Finding Ghosts

Books that weirded me out as a kid really stick in my memory. But they’re a bit like post-it notes that have been reused too many times, or the blutack that’s fallen in dust and won’t stick to the wall any more. (So many analogies, all of them stationary-based.) I remember these books as if they were dreams – in images, cover fragments, stray sentences and waves of feeling. I don’t usually remember them by anything vaguely googleable (say; title and author), though sometimes I remember what library they were from. Also not so useful 20 years later.

I’m not the only one with these book ghosts, a friend of mine once had been looking for a book from her childhood and all she could remember was that there was a witch that lived on an island in the middle of the lake, and a girl who floated up the stairs. Title? Nuh. Author? Nuh. I had no idea what the book was either. I file other people’s book ghosts like this away in my head, and always try to find them when I’m in the children’s section of a second-hand book store. I did find this one – quite by chance at a launch of a Mirka Mora book in Richmond, by picking up a book by an author I'd liked as a kid and reading on the back that it had a witch who lived on an island in a lake. Excitement!

It was A Visit To Folly Castle by Nina Beachcroft. Which I should have thought of, really. I’d thought of Nina Bawden…points for the Nina bit.

One of my own book ghosts that I’d been trying to remember for years was a book I borrowed from the Bendigo library, so I must have been under 8. All I could vaguely remember was that the face on the cover didn’t have proper eyes, it had something about a weather-friend in it, and there was an evil goblin that lived in a stove. But the feeling I had carried from it (which was what had weirded me out) was one of everything being out of control and frustrating and scary. I still hadn’t had any luck finding it until a few weeks ago in Alice’s Bookshop. Browsing through the children’s section I saw the name Joyce Dunbar on a spine. I sort-of recognised the name, so I pulled out the book:

Mundo and the Weather Child. WIN! I was so excited I did that ludicrous thing where you hold onto the book really tightly and look wildly around you as if someone is going to take it away. There’s really no way of sharing that moment with anyone. Found! Found!

Then I had to re-read it, to see what the deal was. I had completely forgotten that it was about a boy Edward who moves to a new town and then suddenly becomes deaf after an illness. Stuck at home, he feels trapped and frustrated by his friendlessness and new silent world. And everything about the new house is threatening – the tangled garden rips at him with thorns, the decayed summer-house houses an evil goblin inside an old stove. One day when he is sent out into the garden to play, Edward meets the Weather-Child, a mysterious creature who names him Mundo and shows him how to ride the weather and find new worlds hidden in his garden.

As is sometimes the case with book ghosts, it’s not a particularly brilliant book. But while reading it again I was still shot through with that same feeling, like it had pierced through from 1988 to 2008. The goblin is a threat but not in a concrete way, and the Weather Child may be a magical friend, but he is in no way tame or particularly human (he doesn’t understand emotion and when Edward cries asks "show me how to rain"). Like his deafness, all his magical experiences are well out of Edward’s control most of the time. And that was the unsettling thing for me – you find a new magical world filled with amazing experiences and creatures, but it’s not safe or reliable or always particularly enjoyable. A scary thought for an 8-year-old who fully expects to find a door to another Narnia around the corner.

Some other books that weirded me out as a pre-teen:

Dorp dead by Julia Cunningham - my all-time freakout this one. Just look at it! It's creepy! He looks like a child in a Balthus painting. In the book, Gilly is left an orphan after the death of his beloved grandmother, and at the orphanage he craves a life of quiet and order that living with hundreds of other boys just can’t provide. His pretence of stupidity (despite being ‘brilliant’) is ensured by his deliberately never learning to spell. When Gilly is sent to live with Kobalt, the town ladder-maker and eccentric, it seems as if his prayers have been answered. Kobalt’s life is lead in a series of precise hourly rituals, and Gilly at first slides into the grooves of this ordered life with relief. I wrote about re-reading this one for an assignment in library school, and nailed down the freakout to the boy Gilly's insidiously gradual loss of self - once again the kind of threat that was too obscure for me to pinpoint as a young 'un, but left a huge impression in my memory. The copy I eventually bought was a cast-off from the Warrnambool Library! Sometimes the books are still there.


