2014 begins with an exploration of Environmentalism and Eco-Criticism
March 4
4pm-6pm
Horton Library
Sharon Glotfelty of the University of Nevada defines Eco-Criticism as the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment. Theorists, she continues, ask themselves questions like…
How is nature represented in this sonnet? What role does the physical setting play in the plot of this novel? Are the values expressed in this play consistent with ecological wisdom? How do our metaphors of the land influence the way we treat it? How can we characterize nature writing as a genre?
In addition to race, class, and gender, should place become a new critical category? Do men write about nature differently than women do? In what ways has literacy itself affected humankind’s relationship to the natural world? How has the concept of wilderness changed over time? In what ways and to what effect is the environmental crisis seeping into contemporary literature and popular culture?
What bearing might the science of ecology have on literary studies? How is science itself open to literary analysis? What cross-fertilization is possible between literary studies and environmental discourse in related disciplines such as history, philosophy, psychology, art history, and ethics?”
Where would you place the following images, poems, statements and ideas? Are they naïve, perhaps manipulative, pastoral kitsch that obfuscates important social, economic and environmental issues or do they demonstrate a concern for nature and human beings connection with it, which transcends political boundaries and informs debate on these issues?
1. From William Wordsworth’s Michael, a pastoral poem:
Hence he had learn’d the meaning of all winds,
Of blasts of every tone, and often-times
When others heeded not, He heard the South
Make subterraneous music, like the noise
Of Bagpipers on distant Highland hills;
The Shepherd, at such warning, of his flock
Bethought him, and he to himself would say
‘The winds are now devising work for me!’
This, as opposed to the “enlightenment” view, in which nature was seen to be able to be understood rationally and scientifically and harnessed for the use of human beings: Gerrard (2012) quotes Plumwood, “It is no coincidence that this [scientific reductionist] view of nature took hold most strongly with the rise of capitalism, which needed to turn nature into a market commodity and resource without significant moral or social constraint on availability.”
Garrard, G. (2012). Ecocriticism. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
“All it takes,” said Crake, “is the elimination of one generation. One generation of anything. Beetles, trees, microbes, scientists, speakers of French, whatever. Break the link in time between one generation and the next, and it’s game over forever.” Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood.
“Why should we tolerate a diet of weak poisons, a home in insipid surroundings, a circle of acquaintances who are not quite our enemies, the noise of motors with just enough relief to prevent insanity? Who would want to live in a world which is just not quite fatal?” Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
The last TSS-St Hilda’s Book Club meeting for 2013 will take place on
Wednesday October 30 from 3:45pm at The Southport School’s Senior Library.
In Term 4 we will explore ideas of “the warrior” in books and film.
Who are Warriors today? Are environmental activists / eco-terrorists? Are characters like Elizabeth Bennett in Pride and Prejudice warrior like in any way? Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Don Quixote? King Arthur (and his image)? Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird? The children of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and/or the computer programmers in Douglas Coupland’s Microserfs?
It just wouldn’t be Book Club without a Game of Thrones mention: who is the more effective, admirable, sophisticated warrior figure in the first few books of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series? Consider Brienne of Tarth, an illogically loyal female ex-Kingsguard, who refuses to compromise her mission or the ideal of a ‘true knight’ or Eddard Stark, a naive Lord who vocally goes up against the ruling powers by objecting to a political assassination and is himself assassinated when he refuses to bend or break his moral code? Are the true warrior/s in this series in fact the characters who scheme and plot, controlling the political landscape and dealing in information, gossip and blackmail? Is the ‘true’ warrior the character that succeeds and defeats? How is this ‘success’ measured, can this only be done in hindsight? Does the idea of ‘warrior’ intrinsically suggest action or do the conscientious objector and peaceful protestor fall under the same label?”
