Carmel Bird's Field of poppies

Our second book for 2020 was something completely different, Carmel Bird's latest novel, Field of poppies. A story about a tree-changing middle-aged, middle-class couple, who retreat back to the city a few years later when the tree-change doesn't meet expectations, it bemused many in our group. Here, as usual, are our first impressions.

First impressions

Overall, not everyone finished it. Several enjoyed the book but didn't love it, while others greatly liked it. It was variously described as quirky, funny, weird, strange, odd. Many enjoyed the dialogues/conversations in the book - particularly between Marsali and William, and within the reading group.

• the digressions became tiring after a while. A couple particularly didn't like William's mansplaining, while others liked his WWWs (and laughed at the word play on World Wide Web).
• too much description of the painting, Field of Poppies at Argenteuil 1873; but another really enjoyed the art descriptions in the novel.
• irritating to start with, and didn't like the digressions, but as more deaths started to occur, it became more interesting.
• loved the really lush descriptions, and enjoyed the references to other books, like Virginia Woolf's Jacob's room.
• liked the description of country town Victoria, and life there.
• it read like a conversation. Another, though, commented on the "strange diary format".
• enjoyed it, but wasn't sure of the message.
• it took a while to get into it, but then started to feel it was like a conversation with a quirky, artistic, intelligent friend
• really enjoyed reading the book, though the tone tricky, and not quite sure Bird pulled off her goal.
• really enjoyed it, loving Bird's tone, and her satire on contemporary life with her darker message, a bit like "Nero fiddled while Rome burned".

The ensuing discussion

One member suggested that the message was in the first epigram:

We are within measurable, or imaginable distance of real Armageddon. Happily there seems to be no reason why we should be anything more than spectators. (Henry Asquith, Secretary of State for War, July 24 1914)

And another member shared a quote from the book that she felt summed it up for her:

Life's a sort of jigsaw, and the pieces of the picture have their own ways of drifting to the surface of the mind, of fitting together, sometimes in surprising ways.

We discussed irony and satire. We felt it was ironic that the tree-changers had returned to the city to live on the 42nd floor of an apartment, in Eureka Tower. Some felt the irony - Eureka being the name of a large gold nugget from the Victorian goldfields - was a bit heavy-handed. One member suggested that it was also ironic that Marsali's commune-living arty parents left their commune - this was during her childhood - to live in suburban Box Hill in Melbourne.

Some enjoyed the Preface with its commentary of contemporary life and society and vision of what's coming? As word lovers, we were inspired by "People forgot how to punctuate or spell" to share some anecdotes! We briefly discussed the line "Cinderella died in the end", a line which is picked up later in the novel in a reference to Beauty and the Beast, and fairy tales:

Beauty always falls in love with the Beast, who always turns out to be the Prince, but that's only the end of the telling, not the end of the lives of Beauty and her Beast-Prince. Life goes on until it doesn't. Cinderella died in the end, and so did Snow White.

We teased out the tree-changing satire, how the tree-changing life hadn't turned out to be as idyllic as out protagonists hoped - they were robbed, and a townsperson, Alice, disappeared. One member recounted her own childhood with a mother seeking romantic old houses which in fact really needed servants to maintain properly. She wonders why there's an attitude that you've "sold out" if you move to an apartment. Another shared a quote from late in the book which she felt explained much about the book:

When I go there for Mirrabooka nights I drive past the gate to Listowel and catch a glimpse of the house itself behind the trees. It's really so very like the house in the distance in the Monet, the dangerous fool's gold of the old lost dream house.

Early in the novel, Marsali talks about dream-houses in literature and her own uncertainty about the idea of "dream".

Anyhow, we enjoyed Bird's descriptions of modern life in a successful rural town, with the cafes and hair salons, reading groups and churches, greenie credentials (including green funerals), music groups and often self-consciously political or earnest artistic pursuits. It was all too real! And then, of course, there was the return of a mine to this historic mining community.

We discussed Alice and how Bird uses Alice in Wonderland as a foil for Alice Dooley. Without spoiling the ending too much, both disappear into the deep, but Alice in Wonderland survives while Alice Dooley doesn't. One member also suggested that Bird's use of foils or parallels, such as this one, isn't black and white, because the world Alice in Wonderland goes into is chaotic (reflecting, perhaps, the world of the 21st century world Marsali lives in.)

We discussed Hanging Rock, Joan Lindsay's Picnic at Hanging Rock book, and the place of lost children stories in Australian literature. There are missing children in this novel, though the main missing character in this novel, Alice Dooley, is not a child.

We discussed the importance of Monet's painting and the poppies. We noted that while the poppies are pretty on the surface, they also convey something sinister, something that starts, in particular, with WW1 and the poppies of Flanders. Some members, though, found it hard to accept the idea of the gun pointing from the house - but that's just the point. Our dreamhouses are not what they seem at all. They contain the seeds of destruction.

