Skip to main content

Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact language remains the master of man.


Mindless violence. King Street, Sandy Bay. November 2011.

Just the two books this week, but what books they were!

The Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark ventures into a genre that I am more familiar with in film than print: the Western. A brief plot synopsis might lead you to think that this novel is little more than a cliché: two drifters are drawn into a lynch mob to find and the rustlers presumed to be the killers of a local man.

It is in fact much more than that. Written in 1940, the novel is a somber, unsympathetic examination of the ease with which men slip into violence and resist the urge to ‘justice’. It explores starkly ‘masculinity’ and the tendency of the fear of exposure in terms of physical cowardice to trump moral courage when it comes to groups of men.

It is a fantastic collection of set pieces that affords Van Tilburg Clark the opportunity to explore these themes and remain able to keep the pace cracking along and tense narrative to the (inevitable) ugly conclusion. What really works well is the dénouement. In a naturalistic way, the author enables the characters to attempt to reconcile the events and further demonstrate the central points of the tale.

Very highly recommended.

Shifting from the American frontier in the late-1870s, the great Vladimir Nabokov’s debut novel Mary is set in 1920s Berlin, amongst the exiled Russian community in the immediate wake of the Russian Revolution.

Yet this is no political novel, rather a very personal account of one’s first love. A brilliant series of portraits of drifters thrown into circumstances beyond any of their control allows Nabokov the scope to explore some big themes of love, desire, memory, happiness, nostalgia, freedom and belonging in interesting and innovative ways.

Again, I very much liked the ending, which I really won’t talk about because I’d rather you read the book yourself. Very highly recommended.

Comments

Kris McCracken said…
Both really are top reads.

Popular posts from this blog

If you want to be loved, be lovable.

Henry admires the view.

Zeal, n. A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced. A passion that goeth before a sprawl.

Here I have tried my hand at the homemade sepia-toned photo. I wasn’t happy with the way that the sun had washed out some of the colours in the original, so had a bit of a fiddle because I like the look on Henry’s face, and didn’t want to pass on posting it. I have a tip for those of you burdened with the great, unceasing weight of parenthood. I have a new recipe, in the vein of the quick microwaved chocolate cake . Get this, microwaved potato chips . I gave them a run on Sunday, Henry liked the so much I did it again last night. Tonight, I shall be experimenting with sweet potato. I think that the ground is open for me to exploit opportunities in the swede, turnip, carrot and maybe even explore in the area of pumpkins. Radical, I know. I’m a boundary-pusher by nature. It's pretty simple, take the potato. Slice it thinly (it doesn't have to be too thin, but thin enough). Lay the slices on the microwave plate, whack a bit of salt over the top and nuke the buggers for five minut

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