We invite interested people to read the book or watch the film, “The Reluctant Fundamentalist”
Is a warrior only a warrior when he/she is legitimised or given tasks by a higher power? Think of how the Don Quixote character (from the novel of the same name by Miguel de Cervantes) is treated because he is alternatively naive, ridiculous and fighting a hopeless battle. Is this character any less admirable because his good intentions are slightly (or completely) divorced from reality? Think about how the text itself and readers and critics view the character- and contemporary characters loosely based or inspired by Don Quixote, like Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story and Will McAvoy from The Newsroom…
“The most obvious way in which the first of the two films integrates the discourse of the novel is through character transference. Don Quixote has “morphed” (to use the terminology of children’s television programs like the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers) into Buzz Lightyear, a high-tech action figure toy who refuses to accept his status as such, and insists—all evidence to the contrary—that he is a genuine “space ranger.” As in Don Quixote, Buzz constantly (perhaps deliberately) misreads reality in an attempt to play this self-assigned role. Sancho Panza has become the rustic (although admittedly very thin) Woody, a low-tech cowboy doll who serves as a foil for Buzz, and who, throughout the film, suffers hardship and physical abuse due to his acquaintance with this deluded newcomer” (p.158-9).
With dystopian fiction, film and television increasingly popular, can the only true contemporary action warrior (or its equivalent) be the character that R. W. B. Lewis describes as “the American Adam”: “an individual emancipated from history, happily bereft of ancestry, untouched and undefiled by the usual inheritances of family and race; an individual standing alone, self-reliant and self-propelling, ready to confront whatever awaited him with the aid of his own unique and inherent resources.” What connection, if any, do you believe this popular figure in fiction- young adult and children’s especially- has with being a teenager and this stage of development?
What do you think of……(from “The Four Archetypes of the Mature Masculine”) “…But in general, modern culture is not comfortable with Warrior energy. The advent of mechanized warfare during the first half of the 20th century dampened the romantic ideal of martial courage. Since the social and cultural revolutions of the 60s and 70s, we’ve generally taught boys and men to avoid confrontation and conflict and to instead nurture their “feminine side.” The result is the Nice Guy; the man who will avoid confrontation and aggression even when confrontation and aggression are justified.
Society pushes men to be sweet and sensitive, because they fear them becoming coldly stoic, abusive, and destructively angry. But society’s perception of the Warrior archetype is not based on the Warrior energy in its full, healthy manifestation, but on the archetype’s shadows. The problem is not Warrior energy itself, but Warrior energy that is not used in harmony with the other masculine archetypes and directed by empathy, contemplation, and order. Fighting itself is not bad, the question is simply: What is a man fighting for? The Warrior’s energy is needed not only in times of war, but on all the battlefields of life.
Properly tapping into the Warrior’s energy provides a man with an unsurpassable power source which will fuel him to reach his goals, fight for worthy causes, achieve greatness, and leave a lasting legacy.”
How do we recognise a warrior? What traits does the ideal warrior possess? What novels, plays, films or television feature what you consider the best, most interesting or problematic representations or embodiment of the warrior figure?
Consider…(from War and the Soul by Edward Ticj, PhD.)
“A Warrior is not just one who has been to war and returned. Warrior has been recognized as a social role that has occurred since the beginning of time. Becoming a warrior is an achievement of character. Veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can use the ideal of warriorhood as a guide for healing.
What are the characteristics of the Warrior? The ideal Warrior is assertive, active and energized. He or she is clear-minded, strategic, and alert. A warrior uses both body and mind in harmony and cooperation. A warrior is disciplined. A warrior assesses both his own skills and resources and those of his opponent. A warrior is a servant of civilization and its future – guiding, protecting, and passing on information and wisdom. A warrior is devoted to causes he judges to be more important than himself or any personal relationships or gain. Having confronted death, a warrior knows how precious life is and does not abuse or profane it.”
(Cont’d) “Each of these traits has shadow dimensions as well, which can emerge when the warrior is imbalanced, inadequately trained, or traumatized. Shadow traits may include aggression, vengefulness, or cruelty. Instead of exercising discipline and control, the warrior may show wildness, emotional explosiveness, and impulsivity. He may be hypersexual and compulsive. At his shadowy worst, the warrior becomes masochistic or sadistic. These traits they are commonly unleashed during warfare. But they do not embody the ideal Warrior’s virtue.
The Warrior ideal needs specific conditions to be realized successfully. Initiates need to experience a complete process from training through proving. The process begins early with children listening to warrior stories from their families and culture and then playing warrior games. Later, through formal and informal means, elders guide young people in developing the skills and awareness of warriorhood. Initiates are tested in numerous ways. Their ultimate test traditionally comes in battle. If they survive, the test must be repeated as long as they are required or able to serve. Through that survival and successful service, they prove themselves worthy of being deemed one of their culture’s warriors.”
