Eric - Shaun Tan

Firstly, sorry it's been such a long time between posts! We have lots of reasons but not really any excuses. We haven't stopped reading though so prepare for us to make it up to you with millions, nay BILLIONS, of book reviews starting from this exact moment.

Secondly, Shaun Tan is a life hero of mine. His books are just magical. The English department doesn't know it yet but my thesis is going to have a whole chapter on him in it. Eric is his latest, gorgeous, and - I say this without irony - heartwarming creation. The book is as tiny as it's titular character, but Tan is always concerned with minutia, of both the un/observable world and of everyday extraordinary things.

On his website (it's really pretty, you should visit) Tan has explained the inspirations behind Eric. You can see them here if you like :) Eric is the story of a foreign exchange student that comes to visit and then prefers to sleep in a cupboard than the spare room. It's quiet, and beautiful, and sad. It's about misunderstandings, even amongst the best of intentions. It's also about all the things we share comfort spaces with, use and take for granted, but don't really look at until someone shows you a new way to see.

****/***** (Four out of Five stars)

The Breezes - Joseph O'Neill

Mum lent me The Breezes by Joseph O'Neill (of Netherland fame) but I cannot now remember if she liked it or not. My Mum has the most impeccable taste of anyone I know, far more impeccable than any of my own senses. In fact we have exactly the same sensibilities in almost everything - we mesh on our  appreciation of Revolutionary Road - it's just that I like lots of extra stuff as well and sometimes love most the stuff Mum hates - for example Wet and Wild viking romances. I'm just sooooooooooo postmodern. Anyhoo, I'm fabricating a memory of her saying she liked The Breezes because it's pretty likely, knowing her preferences for good modernists, the Irish, some social satire, some family drama, and plenty of black humour.

The novel looks at the absurd and occasionally tragic occurrences surrounding the Breeze family - focusing mainly on the twenty-something year old son and his lazy struggle to not become like his shambling, pitiable father. The sister and her deadbeat boyfriend also star in variously volatile episodes. 

It's a quiet book - no explosions, speeches or even great revelations - it just examines the emotional, political and moral minutiae of living in families. The most interesting moments of the novel, as I saw them anyway, were the explorations of ambition and purpose - the Breeze family are in so many ways accidental revolutionaries in their total failure to engage with the rhetoric and signs of 'success', 'achievement' or 'worth' in any socially sanctioned way. If this much weren't already endearing, O'Neill's writing is - like Alan Rickman reading a shopping list on the radio. It's not the  most memorable book I'll ever read, but it's appealing in many ways and it certainly whet my appetite for more of his books, more of his take on life.

***^/***** (3.5 / 5 stars)

The Pedant in the Kitchen - Julian Barnes

I have epic love for Julian Barnes, his writing hits all the right notes with me. He's poetical and dry and witty and really literary and clever yet nothing at all resembling a butthead. Read my earlier review of his amazing book Arthur & George, then go read Arthur & George. This is the first non-fiction book I've reviewed here and indeed read in years (if we don't count boring uni stuff - and let's not). But I was happy to pick this up and put the three other books I was reading down because a) it's Barnes and he's my literary version of Bear Grylls - I'm strangely but completely addicted; b) it was two bucks at Co-op and I would have been happy to pay up to $5 for a Barnes with the crazy warp and bent cover I was awarded as a bonus; and c) it's a book about cooking, and I like cooking.

The title is pretty intriguing too - pedants in kitchens is something I know everyone is familiar with but I wasn't sure how on earth you'd write a book about it. And I was pretty darn pleased with the results of my investigation. Barnes was as sparkly and delightful as usual in his writing and since he turned out to be The Pedant in the Kitchen I was pleased to see some glimpses of his life and forge an understanding of his personality a bit better through his relationship with food and cooking. It's probably a maxi somewhere but I bet you can tell a whole lot about people by looking at their attitude about cooking, in much the same way as you can surmise whether someone is good or evil depending on if they prefer cats or dogs, Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre, Jacob or Edward.


Barnes is the titular Pedant which means he is a perfectionist in the kitchen and believes in the truth claims made by cookery books and follows recipes down to the last letter, gram and degree. So The Pedant in the Kitchen is really the story of Barnes the writer, reader and amateur cook, reading and reviewing the cook books and recipes that have influenced or inspired him. So we find he loves Jane Grigson, becomes frustrated with Nigel Slater and finds comfort in the old-fashioned charms of Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management. Other than recipes that just don't work because household kitchens aren't anything like those in restaurants, what Barnes the Pedant is actually fighting against is the vocabulary of cooking. He calls for a more accurate dialect that can actually indicate what a 'pinch', a 'heap' a 'slug' and  a 'handful' actually equate to in terms of chilli, salt or blueberries.


