Mrs Underhilll Book Club meeting # 1

Well Book Club members, it's time for me to put out a plate of Melting Moments and offer you a hot cuppa. Of course, I have already heard from a few members that the Christmas holidays were a little crazy and they have not yet finished the book, hell one has not yet even come home. So, to stave off the inevitable for a moment and give us all time to catch up, after all this is meant to be an enjoyable pursuit, I will begin discussions about the book online and in earnest next week and hope that suits better. In the meantime, please consider the next book we will tackle.

Brideshead Revisited (1945), is an evocation of a vanished pre-war England. It is an extraordinary work which in many ways has come to define Waugh and his view of his world. It not only painted a rich picture of life in England and at Oxford University at a time (before World War II), which Waugh himself loved and embellished in the novel, but it allowed him to share his feelings about his Catholic faith, principally through the actions of his characters. Amazingly, he was granted leave from the war to write it. The book was applauded by his friends, not just for an evocation of a time now — and then — long gone, but also for its examination of the manifold pressures within a traditional Catholic family. It was a huge success in Britain and in the United States. Decades later a television adaptation (1981) achieved popularity and acclaim in both countries, and around the world. Another a film adaptation was made in 2008. Waugh revised the novel in the late 1950s because he found parts of it "distasteful on a full stomach" by which he meant that he wrote the novel during the gray privations of the latter war years.

- From www.litlovers.com

Questions to mull over:

1. A plot structure question: why is Lord Marchmain's death the novel's finale? Isn't he a minor character? Who cares if he dies?

2. What shifts do you see - in theme, tone, style, plot structure, or anything else - between Book One and Book Two of Brideshead Revisited?
3. Besides Charles, whose side are you on as a reader, and which characters just aren't likeable? What do you think of Lady Marchmain, for example? Julia? Brideshead? Lord Marchmain?

(Qs adapted from www.shmoop.com)

Current goings on in the shed

Every shed is affected by the seasons. For me, as summer makes herself known, I am mulling over a lack of ready funds in the post-overseas trip and Christmas holiday period and thinking about new ways to make and/or save a buck.

Even in my magazine job I am tackling the topic of creativity on a budget, looking at 'frugal crafting' and interviewing folk both here and in the USA on the topic.

This month brings news again of the short story comp that the Women's Weekly does with Penguin. Deadline is in April. Is there motivation in the shed for writing and entering something for this?

Also in the shed this week some clearing up is going on as I make mental space for the RMIT creative fiction class I commence in Feb and for the new computer I hope to invest in when the money Gods again shine their benevolent light on us.

As well as the scent of the neighbours' freshly cut lawns there is a hint of new business with a meeting next week about a very exciting 'multi media' opportunity. Interestingly I have been thinking of late about my skills, trying to stocktake what they really are and wondering how one makes a living from being a good 'connector'; someone who sees opportunities to hook like minded people up and also often imagines new ways of communicating between groups but has no outlet for such a talent if you can call it that. (I confess I had even ordered a book from Amazon called Authentic: How to Make a Living by Being Yourself - http://www.authentictransformation.co.uk/). Ding Ding, a chat over lunch yesterday with the always intriguing Mr C hinted that there may be a job in the offing requiring just such skills. Who knows?

On the lighthearted side of things: The BBQ has been getting an airing as Mr U and I kick back into some entertaining with little people coming in to the house over the weekend and a trip into the city galleries with them on the cards. There's a wedding coming up in Tassie which has just been diarised so accommodation must be found. Tips for cool Hobart hotels most welcome!

Welcome to my shed

What a manic time it has been. I have completely dropped off the perch in terms of my humble blog which bothers, I am sure, no one else but me but it does lead me to wonder.

I have created a little time bubble for the next week in which I hope to dedicate some time and energy to things other than journalism work, clothes washing and the general chores of life. Yes it is that time of year when one’s head turns to resolutions and plans but my commitment to myself this week is simple: DON’T TAKE THE LAZY OPTION.

I began last night by actually using one of the 800 bottles in my bathroom cabinet to take my makeup off. Revolutionary? Perhaps not to you but in a life of sloth, it’s the little things that add up … surely.

Getting back to some writing on my blog is another item on the TO DO list. I have taken to watching CALIFORNICATION on DVD and a recent episode has only reinforced some concerns I already have about the Net and the blog blamange that dominates it now. Is it weird that so many strangers are pouring out their thoughts and feelings to us should we choose to log on and read up? I am not sure.

Californication’s lead character, twisted and sexually liberal novelist Hank Moody, is being interviewed on the radio and he talks about the web: “People... they don't write anymore, they blog. Instead of talking, they text, no punctuation, no grammar: LOL this and LMFAO that. You know, it just seems to me it's just a bunch of stupid people pseudo-communicating with a bunch of other stupid people at a proto-language that resembles more what cavemen used to speak than the King's English.”

