Last night I started reading Portia de Rossi's Unbearable Lightness. I read three chapters before deciding to go to sleep. When I awoke this morning with very little actual work to do and an incredibly runny nose, I decided to curl up with my box of tissues and read until something made me get up. As it turned out, I spent the entire day, with a few half hour long exceptions for picking up groceries and dropping my sister to her exam and eating breakfast and lunch, in bed reading. And a few moments ago I finished the book.
It is a really intense and well written novel, and I would recommend it to anyone. Not only is it heart-wrenchingly honest and frightening, but it's final chapter is especially hopeful and life-affirming (A quick aside for those who have finished it, and those who just simply agree with me - how gorgeous are Ellen and Portia! Aww. So sweet! True love. Sigh...). It really confirmed for me how important it is to be true to yourself and not deny yourself the things you want and love. This article is really interesting if you've read or want to read it...
When was the last time you read an entire novel in a day? For many this pleasure is reserved for special occasions, such as the release of the Harry Potter books (Stevie, my sister read the final book in less than 24 hours. It took me two weeks! The others I read in one to three days, however...) or particularly short novels. Have you read anything you couldn't put down for the life of you?
I remember last year when I started reading The Hunger Games I actually made excuses not to go anywhere despite being invited by a number of people out to do things (like go to Walmart and go swimming in the river) because I just wanted to find out what happened next. It was intense! I've got my other sister's copy of the second book in the series, but I'm not going to read it until I get all my library books read... If it's anything like the first book I doubt I'll be leaving my apartment for a day or two.
Things I'm thankful for today (because after reading the Epilogue of Portia's book I'm in a particularly thankful mood); avocado on toast/rice cakes when I run out of bread, oreos, dancing around to Gimme Sympathy by Metric, going to parties I wasn't personally invited to and having a wicked time, raw vegan chocolate, catching up with old friends, cheering up friends who are in need of some cheer, seeing X-Men First Class again, which brings me to the next item on my things I'm thankful for list - James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender's faces, Strawberry and Lime cider, trying to think of a great costume for a "Hollywood/Movie" themed party - or, more specifically, trying to choose whether to go in a Team Zissou (The Life Aquatic)costume, as Margot Tenenbaum (The Royal Tenenbaums) or as Shoshana from Inglorious Basterds.
First of all, I need to say that I haven’t actually finished the book. This not at all because of the quality of it, it’s magnificent, but purely because I’m a pretty slow reader and after reading almost solely non-fiction books since January I needed a bit of a change and switched halfway through to reading Little Women as well.
I approached Eating Animals with trepidation. I am a meat eater, a true carnivore, I like eating meat and animals products and I can’t see myself stopping in the foreseeable future. I worried when I chose to read the book that I was going to be met with a barrage of shame inducing facts and stories and that Foer, the author, would be working his hardest to ‘convert’ me to veganism and produce in me a new-born activist. Call it resistance and fear of change, call it burying your head in the sand, I didn’t want this to happen.
Ever since reading the book last year, Ell-Leigh had urged me that I must too. I have long had on my reading list Foer’s other acclaimed work Everything Is Illuminated and I knew that, if I trusted the reviews, it would be a stand out piece of writing. I decided to give it a go, borrowing her copy, and warning her (and trying to convince myself), “Remember, I’m going into this as a person who still wants to eat meat. It will not convert me.” She, as did the many others who questioned how I was going with reading the book, raised her eyebrows with a ‘we’ll see’ manner and left me to it.
The first thing that I realised, with delight, when I read the first chapter was that Foer was not necessarily trying to convert me to anything except taking the time to be educated about a very important issue. He was not having a ‘right and wrong’ type conversation in this book and it was not as wholly didactic as I imagined it would be (in fact, I’m finding Little Women contains far more outright, ‘this is what you must do’ type sermons than Eating Animals). Instead, Foer tells a story in Eating Animals, in fact he tells a couple. Mainly, he tells the story of his relationship with food and all the influences that have led him to eat in the way that he does. He also tells the story of farming and how practices have changed over the centuries. He tells the stories of animals and how they live and people and how they eat. He does, too, tell facts, but they are not biased or framed in any way, they are just plain facts. In this book Foer lets the facts do the talking, something which so many writers have difficulty doing, and because of this it is a great book.
