To Me. From Me

This week I discovered the amazing, two-storey Dymocks Bookstore in the city.  I spent an hour thoroughly losing myself amongst the shelves, poring over the titles and gulping deep breaths of that book smell that I so miss when I buy books online.  

Obviously, it was useless to resist the store's charms and I ended up buying three books.  

The first one I started reading straight away on the train home.  But the other two, I wrapped in gift paper with a note attached and addressed to myself in the future.  

These two books, gift-wrapped on my bookshelf, are going to be a present to myself when I finish my first year of university.  I'm only six weeks away from accomplishing this incredible milestone.  

Because I've been through so much this year, I thought that the best and truest way for me to celebrate would be to give myself something.  That something is permission to be very proud and happy.  

As great as it is to receive congratulations from my family, it isn't a substitute for telling myself that I'm proud.  I'm the person who I most need to hear that from.  

After all the exhaustive effort that I wrung out of myself to survive this year of study, I just need to admit to myself that 'I did good'.  That I am indefatigable and invincible.  That I can be beaten to the ground and still get back up.  

To me.  From me.  For everything I've been through.  For everything I am yet to dream of doing.  I just need to give myself permission to have this moment of happiness because I deserve it.  No one can take what I've learnt away from me.

Books in Life or Death

Paper books are just like us - slowly declining.  They mirror our vulnerabilities and our humanity.  It is easy to share moments of deep personal connection with a paper book, because, really, we are the same, equally human in that sacred space for reading.    

Prepare to be transported to a magical place.  I saw these pictures and fell to a new depth of hopeless love with books.  Feast your eyes on the ravishing works of Guy Laramee.  

Carved Book Landscapes by Guy Laramee

Carved Book Landscapes by Guy Laramee

Carved Book Landscapes by Guy Laramee 

Guy Laramee has done two series, Biblios and The Great Wall, both of which are awe-inspiringly beautiful.  Follow the links to explore them.  

BOOKS A SYMBOL OF HUMAN MORTALITY

Speaking to an interviewer from art site, Colossal: Art and Ingenuity, Guy Laramee describes the motive behind these gorgeous series:

So I carve landscapes out of books and I paint Romantic landscapes. Mountains of disused knowledge return to what they really are: mountains. They erode a bit more and they become hills. Then they flatten and become fields where apparently nothing is happening. Piles of obsolete encyclopedias return to that which does not need to say anything, that which simply IS. Fogs and clouds erase everything we know, everything we think we are.

His words deeply inspired me.  They serve to remind us of the beauty of mortality, challenge us with the inevitability of death and decay, and invoke hope that we will have a legacy.  

For me, these art pieces embody the superiority of paper books over e-books.  Paper books are just like us - slowly declining.  They mirror our vulnerabilities and our humanity.  It is easy to share moments of deep personal connection with a paper book, because, really, we are the same, equally human in that sacred space for reading.    

No e-book can be so beautiful, in life or death.  

My Last Will and Testament

I am currently experiencing a sense of boredom and meaninglessness that belongs purely to the space between two books.  Left hanging for almost a week while I wait for my hold to arrive at the library, I've been trying to find other things to fill my time.  And, (as you do), I thought, well, I might as well write up my last will and testament.  That will occupy me for a day.  

Now, while writing a will may seem like a non-event, I took it very seriously to assign every last knick-knick in my possession to the person that it meant something to.  Bequeathing my library to my survivors was no mean feat.  I thought it was going to be fairly simple, but as I perused all the titles, I was hit by the revelation that every last book was a genie-bottle for a significant memory.  Every one reminded me of a time that I had sat up late reading aloud to Dad, or taken it in turns to read chapter by chapter with my brother, or searched Grandma's closets for Mum's childhood storybooks.  I thought about how everything that I owned, in some way, connected me to someone else.  An audiobook Dad gave me of his favourite story, 'The Little Prince', a CD of 'The Hobbit' movie soundtrack my brother gave me for my birthday because 'even the most epic soundtrack isn't epic enough to be my soundtrack', a bluebird of happiness locket that belonged to my Mum.  

Writing my will quickly stopped being merely a task or project.  It was a great reflection on my relationships, and left me with a sense of being truly loved and of loving truly.  Regardless of the fact that I'm not likely to die any time soon.  

The Power of Storytelling

I had the revelation after finishing my first book, that I can tell a story.  Now for me, this does not consist of merely entertaining readers, but of painting times, places and people from every century of history, putting them into perspective for a person sitting quietly at home, and blow that person's expectations, understanding and opinions out of the water.  

It means to be able to affect people.  The reading that you do as a child especially, shapes and moulds you into the person you grow to become, by giving you experiences and insight, friends and hardships.  As a storyteller, you have the ability to provide this learning.  Storytellers have the ability to say a thing, however small or large, however distressing or thought-provoking, that will be heard by many, but for which they cannot be persecuted.  