Eeeek!

I know what he means. This clearly must be the opinion of at least one writer of the show. He has a point. However, my day to day work leads me to constant reading, analysing and interviewing of blogs and their authors and, because many of my subjects are writing with a purpose, I think I do see the value in their outpourings. Only recently a highly intriguing woman who is striving to live a “simpler” and more sustainable life in the Australian countryside, near Bathurst, explained how there were few like minded souls living in her area. While she hand washed cloth nappies, grew her own veggies and picked up old fabric scraps at the op shop to sew with, neighbours were running around in four wheel drives, eating MacDonald’s and saving for even bigger plasma TVs. It was on the web and via her blog that she had found like minded souls. There she could document her weekly efforts at saving the planet and her peace of mind, it was where she could swap tips with other “simple” folk and where she had found friends. Does the fact that they may never meet face to face matter? I don’t know. I suppose it’s better than living like we used to – lonely square pegs in round holes, forever feeling alone and alienated.

My blog, I have been forced to remind myself, is a way of maintaining some writing discipline away from work constraints. It has a purpose but one known only to me. That’s ok. If anything, in 2009 I hope to use it more constructively as a place to explore some thoughts and as a workroom. This is, I suppose, my online shed. Maybe I should redesign it to look like one? I have a constant supply of sticky notes and paper scraps with words, events, websites, ideas scribbled on them. My blog should be the place I pull this stuff together, research and investigate the various threads and chart the results of this activity, similar to the way a home handyman might gather design ideas and bits of woods to try and knock something together.

What happens in one’s shed is one’s own business. What happens on one’s blog can be the same, especially when it is visited almost exclusively by the author. Hmm, I am liking this concept. So for this week I will a) try not to take the lazy option in general and b) look at improving my shed. The first thing required, naturally, is a calendar with girls with big boobs sitting on cars. I’ll just go find one …

Potato, beer and lamb

The stench of beer and potato that permeates his skin and breath turns my stomach. Watching him there, slumped ridiculously over his ancient meal, I feel nothing more than disgust and loathing. Saliva drips from his half open mouth and onto the cold plate.

He brought a dead lamb home for our son to play with tonight – how adorable! Oh I know he didn’t mean to kill it. He found it on the side of the road, abandoned. He probably did mean it as a gift for Alex but, in his drunken state, lurching and staggering along the cold road home, he squeezed the life from it. Either that or the poor thing died of shock.

Sweet Alex, he has sat in front of that fire, petting the dead lamb for three hours now. He thinks it is tired and cold. When he finally sobs himself into exhaustion I will tiptoe outside and bury the unfortunate creature. Painful explanations can wait ‘til the morning. His father, one can be sure, will remember nothing. At least, usually he would remember nothing.

Damien, of course, remains silently huddled in the corner, his usual position of retreat. His dark 10 year old eyes betray the pain and resignation of an old soldier who has witnessed many battles without honour or fairness. He will not move from beside the stove until his father has been snoring for at least an hour. He likes to be sure the beast will not stir again this night.

Anger seethes beneath those smooth, hairless features. Tonight he took to his father with the old wooden chair. As the ‘big man’s’ hand came down to meet my jaw, Damien was between us, the chair his only weapon. He must despise me too. Mother love, his protector. How uncourageous and weak I have been. Small boys, mere babes, deserve better and they will be protected.

The brick by my bed is left over from the building of the laundry outside, the one that remains unfinished. It is wrapped in Aunt Phoebe’s old lace nightgown. After all, this is a somewhat special occasion.

I will follow our nightmarish routine tonight. The boys and I will go to sleep. As the cock crows the monster will stir, head and bones aching. Scratching and farting, he will cringe at the dawn and stumble to our bed, our marital coffin. As he pulls down the cover he will mumble, “Had a good drink last night love”, then dissolve into snoring and stinking.

Poor, simple, obnoxious fool; the man I once so readily cosseted and adored. Poor fallen, pot bellied, drunken idol; the man who sucks the gaiety and innocence from my children. As sleep engulfs him the brick will end him. It’s just the stains I’m worried about. Still I’m sure it’s nothing hot soapy water and baking soda cannot fix.

Author: Me

Comfort in words

Is it a sign of getting older that I find such comfort in certain routine items, especially those linked to books and words?

If I have been travelling, especially in less than joyful circumstances – like when I went to Uganda last year – there’s nothing I find more comforting that than the sound of Mark Colvin’s voice as he calmly and authoritatively presents ABC radio's current affairs program PM. It helps me know I am at home and back in my private bubble.

