Review: Honor: A Novel by Thirty Umrigar

My Interest

I love to read stories set elsewhere–in this case India. I also wish American women could appreciate how amazingly privileged they are! We can dis our men all we want, but most of them do try to help at home, do spend time with the kids, and do appreciate their wives. American women are usually taken seriously when they report rape –even rape in marriage. Battered women in America can generally find help–their plight is taken seriously. We have control, oh sorry! We have “agency” over our lives (that means we have choices we can actually make). That is unheard of in so many places. We in American DO still have freedom of religion, and freedom of speech, in spite of efforts from both sides of the political spectrum to encroach on them.

Last year I had the goal of reading more from Reese Witherspoon’s book club, but mostly struck out. Honor is the pick for January 2022 and I was lucky that my library had the e-audio available with no waiting. I hope this book opens the eyes of so many who think they have it so bad. You haven’t met “bad” until you’ve seen what women go through in many other nations.

The Story

Smita, an unbelievably privileged and woke young journalist living in a fashionable area of NYC (the only place she could thrive–her parent’s Ohio college town just didn’t understand….[Must not have been Yellow Springs, eh Smita?]) agrees to help out a friend stuck in the hospital in India by finishing a series of stories on the treatment of a young woman, Meea, who marries out of her faith.

“Nobody taught us what I know today – the most dangerous animal in this world is a man with wounded pride.”

Her brothers, to defend the family’s honor (a concept we in America have largely decided can slide) have burned down the hovel in which Meena and her husband were sleeping. The husband is killed, Meena, though disfigured and somewhat disabled lives and gives birth to their daughter.

“Because a woman can live in one of two houses—fear or love. It is impossible to live in both at the same time.”

A big city women’s advocate gets Mina to go to court and try to have her brothers found guilty of murder. If you think American justice is screwed up, you ain’t seen nothing till you’ve stepped into a court room in any former “3rd World” country. (India is a 1st World country in commerce and a 2nd World or 3rd World country in other ways).

But, Mina’s is not the only story to be unraveled. Smita, too, has quiet a lot on her mind from her own childhood in India. She left the country at 14 with her family and landed in that stifling college town in (dear god, why?) Ohio. Smita is assisted by Mohan, who was her friend’s ( you remember, the journalist in the hospital?) translated and often necessary male companion. Together they set out to wait for the verdict in Mina’s case. They get to know her, her daughter, and the mother-in-law who both hates Mina and needs her.

The story ends in ways that will leave many American women stunned. (No spoilers).

My Thoughts

The oh-so-woke Smita thankfully gets a huge wake-up call (or should that be a “woke-up” call?) after even telling a woman in India that her “privilege is showing.” Yeah. But Smita redeems herself in more ways than one. Her own story is as gripping as Mina’s (no spoilers). I actually came to like and care about her–which I certainly did not see coming in the early chapters. I liked Mohan and was shocked that his story was not woke in any way. As for Meena, her story was not news to me. But I loved that she considered her time with her husband to be the happiest in her life. She, and the countless women like her, deserve more than just a token few months of happiness.

This is a great book for suburban book clubs and for those who genuinely care about the fate or women and children around the world.

My Verdict

3.75

I couldn’t go all the way to 4 stars because I am sick to literal puking of the seemingly mandatory screed against the most recent ex-president inserted into nearly every contemporary book these days. I am no fan of his AT ALL, but let him be history. We do not need a woke litmus test for publishing that includes a screed against him or anyone else.

Honor: A Novel by Thrity Umrigar

Review: Three Summers by Margarita Liberaki

My Interest

I learned of this book on Twitter. The title went so well with my goal of reading seasonally that I found an e-book version on from my library and started to read it right away. An additional interest was that it is set in Greece. Not being fascinated by mythology, I haven’t read much set in or about Greece unless you count biographies of the late Danish-Greek Prince Philip. Add to this the fact that a few of my favorite book bloggers have/are reading it this summer and you can see why I wanted in on the story.

The Story

“That summer we bought big straw hat. Maria’s had cherries around the rim, Infanta’s had forget-me-nots, and mine had poppies as red as fire” (p. 6).

