh school in the novel, was based on Groton School in Connecticut which Sittenfeld herself attended, and which in turn featured as a filming location in the movie The Holdovers, which I watched over summer. So I can summon up some images of Lee's beautiful, traditional school surroundings. It was those images that she first fell in love with, just like I fell in love with the Oxford-style (or so I assumed) buildings of my college. Mind you, the students at my college didn't have ridiculous names like Horton, Aspeth, Gates (girls) Cross, Devin, and McGrath (boys). That's first names, not surnames, just to be clear.

Curtis Sittenfeld has just released a collection of short stories, which includes one featuring the characters from Prep. I'm in two minds about whether to read it, because I've heard mixed opinions, but I bet I won't be able to resist.

 

A Company of Swans

I recently read another novel by Eva Ibbotson, The Countess Below Stairs, so I pounced on this ex-library copy of A Company of Swans. Originally published in 1985 as an adult romance (like The Countess), it was reissued in 2013 by Macmillan Children's Books. I feel this was a... dubious... decision. Certainly from the look of this cover, and the others in the Macmillan series, the casual browser would probably take A Company of Swans to be a conventional ballet book, a suitable follow-up to Noel Streatfeild's Ballet Shoes, or Lorna Hill's Sadlers Wells series. But it's not.

A Company of Swans is a sweet, frothy romance. Young adults could definitely read it in safety, and no doubt that was what Macmillan intended. However, to my eye, it is clearly marked and packaged as a children's book: a children's book that features, as the kids say these days, 'some spice.' We have brothels, seduction, naked breasts and an instance of heartbreaking child neglect. It also has an exotic setting -- South America in 1912 -- with some potentially awkward colonialist overtones. However, overall, it's a delightful romp, with a noble hero, a kind, determined heroine, and an array of stiffly respectable adversaries whose defeat is a joy to witness.

I think I know exactly what to expect from Eva Ibbotson now, and I'm looking forward to reading more.
 

Conclave

I just realised I forgot to write about Robert Harris's novel Conclave, which I finished about a week ago! I borrowed it from my daughter and gave it back to her when I'd finished reading it, so it vanished from my various book piles -- it's out of sight, out of mind, with me. My younger daughter saw a preview of the recent film, starring Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci and Isabella Rossellini, and then took me to see it because she thought I'd enjoy it, which I did.

The film is mostly faithful to the novel, which follows a straightforward timeline. There are several likely candidates for the role of new pope, but as the conclave proceeds over several days, one by one doubts arise about the integrity or suitability of each frontrunner. The outside world intrudes by means of a terrorist attack nearby; Dean Lomeli (Lawrence in the film) is racked with his own crisis of faith and dabbles in a little detective work. When the last vote is taken, everyone is happy with the final decision -- but there is one more mighty twist to come...

Conclave is a highly readable, engaging glimpse into a world that most of us know little about, with its arcane rituals, shameful secrets and strange leadership role in an increasingly secular world. It was an undemanding read (it was my daughter's 'tram book') but a very enjoyable one, even though I already knew what was going to happen!
 

Upheaval

I've read almost all of Jared Diamond's comparative history books, starting with Guns, Germs and Steel, which had a profound effect on the way I saw the world, but also Collapse, The World Until Yesterday, and The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee. In Upheaval, which was actually published in 2019, Diamond takes seven case studies of nations that have faced various crises (military coups, invasion, sudden contact with the outside world) and compares how successfully (in his view) they have handled them. Interestingly, one of his case studies is Australia, and the slowly unfolding challenge this country has faced in separating our identity from Great Britain (and re-attaching ourselves to the US instead, which is not looking like a great idea at the moment). He also examines the histories of Indonesia, Finland, Chile, Japan and Germany.

The last part of the book was most interesting, because Diamond turned his critical lens on his home country, the United States, and wondered how well his own nation might handle a crisis. Upheaval was written before the Covid pandemic (which the US handled badly), and before Trump's second presidency (though during his first). Diamond pointed to the biggest problem, in his opinion, in the US being the growing polarisation of political opinion, and the loss of the ability to compromise -- it's hard to disagree that this situation has indeed led to catastrophe, just a few years after Upheaval was published. I'm sure Diamond feels no satisfaction in seeing his predictions come to pass, but his observations were so astute that I feel a new respect for his insights on other matters, too -- even Australia.