Some books, films and television series you may like to look at in preparation…
Medea by Euripides
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
So Much Pretty by Cara Hoffman (senior students)
The Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Snow White and the Huntsman
A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin
The Aunt’s Story by Patrick White
Erin Brockovich
Alien
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by J. McIver Weatherford
Microserfs by Douglas Coupland
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf by Ambelin Kwaymullina
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Eva Luna and Ines of my Soul by Isabel Allende
The Earthsea Trilogy by Ursula le Guin
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Sophie Scholl: The Final Days
Sky Burial by Xue Xinran
Strandloper by Alan Garner
The Vikings (senior students, series available on DVC)
Gladiator
Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
Term 3: 21 August (3:30-5:30) at St Hilda’s Horton Library
This term we have selected some novels relating to the topic of BETRAYAL; included on the list are novels considered classics in Australian and European literature, as well as some genre and young adult fiction.
Please ensure you read at least one from the list, all are available from the school (and Gold Coast) library.
To know the complexities of truth, an encounter with betrayal is inevitable. If all that was is known simply is/was, then there would be no need for the concept of “truth”. Things in memory and history would “be” and be distinguishable at all times from myth and imagination. This is clearly not the case.
Similarly, in coming to know oneself, an encounter with betrayal is inevitably felt. If the individual were born a blank sheet- with no biological or social connections with others that precede life, then one would not feel the separation of one from another, in the growth of one’s self as a “self”, at all.
So, it is held here, we are all bound to feel betrayed and/or to betray at some time.
Writers, as you can imagine, have explored the territories of betrayal since writing began.
For Term 3 we propose to explore the idea of Betrayal in literature, with a particular focus on two Australian writers David Malouf and Sonya Hartnett but alongside writers from now and then and near and far- thereby situating Australian writing with other writing- sometimes leading, sometimes retelling for “us” stories and histories which connect and express our or, simply, “a” truth in the world and its betrayal.
READING LIST
Hermann Hesse, TheJourney to the East
In the novel, Siddhartha, a young man, leaves his family for a contemplative life, then, restless, discards it for one of the flesh. He conceives a son, but bored and sickened by lust and greed, moves on again. Near despair, Siddhartha comes to a river where he hears a unique sound. This sound signals the true beginning of his life — the beginning of suffering, rejection, peace, and, finally, wisdom.
or Siddhartha
In simple, mesmerizing prose, Hermann Hesse’s Journey to the East tells of a journey both geographic and spiritual. H.H., a German choirmaster, is invited on an expedition with the League, a secret society whose members include Paul Klee, Mozart, and Albertus Magnus. The participants traverse both space and time, encountering Noah’s Ark in Zurich and Don Quixote at Bremgarten. The pilgrims’ ultimate destination is the East, the “Home of the Light,” where they expect to find spiritual renewal. Yet the harmony that ruled at the outset of the trip soon degenerates into open conflict. Each traveler finds the rest of the group intolerable and heads off in his own direction, with H.H. bitterly blaming the others for the failure of the journey. It is only long after the trip, while poring over records in the League archives, that H.H. discovers his own role in the dissolution of the group, and the ominous significance of the journey itself.
Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl (senior students only)
On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears from their rented McMansion on the Mississippi River. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but passages from Amy’s diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media—as well as Amy’s fiercely doting parents—the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter—but is he really a killer?
Ian McEwan, Atonement
On a hot summer day in 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses a moment’s flirtation between her older sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the son of a servant and Cecilia’s childhood friend. But Briony’s incomplete grasp of adult motives—together with her precocious literary gifts—brings about a crime that will change all their lives. As it follows that crime’s repercussions through the chaos and carnage of World War II and into the close of the twentieth century, Atonement engages the reader on every conceivable level, with an ease and authority that mark it as a genuine masterpiece.
Jesse Andrews, Me and Earl and the dying girl
Greg Gaines is the last master of high school espionage, able to disappear at will into any social environment. He has only one friend, Earl, and together they spend their time making movies, their own incomprehensible versions of Coppola and Herzog cult classics.
Until Greg’s mother forces him to rekindle his childhood friendship with Rachel.