The Girl in the Box by Ouida Sebestyen (great name) - about a kidnapping victim held in a cellar with (for a reason I can't remember) a typewriter. Weirded me out not just for the unresolved ending, but for the fact that as the room was so dark she never even knew if she was hitting the right keys on the typewriter.

Why Weeps the Brogan by Hugh Scott - A famous one. My only memory, until I found it, was that they had mysteriously appearing warm rolls for breakfast. Where did the rolls come from???? Creepy. It now kind of reminds me a little of Margo Lanagan's short stories.

The Fortunate Few by Tim Kennemore - A futuristic-ish world where gymnastics is the brutal super-sport and ruthlessness makes money. The ending is so coolly horrific I seriously thought at the time that my school library copy was missing pages, and that gymnast Jodie didn't know what had happened to her team-mate Beth. Discovered on finding and re-reading that no, that was the end, and went "ooooh."

And there's a bazillion more (if anyone has a spare copy of Peter Dickinson's A Box of Nothing lying around, let me know). They'll keep turning up, unexpected and with dodgy cover artwork.

This is what second-hand book stores are for, in my opinion. Nailing where your freakouts come from, and laying to rest old book ghosts.

12 weeks...

Well, this isn't entirely about reading (though it will be one day - I've got quite a selection of picture books on my shelves), but look what I'm growing!

The little tacker is 12 weeks old and has all its bits in the right places (according to ultrasound guy, who pointed out the legs and said about 10 times "and look it's got its feet up on the dashboard." That's his schtick).

Rock on!

Thomas Mann on writers

"A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people." - Thomas Mann

Wise chap. Looks like he could challenge Vincent Price to an Edgar Allan Poe reading:

Manga happy

Favourite manga title of the day (from the series One-Piece):

"The Crap-Geezer"

Indeed.

While you're busy making other plans

Or rather, reviewing is what happens to me while I'm busy making other plans.

I've been AWOL from the reading list for the last few months as firstly (as I mentioned), Isobelle Carmody's new book weighs approximately the same as two cans of Stagg Chili (ignited by Habanero Peppers). Object lesson:*

Paul really likes Stagg Chili. Each time we buy it, he says "ignited by Habanero Peppers."

It kind of looks like something you would imagine a bum eating in the depression.

Anyway. Secondly, reviewing always takes longer when you get a cold and tend to fall asleep during your lunch break when you should be directing enthusiasm through the prism of intellect. Still, my words about that little bunch are now on their way to being stamped on paper.

Back to the Favourites list, right? WRRRRRRONG! The few months will be spent in a reading-and-not-getting-a-cold frenzy. Meet my new friends:

Nine weeks; sixy-five books. Sums; you do them. So given that there'd be another dearth of blogging, and who's going to tell me off it's my blog anyway, I thought maybe I could branch out here into the generally book-related bits of my life.

All in favour say "Ignited by Habanero Peppers!"

*Dramatic renenactment. Actual results may vary.

Obernewtyn (Obernewtyn Chronicles, #1) by Isobelle Carmody

From the favourer: "Part of me likes the idea of the basic simplicity of the characters lives, i.e.. no electricity, cars, everything done manually, and using traditional forms of healing. I can't be sure, but this book may have been one of the reasons why I wanted to study Naturopathy. And the tragic romantic in me definitely responded to the budding relationship of the main character!"

The stars seem to have been in alignment for my choosing this time to read (well, re-read) this favourite book. Just as I started on Obernewtyn, the long awaited 5th book in the series appeared on bookshop shelves. So I thought I may as well rip through all four previous books so that my memory was refreshed of the story arc in time to read the #5, The Stone Key. Then, just after I bought the latest book/doorstop, the lovely Pam of Viewpoint asked me if I was an Isobelle Carmody fan, because they were looking for someone to review book #5 and would I do it? I proceeded to look slight panicked and squeak out the question that springs foremost to every reviewer's mind:

"By when?"

