Roddy Parr by Peter Rose

This book was recommended by someone on the panel of the First Tuesday Book Club – Richard Flanagan perhaps? It’s about a young literary PhD grad who through a family friend ends up being absorbed into the world of one of the great literary families of Australia, as secretary, later friend, and biographer. The jacket is covered in accolades from people I respect, like Helen Garner, but somehow this book irritated me. To begin with, you get the sense that these fictional characters are real characters in the Oz literary world in disguise, which is perhaps why the folks at the book club were so keen on it – they may have recognised themselves or someone they knew. The whole thing is peppered with references to Sydney and Melbourne personalities and places, like Tony Bilson and Bill Henson and Patrick White and The Flower Drum, and somehow that annoyed the hell out of me too because they ended up being involved in the plot with White saying this, and Bilson saying that, again as if the writer is trying to pass this thing off as a piece of non fiction.
The story line - the unpacking of family secrets and development of relationships - is interesting enough but the characters don’t ring true. They keep saying awkward things that nobody says, like one woman talking about entertaining people to dinner and saying ‘I just give them a chop’. Now, who says that? It’s like something out of PG Wodehouse. And there’s lots more of this irritating lack of authenticity in the characters and the way they speak.
And finally the writing – OTT. This guy has ‘discovered’ literary language so his prose is full of dreadful metaphors and unwieldy language that just goes clunk at the bottom of the bucket. Nothing seems to live, not the characters and not the action. The main character Roddy is an onlooker, who reports, diarises, but barely lives the action. Contrived and awkward I think. 2 ½ stars.

House Rules by Jodie Picoult

Jodie Picoult is my guilty secret. She writes what I would term girly thrillers, with a lot less blood, violence and graphic sex and a lot more relationships and soul searching angst! This one is about a young man with Aspergers who is implicated in a murder but his condition prevents him from communicating what exactly happened. It takes a lot of pages to unravel I can tell you! I spent the best part of a day on the couch racing through it and as a thriller it was fairly absorbing. 3 ½ stars

The Shortest History of Europe by John Hirst

The problem with books like this is that the moment you finish them, you’ve forgotten all the detail. This is a wonderful summary of history, which for me filled in a multitude of gaps and connected all the pieces together. There were so many ‘aha’ moments in this book for a person who hasn’t formally studied history, and possibly for someone who has as well. The book is a series of lectures by a history lecturer at La Trobe university in Melbourne, designed for first year students whom he thinks have studied too much Australian history and have no understanding of their place in ‘civilisation’. It’s a broad brush approach but it really provides the context that allows the rest of the detail to fall into place. It’s full of fascinating details and is one book I will be reading again and probably again. 5 stars.

The Spare Room by Helen Garner

Perhaps this isn’t the best thing to be reading on the second day of convalescence after the foot operation, when you’re a bit worn out by pain and over the adrenalin rush that sustains you through the event…. It’s a book about how a woman looks after her friend who is resisting dying of cancer. I read everything Helen Garner writes: I love her honesty, her sparse language, the way she goes to the heart of any matter no matter how uncomfortable or unpopular her position. This is supposed to be a novel but it is peppered with references to her life and her work, so I am assuming much of the experience is real. The friend is a superannuated hippie type, and reminds me incidentally of certain close friends from my past who were addicted to dancing under moonlight or any sort of whacky therapeutic practice that might provide a madcap alternative to research-based modern medicine. Anyway, I digress. The friend is trying an extreme and unproven treatment at a very dodgy clinic in Melbourne to cure her of cancer and to allow her to avoid facing the realities of the disease. The load she places on Garner is enormous and not willingly shouldered, really, although Garner loves her dearly. That’s what I mean about Garner’s honesty – who else would own up to not being up to the burden of care? It’s a very short novel, thank goodness, because it’s uncomfortable reading. It’s also not Garner’s best because I think it gets a bit sentimental at the end, but then what a topic! 3 ½ stars.

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

If you’re going to get yourself laid up in bed with a foot operation for a week or so, this is the book for you. It is a piece of wonderfully intricate, detailed historical fiction, dealing with the early part of Thomas Cromwell’s career with Henry VIII. Mantel gives Cromwell a human face, a far more familiar aspect than you get from the historical accounts, where he appears as a brutal and manipulating force (which I’m sure he was). This book is a fascinating exploration of the complex politics of the time – it certainly makes the nonsense the current political parties get up to seem like kiddies’ play! A definite 5 star read this one.

The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry

Some months ago I read The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox and somebody recommended The Secret Scripture as a follow up. This book is just as good. It covers the same sort of ground, a modern day mental hospital about to be demolished and the long term patients assessed for re-entry into society. This one is written in two voices, that of the patient herself, Roseanne, and that of her doctor, William Grene. It becomes a quest to discover what the truth really is, whether Roseanne is delusional or whether she has been misjudged and mistreated. Set in Ireland in the early part of the century, the book is tangled up with Irish history and the values of the time, particularly pertaining to women, sexual mores and the power of the Irish Catholic church. I had two problems with the book, the first that it is written in rich language that takes time and concentration but the underlying story is so powerful that I just wanted to KNOW what happened, and to hell with all the words. So I didn’t enjoy that language as much as it deserved to be enjoyed. The second is the ending, which is pretty unbelievable. Though perhaps in Ireland, with its tiny population, perhaps…. Anyway, this is a terrific book. 4 ½ stars.

The Museum of Innocence by Orham Pamuk

This was a difficult and very long book to read but it is a book that I’ll come back to in my mind for a long time to come. It’s the story of Kemal, a Turkish playboy who becomes engaged to a suitable girl but is also having an affair with his distant cousin Fusun. He becomes obsessed with Fusun, and this obsession allows his character to develop and sadden over years and years. Of course you realize very quickly that something tragic happens because he is narrating the story in the past and has spent his life creating a museum to honour the life of the girl. It’s an interesting book because the question of virginity and its importance, then and now, in Turkey is central to the novel. I felt I got some real insight into the attitudes and values of modern day Turks. Worth the effort. 3 ½ stars.