The inscrutable sympathies of Helen Garner

    Helen Garner is one of Australia's most revered writers; an elder stateswoman of the Australian literary scene, with her true crime writing in particular praised for its empathy, realism, riveting explorations of the mysteries of human behaviour;  "a profound understanding of human vulnerability, and of the subtle workings of love, memory and remorse." 

    But it is a strange understanding, an empathy that stretches to murderers and sex abusers - but not to young women who speak up against the men in positions of power who do the abusing. 

Read More

Go on, spoil yourself this Christmas. You deserve it.

With the end of year (Christmas/New Year/Summer/I know Aunt Bronwyn will start in again about my weight and childlessness and every year I tell myself I won't put up with her nonsense and every year I don a rictus smile, walk away and take a swig of Bundy) holidays upon us, the lucky of us are on holidays from work, which means a chance to catch up with relatives like Aunt Bronwyn; vow to fix that thing about the house and get as far as the Bunnings car park before seeing it's so crowded the laws of civilised parking have broken down and going home; or cursing that once again, you neglected to make plans to get out of the city.

Read More

Book review: Starfish by Patty Dann

The film Mermaids meant a lot to me in my early teens, as I guess it did to a lot of women of my generation. Teenage films were pretty much dead as a genre between the John Hughes/Molly Ringwald era of the 1980s and the release of Clueless in 1995. The success of Clueless lead to an explosion in the release of teen movies, from sexploitation (American Pie) to horror (Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer) then cheerleaders (Bring It On) and mean girls (one mean girl in Cruel Intentions, then a whole eponymous film of them). By the time Clueless was released, I was way too depressed for anything that looked as blithe as the poster suggested - though I did watch, and love, the film several years later, then many times since. 

Read More

2018 Reading Challenge

I've always been a voracious reader, mostly non fiction - I'm only sorta joking when I say I read most of the non fiction books at my local library before I moved to Sydney - but with the advent of smart phones, my phone replaced a book in my bag, and I've been reading fewer actual books. It's been worse since I started university, and was studying what I enjoyed - but I had quite enough of politics, crime and policy as my "day job", and it cut back my reading for pleasure even more. I scroll social media, I read long form articles (so many long form articles), but not actual books.

Since last year, I've been trying to rectify that. I tried uploading the books I was reading to this blog, but it was annoying and I stopped bothering, and then I finally joined Good Reads. And now, I'm doing the 2018 Reading Challenge.

I'm hoping to read 80 books this year, tough but doable (I notice I've slowed down a lot, and I no longer have a big commute to read on). There were people on Goodreads noted as having completed their 2018 challenges already; I don't know, if you've already read all the books you hoped to read in a year on day one, maybe you should aim a little higher. As for me, I've no reading plan; there's a couple of books I really want to, or feel I should, get to reading (Infinite Jest?) but apart from that I'll see where the mood and library selections take me.

If you're on Goodreads, please add me as a friend so we can track each others' progress - and if not, do sign up; it's fun and we should all be reading more.

2018 Reading Challenge

Violet has read 0 books toward their goal of 80 books.

hide

0 of 80 (0%)

view books

Spoiling non fiction for everyone

Sad to see the last episode of the First Tuesday Bookclub on the ABC but I've now got years worth of books I've seen on the show, thought "Mmm, I'll have to check that out" then never actually done so to get through, so that's nice*. I've long given up even trying to be current, but Jennifer Byrne assured me that I'm ahead of the curve in one regard: it is the year of non-fiction, judging that two of the best sellers in 2017 were The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck and The Barefoot Investor.

I admit it is a little dispiriting that those best sellers are a leftover from Oprah's Living Your Best Life Self Help series repackaged with a hot orange cover and "edgy" title, or investment advice from a guy who predicted in 2011 that the house prices were going to start falling. There is however a tonne of fascinating and readable non-fiction out there - if us lovers of fact weren't constantly reminded that someone else had read it first. It's a maddening thing. 