One member commented that Bird was also playing with the idea of fiction. Marsali kept reminding us that this was her memoir, so coincidences etc that are not accepted in fiction are OK. For example, Marsali tells us that it's perfectly fine that the two road accidents that more or less start and end the book's drama both involve kangaroos, as this is not fiction where such artifices are not accepted. (Bird adds salt to this wound by having the driver involved in the second accident spending time at a pub called The Kangaroo before he sets off on his fateful drive!)

We briefly touched on the allusions to Jonathan Swift (Marsali Swift, and her brother Gulliver), and that Gulliver's travels is also a satire on the state of society.

Late in the meeting, we returned to the meaning of the book, and the first epigram - the issue that the world is going wrong but we are not doing anything. As one member said, the book is about our current existential crisis - the fact that there's a disconnect in our lives between knowing that climate change, in particular, is a critical issue but our lives are too comfortable to act seriously upon it. How many will give up their overseas trips for example? Not many, we ruefully laughed. There was some discussion about what difference individuals can make. There was no resolution to this one!

Overall, most agreed that this is a book in which you can enjoy the ride rather than try to follow all the threads. Not all found it easy to glean its full meaning and intent.

Present: 9 members

Charlotte Wood's The weekend

It was a full house when Minervans met for the first time in 2020 to discuss our first book of the year, Charlotte Wood's The weekend. It seemed a fitting book for a group that has been meeting for over 30 years, several of whom have known each other for those 30 years and more.

The book is about three women (Jude, Wendy and Adele), now in their 70s, who have been friends for around 40 years and have come together for a weekend to clean out the house of the fourth friend (Sylvie) who had died about a year previously. During the weekend, various cracks in their friendship are revealed, but so is their love and loyalty.

First impressions

As usual, we started by asking everyone for their first impressions, which fell into two rather clear camps:

• alright; ambivalent; characters are types; liked it at the start but then started to feel ho-hum about it; too long
• loved it; it captured women's friendships well, particularly the agonies and ecstasies over long periods of time and the dynamics of friendship groups; enjoyed the humour

Interestingly, none of those who didn't like it mentioned the humour, while several of those who did like it specifically mentioned the humour! However, everyone did enjoy something about the evocation of friendships, with most people relating to the book personally in one way or another. For some it resonated closely with experiences they had had.

One of those who liked it didn't like the melodramatic "party" scene near the end. One who didn't like it commented that the death near the end of one woman's lover helped Wood create an ending for her book but didn't actually resolve anything.

Several commented on different aspects of the writing, such as the wonderful opening scene in which Wendy is in her broken-down car on the highway, the description of the inclinator, the wave metaphor at the end, and other descriptions and images.

The rest of the discussion

With 12 in attendance, the discussion then scampered all over the place, from idea to idea, point to point, but I'll try to bring it together. We discussed the role of Finn the ageing dog, who, we learnt, was not in the original story. Most of us liked Finn, but one member found it difficult to accept a dog who really should have been euthanised. The women's reactions to Finn tell us something about their characters. Also, Finn's simply "being"  (his "simple creatureliness") provides a foil for the women's ideas about life's meaning or goals, and his ageing body reflects, if not symbolises, the ageing bodies of the women (and their fear of ageing, not to mention death and dying.)

In a lesser way, the inclinator also works as a useful device for conveying information about the women's characters, from Adele's not using it because of her "use it or lose it" philosophy to overweight Wendy with the frail dog having no choice really.

We didn't talk as much about ageing as we might but one member was interested in the idea of when have you "finished". Wendy and Adele, for example, both feel they have more to achieve - Wendy, the intellectual idea she feels she's moving towards, and Adele, her big role - while Jude's goal seems to be finding things to talk about/share/offer up when her married lover (of forty years) sees her. When you no longer have formal, professional goals, what goals do you have, where do they come from, and what happens when you, perhaps, no longer have goals or purpose?

We also briefly discussed children - and the point when the power balance shifts from parents being parents of their children to being parented by their children! Wendy experiences this in the book.

Wood, we felt, is clearly up on the contemporary problem of homeless older women, as by the end, two of the three are, or potentially are, without a home.

Regarding friendships, we talked about how people can know each other for a long time but still not know each other (see Quote of the night below, perhaps!) One member pondered whether friends made when young (even those sustained over a long time) would in fact become friends if you met them much later. Another member commented how it was Adele, the one the others frequently saw as "the child" of the group, is the one who takes control when a major crisis comes. We felt that Wood had captured well the complexity of friendships, and the individual baggages that people bring to friendships.

A member commented that the women never reminisce about Sylvie, which you might expect. This resulted in a discussion about the women's self-absorption. One member felt they lacked warmth.

In terms of the writing, we talked about the alternating points of view as we moved between the women's heads, and the fact that book is more one of vignettes than a single narrative, which might explain why we don't hear the women sitting down and reminiscing about their late friend. One member wasn't convinced about the set-up, that is, the women coming together to clean out their friend's house when there was a partner who could have done it.

