There has been quite a bit of reframing in my life lately. It’s overdue. For a few months things were hanging in the balance a bit: now, finally, I’m sensing a coming together of disparate pieces of my life.

One thing I’ve noticed, though, is that the temporary measures I put in place as a holding pattern eventually lulled me into a false sense of structure. There was no commitment, nothing was at stake. I settled quite happily into this lifestyle-of-the-present. Things were calm, tidy. It suited me.

My future came and got me. It’s here. And it’s full to bursting with commitment, and stuff at stake, and meaning. It’s full of chaos and laughter and worries and extended unanticipated searches for Mister Froggy. More cuddles than I’ve had for a pretty long time. A profound sense of privilege.

It’s been three weeks since my future arrived. I think I’m beginning to get the hang of it.

In this process of renovation I’ve had to take a wrecking ball to the frame of the life I’d thrown together. And good riddance: it was a flimsy thing and totally unsustainable. It would have blown over in a stiff wind anyway.

But tearing things down is always hard, even when it’s to build something better.

ρ

Share/Save]]> http://www.rowanmangan.com/2010/reframing/feed/ 0 http://www.rowanmangan.com/2010/on-books-and-lists-of-books/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed http://www.rowanmangan.com/2010/on-books-and-lists-of-books/#comments Fri, 15 Jan 2010 13:03:24 +0000 Rowan http://www.rowanmangan.com/?p=332

Kat posted a list of ‘should-reads’ from the BBC and noted what she’d read, what she hasn’t but wants to, and what she hasn’t and doesn’t want to. I think this activity should become a meme – it has reminded me of books I love and books I still want to read. And reread.

Following Kat’s legend, bold means I’ve read it and unbold (shy?) means I haven’t.

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6. The Bible (spoilers abound, I’ve heard the ending)
7. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens (how have I not read this yet? List!)
11. Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy (I know, I know…)
13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare – (nope, not all of it. Not yet.)
15. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk
18. Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch – George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House – Charles Dickens (Got to improve my Dickens ratings – this is unforgivable!)
24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy (One of these days; doorstop)
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
27. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34. Emma – Jane Austen
35. Persuasion – Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41. Animal Farm – George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving
45. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50. Atonement – Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52. Dune – Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth (started this but had to return it. I’ve loved some of his other books.)
56. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time – Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville (this is embarrassing!)
71. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72. Dracula – Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses – James Joyce
76. The Inferno – Dante
77. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal – Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession – AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple – Alice Walker (didn’t like this. Have issues with Alice Walker)
84. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro (MUST READ!)
85. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry (urg, have started at least three times…)
87. Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom (AWFUL American tripe)
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Wow, have I really not?)
90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94. Watership Down – Richard Adams (Oh how I love this book!)
95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo (Good but not a patch on the musical…)

I’ve got just over half (about 56) under my belt. And nothing in there that I don’t want to read, which is a nice feeling (the ones I don’t want to read, unfortunately, I’ve already read).

Based on this, in 2010 I am going to try and read (more):

• Dickens
• Russians
• Ulysses, finally
• Remains of the Day
• Sherlock Holmes
• Steinbeck

Kat points out the problematic notion that you have to read a specific collection of books to be well-read (or whatever). I agree with her, but I also subscribe to the idea of the canon – as long as it’s a flexible, self-determined one. I like the idea of a literary heritage, that we inherit great tales, that there’s some kind of inter-generational continuity where stories are concerned. In fact, the nice thing about this list is its combination of contemporary and historical books.

I think that we can share a lot through stories, that we can tap into the zeitgeist, the ideas that are circulating the planet, the thoughts people are thinking and were thinking. Maybe reading some of these “greats” is the equivalent of checking the newsfeed on Facebook – checking in with the larger vibe. Except you get to check everyone’s best updates, none of the ‘this milkshake tastes like ass’ bits. (Although, as loyal readers know, the books representing those quotidian updates are also enjoyed by me on a regular basis.)

My approval of the canon may seem to be at odds with views I’ve previously expressed, but to me there’s no paradox. I love ephemeral stories and I love stories that last forever. They aren’t the same thing, but also… they are the same thing.

I’m in favour of stories.

What about you?

What do you think about these sorts of lists? Do they serve a purpose, or do they just make some people feel smug and some feel inferior? Why do we read, anyway? What’s a bestseller doing?