Mid-April. This should be okay. Despite the fact that I also have 6 books to review for ABR due on the same day. And despite the fact that now I really need to re-read the past four Obernewtyn books, as I can't remember anything that happened in the last book, I don't trust wiki-summaries, and I don't want to appear any more ignorant than possible when I'm in print. And despite the fact (last one) that the latest Obernewtyn book is 1000 pages long and weighs 1.05kg. If I was to sell you this book on eBay, you'd have to pay $9.40 to have it posted to you. So note to all my friends: if I can't see you for the next month, it's because I have to spend every spare moment reading.

Obernewtyn fans are very patient people. We've been waiting for this 5th book for nine years. That's a long time to wait. Generally you're only willing to assign that kind of waiting time to things like unrequited love, or a really nice holiday. You also become a fairly different person in that waiting time if that gap falls between you as an 18-year-old and you as a 27-year-old. I'm taller, for instance. (No really. I've grown 4cm in that interim. Don't people usually stop growing by 18?)

But hey, I ran into Mr Dragonlance Reader #1 on the train again last week! He was reading a Dragonlance book. He asked me if I was still reading the Dragonlance books, to which I replied "Err, no." But I held up Carmody doorstop #4, and that seemed to pass muster.

Anyway, on to Obernewtyn. It's been through several cover art incarnations since its publication in 1987, all of which I rather like. My copies are the first and second styles of covers, though I must say the latest photographic covers are very attractive:

The first-incarnation cover, which is the copy I read for this review, is a nostalgia-inducing Puffin Plus 1980s design, and contains many misprints throughout, most amusingly that "Seeker" is printed several times as "$eeker", which puts rather a different spin on what is being sought.

Elspeth Gordie knows that she is different. She also knows that her kind of difference is enough to see her ritually killed or sterilised, should anyone find out. After the Great White, an apocalyptic event that wiped out most of human life on earth, the civilisation that is slowly rebuilding itself is superstitious and has no tolerance for seditioners or Misfits - humans born with unusual mental capacities. If discovered, they are Burned (in a capitalised ceremony that smacks of witch-trials), sterilised, or sentenced to a slow death working on Council farms. Her own parents Burned as seditioners, Elspeth has managed to keep her mental abilities a secret as she moves between Orphan Homes. But though they do not suspect the extent of her abilities, a representative of Obernewtyn buys Elspeth to take her to this mysterious place in the mountains. Rumours are hazy and sinister, but Obertnewtyn is generally thought to gather up Misfits to work towards 'curing' them. Keeping secret the vast powers of her mind (which include the ability to read minds, communicate with animals, and coerce people to do/say/see things), Elspeth and some new-found friends begin to investigate what is really going on at Obernewtyn. What is the purpose of the never-sighted Doctor's 'treatments' of Misfits that seem to do more harm than good? What do the guardians of Obernewtyn really want with all these Misfits?

Going back to the first of the Obernewtyn books has reminded me why it still seems to be the strongest of all the series. Firstly, I think it's the way it's written predominantly as a mystery story. Elspeth has spent so long just trying to survive and keep her talents hidden, that when she begins to discover the dodginess of Obernewtyn's goings on, it's her love for her friends that prompts her to act. She doesn't initially have a goal or a quest to fulfill, she just wants to find out why people are being hurt. It annoys me when fantasy novels disclose a 'quest' too early, so you simply spend the rest of your reading time waiting for the hero to get on with it, and any emotional/character growth simply gets in the way of the narrative. In Obernewtyn, Elspeth's quest unfolds bit by bit as she gradually pieces together what is going on at Obernewtyn, and the role she must play to avoid a repeat of the Great White. So while her quest does turn out to be rather a lofty one - saving the earth usually being left to the Buffys amongst us - both the intriguing mystery style structure and the relatively small cast of characters means you never feel that fantasy-novel-distancing effect I sometimes encounter as a reader. And matching up what we learn of the Beforetime earth to our earth is great fun. Carmody always writes it as tantalisingly both our world and not-quite-our-world, which makes your brain hover in a weird unsettled place between realism and fantasy.

