An incinerator is a writer's best friend.

Fun? Princes Street, Sandy Bay. January 2012

Two books, but I’ll deal with them quickly.

First up is the Dave Musgrove edited 100 Places That Made Britain is a breeze through British history, from pre-Roman invasion to the present day. Each site has been chosen by a prominent British historian and cover every length of the land and section of history. This is accessible history and would be a great asset if you’re planning a holiday. Recommended!

Second up is the at once hilarious and depressing early John Steinbeck novel Tortilla Flat The tale of a group of paisanos in Monteray, California in the post-WWI period, it vividly recreates a time and place seemingly long gone. The novel details the lives of transient alcoholics – and is loosely based on the King Arthur legend – is not held in high esteem by many who see it as a slur on Mexican Americans.

I am less sure of this. Yes, the days are whittled away drinking, fighting, cheating, chasing women, running from women, thieving, scheming and sleeping, but there’s more than simple colour in the life of these bums, and the novel is both poignant and very funny. There is a complexity to the central characters than I suspect many of its critics see.

I really enjoyed it. More than I probably expected too. You might too. Highly recommended.

Comments

Tom said…

tortilla flats is pretty scathing, and hilarious, but i prefer Canary Row (book or movie, take your pick)

5 February 2012 at 11:58

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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