On the Calculation of Volume II

I think I'm becoming addicted to Solvej Balle's series, On the Calculation of Volume. I still think it's not a great title, but in part 2, it starts to make more sense as Tara begins to think of herself as living in a container: a single day, a courtyard filled with sky, the borders of the Roman Empire, with which she becomes obsessed in this book.

I'm not sure how I've become so captured by this story. There is very little incident, and the events that do happen don't have much consequence, because Tara's day resets to 18th November every morning. And yet I'm hypnotised, eagerly turning the pages to find out what she'll do next. The last volume ended with Tara having spent 365 days, a whole year, trapped in 18th November, and hoping that the next morning, time would start to turn normally again, like jumping off a carousel. On the first page of volume 2, we find that's not the case. In this book, Tara devotes herself to trying to construct an artificial year, chasing the seasons north and south to find a copy of spring, summer and winter, instead of her perpetual autumn. Then she takes a deep dive into the world of the ancient Romans, but this doesn't solve anything either. The book ends with a kind of cliff hanger, as we learn that Tara is not alone -- she has met someone else who is similarly trapped in time, but we have to wait till book 3 to discover anything more about him.

I think it's safe to say that I'm hooked. Book 3 is already waiting for me on the reserve shelf at the library. 
 

The Broken Road

I snapped up the third volume of Patrick Leigh Fermor's travel memoir, The Broken Road, when it appeared on Brotherhood Books, though I have yet to read the middle book, Between Woods and Water. The three volumes recall a long trip made by Leigh Fermor on foot across Europe to Constantinople (as it was in the mid-1930s), at the age of eighteen-nineteen/twenty. It's quite a shock when he celebrates his twentieth birthday at the end of The Broken Road and you're reminded just how young he was when he made this great trek, carrying just a rucksack on his back, a few letters of introduction, and relying on the arrival of cash at the next Poste Restante. This volume traces his wanderings through Bulgaria and Romania, ending with a sojourn at Mount Athos in Greece.

Young Patrick enjoyed a lot of advantages in making this journey -- he's confident, fit, posh (or at least well-connected, and able to sometimes stay with ambassadors and the relatives of posh friends). He picks up different languages with incredible ease. He's attractive and charming, well able to talk his way into a bed for the night, whether that's with a casual acquaintance met in a local bar or a shepherd whose hut he's come upon in the middle of a rainy night. His self-confidence is stunning; it's impossible to imagine a young woman of the same age being able to undertake a similar trip, which is not to say that his long walk is without danger, because he sometimes skates perilously close to trouble. Am I jealous? Maybe a bit.

Leigh Fermor's writing is, however, equally stunning. He sketches brilliantly vivid word-pictures, so you feel you're walking beside him and experiencing exactly what he sees. His memory is extraordinary, even in this final volume where he admits there are gaps and blurs in his recollection. Of course he is also often relying on the diary he kept at the time, and the very final section, about his time on Mount Athos, consists of extracts from that diary. I wish I could have written something so lucid, so piercingly observant and erudite, when I was twenty (or now, come to that). Patrick Leigh Fermor's writing is a treat, a journey to be savoured slowly and every moment relished.

 

The Winter King

A few years ago I went on a bit of a King Arthur binge, reading as many versions of the Camelot story as I could lay my hands on. Bernard Cornwell's Warlord trilogy pinged my radar, but when I couldn't get hold of the first volume, The Winter King, at my local library, I let it slide. But now I've remembered that the Athenaeum library has lots of books that local libraries don't have on the shelves anymore, and I thought I'd check this out.

I can definitely see why Cornwell's take on the Arthur legend has been so popular and acclaimed. It's very well written, and an historically quite plausible explanation for Arthur and his knights ('warriors' in Cornwell's story). In this version, narrated by aged monk but one time warrior Derfel, Arthur is no king but a war leader, appointed to defend the kingship of High King Uther's baby son Mordred in the chaotic decades after the Romans left the shores of Britain. I laughed aloud at the unflattering portrait of Lancelot, a vain, boastful and cowardly liar who spreads tales about his own prowess on the battlefield. Arthur is a gifted strategist and inspired leader, but he is also flawed -- breaking a valuable alliance in order to marry Guinevere, maybe a touch vain and arrogant himself. Merlin, a wise but capricious Druid, doesn't appear until about halfway through the novel, though his shadow looms long over the story.

If Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon is the Arthur story from a female perspective (I'm so upset that my conscience will no longer allow me to read it), then The Winter King is told from an emphatically male point of view (though there are a respectable number of strong and complicated women). This is a brutal world of death, battle, rape and sacrifice. Druids slaughter captives to read the future in their entrails. Derfel narrowly escapes an early death when a marauding warrior hurls him into a pit of spikes as a child. Nimue is raped and loses an eye at fourteen. The narrative pivots on battles, described in gory and unflinching detail.

The Winter King ends on an unlikely victory for Arthur which seems set to award him the High Kingship of Britain. I'm not sure whether I'll continue the story through the next two volumes -- I feel I've got the flavour of what Cornwell is doing and it might be a bit strong meat for a wimp like me.
 

Good Girl, Bad Blood

Unusually for me, I came to this book via television, after watching A Good Girl's Guide to Murder on Netflix. A few days later I came across the next two volumes in Holly Jackson's bestselling series, Good Girl, Bad Blood and As Good As Dead, in a local street library. I left volume three there, but I took Good Girl, Bad Blood because I had seen on Reddit (yeah, yeah, I know) that people adored the books and some felt the TV version was disappointing.

Having now read volume two, I can understand the love for the book character of Pip Fitz-Amobi, though I think Emma Myers did an excellent job of portraying her. She is a dogged, feisty and intelligent sleuth, and if she's rash at times, it just makes the story better. It might stretch credulity that the same village that was the site of two murders five before is currently also home to a serial killer's accomplice, but hey, good girls can't go searching too far for mysteries to solve and it helps if the mystery comes to Pip. Ravi, Pip's boyfriend, and her best friend Cara, are excellent foils, and Pip's parents are remarkably understanding and sympathetic in the circumstances.

I admired Pip's very plausible wrestling with the aftermath of the previous crimes, including the justice system falling short, and her temptation to take matters into her own hands and become some kind of avenging angel. The formatting of the text is a lot of fun, with podcast interviews and text messages woven into the narrative. I can see exactly what the fuss is about, and though I'd half decided not to watch season 2 of the TV version, I just might take a peek after all.

The Friend

 

Sigrid Nunez's short novel The Friend had the potential to be a sensitive read for me -- it deals with the death of a close friend by suicide, and the ageing and decline of a beloved dog, as well as a writer dealing with an inability to write and the ethical dilemmas involved in writing about real life and real relationships, all of which are delicate subjects for me! But I loved it.

Very clearly labelled as 'A Novel,' The Friend nonetheless bears the hallmarks of being drawn at least partly from real experience. The musings on the writing process and the politics of publication and teaching, the pain of dealing with the suicide of a loved one, and the growing mutual love between the narrator and the enormous Great Dane she was (at first) unwillingly saddled with, are all beautifully and thoughtfully handled -- that slippage between narrative fiction and autobiographical musings reminded me strongly of Helen Garner's work.

The Friend was also made into a film starring Naomi Watts as 'Iris,' the narrator, and Bill Murray as 'Walter,' the unnamed mentor and friend who in the novel is addressed only as 'you.' I did wonder how they were going to adapt a slim book which is mostly an internal monologue into an almost two hour movie, but I thought it was actually very successful -- a quietly moving and gentle experience, with deft touches of humour. It's on Netflix if you're interested. And the dog is wonderful.

Shirley Flight, Air Hostess in Storm Warning

My copy of the unwieldily-titled Shirley Flight, Air Hostess in Storm Warning doesn't actually have this cover -- instead the hard cover is prettily patterned with tiny aeroplanes, which caught the eye of my younger daughter in an op shop and made her decide it would be a perfect birthday present for me. It's true, this 1961 book fits beautifully into the oeuvre of girls' career books that were discussed in A Smart Suit and White Gloves, though the Shirley Flight books were sadly not mentioned in it.

After a little digging, I learned that 'Judith Dale,' the author, was actually Edward Reginald Home-Gall, who produced sixteen books in this series, in which Shirley Flight goes to Congo, Spain, China and Hollywood, and tangles with diamond smugglers and the Flying Doctor among many other adventures. Storm Warning sees Shirley's plane downed in Mauritius in response to an impending cyclone. Most of the story centres on Shirley's plucky efforts to secure accommodation for and feed her roster of passengers in a shabby hotel, where of course her charm and ingenuity satisfies even the fussiest 'pax.' The final section of the novel crams in pages of breathless adventure, as Shirley and her 'red-haired pal' Wendy rescue a kidnapped teenager, brave a simultaneous earthquake and cyclone, and foil some 'swarthy' treasure seekers.