Set in pre-World War II Greece, the story centers on three sisters,  Maria, Infanta, and Katarina–the daughters of a divorced couple who live in the country. It is that time in life when boys go from being a girl’s friend to being her future. Each of the girls has her own personality, her own dreams, and desires.

From the awakening of sexual desire through to motherhood the girls travel at their own pace, plotting their course to womanhood with guidance, wanted and unwanted, from their mother, a maiden aunt, their grandfather and friends.

“The scent of dung and milk, thyme and billy goat met her. It rose and mixed in with the heat until it became something you could actually touch” (p. 52).

So much of the writing is so beautiful, it is hard to remember that this is a translation. As I read the descriptions of the landscape, the scents, the way of life, I felt I was there.

“[Some] were saying dissatisfied women live in their own imaginary world, that is, they’re deluded….Dissatisfied women are simply unsuccessful women” (p. 105). 

Ouch, I thought. A discordant note.

I loved the way the secrets unfolded gradually and in a manner consistent with real life. I liked too that these were real girls–they went off in huffs, they flounced out, they fell in love, they daydreamed, they escaped the control of their mother whenever possible. All perfectly normal. I loved that. And then one would remark, “I like life a lot” (p.198) and another would stare out a window “as if to ask the night why life was so strange” (p. 108).

My Thoughts

On the surface this is a lovely story, but underneath, in the thoughts of the boys, one can see just how radically different the thinking was back then. While men may still think like this in the deepest recesses of their minds, most do not verbalize, let alone, act on such thoughts.

“The more she restrained herself, the more angry he grew. He wanted to beat her. If only he dared….” (p. 127).

Every woman’s life is a search for a master. Ah, the thirst for submission, the thirst for submission….” (p. 127).

“And that head of hers that she carried so high…He must break her, make her lower it….”

These sentiments, it is true, are surrounded with the man’s love for the girl, with his expression of desire, and of how he would enjoy her, but it is very unsettling to read such statements today.

“You should see…on really hot days, when you lie out on the ledge of the cistern and close your eyes, and then open them a little later, how a thousand little suns leap up and down before your eyes and all around water is reflected o the trunks of the pines, trembling and golden, like little waves, and everything glows, everything, and it makes you want to laugh” (p. 226).

In spite of the beauty of the language, I just did not connect with this book they way I thought I would. There were times when I grew bored and restless and put it down. Yes, it could be the every-present COVID reading-ennui, but I think this time it was the book. My rating means it is a perfectly good book, well worth reading–especially for the excellence of the translation. I’m certainly glad I kept at it–it was worth it to see Greece at that time and to see how alike girls are regardless of their era of history.

My Verdict

3.0

Three Summers by Margarita Liberaki, translated by Karen Van Dyck

Review: The Mountains Sing: A Novel by Nguyen Phan Que Mai

I received an audiobook version of this book free from Net Galley in exchange for a fair review. I make no money off this blog, not even from the links I post to Amazon.

French Indochina

Vietnam

My Interest

Some of my earliest memories involve seeing the Vietnam War on the nightly news. I was born during the Kennedy administration so Vietnam has been a part of the American lexicon my entire life. My parents did not try to distract us when watching the news–instead, they let us join in and talked with us about what we saw. We grew up politically aware and advanced for our age. In the early 1970s, my mother’s cousin went to Vietnam as an officer, resigned his commission, and finished his tour as an enlisted man. Later, he made his career as a psychologist specializing in the care of Vietnam vets with PTSD. Later still, I worked in a library with a large number of Vietnamese employees–all refugees of the war. Knowing a few of their stories fueled my desire to begin learning more about the war in the 1980s.

The Story

“What my uncle said made me think. I had resented America, too. But by reading their books, I saw the other side of them–their humanity. Somehow I was sure that if people were willing to read each other, and see the light of other cultures, there would be no war on earth.”

“What my uncle said made me think. I had resented America, too. But by reading their books, I saw the other side of them–their humanity. Somehow I was sure that if people were willing to read each other, and see the light of other cultures, there would be no war on earth.”