Why do people always spoil non fiction? On the internet where popular culture can fly around the planet in seconds (unless you're on the NBN), a culture of not spoiling plot twists for others who haven't been able to read or watch yet has sprung up, and it's really rather lovely, especially if you're an Australian as old as I am and can remember how episodes of popular TV shows took months to reach us but the spoilers didn't; we never got to figure out who shot Mr Burns, because we found out long weeks before we saw it. 

There was even the Keep The Secret hashtag, encouraging people who'd seen Harry Potter and the Cursed Child to keep quiet about major plot points for the benefit of those who hadn't seen the play yet (sparing them the disappointment, apparently).

But when a major work of non fiction is released, it's somehow considered okay - nay even mandatory! - for any discussion of the work to include every damn point in the text. One may argue that in the case of non fiction, these are things that already happened, but all of us have to find out about things the first time once. Anyway, when a non fiction book reveals something really juicy - for example, in Niki Savva's The Road To Ruin - instead of leaving it to readers to discover for themselves, every review and media discussion of the book seems compelled to mention the titillating notion of an affair between deposed PM Tony Abbott and his chief of staff Peta Credlin in the first breathless moments. It's really annoying. Us non fiction readers do it because we like to learn, but we also enjoy ;pacing, character development, the twist in the tale.

But we should be able to encounter these at are own pace, not be left grimly going over plot points already chattered to death by the commentariat like picking over the carcass of the Christmas Turkey on 27th December hoping to find enough meat to make a sandwich. 

Whether on your nationally broadcast radio show or just talking with a friend, if you're discussing non fiction - let us know what the book is about, sure. But don't give away spoilers. You're just as big a dick for doing that with non fiction as any work of fantasy.

* I actually bought Infinite Jest, it's sitting on the shelf with the two bookmarks and notepad I was advised to keep handy during the process and I will read it one day.  

How Scott Adams went nuts (and I'm sorry and it wasn't my fault and I won't let it happen again)

False modesty aside, there are things I know I'm good at - cooking, writing essays, figuring out maps and timetables. Then there are things I am not so good at - driving, wrapping presents, following along in exercise classes (basically anything that requires a sense of spatial awareness). And I am not - to disastrous effect - a good judge of character.

It might be from lack of ability to interpret facial and vocal cues, or an inability to read people combined with a naive tendency to take people at their word. How bad is it? Well, when Bill Clinton said, way back in 1998, "now you listen to me, I did not have sexual relations with that woman", I believed him. I know better now than to trust any politician lying about sex, but I've still been taken in and trusted people who turned out to be not what they seemed - or worse, exactly what they seemed, but I ignored the warning signs and thought the shitty things they did to other people, they wouldn't do to me, until they did.

And then there's Dilbert creator, writer self proclaimed genius and latter day Trump supporting constant commentator Scott Adams. Adams, who has in recent months declared that the nomination of a woman for president represents for men "a celebration that your role in society is permanently diminished"; that if there are no terrorist attacks before election day, it's because ISIS prefers Clinton; that the firebombing of an African American Church was a false flag operation;  that the polls were fraudulent in showing Clinton ahead, but had to pivot to reality to preserve credibility; that Hilary Clinton is a drunk; and - of course - that if Clinton wins, it's because Russia. He's also deflected all criticism of himself by stating that if anyone disagrees with him, it's cause their puny little minds are too feeble to understand.

And I cannot help but feel like I'm in some way responsible for all this. You see, I used to be a Scott Adams fan. And I don't just mean I'd have a laugh when I saw Dilbert in the newspaper (or in later years, looked it up from time to time online). I mean I've read every last one of his books, bought more than a few of them, and greatly admired many of his ideas, even if a few - an actual proposal for a donut shaped universe, although my memory on this is a little hazy - I didn't quite understand. And Dilbert! I loved Dilbert, both the comic and the character. I'm a survivor of a decade in the cube trenches, and Dilbert provided solace, comic relief and (in Wally's blase attitude) inspiration.

