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Books

The Vivisector – chapters 6, 7 and I’ve barely begun 8

September 25, 2006 – 10:07 pm

Read my first and second posts in regards to The Vivisector.

Bloody hell it’s been a hard slog getting through these chapters this week and I’m still nowhere near the end of chapter 8.

Normally I can read a book in quite a short time, even a long one like this but because it doesn’t flow too well for me I’m having a bit of a hard time. Not being one to give up too easily I’m getting through it, but I must admit towards the end of chapter 6 I did read quite quickly through it as I was just so sick of it being so long. This time with my reading I’m making some small notes as I go because otherwise I would forget what I want to say, so here’s my thoughts on the three chapters, well two and a bit.

I know it takes a while for things to sink in sometimes but it wasn’t until I got stuck into chapter 6 that I realised girls and women feature a heck of a lot compared to men. The men, apart from Hurtle of course, are really minor characters in the book. The two chapters, I have read so far, that really only feature men are the two ‘show the passage of time’ chapters, ie with the grocer in chapter 5 and Mothersole in chapter 7. I got a real feel of how Mothersole regretted giving Hurtle his card, ‘The two men looked at each other, and smiled as each realized he would probably never meet the other again except in nightmares or moments of sentimental weakness.’ (p. 421).

Chapter 7 also informs us what happened to Hero and for the first time since Hurtle was 6 years old we are told his age – 55. I suspect from the spoilers I’ve read that this is necessary for the reading of chapter 8 when he hooks up with Kathy so that we definitely know the huge age difference between them.

Stepping back to the beginning of chapter 6, there’s this: ‘As there was so much he had to paint, the fantasies he was amused to indulge in came no closer to actuality than masturbation to fulfilled love.’ (p. 277). Despite the heavy going of this book for me sometimes, sentences like this jump out at me because they so aptly describe a situation. Quite often we feel there’s so much to do we can’t possibly do it all.

Another observation White makes on p. 285 when Hurtle’s at a party hosted by Olivia Davenport and some of the guests are meeting him for the first time and Mrs Halliday didn’t quite catch his name. When it is repeated for her she says, ‘Oh. Ohhh? Neoh! Not the artist – the painter? Duf-field?’ The way she pronounces ‘Neoh’ and emphasises Duffield reminds me of Prue and Trude in Kath and Kim and their snobbish way of talking and looking at the world. I suspect Mrs Halliday is a snob and we leave her fishing for her compact.

I don’t feel able to comment on the rest of chapter 6 and Hero. Others have more than adequately done that.

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The Vivisector – chapters 4 and 5

September 13, 2006 – 4:00 pm

After quite enjoying chapters 1 and 2 I got a bit bored as Hurtle got older and the narrative shifted from second to third person.

I still like the way things are described in the book but I found myself re-reading some bits now knowing what the heck was going on. I lost the plot in chapter’s 3 and 4 as he travelled through Europe then completely disconnected from the Courtneys. I need to reread to understand it better but am hesitant to subject myself to it.

By the end of chapter 4 Hurtle is well and truly grown up and I’m not really sure how old he is. Old enough to have been a painter for long enough to gain some recognition and enough money to indulge in some things.

Hurtle seems quite self-obsessed. All the same he has people that love him, Nance and the art dealer, even though he is quite distant from them both physically and emotionally.

And chapter 5, it took me a while to figure out who was masturbating was it Hurtle or the grocer? That came out of left field.

I am taking a bit of a break to read some more Australiana in ‘Queen Kat, Carmel and St Jude Get a Life’ by Maureen McCarthy and will reopen The Vivisector very soon. I needed a small break but am looking forward to new chapters opening in his life.

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Books

The Vivisector – Patrick White readers’ group

September 8, 2006 – 12:35 pm

I’ve finally joined a book club of sorts – albeit an online reading group focusing on Patrick White. Read about how all this got started.

I had to dig around to find a copy of The Vivisector and finally got one. My local library didn’t have a copy. The copy I’ve got must be an original. Details are: Published in 1970 by Jonathan Cape Ltd, London. It’s the hardback with a plain orange cover.

I didn’t know whether I’d enjoy it or not but willing to give it a go and now I’m looking forward to each instalment of my reading.

I’m up to about the middle of chapter 2 and they’re quite long chapters so this commentary is only up to the Courtney’s trip to Europe. The brief is to have read chapters 1-3 by today, but I’ll have to catch up on the weekend.

Read a plot summary to this point by Grice.