Others may feel differently, but I do not think that Foer’s ultimate aim for this book is to turn the whole world vegan. Instead, I think that the purpose is to impart knowledge, knowledge that has been well hidden and swept under the metaphorical rug of our thinking for decades, and to urge us to realise just how incredibly, life changing-ly important this knowledge is. I have always been a knowledge seeker, and fiercely (perhaps stubbornly) independent, and I have always want only to be told the correct information, not what to do with it. Foer understands this.
Eating Animals is filled with too many facts to easily pick favourites to share with you, but these are the bits of info that I will be acting on in my own eating first.
Taken from Words/Meaning chapter:
Free Range
“The USDA doesn’t even have a definition of free-range for laying hens and instead rlies on producer testimonials to support the accuracy of these claims…One can reliably assume that most ‘free-range’ (or ‘cage-free’) laying hens are debeaked, drugged, and cruelly slaughtered once ‘spent.’ I could keep a flock of hens under my sink and call them free-range.” P. 61
Taken from Hiding/Seeking:
I Am the Kind of Person Who Finds Herself on a Stranger’s Farm in the Middle of the Night
“I’m not a radical. In almost every way, I’m a middle-of-the-road person. I don’t have any piercings. No weird haircut. I don’t do drugs. Politically, I’m liberal on some issues and conservative on others. But see, factory farming is a middle-of-the-road issue – something most reasonable people would agree on if they had access to the truth.”
From the same chapter:
I Am a Factory Farmer:
“I’ve told you the drawbacks because I’m trying to be up-front with you. But in fact, we’ve got a tremendous system. Is it perfect? No. No system is perfect. And if you find someone who tells you he has a perfect way to feed billions and billions of people, well, you should take a careful look.
And from Slices of Paradise/Pieces of Shit:
“In 1967, there were more than one million hog farms in the country. Today there are a tenth as many, and in the past ten years alone, the number of farms raising pigs fell by more than two thirds. (Four companies now produce 60 percent of hogs in America.)”
What will I do now that I know all of this about my food and farming? Well, that’s a good question. Firstly, I’m going to finish the book, because it’s beautifully written and a simply amazing resource. I’m also going to stand by what I said when I began reading the book; I won’t be stopping consuming animal products. There are reasons, definitely selfish ones, for this, such as the inconvenience it would cause to myself and my household and the fact that I really enjoy how I eat. What I aim to do is continue educating myself about farming and food, and find a way to eat animal products cruelty and guilt free. I will not promise that this will be an overnight or radical change, because I know that that is a promise I cannot keep. It will be difficult, some think impossible, and those are the people who do eat vegan or vegetarian and I applaud them for it. I will endeavour to continue my quest for knowledge and encourage other people to do the same, because this is an incredibly important issue. Its importance is probably the biggest lesson I learnt when reading the book.
I encourage you to read Eating Animals, because, as we are always telling people and being told, knowledge is power. Empower yourself and take responsibility for your choices.
Ell-Leigh:
When I read this book for the first time last year, it was at a rather stressful point in my life. I was tired and exhausted after a three months trekking around a foreign country, two months of which I spent helping disabled kids from 6am to 12pm while eating a diet which was made almost entirely of eggs, sugary breads, vegetables which had been boiled to within an inch of their lives and a variety of processed meats, and not in that order. I was two days away from seeing my family again, and left in Santa Monica with no one that I knew, and just couldn’t wait to be hopping on the bus that would be taking me to the plane home so I didn’t have to entertain my sad, emotional self and my empty wallet in a foreign country any longer.
I had seen Jonathan Safran Foer speak on Ellen, and it had sparked a sequence of thoughts in me that had always been underlying my understanding of myself. I think I’d always seen myself as a caring, kind person, and to an extent I suppose I’d always seen myself as the type of person who would be a vegetarian, I just hadn’t gotten around to the whole, not eating meat part yet.
So after two months of digestive worries, 7 more kilos around the middle and an iron deficiency while I was at camp, I was looking to change. When I went to the bookstore to find something for the plane, Eating Animals was one of the first books I grabbed.