We also talked about the "house-party" genre of books/fiction, into which this fits. Some members immediately recalled the film The big chill and one referred to John Clanchy's novel The sisters.

We shared some favourite pieces of writing, such as:

this description of Wendy by Adele:

the planes of her mighty cheekbones and jaw had tilted somehow, inwards and down, so that to Adele it seemed she'd begun, impossibly but surely, to look really very much like Patrick White.

this by Jude on sister-in-law Catherine's reading group:

Catherine's bookclub worked doggedly through the Booker shortlist, coming down on the side of the winner if they knew the author already, against if they didn't.

and this by Wendy of young Australians, who

now spoke with American accents, pronouncing their r's at the end of words, and saying "afterr", the "a" like in apple. Why was this? The Western world had blurred itself into one jellied cultural mess. 

We talked about about Wood, the fact that she's in her 50s and has no children. We thought she had well captured women who are 20 years older than she, and that she must know and have observed carefully such women, their changing friendships, bodies and perceptions.

Finally, we felt the novel touched on rather a lot of "stuff". Some of us felt we identified with one or two of the three women, while others saw all three women in themselves at different times. At the end of the discussion, we all agreed that, whether we individually liked the book or not, it offered a good description of what happens between friends, and that therefore, in fact, it is a "good" book!

Quote of the night

One member reminded us of the saying that everyone has three lives - a public life, a private life, and a secret life - and suggested that this book is very much about the secret life.


Present: 12 members

Tim Winton’s The shepherd’s hut

The shepherd's hut, the latest addition to Tim Winton’s oeuvre, is considered one of his best for many years according to many of our Minerva members.

This novel has a very minor plot – violent Dad is found dead and teenage son is extremely worried that he will be suspected of killing him. The boy leaves home and walks away not caring or knowing where he is going. He almost dies in the Western Australian desert until he finds a hut where an elderly former priest lives as a hermit. They develop a bond and the young boy starts to recover from the abuse and difficulties of his life.

[SPOILER ALERT] Inevitably the priest is killed by 2 guys who think the priest has discovered their marijuana plantation. It is the characters' relationships that carry this work and make it so distinctive and so memorable.

First impressions

• Very clever
• Found the language very challenging and distasteful
• Personalities are fantastic
• Compelling reading
• Atmosphere – slow and moody – would be great as a movie with music complimenting the slow pace
• Some language is a bit jargonistic – Tim Winton moves in the circles of people who swear constantly
• Description of nature and love of WA landscape wonderful
• A religious story – with a biblical feel
• Reminded one member of Voss by Patrick White with the descriptions of the landscape
• Loved the last 2 sentences – ‘And peace is on its way. It fucking better be.’ (p. 267) Felt that summed up that at heart Jaxie Clackton was a good guy – although he was continually worried that he wasn’t.
• Winton really gets the landscape, drew me in
• What was he trying to say? Was it about a cynical priest trying to redeem a young person?
• Very masculine novel – fascinating and tough – males in extremis?
• Very impressive opening passage – hinting at trials ahead or to put it another way – something ending and something beginning
• Jaxie feels he is a scapegoat as he has been outcast most of his life by his family and by school and his peers – this becomes almost biblical
• He has been a violent young man – ‘I have been a dirty goat’ and ‘I’m no type of beast anymore’
• One member realised that there is no sea or surf in this Winton novel which is most unusual
• Couldn’t understand why the priest Fintan was stuck in the desert as it isn’t explained – he is a flawed wise man and not a paedophile 
• Implausible scenario but that does not detract from the biblical allusions – Jesus in the desert -- 40 days etc

Language

There were differing opinions about the language – the majority of members did not mind it as it seemed appropriate – the others found it disturbing but it did not detract from their admiration for the novel. The swearing includes all words commonly used as well as some which are not used so often. Jaxie is a boy of little education so the sentences are short and blunt and raw but very understandable, even when he uses lots of slang.

We found the names of the characters quite Dickensenian – and they also reminded one reader of Terry Prachett’s names.

The two main characters speak in their own languages which at times are totally authentic and natural.

Characters

Jaxie

Jaxie is a traumatised young man, probably suffering from PTSD caused by his abusive, butcher father. Jaxie recognises early on that he is full of pent up anger at the world and with himself.

We discussed how he was ‘driven’ to love his first cousin Lee as he was so lacking in love from his parents. It is often the way that abused children find succour in relationships which cannot be approved.

Jaxie’s mother didn’t protect him and he was bullied at school and he didn’t have any friends due to his bad behaviour.

We admired Jaxie’s strong drive to survive and go forward despite the numerous trials with objects eg the binoculars in particular. He wanted to learn and he listened to the priest and they developed a bond.

His view of himself was as an outcast thrown out by Capt Wankbag (his father).

As Jaxie is the narrator we only hear his side of the story so we only see his experiences from his point of view.

There is a lot of slaughter in this novel – especially of kangaroos and goats in order for humans to survive. Another aspect of his violence was illustrated graphically in the story of the killing of the cats. It was confronting but he did it when his father was too lazy or dissolute to assist the cat owner. It was brutal but in context.