Not only does the story act as a shield against controversy, but the story is a vehicle for ultimate truth.  The fact is that when you hear a story, your mind does not necessarily pick out the point straight away, but might instead require moments of reflection to understand.  Metaphors, allegories, similes make things so much easier to understand, and easier to accept.  My dad visited a gallery of modern art recently, during a postmodernism exhibition.  One piece was a film in which three baby bird sock-puppets chatted with child voices about the sad event of losing their home tree to urbanisation.  Half way through the film, the audience realised suddenly that these sweet little birds that they were so content to watch in fact used the voices of children of the Stolen Generations to speak.  These voices - these truths - were taken from something entirely different and given different personas, a new story, to which an audience had a greater ability to listen.  They were not confronted with emotionally-charged accounts of horrific events, but instead listened with empathy and connection to baby birds.  Once they understood what the story was really about, they were able to now look upon the real children of the Stolen Generations with real understanding, and see them as precious, innocent, fragile young children.  

Storytelling has unrivalled power to say what cannot be said plainly - to make clearer the parts of tangled issues - to provoke every reader to observe and reflect on things they never considered before - to help each reader connect to people from whom they are divided by time and space, as well as those closest to them.  

Art to Understanding

Since finishing my book, (I am editing, illustrating and thinking about publication), I have found a new level of contentment, excitement, aspiration, and inspiration.  I never realised it at the time, but now reflecting on my writing process, I understand that writing, and most importantly, finishing that book was an emotional breakthrough for me.  I wasn't struggling through emotional turmoil so much as I was proving to myself that I could do it.  I could write a book.  The whole thing was completely instinctive and intrinsic.  It was as though my body knew better than I did its motives for inspiration and passion.  And now, alive and well on the other side, I have been given an overwhelming sense of confidence and identity.   

I always knew that I was a writer, but actually finishing a book that I am proud of gives it so much certainty.  I always have and always will experience a certain level of doubt and fear, but now this accomplishment has shown me that regardless of my terrors and qualms, I can write and I will write.  I was given the confidence to rise above these things, and furthermore, the concrete identity of a writer.  Of course, writer is only one of many aspects of my identity, some of which include wonderer, observer, dreamer, maker, story-teller, listener, and lover.  But now I feel that no one could possibly ever ever ever ever argue that I'm not a writer.  I am a writer.  

The burst of confidence and accomplishment has lavished me also with ideas.  If you remember, I had started keeping a Commonplace Book at Lemony Snicket's advice, and within the last few days, I have been constantly scribbling words, places, observations and thoughts.  I feel like the completion of my book has given me a pass into a new stratosphere of inspiration.  

I have already begun to discuss ideas for a new story with my mum.  The concept is deeply personal and reflective.  Mum made an observation.  She suggested that this book allows me to explore myself - my feelings and every aspect of my personality - as I experience revelation of self-awareness and love.  And that awakened me to another thought.  

How incredible is it that literature, art, dance, drama and music give those who make them a vehicle to a place of understanding.  Writing for me is a medium through which, sometimes unconsciously, I  can reflect, ask questions, vent, and problem-solve.  Perhaps I will understand myself better after it, or perhaps I will have only acknowledged the complexity and beauty of my emotional state.  Neither is better than the other.  Can you see now how people who use the arts, whether they consciously know it or not, are given a great opportunity to improve their emotional health?  It amazes me to imagine how many do not experience it.  

Acts of Rebellion

I've always been a good kid.  As in, I've never wagged school, never abused teachers or bullied students, I've never dared neglect my homework, my assignments are always on time, my most rebellious act in the my highschool years has been to dye my hair with a red rinse that washes out after a week.  I'm not game enough to do anything truly rebellious, but even so, I have moments that mark small victories in my journey towards a freer me.  

This week is the last week of term three.  I have had two days off.  The first day, I went to the movies with my mum.  Today, my second day off, I am going to work on my book and finish my university applications.  For me, this is a big deal.  I didn't come to the decision to accept my mother's offers to stay home lightly.  To choose to stay home, I experienced huge amounts of guilt.  I felt so morally obligated to go - to not let my best friend be a loner in last period - to fulfill the goody-two-shoes stereotype which I have so faithfully adhered to these past five years.  Taking these days off has been a victory in several ways.  Not only have I been able to break through my fear of abandoning the 'law' of school, I have also been able to rearrange my priorities and come to the revelation that I am not a stereotype.

Well, perhaps I do qualify for a few stereotypes.  But this act of rebellion serves a purpose deeper than merely breaking a stereotype in the eyes of my friends.  I first thought that the goal was to make everyone else see that I am not stereotypical - that I can be spontaneous and free and frivolous when I please.  But then I realised that I don't care so much what my friends think about me, because I know that whatever I do, they'll just accept it.  So what is the point of rebelling?  

I realised suddenly that the point was to be true to myself.  The goody-two-shoes thing was a design to fit into the system - a safety net of sorts.  While I am very naturally a studious, hard-working busy beaver, these small rebellions are a way to be true to a deeper part of me.  I didn't dye my hair to change everyone's view of me.  I dyed it only for a week because I am the sort of person who doesn't want gross regrowth or the permanent stain of a bad decision.  I dyed it red because, at heart, I just really wanted to dye it red.  