The character of Elspeth herself is another reason why Obernewtyn is so enjoyable. I've always especially liked that when faced with the possibility of torture, she's pretty certain that if pain is inflicted, she'll spill everything about her friends to get the pain to stop. So rather than cliche-heroic stoicism, she decides in a Jane Eyreish "Keep well and not die, sir" kind of way that she'll just have to avoid being tortured. In the later books Elspeth does veer a bit more towards being the lofty noble heroine (I suppose having the fate of the world hanging over you would have to have an effect eventually), but in this first novel she's a very humanly flawed breath of fresh air.

While the later novels do get spectacularly more complex and epic in scope, in them the first book's committment to non-violence towards all humans and animals, and to fighting with words, mental abilities and cunning rather than broadswords deepens. This is a 'principle' I love about this series. I hate big 300/Lord of the Rings cast-of-thousands macho battles. They are UGLY and BORING. In the Obernewtyn series, the one death that Elspeth causes recurrs through the series as a deep mark on her aura, even despite the fact that she did not intend to kill.

Of course, there's also the longing that I've metioned before as something I associate with reading fantasy novels. Obernewtyn makes you desperately want to be able to communicate with animals, and have a one-eyed grumpy half-mad cat as your lifelong friend. Well, Paul's cat Vada (star of this entry's photo) is grumpy and half-mad but I still can't talk to her. Her ability to understand "dinner?" doesn't count. And Obernewtyn makes you want to live in a wild mansion in the mountains, and you want herbal healing to actually work, and you want to be part of a civilisation at its very beginning.

But mostly you want to be able to talk to animals. And ask them what they think of LOLcats.

The Razor's Edge by Somerset Maugham

From the favourer: "I think the reason this book made such a big impression on me had something to do with not settling for things just because other people have certain expectations of you. The only other book that gave me a similar face-slapping sense-check was 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being'. In retrospect, I think 'The Razor’s Edge' smacks more gently and keeps the soft leather gloves on while doing so."

I’ve heard it said that you need to read The Razor’s Edge before you’re 20, preferably while you’re an Arts student. So I’m seven years late on the former and four years late on the latter, but given the fact that I only stopped being a student in 2006, and the added fact that I still haven't managed to leave campus, I think I’ll be okay.

Set amongst the high society of the 1920s and 30s, The Razor’s Edge is narrated by Maugham posing as himself. A writer who suddenly finds moderate success and the fame that goes along with it, he begins to be invited to dinner parties by Elliott. Elliott is an amicable career snob who has made it his life’s work to climb the ranks of the social elite: to charm every rich old lady, attend every important party, and host dinners that are the social equivalent of a golden ticket in a Wonka bar.

At one of Elliott’s lesser (but still beautifully orchestrated) dinners, Maugham meets Elliott’s niece Isabel and her fiancé, Larry. Maugham doesn’t pay much attention to Larry, but notes that “though…he hadn’t said half a dozen words since entering the house, he seemed perfectly at ease and in a curious way appeared to take part in the conversation without opening his mouth.”

As Maugham’s friendship with Elliott and Isabel grows, he learns that rather than obediently taking a highly paid job and marrying Isabel, war veteran Larry has decided instead to pursue a notion unthinkable to the circles in which he moves: he wants to go to Paris and, in his words, “loaf”.

But Larry’s version of loafing doesn’t involve home delivery pizza and a boxed set of The West Wing, he goes there to live in a tiny room, spend basically no money, and to learn. This royal “screw you” to expectations and society obviously does not go down well, but Isabel agrees to allow Larry two years in Paris to get it out of his system before they marry. This was never going to work.

The proposed two years turn into a quest that sees Larry move from studying in Paris, to working in coal mines and on farms, to discovering mysticism in the mountains of India. But what is he really looking for? And what of those he leaves behind?

