Burial Rites - Hannah Kent

I read Burial Rites right in the middle of a Brisbane heatwave, but that did not stop me feeling the bitter, loveless chill of the Icelandic winter winds every time I dipped into this novel.  Hannah Kent has an achingly brilliant talent for transporting the reader along the current of her words and soon you can hardly breathe for her ocean has swallowed you down.

"Autumn fell upon the valley like a gasp. Margaret, lying awake in the extended gloom of the October morning, her lungs mossy with mucus, wondered at how the light had grown slow in coming; how it seemed to stagger through the window, as though weary from traveling such a long way."

You won't want to come up for air.

Burial Rites, whilst a work of fiction, is based on the true events surrounding the last public execution in Iceland.  That of Agnes Magnusdottir, a pauper and servant who was convicted for her involvement in the savage murder of two men, and sentenced to death by decapitation, with an axe!  Perhaps the fate worse than death is waiting for it, under the eyes of a supercilious community who want to see the monster removed from their lives. 

By official order Agnes is forced to live her last days in the custody of a rural family.  Her only reprieve from their judgement seems initially to be from Toti, the reverend appointed to accompany her troubled soul on its final journey to God.  But Anges and the family, endlessly working in increasingly grim weather, are soon bound by their common struggle to survive and they start to learn that perhaps there is more to her story than they have been lead to believe.

Set in 1829 in the severe and barren farmlands of northern Iceland, Burial Rites is a captivating tale of human suffering and dogged determination for survival.  It makes you think about what it means to be free.  Freedom from persecution, freedom from hunger, freedom from prejudice and freedom to exist without oppression amongst others.

Life in Iceland in the early 1800's (perhaps even now) is brutally hard. Iceland is living under Danish rule but is not blessed with such mainland luxuries as glass for their windows or timber for their floors. The people are at the fickle mercy of the weather and are forced to organise their lives around the seasons.  One fierce and cruel winter, which Kent just so easily takes you to, sees the church ground so frozen that to dig a grave is impossible, and a young Agnes is forced to live weeks with her dead foster mother in the food store until the ground thaws.

And the more I read the more I understood how this merciless life is particularly harsh for women, and especially peasant women, like Agnes. Women were discouraged or banned from learning (other than religious scriptures), they were at the mercy of farm owners to allow them to work on their farms, and servant who wouldn't "lift her skirts" for a farmer might be thrown out in the cold, jobless and homeless. 

Hannah Kent obviously has an intimate relationship with Iceland (she did a school exchange there) and amazingly with Agnes herself as well.  It is just unbelievable that a young Australian woman (this is her debut novel) seems able to reach through time to lock hands with Anges Magnusdottir and bring her to us.  Or maybe Agnes reached to her and begged for her story to be told.  It certainly feels that way.  Kent's attention to historic detail is compelling but it's the colours in between that bring Agnes's breath to your skin. Five stars.

Books I might like to read.... Recommendations from KS

Recommended by KS
Chasing the Light - Jesse Blackadder.  Fictional account of a true story.  A woman adventuring to Antarctica.  Could be interesting.

The Light Between Oceans - ML Stedman.  A lighthouse keeper and his wife discover a dead man and living baby washed up in a boat on their island... meant to be really well written.  Yes! I'm interested!)

The Son - Philipp Meyer.  Late 1800's Texas , America.  Family saga spanning a couple of centuries...White settlers, Comanche (Native Americans), world war I, Mexican, oil fields, land barons etc etc - might be ok.

Secrets of the Tides - Hannah Richelle.  Family drama with dark, suspenseful undercurrent.  Might be worth a read.

Questions of Travel - Michelle de Kretser.  This book won this year's Miles Franklin Award, the main themes from what I can gather are travel, modern ideals and relationships, and her style is creative and quirky.  Also I've read another one of hers, The Lost Dog, and enjoyed it from what I can remember...This is high on my list!

An Echo in the Bone - Diana Gabaldon .CRINGE! NO WAY!  The 7th book in a series of fantasy novels from what I can gather.  Not my style.

A Little History of the World - EH Gombrich.  Non-fiction.  Seems to be literally what the title promises... Benji might like it.