Rachel has been diagnosed with leukemia—-cue extreme adolescent awkwardness—-but a parental mandate has been issued and must be obeyed. When Rachel stops treatment, Greg and Earl decide the thing to do is to make a film for her, which turns into the Worst Film Ever Made and becomes a turning point in each of their lives.
And all at once Greg must abandon invisibility and stand in the spotlight.
Sonya Hartnett
Of a Boy
The book is set in 1977 and tells the story of Adrian McPhee, who’s been abandoned by his parents and is now living with his grandmother and his drop-out uncle, Rory, in an undefined suburb in Australia. He is a shy, timid boy, frightened of almost everything, including “quicksand, tidal waves, fire, monsters, cupboards, being forgotten and going astray”. The all-pervasive fear is not helped by the recent disappearance of three young children from a nearby neighbourhood, which fills the news pages and has teachers and parents on edge.
When a strange new family moves in across the road, Adrian can’t help wondering if the three children — Nicole, Joely and Giles — are the three children who went out for ice-cream and never came home. When he befriends them his small, closeted and lonely world begins to open up…
The book is set in 1977 and tells the story of Adrian McPhee, who’s been abandoned by his parents and is now living with his grandmother and his drop-out uncle, Rory, in an undefined suburb in Australia. He is a shy, timid boy, frightened of almost everything, including “quicksand, tidal waves, fire, monsters, cupboards, being forgotten and going astray”. The all-pervasive fear is not helped by the recent disappearance of three young children from a nearby neighbourhood, which fills the news pages and has teachers and parents on edge.
When a strange new family moves in across the road, Adrian can’t help wondering if the three children — Nicole, Joely and Giles — are the three children who went out for ice-cream and never came home. When he befriends them his small, closeted and lonely world begins to open up…
Midnight Zoo
Two gypsy boys are fleeing through a war-ravaged country-side during the night carrying a secret bundle. The boys stumble across a town that has been reduced to smoking rubble, and a zoo that is still intact. When the boys take shelter in the zoo, they discover a menagerie of talking animals. Both the boys and the animals tell their tales and their desire for freedom.
Like The Silver Donkey and The Ghost’s Child, this is another beautiful fable-like tale that will move you to tears. It’s a story that will appeal to all ages; as with any fine book that merges history with fantasy, adults will enjoy reading this as much as children.
Butterfly
Plum Coyle is on the edge of adolescence. Her fourteenth birthday is approaching, when her old life and her old body will fall away, and she will become graceful, powerful, and at ease. The strength of the objects she stores in a briefcase under her bed —a crystal lamb, a yoyo, an antique watch, a coin —will make sure of it. Over the next couple of weeks, Plum’s life will change. Her beautiful neighbor Maureen will begin to show Plum how she might fly. The older brothers she adores will court catastrophe in worlds that she barely knows exist. And her friends, her worst enemies, will tease and test, smelling weakness. They will try to lead her on and take her down. BUTTERFLY is a gripping, disquieting, beautifully observed coming-of-age novel by an acclaimed author at the top of her form.
Surrender
As life slips away, Gabriel looks back over his brief twenty years, which have been clouded by frustration and humiliation. A small, unforgiving town and distant, punitive parents ensure that he is never allowed to forget the horrific mistake he made as a child. He has only two friends – his dog, Surrender, and the unruly wild boy, Finnigan, a shadowy doppelganger with whom the meek Gabriel once made a boyhood pact. But when a series of arson attacks grips the town, Gabriel realizes how unpredictable and dangerous Finnigan is. As events begin to spiral violently out of control, it becomes devastatingly clear that only the most extreme measures will rid Gabriel of Finnigan for good.
David Malouf
Ransom
A novel of suffering, sorrow, and redemption, Ransom tells the story of the relationship between two grieving men at war: fierce Achilles, who has lost his beloved Patroclus in the siege of Troy; and Priam, king of Troy, whose son Hector killed Patroclus and was in turn savaged by Achilles. Each man’s grief demands a confrontation with the other’s if it is to be resolved: a resolution more compelling to both than the demands of war. And when the aged father and the murderer of his son meet, the past and present blend, enemies exchange places, hatred turns to understanding, youth pities age mourning youth.
Dream Stuff
An eleven-year-old boy sees his father in his own elongated shadow only to realize that he will not return from the war. In a parting moment, a young woman hired to “marry” vacationing soldiers, grasps the weight of the word “woe.” When a failing farmer senselessly murders a wandering aborigine, he imperils his son but discovers in the spring of sympathy that follows the power to influence others.