Points of note to me:

  • Hurtle Duffield Courtney is an interesting six year old. He’s comes across as quite arrogant for his age. Others participating in the readers’ group have mentioned his cruelty but cruel wouldn’t be the word I would use. Arrogant, yes, as I mentioned above, and curious, and direct as children are.
  • He is also a bit weird and creepy. He keeps talking about brushing up against women and girls, implying that his character is older than he is.
    ‘She would look at him as though he was sick. Till he brushed up against her. He had learnt that this worked with his mother, and with Lena and the girls. He had never tried it out on his father.’ (p 15)
    I can’t think of any six year old I know exploring their sexuality beyond having a bit of play with their willie.
  • Having said that, I like his creativeness and how he interprets things as he sees them quite differently from most people.
    ‘If he ever painted Sybil Gibbons he would show her pale-green, vegetable flesh tortured by moonlight and hot sheets, her lips slightly open as he sa they would have to be.’ (p. 129)
    He says himself: ‘I don’t want to be like everyone else.’ (p. 87)
  • The use of the second person? ‘You this and you that,’ is quite distracting. I don’t know if it’s because I’m not used to this style as I haven’t encountered it before. Even when I hear people use ‘you’ when they’re obviously talking about themselves annoys me.
  • I think if I met Maman in real life she and I wouldn’t be friends. She strikes me as being too needy and a bit shallow.
  • And Rhoda. Not quite sure if I feel sorry for her or not. It must be hard for her to have Hurtle arrive as part of the family and realise that he’s their favourite.
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Books Journal

Enid Blyton lives on

June 16, 2006 – 4:40 pm

Magic_faraway_treeWhen I was in primary school I avidly consumed an extensive diet of Enid Blyton books. I couldn’t get enough of them and it got to the point where my primary school librarian told me in grade 7 that grade 7′s weren’t allowed to borrow Enid Blyton books. I was devastated. I still had some of her books to read and now they were being denied to me.

Being the good girl that I was I didn’t question it until I saw a fellow grade 7′ner borrow one. I used that as ammunition and was allowed to borrow Enid Blyton again. I think that in her misguided way she was trying to get me to borrow other author’s books but she should have been more proactive in getting me interested in other authors. She should have also been thankful that I read at all.

I think Enid Blyton has influenced me more than I realise as my son has the same name of one the character’s in one of her book series. This didn’t gel with me until after he was born and his name given to him but it makes sense now.

Enid Blyton’s copped a lot of flak over the years for racism and so on, but despite what people say about her writing, it lives on and has pretty much stood the test of time.

I loved The Secret Seven, The Famous Five, The Naughtiest Girl, Galliano’s Circus, St Clare’s but one series that I hold dear to my heart is the Magic Faraway Tree.

When I was pregnant, I bought The Magic Faraway Tree and only now have I started reading it to my son. He loves it as much as I did when I was a kid. He doesn’t worry about the character’s names, Dick and Fanny (and no, my son’s name is not Dick). My adult dirty mind has a bit of an inward cackle when I read these names but JJ doesn’t care what they’re called.

It’s still all magical and wonderful. I think it’s appeal is the escape from the everyday life and away from parents. These kids have a hell of a lot of freedom, but then in just about all of Enid Blyton’s books, adults don’t really feature much. And what fun it must be to be able to visit a different world whenever you want, have fabulous adventures and escape unscathed.

JJ’s going through an ‘I love fairies and magic’ stage and that’s why reading him The Magic Faraway Tree is very timely. It’s broken up into fairly short chapters so even when they are in a bit of trouble at the top of the world and a chapter ends I am able to say that’s the end of that day and I’ll read you the rest tomorrow.

I hope that one day he’ll be reading The Magic Faraway Tree book to his children.

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Books Journal Parenting

Why I love reading Dr Seuss

June 3, 2006 – 3:32 pm

SamiamAs a book addict I’ve kept nearly all of the books I had when I was a kid. I’ve got Enid Blyton, Nancy Drew books, some Golden books and of course numerous Dr Seuss books.

I’ve been reading them on and off to JJ for quite a while now and I love them. I love them for the silly rhymes they have.

‘"All mine!" Yertle cried. "Oh, the things I now rule!
I’m king of a cow! And I’m king of a mule!
I’m king of a house! And, what’s more, beyond that,
I’m king of a blueberry bush and a cat!
I’m Yertle the Turtle! Oh, marvellous me!
For I am the ruler of all that I see!"’

Reading out loud in rhyme is quite soothing and fairly easy unless you read Fox in Socks. JJ was given this for Christmas from a friend of ours. I was staying over at their place the night and being on holidays I’d had a couple of drinks. Not that I need to be on holidays to justify drinking. But I mistakenly decided to read JJ Fox in Socks after a couple of drinks and had great trouble getting my mouth around verse like this,

‘First, I’ll make a quick trick brick stack.
Then I’ll make a quick trick block stack.
You can make a quick trick chick stack.
You can make a quick trick clock stack.’

The illustrations also keep JJ interested as they are just about as silly as the rhyme is. And the premise of a story like Green Eggs and Ham is just nonsense. Who would eat green eggs. Yuk!

But of course it’s the message behind the books that really shines through for me as an adult and, I’m sure, to some extent younger readers.