In the 1920s what we know as Vietnam was part of the French empire. French culture, architecture, education, Catholicism, and language dominated especially the southern part of the colony. The story features Trần Diệu Lan, a woman born in 1920, and her family is the focus of this multinational look at Vietnamese history. From the land reform movement to the war to beyond. The stories of the different family members “humanize” the struggle to survive under each regime, and throw the forcible taking of wealth, the reduction, the after-effects of Agent Orange, and much more.

My Thoughts

I don’t know why I put this one off so long. It was really engrossing. This is the kind of multi-generational saga I loved before I let social media devour my attention span. Listening to it brought back all the joy of reading those big books of family sagas. I admired the resourcefulness of each generation in this family. There were true heartbreaks, joys, and moments when I wanted to hurt someone–all sings of a very well-told story.

My Verdict

4 Stars

Japanese Lit Challenge # 14 Review: Ms Ice Sandwich by Mieko Kawakami Translated by Louise Heal Kawai

My Interest

I have been succeeding in reading only short books during COVID. This novella fit the page limit, and fit the Japanese Literature Challenge, and I loved the cool cover, AND I loved the sound of the story!

The Story

Coming of age is never easy. It’s even harder when you have a single Mom who is “Westernizing” your grandmother’s house while Grandma (Mom’s mother-in-law) is slowly dying in her bed. Our unnamed narrator is a boy in the 4th–6th grades. He falls hard for the lady who packages and sells the ready-made sandwiches at his local supermarket. She is a controversial figure. Ice-blue eye shadow is her trademark. The girls (who frighten him) whose parents put dancing class over cram school say they’d rather die than look like her. But oh the feelings are so real! And then there is this: “Grandma’s who’s asleep and Grandma who’s going to die Are these the same Grandma?“A boy needs his Grandma–even if she’s barely “there,” especially if his Mom always has her head in her phone.

“So I decide to pretend the three [dancing class] girls don’t exist, and to pay attention to the tiny leaves in front of me, and take my brush and dab them with bluish-green paint. This moment, this feeling. When you first look at it, the surface of the drawing paper looks totally flat, but if you look carefully there are bumps and pits in the surface. Like the bumpy, rocky surface of a mountain. Colored rain pours down on it, and before you realize it, the surface has completely changed” (p. 45).

Our boy escapes from his less-than-perfect home life and his Ice Sandwich lady dreams into his art> First his school project of a landscape and then his labor of love: drawing Miss Ice Sandwich until the finished product is as perfect as he can make it.

My Thoughts

This is such a sweet story! Finally, a Japanese novel I’m positive I understood. Not since Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford have I bee so moved by a coming-of-age story. This was just about perfect.

My Verdict

For the second time in a year, I am awarding:

4.5 Stars

Miss Ice Sandwich by Mieko Kawakami. Translated by Louise Heal Kawai

Here is a link to all the information on the Japanese Literature Challenge #14

My earlier book review for Japanese Literature Challenge #14

after the quake by Haruki Murakami

Where I Read in 2020

Thank you to blogger, The Book Stop, whose post inspired this one! And also to the original blogger, A Year of Reading the World, who inspired me to  start keeping track of the countries I read several years ago. I am also working my way around the world in books. I’ve tracked my progress for years in a simple composition book. This year I also participated in several reading challenges that pushed me to read books in translation or books set in a certain country. So, my list has grown. Also this year, in January, I completed my Reading Across the U.S.A. journey! I had to research books set in North Dakota, Rhode Island a few other states, but the rest just happened in the course of my reading during the last several years.

The Countries I Visited This Year & The Books That Took Me There

 

2020 books are in purple. Past years are in purple or red. I marked the UK but I no longer track all of the books I read set in the USA or the UK. I forgot to mark Chile and Haiti and maybe another one or two places.

Newly “visited” countries are in bold. I am working on a list by country like several other bloggers keep. It is very helpful to find such blogs when you are trying to travel around the world by book. I am also trying to update the tags in my reviews so you can locate all of them by country. Meanwhile, in the word cloud on the left side, you can click on any of the various names for Reading The Globe or Reading Around the World, etc., to see all the boos that way. Not all that I count are in this blog–I have counted those read at any time in my adult life.