Unfortunately the book is marred by some egregious racism, as Mauritius (which to me sounds engagingly diverse) is described in the most unflattering terms as being populated with 'lazy' and 'indolent' persons of various cultural heritages, the names for which I won't repeat here. Even the French hotel proprietor is a purely comic figure, and don't get me started on the sinister Hispanic villains. I suppose at least Storm Warning shows Shirley and Wendy actually doing their jobs as well as pluckily flying into the teeth of storms, climbing cliffs and rescuing victims of abduction.

Lonely Castle in the Mirror

I don't know how I've managed to remain oblivious to this book for so long -- it is so exactly right up my alley, and I only found out about it by accident, and I decided to borrow it on the strength of the title alone. First published in 2017, Mizuki Tsujimura's Lonely Castle in the Mirror is a much loved favourite in Japan, and has been turned into a series of manga volumes and an animated film.

For me, it did take a while for the story to get moving, but the third and final section of the book positively galloped along as all the plot pieces fell into place. Lonely Castle in the Mirror opens with Kokoro, who is refusing school and hiding in her room after being traumatised by bullies. Magically her bedroom mirror opens a portal to another reality -- an enchanted castle where she finds six other junior high students, most of them also avoiding school, and all with their own private problems, and a mysterious wolf-girl who calls the shots and tells them they have access to the castle for a single year, during which they must find a hidden key to a secret room which will grant one of them a wish.

I did find what I assume to be traditional Japanese courtesy and reticence a bit frustrating initially, as it took ages for the seven to start to trust each other and begin exchanging information that allows them to solve the questions of how and why they've been summoned here. (I did pick the twist, she says smugly.) But after the slow start, the plot slides into place like a beautifully made puzzle box. If I were younger and didn't have a gazillion more books on my pile to read, I could imagine re-reading Lonely Castle immediately to pick up the clues. 

But more than a satisfying fantasy mystery, Lonely Castle has a lot to say about bullying, shame, friendship and mental health, and many young readers will see themselves reflected here. 

The Model Murder

I am really enjoying Amanda Hampson's series of Tea Ladies mysteries. This latest installment, The Model Murder, is set in 1968 and times are changing. Protests against the war in Vietnam are in the streets, pop art frocks are on the way in, but Hazel and her friends are once again drawn into a shadowy world of crime and corruption, brothels and bookies.

The Model Murder is a clever title, as we're not sure until almost the end of the novel whether the missing model in question is a victim or the perpetrator of the killing. This book abounds with deceptions, lies and fake identities. Stern, self-righteous Merl has been hiding a secret for thirty years, and when the reason for it is finally revealed, it expands the tea ladies' universe a little more. Betty gets caught up in an avant-garde theatre group, whose members are not all they seem, and whose workshops are painfully funny for any student theatre victim-survivors. Irene finds herself a new weapon, which will no doubt feature in future volumes. And I hope there are future volumes. The Tea Ladies are undemanding but highly enjoyable company.
 

Books That Made Us

 

Books That Made Us by Carl Reinecke is the companion volume to the ABC television series from 2021, and it was a birthday present from one of my daughters. It's turned out to be the perfect accompaniment to the current conversation about the Top 100 Australian books list being put together by Radio National. It's a succinct but comprehensive and very readable summary of the history of Australian literature and publishing, from Marcus Clarke's Term of His Natural Life up to Melissa Lucashenko's Too Much Lip. 

I was pleased to encounter plenty of old friends among these books, but I was also alerted to some big gaps in my reading education. I've still never read anything by Patrick White or George Johnston, for example. But it was wonderful to accidentally listen to a segment on Late Night Live about the poet Lesbia Harford, and recognise the names of her associates Katharine Susannah Prichard and Vance and Nettie Palmer from reading Books That Made Us.

Reinecke has helped me put a context around some authors who came to prominence slightly before my time, like Thomas Kenneally and Frank Moorhouse, as well as writers I feel I know much better, like Helen Garner and Christos Tsiolkas. Books That Made Us works perfectly as an educational guide as well as a Books To Read list and a potted history of Australia itself.