So now, I think about my days off.  I am not taking them off to show people that I am being a rebel.  I am taking them off because I am exhausted, and I want to.  I am not sticking it to the system.  I am acting upon true self.  

I Write a Book

The book that I have always wanted to read does not exist.  This book consists of particular characters, particular places, enshrouded in a particular atmosphere.  As a writer, it is my conviction that I must write this book in order to fulfil my dreams of the perfect book.  

I feel that there is a book that I am always in the mood to pick up and read, and it doesn’t exist.  Therefore, it is my obligation, both to mankind, and myself as a reader, to create this book – to birth it into existence and therefore appease a dark longing of my soul.  It ties in to my notion of being doomed to be a writer.  I am not destined to write, I am doomed to write.  Writing is an insatiable craving, in indefatigable aspiration, one that seems never to be satisfied, as there is always so much more, so much more to say, always, always. 

So it my greatest delight to share with you something that I have perhaps hid for a little too long.  At first, it was because my internet didn't work.  But then during that dark period of non-internet usage that something began to stir in me creatively.  And by the time the internet connection was back on line, I was so preoccupied, that I just couldn't think how to begin to explain to you the great something that is now in my life.  

I started writing a book.  

I have suffered from an incredible lack of ideas and inspiration for close to six years.  I write half pages that I am proud of - paragraphs that make me go: "I really can write, actually!"  And when I expressed to my brother my thoughts and feelings on writing, he responded very simply with "why don't you write a book?"  

Picasso that that "inspiration does exist, but it must find you working."  This is so true.  I started with a tiny thought - a picture that played in my head as I lay falling asleep two weeks ago.  I decided to write the scene, and then I had an idea on top of that idea, and then a couple of characters on top of those ideas, and on top of those characters, a myriad of stories.  And so it began.  

I had so many problems with the story.  I got half way through, and just got so stuck that I was in despair, but I got my mum and my brother on the scene, had them read the offending chapter, and asked them for their opinion.  I cannot stress enough how smart it is to seek other perspectives.  In an instance, I was given observations that hadn't occurred to me - it was a tool with which to break out of my monotonous train of thought and widen the range of possibilities open to me.  So I got back onto it and wrote some more.  It had characters that I needed to know, and places that I needed to be, enshrouded by an atmosphere that is real to me.  It's becoming the book that I want that I always wanted to read.  

I now have a tree of lime green Post-It notes stuck on my Prince Caspian wall poster - a dot point outline of my story.  It is not a very long story.  I have divided it into chapters, 13 in all, each chapter averaging 2 pages.  When I am complete, I calculate that it will have about forty pages, or eighty pages when cut into a chapter book format, and I would love to illustrate it myself, too.  I have written almost half of it already these holidays, and my goal is to write a chapter each weekend and so finish within the term.  

It has been amazing, though, this process.  I have gone to hell to heaven, to hell, back to heaven.  But I am absolutely sure now about something else.  Not only do I have to fulfil my dreams of the perfect book by writing it myself, but I, by writing, can fulfil my human need for perfect happiness.  

Less Alive?

I don't know why it happens.  It happens every now and again, as though my subconscious was having a conversation about me behind my back, and I accidentally overhear.  A couple of days ago, I had a totally random thought that, for an instant, made me quite concerned.  

SUBCONSCIOUS:  You spend your life reading - delving into someone else's life.  Does that mean you are less of a participator in your own life?  Are you less alive because you escape from your life into dream worlds?  

I hardly knew where to begin in my mental argument against this appalling thought.  Almost as soon as I thought of it, though, my brain swelled up with responses.  

Maybe I do spend a lot of my time living other people's lives through books.  But I ask you the same question that I asked myself.  Have you ever felt less alive, less connected, less human after reading a book?  

Reading gives you a way out, temporarily, from your own troubles.  Escapism.  Perhaps if your entire life was built around this escapism, my subconscious might have had a point. 

But reading is not purely escapism.  It is also interpretive.  By living that story, by becoming connected with that character, you learn something either about yourself, or the world, through the reflection of that story.  Literature is not only a doorway, a portal from our world to another.  It is also a mirror, in which we see ourselves, slightly changed, maybe reversed, but there all the same.  It is a new perspective.  It is fodder for deep rumination, for the digestion of new wisdom and understanding.  

If I had never read a book - if you had never read a book - what sort of person do you imagine you would be.  Think of all the things that you have learned from books.  Think of the people you have met, and the experiences you have had, and then, all the epiphanies, revelations, realisations that you had because of something  you read.  Real incredible life revelations.  

Reading may grow you up mentally - make you wiser - but spiritually, it keeps you young.  You know and have felt things that other people your age have no understanding of.  But you are also more childlike: a wonderer who revels in the beauty of language and of the world itself; a dreamer who can pull the wisdom of a thousand bed-time stories out of their sleeve to decorate their imaginings.  

What on earth was my subconscious thinking, when it asked me if I was less alive because I lives in books.  No.  You probably have a million things to add to my revelation.  No.  We are much much more alive.  

