The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The day Lily Owens turns fourteen her life takes a dramatic turn. It's July 4th, 1964, and Lily is alone in the world except for her abusive father and the negro peach worker he employed to raise his daughter. Lily's mother died ten years earlier, apparently the victim of an accidental shooting. Four year old Lily was the one holding the gun. When Rosaleen and Lily have a run in with small town thugs and Rosaleen is arrested, Lily is precipitated into a quest to find her mother's story. With only a picture of a black Madonna with a town name written on the back, Lily and Rosaleen set off.

The story is one of maternal love. Lily has spent most of her life feeling unloved, and when the fugitive pair end up in the home of three sisters, they each learn much. The recurring theme of bees and honey is unsurprising, given the name of the novel. I was particularly taken with the metaphor of a hive losing its queen being doomed. Each of the three sisters, August, June and May, have something to offer Lily, who desperately needs to be loved by them, and struggles with her concealment of her mission to find her mother.

As well as the theme of mother love, the novel tackles the difficult issue of race in the period when coloured people first were given the right to vote in the US. Lily is a white girl living in a household of negro women, and her presence raises eyebrows in the community. The themes are brought together in the Black Madonna the sisters keep in their house, the focal point of their own mythology.

I enjoyed every page of this book, even the ones that made me cry. Lily is an easy character to empathise with, a teenager full of her own wisdom and the bravdo of her youth, but still childlike enough to need a motherly shoulder to cry on.

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The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A fascinating insight into the culture of 17th century Iran, this novel tells the story of a young woman whose dreams of marriage and children are crushed when her father dies. In a male dominated society, the girl and her mother are forced to rely on an uncle for support. With a talent for rug making and an impetuous nature, the protaganist struggles to find her place in the world. A coming of age story, this novel pays tribute to the anonymous artisans whose marvellous creations endure today.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book as an insight into a world I could never imagine occupying. The love of rug making and discussion of colours and techniques appealed to my creative side, and I felt a strong connection to the unnamed heroine and her mother.

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How to Write History That People Want to Read by Ann Curthoys


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I have a penchant for writing books. This one appealed to me for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it was written by a pair of authors who are Australian. I was interested to get an Australian perspective to the ressearch and writing process. I also picked up this book because it deals specifically with history writing, which seems to differ to contemporary novel writing, especially for those of us who are pedantic about facts in historical novels.

This book seems primarily directed at nonfiction writers, students of history and textbook writers. There is, however, plenty of useful information and advice for fiction writers, especially in the chapters about research and character development. The book uses an easy to read, conversational tone, and covers the entire writing process, from idea to publication. Interspersed with anecdotes from the authors' own experiences as well as those of other writers, it is an engaging read. I'd recommend this book to all writers of history, from students writing a thesis right through to novelists.

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Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Oryx and Crake is a post apocolyptic novel, told from the perspective of Snowman, the apparently lone human survivor of a catastrophe. I am a fan of Margaret Atwood, whose talent of setting her terrifying imaginings in the near future provides a sobering glimpse of what could be.

In this novel she has explored a world where technology and science are rampant, genetic modification is standard and the pursuit of personal happiness supercedes the needs of civilisation as a whole. The world in which Snowman, originally known as Jimmy, his best friend and scientific genius, Crake, and their shared love, Oryx, live is a messed up one, with deep divisions between the 'haves' and the 'have nots'. Jimmy and Crake grow up in the security and artificial perfection of the Compounds, the children of scientists. The vast majority of the world's population, however, are locked out of this utopian existence, living in the Pleeblands.

The story jumps between the present, a time after the apocolyptic event that has left Jimmy/Snowman as the sole survivor and caretaker of a new humanoid species developed by Crake, and the past. The children of Crake, or Crakers, have been bred to eliminate the jealousy, leadership, religion and self-interest that Crake blames for the state of humanity. Snowman attempts to answer their questions about their creator and Oryx, who they know as the mother of the plants and animals. Snowman reflects on the events that led to the end of civilisation, events that he blames himself for not anticipating.

I found a world where people could watch executions and suicides unperturbed, where more concern was spent on physical appearance and sexual gratification than on the disasters that govern the lives of the poor , to be very disturbing. The thought of real food being a rare and expensive treat, that art and literature could fall by the wayside, that winter could vanish; these things are scary to me. Though Crake went about it in a horrifying manner, I could understand his motivation.