Gullstruck Island

This is the first Frances Hardinge book I've read, and I gather it's a good one to start with. Already I'm in awe of her virtuosic world-building, her vivid characters and setting, and her brilliantly imaginative story-telling. Gullstruck Island opens with a description of the 'Lost,' just the first of many rich ideas: the Lost are gifted but vulnerable members of the community who have the ability to detach their senses from their bodies and travel at will -- what we used to call astral travelling, though I haven't heard anyone talk about that for a long time. The Lost are vital for communicating news, forecasting weather and spotting distant dangers, and when they are all mysteriously killed in the space of one night, the whole island is bereft. The only surviving Lost seems to be quiet Hathin's sister Arilou, and the secret they never mention is that Arilou may not be a Lost after all...

There are wonderful layers of subtext in Gullstruck Island, about race and colonisation, but couched in a fantasy setting that echoes without exactly replicating real world history. 'The Lace' are an oppressed minority with their own culture and dialect, and it's the ancient stories of the Lace that end up pointing the way to everyone's salvation from the conspiracy that threatens the island.

It was quite shocking to read the last portion of the novel, which involves a volcanic eruption with a flood of mud, rock and steam rolling inexorably down the channel of a valley -- exactly like the horrific events in Nepal recently. Though Gullstruck was published fifteen years ago, it felt eerily and horribly contemporary, and impossible to read without recalling the terrifying images from that part of the world.
 

Restless Dolly Maunder

  

After the success of Kate Grenville's exploration of her mother's story in One Life, Grenville went back another generation to explore her maternal grandmother's life in Restless Dolly Maunder. Dolly appears in One Life as a difficult, sometimes cold and demanding woman; in Restless, she comes fully into focus as an energetic, thwarted character who could have achieved so much more if she'd been allowed the same freedoms and opportunities as a man.

Interestingly, while One Life was classed as a biography, Restless Dolly Maunder is published as a novel. I guess Grenville felt that the gaps she had to fill with imagination and speculation were that much larger for her grandmother than for her mother. In some ways, I didn't serve Dolly Maunder well by reading her book straight after One Life, because it covers much of the same ground and I didn't feel I was encountering a new person, though Dolly's story is much more fleshed out and she is more sympathetic than her portrayal in One Life.

I enjoyed Restless Dolly Maunder for the same reasons that I loved One Life: it's a window into a life that would have otherwise gone unremarked and uncelebrated, a life of a courageous, smart, determined woman who did her best with the hand she was dealt, sometimes at the cost of her closest personal relationships. (Her husband's infidelities also played a role, to be fair.) Kate Grenville has mined her family's history to great effect, I could read any number of these stories, but I guess she might have run out of material by now.

The Dark Flood Rises

Margaret Drabble's The Dark Flood Rises has earned a dubious distinction: it is the first overdue book I have had from the local library since I first joined it over twenty years ago (I've just discovered I've borrowed 1379 books in that time, honestly I'm surprised it's not more).

The reason it became overdue is simple: I bit off more than I could chew. Between two libraries, books coming off reserve, birthday presents, and loans from friends, my immediate TBR pile was completely unmanageable. I thought no one else would be urgently requiring the Drabble novel, so I renewed it a couple of times, and it turns out you're not allowed to keep renewing loans indefinitely! Who knew?

Margaret Drabble's The Millstone was the first adult novel I remember reading that I identified with instantly and instantly. Self-sufficient, perhaps lonely Rosamund, with her deep desire to cause no fuss and put nobody out, seemed to be my soul twin (perhaps I should go back and reread it, and see if it lands any differently nearly half a century on). I've kept reading Margaret Drabble's novel, feeling at home with her privileged, inward-looking protagonists, until now we've reached what must be near the end of the road. The Dark Flood Rises is all about old age and death. There are a couple of actual deaths, and a few near misses, but most of the novel is occupied with Drabble's usual meandering meditation around a particular subject, drawing in literary allusions, dream imagery, snippets of social history and entertaining anecdote. It's not so much a deep dive as a thoughtful stroll, as characters briefly touch and separate, images and phrases echo and recur, and the reader is invited to place themselves among the passing parade. Am I more like Fran, frantically distracting herself from the inevitable and determined to be useful? Or like Josephine, burrowing into a safe hole with books and intellectual diversions? Or like Bennett and Ivor, fleeing to the sun and the simple pleasures of food and drink and reminiscence?

