A lion is made up of the lambs he's digested, and I've been reading all my life.

The bus won't be far away now. Hobart GPO, Elizabeth Street. October 2011.

Just the one book finished this week, although that was enough to push me past my nominated 85 book challenge at the beginning of the year (more on that later).

This week it was Doris Lessing's The Fifth Child. Billed as a "contemporary gothic horror", it centres on the unravelling of a serene family-life upon the arrival of their fifth child.

I'm not sure about this book. I think that I can grasp the key themes: modern society's drift from its more brutal past, the notion of a maternal bond, the authoritarian character and the thin veneer of civility. I'm just not convinced of the characters. I'm not sure how I'm to feel about the characters, and hope that the sympathy I felt for the 'monster' at the centre of the piece is a fair result.

Nonetheless, it is a decent read and can be recommended. I'd avoid it if you're expecting a baby any time soon though...

Comments

Roddy said…

I am always in awe of the workmanship that went into the buildings of yesteryear. Somehow it looks so perfect.

28 October 2011 at 13:25

Leovi said…

Gorgeous blue sky with clouds and a great perspective. Nice photo.

28 October 2011 at 17:20

Mrsupole said…

Well since you mentioned monsters, can you see the one to the right of the clock tower? I swear I can even see the mouth full of teeth. Just ask anyone else if they see it. I am not sure if you meant to put it in there because of the book or if you just clicked and it is there because of the book. Just a scary thought.

God bless.

28 October 2011 at 19:17

Roddy said…

Cloud people I see! Or are they cloud monsters?

28 October 2011 at 21:11

Kris McCracken said…

Roddy, it needs a clean.

Leovi, I was waiting for the bus home.

Mrsupole, monsters surround us each and every day!

1 November 2011 at 14:15

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...

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...

In dreams begin responsibilities.

A life at sea, that's for me, only I just don't have the BREAD. That's right, Theme Thursday yet again and I post a photo of a yacht dicking about in Bass Strait just off Wynyard. The problem is, I am yet again stuck at work, slogging away, because I knead need the dough . My understanding is that it is the dough that makes the BREAD. And it is the BREAD that buys the yacht. On my salary though, I will be lucky to have enough dough or BREAD for a half dozen dinner rolls. Happy Theme Thursday people, sorry for the rush.

This will hurt me...

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