Apparently, David Malouf is recognised as one of Australia's finest writers. I heard an interview with him on one of the ABC's podcasts months ago - he had just written a libretto for a Aussie composer. After reading this book, I'd have to say he's pretty darn good. There are some glowing commendations on the back cover, including one from Michael Ondaatje... I'm not sure I would agree wholeheartedly with Ondaatje's assessment of "thrilling in style and adventurousness"... to me, the story is a little more understated and ethereal than thrilling.
In short, Gemmy is a Brit who after a rather miserable childhood as a street kid takes to the high seas after burning down his erstatz master's home (with said master therein...). At some point in the voyage is cast from the ship and washes up, of all places, in Queensland. He is discovered by a mob of Aborigines, and he is in pretty dire shape... I recall a rather vivid description of little crabs crawling over him as he's lying on the shore.
But life goes on, and the Aborigines take him under their collective wing and for what must be a number of years, he lives with them. I don't think they kept him around as an oddity for a bit of a laugh - he learned much in the line of bush skills, and picked up a pretty good connection to the spirits of the land.
While Gemmy's hanging out with the Aborigines, white folks are of course struggling up the coast and setting up the raggedy little settlements that have become today's cities and regional centres. In the tradition of stories featuring white settlers and Aborigines, eventually the two worlds intersect. In this story, Gemmy falls (literally - from a fence) back into white life.
But he's not quite 'white' anymore, and this sets up the spiralling tension within the settlement that he's ended up in - there are those sympathetic to him, and those that are antagonistic.
That's probably enough of a spoiler - here's what I really liked about the book. When I finished it, I had this feeling that I really had seen only the part of the story that Malouf wanted me to see - that is, I had the whole plot, I knew who the characters were, but there were bits and pieces that for all intents and purposes were shrouded with a kind of secrecy. It was almost like there was a part (almost a dimension, I think) that we the reader weren't privy to, and wouldn't be unless we had undergone some sort of initiation or cultural coming of age. In the meantime, we get to see just enough to satisfy us, and to protect the interests of ... whatever is shrouded.
There's a passage in the book that really reminds me of this: Gemmy is on an expedition with an enthusiastic amateur naturalist from the settlement, who with great pleasure (and no small skill) is drawing the local flora, and inscribing these drawings with such wisdom about their restorative - or indeed deleterious - qualiteis as Gemmy is willing to share. During this expedition, we get a peek at Gemmy's perspective as he is sharing such bits that are safe to share - but he doesn't let on for a minute that he sees the world entirely differently with the land's power and spirits kind of overlaid on the physical bits that our naturalist saw. Some plants he just passed over describing; their power too much for him to handle, so there was no way he was going to risk the white guy messing around with them.
It's one of those cases where on the one hand I'm a little impatient and want to know what's on the other side; and on the other hand, I am really impressed at this sense that the book evoked in me.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Good Morning Hanoi - Iain Finlay and Trish Clark
I haven't posted about any books lately, largely because my completion rate has fallen dramatically. However, since the last book post I have finished a couple of books.
The first one highlights the year the authors, both retired journalists, spent volunteering for the English language service of the Vietnamese government's radio network, and it is a very interesting and engaging story - more so than Liz Anderson's Red Lights and Green Lizards, which was strikingly similar (older folks go to Asia to help out). Where Red Lights spent (I thought) too much time on the trials and tribulations, Good Morning acknowledges challenges but focuses more on the joy and pleasure of jumping into a different world and delighting in it. I suppose Vietnam is comparatively easier for English speaking Westerners to find their footing in - I can't quote relative per capita GDP PPP off the top of my head, but I am pretty sure that Vietnam is a bit further along the development curve than Cambodia.
Notwithstanding the homogenising influence of development, though, Iain and Trish certainly had their hands full negotiating both cultural nuances and political machinations in trying to do their bit to help the keen and motivated Vietnamese staff at the radio station. Their story is told with a warmth, and even almost a twinkle (sure, it's an odd description for a written story, but it fits this one).
A huge shout out to Grandma Pat for this Christmas present!
The first one highlights the year the authors, both retired journalists, spent volunteering for the English language service of the Vietnamese government's radio network, and it is a very interesting and engaging story - more so than Liz Anderson's Red Lights and Green Lizards, which was strikingly similar (older folks go to Asia to help out). Where Red Lights spent (I thought) too much time on the trials and tribulations, Good Morning acknowledges challenges but focuses more on the joy and pleasure of jumping into a different world and delighting in it. I suppose Vietnam is comparatively easier for English speaking Westerners to find their footing in - I can't quote relative per capita GDP PPP off the top of my head, but I am pretty sure that Vietnam is a bit further along the development curve than Cambodia.
Notwithstanding the homogenising influence of development, though, Iain and Trish certainly had their hands full negotiating both cultural nuances and political machinations in trying to do their bit to help the keen and motivated Vietnamese staff at the radio station. Their story is told with a warmth, and even almost a twinkle (sure, it's an odd description for a written story, but it fits this one).
