Quiet night at home with stuffed tomatoes, a glass of red, and Xanadu, another William Dalrymple travelogue, as he retraces Marco Polo's original journey.
Happy to come up for air. Proof corrections despatched to Vivid Publishing and the book cover now in it's final version. The result look far better than the earlier incarnations and I'll soon upload it to the New Book link.
Quiet night at home with stuffed tomatoes, a glass of red, and Xanadu, another William Dalrymple travelogue, as he retraces Marco Polo's original journey.
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![]() Arriving back on Earth after immersion in Planet Word. Not the computer program - the written stuff that appears in books. Perth Writer's festival blessed many - kids included - throughout the weekend. Margaret Atwood held us - and her host, Jennifer Byrne - in the gentle palm of her hand on Saturday night. Such restraint ['I'm kind' she said, with just a trace of her reputed needle. Loved it! Jared Diamond, in jacket and red tie, looked the Californian professor, and matched well with a younger Tom Holland. Their latest books now line up with others on our shelf, awaiting their time. We have enough reading matter for a year or three. Also liked (not in the Facebook sense) Madeleine Thein, Michelle de Kretser, Anna Heiss, and the drop-dead gorgeous, Anna Funder (who can also write rather well). Back in my den, conversations take place with the book cover designer and publisher. We are getting there. Have renamed the website.....WRY [Write, Read, Yarn].............Wadya reckon? ![]() Great morning at the beach after wild weather earlier in the week. Saw Samsara last night while D went off to watch flamenco with the girls. Nearly went to sleep in the first segment but woke up when the movie moved into a series of confronting images. Powerful stuff - a strong message but I came away wondering whether it achieved much. Preferred The Life of Pi. Ang Lee has done a good job, bringing the book to the screen. Finished reading Elliot Perlman's The Streetsweeper. He paints on an international canvas this time (after Three Dollars and Seven Degrees of Ambiguity, both of which are set in Australia.) It took a while but I really got into The Streetsweeper. If I have one criticism it's that the historical narrative at times overloads and obscures the personal. Otherwise, an impressive attempt to highlight the issues that continue to swirl around Jews and blacks in America, and cleverly link their stories. Have reached a hiatus with my novels. Renamed both of them. The first is finished and the second is at first draft stage. Exploring self-publication. Many options; as many pitfalls. Indecision. Wait and see. The photo above is taken from the Dalkeith foreshore, just below the Sunset Hospital site. I toured the site last Tuesday, as background for the novel. Survived a hot water and gas leak, thanks to a friendly plumber. Cold showers for a week. Meanwhile, saw Starbucks at the Somerville. French-Canadian. A few laughs.
Started Eliot Perlman's The Street Sweeper. Not yet really into it. Gloomy stuff, for the most part. Yesterday, completed first draft of TSBTS - the sequel to APBTR. Happy with the effort and now for revision. Have a quote re self-publishing APBR, and waiting for a second. Still uncertain which way to go. T says self-pub has drawbacks. i agree - and yet..... Heatwave in abeyance, to relief all round. D is downloading photos in the next room and having her usual struggles with her computer. I play the reluctant consultant. Last night we went with our neighbours - C & J - to the Somerville. A French film - Skylab, about family holidays in Brittany. We came away with vastly differing views on the female leads. D and J thought the Julie Delpy character was great - a normal, in-your-face French woman - while C and I thought she was a case. And the same for her grown daughter, although the 11 year-old version was delightful. K also came but we didn't get the chance to canvas her opinions. A fun way to get to know the neighbours - and a typical picnic feast, aided by a bottle of Port Phillip rose, courtesy of K.
Warming up after wind and rain earlier in the month. We said our final goodbyes to dear old Mum. About 50 at the funeral and afterwards at Rob and Jo's. A good send-off. Someone asked me how it felt to be an orphan. Not much different to not being one, I replied. Yet there is that sense of loss, with both parents now gone. No doubt we will reflect on this when the family get together on Christmas Eve.
Meanwhile, the second novel splutters along. My young hero is back in Australia, bursting to to return to India but unexpectedly delayed. I'm not sure how things will end. My mentor told me that the novelist, Richard Ford (Canada, The Sportswriter etc) plants a flag (mentally) somewhere in the far distance and his task is to take his story towards that flag. I don't seem to work that way. At least not yet. Speaking of novels, recently read Drusilla' Modjeska's The Mountain. Complex but interesting especially for lovers of Papua New Guinea. I read it on Kindle and got a bit lost with which character was which, and whose voice was speaking. But it is worth hanging in. The interactions, assumptions and cultural issues between the indigenous people and the Europeans is handled adroitly, and there is a real smell of PNG permeating the pages. Also skimmed through a biography of the nurse, Edith Cavell, executed by the Germans in WW1. Not often have women written war-based books, and Diana Souhami gives a matter-of-fact statistical backdrop to the evolving drama of Cavell's involvement in the Belgian resistance, and ultimate fate. Understated and powerful. Chris Cleave writes of more contemporary events. Daniele saw him at the Brisbane Writer's Festival and was impressed. He spoke of the redemptive element in his novels - an approach that I applaud. Too much fiction is tough going, unending heaviness and deflating endings. Cleave's Gold - a tale of two competing female cyclists - is dramatic and captures the conflicted emotions extremely well. Central to the story is Sophie, the young daughter, who is being treated for leukemia. This book could have disappeared up itself in pathos but refuses to do so. I am now moved to read Cleave's earlier novels. Happy with my writing as the week draws to an end. A productive session on Tuesday with my mentor, and the manuscript teased into shape. My energy now is with the second novel, with the young hero hurtling into self-discovery.
Meanwhile, the sand and surf at Leighton have beckoned. Perfect beach weather & totally appreciated. Saw The Master last night at Luna on SX. This film will polarise folks a bit like the Eagles and the Dockers. You say 'yes' to one and 'no' to the other. You might find it hard to embrace both. And having now read a few reviews, this confirms the critics are similarly divided - ranging from adulation (The Guardian) to disparaging (The Observer).
I tend to lean towards The Observer. The acting (Phoenix and Hoffman) is brilliant but I found myself wondering at the motivation of the director (Anderson). The treatment of the cult is predictably based on sex, money, power, neediness and charisma. The personality of the Master has been replicated in real life a thousand times over. So we are left with the Addict (Freddy Quell, played by Joachim Phoenix). I reckon it's really his film, and it should have been called "The Tormented". The rest of it is an overlong pastiche, confronting and desperately taut - and engrossing in parts - but as a 'whole', the film falls short. That's my two-bob's worth. Other opinions? |
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