Various Pets Alive and Dead - Marina Lewycka.  I've read 2 others We are all Made of Glue and A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian.  Both are light, mildly humorous, but perhaps a little tacky/tasteless... might be ok for an easy/lazy holiday read.

Thornwood House - Anna Romer

In Thornwood House, Audrey Kepler, is bequeathed a big old homestead in rural Queensland by her ex-boyfriend, the father of her eleven year old daughter.  She leaves her Melbourne life and home behind and together with her daughter moves into the homestead - Thornwood House. 

Audrey then proceeds to unravel various mysteries involving the previous inhabitants of Thornwood House - her daughter's ancestors.

As she delves deeper into the past, Audrey, who could be described as either bloody nosy, or full of passion about her new home and it's old stories and the people who lived there, immerses herself into the lives of her ex's past, solves the various mysteries of his family and even finds love along the way.  (Groan - shades of Alex Miller's Journey to the Stone Country... no, no, no, not as bad as that!)


I really, really wanted to love this book...

It's set in the Scenic Rim, the location of our own block of land and soon to be home. I got really excited when I recognised the description of "Magpie Creek", the fictitious town where Audrey and her daughter have come to live, obviously based on our own little town!

"...we entered the wide dusty streets of Magpie Creek.  Passing a huge wirework sculpture of a horse we hooked through a roundabout and entered a tree-lined avenue.  An elderly couple sat on the verandah of a classic old pub, but otherwise the town appeared deserted.  I counted two bottle shops, a BP service station, a Caltex service station, four tiny cafes, and a quaint little post office."

My other connection to this book is the fact that Benj and I actually stumbled upon its launch  in the real Magpie Creek one Sunday afternoon after a day working on our block!  Author Anna Romer was there at our favourite little cafe signing copies of her debut novel!

...but I didn't love this book.  I certainly didn't hate it, but it's just not a book I feel a great deal of passion about.  It had the bones of a good story... but the writing style was a little too bland, the plot and it's twists a little too obvious, the love interest a little too cringe-worthy and some of the story lines a little too far fetched. 

Having said all that I did enjoy reading Thornwood House.  It's an easy read, one you will want to tear through to see if you are right in your assumptions about the "twists" (if you're like me you will be).  A good book for a lazy Sunday arvo.

Two stars.

Who's Sorry Now? - Howard Jacobson

Two old friends: one in love with women and having affairs all over the place; the other loves just one woman his wife... they each try to convince the other that thier sexual philosophy is the better... blah blah blah...

I didn't finish this one.  The story seemed not  to be going anywhere, I couldn't relate to either man and I didn't actually like them either... not that you have to like the characters but I just felt I would learn nothing and be no better off for reading this book...I think the author might have been trying to be funny, but I really just didn't connect with the humour (or lack of it).  There are so many great books out there I'm not going to waste my time on a pair of dicks.

No stars. (Did not finish)

Tony Hogan bought me and Ice Cream Float before he Stole My Ma - Kerry Hudson

Lower class life in Scotland has some harsh realities... and Kerry Hudson (who according to her bio lived it pretty hard herself) writes about it extremely well.  She is funny, self-mocking, light hearted and sentimental.  Right from the first paragraph I was hooked:

"Get out you cunting, shitting, little fucking fucker!" were the first words I ever heard.  The midwife, as shiny-faced woman who learned entirely new turns of phrase that night, smoothed ma's hair."

What follows is a journey through the life of Janie Ryan as she struggles through her world of hostels, foster homes, housing estates, poor houses and B&B's (not the touristy kind) rubbing shoulders with drunks, junkies, thieves and foul mouthed wife beaters... many of these are her family members. 

