Month: October 2010

It’s a female’s prerogative

I changed my mind about about “The Hundred Foot Journey” by Richard Morias. He needs a new editor for a start. NB: It was a reader’s copy that I read, however it has already been published outside of Australia so of course there are no major changes going to be made.

The book started out promisingly. I was enchanted enough to want to take it home to continue reading. It wasn’t long, though, and as I have earlier said, that I was continually pulled out of the story by the incredibly annoying voices Morias gave the Indians in the story (ie leaving out pronouns and prepositions), apart from the first-person narrator. Further down the track, I noticed I was getting increasingly more frustrated by the narration swapping from first person, to, oh-so-conveniently, an omnipresent narrator so the reader knows what is going on ‘over the road’ and in other people’s minds. There may have been a sentence somewhere that stated “I was told this later on by …”, but if there was, it was purely a convenient way to get around plot, and, frankly, it did not work. The fact that I noticed it was happening and that I was very frustrated by it is enough to show it is a problem.

The story ran out of steam toward the end. I increasingly veered between wishing that the damn thing would just finish, and wondering where in hell this was going, and was it actually going anywhere? The narrative just plain fizzled. It was is if the author himself ran out of steam at the end and just didn’t know what to do with it.

Disappointingly, a 2/5 for me.

And so, with that done, I am back into ‘The Slap’. I’m ambivalent about this one. I started out thinking it was a daring, provocative, wonderful piece of Australian literature. I’m nearly finished (can’t believe I’ve read nearly half of it this evening), and though it’s close to un-put-downable, quite frankly, it’s a, well, **** book. Provocative, yes. Daring, perhaps, if you consider the idea of using the ‘c’ word incessantly, daring (I just consider it filthy and unnecessary). Chock full of masturbation and sex. A positive–it does make you ponder the question ‘when is it, if ever, okay to physically punish a child?’; it forces you to look at where you stand morally on the issue. However, there is not one character to really like in this book. Some are thoroughly detestable, some are so pathetic you want to give them a good slap around the ears yourself, but what they are are human (except that they are human only in seemingly negative ways … I don’t know if there is a positive character trait to share between the lot of them). Definitely better than the first one mentioned in this post, and worth reading if you aren’t too delicate!

THREE SLEEPS until the end of semester, ‘summer holidays’. I have a take-home exam due Monday night (ie two essays that I only got the questions for a week ago) … Gwen Harwood, and Wuthering Heights. I have the Gwen Harwood portion finished; I’ll be slaving over Wuthering Heights this entire weekend. THREE SLEEPS until I can read as much as, and whatever, I want. Hallelujah! A trip to Perth, Western Australia in November, helping out in the shop in the lead up to Christmas … and … still those details to work out about my Secret Dream Job that will be starting soon.

May all beings be happy (because I sure as hell am!).

We’re being blown off the face of the map today…

I am sure. It’s sunny, it’s pretty, but that gale is monstrous. I can’t even hear kids outside playing and that’s something. Australia is going to go bye byes in the wind!

I got my paper on Yeats’s ‘The Second Coming’ back yesterday. I knew I would either do absolutely brilliantly, or bomb dismally on this one. Hallelujah, I got the best mark I have ever got so far! A nice big fat High Distinction. This was the first paper that I have become absolutely excited whilst doing research on (and I did a LOT of research … way more than first year level). Academic obsession … now I get it 🙂 And it has lead to a love affair with Yeats. I now have a book of his collected poems awaiting some leisure time (yeah, RIGHT!).

My paper looked further into the symbolism of the poem than just Yeats’s book ‘A Vision’. I looked into the symbolism he used, and how it relates to Theosophical and Rosicrucian thought/symbolism, and it’s all there. But I did NOT find any study on it anywhere. How odd. I could do a damn dissertation on it. Yeats was way more than the eccentric weirdo fighting spirits whilst dressed in a suit of armour.

Now, I have a take home exam to prepare for. It is basically two small essays, but we only get the essay questions a week before they are due. I am just thanking GOD that it is not a traditional exam. I am NO good at exams. Not English Literature ones anyway. And I also have a web-design blueprint assignment due yesterday (literally) which I have an extension on, and am, obviously, procrastinating over. I want to have that handed in Monday so I can swat madly for this ‘exam’. I don’t care about marks for the web design unit–so long as I pass. But I do care mightily about getting the best marks possible for English.

I needed that extension because I have been sick all week. I thought it was a one day ‘toilet’ thing early in the week, felt icky for the rest of the week, and it started up again yesterday. A bit worried … it could only be a bug of some sort, but it’s the third time in as many months, so the mind starts on it’s ‘uhoh, the cancer might be back’ track. Toast, tea and lots of water for me. Whilst I burn the entire The Doors discography to cds, and a 9 cd set of minimalist piano music (Philip Glass, Yann Tiersen et al).

Ah! I’m currently reading  ‘The Hundred-Foot Journey‘ by Richard Morais. (The Slap is temporarily on hold). It’s a proof copy I got through the shop as it hasn’t been released in Australia yet (slated for December this year). Australia … we drag our heals on so many things *sigh*. I’m thoroughly enjoying it. It is a first person narrative about a young Indian man who starts a restaurant in the alps in France. Being the Indiaphile I am I had to read it. It’s a great read, a fun read– except for one thing. The narrator’s voice is very erudite and readable. The other Indian characters’ voices are bloody awful. Sorry Mr Morais. Morais leaves out prepositions in their speech and makes them sound like native idiots, they don’t sound Indian … I tried reading their words in an Indian accent and still it did not work. He should have left out the attempt at ‘accent’ altogether, because, for me at least, it does not work and pulls me out of the story. It irritates me. Apart from that, thoroughly enjoyable, and hunger-making 🙂

Slapping the Joy Luck Club

Me working in a book shop is like being a kid in a candy store. Poor William Dalrymple … I’ve put him on hold. Today I spent hours reading at work as Monday is slow. I picked up ‘The Slap’ by Chris Tsiolkas, an Australian book which won the 2009 Commonwealth Prize and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. And deservedly so. WHAT A BOOK. I’ve heard all the hoo-ha about it of course, but was motivated to read it after reading a short of his that was included in the ’10 Short Stories You Must Read in 2010′. His characters are unlikeable. But there is honesty in his characters–brutal, harsh, reality in the characters–with unpleasant thoughts and actions and character traits that, if we are honest, we can well recognise in ourselves. And I found Amy Tan’s ‘The Joy Luck Club’ in the second hand section today so have borrowed that also.