This is what Language is For - A Book to Die For

I have only read a chapter, but it is obvious.  It was obvious after the first paragraph.  This is the lost treasure.  Jonathan Safran Foer has reminded the world of something that should never have been forgotten.  This is what reading is all about.  This is what language is for.  

Excitement doesn't cover it.  Perhaps a panic to prove to the world that I have justified my existence.   Bruno Schultz' The Street of Crocodiles and Jonathan Safran Foer's Tree of Codes have finally arrived from The Book Depository.  

(If you didn't read my original post on Tree of Codes, it is a work by the glorious Safran Foer, which consists of Foer taking a copy of his favourite book The Street of Crocodiles, and cutting sections from the pages so that the remaining phrases make an entirely new story.)  

A sculpture of words

Anyway, both books finally came, within a day of each other.  While I was waiting for Tree of Codes, I started reading its inspiration.  Safran Foer actually wrote a foreword to The Street of Crocodiles which as a fellow Safran Foer lover, (let alone a book lover), you should definitely read.  Even before I got into the book, I was completely smothered with delight and engrossed by the gorgeous words that Foer wrote about it.  

I want to read the whole thing to you, but to type four pages in would take me forever.  So let it suffice to say that he quoted Franz Kafka, "A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside of us."  To which he adds, "Schulz's two slim books are the sharpest axes I've ever come across.  I encourage you to split the chopping block using them."  

Heart skipping, pulse pounding through my wrists, I rushed through the title pages like pages of wrapping paper on a present.  

Safran Foer once said "Some things you love passively.  Some you love actively.  In this case, I felt the compulsion to do something with it."  I was holding in my hands the thing that dear Jonathan loved actively, and I was trembling with excitement that I would discover between its covers that would compel me too.  

Yes.  Yes.  Yes.  Yes.  YES.  YES.  YES.  

Yes I did.  I have only read a chapter, but it is obvious.  It was obvious after the first paragraph.  This is the lost treasure.  Jonathan Safran Foer has reminded the world of something that should never have been forgotten.  This is what reading is all about.  This is what language is for.  

I want to give you the whole chapter, but once again, I can't.  So I will give you some sentences with which to feed your soul with words.

I implore you to not read this like you might normally read a story.  Read it with attention, and slow breathing, as though it is something special for yourself.  Really listen to it.  

On those luminous mornings, Adela returned from the market, like Pomona emerging from the flames of the day, spilling from her basket the colourful beauty of the sun - the shiny pink cherries full of juice under their transparent skins, the mysterious black morellos that smelled so much better than they tasted, apricots in whose golden pulp lay the core of long afternoons.  And next to that pure poetry of fruit, she unloaded sides of meat with their keyboard of ribs swollen with energy and strength, and seaweeds of vegetables like dead octopuses and squids - the raw material of meals with a yet undefined taste, the vegetative and terrestrial ingredients of dinner, exuding a wild and rustic smell.   

The dark second-floor apartment of the house in Market Square was shot through each day by the naked heat of summer: the silence of the shimmering streaks of air, the squares of brightness dreaming their intense dreams on the floor; the sound of a barrel organ rising from the deepest golden vein of day; two or three bars of a chorus, played on a distant piano over and over again, melting in the sun on the white pavement, lost in the fire of high noon.   

After tidying up, Adela would plunge the room into semi-darkness by drawing down the linen blinds.  All colours immediately fell an octave lower, the room filled with shadows, as if it had sunk to the bottom of the sea and the light was reflected in mirrors of green water - and the heat of the day began to breathe on the blinds as they stirred slightly in their daydreams.  

The Street of Crocodiles, (1: August) by Bruno Schulz, first published 1963.  

For me, this was a delight of every sense.  I smelt the fresh fruit, and knew exactly the flavour of the morellos that smelt better than they tasted.  I heard the shadows dropping an octave lower with the fall of the blind.  And I the humanity of the light dreaming intensely on the floor.  The keyboard of ribs on the meat.  The distant organ, the mirrors of green water.

This is not only a festival of words, but a symphony of music and light.  But beside being a festival and a symphony, I can't help but feel how intimate it is.  It is a symphony just for me.  Or just for you.  I laughed during this because I could hardly believe someone would write something so beautiful for me.

The Tree of Codes

The day that Tree of Codes came, I was surprised by the sheer beauty of it.  It is so delicate, and natural.  It's just like the publisher, Visual Editions, said.  "It's a book that remembers it has a body".  That is a perfect way of describing the sensation.

I read the first chapter straight away - the Jonathan Safran Foer equivalent of the first chapter of The Street of Crocodiles.  It is over in less than ten sentences, but each sentence seems to take a lifetime to read.

It is intensely Jonathan Safran Foer.  Every word that he pulls out of the text, I can immediately recognise, and this subtext makes what he's saying so potent.  And yet, even knowing what the original chapter sounds like, he winds each phrase of it into his very own, personal story.

It is beautiful.  It is spectacular.  It is more than I could have imagined.  And it is so simple.  Hardly anything at all.  It is just so powerfully incredible.  The incredible words of Schulz have become the incredible words of Foer, weaving a new heartbreaking beautiful tale.