 

1. Australia
2. Cuba
3. Denmark
4. Dominican Republic
5. France
6. Ghana
   
7. Germany
8. Haiti  Everything Inside: Stories by Edwidge Danticat
9. Hungary
10. Iceland
11. Ireland and Northern Ireland***
12. Japan
13. Mexico
14. Pakistan Unmarriageable: A Novel by Soniah Kamal
    
15. Spain  This Too Shall Pass by Milena Busquets
    
16. Suriname   The Boy Between Worlds: A Biography by Annejet van der Zijl and trans. by Kristen Gehrman
17. Syria
18. Zambia

***  I know this is not right! Northern Ireland is part of the UK, but I’m simplifying for this list!

The Others–I’m not linking to all the reviews, but nearly all are reviewed on here. I do not generally review series books.

Where did you visit by book this year? Do you track your reading by state in the USA or by country? Leave me a comment or link to your post!

Review: The Hygge Holiday by Rosie Blake

My Interest

This is my pretend add-on book to the box from the Bibliophilic Excursions box I’ve been reviewing this week. I chose it because it went with the Danish theme and was on my Kindle not being read. That it sounded similar to Beth O’Learys books made it even more appealing.

The Story

“She’d changed Louisa’s sheets, the new cream duvet cover smelling of lavender washing powder, the duck-feather pillows impossibly soft. She had unearthed the softest grey cashmere rug [throw] from the top of the wardrobe and had it draped over the duvet. She lit a candle by the side of the bed, pulled out a dog-eared novel from her rucksack and nestled down under the covers. Despite the heaven she’d created, however, she barely slept….” (p. 52)

“He looked at the table set with placemats and napkins, a glass filled with spidery branches and curling leaves in the middle, candles dotted around. ‘I don’t normally….'” (p. 116)

“He thought about her explanation of hygge and knew that was a philosophy for the way she lived her life. He had paid so many professionals to help him find a way of being happier with his lot. Had he missed something so simple?” (p. 154)

Clara Kristensen has arrived in Yulethorpe and lands at the only place in town that has a room to rent–the pub, of course. There she meets some of the locals including Louisa, owner of a nearly dead toy store and the one in the village best known for starting wild schemes and not finishing them. When Louisa makes good on her threat to just go to Spain and enjoy the sun she suddenly decides to let Clara house and toy store sit for her. Oh, and pet sit–she has a cat and an parrot who doesn’t filter.

In the background is a town that has slowly died. The joy is gone. Even the mothers of toddlers have to make do with the nursery school gate and a pilates class. No place to gather and talk and enjoy their expensive coffee drinks. Also looming is Louisa’s driven London high-flying son, Joe. Danish Clara has a cure for all of this: Hygge, the Danish form of cozy, heart-warming, love-draping atmosphere. She sets out to hygge the toy store, hygge and village, and maybe even hygge herself a guy!

My Thoughts

While there was one single line that stood out in stark contrast to the rest of the book–one line probably put there for that seemingly mandatory list of things that are required in a book today even if they do not fit the story. The conflict seemed unnecessary–again as though put in to meet some arbitrary requirement. I do not understand why conflict is so necessary.

This was a sweet, fun book. I loved the emphasis on homey details–the homemaking notions and atmosphere creation that are essential for that hygge-feeling. Ok, it’s not too believable that someone would dump their home and business on a stranger, but hey, who cares, right? It’s a story and a well-told one. And, what’s not to love about building a vibrant community where once there was only defeat? Or eating cake. Or draping soft blankets and lighting candles and enjoying being with good friends and doing fun, ordinary things?

My Verdict

3. 5 Candles

The Hygge Holiday by Rosie Blake currently $2.99 for Kindle

Review: Often I Am Happy: A Novel by Jens Christian Grøndahl

My Interest

Obviously, my interest was related to the Bibliophilic Excursions subscription box. Of the three books, this one interested me the least. It sounded painful.