As I had read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close earlier in the year and adored it, but only read the first chapter of Everything Is Illuminated before feeling it hurt my brain too much with all the word play (this was during camp, when I was overworked, lacking in iron and was about to suffer from a huge sinus infection of DOOOOM, so, understandably, clever books were a bit beyond me. Instead I read the first book of the True Blood series…) I can’t say that I was super well acquainted with Foer’s work, but as I started Eating Animals I realised I had nothing to worry about.
The essence of Eating Animals is this: we eat what we do because of the stories we tell. The first chapter tells the story of Foer’s grandmother:
(Foer begins speaking at 1:41, and begins reading the first chapter of his book at 7:25 until about 13:10, but keep watching if you want to.)
This book is friendly and embraces you into Foer's family and thoughts with open arms. It's easy to read, and not in an “I’m writing an informative non-fiction book so I’d better make it entertaining” way that so many non-fiction authors I’ve read lately lean towards. This book is all heart and facts and history, without pulling any emotional blackmail. It informs the reader of some truly awful truths, but without judging or being harsh, in fact, it's manner is quite the opposite; the reader's ignorance and discomfort were once the author's too, and it is eased through a wise and articulate voice.
In essence it is a collection of stories - many of them are the frighteningly horrible stories that are mostly swept under the carpet and replaced with tales of sunny farms with happy animals and bearded farmers and their chubby, cheerful wives - but there are also stories of vegetarian cattle farmers, happy turkeys at an almost entirely cruelty free non-GM turkey farm (and the hundreds of people having to order them a years in advance for thanksgiving dinners), the story of our suffering planet, all wrapped up in Foer’s own journey of understanding.
Through educating himself and in turn taking others on this learning journey readers are left with the question of what their own story will be. As he writes on page 252,
"We can't plead ignorance, only indifference. Those alive today are the generations that came to know better. We have the burden and the opportunity of living in the moment when the critique of factory farming broke into popular consciousness. We are the ones of whom it will be fairly asked, What did you do when you learned the truth about eating animals?"
What will your story be? When you come into this knowledge, do you make a change? It doesn't need to be a big one, perhaps start Meatless Monday (I can give you loads of great recipes!) or cut down on how many eggs you eat, and make sure the ones you do buy are from hens that were kept in good living conditions without being constantly fed hormones, antibiotics and other unnatural nasties. Find locally raised and killed, cruelty-free meat that was similarly well looked after. You don't need to stop eating it entirely (although it may do you a whole lot of good health wise... but that's another story for another blog) as I did after reading this book, but cut down how much you do eat, and choose what you do eat more consciously and know that you've changed your food story for the better.
Early in the year my family and I went to see a matinee performance of Wicked at QPAC and we really enjoyed it. Having been quite into musical theatre in late high school and early university, I knew all of the words to the songs, and was looking forward to having the bits in between filled in. Not only that, but I got to see Bert Newton in action (whether his performance was good is neither here nor there… He was there, people.). My cousin grabbed a copy of the novel that very day. I’ve wanted to read it for ages, but hadn’t been able to get a copy, but decided to push it a bit higher on my list of priorities now that I’d seen the musical and bought the themed Midori cocktail.
Everyone I know who I’ve spoken to about reading this book have told me the same thing – it gets really slow around the middle, and they couldn’t make it through. Well, I was up to that slow going middle section while stuck in an airport in Fiji for eight hours, without a bookstore in sight. So I battled through, and I’d like to think that I would have even if I hadn’t been trapped and desperate for entertainment, although I doubt this would actually have been the case, since it took me two weeks to finish the final section despite it being quite short. I’d just lost interest, more than anything.
For those who don’t know, Wicked is basically a biography of The Wicked Witch of the West, the villain of the Wizard of Oz novel and film. According to this telling, Elphie, as she is known by her friends, who has been green all her life, makes an unlikely friend in her room mate Galinda, who would later be known as the Good Witch of the North. After a murder takes place at their university, Elphaba is forced to choose between a life of “normality” with her friends and sister or to fight the despotic Wizard and his forces and goes into hiding after a meeting with him. This is just the start of the tale.
The book has a little bit of everything, romance, magic, philosophy, politics and adventure, and until the later sections is quite a good read. Watching her story unfold and her character change and grow is really enjoyable, although there were large parts of the story which could have been omitted or condensed where it was a struggle to stop myself from grabbing Tina Fey’s Bossypants from my opposite bedside table. If you’ve seen the musical don’t get your hopes up too high - they’ve definitely changed the storyline and even some of the characters around – the novel and the musical are two very different creations. Not the best book I’ve read lately, but I’m glad I eventually got through it.
