Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
wasps
Yesterday I had the air-conditioner serviced. A sturdy pom launched himself onto the roof to do what he had to do. No sooner was he trudging across the tiles in the blazing heat, when he shouts down to me; 'Did you know you had a wasp nest up here?' I think the Buddha said that a householders life is full of dust - well its full of a lot more than that!! It seems that no sooner is one job fixed then another rises to take it's place. I hate having to find people who can do jobs around the house as so often they try and sell you something you don't really need or want. But the airconditioning service was a good experience - the man they sent was congenial and positive he pronounced my AC system in 'good' condition and we had a little chat about the 'old country' when I gave him a refreshing lime juice cordial with mineral water. He had only been here a year to my 34 - but still I often feel like a stranger in a strange land and its comforting to have a conversation in your own language!
Re the wasps - they have to go, already they are sending scouts down to the lower regions - I found one on the bed the other day but at the time had no idea they had taken up residence in the roof. The garden is full of them too which is good for the flowers - but they'll have to find a new home. I am sending them psychic eviction notices but if they don't heed them the pest man cometh.
Re the wasps - they have to go, already they are sending scouts down to the lower regions - I found one on the bed the other day but at the time had no idea they had taken up residence in the roof. The garden is full of them too which is good for the flowers - but they'll have to find a new home. I am sending them psychic eviction notices but if they don't heed them the pest man cometh.
Monday, January 12, 2009
White Lightening
I have just finished reading the above mentioned title - another wonderful book by Justin Cartwright. White Lightening was published in 2002 and I found a well read copy of it is the local Kwinana Library.
The story, told in the first person, is about James Kronk a man in his forties who returns to South Africa, the home of his youth, to sit by the bedside of his dying mother. When I read The Promise of Happiness recently I had a sense that all the characters in the book were a part of a whole; that is in the sense that our personalities take on different shades according to what life is dishing up in the moment. In a line in that book one of his characters says that she is a different person to who she used to be. I felt that whatever a character said or whatever they did were somehow a part of the author's character. It was inspirational to read the book because it gave me an insight into writing characters - because there are fragments of my inner life that could take on a life of their own and live themselves out in a novel. But to return to White Lightening: In this book we see the world through the main characters eyes. To make it interesing the character has some crazy fault lines running through his personality and he lives with the grief of the death of his only son - who died when he was having an affair with an actress while working as a director on a porn movie! The action takes place on the coast of South Africa in between his visits to his mother's bedside. The title comes from an event in his early life when he won a running race and broke a world record for a boy under 18 years of age. It took me a while to get into the book as it jumps around a bit in time giving flash-backs to his life in films, but I knew that it would be worth the effort to stick with it. The main character finds out that he has inherited some money and decides to buy a local run-down farm. The action centres around a fantasy he has of making his life in a rural heaven. He befriends a baboon who comes with the property and takes a family of African's living in a makeshift shelter in the sand dunes under his wing. However his efforts end in failure, reflecting other failures in his life. Even so it was fun accompanying him in his ruminations about life as I recovered first from a tummy upset and secondly from a throat infection.