The Story

 

“There are times when I cannot hold his absence, and the feeling is a physical one…it is not a metaphor.”

“His body next to me in bed, the sound of his steps, the familiar timbre of his voice in the familiar rooms. Without him, they’re just somewhere.”

“…I didn’t change the sheets for several weeks. I slept in them until I no longer felt his smell. That is one thing I would have liked to talk to you about, [his] smell. How can you know someone so well without having words to describe how they smell. His smell is a fact in my remembrance, and it stays there, undescribed. It was, and is no longer but as a speechless recollection.”

Anna’s husband has just died. The story is what she tells her dead best friend as she comes to terms with her loss. Through Anna’s self-therapy of telling her late friend about her loss, she reveals her life and its secrets.

“It has dawned on me that human beings were never meant to reconcile their longing with reason, not at the expense of longing. As if I could love him in a lesser way just because he’s dead.”

“He had really believed that love and repetition could turn anyone into the right one.”

As she goes over her memories, the emotions sometimes still so raw even many years later, we come to know Anna and come to understand Denmark as a place of more than Tivoli gardens,  more than a 6 foot tall Queen, more than open- faced sandwiches, and even more than bikes with child-carrying buckets on the front. We come to see the manners and mores of daily life, of national secrets and shames.

Her observations on the suburbanites are fascinating and biting. She prefers the city, and following her husband’s death she returns to the city neighborhood of her youth.

“{She] has to go to the bakery in their Range Rover, just to make sure that people in their neighborhood know that she has one.”

“Apparently, noting is more purifying for people’s self-esteem than to place themselves at the very edge of someone else’s grief and show that they are not at all dizzy.”

“I cannot comprehend that the rich are unable to free themselves from their wealth.”

Her other vulnerabilities, not just those related to her husband’s death, come to the fore as well.

“I’d never known the prototypical estrogenic fermentation of motherhood….”

“You must pick the more suitable pain….”

“I always disliked answering the phone without knowing who it was. It frightens me a little, I don’t know why, as if someone wants to hurt me….cell phones….Not right now, is what I think when I see the name on the display, and the guilt is offset by my relief at evading the communicativeness of my surroundings.”

 

My Thoughts

Was I ever wrong! This was a captivating story, told exactly the right way. There were a few wonky phrases that must not translate perfectly into English, but that’s a minor detail. This was a fresh perspective to me and I devoured it. My Commonplace book will soon have pages of quotes from this very slim, but amazing, book.

My Verdict

4 Stars

Jens Christian Grøndahl

Read more about the author here.

Review: Little Book of Hygge by Meik Wiking and a Bonus Review

Trendy I’m not! Nothing like reviewing a book four years or so after it was a “thing.” Nonetheless, this little book packs a good punch in terms of the information presented. I listened to the audio, charmingly read by the author himself. I learned so much!

First, what I was already getting right. Cook good food at home and enjoy it with those you love. Done. Have cozy blankets. Got ’em, complete with warm purring cats. Enjoy a good book. No problem.

Second, what I could do better at or start doing. Get outside and not just to get into the car or get the mail. Enjoy the outdoors again. Hmmmm. That will take work. Get together with people more often. COVID is affecting this, but I miss my Sunday School class so much. We should be having our Christmas party in a week or so, as well as the ladies fun sock-swap party at church. Those are big events in my calendar, by the way. Candles. I’m not anti-candle and I am glad to hear that for hygge non-scented is the way to go. That helps a lot. And at 12 (2 of them) and 13-years old my cats are not likely to knock one over and burn the house down. I do have a fireplace, so I could buy some wood. I’d need a couch first though–I threw it out this year due to the state it was in.

My Conclusion? Everything about this resonated with me much more today than when it was at peak trendiness. It always takes me a while to like new things. My only regret was the recipes were a bit hard to follow on audio and they are apparently not on the author’s website, which I thought was odd. [See my review of Invisible Women. Probably the men at the Happiness Institute didn’t think of women listening to the book and wanting to cook the hygge-ish dinners, LOL.]