And don’t I LOVE the WordPress plugin to my right, which keeps track of my library/reading list. Wee!!

Have Web Design unit first assignment (blueprint) due on Friday. Yelp. No sleep. No time. Why can’t I just read for the rest of my life?

As the morning creeps into the sky…

Hello  blog, I have been neglectful of you. At this point, I am afraid you are nothing but a place to save my thoughts and scraps for me to peruse electronically … at some later stage, if I feel so inclined.

I remBuddhism for Mothersembered you at 5am today, after I had no sleep all night long and was reading to try and court that nasty mistress. While the light was only just seeping into the sky, and the kookaburras, willy wagtails, cuckoos … and froglets … singing up a cacophony (yes, I do know that is not a noun), I opened up ‘Buddhism for Mothers’, (thank you Rena!) which is one of the great big pile of books being read/half read/finished on my bedside table  (mine has a nice orange cover – not this pastel horrendisity). I opened it at a particular spot, a perfect spot, and started reading.  I thought to myself, I really need to read this at least once a month, and so, as my repository of scraps, here is the section of which I waffle…

Attachment to our Friends and Loved Ones

The Buddha taught that attachment is the cause of our suffering and unhappiness. This is especially true for our relationships. Attachment makes any good intentions towards others conditional: when someone fails to conform to our rigid expectations, our feelings of friendliness dry up. We hold unspoken demands, expect people to somehow sense these, and then feel bitterly disappointed when they let us down. Neither loving nor caring, attachment fails to nourish our wish for others to be happy. Instead, it makes us clingy and needy.

Real love is motivated by a wish that others be happy and overcome suffering. It is unconditional: the way someone treats you doesn’t affect your response of compassion. If this seems irrational, we need only think of our children, who can behave abominably all day and even profess hatred for us, yet we still love them intensely.

At worst, attachment makes us possessive as we harbour feelings of ownership: she’s ‘mine’ and I must guard this relationship from all threats. We might insist people be the same as us, that they share the same views, interests and tastes. We might try to control them and before long we can’t believe how negatively we feel towards a former source of joy. Real love, on the other hand, provides space and freedom for our friends and family to be themselves.

When we feel attachment, we see our friends as sources of our own happiness rather than people in their own right, but how fair or reasonable is it to make others responsible for our happiness? Relationships, like all phenomena, are characterised by impermanence. They constantly change, just as each individual in a relationship is not a consistent, stable identity. Relying too much on other people for our happiness leads to unhappiness. We need to live with others in a non-demanding, self-sufficient way. If we could stop clinging to our relationships our minds would become more peaceful, freeing us from much anxiety, worry and fear.

(Sarah Napthali,  2003, Buddhism for Mothers, Allen & Unwin, Sydney)

Guess who hasn’t been doing their loving kindness meditations 🙂 Or … any meditation for that matter, for a long time.

Other items of non-interest:

  • Very behind in my study. Blueprint assignment for web design unit due in a week, ‘take home exam’ (two small essays, of which we only get advised a week before they are due) for English Lit in a few weeks. So so behind. Liam being on school hols doesn’t help.
  • Yeats paper was exhilarating to do, and fascinating, and my thesis will mean either I do brilliantly or flop dramatically, and I am so glad it is over.
  • So disorganised and scatter-brained since the whole cancer thing I don’t know if I’ll ever find my way back.
  • I’m reading a wonderful collection of short stories by Australian authors at the moment. It’s a free book, given out by the government, to get people reading. A not-for-sale publication. I’m surprised at the quality … because it is a freeby. (Note to self: must now read ‘The Slap’ by Christos Tsiolkas.)
  • Have a Fistula Trust fundraiser on 30 October … depending on how organised I am with my assignments (sigh). An afternoon of knitting/crocheting squares for blankets that the Hamlin Fistula Trust has requested for their women to use in hospital. Want to do.
  • I’m finding the ‘issue’ of my ex-partner having a new girlfriend is affecting me in surprising ways. Disturbing dreams. I have to admit, though I left him, and it was three years ago, I can’t help feeling very, very sad. He is moving on, finally, and it is what I wanted for him. But I … well, I am feeling happy with my life currently, and don’t pine for a partner, but I do wonder if it will ever happen. I even, stupidly, now 3/4 believe that I am ‘not suitable for relationships’ as I was once told. God DAMN that man (and by ‘that man’ I do not mean my ex), why should I believe that??? I shouldn’t. But I do. ‘Sticks and stones’ is a load of bullshit.
  • Another change of academic plans. After scouring every single unit offered by the School of Arts within my university, I have finally decided, yes I have, on my second major. It is called ‘Studies in Religion’, but the connotations of that make it appear it’s all about Christianity. Maybe it should be called ‘Comparative Religions’ or ‘Study in ReligionS’. From ancient Greek/Roman/Egyptian beliefs, to Buddhism/Hinduism/Christianity/Islam. And lots in the middle. I’m very excited about starting those units next year.

But no more of that. May all beings be happy… and you too, you poor sad, disregarded blog.