Many contemporary authors drink more than they write.

Exra studies Tasmanian history. Stanley, Tasmania's North West. February 2012.

Saša Stanišić’s debut novel, How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone offers a moving portrait of the breakup of Yugoslavia (and the Bosnian conflict more specifically), as seen through the eyes of a child. The novel explores the barriers of race and religion and the absurd constructs that they are, and – perhaps unsurprisingly – it fails to offer up any real explanation as to how neighbours who previously laughed, drank and sang together suddenly started raping, torturing and killing each other.

The central chronicler is Aleks, of mixed Serbian and Bosniak heritage, as he struggles to comprehend the rapid descent into war and chaos of the once blissful Yugoslav town of Višegrad. This is an emotionally gruelling read. If you had any kind of awareness of what was happened in the former Yugoslavia, you’ll recognise the sense of dread from a reader’s perspective. Ultimately, it highlights the irrational and brutal nature of ethnic violence, set against the naive child’s view of the world. There is a great deal of charm in the detail of growing up by the beautiful river Drina, which makes what happened there (and the role of the river in disposing of the dead) all the more depressing.

Stylistically this is a challenging book. It flouts grammatical norms and the chronology and narration s jumbled. Aleks is an imaginative boy, which adds to the confusion. Throw in the absurdity of internecine warfare, and you have the recipe for a fair bit of head scratching. However, the diligent reader can manage a bit of untangling. I think that this tangled nature is part of the true genius of the book. It is confusing. It doesn’t make sense, child or otherwise. How else does a twelve year old process the casual murder and systematic rape of some members of his town (the bakers wife, the science teacher) by other members (the bus driver, the policeman) simply because they have the ‘wrong’ last name?

I hesitate calling a novel that features such ugliness ‘beautiful’, but I think that it is. Stanišić has pulled off an incredible feat here in trying to capture what ‘reconciliation’ means in the context of such horror. The fact that for most of our characters here ‘reconciliation’ means ‘silence’ is all the more terrible. This is an incredibly moving book, probably the best I have read thus far this year. A warning though, I did need a good sit down and was utterly emotionally gutted by the end. Well worth reading if you are up for it.

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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