Unfortunate update: my sister and I aren't continuing our challenge to live below the line as I've come down with the mother of all colds/possibly the flu, and she thinks she might be coming down with it also. This doesn't mean you can't donate to the cause anyway...
Small Island by Andrea Levy follows the story of two unconventional couples, one Jamaican and one English during WW2 and it’s aftermath. The year is 1948, and Queenie, whose husband Bernard is yet to return from his service in the war, is trying to make ends meet by renting out her upstairs rooms to Jamaican lodgers. Hortense, a prim and proper Jamaican woman has made the journey to England to be with her husband Gilbert, however she finds that the Motherland isn’t much like the grand, lovely England she had pictured in her mind. Both women have to find their way as the reality of their situations crush their big dreams. As their stories interweave, you are truly transported to another place and time.
I’m someone who has always been reluctant to read novels set in different eras due to the characters often being unlikeable and far too modern for their settings and not actually have much 'character' about them, or being too era-based for a modern reader to actually engage with. It is a tough balancing act for many writers, but the characters in this novel are charming, unique and thoroughly fascinating and didn’t lose my attention for even a page, despite the historic setting. This novel offers stories that are so heart wrenching and truthful about characters so interesting and colourful it is difficult not to adore it.
Benedict Cumberbatch* as Bernard in the BBC Mini-Series. Source BBC
This novel was really eye opening for me in terms of the role that Jamaican soldiers played in the allies' war effort in WW2, and the racism that the early Jamaican immigrants faced in England. Although it is greatly a dramatic novel, it has many humorous moments. I saw the novel in a second hand bookshop a few weeks after seeing the mini-series on ABC, and I'm so glad I bought it. It's one of those books that has so much more within it's pages than it's filmic counterpart could include (minus that slightly tacky final flash forward to today scene, if you've seen it you know what I mean...).
Queenie (Ruth Wilson) and Michael (Ashley Walters) from the Mini Series. Source BBC
I had long meant to read Eat, Pray, Love because I felt it was important to read it prior to seeing the film, and that I should see the film because it was one of those ‘cultural moments’ of my lifetime and generation that it would be shame to not take part in. So, I bought a copy of Eat, Pray, Love with the intention of drowning out the rest of the world’s opinions until I could form one for myself.
The book has been read by literally millions of people around the world and has had an undeniable impact upon Western culture of late. Many of my peers, and indeed, many of the people I most admire and look up to, are part of the group who have made Eat, Pray, Love their most recent bugbear, referring to the book’s movement as part of ‘the problem’ of bourgeois Western society and sneering down upon its Oprah’s Book Club sticker seal of approval.
My favourite books have all been ones which have completely changed my opinion of them throughout the read. I started off passionately disliking Eat, Pray, Love. Passionately. Disliking. I would whinge and groan the minute anybody asked me how it was, complaining that Elizabeth was so overly melancholy and weak that it was making it impossible to enjoy her story. How could the book be so depressing if I was only twenty pages in? How could I possibly persevere?! Of course, being a book about stepping out of melancholy and into happiness and finding self empowerment, this all began to change once I’d gotten out of the divorced-midthirties-writer-with-severe-issues scene setting and into Italy. It was then, with Elizabeth’s tales of pasta and gelato and beautiful men and balmy evenings, that I began to appreciate her writing style and the lessons she had to share, and I found myself whipping through the first section on pleasure
I really enjoyed the format of the book. The one hundred and eight short chapters worked for me at a time when I was very busy with work and could only find space to read during lunch or in the early mornings or evenings. The chapters are short, a couple of pages at the most, which meant I could finish at the end of a chapter every time I read; a wonderful point of closure for anyone with slight obsessive compulsive tendencies such as my own. It also meant, after the initial stages, that the book was very pacey and moved along through the chapters without pausing for too much sentimental reflection, something which, in my opinion, is the key element that saves the book from becoming soppy and over the top.