The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living by Meik Wiking

This is one of the books in the Bibliophilic Excursions subscription box that I am reviewing this week.

Who doesn’t want to be happier?

Here’s what Danes do that most Americans don’t–and the Danes are happier:

• Bike to work
• Eat dinner nightly at home with their family
• Work a 30 hour week with weeks of vacation
• Have affordable childcare
• Have free medical care

Oh, and be sure to light candles!

Ok, I’m joking. The Danes just do not settle for anything but a decent work-life balance. Dinner at home with the family is almost sacred. Workaholic hours are scorned. People care about being with their families and friends instead of just their boss and coworkers.

Denmark and it’s near Scandinavian neighbors are often held up to Americans as models of what we should “have” in terms of bang for the buck from the government. I’m not sure how a nation as vast as hours, where nearly everything runs 24 hours a day anymore could do that. Aside from the obvious such as how do I bike to work if my job is 73 miles away? Or how do you work a 30-hour shift as a nurse and the surgery you are assisting on goes into emergency mode and you can’t leave. I’m sure Danes have jobs that DO require overtime, but I imagine it is paid and extra leave allotted.

I’ll leave the political part to the new Congress, but I liked the sound of all of this even if it is done with an American 40 hour week being held to 40 hours or vacation time that can be taken without snarky comments, side-eye looks, or a coworker trampling you when you are off. Those would be great for nearly everyone.

Have I mentioned how soothing it was to listen to the two little audiobooks? Light a candle, snuggle under a soft blanket, pour yourself a drink or brew some tea or coffee, open up some fine chocolate, and just listen and dream.

The Little Book of Lykke: Secrets of the World’s Happiest People by Meik Wiking

Bibliophilic Excursions Subscription Boxes

A lot of people are discovering the fun of curated box subscriptions. Makeup, candles, snack, books–you can find a subscription box right now for anyone! One of the ones that piqued my interest was Bibliophilic Excursions–think homeschool unit studies for grown-ups, but without the lapbooks. I looked at the display of past boxes and really liked them. I saw many books I’d already read. I decided first to try out a past box for free–that is to read the books and maybe an add-on “extra” book purchase. Fun! I chose the box from Denmark with lots of hygge to it. Hygge was all the rage a few years ago. (On the Bibliophilic Excursions site they do not say when this box was offered). I figured I could drag out a few of my Mom’s annual Danish commemorative plates, print out a map and a picture of the Danish Royal Family–maybe look at Queen Margarethe’s Tolkien illustrations on-line and have some blue cheese and sour-creamed herring to give a little ambiance. Since it’s Christmas I could drag out the adorable sweaters from Denmark my brother and I wore, his kids wore, and my kids wore too. Plus I could enjoy the scrapbook pages of my kids wearing them on Christmas day! These boxes spark that kind of joy!

On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of this week, I’ll be reviewing the two included books from my chosen box and my add-on book.

Coming up this week: The Book Reviews

The Signature Journey box offers both a novel and a nonfiction title, along with other things to enhance the reader’s virtual “journey.” This would be a fun way to tackle some countries on a “reading the world” journey. This box offered a blue and white nightlight. There was also a cute pair of socks for keeping warm ala hygge. I had The Hygge Holiday sitting unread on my Kindle so I made it my pretend “add-on purchase.” Add-on purchases are a big deal in subscription boxes and I didn’t want to miss out on that fun. This company also “gives back” to local communities. You can see examples of their giving here.

Image: https://www.biblioexcur.com/whats_inside 

First The Numbers

Currently, the yearly subscription to the Signature Journey Box is $45.00 per month.  There is a fiction-only version or a nonfiction-only version as well–both of which are slightly less per month. There are other boxes than these–Ladies At Lunch is a fun one and Mystery and Mixology, which includes the stuff to mix -up a classic cocktail, well except the booze–there are a host of laws on shipping booze to deal with,  to drink while you read and solve your mystery. [I would like to have been able to include pictures, but their photos are not set up to be shared even with due credit given.]