You’ve gotta love Maugham. Despite the fact that the female characters in his writing are generally whores or heartless bitches (I don't think he liked women very much), he creates such wonderfully varied, intriuging and rounded characters and writes them so wittily you can’t possibly be annoyed.

This includes the whores and the bitches, to his credit. I especially loved Sophie, alcoholic opium addict of 'dubious repute' who Larry intends to marry and ‘save’ from herself. Instead she racks off back to Paris to her old life, and in a great moment drawls to Maugham: “Darling, when it came to the point I couldn’t see myself being Mary Magdalen to his Jesus Christ. No, sir.” Don't blame her myself.

Larry is not a blind crusader, however. When Isabel initially tries to convince him that she could perhaps try his style of life in Paris, he observes:

“One can dress very nicely without going to Chanel. And all the interesting people don’t live in the neighbourhood of the Arc de Triomphe and the Avenue Foch. In fact few interesting people do, because interesting people generally don’t have a lot of money.”

When Isabel says: “Don’t be stupid, Larry…You know I’m not a snob. I’d love to meet interesting people”, he replies:

“Yes, in a Chanel dress.”

Quite.

I actually found Larry less interesting as he became more spiritual. It’s hard to really like a character that becomes so removed from natural fluctuations of human emotion. Perhaps it says more about me than about him, but I always find a suspicion of smugness in spiritual transformations. It’s the same irritation I have with the smiles on images of mystical gods, they tease: “I know something you don’t know...”

I much preferred Larry in his Paris phase, and even felt a brief touch of first-year-uni nostalgia (craziness, I know) after his conversation with Maugham:

“‘Don’t you think you might tell me what you’ve been up to all the time you’ve been in Paris?’
‘I’ve been reading a good deal. Eight or ten hours a day. I’ve attended lectures at the Sorbonne. I think I’ve read everything that’s important in French literature and I can read Latin, at least Latin prose, almost as easily as I can read French. Of course Greek’s more difficult. But I have a very good teacher. Until you came here I used to go to him three evenings a week.’
‘And what is that going to lead to?’
‘The acquisition of knowledge,’ he smiled.
‘That doesn’t sound very practical.’
‘Perhaps it isn’t and on the other hand perhaps it is. But it’s enormous fun. You can’t imagine what a thrill is it to read the Odyssey in the original. It makes you feel as if you only had to get on tiptoe and stretch out your hands to touch the stars.’”

It gave me a little thrill of familiarity to read that paragraph.

Maugham, in his narrator incarnation, is a sharp and never-impartial observer, able to encapsulate amorphous character traits with amusing brevity. He describes Elliott, who tries to insist on escorting him to his flat every time, as having “the feeling I have noticed in some Americans who have lived many years abroad that America is a difficult and even dangerous place in which the European cannot safely be left to find his way about by himself.” Heh heh.

In fact I found Maugham to be one of the most interesting characters in the book, despite the fact that you spend most of the book standing next to him rather than looking at him. I wonder if anyone else has felt this way? In his way Maugham-as-narrator is just as much a rebel as Larry – always forthright, amused by Elliott’s ambitions, and never hesitating to call someone on a statement if he thinks it's crap. And it is his voice in the final paragraph that reveals, in his light and typically backhanded way, a truth about his friends that you could easily miss beneath the veneer of affectionate sentiment.

While I do understand why this book has a kind of cult following among students, I also think that the under-20 restriction is a bit harsh. Even leaving aside the fact that it’s beautifully written and corner-foldingly, email-signature-quotingly witty, I think it’s a book not just to inspire, but to re-inspire.

If you’ve ever had an overwhelming urge to yell: “Bugger the system, I’m going to hurl the mortgage to the wind and embark on a journey of discovery and adventure/pursue knowledge for the pure love of it/search for wisdom and happiness, and not give a rat’s arse if I end up without two pennies to rub together,” then there’ll be at least a part of this book that will reawaken that urge.

And if you haven’t had that “bugger expectations” urge, ever, in your entire life, then you need this book immediately.

And possibly some kind of electro-shock therapy.