Sarah, Suse, Blair, you’re tagged. Blogless friends, anonymous readers, what do you folks read and what you make of it all?
photo credit: guldfisken

Nothing sharpens the mind like a little blue battery icon slowly draining on the bottom right-hand side of the screen.

It’s a hot day in Melbourne and Sarah, Nicole and I have been expeditioning in Prestonland, stocking our little cottage with supplies for the week.I am planning to cook a bog standard curry; the girls have a Secret Salad up their collective sleeve.

The problem with expeditions too early in the day, of course, is that once they’re over, one feels free of any further obligation to be effective. I’m so lazy that a trip down the (literal) garden path to the hammock seems too much effort.

Today I am grateful for caffeine, ceiling fans, conversations about clairvoyance, and the couch.

Here is a photo of a little guy I miss very much at the moment.

2 mins remaining on battery. Score!

I am going to be making some big changes in my life soon.

The here is going to stay the same, at least for the moment. I’m still in love with Melbourne and the people who inhabit it. The who (me me me me) isn’t going to change in any fundamental way. The how is definitely up for grabs, but the how is never the real point, is it?* Why, that familiar refrain, is way outside the philosophical limits of this blog.

It’s the what, really, that is occupying me at the moment.

What I do immediately after waking up in the morning.

What I think about during the day.

What I do with my hands and my brain.

What fulfills me and what makes me happy in my life.

It just occurred to me that the series of ch-ch-changes to come are well summarised, like most things in life, I find, by some Ani Difranco lyrics:

what what what what what do you want from this lifetime?
how how how how how does your story line flow?
when when when when when you finally get to the punch line
where where where where where will the applause sign go?

And maybe that, right there, is the why.

I don’t think I understood what she was getting at in those lines until right now when the lyrics popped into my head. But this is exactly where it’s at for me at the moment.

It’s all about 2010 here at The Periphery, folks. Let me tell you.

* OK, the how is a bit of a bamboozler. In truth, the how is probably the biggest stumbling block. But it’s not productive to focus on those right now, is it?

Here I am, sillies! I didn’t go anywhere, not really.

What’s been going on? Oh, you know. Life, living and… ok, laziness, if I am to complete the alliteration with some honesty. (I was going to say liposuction, but that would’ve been straying from the truth.)

It’s high time to be writing again, and by golly there are things to say. But I believe in easing oneself back into these things, so for today I’m going to reassure all my loyal, beloved readers that I am indeed alive and in fact in rude health. The universe has been kind to me of late, plots are a-hatching, plans are a-building, it’s Friday night in Preston and the bogans are a-hooning.

Big kiss and a big floppy camp wave to you all. I’m baaa-aaaack!

A tiny photo of my beautiful stepsister Elke and her most precious Pippa Rin Weeks for you to adore:

Elks and Pips

A few days ago, somewhere in Turkey, someone sat down at a computer and, for reasons best known only to them, Googled the phrase “contorted acronym”.

Why?

That data is not available at this time.

To what end?

This one! They ended up here. I don’t know why, and I don’t care. It’s a glowing little experience-nugget and it’s all mine. (You can have a bit if you like, though.)

Postscript. Anyone who can see the relationship between that Google search and this blog gets a gold star.

Here’s my excuse for not honouring NaBloPoMo:

I’m moving to delightful Preston! It’s the new Thornbury, which is, I have it on good authority, the new Northcote! That’s two degrees of separation from the inner city, my friends.

It’s not just me doing the moving, though.

These charming characters will be joining me:

As well as this notorious ne’er-do-well:

Little did we know that we were taking our first family photo way back in April:

Hurray! Flower me with contratulatory comments and offers to lend us your panel van below.

I grew up listening to this spectacular Paul Simon album. The title track is one of those rich, mysteriously complex songs I previously wrote about in reference to Joni Mitchell’s work. Graceland is epic, a song you can’t even remember not knowing. To me it’s memories of sunshine and Saturday housework, it’s fun and energy and dancing in the kitchen. I can curl up and disappear in this song.

Deconstructing a song is an enjoyable thing to do (although I’m sure some would say killjoy-able). It’s also a good writing exercise for NaBloPomo, in which I have become neglectful.