As Eat, Pray, Love moved through the three sections and into India (Pray) and Bali (Love), I was interested by the information Gilbert passed on about Eastern medicine and spiritual practices while telling her tale. At the time of reading I had been practicing yoga for a couple of months, and reading one short chapter included which gave an overview of yoga and it’s benefits completely altered my perception of the exercise. In particular, the excerpt, “Why do we practice Yoga?” he asked again. “Is it so we can become a little bendier than our neighbours? Or is there some higher purpose?” stayed, nagging, in my mind for days (ch 38, p 127). It was simple little sections like this found throughout the book that I found inspiring, or which opened my mind in a new direction.
It’s important to recognise that this book is not a self help book, even though it has been talked about pretty much as one since its release. At no point does Gilbert give instruction to her reader, lay down home work or try to fix anybody else’s problems. She simply tells a story, her story, and it happens to be a pretty remarkable one that many people have found inspiring.
There have been grievances aired by those who do not think that a woman in Gilbert’s position; wealthy, physically healthy, surrounded by supportive friends and with a brilliant career, had the right to take the course of action that she did. There is an underlying tone to this response that speaks to all who have found Elizabeth Gilbert’s words comforting, for all those who have been inspired to make change in their own lives, to pipe down, stop complaining and get on with it. There is always this kind of response when one group of people get inspired to ask questions and demand better lives. In this instance, it’s saddened me to see authors, musicians, independent artists and merchants whose work I like and whose opinion I formerly respected call this book and the effect it has had on people ridiculous, silly or ‘part of the problem’ within our society. It saddens me because if any of these people chose to pack up and head off on a spiritual meditation and yoga retreat in India they would be applauded and lauded as the Kings of Cool, and they know it. Effectively, they want to deny others the right they give themselves to happiness, which is completely unfair. Just because a person is a housewife, or because they’ve chosen to stick with a 9-5 job or they enjoy working for large corporations, because maybe they’ve chosen the path in life that is less ‘cool’, does not make them less worthy people or mean that their lives should be less filled with joy.
I can honestly say that I really enjoyed reading Eat, Pray, Love. I wouldn’t say it’s for everyone, but then most books aren’t, I enjoyed it because it addresses a lot of topics I’m currently interested in. I think that the public response to the book, both the love for it and the hate, have been very telling of where our society is at right now and has changed the way I think about my audience when I’m writing myself. After reading the book I did, as planned, go and see the film and I liked that too. I think it would be a much better film for those who had read the book than those who haven’t, having the knowledge to augment the stories that movies just don’t have time to get through. Eat, Pray, Love; I wouldn’t say it’s completely changed my life, but I do think it’s made an impact for the better, as most books do, and I’m very glad I gave it a try.
Ell-Leigh thought:
Let me start with this fact: I saw the movie first. And the movie, despite it’s potential for brilliance and the casting of Javier Bardem, James Franco and Billy Crudup, was not very good. The trailer also featured the song Sweet Disposition by the Temper Trap, which meant to me that this film was going to be great (it also featured in the (500) Days of Summer trailer, and I wasn’t wrong there now, was I?). I was a bit disappointed.
I didn’t have too much of a problem with it, except perhaps the ending. I loved the gorgeous colourful settings and the lessons we get to watch Elizabeth learn. I related to her depression and marveled as she pulled herself out of it.
I told my Mum she should go see it. She didn’t like it. Who was Julia Roberts to travel around the world the moment she decided she didn’t like her husband anymore? There wasn’t even a problem in their marriage, she couldn’t put a bit more effort in and give it another try? Geez, if we all had the money to take a huge trip around the world every time we thought we wanted to be single again… etc, etc.
Reading the book I discovered that a lot of the things I disliked about the film were the parts that weren’t part of the original story. The prose is honest and easy to read and the short chapter format works really well as it allows for many ideas to be discussed without losing our attention. At the end of each of the sections (Italy, India and Bali) I felt as though I could have read so much more about each place, and it ignited my yearning to travel, something I’d been quite sick of until I started reading. The book is insightful and inspiring, especially if you’re feeling philosophical. Personally I liked the book and like Elizabeth Gilbert as a writer, however I fit into the readership this book is aimed at. Would I recommend it to my 18-year-old male cousin who just started a carpentry apprenticeship? No. Would I recommend it to his 20-year-old sister who is interested in travelling soon? Yes.
