Skip to main content

How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.


Blue. Kangaroo Bay, Bellerive. February 2011.

Another week, another few books. This week I have a bigger one and a littler one.

Let’s start with the little one, shall we?

Although Alan Bennett is better associated with the world of theatre, he has ventured into TV, radio and literature. In The Clothes They Stood Up In, he brings his attention to detail and illustration of contemporary life through the eyes of Mrs. Ransome's, a seemingly dreary figure left behind by modern society.

The central premise of the book – suddenly all the worldly possessions of a suburban couple are removed from their flat – allows the author the leeway to create an atmosphere of stilted repression in which one character, gradually, is able to discover the world’s ability to delight her, even arouse her.

It’s a surprisingly dark piece, and tackles one of my favourite topics: stuff and its capacity to blunt our senses. All up it is a fantastic book, and – even better – will only take you a few hours to knock off. Highly recommended.

Book two this week is actually book FOUR of Spike Milligan's war autobiography, Mussolini: His Part in My Downfall, spanning his landing in September 1943 to his eventual withdraw due to ‘battle fatigue’ in January 1944. This book differs quite a bit from the earlier works, with the memories starker and more densely packed, with less in the way of humerous asides and and almost no sketches or doodles. In this respect, the book itself mirrors the tense frame of mind of Spike through the period.

Ultimately, it’s an unflinching account of the build up of pressure that became too much for many men. It strikes an incredibly genuine chord in its portrait of life in the ranks, with plenty of ‘blue’ language and banter as you would expect in such situations.

In fact, it does such a good job that you really finish wondering how anyone came home ‘sane’ after experiencing the prolonged, tense day to day life that involved being away from home and your loved ones, in the pouring rain, hauling big guns around in the knee deep mud, living in the same clothes day after day, no showers, no beds, with no hope of an end any time soon. Then you consider the fact that a few kilometres away are a bunch of people whose job it is to kill you.

That said, the humour still shines through, and now I’m going to face the challenge of finding volumes FIVE through EIGHT.

Very highly recommended.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

smudgeon said…
Do the Spike Milligan books work well enough as stand alone pieces?
11 March 2011 at 12:11
Kris McCracken said…
They could easily be read on their own. They are well worth having a look, if you don’t mind the filthy language.
11 March 2011 at 13:37
Carola said…
Such a beauty - I mean the shot.
12 March 2011 at 08:51
Kris McCracken said…
It's a nice spot down there. Henry's school sports day is right next to that spot.
15 March 2011 at 09:25
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...
5 comments
Read more

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke...
38 comments
Read more

Hold me now, oh hold me now, until this hour has gone around. And I'm gone on the rising tide, to face Van Dieman's Land

Theme Thursday again, and this one is rather easy. I am Tasmanian, you see, and aside from being all around general geniuses - as I have amply described previously - we are also very familiar with the concept of WATER. Tasmania is the ONLY island state of an ISLAND continent. That means, we're surrounded by WATER. That should help explain why I take so many photographs of water . Tasmania was for a long time the place where the British (an island race terrified of water) sent their poor people most vile and horrid criminals. The sort of folk who would face the stark choice of a death sentence , or transportation to the other end of the world. Their catalogue of crimes is horrifying : stealing bread assault stealing gentlemen's handkerchiefs drunken assault being poor affray ladies being overly friendly with gentlemen for money hitting people having a drink and a laugh public drunkenness being Irish Fenian terrorist activities being Catholic religious subversion. ...
62 comments
Read more