Though I don't agree that a lot of reform is needed - actually I don't think any is needed, I'm the exact opposite of Barnes in the kitchen, being physically, mentally and emotionally unable to follow a recipe exactly - I really liked that Barnes' book about cooking, a non-fiction memoir sort of book about cooking, showed all the same preoccupations as his fiction. The playfulness masking quite an ingrained struggle for truth is here. A sort of metaphysical  game of hide and seek with the value of words. It's cool and I'm not even sure he knew he was doing it in The Pedant in the Kitchen. If he didn't it makes it even cooler. That, and that there's no mention of Nigella Lawson - I don't know if this book was too early to fall under the siren's call of her cooking shows / books / life or if Barnes just never bothered with her. I guess we won't until I read it in his memoir. My favourite part of the whole thing was actually the dedication- 'To She For Whom The Pedant Cooks' which became 'She For Whom' throughout the book where Barnes was The Pedant. That's pretty nice don't you think?

***^/***** (3.5 stars for an easy as pie, light and fluffy read)

The Love Letters of John Keats - Edited by OE Madden

What a fox right?

I'm holding out for one of the beautiful new editions of Keat's letters to Fanny Brawne for myself, but the one I borrowed from the library is lovely enough for now, even without the pretty movie tie-in cover. Keats would understand the starving artist thing I'm going through even if you lot don't.

Like trillions, the fact of love letters between John Keats and Fanny Brawne exploded to my attention through Jane Campion's beautiful film Bright Star. I weep like crazy when I first watched it, then watched it again and cried even more. I've always liked Keats, he's quite the Romanitc Emo laddie and I adore the fact that he kicks Wordsworth's butt in terms of literary output by 25 (the age when Keats dies and before Wordsworth writes a thing) and general poetical awesomeness. I really dislike Wordsworth. But Bright Star brought Fanny Brawne to life too - and it's their story that I needed to pursue in The Love Letters of John Keats.

I always find it strange reading letters, or texts like diaries or journals which were never intended to be published. And these love letters from Keats to Fanny are just so private I felt like a literary spy. They were exquisite, playful, desperate, loving and occasionally cruel. Keats in love was also in torment. He wanted Fanny but he didn't want to want her and the letters are sort of a battleground where these battling forces play out. It's epic!

In the above letter he starts: "My dearest Girl, / I wish you could invent some means to make me at all happy without you. Every hour I am more concentrated in you; every thing else tastes like chaff in my Mouth. I feel it almost impossible to go to Italy - the fact is I cannot leave you, and shall never taste one minute’s content until it pleases chance to let me live with you for good."

A bit later: "If I cannot live with you I will live alone. I do not think my health will improve much while I am separated from you. For all this I am averse to seeing you - I cannot bear flashes of light and return into my glooms again. "

And signs off - "I wish you could infuse a little confidence in human nature into my heart. I cannot muster any - the world is too brutal for me - I am glad there is such a thing as the grave - I am sure I shall never have any rest till I get there... I wish I was either in your arms full of faith or that a Thunder bolt would strike me. / God bless you, / J.K"

Poor doomed Keats, he had so many issues. And I love that he just lays them all out there on the table in his letters to Fanny. What I really really wanted was to read Fanny's replies. It's awful they've been lost to history because she is such an enigmatic figure in all this. Snippets can be gleaned about her from Keats' letters, questions and responses to her questions and it's easy to surmise that she'd have to be made of pretty feisty stuff to keep Keats' intensity under wraps and to inspire such ardor in him in the first place, but it would be so great to hear her voice in their love story. That's what was so special about Bright Star, viewers get to see two people in love vs the world, not just the tragedy of the young poet genius.

****/***** (Four out of Five stars) (Because the edition wasn't very nice, not because the letters weren't.)

Vampire Beach: Bloodlust - Alex Duval

So... vampires. We haven't ventured with this blog into those dark seductive kingdoms yet but all periods of calm must be shattered eventually by a cacophany of screaming fangirls over all the dreamy bloodsuckers. I'm not going to lie, I generally lose my mind and most of my verbal capacity over vampire stories. They're like a drug to me and I scream with the most obnoxious girl tweens out there. I own t-shirts, a life sized cardboard cutout, every dvd and the sheet music realted to various different vampire populated books and shows and several sagas would count amongst my most loved/obsessed over tales OF ALL TIME. The Vampire Beach series will never ever count amoungst them. Bloodlust is the first in the series but since I'll never read any of the rest on purpose I feel I can safely make some huge sweeping generalisations about the whole lot.



I photographed it here sitting on a book of Keat's letters to Fanny Brawne so it wouldn't be so frightening for you all. The fact that Vampire Beach: Bloodlust is 'Young Adult' fiction meant that I didn't and couldn't expect the same sort of vampires-as-sex-gods rauchiness that brilliant Paranormal Romance series like the Sookie Stackhouse / Southern Vampire Mysteries / True Blood books and spin off tv show could play with. BUT then I of course I realised two true things: the sexiness isn't even the most important or interesting thing about vampire stories AND that just because a book is toned down for a younger audience, doesn't mean it has to be shit. In fact the Vampire Academy series and (yes I'm finally gonna say it) Twilight books were both written for the same crowd and both managed to be completely AWESOME.