A huge shout out to Grandma Pat for this Christmas present!
Goodness, I am terrible with anniversaries
Wow. I have been living in Australia for the past two years and 10 days. Isn't that exciting?
Of course, that's not including 10 days in Cambodia, two days in LA, and 4 days plus 3 weeks in Ottawa. I would be more accurate to claim that I moved here two years and 10 days ago. Where does the time go?
I suppose it gets all used up running around getting used to a different place. It's not so different from home (home #1, I guess) but there are enough little things that take a bit of adjustment. It's not like changing from CNN to Al Jazeera in Arabic; more like CNN when there is a bit of a delay between the image and the audio. Not incomprehensible, it just occasionally gives a bit of pause for interpretation.
It also gets used up just living. I know I am not a wonderful shining example of keeping in touch with all the folks in the old country. Heck, I'm not even that good at keeping up with people in the new country. I suppose we get properly wrapped up in the effort of going flat out tending to the transplant procedure that other parts of the metaphorical garden of life are neglected.
Hopefully no one calls the weed spraying service to tidy up... worse yet, the paving people. Anyway, pulling back from the brink of a well-beaten metaphor...
What do you suppose is a better indication of 'successful adjustment to a new environment'? Would it be the adoption of a routine from which deviation is notable - that is, a normal routine in a brave new world? Or is it living a series of discontinuous episodic experiences, dipping in and out of elements of the new reality without adopting any sort of rythm outside the syncopated vignettes?
I daresay tonight's McGlutton meal was seasoned with some sort of interesting herbs, to come up with warbling like that last paragraph.
Anyway. Happy anniversary to me and to Simmo.
Of course, that's not including 10 days in Cambodia, two days in LA, and 4 days plus 3 weeks in Ottawa. I would be more accurate to claim that I moved here two years and 10 days ago. Where does the time go?
I suppose it gets all used up running around getting used to a different place. It's not so different from home (home #1, I guess) but there are enough little things that take a bit of adjustment. It's not like changing from CNN to Al Jazeera in Arabic; more like CNN when there is a bit of a delay between the image and the audio. Not incomprehensible, it just occasionally gives a bit of pause for interpretation.
It also gets used up just living. I know I am not a wonderful shining example of keeping in touch with all the folks in the old country. Heck, I'm not even that good at keeping up with people in the new country. I suppose we get properly wrapped up in the effort of going flat out tending to the transplant procedure that other parts of the metaphorical garden of life are neglected.
Hopefully no one calls the weed spraying service to tidy up... worse yet, the paving people. Anyway, pulling back from the brink of a well-beaten metaphor...
What do you suppose is a better indication of 'successful adjustment to a new environment'? Would it be the adoption of a routine from which deviation is notable - that is, a normal routine in a brave new world? Or is it living a series of discontinuous episodic experiences, dipping in and out of elements of the new reality without adopting any sort of rythm outside the syncopated vignettes?
I daresay tonight's McGlutton meal was seasoned with some sort of interesting herbs, to come up with warbling like that last paragraph.
Anyway. Happy anniversary to me and to Simmo.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Some people make me really, really angry.
Yesterday I read something that really bothered me. A post on BoingBoing, specifically, posted on Sunday. Here is the title of the post:
Iraq: Kurdish girl stoned to death, mob films it on cameraphones
According to the reports, the story goes something along these lines. Du'a Khalil Aswad, a 17 year old Kurdish girl "had a relationship" with a Sunni Muslim boy in a town near by. So a mob of men from her community beat and stoned her to death on April 7. For whatever reason, members of this mob filmed the murder with mobile phone video cameras, and last week (week of May 1) posted it to YouTube.What on Earth possesses people to behave like this? The boy's religion was (presumably still is) Sunni Muslim, her religion was Yezidi (an ancient pre-Islamic religion)... and it sounds like they happened to get along rather well. I don't know what 'have a relationship' is a euphemism for in this case - they may have been going at it like rabbits or discussing the latest editorial in the Middle Eastern Times for all we know. I am making the assumption that the relationship was entered into willingly by both parties.
A couple of kids made friends, maybe even made love. In a place like Iraq, that's no mean feat, I think. And for this, the men of her community, who by being Kurds in Iraq likely have first-hand knowledge of what it is like to be attacked by an adversary much stronger than them, thousands of these men apparently saw reason to punish Du'a by beating her, tearing her clothes off, heaving rocks at her head while she lay on the ground crying and begging for help... and this is called an HONOUR killing.
So not only is a young girl killed for (hopefully) finding some happiness in the middle of a war, she is killed in a manner calculated to be painful, terrorising and brutal.
And what for? To make some sort of point that hanging out with people who are different from us is evil? What are these guys afraid of that they need to murder a girl like this?
But wait: There's more. I ran across a report (admittedly, on a Web site that doesn't have the same reputation for journalistic rigour as say, AP does) that Iraqi security forces witnessed the attack but did not intervene. How about instigating a little security for those who can't defend themselves?