The lyrics of Graceland tell the story of a man and his son on their way to visit Elvis Presley’s legendary Tennessee estate, now a museum and tourist destination. The verses take us through the narrator’s memories and the observations that frame his pilgrimage to Graceland – a journey that is mysterious, even to himself:

For reasons I cannot explain there’s some part of me wants to see Graceland.

We learn that the trip follows the breakup of a relationship (‘Losing love is like a window in your heart / Everybody sees you’re blown apart’). In this context, Graceland takes on a mythic resonance, suggesting that it represents an inner destination as well as an outer one.

The destination may also be a musical one for the narrator. This is where the real genius of the song kicks in for me, its uncanny layers of meaning. The first line of the song (and to me one of the finest song-lyric metaphors ever written) is

The Mississippi Delta was shining like a National guitar.

The narrator’s preoccupation with musical imagery in the song, from the National guitar to the looming spectre of the Graceland estate, offer a picture of a musician’s emotional landscape. As listener, I am led to feel that the journey to America’s musical Mecca is far from incidental.

The lyrics of Graceland leave us with disarray and a lingering hope:

I have reason to believe we all will be received in Graceland.

We don’t know if the narrator’s aspirations for personal and musical deliverance are met. We never quite reach Graceland in the song.

Yet there’s no listening to this song without being affected by the joy and energy of the music. This could be read as a paradox of the song; I prefer to think of it as the clue to its resolution. Built into the fabric of the song, in the dancing, the drumming, the life of it, is a message saying: “It worked! I made it!”

The inner and outer landscapes of the song – its musical body, its litter of disruption and ending – is rendered with so much joy and faith, one can’t help feeling the destination was reached after all. Somehow, the song interlaces New York City, Memphis and Soweto with disarray, hope and fulfillment. It works for me.

What about you?

(Photo courtesy of Waka Jawaka)

The vibe

I like being aware of the busy tinkle of cups and the emphysemic coffee machine. The staff have that kind of busy high that I remember from working in cafes. It’s a fun energy, a buzz that gives you the ability to remember lots of bits of information while being distracted and chatty and happy. Girl at coffee machine like a many-armed Hindu deity, reaching here, lining up cups, frothing milk there, flirting with the dreadlocky waiter. She’s performing. Makes me feel old.

The view

Sensation

Aftertaste of Hollandaise sauce; uncomfortable contrast with minty nicotine lozenge.

Gospelly R&B playing low enough to hear but not have to listen. Conducive-to-thinking music

Thought feed

Am relieved that my embarrassing text message alert can’t be heard over the buzz of the cafe. Must change that. Always distracted from changing it by the text message it heralds. And so the cycle continues.

Guy at next table reading Herald-Sun. Front page headline ‘CHOPPED UP IN BATH’ disgusts me. Why do I read so many crime novels then?

Rim of table a little uncomfortable on the undersides of my forearms as I type.

Very at ease sitting in the corner. Nothing happening behind me. I learned this technique from spy novels, now part of my personal tradecraft repertoire.

Traffic slow outside – public holiday. Traffic is the name of the cafe I’m in. Also slow. When a tram goes by the whole street shakes a bit, it’s quite an event.

Haven’t had a shower this morning. Slightly scungy skin. Dirty air.

I want to sit here every day like this. Right now.

… is, for a start, a misnomer. National Blog Posting Month? Whose national? Pfff. The cheek.

Because I broke my site last night, I have already broken the sacred covenant of NaBloPoMo, which is to post every day in November.

You may have noticed I’m using the term NaBloPoMo a lot. This is in the sincere hope it will begin to sound less stupid to me.

I’ll let you know if I make any progress.

The problem is that pomo is my student shorthand for postmodernism – probably many people’s, in fact. So what goes through my head every time I hear this contorted acronym is:

“Should we all get really excited about postmodernism?”

“Nah; blow pomo.”

Sarah, my NaBloPoMo comrade in arms, has either discovered or determined (decided?) that the theme for NaBloPoMo is dross. Given the above prose, I think I can reach for, and potentially even exceed, that theme. Every day. Without trying. Dross? I’m all over it.

I’m tempted to try and post every day on the theme of Blow Pomo. Ro Blows Pomo. Perhaps it can be the subtext.

Perhaps it already is.