Thinking about it, the biggest and most obvious problem with Vampire Beach was that it was boring. It wasn't compellingly written, the characters were uninteresting and vapid. And most importanly it didn't capitalise on the amazing figure/symbol of the vampire AT ALL. No one even said the word vampire until page 129 and by then it only had 40ish pages to go. Plus even around the utterance of the magical word - NOTHING HAPPENED. If I summarised the plot of the book right now: Boy moves to beach, falls in love with girl who has boyfriend, she's a vampire, someone dies, this doesn't bother anyone much. LAME and I wouldn't even be missing anything out from the narrative. Maybe Duval was trying to pad out a much bigger and grander storyline? I hope so. I also hope he won't lose all his readers before something worthwhile happens but I think it's especially hard to keep people interested in bad vampire stories. If you like vampires you'll be spoiled for choice of books / movies / tv shows in any age bracket.

Just a short, harsh review - like a bandaid. Now we can all move on with our lives. Sorry Alex Duval - maybe try werewolves next time??? It's much harder to write a nothing book about them - no excepts them to be anything other than boring :)

At least it didn't take long to read: *^/***** (1.5 from 5 stars)

Revolutionary Road - Richard Yates

This book damned near broke my heart. It's amazing.



I saw the film, it was great. Kate and Leo Dio were wonderful and I really do appreciate the fact that their being reunited on screen could finally halt the terrible rumours that They Don't Like Each Other, and Hated Each Other While Filming Titanic - because their combined gloriousness in the film of this book is undeniable. Cheers guys.




But Richard Yates' original novel from 1961 is on a whole other level. At this stage I'll confess that I did read this book because it was set for the uni course I'm tutoring in. And if any of my students ever read this and use my blatant expressions of love for Revolutionary Road to write essays I'll agree with, I say good on ya and just remember to cite this blog correctly :)

I hate to say that I think Revolutionary Road was ahead of it's time, but it was impossible to shake that feeling whilst reading it. We're now used to existential critiques of Modern Suburban Living in the 50s and movies/ tv/ books about the terrible alienating plight of the Housewife but Yates' novel is so insightful and clear and tragic it really is amazing to think it was only published in 61, before it got groovy with capital F feminism and before postmodernity made everyone pop culture nihilists. The 50s and early 60s in most art and literature were still the celebration of the lone-wolf white guys but Yates, with an wonderfully gentle and non-judgemental touch turns his eyes towards the looming specture of suburbia in the US and a young married couple fighting it's dehumanising influence.



Most of Revolutionary Road focuses on Frank Wheeler, with illuminating interjections from a few other characters thoughts and feelings, and tellingly it is not until the devastating conclusion of the novel that the reader is given any direct insight into April Wheeler's mind. The Wheelers are very human and are drawn so perfectly that though I went through many different types of feeling about them, practically feeling all the feelings that there are, I always felt FOR them most strongly of all. And Yates keeps his characters thoughts ambiguous and their behaviour troubling, we're supposed to have a bit of distance as readers. We're supposed to feel part of the same alienation from each other and from this occasionally disappointing world as Frank and April do.

As ever I am conscious of spoilers so I won't delve further into details of the plot. There are a few very interesting and important changes between the film and the novel so don't miss out on reading it even if you've seen the excellent version on the silver screen. You should definitely read this book, whoever you are. But I guess especially if you're one of my students. Yates is a revelation to me as an American author, he's so wry, brutal where he needs to be, and has an unfailing honest and wonderful empathetic style. I wish all stories could be told this way.

*****/***** (5 stars)

The Anthologist - Nicholson Baker

This is an extremely clever book, and for the most part it's a good read and a decent dose of what I sometimes like to call The Fun. The Anthologist by Nicolson Baker is a novel about a poet, Paul Chowder (which is a pretty awesome name), who is struggling to write an introduction to a poetry collection about the importance of rhyme. Paul is a little bit famous, and a lot lazy and as a narrator he provides an interesting, discursive history of his thinking about poetry and it's constituent parts. There are some really lovely moments in the book - the parts on baby talk, how iambic pentameter has a built in invisible rest, and the section where they go blueberry picking I really enjoyed and where of course, extremely 'poetic'. Baker has a lovely ambling style of writing as well and it was very pleasant spending time with his novel.

I am a bit worried that I enjoyed it because I’m so often immersed in lit theory as part of my job that I’ve become the sort of person who finds being lectured about the mechanics of poetic feet and rhyme for the length of an entire novel not only commonplace but insanely interesting when a dog or some blueberry-picking is added. This peculiarity in me as a reader aside, I'm sure many people will balk slightly, as I did, at the high-school flashbacks induced by much of the poetry talk. And there was definitely a feeling that oozed through the quieter moments of The Anthologist that the book was really an exercise in showing how clever and witty the writer is. Maybe I’m wrong, I kind of hope so – but intellectual snobbery, even in a book about an intellectual snob of a poet, is never alright with me.

So I know this review has a few mixed messages. It’s to be expected, I’m a Gemini. But it also can’t really be avoided - the book was both entertaining and painful, lyrical and preacherly, poetic and pedestrian. But I learnt stuff, and the writing itself, if you ignore the intellectual baggage, was undeniably well-crafted and engaging. Maybe someone else can make more sense of their feelings about The Anthologist.

***/***** (Three of Five Stars)