At 87, we can expect no more fiction from Margaret Drabble, but my goodness, what a rich legacy she will leave behind. 

On the Calculation of Volume 1

I heard On the Calculation of Volume by Danish author Solvej Balle being discussed on the Radio National Book Shelf program, and because it has a timey-wimey plot, I was instantly intrigued. Main character Tara finds herself trapped in a time loop, where she wakes up day after day stuck inside the 18th November, just like Groundhog Day, except without the comic slant, and with the difference that she wakes wherever she fell asleep the night before, rather than returning always to the same starting point.

Tara is away from home in Paris when the pattern strikes; in a panic, she flees for home and explains her situation to her husband Thomas. But the day is not repeating for him; every 18th November happens for the first time. Again and again Tara has to explain her plight. They experiment together, try to stay awake all night, try to figure out why some things reset and others remain used up or transported. Eventually Tara separates from Thomas, withdrawing into their spare room and living a shadow, unseen life around his movements (he, of course, assumes that she is away in Paris). As Tara draws closer to a full year having passed for her, having experienced 18th November 365 times, she wonders if the loop will close -- or is there some significant action she must take to break the spell?

On the Calculation of Volume has to be the dullest title I've ever heard, especially for such a weird, haunting little book. Maybe it sounds better in Danish? And I can't have been listening properly to the Book Shelf, because I entirely missed the fact that this is just volume 1 of a projected seven book series!I absolutely flew through this novel, unsettled and delighted. Needless to say I have already reserved volume 2. 

We Saw What You Started

 

It's fitting that I've finished the final book the CBCA Notables list during Book Week, just after the winners have been announced. I predicted that Barry Jonsberg's Darkest Night, Brightest Star, with its themes of toxic masculinity, male violence and trauma would be a timely winner this year, so I'm not surprised that it took out the top prize, while I was pleased that Lili Wilkinson's Unhallowed Halls and Jade Timms' Golden were both Honour books in the Older Readers category.

In some ways We Saw What You Started by Carla Salmon is a very typical entrant in the Older Readers list. Set in a coastal town -- tick. Elements of romance -- tick. A mystery/crime plot -- tick (crime is very hot right now). One character with an American background to increase its international appeal -- tick. In fact I didn't mind the American character this time, Otto splits the narration with local Aussie Milly, so the US viewpoint is not overwhelming (apparently as soon as an Australian book mentions the word Mum, it instantly forfeits any chance of US publication).

What gives We Saw What You Started its unique flavour is that the action is centred around the local surf club and the rivalry over championships. Milly's father seems to favour her twin brother Jasper; is Jasper really a bad seed, or just obnoxious? Meanwhile fires are starting all over town, and new arrival Otto keeps being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Who is innocent and who is guilty? We Saw What You Started is a satisfying mystery story, and dare I say it, a great beach read.

Discipline

 

I had to wait a looong time for Randa Abdel-Fattah's first adult novel, Discipline, to become available at the local library; the reservations started mounting up as soon as the controversy over her (non) appearance at the Adelaide Festival early this year hit the news. There are still 26 eager readers waiting.

Abdel-Fattah's experience as a writer for young adults shows in her skill at keeping the action moving. Discipline is set in 2021. Viewpoints flip between Ashraf, an academic under siege at his (fictional) university, and Hannah, a young journalist at a mainstream newspaper. Linking these two characters is Jamal, Ashraf's PhD student and Hannah's husband, whose family is under attack as Israeli forces bomb Gaza. All the characters are under pressure to mute their pain and anger at the situation in Gaza, with Hannah and Ashraf's superiors anxious not to offend the Jewish community.

Discipline is not just a chronicle of anguish and frustration. Ashraf and Hannah are both part of exuberant, supportive, tight-knit communities, while Hannah also draws strength from her religious practice. Abdel-Fattah is careful to show that Muslim, Arab and Palestinian identities, while overlapping, are not identical and not monolithic. At times Discipline is uncomfortable to read, as it highlights moments when I might have 'both-sides'd Middle Eastern conflict, or slid unthinkingly into unsupported assumptions. I'm very grateful to Randa Abdel-Fattah for giving me such a vivid glimpse into her reality.