We briefly discussed the issue of small towns keeping secrets about family life and others not willing to be involved even though the young ones and the mothers often were regularly in danger. This was also an issue in Karen Viggers’ recent novel – The orchardist’s daughter.

In contrast we also talked about his happy times when the extended family got together and he became friends with Lee. These are the only bright times in his short life.

Jaxie also did not have big goals in life – he just wants peace – which is completely understandable considering his upbringing.

Fintan

Fintan the priest was ministering to Jaxie – trying to create a space for him. He was also mentoring him and trying to assist him. He recognised that Jaxie was a battered boy and did not have a heart of gold. Fintan wants peace too but is happy to share his peace with the boy.

Landscape

One member who grew up in the country felt that Winton captured the reality of country life beautifully and very specifically in the killing of animals to survive. This is despite the author’s different upbringing near the sea.

Another member felt that Winton is as good as Elizabeth Jolley in capturing the landscape of WA. It was interesting, this member said, that Winton is ‘allowed’ to call the native trees by their WA names,  so we get ‘Yorkies’ for instance, when other writers have to conform to the Australian terminology .

Finally

The point of the novel is the making of a man – will his girl friend be happy to meet him at the end of his adventure? Why did it take Jaxie so long to shoot the Fintan’s torturers? It was a very difficult situation for anybody let alone a teenager who had never shot anyone before.

Present: 9 members

Minerva's Top Picks for 2019

In what has now become a tradition - if three years in a row can be called a tradition - we Minervans once again voted for our Top Picks of the year. As before, each member was asked to nominate her three top picks of the books we read as a group this year ... and here is the outcome ...

Twelve of our thirteen currently active members took part. Eleven nominated three books, and one chose just one, resulting in 34 "votes" cast. This is not a "proper" survey. Votes were all given equal weight, as was advised in the email request, even if some members ranked their choices. Also, not everyone read every book, meaning different people voted from different "pools". So, the results are indicative rather than, hmm, authoritative, but it's all meant to be fun and it does convey some sense of what we all liked.

Unlike, last year which was pretty close, this year the winners were clearer. Four books occupied the top three positions, and did so by using 27 of the 34 votes cast, or 80% of the votes cast. Last year, the top three used 75%, and the previous year just 56%. What does this say? No idea really!

Anyhow, here are the results:

1. Boy swallows universe, by Trent Dalton (our review) (8 votes)
2. A gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles (our review); and The shepherd’s hut, by Tim Winton (our review) (7 votes each)
3. Convenience store woman, by Sayaka Murata (our review) (6 votes)

Highly commended: The bridge, by Enza Gandolfo (our review).

These results are less varied than last year, as the first three books are novels by men! However, the third place-getter is not only by a woman, but is a translated novel proving that there is some diversity in our mix!

One member, Sue B, voted for the three most voted for books (as did past member and parallel reader, Marie, whose vote came in late and was not included in the count, but still she deserves a mention!)

All but two of the books we read last year - Anita Heiss's Growing up Aboriginal in Australia and Anton Chekhov's The lady and the dog - received votes or special mentions. These two exceptions, produced good discussions but, being an anthology and a short story, they were probably handicapped! Interestingly, though, one member voted for our Les Murray night.

Some comments on our top picks

Note that not everyone commented on their choices ...

BOY SWALLOWS UNIVERSE:

• "Such an energetic, raw, observant, funny book, not like anything I’ve read." (Kate)
• "A brave new novel by a gifted new novelist." (Denise)
• "It captures a difficult childhood with such verve and generosity for its flawed characters." (Sue T)
• "Edgy, unusual, funny, sad and of course bizarre." (Janet)

A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW:

• "Beautifully written, fascinating premise, and thoroughly engaging, while hinting at the dramas around." (Kate)
• "I became totally immersed in the gracious world of the hotel in another era on a background of communist horror. Beautiful writing." (Denise)
• "Playful, different, great character and unusual." (Sylvia)
• "It was intriguing I thought, and amongst other things I enjoyed the glimpses of a disappearing lifestyle (for some)." (Judith) 
• "A classy read. Sometimes hilarious whilst also full of dignity and the unexpected. And for its historical interest." (Janet)

THE SHEPHERD'S HUT

• "It sustains such a tricky first person voice so convincingly, and deals so uncompromisingly with the implications of a violent upbringing for a young men." (Sue T)
•  "Despite the language I am amazed at how Tim Winton can make so much from so little -- and with wonderful landscape descriptions." (Sylvia) 
• "What a tale ...  Characters are strongly drawn." (Judith)

CONVENIENCE STORE WOMAN:

• "A quirky different novel." (Denise)
• "I love Japanese literature; I love the unusual voice; and I love its questioning of the drive for homogeniety and meeting societal expectations." (Sue T)
• "Quirky, also with glimpses, this time, of Japanese life." (Judith)
• "Gives a voice to someone who is normally excluded. Love the relentless logic of the narrator." (Helen)

THE BRIDGE:

• "Absolutely riveting, poignant, compelling, well written and a gripping story and thoroughly believable and human characters." (Sylvia)

Members (Janet, Anne and Celeste, respectively) also commented on Gilead ("for something different"), The group ("a surprise that it was such a good read") and The orchardist's daughter ("a tight contender"). Our member, Kate, who voted for the Les Murray night, said it was "so great to find out more about possibly Australia’s best poet, and to read a few of his evocative, confronting, amazing poems".