Margaret Atwood's incredible ability to imagine these things, and then, even more incredible, to convey them in words, is always marvellous. Now I can't wait to read Year of the Flood.

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Just Write

I have an idea. I have research. I have a whole pile of writing books. I have a document in Word with about 30 pages of the worst prose imaginable.

I call myself a writer. Who am I deluding? I spend two or three hours a day actively avoiding writing.

Just write!

So Many Books, So Little Time

The Lifeline Bookfest is a favourite event of mine. Where else can you take twenty dollars and come home with an armful of books. It can be a bbit hit and miss, more hit if you are looking for Danielle Steele or Jacky Collins, more miss if you are seeking Wally Lamb or Margaret Atwood. I am an open mided book seeker, if I have heard of it before then I'll give it a go. If I haven't I'll still think seriously about it. My husband has a very specific taste in books, and managed to come home empty handed. It's all a mystery to me.

One of my finds this time was So Many Books, So Little Time by Sara Nelson. It is an interesting idea, a book a week for a year, not an impossible goal, but certainly a challenging one for many people. Sara Nelson discusses many, but not all the books she has read throughout the year, but not in a normal book review sense, so much as a reflection of the books and their impact on her as a reader. It is a form of review I find very interesting. Let's be honest, the reason we like or dislike a book is far more intangible than the average book review. It goes beyond the actual words, and into our own lives and experience. Books I love are not just well written, though that is important to keep me in the story, but evoke an experience that I can relate to. Not necessarily one that I have had, but one that I can understand. I love characters I can empathise with, even if the milieu is absolutely foreign to me.

Sara Nelson has made me want to read my books more thoroughly, to understand more about myself through watching the characters on the page. I have much food for thought.

June Holiday Reading

It's the winter school break in my part of the world, a time of slow mornings, snuggling up with a book, a brief two weeks hibernating before launching into the second half of the year.

These are three books I have enjoyed over the past few weeks. I am trying to keep a record of what I've read, and what I thought about the books, in an effort to enhance my reading as an avid bibliophile and aspiring writer. Hopefully these reviews will end up being of interest to someone other than myself, and maybe by then I'll even do a reasonable job of writing them.

World Without End, by Ken Follett, is the sequel to his earlier novel, Pillars of the Earth. Set two hundred years after the cathedral building saga in the first book, it follows the lives of four children who came together in unusual circumstances, then went their diverse ways. It has an interesting plot, with an ongoing mystery which, though seemingly unimportant, affects the lives of many in the course of the story. I pride myself on being pretty good at guessing the mysteries in books and movies, but I did not figure this one out. After reading both these books I am surprised anyone survived the Middle Ages. Between wars, accidents and disease, these books have a very high body count. I enjoyed the detail that Follett has clearly spent a whole lot of time researching. He makes picturing monastary life, or the life of a serf, easy. I don't know if I would have survived a life that difficult, and have a great admiration for my unknown ancestors who did.

I had to read Kate Grenville's The Secret River after reading the blurb on the back. She has written about early convict settlement of Sydney and the Hawkesbury River, a time and place that I have been researching with the ambition of writing a novel. I am not sure how I can possibly do that after reading this book. Kate Grenville is an amazing writer. She tackles the issue of race and colonialism in a compassionate but truthful way. William Thornhill, the main character in this story, is an ordinary person, dreaming of escaping the poverty of his childhood. It was easy to identify with his dreams and fears, which made the climax of the book that much more difficult to read. Kate Grenville has tackled the difficult issue of the appalling treatment of the Aboriginal inhabitants of our continent without whitewashing or trying to downplay the shameful behaviour of the colonists, but at the same time she has made them easy to identify with, leaving the reader wondering how they would have behaved in the same circumstances. Her lyrical description of the river scene, of the Australian bush, reminded me of my own love for the bush. I loved this book, even though it left me feeling entirely inadequate as a writer. I am looking forward to one day getting a copy of her memoir, Searching for the Secret River.

Over the weekend I read Angela's Ashes, a memoir by Frank McCourt. This book has been widely acclaimed, winning a Pulitzer Prize as well as a spot in the Oprah Book Club. It's another amazing book, detailing McCourt's childhood first in America and then in poverty stricken Limerick. There is tremendous sadness in this story, the thought that any child had to endure such poverty is galling. However McCourt's Irish sense of humour shines through, and had me laughing aloud at some points. The story of his First Communion had me in stitches. It's an amazing story of survival, of terrible defeat and how hope can prevail.