There is plenty of action in this fast-paced adventure, and the other volumes in the Firewatcher series take Kit further back in time, to Saxon Lundenwic and Roman Londinium. I love the concept of getting two historical timelines in a single book, and the idea of linking fires from different eras. An engaging story for younger readers.
I was very cross when I read a review of Wifedom in The Saturday Paper, that seemed to be berating Funder for failing to acknowledge sufficiently Orwell's genius. Well, Funder does acknowledge the value of Orwell's work, not just once but many times through the book; but on re-reading the review, it dawned on me that the reviewer seemed to under a fundamental misapprehension. He (yes, it was a he) seemed to think this was another biography of Orwell, this one focusing on what a bastard he was to his wife, and pleading for greater 'balance' by asking the author to admit that he wrote amazing books as well as being a bastard. Well, no. This is a book about Eileen, not George -- that's actually the whole point.
Quite apart from being a skilful, witty writer herself, and improving the quality of Orwell's writing (all his biographers admit his prose style improved markedly after his marriage), quite apart from creating the peaceful, organised domestic environment that he required to work, Eileen was the real performer when the duo travelled to Spain to fight in the Civil War. Though Orwell was terrified at the time, and for the rest of his life, that Stalinists were going to assassinate him, it's far more likely that they were targeting Eileen, who actually worked in the POUM office and would have possessed far more valuable information than George, who did little more than get himself wounded.
But Funder's most outstanding achievement in Wifedom is to show the sleights of hand, the judicious use of the passive voice ('passports were obtained...dalliances occurred...') to blur or erase Eileen's positive actions, and to do the same for Orwell's less admirable ones. If nothing else, it seems that Eileen had a huge part in creating Animal Farm, a work markedly unlike any other Orwell ever wrote, and for that alone, we have much to thank her.
However, I Have Some Questions For You, with or without Thalia Keith, is a brilliantly satisfying read. It skilfully combines dual timelines -- the present, in which alumna Bodie Kane returns to Granby school to take a podcasting course; and the past, in which she remembers the murder of a classmate in the 1990s. There is a lot going on in this novel, quite apart from the murder mystery. Makkai interweaves issues of cancel culture, sexual and racial politics, class, memory (not just for the facts of the fateful night or the months that led up to it, but the past students' memories of their own identities -- was Bodie a cool, even 'scary' Goth, or an awkward misfit? Was golden girl Beth Docherty effortlessly popular, or mired in misery? Was music teacher Denny Bloch (the 'you' of the title) an inspiring teacher, or a sexual abuser, or worse?)
I galloped through this thick book at top speed; luckily, I had a busy week, or I would have just sat down and devoured it from beginning to end. Makkai resists the temptation for easy solutions to the moral and ethical questions she poses here, and her prose is gorgeous. I hate to compare novels (at least in terms of quality), but I couldn't help contrasting Makkai's book with another adult novel I read recently (a very successful one) and the difference is chalk and cheese. I Have Some Questions For You is lots of fun, but it's also grown-up literature.
Although the diary was mostly written in 1983/4, and some observations have dated, it's horrifying to see how many still feel relevant forty years later. Perhaps Anneli's grandmothers might not be so keen to encourage her to play with dolls (or perhaps they would!), and perhaps the mothers of the little boys that Anneli plays with might not stress so hard the need for boys to not cry; and parents of both sexes might be less relaxed about the violence that the little boys mete out on the girls, and might not insist that the children have to 'work out their squabbles for themselves.'
In daily entries, Grabrucker observes and records the hundred little nudges that small children experience, pushing them toward inflexible gender roles: the advertising billboards that show naked women and powerful men; the fathers who fix things around the house; the urge to dress up little girls and tell them how pretty they look; the little boys who get away with snatching toys and how the girls are told to 'hold on more tightly next time.' Even for progressive, feminist German parents in the 1980s, who are convinced that they're bringing up boys and girls the same, and who are well aware of stereotypes, time and again they fall into the trap.
This is a slim book but it packs a punch far more powerful than its size suggests. Well worth reading, or re-reading, even now.