Other recommendations

This year, several members took up the request to share some other favourite books from their reading year. Here are their suggestions (alphabetically by author), for those looking for other recommendations:

• Maxine Beneba Clarke's The hate race (Kate)
• Louise Erdrich's The bingo palace (Sue T)
• Robert Galbraith's (aka J K Rowling) Lethal white (Syliva)
• Gail Honeyman's Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine (Marie)
• Melissa Lucashenko's Too much lip (Sue T)
• Ian McEwan's Machines like me (Anne)
• Liane Moriarty's The husband’s secret (Sue B)
• Liane Moriarty's Truly madly guilty (Sue B)
• Liane Moriarty's Big little lies (Sue B)
• Michelle Obama's Becoming (Sylvia)
• Henry Handel Richardson's The getting of wisdom (Anne)
• Jock Serong's On the Java Ridge (Marie)
• Jock Serong's Preservation (Marie)
• Jock Serong's Quota (Marie) 
• Tara Westover's Educated (Anne)

Let us know what you think, in the comments!

Karen Viggers' The orchardist’s daughter

Karen Viggers is a local author, but one we hadn't read before. We were thrilled when she accepted our invitation to attend our meeting, but unfortunately, she had to cancel at late notice due to a serious health problem in her family. Of course we understood. Families, after all, must come before reading groups - but it was too late to reschedule the book to another month, so we soldiered on ... (We were pleased to hear at the meeting that her family member was on the recovery path, after quite a touch and go situation.)

Fortunately, our host had worked professionally with Karen in the publishing industry, and so was able to provide us with some insights into her career and writing life. The orchardist's daughter is Viggers' fourth novel, her others being The stranding (2008), The grass castle (2011) and The lightkeeper's wife (2014). Her novels are bestsellers in France, so much so that one commentator has suggested that she would be responsible for a surge in French tourism to Australia!

Viggers is published by the successful Jane Palfreyman at Allen & Unwin. Viggers trained as a vet, and is specially skilled in wildlife management. Her husband is an ecologist. While we would not normally consider a husband's work important while discussing a woman writer (!), in this case it's relevant because of Viggers' focus on landscape and environnmental issues. It's clear that she and her husband, to whom the book is dedicated, are deeply knowledgeable in and passionate about these subjects.

Viggers, said our host, works hard on her books, writing draft after draft to get her stories right. We discussed the problematic jacketing of her novels, which places them squarely in the commercial fiction/genre side of publishing. Most of us see Viggers as straddling the commercial/literary fiction line, and felt that the jacketing doesn't encourage a wider readership for her. Titles using "wife" and "daughter" also tend to suggest more commercial fiction.

Before we started our discussion proper, another member told us that in interviews she'd heard, Viggers had said the gorgeous character of Geraldine in The orchardist's daughter was inspired by our host! Appropriate and well-deserved we all thought!

First impressions

As is our practice, but rather later in the meeting than usual, we did our first impressions run around the group!

• Everyone agreed that the novel was readable, engaging, compelling, un-put-down-able -different members using different words to say the same thing!
• Most commented on the wonderful sense of place Viggers evokes in the book. She takes you right there, said one member, while our twitcher commented that it's clear that Viggers knows her way around the bush!
• A couple commented on the cleverness of opening the book with a fire and the burning of a house, with one commenting that from then on she kept trying to anticipate what dramas might happen. She was relieved that the book ended reasonably well!
• One member felt that Viggers paints a bleak picture of life in Tasmanian villages, though others argued that Viggers intended it to be small towns in general, rather than Tasmanian ones in particular. 
• Several commented that the issues raised in the novel were compelling - including the Tasmanian devil facial cancer, the forestry/timbertown/environmental politics, the different types of violence/bullying/abuse.
• Most felt the characters, overall, could be deeper or more complex, that they can be a little one-sided or dichotomous, but all agreed that, despite this, the characters are engaging, and compel us to read on.
• One member - and not a doggie one at that! - said her favourite character was Rosie the dog. Rosie, she argued, epitomises what the book is about.   
• A couple of members commented on Leon, and the fact that he'd been a major inspiration for the book. One member would have asked Viggers, had she been present, about "how that works", that is, "how does a fictional character get in your head to the extent that they insist being written about!" One member felt that the book was more about Leon, than Miki (the titular "orchardist's daughter") . 
• One suggested that the chase at the end was too long, though we all thought it was very well written - and that it would be great in a movie.
• Several commented on the writing, and how beautifully it flows. We liked its mix of short sentences, long sentences, and half-sentences. As one member said, it's not stilted.