It's a rough life and yet the voice of Janie remains for the most part, heart-breakingly innocent and hopeful.  Yes there are hilarious parts where I did actually laugh out loud, but I found this book intensely sad.  I read a comment somewhere about this book that said it was uplifting.  For me it wasn't, not really.  I kept hoping it would be, but the turning point comes when poor, lovely little Janie first swears at and slaps her baby sister, you know then that she's turning out just like her ma... it just illustrated to me how the cycle continues... that sometimes no matter how innocent a poor little child is, if they're exposed to a certain type of behaviour, inevitably they learn to mimic it.  I find it sad how unconditionally a child will love it's parent when that parent is doing a really awful job of providing unconditional love and care back... but it's not that simple...that poor parent is struggling through so much of their own shit (which they've probably learned from their parents, and their parents and their parents) and they just don't know how to deal with being a parent, then there's unemployment, bullying, drugs and alcohol.

Tony Hogan bought me an Ice Cream is a pretty harsh look at the reality of life in some of the poorest and most disenfranchised parts of Scotland but it's not all bad - there are moments of real love, loyalty and respect which shine through and make you want to keep reading.  I enjoyed how real this book felt (including the Scottish slang) and I really liked Janie - how she just keeps trying to survive in what really is a pretty fucked up life.

Three and three quarter stars.

Journey to the Stone Country - Alex Miller.

*SPOILERS*

In Journey to the Stone Country, Annabelle Beck casts away her life as she knows it to follow Bo Rennie, an Aboriginal guy she knew of vaguely in her past, on a sort of journey of self discovery through land symbolic to his and her people in central and northern Queensland. 

I’m disappointed in this book.  When I initially read about it, I was excited to start it because it seemed to have many of the elements I like in a novel...  I love stories about life and people and the internal and external struggles that colour all our lives... but this book left me baffled, annoyed and even a little embarrassed for the author at times!

First of all, the sentence structure!  I know that there are times when an author throws away the rule book when it comes to grammar in order to create certain emotion or symbolism within the writing.  In fact, I love that some authors do this meddling with the rules for sake of art and poetry. (A little like an abstract painter meddles with reality to create a more engaging/beautiful/meaningful piece of art). Some authors do it beautifully – Alex Miller does not.  It just annoyed me that he kept leaving the verb out!  “The muted sound of teevees and radios from neighbouring houses.”  That is not a sentence!   Alex Miller just seems like a literary try hard to me.  Oh God!  The bit where Annabelle was thinking about the stone she found. She could think of the Italian, the French and even the Latin word to describe its weight, but not the English? Lame!!! “The English word gravity, she decided, would not quite do.  Perhaps the poets had been too free with it in the past.”  What the?!  Oh Alex, you’re embarrassing yourself!  And it’s so incongruous with the rest of the writing of the book!

Next, the story line:  It seems completely unrealistic to me that a well educated woman with a whole life in Melbourne would so quickly evacuate from her old life and allow herself to be smothered by the life of a knock-about, rough and ready guy she’s really only known for a few days.  Okay so she knew of him from her past...but seriously?!!!  Maybe this sort of thing does happen.  But it annoys me.  So your cheating, sleazy husband has an affair?  Leave him, sure!  Go on a holiday, leave your troubles behind for a while, have a fling if you really must!  But shack up with a guy you hardly know and start planning on changing your career, uprooting your life, selling your house, selling your inherited family home and cashing in your superannuation??!!!  This is what Annabelle our main character does.  What the hell?  Oh and I hated how Bo suddenly started calling Annabelle ‘my love’ after their great love scene.  I actually laughed out loud when I read the love scene – and then I had to read it out to Benji (my partner) and he laughed too!!!

...Which brings me to the next point:  The alpha male!  I was so annoyed all the way through the novel that Bo was some sort of expert on everything!  I mean Annabelle is a grown woman, an educated woman who’s seen a bit of the world... and she suddenly just has no opinion and no ideas and just looks with her big puppy dog eyes to Bo to see what he thinks!?!?!!! (Okay, so I made up her eyes... but I can JUST imagine!!!)  And that poor Hearn Family - a family whose farm the pair visit along their travels!  Who the hell does Bo think he is telling everyone the right way to do things?!

Speaking of the Hearns... another idiotic part of the storyline:  That they’re talking about wedding bells and babies just because a couple of teenagers got a bit amorous with each other?  Matthew and Trace were probably just lonely and charged up with teenage hormones... But there’s Bo and Annabelle (and The Hearns too, actually) thinking that after a few hours together they’ll be getting married next.  Stupid.