Green Eggs and Ham was a great book for me to read to JJ when he was going through the I’m-not-going-to-eat-vegetables stage. Like the character in the book who will not even contemplate tasting the green eggs and ham JJ would not taste some of the foods I put on his plate. I’d read Green Eggs and Ham to him and afterwards say, ‘See, he didn’t want to eat them at first, but after he tried them he decided he did like them after all. If he can do it so can you.’ JJ eats nearly everything I give him now. I can’t say it’s just this book that did it. Other threats like no dessert probably helped things along somewhat.

The Yertle the Turtle the story is a great one about wanting more than you have and not being satisfied with what you do have. Yertle wants to survey more land than he can currently see from the rock in his pond and makes all his turtles stand on top of each other so he can reach a greater height. This works for a while but due to an uprising of the turtles below in the form of a hiccup from Mack, Yertle comes tumbling down from his perch and is king of the mud.

‘And the turtles, of course…all the turtles are free
As turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be.’

Before I went on my first overseas trip a friend gave me ‘Oh, the Places You’ll Go!’. I took it with me and even brought it back with me and now it sits in JJ’s bookshelf. It’s got great messages for the adult and the child reader whether travelling on holiday or just travelling through life.

‘And when things start to happen, don’t worry. Don’t stew.
Just go right along. You’ll start happening too.’

and

‘I’m sorry to say so but, sadly, it’s true
that Bang-ups and Hang-ups can happen to you.
You can get all hung up in a prickle-ly perch.
And your gang will fly on. You’ll be left in a Lurch.
You’ll come down from the Lurch with an unpleasant bump.
And the chances are, then, that you’ll be in a Slump.
And when you’re in a Slump, you’re not in for much fun.
Un-slumping yourself is not easily done.’

How true! Despite being in the Lurch, the waiting place, not having fun, or just being plain lonely you will get through it eventually and have fun. I love reading this book when I’m in a slump as it reminds me that I will come through the other end and be okay again. I think it’s a good message to send to kids as well that it isn’t all happy times, there are sad times but not to dwell on the bad times and focus instead on the good times.

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Books

Blogging Faster than Kudzu

April 13, 2006 – 6:31 pm

A month and a bit ago I came across a website, probably through BlogHer by a novelist called Joshilyn Jackson. Her blog is called Faster than Kudzu and she’s reinstated the Zero Boss’s Blogging for Books.

When the Zero Boss was doing it I never got around to submitting an entry. As the name suggests, you write a blog entry related to a particular topic. Your blog entry is judged and if it wins, you win a book. Sounds good to me.

So it has two plusses for me. There’s the potential to win a book and it’s also a way to force me to write. I submitted an entry for March which was to write about the military in some form or other. I didn’t win by the way, and I didn’t get into the top six or seven but I did get a blog post out of it.

The other great thing about the chosen topics is that they’re really broad and can be interpreted in myriad ways.

Unfortunately I missed April’s submission. This is why I’ve added the weblog link to my ‘Blogs I read’ links so I can keep up with her blog and the Blogging for Books and get me some writin’ practise. Go and have a look, you might want to submit an entry yourself.

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Minette Walters at Adelaide Writers’ Week

March 7, 2006 – 8:30 pm

Today I took some flexi from work and went to see Minette Walters talk at Adelaide Writers’ Week. I’m a crime fiction buff and I like listening to writers talk about their writing. I got there a bit late – too late to get a seat under the marquee and actually see her face but I could see a silhouette in the distance and I could hear her fine.

Her first book was called Icehouse and it took her agent two years to finally sell it to Macmillan. She was lucky in that her husband was supportive, financially and emotionally, during this time and she’d also started her second book so wanted to concentrate on that if she could. With the 1250 pound advance she got she bought the entire set of Encycolpedia Britannica and used these until she discovered the internet.

She asked the audience for a show of hands as to who didn’t use email yet. I saw at least five people raise their hands and she told them that they don’t know what they’re missing and they should immediately go and use email, and the internet, as it’s such a rich source of information.

Minette described using email within her stories as a way of concisely driving the narrative forward. If she’d used dialogue and description instead of emails in the story it would have taken four times as much space to say the same thing an email did in one page. I can’t remember which book this is in.

She also said that by using emails in addition to the rest of the narrative she, in a way, illustrated her books. The sections that were emails were laid out as such in a different font to the rest of the story so they were immediately visually separate from the rest of the book.

Adult books published before the First World War often used illustration and when the War came along, wood had to be imported therefore paper availability was minimal and illustrations were left out. For example, the original Sherlock Holmes books were illustrated so we have a picture of him in our minds that we can capture in a glance that a couple of pages of words cannot do.

During these meet the author sessions people can get up and ask the author a question and one person asked her what motivated and drove her to be a writer. This is always the sort of thing I want to know about writers.

Minette said that she thinks writers have egos the size of the marquee she was sitting under (a large marquee) even though they might not show it. They have these large egos, especially published writers, because they’ve written something and think that people might buy and read it. I don’t know if this is true or not, perhaps it is to some extent. I think it’s also the need to write, write, write – which she didn’t mention. She did mention, however, that she’s always loved reading and loved books.

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