I have found something compelling, alright.  This is an active love.  

Moulding a Book Around Me

I started reading All Things Wise and Wonderful by James Herriot a couple of days ago.  I needed something warm and loving, and I knew that this book could give me just the snuggle I was looking for.  

For my birthday, my parents gave me All Creatures Great and Small and All Things Wise and Wonderful. Where is the middle book, you might wonder?  I already had All Things Bright and Beautiful, having salvaged it from the top shelf of my grandmother's house.  These two new, fresh, clean cut hard covered books were at odds with the old, brown paperback.  

Between its pages are pressed flowers and the smell of folded woollen clothes and talcum powder.  These new books didn't have a particularly booky smell yet.  They were so clean that inhaling their smell left me with a cold, prickly nose.  I felt, as I began, that the new book was too impersonal.  That the text was too black, and the paper too coarse and white.  I felt like an outsider.  Have you ever experienced this before?

But the queerest thing happened.  As I went on - as I read deeper into Herriot's world - the book itself changed.  The cover bent to mould against my hand, and the pages took on the fragrance of my breath as I sat bent over a cup of tea to read.  I melted in deeper and deeper, until I became a part of the book's shape and aroma.  

I never realised the truth of this before.  It astounds me that such a revelation has taken so long for me to realise.  That new book, while changing me as it become a part of my life, was changed by me as I became a part of its life.  My hand fits it, my smell is made more special in the paper.  That is true beauty, I believe with all my heart.  And I think that is a mighty good explanation  of why electronic books will leave us emptier.  

Up Your Ass

Granted it's a bit late for it, but I thought you would appreciate to hear how the Lions Youth event went.  (I'm going to presume that you've already read the speech.)

During the day of the speeches, each of the participants had to sit an interview with the judges.  I awaited my interview in the cream-washed parlour of the funeral home (ironically enough), with an ice cold waterbottle dripping condensation on my knee.  When I went in, I was greated by three interesting characters.  One sported bright purple hair, one a button nose, and the last an uncanny resemblance to Seachange's Kevin. 

If you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life thinking it's an idiot, said Einstein, to which my dad added, you're a fish in a marathon and you will get gravel rubbed into your scales.  To which I responded wow, you are incredibly encouraging.  I was very aware that I wasn't going to get into the next round.  It was the wrong thing, the wrong crowd, the wrong person.  It was very political, very current affairs based...  I don't actually even know who my local council member is.  I'm not sure why I decided I would go for it, but knowing that I had absolutely nothing to lose, I was able to relax and enjoy the lack of pressure that ignorance allowed me.  In fact, we ended up having quite a nice discussion on books. 

Now the speeches and impromptu questions were held at the local community centre, which turned out to be absolutely tiny inside even though from the outside it looked like a warehouse.  It was beside the train line, so even at seven at night, whoever was talking would be rudely interrupted by a half-hourly passing train. 

The impromptu questions came first, and we all had to stand outside and go in one by one, so as not to get an unfair advantage by hearing the questions beforehand.  While we waited, we joked about the hopelessness of our interviews, and laughed that our answer, should the question mercifully be "who is the greatest leader in history?", shall be "Boudicca, Ancient Romano-British warrior princess". 

No such luck however.  The question were, "Is the print newspaper still relevant in today's society?" and "If you could change one thing about Australia, what would it be?"  To which I answered in that order, "yes" and "reopen the bookshops".  It was almost painfully obvious that I was quite a gravelly fish, but yet a proudly quaint one.  

I know that my speech went well.  I cried, but I was able to talk and carry on and allow the emotion to unlock a connection.  I had no notes.  I used no lecturn.  Through glistening eyes my dad and my brother smiled and shook their heads.  The George R.R. Martin quote, central to the speech, was given me by a dear friend, and to thank him, I locked eyes with him as I spoke it.  He looked down, and I felt so disappointed that he did, but I was told as soon as I finished, that he had been crying too.  That moment of realising was so perfect. 

I felt like that speech should be a snapshot of what I want my life to be always.  My ability to be authentic, to connect with people, to learn through books and live with empathy.  I wish everyone I know could have even a clue that it took place, because now only a handful of people know what I really think.  For me, it taught me that I'm growing, that I can engage people, that I can say something that others can connect with on their own deep level.  A number of other people's aunts and grandmothers, and next door neighbours came to me afterwards and told me "I felt what you were saying.  Thankyou."  

No, thankyou.  I don't care so much that the judges critised me for using too much drama.  Shove my tears up your ass if you thought that what I did was drama.  Every person I talked to afterwards knew, and felt themselves, the sincerity.   

The Nip of Realisation

I've been reading A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin for a while now.  It started as a recommendation which led to a reality which in turn led to a really enjoyable read. 

I feel like it is about time that I make my confession.  A while back, I recall being somewhat indignant on the topic of modern literature.  I proudly stuck to my classics for so long, but for a time now, I've been sneaking out of my shell, almost without realising, and getting a taste of fresh air.  I'm not sure what sort of reader I am anymore.  Maybe in a month's time, I'll have organised my thoughts, but right this moment, it seems that I'm reading a lot more stuff that doesn't fit into my old categories, or tick boxes that I thought were at least significant in some way. 

