Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.

I want to break free... East Derwent Highway, Lindisfarne. April 2012.

Two very different books this week. The first is Judith Schalansky's Atlas of Remote Islands. Helpfully sub-titled Fifty Islands I have not visited and never will, this is a coffee-table book that combines hand drawn maps of fifty of the most remote and hostile islands on earth with brief, fable-like narratives of elements of their histories on the facing page.

Schalansky grew up in East Germany in 1980 and, unable to journey far, (and like many of thus) she travelled via the atlas. This book continues these imaginary voyages. Especially fascinated by isolated islands and tales of prisoners, castaways, natives and colonists, she has developed a book that draws the reader into these journeys. Not for everybody, but if this sounds appealing I would bet that you'd like it. Recommended for atlas-fanciers.

Second up is Up The Junction by Nell Dunn. Controversial at the time of its release in 1963, it depicts contemporary life in the industrial slums of Battersea, in greater London.

The book is a riot of colloquial speech and half-complete vignettes. It captures a chaotic life of fights, petty thief, casual sex, illicit births, deaths, prostitution and back-street abortion provided a view of life in the UK that shocked many.

As I've hinted, this is not your traditional novelistic structure. Mostly a series of incomplete sketches in the lives of three young women, it captures the lot of a [type of] woman’s life in the early sixties to now. What makes it particularly interesting is that this way of life has very much been ignored in literary works then (and to a degree) now.

This captures the feeling of both a nascent freedom (not just in relation to sex) underneath a crushing oppression. This is indeed a long way from the traditionally-understood feminist narrative. In some respects this is a bleak book. No details are spared and the lives described are particularly grim. There is particularly jarring description of the realities of back street abortion.

As such it is a powerful document of the time. The chaos will put some off, but it is worth the effort. Recommended.

Comments

Leovi said…

Delicious composition, I love this original photo, beautiful colors and textures.

13 April 2012 at 16:03

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. ...

Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth.

This is the moon. Have I mentioned how much I adore the zoom on my camera? It's Theme Thursday you see, and after last week's limp effort, I have been thinking about how I might redeem myself. Then I clicked on the topic and discover that it was BUTTON. We've been hearing a lot about the moon in the past couple of weeks. Apparently some fellas went up there and played golf and what-not forty-odd years ago. The desire to get to the moon, however, was not simply about enhancing opportunities for Meg and Mog titles and skirting local planning by-laws in the construction of new and innovative golf courses. No, all of your Sputniks , "One small steps" and freeze dried ice cream was about one thing , and one thing only : MAD Now, I don't mean mad in terms of "bloke breaks record for number of scorpions he can get up his bum", no I mean MAD as in Mutual assured destruction . When I was a young man you see, there was a lot of talk about the type of m...

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...

This will hurt me...

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