Remembering Babylon
In this rich and compelling novel, written in language of astonishing poise and resonance, one of Australia’s greatest living writers gives and immensely powerful vision of human differences and eternal divisions. In the mid-1840s a thirteen-year-old British cabin boy, Gemmy Fairley, is cast ashore in the far north of Australia and taken in by aborigines. Sixteen years later he moves back into the world of Europeans, among hopeful yet terrified settlers who are staking out their small patch of home in an alien place. To them, Gemmy stands as a different kind of challenge: he is a force that at once fascinates and repels. His own identity in this new world is as unsettling to him as the knowledge he brings to others of the savage, the aboriginal.
Johnno
Brought back to Australia by the death of his father, Dante is sorting through his father’s belonging when he comes across a photograph of Johnno, a long-time friend. The photograph stirs up a lifetime of memories for Dante, leading him to finally set Johnno’s story–which has haunted him for years–on paper. An outrageous character of legendary proportions, Johnno is brought top life in all his complexity, beginning with his days at Brisbane Grammar School, when he and Dante first become friends, to the days they spend together in Paris, Johnno’s inexplicable rages and periodic transformations are recounted until we come to know him–without ever quite understanding him.
We begin by asking some questions. Are loyalty and betrayal mutually exclusive? To what and to whom do we owe fidelity and how and why do we pervert it? We will seek—and maybe answer—questions like these as we examine works from Shakespeare to Hartnett via Steinbeck, Tolstoy, Flaubert and Brecht.
We will explore the relations between the seemingly contradictory patterns of behavior that are our theme and the ways in which artists have dealt with them for half a millennium in drama, prose, fiction and film.
The works we will discuss treat several objects of betrayal its opposite- loyalty, among them, friends, family, lovers, the state, ethnicity, religion, and the self. We will try to understand how these works explore and express conflicts of allegiance in and between their characters and how these conflicts are experienced by those characters and their audience. Another question we will grapple with is ways in which the author betrays the audience’s expectations.
You may also like to watch some films- a few we recommend…
“A little nonsense now and then is cherished by the wisest men.”
Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator
For example:
Is this funny?
“There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.” Erma Bombeck
Is this?
“Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making them puke.” Steve Martin
And this?
One of my favourites is from Kerouac’s On the Road:
“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing but burn, burn, burn like fabulous roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars…”
A small selection of novels…
48 Shades of Brown by Nick Earls
90 Packets of Instant Noodles by Deb Fitzpatrick
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding
Farewell Waltz by Milan Kundera
Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby
Flight by Shermann Alexie
Flush by Carl Hiaasen
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
How to be good by Nick Hornby
Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby
Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
Matilda by Roald Dahl
Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams
Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare
Paper towns by John Green
Portoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
Small World by David Lodge
Straight Man by Richard Russo
Swamplandia! By Karen Russell
Tales of the Unexpected by Roald Dahl
The code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse.
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth by Alexandra Robbins
The Great Automatic Grammatizator and Other Stories by Roald Dahl
The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh
The Witches by Roald Dahl
Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne
Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon
Zombie Spaceship Wasteland by Patton Oswalt
“I’m going to hell,… but you’re laughing, so you’re coming” Dane Cook
An even smaller selection of DVDs…
The Office (TV series)
Dr Strangelove, Or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb
Death at a funeral
The Breakfast Club
Pretty in Pink
Duck Soup
Thank You For Smoking
Annie Hall
“Comedy is much more difficult than tragedy-and a much better training, I think. It’s much easier to make people cry than to make them laugh.” Vivien Leigh
Octavia E. Butler (b.1947), short fiction writer, novelist, and science fiction writer. Hugo and Nebula award—winning author, and a MacArthur Fellow, Octavia E. Butler was born on 22 June 1947 in Pasadena, California. Butler has helped to enrich the ever-expanding genre of speculative fiction by adding to it a previously excluded experience: the African American female’s. She makes a way out of no way by drawing on her experiences growing up in one of America’s most culturally diverse states. In struggling against the odds of racism and sexism, breaking into and publishing prolifically in America and abroad in the predominantly white and male dominated science fiction genre, Butler has made a substantial contribution to African American culture and literature. Read more.
