REVIEW: The Fishermen

The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma

Published by Scribe 2015

I love reading books written by people from cultures not my own. The novel, The Fishermen, based in western Nigeria, delivers everything I expect from such a story.

It is rich in Nigerian landscape, language and culture. Obioma is a skilled storyteller who seamlessly carries you along the line of ever deepening doom into a madness that like the river featured, pulls you into the current and washes you ashore, a different person.

It is based around four brothers who become 'fishermen' in the prohibited 'evil' river near their house after the rock of the family, the revered and feared father has to move away from home for work.


Set against the unstable political background of Nigeria, the evangelical Christianity of the time and the undercurrent of superstitions encompassing ghosts and mad prophets, the characters of the boys, their family and neighbours, are shaped into beings they never thought possible.

I was pulled into this book by the seemingly effortless writing, the metamorphis of the characters and the horror of the story unfolding.

I wanted to stop reading at times, but could not walk away from knowing how it ended. I could not even skip to the end because I would have missed the the subtle shaping of the characters that led to the final word.

This is a book that stays with you, resonating through hidden places of your consciousness, bringing forth questions on the human condition you think you don't need to ask.

For me, that's a book worth reading.

Review: Right of Thirst

REVIEW

Right of Thirst

by Frank Huyler

Published by Harper Perennial 2009

A lucky find in an op shop, Right of Thirst, speaks directly to what it is to be human - and struggling to come to terms with the flaws that create who we are, despite our best efforts.

Frank Huyler is an extraordinary writer with observation powers as sharp as any surgeon's knife, and honed on the whetting stone of his own travels and consultations with patients over many years.

This perception is applied with a light but penetrating touch to the characters in this deceptively slow-paced story of a man brought up short by his wife's death and his role in it, and the need to find something within himself that will bring some sort of redemption.

It is also a novel about how the best of intentions can result in the worst of outcomes and the difficulty in being benevolent. Who are we serving really?

Totally recommend reading this book and gave it nine out of ten.

Frank Huyler has also written an essay collection: The Blood of Strangers, 1999; The Laws of Invisible Things, 2004; and The Castaway: A Novella, 2013.

http://www.frankhuyler.com/

In the beginning

There were words written on pages and while I remember the frustration of having to work my way through the incredibly boring readers in early primary school at a rate that could not keep me interested - John and Betty! - I was rewarded by being allowed to choose books from the public library.

Bliss, joy, heaven. My world that centred around our street, the river and school suddenly grew into immense proportions. The Enchanted Forest, The Fabulous Four, The Famous Five, the paperback Adventure series that took me around the world, Billy Bunting, Coles Funny Picture Books, then a bit later, Ray Bradbury and a dive into the deeper literature, poetry, plays and writing in response.

Little wonder my chosen career was journalism and my sought after companions were writers and artists - and books!

Oh the books I've had and still have.

Some have travelled with me since childhood: just can't let go for love or money.

                                          Did anyone grow up with these?

Others have joined, stayed a while and been passed on to others, or joined at a certain stage and stayed because of what they represent or have taught me and continue to remind me.

My latest move of 1600km saw me shed a few books but the biggest percentage of the load of furniture in the truck was boxes of words. The small house we have moved into was sold to us with every room containing stacks of books - 90 per cent non-fiction. How could we not buy the house?

So my book collection has now tripled in size and I am looking at becoming a book seller. It's going to be hard; this is a new role. 

I recently read (no it's not for sale cos I need to reread it) 'Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself', by Dr Joe Dispenza and had toyed with the idea of becoming someone who doesn't read or write but just 'does' stuff. Imagine everything I could accomplish if I was a doer. No books, no paper, no ideas for stories or poems or art works, just 'do it' to borrow that hideous slogan.

But as I contemplated the horror of life barren of those things, I realised that what I actually had to break the habit of, was procrastination. I have brilliant (of course they are) ideas of writing and art projects that I am going to do, but the doing needs to be in the area that I love. I need to get brave in the areas where I am most afraid to go ie. writing and art and putting myself on the line, and grow a spine. 

So all things books - and art. This is my space.

Book friends

BFF Books

Some people would say that books make the best friends because they accept you as you are and how you interpret them - and they don't answer back.

Depends on your interpretation of 'friend' I guess. Books have been there for me in some pretty bleak times and  that's one criteria of a good friend. I have gained knowledge (not sure about wisdom), comfort, joy, laughter, escape, insight into emotions, other cultures and other perceptions of the world from books, but could I just live with books and not people?

Maybe short term, but I need other people to discuss the books with and the things I find in the books, to really bring them into reality. A good book can make you look at the people and environment around you differently as well. You enter the book and come out a different person.

Jasper Fforde's 'Lost in a Good Book' delighted me with the plot of just that - getting lost in a good book. I gave it eight out ten and eagerly sought out his other titles. I didn't get as 'lost' in the next ones, but the first one was a hard act to follow.

When my kids were young, I used books as pure escape. They have told me since that if they saw me reading a book, often while multi-tasking, they knew I was unreachable. Writing poetry at that time was the only way I could write. I would grab what was in my head as I changed nappies, washed, cleaned, supervised, cooked, and scribble it on whatever was at hand before it disappeared into the daily chaos.

Needless to say however, they loved books and being read to. Years after the kids were grown and we were running a cafe on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, the publisher of my son's favourite book gave me that book and several others for us to have in the cafe to occupy children of the customers.

The cycle spirals around again

Greatly satisfying to see kids choosing a book and poring over it while the adults conversed.