The story, told in the first person, is about James Kronk a man in his forties who returns to South Africa, the home of his youth, to sit by the bedside of his dying mother. When I read The Promise of Happiness recently I had a sense that all the characters in the book were a part of a whole; that is in the sense that our personalities take on different shades according to what life is dishing up in the moment. In a line in that book one of his characters says that she is a different person to who she used to be. I felt that whatever a character said or whatever they did were somehow a part of the author's character. It was inspirational to read the book because it gave me an insight into writing characters - because there are fragments of my inner life that could take on a life of their own and live themselves out in a novel. But to return to White Lightening: In this book we see the world through the main characters eyes. To make it interesing the character has some crazy fault lines running through his personality and he lives with the grief of the death of his only son - who died when he was having an affair with an actress while working as a director on a porn movie! The action takes place on the coast of South Africa in between his visits to his mother's bedside. The title comes from an event in his early life when he won a running race and broke a world record for a boy under 18 years of age. It took me a while to get into the book as it jumps around a bit in time giving flash-backs to his life in films, but I knew that it would be worth the effort to stick with it. The main character finds out that he has inherited some money and decides to buy a local run-down farm. The action centres around a fantasy he has of making his life in a rural heaven. He befriends a baboon who comes with the property and takes a family of African's living in a makeshift shelter in the sand dunes under his wing. However his efforts end in failure, reflecting other failures in his life. Even so it was fun accompanying him in his ruminations about life as I recovered first from a tummy upset and secondly from a throat infection.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
some books from my 2008 reading list
I am looking through the list of books that I read last year; 32 titles in all. Some I have very little recollection of except whether I enjoyed the experience of reading them or not! I read the two Australian 'must-reads' of the year - Tim Winton's Breath and The Spare Room by Helen Garner, but I was more attracted to meaty tomes from the nineteenth century. In May/June Dicken's Bleak House kept me company through many a cold night, closely followed by Middlemarch. Later in the year Vanity Fair was my companion for several weeks. My least favourite book of the year was the Booker winner, The Gathering by Anne Enright. It was particularly disappointing because I had heard the writer interviewed on the ABC radio show The Bookshow and she sounded like a real hoot. Rarely do I not finish a book but I gave up on that one as I found it dreary and didn't like any of the characters and couldn't stand the style of writing. I did however thoroughly enjoy The Forsythe Sago Vol 1 by John Galsworthy - it saw me through a period of back pain nicely! Another book I didn't finish (though almost struggled through it) was As I Lay Dying by Faulkner - his writing was lauded by one of the members on The First Tuesday Book Club so I thought I would fill that particular gap in my reading history, but definitely not to my taste.
And the cream of the crop were: Reflections on a Mountain Lake by TenzinPalmo the English Tibetan Buddhist nun who meditated for many years in a cave in the Himalayas. For anyone wanting a brilliantly written explanation of Buddhist thought and practice this is the book I would recommend most highly - and I've read a few!!
The Silent Woman by Janet Malcolm. In this book Janet Malcolm investigates the issue of biography and asks important questions about the practice. She does this while writing her interpretation of events in the life (and afterlife) of the poet Sylvia Plath. She asks whether biography can ever really tell the truth about a life. Unputdownable!
The Promise of Happiness by Justin Cartwright.
Justin Cartwright is one of my favourite authors and this book deserves a whole post to itself! Clever, insightful, full or wisdom, a great story, wonderfully written.
And the cream of the crop were: Reflections on a Mountain Lake by TenzinPalmo the English Tibetan Buddhist nun who meditated for many years in a cave in the Himalayas. For anyone wanting a brilliantly written explanation of Buddhist thought and practice this is the book I would recommend most highly - and I've read a few!!
The Silent Woman by Janet Malcolm. In this book Janet Malcolm investigates the issue of biography and asks important questions about the practice. She does this while writing her interpretation of events in the life (and afterlife) of the poet Sylvia Plath. She asks whether biography can ever really tell the truth about a life. Unputdownable!
The Promise of Happiness by Justin Cartwright.
Justin Cartwright is one of my favourite authors and this book deserves a whole post to itself! Clever, insightful, full or wisdom, a great story, wonderfully written.
Monday, January 5, 2009
card for the day
A tightrope stretches from the beyond to the beyond. What does this mean? One ends stretches into infinity the other dissapears into nothingness. Where do they meet? And the figure on the tightrope - so balanced, so serene; neither looking too far ahead nor back to the past.
I look at this card from The Tao Oracle deck and wonder at its message for me this morning. There is a situation in my life that is reflected here. I do feel stretched between two poles. One one level I am here at home creating a life, a garden, painting pots, and the other pole is down in Albany where my two darling grandchildren live. Last night I drove back along the long Albany Highway, through the hazy heat, the washed out colours of a parched landscape, the highway itself like a tightrope over the land. So it is a delicate balancing act to stay centred. To look back can be dangerous, to look too far ahead -unbalancing.
I look at this card from The Tao Oracle deck and wonder at its message for me this morning. There is a situation in my life that is reflected here. I do feel stretched between two poles. One one level I am here at home creating a life, a garden, painting pots, and the other pole is down in Albany where my two darling grandchildren live. Last night I drove back along the long Albany Highway, through the hazy heat, the washed out colours of a parched landscape, the highway itself like a tightrope over the land. So it is a delicate balancing act to stay centred. To look back can be dangerous, to look too far ahead -unbalancing.
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