 The description of food throughout the novel was interesting.  It actually made me feel sick that there were no fresh fruit or vegetables eaten throughout the whole book.  All those steaks and sausages!!  But at least this was a fairly realistic representation of the diet of your average central Queensland working class male.  (I grew up in a little mining town quite near to where the first part of the book was set!)  So I admit it was clever and insightful to include culinary (too strong a word?) descriptions.

 So what themes was Miller trying to explore in Stone Country?  If love/romance is one I feel sorry for Alex Miller’s wife.  “You look good in them dungarees Annabellebeck.” ?! Cringe!!!!

I think what could have been the main theme, the difficult relations between Black and White Australia, was left under developed.  The reality of much of Black Australia is heartbreaking and gut-wrenching .  If as an author, you are going to explore this theme, then I think the reader should feel torn and uncomfortable and sick and sad and ashamed ...because that is the reality.  Alex Miller didn’t bring enough of that desperation to the table to make this the gutsy and emotionally challenging novel I was expecting.  (Think of the film Sampson and Delilah - that's what I was expecting.)

Look, to be fair, I didn’t hate reading this book.  Some of the scenery (probably because I grew up in the area) was interesting to read about.  And the scene with old Panya was well done:  pretty sobering and sad and unfortunately probably quite realistic.  This part was hard to read because it was so real and it highlighted many of the irreconcilable problems between Black and White Australia.  But then there was not much further discussion between Bo and Annabelle about it, which was disappointing and frustrating!  I can't believe this one a Miles Franklin Award.

 

P.s. I never really got the point of Arner’s character.  What was the mystery he was hiding?

 

** Adapted from my own submision to a book club  to which I once belonged.

 

 

 

 

The Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz.

Another one from Junot Diaz.  Same punchy, authentic, no holes barred writing style as This is How You Lose Her, we even meet our old friend Yunior again.  (In fact Oscar Wao came before Lose Her but this is the order I read them in, so there you go...).  There is a lot more political stuff in Oscar Wao and we get to go to back to the Dominican Republic and feel what it must have been like to live under Rafael Trujillo - the country's infamous dictator. 

Diaz delves back into the history of the main characters so much so, that sometimes I got a bit bogged down (although I'd like to have read this book when I was less chronically tired!!!) and lost sight of how it all related to Oscar. 

Oscar Wao. Poor old Oscar is everything a typical "Domo" is not.  He's an uncool, unsexy, overweight, nerdy lover of scifi and a failure with women.  He is trying to find his way in the world, aching for his first experience with a woman and coming to terms with all his failures as a Domo man, his family history, and the fuku that has plagued them.  Fuku?! - Fuku americanus actually. An ancient "Curse of Doom of the New World", unleashed on the world with the "arrival of Europeans on Hispaniola".  Oh and it seems that Trujillo is inextricably linked with fuku - although whether his is its victor or victim is unclear.  Oscar's fuku is also tangled in Trujillo's web.  It's a messy business!

Diaz is unique.  He is funny, edgy and fearless in his depiction of Latino America. He has a way of highlighting the difference between mainstream (aka white) America and it's minority groups, specifically Domos and Latinos.  He doesn't shy away from these differences (eg describing a time in the history of a particular neighbourhood in New York, pre-gentrification as "before the whitekids started their invasion, when you could walk the entire length of Upper Manhattan and not see a single yoga mat".  In the same way he does in Lose Her, Diaz uses Spanish and street slang to get his point across.

"That is good to hear, El Jefe said, I was afraid you might have turned into un maricon. Then he turned to the lambesacos and laughed.  Oh Jefe, they screamed, you are too much.
It was at that point another nigger might have, in a fit of cojones, said something to defend his honour, but Abelard was not that nigger.  He said nothing."

To really get the the whole gist of some of the writing, a grasp of the Spanish language is useful, but some knowledge of local slang more so.  I like that Diaz is sort of sticking his finger up at middle white America - leaving them out of the in joke.  A sort of Fuck You.  Or perhaps fuku?

 

 

*please note I have not been true to Spanish grammer simply because I can't work out how to type accent marks in!