This will hurt me...

Private Pole. Lindisfarne, February 2021. John Crow's Devil by Marlon James This is an exceptionally dark and disturbing book. Not for the squeamish or faint-hearted, this reads like a magical realist Jamaican take on Cormac McCarthy's  Blood Meridian . Heavily religious in tone and written in thick patois, this is no easy read. Nonetheless, it will reward the patient reader. Exceptionally violent at points and brutally frank when it comes to the body. Indeed, I suspect this book has the highest ratio of bodily fluids spilt per page (not to mention the abundant and vivid examinations of various characters' genitalia). It isn't fair to say that I  loved  this book. It was difficult going at times, but given it is a raw excoriation of post-colonial withdrawal and the hypocrisies of organised religion (and prophets of a more disorganised sort), it would not be right if it were easy. ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2

Gull on the beach. Rheban Beach, Tasmania. February 2021. Questions of Travel by Michelle de Kretser I found this an odd little book. While I do understand that the essence of the work was to explore how "life is what happens when you're making other plans", 528 pages is an awful lot to spend meandering about with little focus on what it is that they are wandering towards (or away from, which may be closer to the point). There is an immense sadness that permeates throughout. While I am generally quite comfortable with ragged narrative arcs, multiple narrators or the complex weaving of interlinked stories, I must confess to not quite seeing the point of choosing  these  two characters. Ravi - while less fully realised - was the more compelling of the two. Perhaps due to the more immediately wrenching of the personal narrative, I found myself much more forgiving of his aimlessness and seeming indifference to the currents moving around him. In Laura, I found her aimlessness...

Sunshine and clouds. Hobart, February 2021. Flake by Matthew Dooley A dour, but fun little exploration into the trials and tribulations of a mildly depressed ice cream vendor in the bleak north of England. The stark and simple illustrative style and bleak colour palette compliment the incredibly dour tale. An adventure tale (of sorts), there are good guys, bad guys, cryptic crosswords and pub quizzes. Worth a look, and you'll be able to knock it over in a single sitting. ⭐ ⭐⭐

Self-reflection. Hobart, February 2021. The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure   by William Goldman A rare case of the film doing justice to the book,  The Princess Bride  is a delightful romp through a strange and magical universe full of damsels in distress, evil princes, dimwitted giants, vicious pirates and a host of other colourful characters. Immensely funny, the i rreverent and lighthearted approach strikes just the right touch to keep moving things along at a breakneck pace towards a satisfying conclusion. Goldman has a great deal of fun breaking the fourth wall in subverting the genre to great effect. There's not much more to say than, "You should read this book. Now!" ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

  Not quite straight. Molle Street, Hobart. February 2021. Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood Alias Grace  is an intriguing exploration of the life of one Grace Marks, a once-notorious Canadian murderess. Convicted at age 16 of the double murder of her employer and his mistress, a significant cause célèbre in 1843 Ontario. Given the ongoing discussion of literary appropriation and of who exactly can tell whose story, I declare that I am agnostic on the issue of an author taking a real-life event and exploring broader themes – as Atwood has done here – as long as it is done well and without sensationalism. Atwood does not fixate on the guilt or innocence of the protagonist, or at least no more than she explores the responsibility or integrity of the society that produced the events that drive the tale. It is a meandering novel, large parts epistolary, extensive parts interior monologue. It is a slow-moving piece with a hypnotic quality to it. This approach fits with our central ch...

  Sunset. Geilston Bay, January 2021. The Land That Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs The Land That Time Forgot  is a pulpy sci-fi/ fantasy romp first published in serialised form in  Blue Book Magazine  in 1918. As such, I should not have been surprised by the primitive understanding of gender politics or the solitary female character's presentation as quite so feeble. I was more taken aback by the presentation of the ‘Wobblies’ – the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) – as evil ne'er-do-wells hell-bent on the destruction of all that is good in the world. Now, one might expect such a thing from the vicious Hun (yes, the Germans are all bestial monsters too), but I’ve always liked the IWW. There’s no point in me exploring the implications of Ho-hum. Given the above, I found this a tedious and simplistic tale that pales in comparison to Jules Verne or H.G. Welles, and the thoughts of Edgar Rice Burroughs on primitive man and the upper and lesser races are best l...

Jen and Ezra heading out. Sisters Beach, January 2021. It's Raining in Mango by Thea Astley Thea Astley is an interesting case study of gender and publishing in Australia. The winner of four Miles Franklin Awards (tied with Tim Winton as the most frequent recipient), most of her books remain out of print. It Is fair to say that she’s not as widely read as a great talent and unique voice in the Australian literary landscape deserves. Which leads me to  It's Raining in Mango , which spans multiple generations of the Laffy family in Far North Queensland. The book covers from the 1860s through to the 1980s. In it, they carry the family (and local) stories with them, and they identify as something more than themselves. These stories intersect with the history of Australia itself, from the brutal invasion and settlement, the scramble of the gold rush through the misery of the Depression to the Stolen Generation, two World Wars and the hippies, freaks and dropouts of the 1970s. ...