From here the discussion became a bit of a free-for-all with not a lot of direction. It's that sort of book - or, maybe, it was that sort of night! Mostly though, it's that sort of book, because it offers so many different things to talk about.

One member shared one of the two epigraphs, which she liked:

Only the unnamed forest
is home to that silence which
is union with the divine. And only
the forest creatures grasp that
being in the single moment is all.
(Jane Baker, 'Church', Unpublished)

And another shared a piece of writing from the book which she felt exemplified our comments on Viggers' style:

Miki loved the trees and the birds, but what she loved most couldn’t be seen. The way she felt in the forest. The scent of the bush after the rain. The sound of bark crackling. Branches squeaking. The feeling of patience and agelessness, growth and renewal. The aura of trees. The sense of connectedness. Of everything having its place. She could stay here all day, breathing with the tree, drawing its life into her lungs.

So, what else did we talk about? We talked more about the characters. We liked the relationship between Leon and Max - and we liked seeing the world through Max's naive eyes. We also liked the way Max's Mum was cautious about Leon at first but warmed to him through his kindness to her son. We thought Miki was pretty spunky, given how controlled she was by her brother. We liked her treatment of the shop's customers and felt she made that shop the success it was. We loved her interactions with Geraldine. One member loved the idea of discussions about books happening within a book, though another, who hates Thomas Hardy, wasn't so keen on Geraldine's choice of books! Another member was surprised that Leon stuck with the football team, but we countered, he loved football (and knew he could bring them around!)

More seriously, we noted that the book represents a political commentary on contemporary Australia, ticking quite a few boxes regarding current issues, particularly environment, violence and power. We liked that Viggers touches on mechanisation, and how this, more than the environment issue, is likely to be the greatest cause of job loss in the timber industry. We noted and loved the inclusion of Bob Brown!

One member quoted Miki's realisation at the end:

That was life, wasn't it? Tears and then laughter. Knocks and recovery. Injury and healing. Loneliness and then friends.

Finally, we talked a little about the four parts of the novel: Seeds, Germination, Growth, Understory. Do these have a metaphoric meaning as well as literal one, and if so do they refer to Leon, or the town, or to Miki? What does Understory, in particular, mean? Understory, we thought, can describe the network that grows beneath a forest and supports what's above. Could it relate to the support network that has developed in the town for, say, Miki?

All in all, a lively, engaged meeting about an engaging book ...

 Present: 10 members

Les Murray and his poetry

This will be a different sort of blog – we all read some Les Murray but not the same material. Also it is not possible to differentiate Les Murray from his poetry. He wrote it all his life and the subjects are his life and his environment.

We began the discussion with his obituaries. He died on 29 April 2019 and there were numerous obituaries in the press. The Economist obituary called him the ‘bard for the left-out’. 

This is a well-written obit and we felt the writer was trying to emulate the poetry of the subject.

Les Murray was a child of very impoverished parents who had settled ‘on’ Bunyah as dairy farmers. The district is inland from Taree, on the mid north coast of New South Wales. His parents were always poor. So his early childhood was hard but the death of his mother when he was 10 made it even harder. His father was not equipped to bring up a child who had different aspirations and ideas from the folk around him. Murray was bullied from a young age due to his physical characteristics and his intelligence. Cecil Murray his father, was a very hard man who had had a difficult childhood himself.

Some years ago a number of members heard Murray read at ANU when he was accompanied by our local poet Geoff Page and were surprised by how ordinary and low key he presented himself. However there was an intensity in his elocution which comes through in many of his poems.

 His religiosity was something that was important to discuss as it affected his life from the time of his marriage to his Catholic wife, Valerie. He had met her at Sydney University and she was ‘saintly’ and kept him for much of his life. She was a teacher and she allowed him to devote himself to his ‘calling’.

According to ‘On Bunyah’ (a small non-fiction collection of his poems) the area he lived in was largely Protestant but in the strictest sense of the Uniting Church (Methodism?) So becoming a Catholic at a fairly young age was a radical step in the 1960s. As an older man he became interested in ‘transcendence in doctrine’ in his search for meaning?

At University, Murray was friendly with the famous intellectuals – Clive James, Germaine Greer and Bob Ellis - although he was only on the edge of that grouping. Murray was not a ‘joiner’ and didn’t want to be part of any group or elite as he always felt on the outer. Girls were attracted to him as he was brainy and had a great presence. But Valerie was different as she was European. She was also very long-suffering we believe.

Murray was rewarded with many prizes for his poetry during his lifetime but was not successful in winning the Nobel in 1994. Murray won a T S Eliot prize and we felt that there were some similarities in their approach to Christianity as they became older and wiser – looking for a similar pathway and a clear doctrine. Murray was not looking at rituals or god though. He was influenced by the English religious poet, Gerald Manley Hopkins. They both had a passion for the natural world and hated the establishment and the elites. Curiously, Murray hated the Australia Council even though he had received grants from them.