Author of Lilith’s Brood, thePatternistand theParableseries.
Fledgling
“…doesn’t just resurrect the pale trappings of vampire lore, it completely transforms them in a startlingly original story about race, family and free will.” — Ron Charles
Washington Post.
“At first glance, Fledgling’s only flaw is that it ends. Yet the conclusion is a satisfying one, with no loose ends. The real problem is that despite this, it leaves the reader wanting more. More Shori. More Ina. In a word, more books.”— Nisi Shawl, The Seattle Times
“Butler is one of the finest voices in fiction — period…. A master storyteller, Butler casts an unflinching eye on racism, sexism, poverty, and ignorance and lets the reader see the terror and beauty of human nature.”— Washington Post Book World
St. Hilda’s and The Southport School team up for some novelistic appreciation! Starting in 2012, we will together select authors and students will pick one of the author’s novels to read.
Why not get a head start and borrow one over the holidays?
Patrick Ness:The Knife of Never Letting Go, Monsters of Men, Topics About Which I Know Nothing. Patrick Ness was born in the US in 1971. He read English Literature at the University of Southern California, and worked as a corporate writer at a cable company, before the publication of his first novel, The Crash of Hennington, in 2003. His second book was a collection of short stories, Topics About Which I Know Nothing (2004). In 2008, he published the first in his ‘Chaos Walking’ trilogy for young adults, The Knife of Never Letting Go. It is set in a dystopian world where everyone can hear everyone else’s thoughts. This book won the 2008 Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize and the Booktrust Teenage Prize, and was shortlisted for the 2009 Carnegie Medal. In 2009, the second book in the trilogy, The Ask and the Answer, won the Costa Children’s Book Award. The third book, Monsters of Men, was published in 2010. Patrick Ness has taught Creative Writing at Oxford University, and written journalism and criticism for the Sunday Telegraph, the Daily Telegraph, and the Times Literary Supplement. He currently reviews books for The Guardian. He has also been a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund, and in 2009 was the first Writer in Residence for Booktrust.
Sonya Hartnett:Butterfly, The Ghost’s Child, Thursday’s Child, The Silver Donkey. Sonya Hartnett was born in Australia in 1968. Her first book, Trouble All the Way (1984), was published when she was just 15 years old, and since then she has written many more books of fiction. Her novels have been published traditionally as young adult fiction, but her writing often crosses the divide and is also enjoyed by adults. In both 2000 and 2003, Sonya Hartnett was named one of The Sydney Morning Herald Young Novelists of the Year. The Silver Donkey and Surrender were published in 2004 and 2005 respectively, the latter shortlisted for a 2006 Commonwealth Writers Prize. In the same year, she was awarded the prestigious Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award. Her latest book is Butterfly (2009).
Cormac McCarthy:No Country for Old Men, The Road, The Crossing, All the Pretty Horses. Cormac McCarthy’s first novel, The Orchard Keeper (1965), won a Faulkner Award, and subsequent grants and fellowships allowed him to continue writing novels while he lived in Tennessee and Texas. Although his novels Outer Dark (1968), Child of God (1973) and Suttree (1979) solidified his literary reputation, he was relatively unknown until 1985’s Blood Meridian, a violent epic about the American west. During the ’90s McCarthy, hailed as a prose stylist in the tradition of Hemingway and Faulkner, became famous for his literary westerns called The Border Trilogy: All the Pretty Horses (1992), The Crossing (1994) and Cities on the Plain (1998). His other novels include No Country for Old Men (2005) and The Road (2006). Read more.
David Malouf:Fly Away Peter, Ransom, Dream Stuff, An Imaginary Life, Remembering Babylon.
David Malouf is the author of short story collections The Complete Stories (winner of the Australia Asia Literary Award),
Dream Stuff (‘These stories are pearls,’ – Spectator) and Every Move You Make and of acclaimed novels including The Great World (winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ and Miles Franklin Prizes) and Remembering Babylon (shortlisted for the Booker Prize and winner of the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award). His most recent work Ransom was shortlisted The Age Book of the Year Award and the Qld Premier’s Literary Award and the Prime Minister’s Literary Award, the IMPAC Dublin Literary prize and Longlisted for the Man Booker International prize. He also writes poetry, drama and libretti for operas.