Some of my well-read collection

I'm sure Mr Adams has made more money from the worldwide syndication for Dilbert than he has from his books. But by buying the books, I and many others have enabled him not to stick to drawing comics, monkey brain, but to expound on his esoteric brand of libertarianism. And somewhere along the line, the line became an edge he tumbled off. What I'm left wondering is how I missed the signs. Were they there all along, and I missed them due to my problems assessing people, or is he in some downward spiral of recent years? It was delightful when back in 1997, Mr Adams posed as a management consultant to see just how meaningless a nonsense company mission statement he could get an executive committee to agree to. But it's a long, long way from such satire to creating sockpuppet internet accounts to anonymously tell forums what a genius you are - let alone to thinking reality warps back and forth, controlled by a drunk, ill, incompetent, genius mastermind Hilary Clinton.

I'm not altogether sure how much impact Mr Adams has had upon the election; whether or not he is a prominent voice or a sideshow to the alt-right media, and god knows I am not going for a dip in that chilly, fetid swamp. Either way though, I'm a little bit sad. I'll never be able to take seriously anything Mr Adams says again. I still want to buy Dilbert 2.0, but I don't feel good about it. 

Loving Bill Bryson

I've been reading Bill Bryson'sA Short History Of Nearly Everything this week, it would have to be one of the most amazing documents I've ever read in my life. Exactly as has been said, it will change the way you look at the universe forever (sounds like a cult or self-help book doesn't it?) It's taken me nearly all week to read, because I have to keep stopping to think about what I've read (just imagine me with eyes trained over a thick paperback, looking up, staring glassy-eyes into middle distance for some seconds, then saying softly "...wow". I'm normally a speed reader - I once memorably read IT in six hours on New Years Day a few years ago - but this, I need to take my time over. I feel like I've learned more in a few days of reading this book than I did in seven years of high school science classes (which wasn't a great deal, though admittedly I did biology rather than physics or chemistry for HSC. In any case, I can't remember much of high school at this late stage).

Read More

Doing A Little Reading

As I've said, one of my major goals for 2005 is to become more politically active and I've started this by trying to become better informed. I've always read quite alot on the subject, but here's a quick reading list of what I've been purusing lately...

Not Happy John! by Margo Kingston

Worse than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W Bush by John W Dean

Goodbye Babylon by Bob Ellis

Why the War Was Wrong by Raymond Gaita (Ed.) An Australian not US book

Also been reading the SMH Webdiary, a very lively forum for political debate. More views and action plans, time permitting, to come!

Where I Read Mark Latham's Books

I decided to read one of Mark Latham's books. Look, the guy was almost Prime Minister, so I figure someone outside of his immediate family should read one of them.

I started with From the Suburbs, because it happened to be at Charlestown Library. But really, who colud fail to be intrigued by a book with chapter titles like "Reinventing Collectivism"?

Anyway, reading the book, I was at first slightly engaged but then, well...utterly bewildered. I just could not figure out what the guy was on about. To put it crudely, he seemed to use big words for the sake of using big words. I felt he should have ended every paragraph by writing "SEE WHAT A GREAT INTELLECT I AM?!"

Some quotes:

"(an) abstract lifestyle has prduced an abstract style of politics. Symbolic and ideological campaings are given top priority. This involves a particular methodology: adopting a predetermined position on issues then looking for evidence that supports that position."
Huh?

"(Labor party reform) is now happening under Simon Crean's leadership. His theme of modernism is music to my ears."
Which is why Latham continually undermined Crean's leadership.

"This approach is set out in my book What Did You Learn Today? (2001). It is a Third Way program for Australia's transition to a learning society."
Yes he plugged his own book in his own book.

And my favourite:
"The Prime Minister's best mate is Donald McDonald, so Howard made him Chairman of the ABC. Peter Costello's best mate is Michael Kroger, so he put him on the Board. If Tony Abbott had any mates they'd be on the Board of the ABC as well."

Well, you've been warned. If you read any of Mark Latham's books, don't come crying to me!

On Favourite Books

Feeling decadent whilst listening to Portishead last night, I decided to compose a list of my favourite five books. This took alot longer than I expected. Let me begin by telling you about my bookcase. It arrived raw pine, in a kit, from my mother three years ago. I finished, varnished and assembled it myself, and I am so proud that what was once a pile of bare wood is now a huge, elegant showpiece in my lounge room. 

Read More