Three members had read a very sympathetic biography of Murray entitled Les Murray by Peter Alexander. There were differing opinions on whether this biography was authorized or not.  In this book there is mention of the ongoing guilt Murray felt (for most of his life) because his mother died due to a lack of treatment for a miscarriage. 

This guilt and the lack of love and attention from his father could have ground down a young person but Murray was exceptionally talented. He did however, suffer severe depression sporadically through his life, partially attributable to his early years. These mental problems showed in his treatment of his own children. He and Valerie had 5 children. He also did not relate to other people well and that was partly due to his severely restricted childhood and his school experiences. Possibly also due to autism?

Murray was always a vulnerable person but had amazing survival skills. He was exceptionally talented but also fraught.

He also had a fear of sex due to his mother’s tragic death and his internalising of the reasons for her passing. This wound could never really heal. Many of these vulnerabilities are written about in an article called : Killing the black dog. There is more information about this publication at Black Inc.

We were all impressed to hear that he spoke numerous European languages and actually worked as a translator at ANU for a period after having taught himself these skills. Quite an astonishing talent. (Murray didn’t like Canberra, he found it a boring place.)

One member was reticent to read Murray although she had had the exceptional luck to meet him and have a meal with him. They were both children of dairy farmers so had something in common to talk about. This member found him unpretentious. One other member has a very good friend whose mother had taught Les Murray at school and recognized his talents. She had promoted the radical idea of Murray attending university.

Les Murray has been considered one of Australia’s greatest poets for many years and this shows not only in the number of awards he received but also in the number of poems printed in Australian anthologies. Judith Wright is the only other poet who comes near in quantity of publication.

We read and discussed some of his poems, for example:

She gave me her factual tone,her facial bones, her will,
not her beautiful voice …  (From ‘Weights’ which was written as a memorial to his mother – Miriam Murray 1915-1951)

Archie was a gun to shoot at biplanes
and an uncle I missed meeting …(From 'The blame')

Poor Auntie Mary was dying and frail ……Lived ten more years…From ‘The Iron Kitchens’

(These poems and many more can be found in On Bunyah (Collingwood, Black Inc, 2017).

Another notable poem is ‘Dog, fox, field’. These words were devised to assist teachers in assessing children for school, that is, if they could make a sentence out of them or not.

One member thought a poem called ‘A torturer’s apprentice’ went to the core of what he was trying to say with his poetry. And, unusually this poem has rhyme unlike many of the others we read.

We realised that Murray had many styles and many ways of writing poetry -- from the set stanza to lines with gaps in the middle eg in ‘Layers of Pregnancy’ so it is hard to know if you are reading it correctly. He also used Gaelic at times such as in ‘The Iron Kitchens’ and he also wrote as a cow in one memorable and poignant poem – ‘The Cows on Killing Day’ – ‘All me are standing on feed

All me have just been milked…’

Murray himself felt poets should not be slavish to the norms of poetry. So he wasn’t.

His poetry was the opposite of platitudes – too complex and covering difficult subjects such as dealing with the underdog, the personality most like Murray himself ?

Murray worked as an editor for Quadrant for a time and performed his works overseas. He always had a strong political voice and spoke about the situation of Australia’s First Nation people. He was probably appreciated more overseas than he has been in Australia. We still have some cultural cringe.

This inspired night has encouraged members to research Les Murray and find out about this well known but not well read poet. Everyone had done considerable work to add to our enjoyment and knowledge of Murray. One member even went to the NLA to do her research. It was a learning curve for all of us but well worth the education.

For more information about Les Murray’s life see Manning Community News.

Present : 8 members

Enza Gandolfo's The bridge

Our August book was Enza Gandolfo's second novel, The bridge, a powerful book inspired by the 1970 collapse of Melbourne's Westgate Bridge.

The novel is told in two parts - the first surrounding the 1970 bridge collapse, and the second being set in 2009 and telling the story of another tragedy involving the bridge, this time a fatal car-crash in which the young driver survives. Eventually, the two stories are linked.

First impressions

These include two from members who didn't make it to the meeting. Rarely for us, there were no naysayers.

• enjoyed reading the book but it's very sad; engaged more with the story of Jo, the young car-driver, empathising with her lack of confidence; and
  loved the humanity of the legal aid lawyer.
• found the story and writing style very engaging.
• was crying at the end; a really good novel though devastating at times; enjoyed the way it delves into different lives.
• engaged very quickly with the book; the characters are well-drawn.
• brilliant book; engaged most with the story of Antonello, the bridge-worker traumatised by his experience of the collapse; loved how he finally came to terms with his trauma, and liked his relationship with his wife; also liked the relationship between Jo's mother and legal aid lawyer Sarah.
• very powerful novel, particularly as she had a similar experience when young. (She was being driven in a car by a drunk driver who crashed, resulting in the death of one of the passengers. died. We were stunned.) Gandolfo got the grief right, the different ways people respond to grief. 
• loved it; exquisite and deserving of its Stella Prize shortlisting; engages you immediately; powerful, authentic, empathetic.
• beautifully crafted novel which presents flawed characters with whom we can engage and empathise; loved the the bridge title because it plays both literally and metaphorically.