It's a fabulous story -- by which I mean, it's like a fable. Small, silent Clair-de-Lune lives in a tall old building filled with mysterious inhabitants in a city that seems quite like Paris. She lives with her grandmother in genteel poverty, just like Sylvia and her great-aunt in The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, except that Clair-de-Lune's grandmother is mean, unlike Sylvia's gentle aunt. Two of the most mysterious inhabitants are the kind monk, Brother Inchmahone (yes, there is a whole monastery secreted in the building, behind a stone door) and the chatty, excitable mouse Bonaventure, whose dream it is to start a ballet school for mice. (Shades of Narnia's gallant Reepicheep!)
To say more would be to spoil the story, but suffice it to say that Clair-de-Lune, most unexpectedly, made me cry. I'm a jaded old reader these days and I can't remember the last time I cried at a book, but Clair-de-Lune did it. This book is a gorgeous treasure, old-fashioned in the best possible way.
Pru's father is a doomsday prepper, and when his dire predictions seem to have come true, his daughters' first reaction is to groan that he will feel so smug. And yet his training proves to have been life-saving... up to a point. It's ironic that when this book was published in 2018, the real global catastrophe was still a couple of years away, and it took a very different form -- a pandemic rather than a massive electronics-frying electromagnetic pulse. And yet the same questions raised by ATLGO were so relevant to all of us -- how to strike a balance between protecting ourselves and helping others; what risks were worth taking; how much could we rely on outside agencies, and how much did we have to take care of ourselves; the ever-tilting seesaw between community and family and self-interest.
After the Lights Go Out is a fantastic read and it's restored my faith in young adult fiction! I note it was shortlisted for plenty of awards but annoyingly didn't actually win any. Grr.
The book is structured in a very readable way, with short chapters each focusing on a different aspect of Thom-Jones' personal experience: love of routine; food issues; facial recognition (or lack thereof!); special interests; sensory sensitivity. She begins each chapter with a personal anecdote, often quite funny, before leading into a general discussion of each issue. I must admit I found many of these aspects and habits very relatable -- if not for myself, then for one or both of my children. One of my daughters has been pressing for a diagnosis lately, and while I'm still not sure whether her wish is justified, Growing In To Autism may have nudged me closer toward following through.
I have yet to see the Amazon version of The Lost Flowers, but I can clearly see what attracted the producers to the project. The book is filled with beautiful and striking imagery -- a house in flames, a craters filled with desert pea flowers, a rushing river, names carved in a river red gum -- and themes tailor -made for television audiences, particularly the horror of domestic violence, dark family secrets, and the phenomenal endurance of women. In Holly Ringland's debut novel, she has taken care to include First Nations lore and multi-national stories, which round out a powerful story. (The Lost Flowers also ties in beautifully with much of what I read in First Knowledges: Plants, like the use of certain plants to make adhesives, or for healing.)
Evie and Rhino is also a striking story, one based partly on a true incident in the nineteenth century where a ship carrying animals destined for the Melbourne zoo was wrecked on the Victorian coast. In real life, the rhino on board died soon after the wreck, but in Neridah McMullin's story, he survives and befriends young Evie and her household, who are soon drawn into a conspiracy to save the gentle giant. It's a sweet tale about unlikely friendship, kindness and courage.
I've read The Daughter of Time a couple of times before, and I still find Tey's arguments pretty persuasive. In the middle of reading it, I (obviously) did some googling, and also listened to a The Rest is History podcast on the topic. Dominic and Tom were fairly scathing about the idea that Richard couldn't have murdered the princes because he was a good administrator and has 'a nice face' -- which is basically the foundation of Tey's argument; their view was that he probably did do it, but he kind of had to, given his circumstances. They didn't examine the version of history that Tey presents, which was disappointing, and I still don't know how accurate her facts are -- things like the timing of the rumour surfacing, why Richard wasn't accused immediately by Henry VII after the defeat at Bosworth, which I find more persuasive than the 'nice face' angle. I'd love to know if this is the accepted timeline or if more scholarship has emerged since Tey wrote her novel. Having read a few Josephine Tey novels in a row, it's clear that she's a big believer that faces are the key to personality, a belief that her detective Alan Grant shares, and I view that I cannot endorse.
So I wouldn't say I'm a hundred percent Ricardian, but I'm open to arguments either way!