Eat, Pray, Love is a memoir. It isn’t a guidebook, a self-help book or yoga-for-dummies. It is the story of what one woman did when she realised her life was in crisis, and how she found her way out of it and back to a place where she could love again. Sure, she may have had the money (only because she got a book deal out of her planned trip) and other means to get herself there, but who are we to judge how this woman changed her life? And who are we to judge those who take her story for what it is and enjoy it? Oh yes, she’s so bourgeois, taking a trip around the globe to fix her upper class problems. Give me a break. If I were in her shoes, depressed and recently divorced I would do whatever the heck makes me happy again, whether that be growing my own veggies, working my way through a Morrocan cooking book or, perhaps, flying half way around the world and learning to meditate like a boss.
Taken for what it is, Eat, Pray, Love is clever, insightful and invigorating to read. Italy is so delicious and extravagant, India is so thought provoking and inspiring, Bali is so hopeful and blissful. Each one has something new to offer, and each chapter brings a fresh new idea. You might as well give it a try, millions of fans can’t be too wrong, can they?
“You’re waiting, even if you don’t quite know it, waiting for the moment when you realise that you really are different to them; that there are people out there, like Madame, who don’t hate you or wish you any harm, but who nevertheless shudder at the very thought of you – of how you were brought into this world and why – and who dread the idea of your hand brushing against theirs.” (p. 36)
Lauren's Opinion:
Never Let Me Go is the story of a group of children, their growing up and their dealing with the expectations that life has for them. The thing is these children aren’t quite normal children and their lives, while at first seemingly regular, are far different from anything we could imagine.
This book is slow and heartbreaking and Ishiguro crafts the words so delicately that at times the prose nears poetic. The central idea of the plot is made early on and quite clearly. I know as a reader I understood it quickly, but it’s an idea so horrifying to really comprehend that I still spent the whole story hoping that I was wrong.
Narrated by central character Kathy H, her account of her childhood and adolescence is tragically cheerful and the description she gives of the English countryside, her school buildings and friends is stunning. Ishiguro is a master of creating intelligent characters with great psychological depth, and from the seemingly incidental characters like Moira B and Jenny B, to the supporting leads Tommy and Ruth, he has obviously taken great care to bring these people to life.
I first heard about Never Let Me Go when Kater posted about it on All This Happiness, and after reading her review and watching the film trailer I couldn’t believe this book hadn’t caused more hype in my world, though judging by the string of awards it won and was nominated for, it obviously did in the book world. The film is finally being released here today (!) and I’m really looking forward to seeing it. I’d really recommend that anyone who wants to see the film get a hold of the book first, though from all accounts the movie version is just as wonderful.
A look at the film trailer, just to whet your appetite:
Ell-Leigh's Opinion:
Ishiguro tells the story with such precision and subtlety, creating the world of a young schoolgirl with such wisdom it’s as if he had grasped it straight from reality. The tension builds delicately and remains as a shadow informing each moment. The characters are so relatable and truthful that the questions of ethics and morality affect deeply, all the while the full extent of the reality isn’t yet known. It’s a book so complexly and beautifully written it’s difficult to piece together sentences about it, it’s a book that will both satisfy and confront you. It is brilliant, a precious gem.
When I realised I only had two chapters left of this wonderful book, I felt a sense of loss; I would never again be able to discover this book for the first time. I proceeded to mope around my apartment for the next 15 minutes, heartbroken over its imminent conclusion… And I still had two chapters to go.
This book is a great read, it’s warm, hilarious and charming, and I imagine I will read and reread it until its covers fall off… At which point I will desperately order another copy (to read and reread until its covers fall off too, probably, and then rinse and repeat). Seriously, just find a copy of this book and read it.
You can get a copy of it (and the image credit comes from) here
“If any of us harboured doubts that the pre-war tales of Iraq’s fearsome weapons stockpile had been the most fabulous crock of nonsense, they were dispelled by poking around the offices. On one floor, each room was devoted to one of Iraq’s potential enemies. There was a Turkey room, a Saudi Arabia room, an Iran room, an Israel room. The walls of each were covered with maps of the corresponding country, red stickers indicating potential targets. Around these maps, rather touchingly, were pictures of fighter aircraft, cut out of the back issues of Jane’s Defence Weekly that littered the floors. The Iraqi defence establishment which, we’d been told, was plotting to lay us waste in forty-five minutes, had in fact been making collages. If I imagined the Iraqi officers making ‘Zoom! Kapow!’ noises as they stuck the pictures up, it was kind of heartbreaking. A wall was covered with a lovingly painted artwork of all the things the Iraqi air force hadn’t had: fighter plans, AWACS aircraft, satellites.”
