From such crooked wood as that which man is made of, nothing straight can be fashioned.

Sacred Ground? St David's Cathedral, Macquarie Street, Hobart. December 2011.

With the year rapidly coming to a close, I am currently sitting on 96 books read (not counting

The first book - History in Practice by Ludmilla Jordanova - is a bit of a deviation from this year’s usual reading list, but I ran out of library books and resorted to digging in the cupboard for something to read.

This is firmly in the ‘academic history’ camp, so will not be for everyone’s tastes. However, if you are a bit of a history buff you will surely find something worthwhile. Jordanova explores how the study of history has dramatically altered in recent decades. She does an able job at exploring what historians do, and in particular, why and how there have been such sweeping changes to the discipline.

I’d happily recommend it to anyone with an interest in the topic.

Second up today is Giovanni's Room, James Baldwin's second novel. Typically described as a “homosexual novel”, I think that the moniker “tragic love story” it is more apt. That said, the homosexual element is a critical part of the story.

Written in the 1950s, Baldwin’s honesty and frankness is to be applauded. I can only imagine the reaction at the time, indeed, Baldwin’s publisher advised him to “burn it” after he read it. The novel focuses on the events in the life of an American man living in Paris and his feelings and frustrations with his personal relationships. Despite an obvious physical attraction to other men, he remains (in part) in denial. The he meets an Italian bartender named Giovanni.

This is a beautiful book, and offers tender, naturalistic and complex representations of human relationships to the reader with empathy and artistry that doesn’t treat same sex desire as some kind of fundamentally different experience, perversion or aggressive political point. You may well think that such a novel then would not have as much resonance or currency today, but it is strikingly prescient in the context of the current gay marriage debate.

I can heartily recommend this book. It is refreshingly honest and should (hopefully) encourage you to reflect on your own life and relationships. I could not recommend it any more highly.

Comments

Leovi said…

Beautiful colors with excellent play of light and shadows. A nice place to sit and read.

9 December 2011 at 18:23

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...

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. ...

This will hurt me...

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