There are various chapters on different native plants -- spinifex, quandong, yams -- but I think my favourite section was 'Abundance' by Zena Cumpston, in which she forensically examines a photo of three people camped on Country, taken in the late nineteenth century, and picks out all the different plant-based items visible in the picture. There are nets made from bulrush fibre, digging sticks, coolamons, thatch on the hut, a grindstone, spears and boomerangs, bunches of leaves used as medicine, and more. This photograph illustrates with immediate clarity and force the degree of reliance of traditional peoples on plants; what it doesn't show is the reverse relationship, the degree to which First Nations peoples managed and curated Country to ensure that the plants and animals thrived and flourished, with the careful use of fire and practices like replacing yam-tops so the tuber would regrow. As Cumpston reminds us, Country is still here, even when it's hidden under urban sprawl, and we can still learn to care for and respond to it, even in our cities and suburbs.
I'm looking forward to reading the next volume in the series, Law, co-written by the formidable Marcia Langton, and I hope there will be many more volumes to come.
Summer Skin is smart and feminist, but I have to admit that I didn't initially find the troubled Mitch a particularly appealing personality. He kept on acting like a dick well past the point where I suspect in real life, Jess would have given him the flick. But of course he proves to be worth the hard work in the end. I enjoyed the Brisbane setting, which makes a change from the streets of Melbourne and Sydney, and the steamy Queensland summer is almost a character in its own right.
My library copy of Summer Skin has obviously been well-read, and there are many rave reviews on Goodreads, so it's good to know that this mature, explicit book has found its audience.
At first I thought I was going to struggle with this novel, because it's written with eccentric punctuation, no speech marks, and the first few pages (of my copy, at least) were more akin to poetry than prose, and I do historically find poetry Quite Hard Work. But the rhythm of the novel soon swept me away. It's about art, and history, and observing; it's about love, and loss, and memory; it's about women, and perception, and friendship; it's about family, and words, and pictures; it's about money, and fame, and reputation. And true to the promise of the premise, the two stories, while separate, reflect and resonate upon each other in unexpected and lovely ways. It wasn't a hard read at all, and I adored it. No wonder it won all the prizes. And now I have to read all the other Ali Smith novels I can find.
The jumper (eventually cardigan) that Martini spends her year trying to complete is no ordinary sweater. It's a Fair Isle pattern by notoriously prickly Scottish knitting designer, Alice Starmore. There is a lengthy account of the whole Starmore story (which I was unaware of), chronicling the designer's feud with various wool manufacturers and her fierce, and litigious, protection of her designs. And yet those designs are so complex, so colourful and original, they remain irresisiable, even though Martini herself admits that having knitted the damn garment, she will probably never wear it. See below for an image of the finished article:
I mean, it is pretty gorgeous, as an object, but I probably wouldn't actually wear it either. Anyway, Martini travels the country chatting to various knitting experts and community figures about crafts, women's work, creativity, life and connection, the role of internet knitting blogs and how-to videos in fostering a new wave of knitters, and lovey stories about the way the skill has been passed down, often from older relatives, so it becomes a family memory.
I don't think my grandmother was a knitter, but my mum certainly was. She made countless lovely little cardigans, hats, jumpers and bootees for my babies, until sadly it turned out neither of them could bear the feel of wool against their skin (we've kept them all, though). She taught me how to knit and she's still the one I run to when I get into a tangle, though she claims to have forgotten everything. Just recently I rescued her own knitting bag from storage at our own home, and who knows, maybe I'll end up knitting a pattern from her collection one day.
Jacobs is always entertaining company, and I enjoyed his attempts at bodily self-improvement. He changes his diet, starts eating with a small plate and little fork, starts working on a homemade treadmill desk (this habit seems to stick, and he becomes quite evangelical about it), takes part in a triathlon, and takes advice from a whole battalion of experts. In a handy appendix, he lists the ten best pieces of advice he received (shop at the edges of the supermarket; don't eat white food; eat protein for breakfast), and there's another appendix with tips for guerilla exercise (always take the stairs; literally run your errands). In fact, you could probably just read the appendices if you want health advice; but the point is to go on the journey with A.J. and his long-suffering family. I'm not the first to observe that his wife Julie deserves a medal.
There are a couple of sobering notes among the jollity. Jacobs loses his beloved grandfather and aunt during the project; ironically, his aunt is completely health-obsessed, compulsively avoiding toxins and consuming organic everything, and yet she succumbs to a particularly nasty cancer. No matter what precautions you take, something is going to get you in the end. Perhaps the trick is just to be as healthy and happy as you can before you get there.