Douglas Adams turned my world upside down, and Jonathan Safran Foer kicked it nicely in the stomach.  And George R.R. Martin... well I'm not sure how long my trip with him will last, but so far, it's been a wonderful detour. 

The friend who recommended it to me, actually, told me to keep in mind that Martin is notorious for killing off any and all characters unexpectedly.  Now that I am painfully aware of this, I have also become painfully paranoid.  Whenever a character, regardless of whether I like them or not, goes anywhere near a ledge or walks through I shadow, my insides reel with a siren, screaming "No, someone will push you over, or stab you in the dark!  Just don't die!  Please!"

So far, however, only one character has died and it didn't hurt too badly.  What did hurt me, however, was the infuriatingly unexpected betrayal that took place shortly afterwards.  I get quite physical when I get excited by a book.  I had been hunched over it like a child minutely inspecting a hermit crab in its shell when all of a sudden it all started happening and I got lost and freaked out and I flinched every inch of myself away from it as though the hermit crab had lunged for a nip and scared me.  Then with hands in the air as it held me hostage, I sat for minutes with my mouth hanging open, gargling unintelligibly. 

I love it when a book does that to you.  I suppose, as long as I'm reading something that I'm enjoying, it doesn't matter so much if it's new or old.  I think that has been an important realisation for me to arrive at. 

Sentiments on Sentimentality

 SENTIMENTALITY

The valuing of emotions over reality.  Sentimentality is widely considered out of touch, weak.  Very often, those who express concern about (or even an interest in) the conditions in which famed animals are raised are disregarded as sentimentalists.  But it's worth taking a step back to ask who is the sentimentalist and who is the realist. 

Is caring to know about the treatment of farmed animals a confrontation with the facts about the animals and ourselves or an avoidance of them?  Is arguing that a sentiment of compassion should be given greater value than a cheaper burger (or having a burger at all) an expression of emotion and impulse or an engagement with reality and out moral intuitions?

Two friends are ordering lunch.  One says, "I'm in the mood for a burger," and orders it.  The other says, "I'm in the mood for a burger," but remembers that there are things more important to him than what he is in the mood for at any given moment, and orders something else.  Who is the sentimentalist?

Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, 2009.

This is a segment from his "Words/Meanings" section.  I've read it three times over.  The first time I had an epiphany.  The second time I didn't understand it.  The third time I discovered that it made a lot of sense.  It takes some thinking to comprehend the point that he's taking, but once you pay attention to the words and thoughts he's expressing, you realise that the point he makes is completely mind-blowing!  Has it hit you?  It does take a while.  Some re-reading. 

I don't know exactly why I found this so interesting, but I think the fact that he caused me to think outside of a preconcieved box makes reading like this exciting. 

Your First Answer Please

I wonder if I ama better talker than I am a writer, because when I talk and explain my ideas and opinions to people, it comes out sounding eloquent and clear, flowing with my thought processes to the exact place I wanted them to go.  When I try to write this down though, I not only loose the flow and clarity of instantaneous thought, I lose the words that made it perfect in the first place.

My way of talking is unique.  What I say is just how I say things.  They say in exams that your first answer is most likely to be correct, so if you're not sure, don't rewrite your response.  My immediate response to people is individual, clear, and reflective of how I feel.

I feel that I lose my individuality when I write.  I read so much that I know exactly how things should sound.  I use the words that I know 'work', with no thought to whether they are my own.  I think into my hand, but my fingers translate my thoughts into generic terms with the goal of sounding 'good'.  But what is 'good'?  It isn't what I was thinking of at the start.

I feel that I often misrepresent things because I use the wrong words.  The problem is, though, that those words 'work'; they just weren't mine.  Who do they belong to?  Probably a hundred different authors.  I think that I'm in a position of having to learn to write things as I would say them, because I don't mis-represent in my talk.  What I spontaneously say was just how I meant to say it.  I think back at times with a new answer in mind for a person I was talking to, thinking "this would have been more of a 'me' thing to say", but the fact that I said what I said at the time makes the thing the 'me-est' thing I could have said.  The first answer is more likely to be correct.

Real Friends

Well, the verdict is in.  I am talking about next year's school captain.

Despite many many assurances and even one psychic prediction, I did not get a position as either school captain or vice captain.  Needless to say, I am disappointed, but it wasn't entirely a surprise.  The girls who did get in are great girls; both all rounders with good relationships with their teachers and the principal.  And I'm pleased with both the boys, as one of my close friends got vice and the school captain is very gentlemanly, chivalrous, well-spoken, well-read, and fairly, dare I say it,  handsome.  I can rest assured that his uncanny knack of wording things beautifully will produce some meltingly good speeches next year.  I'm happy.

But I suppose that even despite my qualms, the many enthusiastic and warm encouragements of my friends, (who have all formed themselves into a sort of campaigning management team! oh gosh!) had led me to dare to hope it might have turned out differently... 

