An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.

A sign from somebody, or something. Franklin Wharf, Hobart waterfront. May 2012.

Being Dead by Jim Crace really is unlike any book I have read before. It begins with a straightforward, albeit shocking, image; the bodies of a middle-aged couple lying in the dunes of the seacoast where they met as students. A frenzied stranger has battered them to death them with a chunk of granite for no reason other than the few valuables they have with them. Yet this is no murder mystery. Less about murder and more about death, to be more precise.

The reader is than taken on a [very] graphic account of what happens as their corpses lie undiscovered and rotting for a week. We learn of the effects of putrefaction, the role of crabs, flies, and gulls in processing decaying organic matter. The narrative then abruptly shifts backward to the [again, incredibly graphic] moment of their deaths. It’s fair to say that the opening third of the book is not for the faint hearted.

The narrative then alternates between the few hours shared between the couple preceding the murder; thirty years earlier and the events of their meeting and getting together; a continuing account of their decaying bodies; and events in the life of their only daughter in the week following their deaths. Each lens is an intimate view of life (and death). The graphic descriptions suddenly feel more appropriate and poignant, and less shocking. Crace has done exceptionally well to achieve this feat.

The key message seems to me to be that death is a natural part of life. Whether we are aware of it or not, it simply is. It might seem obvious or trite a concept, but it’s Crace avoids this with his brutally honest account of the lives and deaths of two people, and the immediate effect on their distant and remote daughter.

I really like this book, and respect its achievement. None of the characters are particularly sympathetic, but they are all fundamentally human. There is something made more touching of their dysfunctional relationships that is highlighted by the central theme of death (and the contrasting challenge of life). It’s not for everyone (particularly the squeamish), but if you’re up for a challenge, you could do much worse than read this book.

Highly recommended.

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...

Search This Blog