Happy Birthday, Rowden White Library!

My beloved home away from home (I suppose some would call it my workplace, but what other workplace has a room full of beanbags so the tired/pregnant can sleep in their lunch break?) is having a special day.

The Rowden White Library is turning 70! Just look at old RW, he's in the mood for celebratin':

We're having a party.

You don't have to be a member to come along. Past students/library lovers/people with nothing else to do welcome.

There will be booze, and cake, and Alice Pung.

And library staff in costume. We have a habit of this:

Do Come:

Date - Wednesday August 13th, 3pm

Place - Rowden White Library, 2nd Floor Union House, University of Melbourne

Fellow liberrian Aimee and I are making the slideshow for the party (like the ones you have at your 21st, except longer and with less photos of you in the bath or dressed up as a gollywog), so we've been finding old photos of the RWL from the Student Union archives.

This is the library in its gentlemanly original incarnation:

But my favourite photos are from the 70s. Gotta love Listening Lounge hallway pashing:

And novelty shoulder massage*:

Wonder whose boobs they were?

So yes, come party, eat cake, hear Alice, see me dressed up as the SF/Fantasy Collection, and go 'yay 70 years of library'.

* Boob-on-shoulder massage is no longer provided as a service at the Rowden White Library.

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.