Jane Meredith’s Blog www.janemeredith.com

I read an unusual teen fantasy novel, Ombria in Shadow by Patricia McKillip; whose books I’ve liked a lot. This one has a slow start, and is quite descriptive; moody with a gathering pace. It’s not the usual, and not what you’d expect in a teen novel., but has quirky edges and a layered, intriguing plot with delicate amounts of menace, uncertainty and the bittersweet.

From my point of view, the most exciting part about it was the Dark Goddess aspect - there’s an Underworld character of immense age and resonating power (although often peculiarly wielded) who eventually emerges… The whole book is plagued by ideas of shadow realms, parallel cities and other times that may co-exist with current time; all elegantly folded up into the final twist of the plot. A good read for those who wonder about such things, as well as its coming-of-age aspect; questioning loyalties, choices and pereceived ‘world truths’.

I recently finished the absolutely wonderful The Magicians by Lev Grossman. It’s a really well-written, thoughtful fantasy that digs deeper and deeper (mercilessly) into the motivations of those of us who seek magical worlds, or to live in magical realms. Most fantasy I read explores one or two aspects of its subject matter - this kept pursuing issues to their utter end - and then taking a sinister twist. The characters are exasperatingly real and the magic a mixture of daunting, exhausting scholarship and a poetic feel for the fabric of the universe.

I thought it impressive, skillful, convincing and touching; I expect it will stay with me a long time. I wanted to read the sequel immediately (not to be published for another year)…. I’ll wait.

I just read the most beautiful, beautiful book - I am sad it’s ended, and keep going back to it in my mind, expecting the next episode… The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet (A Novel) by Reif Larsen.

This book has a 12 year old narrator (a genius) who makes maps of everything - people’s relationships to each other, events that occur, landscapes - as a way of understanding the world. Even though T.S. is not like anyone at all, he was instantly believable, with his deep questioning of growing up, human emotions and interior and exterior landscapes.

This is also the kind of book that makes me treasure BOOKS (as opposed to downloads); it is wonderfully presented in an unusual square format with smooth pages and maps, diagrams and notes down the side of nearly every page. Quirky, heartfelt, alluring… I could have read this voice for three times the length of the book.

I’ve just read A Life’s Work: On Becoming a Mother by Rachel Cusk. When I flicked through it, before beginning, I got the idea it was quite grim and clinical, but reading it I was delighted and horrified, all at once. I laughed aloud half a dozen times (with recognition, and admiration at her elegant phrasing of the almost-inexpressable). I could easily have wept, as well.

Cusk’s book tackles the enormously contradictory and conflicting inner states she experienced after the birth of her first child, as well as some reflection on the attitudes of others (health professionals, other mothers, non-mothers, society at large) towards her state of profound shock at her changed life on becoming a mother and the impact on every part of her being.

This is a small book that calls out very loudly - it vividly brought back to me the state of living with a small baby - and I was endlessly impressed by her beautiful, evocative wording of nearly wordless experiences. It describes territory largely unacknowledged, kept secret, denied and watered down - a territory almost inexplicable to anyone who hasn’t been there and terrifying to anyone who has - as well as heart-breakingly funny in unexpected moments.

I’m reading a Virago Modern Classic - Cassandra by Christa Wolf, first published in 1984. The first half of it is a stream-of-consciousness following Cassandra’s life up to the current hour - the last hour of her life. It takes a while to get into this story, because the events are all in the narator’s past, but the sense of Troy as a doomed city, Cassandra as a sensitive truth-teller and warning bell amongst those who don’t want to or aren’t able to listen becomes compelling.

For those familiar with the myth, it has some interesting twists - for example that Helen is not at Troy (so they can’t give her back, even if they wanted to) - that Paris won her only to lose her almost immediately to the Egyptian court. And everyone knows this - the Greeks know it as well. So they are pursuing the war for their trade purposes of shipping lanes on this impossible premise - that unless Helen is returned to them, they will destroy Troy.

The second half of the book is composed of essays (sometimes more like diary entries) from Christa Wolf’s early grappling with the myth and her journey in Greece. There is a potent thread of her East German background in the late 70s/early 80s and the parallel with Cassandra’s prophesies - that as a writer, no-one really wants to hear. I recommend the book for those interested in the telling of mythology, and the journey of story.