This came to mind when, heading off to Noosa with Mum for a few days recently, I found myself fondling a P D James book a the shop at the airport. I needed ‘holiday’ reading as I call it and I knew it had to be easy to dip in and out of and its entertainment value had to be guaranteed. I can get a bit toey when I'm with people a lot, so used to solo time at home am I, and I need a panacea. I opened The Private Patient while still on the plane and, after one or two pages, felt myself breathe out with relief. I was in safe and familiar hands.

To be honest the book was not one that will go down in the annals but bloody PD (pictured above) is 88 now. Give the woman a break! She’s quite an inspiration. Commander Adam Dalgliesh, poet and policeman and a returning character for her is making his fourteenth appearance for Scotland Yard in this book. The twists and turns are all there, the language spoken by the characters is precise and wordy, there’s a fine old English country house, some literary references, some religion and some mayhem. Ah, so reassuring. I tell you, even as I noted some repetitive phrases or had that strange premonition of what was going to happen next I was simply further appeased. That’s the power of the book, it’s like a woobie blanket for grown ups, or at least it is for me.

Holiday reading is a funny thing is it not? A number of people I know save up all their trashiest books to savour by the pool or swim-up bar. Why is that I wonder? Surely, at a time in the year when one’s mind should be freer and less preyed upon by the day to day pressures of life, a holiday is the very time one should be tackling challenging and exciting reading?

I have a new plan in place. I always tend to read one ‘serious’ book followed by one (or I dip in to both at once) guilty pleasure. Of course I pride myself on reading well written ‘guilties’ like a cracking yarn by Ian Rankin. Now, because I love books on CD so much, I have committed to non fiction in the car and fiction on my MP3 player. Now I can have at least four books going on in my head at one time.

Jesus, no wonder I’ll never get ‘round to writing my own.

The book club is a happening thing

Hi there handful of book club members.

Our first book is BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh.

We will give ourselves two months to get hold of this book and read it. Obviously we are inspired by the re-make of the movie but, on alll accounts, it sounds like it pales in comparison to the 1980s mini series. Perhaps we can have a marathon viewing session of this when the book is finished.

Time Magazine included Brideshead Revisited in its list of 'All-time 100 Novels' which is good enough for me.

We will be ready for online chat about the book week commencing 19 January.

Happy reading!

The spirit in things

In my experience, often when people lose very close loved ones they turn to religion or spirituality for succour. A mad dash to the pulpit is not for me but, amidst the platitudes and pleasantries that I have found myself doling out over recent weeks, some weird powers have been at sway, dumping religion, God even, into my lap.

During the wake for Mrs U one of the delectable catering staff we hired turned out to be a book editor for a major publishing house (in the children and young adult arena I believe). Using the W.C at the rear of the house – the one that I only arghhh today remembered has a big poster of a girl having beer splashed all over her breasts (a gift to Mr U from one of his pals during their more boisterous days) – the editor found herself reading a piece I wrote a thousand years ago called Stealing Jesus. It’s about a boy who secreted a host (the piece of unleavened bread that represents the body of Christ for the heathens out there) whilst serving as an alter boy. Man I had not thought about that story, about that period or about that church for a long, long time and yet she really liked the story and seemed struck by it.

On Monday I interviewed a wonderful young NZ woman who has been working in Cambodia teaching girls whose families had sold them into prostitution (for reasons too complicated and tragic to enter into here) to make jewellery as part of their recovery and rehabilitation period. This 29-year-old is about to throw in her life as a teacher in NZ and return to that country and volunteer her services for two whole years. At that age I shudder to think what I was doing. I believe it was throwing back Moet and complaining about my workload on the Melbourne Fashion Festival account and trying desperately to sneak a weekend away in or dinner with the girls. Hmmmm.

The really interesting thing about my interviewee though was how she came to even find out about the group in Cambodia she is now working so diligently for. She qualified me very carefully before she told me and asked a few times, “This won’t freak you out too much will it?” before going on to explain:“I said to God, if you give me a contact in Cambodia and at least around $800 worth of jewellery supplies to get things started I will do the rest.” The next day her sister called, said she’d met a woman running an NGO in Cambodia who’d just had a whole heap of jewellery supplies donated to her, didn’t know how to use them and was desperate for someone to come and teach her girls skills in this area that they could then trade on. Spooky no?

Finally, last night, while tossing and turning at 2.30am as per usual a fabulous idea for a story came into my head involving a haunting by a recently deceased family member. Of course I am reading Hilary Mantel’s fabulous book, Beyond Black, which deals with spirit mediums but I did think, imagine if – amongst all the other gifts and kindness my mother in law has given us – she gives me the elusive idea I’ve been looking for for a book. Drawing a long bow I know and jumping the gun and imagining I can write the bloody thing but, hey, if I did, the press release would write itself.

Say a little prayer hey?