See? We were all very impressed.

Rest of the conversation

As often happens when there's no dissension, the conversation was quieter, but we did still find a few things to talk about!

We talked about the writing. We were impressed with how quickly Gandolfo engaged us in the story, and how well constructed the novel is. Gandolfo developed the links between the families well without making it feel contrived. One member commented on the scene where the police wake Mandy up to tell her about the accident (p. 110) and she tries to tell herself it's a dream. Clever, and believable.

We also loved her evocation of place. Melbournites felt she got Melbourne right, particularly the Yarraville area (albeit Yarraville is gentrified and very different now.) This helped the novel's authenticity.

A major strength of the novel is its characters. We all had our favourites, but overall we found the characters believable and relatable, even minor characters like the couple at Port Arlington with whom Jo stays when she runs away.

We all felt sorry for Jo, recognising that there but for the grace of God ... most people get away with their mistakes, but every now and then it all goes awry. We agreed that Jo was not completely to blame, that her mother, the adults at the party, the friends who insisted they stay for one more drink, all had a hand in what happened. Of course, we also accepted that Jo took the wheel and carries the final responsibility.

We thought Jo was a strongly drawn character. We loved her vulnerability, her sense of feeling unloved and of losing her friendship with Ashley as their lives started to diverge. It's classic "teen stuff" but real as well. We felt the description of her not wanting to open her eyes after accident was real. Her rejection of her friends and Ashleigh's boyfriend who tried to contact her was also understandable, but sad.

The other main character is Antonello/Nello who physically survives the bridge crash but suffers PTSD which affects the next decades of his life, his relationship with his gorgeous wife Paolina, and  his whole family. At one point in the novel, he hears his daughter saying to Paolina, "Don't you dare die first and leave us with Dad." Heartbreaking, but understandable given his remoteness. It's not until after Ashleigh's death that he starts to fully realise the choices he's made and their impact. He says:

For years, the most persistent impulse was towards death; a desire to stop living … But life didn’t stop. It went on whether you lived it or not. You have to choose life. This is what he needed to tell them – if you stop living, you may as well die. If you stop living, you aren’t going to be able to love again, and everyone you know will pay for that, everyone.

Nello's wife, Paolina, is the most empathetic person in the families. She grieves her grand-daughter but she also feels for Jo.

Most of us were disappointed in the mothers - in Jo's mother for not being able to reach out to her daughter, and Ashleigh's mother, a high school principal after all, for having no empathy for Jo. And yet, Gandolfo encourages us, with her writing, to understand and not judge these women.

Sarah, the legal aid lawyer, was also mentioned by several of us. She has her own difficult back story, but is committed to social justice and empathetic to Jo's mother Mandy with whom she works to develop a rapport, initially in order to understand Jo more so she can defend her in court. Sarah works hard to be a lawyer with integrity but recognises how easy it is to twist justice:

That was the danger of a good story: you could elicit pity and empathy for even the worst sociopath … Sarah believed telling good stories, the ones people listened to and were swayed by, was a responsibility. It worried her that some people did not take it seriously enough.

One of the novel's themes concerns social mobility, for which the bridge functions as an effective metaphor. Not only do bridges symbolise progress, but Westgate was also going to play a role in reducing class distinction by making it easy for movement in the city. There wasn't necessarily a lot of support for this: "'We don’t want those rich bastards coming over to the west', was the general sentiment". Gandolfo gives wonderful life to the migrant community of the time, conveying the respect that developed between migrants and Australians (as well as the more commonly portrayed antagonism.) We liked Antonello's reciprocated love for his non-migrant boss. As the book progresses, the social mobility often found in migrant families, occurs in Nello's family with his children moving into comfortable middle class lives.

One member commented that the word "love" keeps popping up in the novel, and yet it never feels cloying. Love - parental, marital, between friends - is an important part of the novel, and its resolution. Other themes relate to forgiveness, revenge and responsibility.

We also briefly discussed the ending. We thought the novel finished well, resolving many issues, but realistically. Jo's sentence is right, and she takes the right attitude to it. We see her accepting responsibility and developing resilience.

We agreed that this would be a good book for year 11/12 reading lists. It shows that nice people make mistakes, that bad things can happen to good people. It's a book imbued with a deep understanding of humanity, that forces us to look beneath the surface of people, their actions and feelings.

A member shared an ABC Radio National interview with the author.

Finally, for some light relief, we shared stories about our own kids' brushes with the police, including two called by the police to pick up their inebriated, butter-wouldn't-melt-in-their-mouths teenage daughters from the police station! Amazing how, after all these years together, we can still learn new things about each other!

Present: 6 members