an essay :

‘There was even a bean salad, which to me looked distinctly Presbyterian’

There’s a word that I always forget. It has to do with the incalculable greatness a feeling can reach. It is the non-numerical equivalent of an integer, the amount in which something can be positive or negative, a significance steady but eminently communicative. I realized, as I always do, that the word I was trying to recall was ‘magnitude’. This word precisely connects to my admiration for this book. Gilead wields charm and mastery too elegant to term its journey ‘momentous’ or ‘significant’.

At first all seems to be as it should in the remains of the life of John Ames, a small-town preacher. But the humming gentleness gradually reveals, at its core, a chasm of uncertainty, feeding into rivulets leaving nothing outside their grasp. Robinson evokes, correctly and heartbreakingly, the antagonism resulting from proximity to the one person who can leave a stroke on the velvet of your heart.

If I never believed in Hemingway’s ‘perfect sentence’ even when I read The Old Man and the Sea, Gilead drives me almost to the finish line. Its narrative trickles gently at first, becoming a whitewash; its gait is best characterised not by waves but by the smooth, static prospect available in the air. I don’t mean that Ames’ voice is a passive one, or that he is solely a spectator, although many of the tenderest moments in the novel arise from his observations of his son, to whom the letter comprising the text is being written. In Hebrew, ‘gilead’ translates to ‘hill of testimony’ or ‘mound of witness’ and the emphasis on speech in the former is as well represented in the text as the interpretation of culminating events in the latter.

This book is an incredible pleasure to read. It proceeds with the ease and anticipation of a story being told by one very much beloved. Gilead reads softly, like a thread that never catches. Robinson’s prose effects a bank of pressure in the chest on each page. The character of John Ames is spoken in such a way which conveys at once his utter gentleness and the tricky backdrop of his history, full of vagaries whose incursions would be inevitable in any person’s life, but perhaps would not be limned to such delicate, yet potent effect in another person’s telling.

a reivew:

A literary bonbon in size, if only sometimes in flavour, Evelyn Waugh’s The Loved One is premium confectionery at that. Immaculately structured and irreverently humorous, the Loved One, ‘an American Tragi-Comedy’ presents a satirical take on 1950s Los Angeles and expatriate Englishmen.

Within the murmuring rooms at the funeral home of Whispering Glades, in its excess and euphemistic seriousness truly worthy of Hollywood, a romance blooms between its most revered and employee, Mr Joyboy, and the ‘decadent’ corpse cosmetician Aimee Thanatogenos. Theirs is a courtship deeply linked with their mutual profession; Mr Joyboy’s Valentines are the blissful smiles he contrives only upon the cadavers destined for Aimee’s ministries, and her admiration of him stems from the respect due his qualifications and his eloquent skill with the bodies of the dead.

However, Aimee proves her susceptibility to the fulfilment of her name (so linguistically incongruous!) in falling for a young British writer, Dennis, who woos her with the work of dead poets which he claims as his own; in the paucity, respectively, of Aimee’s education and Dennis’ inspiration, both American and British norms of culture bear the blows of Waugh’s satire as he describes their unfortunate love affair.

Waugh’s stipulated preference for perfection in literary expression over that of character is only very barely perceptible here – some jibes at the expense of self-important Hollywood executives and British expat Lords are too general and fleeting to attract much scrutiny. But the caricatures are witty and the language satisfying; there is pleasure to be found in Waugh’s deflated advice columnists, and his juxtaposition of the pet cemetery, the Happier Hunting Ground, with the grandeur and suffocating self-importance of Whispering Glades. As stated above, The Loved One is but a little book, a brief diversion whose length is perfectly suited to its comic and satirical scope.

when peter, a family friend who lavishes his book-attention on me rather than his non bookish daughters, recommended sharon penman’s the reckoning, i feigned a polite interest and thanked him. he’s a great man for bestsellers and thanks to him i’ve read some things i would never usually have touched, such as michael crichton’s state of fear which i read last year. it was actually a great read, and i love having something plot-driven and sensational to read on the train or in study breaks.

i understand that the reckoning has also been a ripper sales-wise; whether or not this true, i can’t say this book or the author were ever on my radar before peter introduced us.

My name is Estelle. I’m a Melbourne, Australia lady. I am an editor at Oxford University Press, where my law degree is proving useful in the non-criminal way I always hoped. I am also online editor for Kill Your Darlings, programming committee member at Melbourne Writers Festival and editorial advisor at Paper Radio. Needless to say, all opinions expressed on this blog are my own, and do not represent the views of any organisation that I work for.

On 3000 BOOKS, I flick words together to create the impression that reading fifty books a year makes me well read. Recently, I discovered the existence of a blogger who is reading one book a day, and 3000 BOOKS will shortly transition to its new title, 26,280,000 BOOKS (that’s one an hour). I have written on the topics of Victorian discrimination law, online writing mediums and the branding misstep of Harvard’s clothing line (in which case one line of prose sufficed). My ‘inchoate ramblings’ portfolio includes the Australian Literary Review, Australian Book Review, Radio National’s The Book Show, The Emerging Writers’ Festival Reader, the Melbourne Writers Festival blog, harvest magazine, The Lifted Brow, The Big Issue and RRR fm. Big ol’ cheeks brought to you by ice-cream.

In 2005, I set myself the goal of reading 50 books. I did end up reading more than 50, most of which I had not read before. The task of documenting the books I’d read for the purpose of counting them resulted in a lush little list.

Two weeks ago someone asked me, “Have you read Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides”. I had, in fact. He said ‘Did you like it. What did you think.’ I couldn’t remember; I remembered the general feeling and some plot points. I couldn’t remember the name of the main character. So now I write things down about the books I read.

I am 23 years old; the life expectancy for an Australian female is 83 years. 60 reading years x 50 books = 3000 BOOKS. Be astonished by my mathematical prowess.