The Books Chosen for the Boxes

Whoever chooses the books seems to have a good eye. For Ghana, they’ve picked Maya Angelou’s classic All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes and Homecoming by Yaa Gyasi, which was an Amazon’s Editor’s pick. Other books shown in sample boxes include Behind the Beautiful Forevers and the God of Small Things (India). The Mystery box featured the Agatha Christie charmer, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, while Ladies At Lunch has had Miss Buncle’s Book and  Olive Kitteridge. Very decent selection all. Nonfiction selections include We Two about Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert.

My Thoughts on Bibliophilic Excursions

Judging by what’s shown on the website of past boxes, I’d say this would be a wonderful box to look forward to each month. Is there really value for money? No. Not if you are just counting up the prices of a few fun extras and the cost of a likely remaindered paperback. But someone put it all together, mailed it out in a hopefully attractive package, and it comes right to your door. You get to open it and discover the surprises. In the year of Covid, that’s a bright spot. And, since Covid seems to have been renewed for Season II, why not sign up and enjoy it? Plus, through your purchase, you are helping a worthy charity or two. Win-win.

Interested? You can reserve a 2020 Holiday Box now.

NOTE: Bibliographic Excursions has no clue I wrote this. I did not seek a sample box. Did not subscribe. I just thought it would be fun to try it and share the fun without my debit card needing to be involved.

Review: The Bodysurfers by Robert Drewe for Aus Reading Month

My Interest

I was almost late to the Aus Reads Month party so I knew I had to pick carefully to get it read in time. [I still failed.] I have a couple of friends I could have asked for their own recommendations of what to read from their country, but I felt that was almost a silly question. I imagined myself sputtering to someone requesting a “typical” American novel to read. I dug around on the internet, finding lists of Australia’s best or newest or shortest or longest reads. I looked at the Amazon previews and then chose this collection of short stories that are somewhat related.

The Story

Here is how Amazon describes this collection:

Set among the surf and sandhills of the Australian beach – and the tidal changes of three generations of the Lang family – this bestselling collection of short stories is an Australian classic. The Bodysurfers vividly evokes the beach, with the scent of the suntan oil, the sting of the sun and a lazy sensuality, all the while hinting at a deep undercurrent of suburban malaise.
From first publication, these poignant and seductive stories marked a major change in Australian literature.

Various stories were related, it is true. A few (Body Oil being one) were mostly related. One did not “work” to me (Looking For Malibu). Most told slightly depressing tales of weary people who did not seem real but who were surrounded by often vividly described scenery, scents, or feelings. Many, I’m sure, would earn the sobriquet “gritty” even if no one was killed, overly drunk, or similar at the time of the scene.

Here are two passages that did not leave me depressed or weary:

Just beyond the Gosford exit warm spring whiffs of eucalypt pollen and the fecund muddy combustion of subtropical undergrowth suddenly filled the car with the scents of the holidays. (The Bodysurfers [title story])

The electric cleansing of the surf is astonishing, the cold effervescing over the head and trunk and limbs. And the internal results are a great wonder. At once the spirits lift. There is a grateful pleasure in the last hour or softer December light. The brain sharpens. The body is charged with agility and grubby lethargy is washed away. (The Stingray)

An occasional worthwhile observation helped to move a story along, such as this one in After Noumea:

Brian picked her at once as a nosy bourgeois person.

This was possibly the most astute judgment in the collection.

My Thoughts

The people felt like worn-out factory workers. The place felt worn out. Both of these seem wrong in a post World War II setting in a young country with vast natural resources and gorgeous coastline. Was this intentional? Most of these stories were actually good reading–just not very happy or uplifting. Such stories have their place. They did evoke, I suppose, the time and place of their setting. I could hear and feel the see–just couldn’t get to know the people. I could sense the emotions of the flat, unreal characters which sounds contradictory, but isn’t. The characters lacked a personality but still had emotions. I think that must be a talent for a writer. I imagine he did not want the personalities to overwhelm the stories which were, after all, supposed to be about their time at that place.

The Bodysurfers by Robert Drewe

My Verdict

3.0

Click here to read my earlier Aus Reading Month post

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