I am very aware that because all four of the captains are quite close to home with me, it is going to be an ongoing regret for me.  But in a way, and I will tell you how, I am nearly grateful. 

Of course, both of my parents have made me understand how much less I will have to worry about, being free from that weighty responsibility, and I know that they're perfectly right.  But there is something so much deeper than that.

They told us in assembly.  Sitting in rows of grades and classes on the ground in the basketball court, I was directly in front of one of my best friends.  Just as they were about to reveal the winner of the last female position, she took my hand and squeezed it just as hard as I needed.  I squeezed back and waited.  Yes.  That meant everything to me. 

When we had learnt who of the candidates had been short listed several weeks ago, one of my close friends didn't make it.  This was such a shock to me because  she was the one person I had been sure would go the whole way.  I was so disappointed for her, and I gave her a great hug.  I told her "You deserved it more than anyone in the shortlist.  You were my first choice from the start". And that was that. 

Today, she took me up in a great hug and said "You deserved it more than anyone up there.  You were my first choice from the start."  Well, you know what?  I think that I'm glad I didn't make it.  Just to hear those perfectly sincere, heart-warming words of compassion and friendship was worth it.  It meant more to me than getting captain. 

I have learnt something amazing about my friends today.  They don't need any exciting reason like that to value me.  They are real friends, who will care for me anyway.  To really properly realise that is by far the best outcome. 

Life's Too Short to Read Anything You Don't Really Enjoy

I have decided to call it quits with A Tale of Two Cities.  I'm not proud of it, but it has been good for me.  Someone I have great respect for said something along the lines of "If you're not enjoying it, don't read it.  Life's too short to read anything you don't really enjoy."  And another person I have respect for said something like, "You can always give it another go later." 

I adore Charles Dickens, and I found A Tale of Two Cities funny and beautifully written and interesting, but my heart wasn't in it.  I was putting off reading and so wasting my spare time with idleness.  Right now, with nine pieces of assessment to complete in six weeks, I absolutely cannot use my little droplets of spare time doing something that gives me just a little taste of pleasure.  I seriously need someting warm and friendly and constantly witty that will leave me with the satisfaction that by stopping my study to read, I've actually done something nice for myself!  It is essential! 

So I began All Things Bright and Beautiful by James Herriot.  I doubt if more than a hundred people on the face of the planet have read or even heard about this book.  I gain no satisfaction of accomplishment as I would with a Charles Dickens book, a book that lets you boast about your reading life and relate to crowds of other well-read people.  But I see that it  completely doesn't matter.  

James Herriot is just wonderful.  With a tinglingily witty and oven-roastedly delicious narrative, he tells chapter by chapter the strange and hilarious tales of his everyday life as a veterinary surgeon on call for farms and house pets.  Each chapter is a story all of itself.  I can read for ten minutes and feel rewarded.  Every chapter I laugh until my eyes water, because there is something so much heartier about these frank endearing country characters, windswept purple moors, pork rib dinners, gum boots, icy midnight emergency calls, pranks, gossips and inside-jokes in which you share a slice, than anything I've ever known.  Perhaps it's a piece of heaven. 

I have all intention of reading A Tale of Two Cities completely.  Maybe I'll do it in a week's time.  Maybe I'll do it in twenty years time.  But I'm going to really really enjoy it when I do it.  Life's too short. 

Wandering in a Woody Allen World

I was just thinking before about my affectionate romance with Woody Allen movies, and I feel I might have finally pinpointed the exact reason why I love them so.

Observe.

This is the first minute and forty-one seconds of Woody Allen's arguable best loved movie, Annie Hall.  Annie Hall is also the one movie that I wish I could watch again for the first time, and enjoy every line and drop of wit completely new and fresh. 

But I think that it's obvious that Woody Allen movies are full to bursting with dry humour, wit in the best sense of the word, and perfectly worded lines.  I watch them in a state of enchantment.  I aspire to be witty, and capable of expressing myself just as strongly as I need to with just the right words.  And Woody Allen films present this fantasy to me - I am lost in dialogue; lines scripted and acted to such perfection that it becomes nature.  It flows and ceases to be fiction to me, but rather a world in which words pour out in perfect sequence, perfect timing, with just the right sparkling of wit, and aimed at people who can retaliate with an equal passion of language. 

There is no need to burst my bubble with a line like "it's completely scripted - hours worth of writing and editing was put in to word it so perfectly", because I know!  Are you kidding?  Of course.  But I'm past that.  I've fallen into the Woody Allen world where words work properly. 

The Strange Case of Dorian Gray

I sat up last night to read the final chapter of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  I feel that sensation of accomplishment for having read something so famous and so commonly referenced, like I was more 'up-to-date' with what everyone was going on about.  But apart from that, I felt nothing more. 

In a  way, I was disappointed.  I read Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island in 2009, and I really enjoyed that.  That book, by the way, I would recommend all older children to read, because it's a wonderful adventure story full of beautifully invented characters, and acts as a bridge to more mature classic novels.  But I didn't feel interested in or excited about these characters, and never really connected to it.  Perhaps it was my mindset.  My mindset emerges the villain behind many of my earlier opinions on books and authors, but I think that there's a good chance that this just isn't quite the book that it's made out to be. 

