Things I've Read and One Thing I'm Writing - September 2014
Dear Reader,
Welcome to September! I hope you got through August okay: in Sydney, it was as cold as Sydney gets and then a little bit colder still.
Thankfully, reading is an indoor sport.
Thief of Always by Clive Barker
I picked this up from a random second-hand Twitter recommendation. I've always got an ear out when somebody recommends a book based simply on inherent quality, rather than, say, because of popular hype or because there's a movie coming out based on it.
This is a great book. I've been on a YA reading stint recently because of a current writing project and I still loved this and finished it too quickly. It's by Clive Barker, who's usually known as a fantasy and horror writer, but don't let the trappings of genre fool you. If anything, the hints of horror lurking just behind a curtain create some fascinating jagged edges.
It's about Harvey Swick (peep the great opening line: "The great gray beast February had eaten Harvey Swick alive ...", a ten year old who is bored, finds himself in a great old house where everything is entirely too good to be true, and then has to find his way back out. It has shades of the wonderful Coraline, but it is entirely its own.
Emma Tupper's Diary by Peter Dickinson
This was recommended by the ever-reliable Kathleen, except I almost forgot that it wasn't just a recommendation, but she did the cover art for it, because she's basically amazing.
This is also YA, but read this for the gentle then ridiculous then perfect plot, and wonderful characterisations of a family ('"I am beginning to understand about the Scots,” wrote Emma. “And why they murdered each other so much,'), and evocation of the Scottish highlands, and some beautiful moments of writing:
"Andy had rigged a mosquito-net for her, and she sat under this with a very old typewriter on her lap, choosing the letters one by one and hitting them like enemies."
Le Morte D'arthur by (well, kind of) Thomas Malory
For reasons equally complicated and boring, I've been reading this: the canonical source of our modern Arthurian legends. (I haven't near finished yet - it's long!) As with all literature of this sort of vintage (originally written/compiled 1470), sometimes it feels like swimming upstream against the language itself. But also as with most literature of this vintage, sometimes you're struck by why it survived.
It's a fascinating thing: it ends up being more a sort of compilation of stories revolving around Arthur and Knights, and it's strange to see what storytelling meant then, but at its best, one of the stories concerned with love and obsession and revenge and honour had me literally gasping, the equal to any modern short story.
One Thing I'm Writing
I haven't shown this to anyone yet ... which may either be a blessing or a curse. But I think it's the possible seed for a book or something. Love to hear what you think.
"What do you say?
There's certain instincts that kick in as a parent of two small child things. Things you find yourself repeating, mantra-like, over and over.
"Say please." "Wash your hands." And, (slightly disturbingly) "don't eat that."
But this is near the top of the most-played playlist: "What do you say?"
That is, after an adult has given you something, or complimented, you - the parent - prompt. "What do you say?"
Hoping for the intonation, from high note to low, "thank you". Or, in one of the toddler dialects, "fank you", "tank you", or the simple, eloquent single-syllabic, "sanx".
We're trained early on to give thanks. But at least at first, it's probably more from a duty to instil politeness (or from trying to maintain a facade that skirts around spoiled brat territory) than a full-blown understanding of the importance of thankfulness.
Nevertheless, it's a clue: that giving thanks does something. Those two simple words hint at something greater behind the curtain: something about what a gift actually is, and what we deserve given who we are, and how we signal that within the dance of relationship.
In addition, this last month, I had one book review was published for Eternity: the bibliophilic Reading for Preaching. I also had the pleasure of running some seminars on mental health, boundaries, and caring for those with depression at a friend's church, and I'm hoping to write up some of that material soon.
If you read any of these things, or want to recommend something to me, I would love to hear from you.
Feel free to forward this to others. And, if you're from the future and this has been forwarded to you, welcome time traveler: you can go here to subscribe.
Thanks for reading,
Guan