(Taken from Chapter 10: Iraq, Baghdad, p 122)
It’s hard to stick a genre to Andrew Mueller’s I Wouldn’t Start From Here: A Misguided Tour of the Early 21st Century, though Picador (publisher) have typed it as Memoir/Travel. Wherever it fits, it’s a remarkable tome that is a must read for those interested in the affairs of our world for the past decade.
In the authors own words, I Wouldn’t Start From Here “is a random history of the twenty-first century so far as seen by one peripatetic hack” (p 3). An Australian journalist, though he doesn’t count himself as a ‘proper’ one, Andrew Mueller has experienced and reported on wars and conflicts across the globe. He has come into contact with oppressors and the oppressed, soldiers and civilians, thieves, murderers, martyrs and refugees. As the book guides the reader through accounts set in Jerusalem, Kosovo, Baghdad and many others, it is the stories of these people, told without prejudice or bias, that shine through.
Mueller writes with both compassion and a dark comedic edge, his prose is alluring and yet refreshingly blunt. His ability to encapsulate an entire event; its politics and hype and tragedy, within a few words, make this book really special and sets it apart from others in its field. He is a master of selecting the clearest imagery to give the reader an exact idea of what was going on in the war torn countries he visited.
The book is hefty, but then, so has been the history it covers. Handily divided up into chapters each covering a separate conflict and place, I found it made for a long term read, Mueller’s captivating writing does not bore over time. In each chapter I found myself falling for the various characters he met along his journeys and hoped, though I fear it isn’t the case, that they were all still out there surviving. Definitely the most remarkable aspect of this book, Mueller time and again brings war away from a dispute over land, oil or religion and back to the killing, terrorising and freedom taking of people, a message sometimes lost in our ever noisy, media blasted world.
In today’s modern world it can be difficult to keep up just with what’s going on around the globe, which wars have started and ended, who is hating who and which countries do and don’t exist. Mueller’s book gives a stunning yet easy to access guide to what’s been going on in the last decade (or so) and is an all out great and informative read.
Edit: I neglected to add that I actually borrowed this book from my dad (who has since reminded me of my forgetfullness regularly!) who has an amazing knowledge of war history himself and obviously pretty good book taste. Just goes to show, good literary taste can transcend generations!
I tend to read books after I see the movies, eg; The Lovely Bones, Eat Pray Love, Interview with a Vampire. Most of the time one tends to out-do the other in my opinion, one I enjoy more, one’s plot is significantly more entertaining or likeable, one has an attractive cast and all the other has is my imagination (a device which has its ups and downs). Many times when I’ve seen a film and have a copy of the novel in my hot little hands I don’t know what to expect from it, especially when I’ve enjoyed the movie so much. This was the case when I decided to read The Princess Bride.
My sister had just finished reading it, and so we rented the film from our nearby Video Ezy. Like many people my age, I watched this film over and over as a child, and when I went to read the novel, I had a very different picture of what this novel was going to be like. This is one book that shouldn’t be judged by its movie.
Imagine the film – Pretty maiden turn princess, Carey Elwes being nothing short of the perfect man, crazy-ass cliffs, sword fights, piracy, an epic battle of the wits, Billy Crystal… Now imagine it’s deeper, and darker, and with more layers. It also has an amusing, entirely fictional account of the dramas the author went through getting his overweight son to read the “original” novel, apparently written by one “Morgenstein”, and then his attempt to “abridge” it. It is clever, tightly knit and adorable; an inconceivably good read.
Not that it is necessarily more “adult”; the themes are just much darker, the torture is crueler, the heartbreak is deeper. Humperdink’s character in particular is fleshed out a lot more in the book – he is truly terrifying and evil, on par with some of the most horrible villains fiction has ever created, with his gruesome “Zoo of Death” and morbid hunting obsession. Inigo and Fezzik are given detailed back-stories, which the reader can’t help but eat up like some delicious comforting stew. The story is precisely what you want from a fairytale, and reading it is nothing short of joy.