Douglas Coupland:Life After God, Girlfriend in a Coma, The Gum Thief, Player One. Douglas Coupland (b.1961) is a Canadian novelist. His fiction is complemented by recognized works in design and visual art arising from his early formal training. His first novel, the 1991 international bestseller Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, popularized terms such as McJob and Generation X. He has published thirteen novels, a collection of short stories, seven non-fiction books, and a number of dramatic works and screenplays for film and television. Coupland has been described as “…possibly the most gifted exegete of North American mass culture writing today.” and “one of the great satirists of consumerism.”A specific feature of Coupland’s novels is their synthesis of postmodern religion, Web 2.0 technology, human sexuality, and pop culture. Read more.
Patrick White:Fringe of Leaves, Eye of the Storm, The Aunt’s Story, Voss, The Tree of Man. Patrick White was born in England in 1912. He was taken to Australia (where his father owned a sheep farm) when he was six months old, but educated in England, at Cheltenham College and King’s College, Cambridge. He settled in London, where he wrote several unpublished novels, then served in the RAF during the Second World War. He returned after the war to Australia, where he became the most considerable figure in modern Australian literature before being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1973. His position as a man of letters was controversial, provoked by his unpredictable public statements and his belief that it is eccentric individuals who offer the only hope of salvation. Technically brilliant, he is one modern novelist to whom the oft-abused epithet ‘visionary’ can safely be applied. He died in September 1990.
George Orwell:1984, Animal Farm, Down and Out in London and Paris, The Road to Wigan Pier. George Orwell (b.1903) was the pen name of Eric Blair, the author of Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). He was born in India and educated in England, and as a young man he spent seven years in Burma working for the Indian Imperial Police. He returned to Europe and in 1933 published his first book, Down and Out in Paris and London, a first-hand account of his self-imposed poverty. He wrote dozens of political essays, but is most famous for his dark satire of Stalinist totalitarianism, Animal Farm (with its famous quote: “All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others”), and for his description of modern dystopia in Nineteen Eighty-Four (“Big Brother is watching you.”). Read more.
Octavia E. Butler:Fledging, Kindred, Lilith’s Brood, the Patternist and the Parable series.
Octavia E. Butler (b.1947), short fiction writer, novelist, and science fiction writer. Hugo and Nebula award—winning author, and a MacArthur Fellow, Octavia E. Butler was born on 22 June 1947 in Pasadena, California. Butler has helped to enrich the ever-expanding genre of speculative fiction by adding to it a previously excluded experience: the African American female’s. She makes a way out of no way by drawing on her experiences growing up in one of America’s most culturally diverse states. In struggling against the odds of racism and sexism, breaking into and publishing prolifically in America and abroad in the predominantly white and male dominated science fiction genre, Butler has made a substantial contribution to African American culture and literature. Read more.
“Winner of the National Book Award, White Noise tells the story of Jack Gladney, his fourth wife, Babette, and four ultramodern offspring as they navigate the rocky passages of family life to the background babble of brand-name consumerism. When an industrial accident unleashes an “airborne toxic event,” a lethal black chemical cloud floats over their lives. The menacing cloud is a more urgent and visible version of the “white noise” engulfing the Gladneys-radio transmissions, sirens, microwaves, ultrasonic appliances, and TV murmurings-pulsing with life, yet suggesting something ominous” (description from goodreads)
Big Mouth and Ugly Girl by Joyce Carol Oates
“Ever make a stupid comment or joke, or say something you obviously didn’t mean? Of course you have — we all have. Was it ever taken out of context? Written in the wake of some highly publicized school shootings, Big Mouth & Ugly Girl takes a look at the shock waves that emanate from an overheard comment muttered in sarcasm, and the overzealous reaction of the school and surrounding community that follows.
High school junior Matt Donaghy is considered an okay guy. He gets good grades, writes for the school paper, is in the Drama Club, and is known for his witty, if immature, humor. Students and teachers seem to like him. But one day he says something that makes a few classmates think he’s out to bomb the school. The school principal is notified, the police are called in, and rumors are abuzz. Even his buddies doubt his innocence, and none of the guys come forward in his defense. There is, however, someone else who overheard Matt’s statement and understood his mocking intent. School renegade Ursula Riggs, or “Ugly Girl” as she refers to herself, doesn’t know Matt very well but reveals what she heard and the context in which it was said — even though her parents instruct her to mind her own business. But even if Ursula can help Matt clear up this misunderstanding, will life at Rocky River High School ever be the same again?” (description from Barnes & Noble).