Next point: I haven't seen any coverage of this on any of the major Western news sources so far. (The Daily Mail and FoxNews don't count). Maybe it isn't sufficiently verified or approved for publication, or maybe Du'a didn't have the good fortune to have an embedded journalist in the area.
Another wrinkle: Seemingly in retaliation for Du'a's murder, someone shot up a bus full of Yazidis. More hate and retaliation is likely to follow. It looks like that someone or someones were Sunni Muslims... maybe friends of his.
Just a note about 'honour' killings. I don't think there is anything honourable about murdering anybody, no matter how badly they piss you off, or how much you think they have transgressed some deeply held value or social more. You just don't go bashing people in the head with rocks just because you don't like what they've done. I really don't care whether it is a thousand year old tradition or anything like that - that just means it has been wrong for a thousand years. Cultural relativism can get stuffed.
Finally, I do note that the Kurdistan Regional Government is making some of the right noises about this in a statement published on its Web site. Good news! 'Honour' killings are against the law, and have been since 2002, and the KRG's got 40 convictions and 24 cases on the dock. Poor Du'a didn't get killed under the KRG's bailiwick, so it falls to Iraqi authorities to investigate.
For some reason I think of Admira and Bosko (apologies for the lack of diacritical marks) killed in Sarajevo in 1993.
I really am angry with the men who killed Du'a. I really am angry because these sorts of inexcusable hateful actions occur every single day that passes. I am really angry because there are people being attacked and hurt right here in Sydney. And I am really angry that us humans, who can be capable of such great depths of love, can also be so brutally struck down by great depths of evil.
Iraq: Kurdish girl stoned to death, mob films it on cameraphones
According to the reports, the story goes something along these lines. Du'a Khalil Aswad, a 17 year old Kurdish girl "had a relationship" with a Sunni Muslim boy in a town near by. So a mob of men from her community beat and stoned her to death on April 7. For whatever reason, members of this mob filmed the murder with mobile phone video cameras, and last week (week of May 1) posted it to YouTube.What on Earth possesses people to behave like this? The boy's religion was (presumably still is) Sunni Muslim, her religion was Yezidi (an ancient pre-Islamic religion)... and it sounds like they happened to get along rather well. I don't know what 'have a relationship' is a euphemism for in this case - they may have been going at it like rabbits or discussing the latest editorial in the Middle Eastern Times for all we know. I am making the assumption that the relationship was entered into willingly by both parties.
A couple of kids made friends, maybe even made love. In a place like Iraq, that's no mean feat, I think. And for this, the men of her community, who by being Kurds in Iraq likely have first-hand knowledge of what it is like to be attacked by an adversary much stronger than them, thousands of these men apparently saw reason to punish Du'a by beating her, tearing her clothes off, heaving rocks at her head while she lay on the ground crying and begging for help... and this is called an HONOUR killing.
So not only is a young girl killed for (hopefully) finding some happiness in the middle of a war, she is killed in a manner calculated to be painful, terrorising and brutal.
And what for? To make some sort of point that hanging out with people who are different from us is evil? What are these guys afraid of that they need to murder a girl like this?
But wait: There's more. I ran across a report (admittedly, on a Web site that doesn't have the same reputation for journalistic rigour as say, AP does) that Iraqi security forces witnessed the attack but did not intervene. How about instigating a little security for those who can't defend themselves?
Next point: I haven't seen any coverage of this on any of the major Western news sources so far. (The Daily Mail and FoxNews don't count). Maybe it isn't sufficiently verified or approved for publication, or maybe Du'a didn't have the good fortune to have an embedded journalist in the area.
Another wrinkle: Seemingly in retaliation for Du'a's murder, someone shot up a bus full of Yazidis. More hate and retaliation is likely to follow. It looks like that someone or someones were Sunni Muslims... maybe friends of his.
Just a note about 'honour' killings. I don't think there is anything honourable about murdering anybody, no matter how badly they piss you off, or how much you think they have transgressed some deeply held value or social more. You just don't go bashing people in the head with rocks just because you don't like what they've done. I really don't care whether it is a thousand year old tradition or anything like that - that just means it has been wrong for a thousand years. Cultural relativism can get stuffed.
Finally, I do note that the Kurdistan Regional Government is making some of the right noises about this in a statement published on its Web site. Good news! 'Honour' killings are against the law, and have been since 2002, and the KRG's got 40 convictions and 24 cases on the dock. Poor Du'a didn't get killed under the KRG's bailiwick, so it falls to Iraqi authorities to investigate.
For some reason I think of Admira and Bosko (apologies for the lack of diacritical marks) killed in Sarajevo in 1993.
I really am angry with the men who killed Du'a. I really am angry because these sorts of inexcusable hateful actions occur every single day that passes. I am really angry because there are people being attacked and hurt right here in Sydney. And I am really angry that us humans, who can be capable of such great depths of love, can also be so brutally struck down by great depths of evil.
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