This is a beautiful, beautiful book by an author I believe has become a major Australian writer. For me, it didn’t go wrong anywhere - the tone, structure and characters carrying the story so softly and fatally it felt entirely complete. The delicacy and complexity with which he’s written this family’s story almost enhance its underlying ordinariness - the kind of subtle shifts in relationship and character that occur over many years so they are almost invisible until a major fall-out - yet here documented with vivid grace.

Two of Miller’s previous books I especially liked - Journey to the Stone Country for its rich landscapes (inner and outer) and Landscape of Farewell - both ‘big’ books compared with Love Song, tackling issues of race and belonging and betrayal in Australian history and character. Stone Country was a little sprawling, though personally I preferred it to the neater, more stylised Landscape but in Love Song he has captured a microcosm of relationship, like a perfect poem. There was one stage when I was reading it when I literally forgot it was written by a man, his writing of the woman character was so within her and identifiable to me, and that has literally almost never happened to me.

Men’s Business, Women’s Business: the Spiritual Role of Gender in the World’s Oldest Culture by Hannah Rachel Bell is a book I am reading, admittedly only one chapter at a time. I think it’s very admirable, in the depth it goes into Aboriginal culture and I think it would be particularly good for all those non-Australians who say “What can I read about Aboriginal culture?”

It really conveys the depth, integrity and power of one tribe’s culture, in a way I haven’t seen done before. (Not that I’ve read widely on the issue.) There was a part where it was describing an old man, very revered within his tribe, spending weeks preparing and then days in a trance, receiving a new ’song’ (teaching); then coming back and over a period of 4 nights teaching it verse by verse to the whole tribe. The author likened it to an entire opera. From that point on, that song will be a part of their tribal ‘library’ - the elders then spend many nights discussing it, searching for understandings, teachings and aspects of law within the new song.

Sadly, I think Bell fails to really elucidate her main thesis, the intrinsic value of splitting men’s business from women’s business - although her broader point of how each person has a very highly defined place according to age, status and gender is well-covered. Her chapters each cover a particular stage of life - from birth through to death and at each stage she compares the Aboriginal/tribal way to the Western way.

A beautiful collection of stories, essays, musings and talks by Russell Hoban, one of my all-time favourite authors. Writing about such intangible things as the moment under the moment, the universal mind and its darknesses, realities that lie just under the surfaces of things, these pieces are a diverse introduction to this writer who has written such amazing things.

His Riddly Walker is one of my 3 most influential books ever, (first published 1980) where he magically rewrites the English language into a post-apocolyptic mythic poetry. More recently, I loved Her Name was Lola (2004) for its wry take on relationships, aging and the truths of love.  Hoban is a fantastic collection of complex, seductive ideas and beautiful language presented with a vulnerable humility and wonder that just about makes his writing edible.

I have just plowed through Luce Irigaray: Philosophy in the Feminine by Margaret Whitford. The book is quite old, 1991, and made me interested to read something more up-to-date from the French feminists. The strongest theme that emerged from the book, for me, was Iragaray’s dreaming towards a untopian vision of a language/symbolism/imaginary that women could create amongst themselves that would be referential to the feminine.

Although much less intellectual, the Goddess movement really does seem to address that vision, particularly when Irigaray says that it must be situated in and from a woman’s body. She also speaks of an exchange between men and women that would be an exchange of un-like things (language, ideas, relating) that would therefore be equal.

Irigaray’s work ( or Whitford’s interpretation of it) also brought to mind Mary Daly, some of whose work trod on those parameters - the feminine’s relation to itself, beyond patriarchal reference points. Mary Daly died a few days ago. One of her books, Gyn/Ecology is still counted as one of my top 3 most influential books of all time.

“You must say the words quickly, and not in a high voice. And if there is any fear in you, or any doubt, this will not happen. For you must learn that doubt is the destroyer of works of magic, and thus be careful of your processes and your fear.” - Idries Shah, The Secret Lore of Magic. (1957)

Doesn’t that just say it all? “Doubt is the destroyer of works of magic” - so the requirement is to find a place within the self strong enough to circumvent it. A place beyond doubt - perhaps not entirely without doubt, since that seems difficult to believe in, but a place where doubt has been met and answered and (at least temporarily) satisfied.

And I also like being careful of your fear - not negligent of it, in other words. Fear can be paralysing, but being careful of it seems to give it a place to exist without letting it run the show. Not to pretend these things - doubt and fear - don’t exist, but to acknowledge their potential crippling powers, seek to understand them and thus remove their influence to clear the path for magic. For magic is intrinsically change, and both doubt and fear inhibit and stonewall change.

Happy New Year!