This review is the fourth in my series of reviews of books from the 2009 Miles Franklin Literary Award longlist. To see more reviews, please go here.
Okay, so at this point I have come to the realisation that I’m not going to get all of the longlist read by the time the winner of the 2009 Miles Franklin Award is announced on June 18. I’m not even going to get all of the shortlist read before that date either. After my initial burst of steam I sort of slowed down a bit, and I’ve been getting distracted and reading other things (more about that later) but I do still want to read all ten of the books on the longlist. Considering I generally don’t read a lot of fiction these days, I have been enjoying these books more than I thought I would. So I will keep going, and I will finish when I finish. I mean, where’s the rush?
Speaking of enjoying things more than I thought I would, that is definitely how I feel about Fugitive Blue by Claire Thomas. Actually I’m not really sure what I expected, but what I found was a thoroughly engaging novel that centres on an unlikely medievel painting and the people whose lives it touches down the centuries. The central story of the book surrounds a present day art conservator who is becoming obsessed with an art work she is in the process of restoring, as her relationship with her partner (and her spare room) is falling apart around her. Interwoven with this story is a series of shorter stories that begin with the painting’s creator and then proceed to follow the painting through different eras, different owners and different countries as it makes its way to present day Melbourne.
My favourite of the short pieces was easily the story of the dancer, and I liked that the reader has to wait until well into the next story to find out which man and ultimately which future the dancer has chosen for herself. The other short pieces are also cleverly written in such a way as to give just enough details to spark the imagination without over burdening the reader with a precise history of everything that has ever happened to the painting and its owners down the years. I felt that the weakest part of the whole book was probably the present day story, and at the beginning I especially didn’t like the way it was written as a sort of letter to an unknown recipient, although by the end I did think that this particular element was brought to a strong enough conclusion that I managed to forgive what I felt to be the initial clunkiness of this device.
Fugitive Blue is Claire Thomas’ first novel, and although there is no mention of her working on a second novel in the author bio that I read, I for one am hoping that there will be one (or a book of short stories for that matter), as I look forward to reading more by this emerging Australian writer.
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This review is the second in my series of reviews of books from the 2009 Miles Franklin Literary Award longlist. To see more reviews, please go here.
 Hmm, where do I start with this one? I think I’m having trouble getting started with my review of The Pages by Murray Bail because I feel quite conflicted about this book. It is very well written, there is no doubt in my mind about that. I would love to give an example of this but I had to return the book to the library yesterday because it was already overdue, and I forgot to write down some of the passages I particularly liked (note to self: write these things down as you go along). So you’ll have to take my word for it, Murray Bail has a quite a gift with words. On the other hand, this book left me cold. I didn’t warm to any of the characters, nor did I find any of them particularly likable, but then again none of them were particularly unlikable either. I found the beginning quite slow, and I felt that just as it was starting to pick up pace and get interesting, it ended. And yet, there was something sort of wonderful about the slow and meditative nature of parts of this book, and I decided the other day on the tram that if I had to pick one word to describe this book, it would have to be ‘thoughtful’. Yes, The Pages is definitely a thoughtful book. But before I get too much further with this back and forth, I might at least tell you something about the story…
Erica, a philosophy lecturer, and her friend Sophie, a psychoanalyst, leave Sydney one morning on a road trip to a farming property somewhere in the New South Wales countryside. The purpose of their trip is for Erica to take a look at a manuscript, the ‘pages’ of the title, and to assess it for its philosophical merit, or lack there of. Sophie has come along for the ride, as she attempts to get over yet another failed relationship with yet another married man. On arrival at the farm they meet the Antills, a sister and brother team who have inherited the job of running the family farm. The manuscript that Erica is there to read belongs to the Antills dead brother Wesley, the family tearaway who went to the city, travelled to the ‘old world’, had some big thoughts, and then came home to write it all down. Interwoven with the present day story of Erica and Sophie on the farm, we are told Wesley’s story, and for me it is these parts where we hear from Wesley that are far and away the best bits of the book. Wesley is almost likable, but not quite, as he takes himself far too seriously for all that. He is interesting though, and as the book went on I found myself not really caring about Erica and Sophie and their present day friendship crisis at all, I just wanted more of Wesley’s story.
I wouldn’t say that The Pages is an easy read, but ultimately I do think it is a worthwhile book, for its wonderful use of language, and for making me think about the nature of thinking. Other books by Murray Bail include Eucalyptus, winner of the 1999 Miles Franklin Award, and Homesickness.
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 Note the new cover design for the latest paperback edition. It seems they are going for a more whimsical approach, don't you think? Addition by Toni Jordan, is a debut novel with a lot of heart. It tells the story of Grace Vandenburg and her somewhat different way of looking at, and being in, the world. Ever since she was eight, Grace has been obsessed by numbers, they are everywhere she looks and they provide her with a framework for her life. And she counts everything, from how many steps it takes to get to the shop, to how many sprouts she puts on her sandwich, and even, at one point, the number of bristles in her toothbrush! Living this way isn’t easy but Grace feels like she has things under control, that is until she meets the handsome Seamus O’Reilly at the local supermarket. An unconventional romance ensues, but when Grace is forced to choose between her beloved numbers and her new love Seamus, things get a little complicated.
On the surface, Addition is the story of a square peg in a round hole, and also an engaging urban romance story. But this novel is also about the ongoing consequences of trauma and about challenging accepted notions of mental illness and the way it is treated by the medical establishment and the rest of society. Where do we draw the line between someone who is sick, and someone who sees the world just a little differently?
Despite her razor sharp wit, I warmed to Grace almost immediately. She might have a tough exterior but not far underneath lies a sarcastic sense of humour and a wicked flirtatious streak that show her to be an intelligent and sensitive woman. And I loved the parts of the novel that have the story of nineteenth century inventor and fellow number obsessive Nikola Tesla woven into them, as this adds another dimension to both Grace’s character and the story as a whole.
As someone who has spent much of her life being a square peg in a round hole, I could identify with Grace (and Tesla!) in a number of ways, and I think this helped me greatly to engage with this novel. I read it all in two sittings, and felt that it was well paced and very readable. This is not an in depth exploration of living with a mental illness but it does offer some insight into some of the challenges of being out of the ordinary, and it does so in a highly compassionate way.
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The blurb on the back of Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell promises that this book will change the way you think about your life, and while I can’t say it quite lived up to this claim for me, I can say that I found it both engaging and thought provoking.
The task that Gladwell sets for himself in this book is not an easy one: to examine the nature of success and to determine what it is that makes successful people, well, successful. What I found extremely refreshing about this book is that Gladwell goes beyond the now very well worn (and usually *but not always* trite) territory of the self help gurus and explodes the myth of the level playing field. Sometimes people are born in the right place at the right time, or they have the right cultural background, and this gives them a significant ‘leg up’ in life and puts them on the path to success. Gladwell shows that the reverse of this is also true, and that being born in a particular place or at a particular time or coming from a particular cultural or socio-economic group can put you at a disadvantage in acheiving certain things in life.
Throughout the book Gladwell uses many examples, stories, interviews and studies to illustrate his ideas about success. I found the style of this book very readable and easy, and the tone is informal and engaging. This is no dry academic tome, however I did feel that it lacks a good solid conclusion that would bring all of the elements of what Gladwell has been trying to illustrate throughout the book into some cohesive whole. Well worth a read, but ultimately it didn’t go deep enough into the subject matter to really change the way I think about anything.
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