I feel as though I should be careful with my choice of words so as not to offend anyone who thinks this book is brilliant, but my feelings were that it is drawn-out without stepping into the territory of being 'deep'.  I couldn't make affinities with the characters, or even decide to particularly like certain ones.  Is it just me?

Here's another thought that I haven't thought to mention, though I probably should have said that long ago.  It's about The Picture of Dorian Gray. 

Within the first few chapters I experienced a very strong revelation about my growing up - the sudden and frightening realisation that I really am going to get old.  I'd never had that before.  For several days, I carried that realisation around like an injured bird, but eventually it began to heal, and before I was half through the book, I had almost forgotten about it.  I don't really have that full on, heart-gripping revelation anymore, but I am so delighted that Oscar Wilde was able to make me have it in the first place.  It's been a long time since anyone has influenced my private throughts so strongly.  It really is a remarkable book. 

An Unforgettable Grief

Wow.  There is something very like dying and yet being born about what happened to me today.  Perhaps it's not much of a story, but it's a great moment nevertheless. 

Today I finished reading The Lord of the Rings to my dad.  We started reading it - well I don't even know when we started reading it for certain, but I can guess that we began mid year, perhaps June or July last year, nearly immediately after I finished reading it for the first time myself.  And today, the 22nd of July, 2011, at fiveish in the afternoon, in a corrugated iron shed, sitting in wicker chairs some twenty-five years old, nestled in amongst the cushions I hand-sewed for Dad for Christmas, drinking chai tea with one sugar, we finished it.  I made it about a page and a half to the very end, and then I could hardly breath, and I was crying softly and heartrendingly with my heart completely smashed.  Gosh.  It was so hard! 

Dad said, "keep reading!  Keep reading!  We'll cry and see them off together!"  And that it just what we did.  I tried to get my breath back as much as I could before I soldiered on, and with sobs and trembles of grief, I read to the very last sentence, and then, with Sam's sweet last words, we sat and cried together and grieved those beautiful, wonderful people that we had met and loved and lost together for a year and a half. 

I think I am either a lot younger or a lot older now.  I can't really tell which it is just yet.  But to cry with that pain that was truly authentic and totally perfect and read at the same time gave us both the doorway to revelation.  What we had just done was so intensely personal.  We were grieving. 

There is nothing at all wrong with grief.  And there is nothing at all wrong with crying.  There is nothing at all wrong with crying while reading because what we've been through with dear Sam Gamgee and Frodo and Gandalf and Merry and Pippin has been something completely personal and incredible.  We said goodbye for the last time to friends so key to our development and life of late that seeing them leave is like wrenching away a limb.  We will grieve, all right, and sob when we need to, but what we have done together, I will never forget. 

Jovial

I finished that teen fiction novel that I had to read as an introduction to next term's assessment.  After spending a day watching chic-flicks with two of my best friends until my head pulsated, my eyes ached and I was desperate to fall asleep, I miraculously managed to stay up reading for another three hours after that.  And then this morning, I finished off the last few chapters and had it over and done with.  



I am unashamed to admit that I didn't mind it, really.  It's not at all the sort of book I would read of my own accord, but it had its merits - a sort of kooky teen 'wit' - and left me with an understanding of the subject matter that I had previously not possessed.   I suppose it was like watching a really sappy teen flick that you feel guilty watching but secretly enjoy.  Overall, it was an interesting experience. 

I am currently involved in the task of editing a novel I threw together several years ago.  It's been very fascinating observing in my writing the development and maturing of my style, word choice, phrasing, interests...  etcetera etcetera.  I often find myself editing out the word 'jovial'.  I profess that I failed completely and utterly to use it, even once, in a way that it actually sounded right, sensible, normal, logical... take your pick.  There's something about it that just doesn't fit in to my sentences.  Sorry 'jovial'. 

Funnily enough, I can't remember ever using that word since, which is probably a good thing.  But the strange thing is, that in comparison to my old writing style, which embraced lots of varying words and phrases, the style in which I write now lacks proper 'style' I suppose you could say.  It's like I use only the words that are presently appearing in my head without attempting to rope in new words.  It's like I hardly think about it.  I am so out of practice, and blogging doesn't really give me any practice in creative writing... like story writing.  I tried to write a short sort of stumbling along story earlier this week and I liked some of the little thoughts that went into it, but overall, it ended with a big, soggy flat sploosh like dropping a pancake on a concrete floor.  I had no where to take it, really.  So I let it just end.  And it shouldn't have ended there.  Storylines are not my forte.  And you can take all the cliched hints from 'learn to write fantastically' and 'create believable characters' and 'write a bestseller' type websites, but in the end, either the hints are too obvious to even contemplate, or it becomes a matter of being bothered.  Uuugh.  It's quite sad.  I think that when I am my own thing, I will invest in a hour a day of writing at least, to properly get it.