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
This breakout book by Alison Bechdel takes its place alongside the unnerving, memorable, darkly funny family memoirs of Augusten Burroughs and Mary Karr. It’s a father-daughter tale pitch-perfectly illustrated with Bechdel’s sweetly gothic drawings and like Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis a story exhilaratingly suited to the graphic memoir form. Meet Alison’s father, a historic preservation expert and obsessive restorer of the family’s Victorian house, a third-generation funeral home director, a high school English teacher, an icily distant parent, and a closeted homosexual who, as it turns out, is involved with male students and a family babysitter. Through narrative that is alternately heartbreaking and fiercely funny, we are drawn into a daughter’s complex yearning for her father. And yet, apart from assigned stints dusting caskets at the family-owned “fun home,” as Alison and her brothers call it, the relationship achieves its most intimate expression through the shared code of books. When Alison comes out as homosexual herself in late adolescence, the denouement is swift . . . graphic . . . and redemptive (goodreads).
Orpheus Lost: A Novel by Janette Turner Hospital
Leela is a mathematician who has escaped her Southern hometown to study in Boston. She meets an Australian musician, Mishka, and from the moment she first hears him play his music grips her; they quickly become lovers. Then one day Leela is picked up off the street and taken to an interrogation center somewhere outside the city. There has been an explosion in the subway; terrorism is suspected. The interrogator—an old childhood friend—now reveals to her that Mishka may not be all he seems. In this compelling reimagining of the Orpheus story, Leela travels into an underworld of kidnapping, torture, and despair in search of her lover. Janette Turner Hospital, whose works are “richly imbued with a highly lyrical and luminous quality” again shows her genius, interweaving a literary thriller with a story of passion and the triumph of decency in confusing and dangerous times (goodreads).
And the Ass Saw the Angel by Nick Cave
Euchrid Eucrow – outcast among outcasts. Born mute to a drunken mother and a father who spends his days building vicious traps and his nights building delicate towers of cards. Euchrid has a mind that seethes with words to express his vision of the world around him.” It is Euchrid alone – ever hidden to escape the town’s self-righteous rage, finding more compassion in the family mule than in his fellow man who will grasp the cruel fate of Cosey Mo, the beautiful young prostitute in the pink caravan on Hooper’s hill. And as years pass and events unfold, it is Euchrid, driven farther and farther from the human fold, deeper and deeper into his mad angelic vision, who will both redeem the town and its people with his pain and sacrifice – and wreak a terrible vengeance (goodreads).
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
Enzo knows he is different from other dogs: a philosopher with a nearly human soul (and an obsession with opposable thumbs), he has educated himself by watching television extensively, and by listening very closely to the words of his master, Denny Swift, an up-and-coming race car driver. Through Denny, Enzo has gained tremendous insight into the human condition, and he sees that life, like racing, isn’t simply about going fast. Using the techniques needed on the race track, one can successfully navigate all of life’s ordeals.
On the eve of his death, Enzo takes stock of his life, recalling all that he and his family have been through. In the end, despite what he sees as his own limitations, Enzo comes through heroically to preserve the Swift family, holding in his heart the dream that Denny will become a racing champion with Zoë at his side. A heart-wrenching but deeply funny and ultimately uplifting story of family, love, loyalty, and hope, The Art of Racing in the Rain is a beautifully crafted and captivating look at the wonders and absurdities of human life…as only a dog could tell it (goodreads).
A Fraction the Whole by Steve Toltz
“The fact is, the whole of Australia despises my father more than any other man, just as they adore my uncle more than any other man. I might as well set the story straight about both of them . . .”
Heroes or Criminals?
Crackpots or Visionaries?
Families or Enemies?
“. . . Anyway, you know how it is. Every family has a story like this one.”
Most of his life, Jasper Dean couldn’t decide whether to pity, hate, love, or murder his certifiably paranoid father, Martin, a man who overanalyzed anything and everything and imparted his self-garnered wisdom to his only son. But now that Martin is dead, Jasper can fully reflect on the crackpot who raised him in intellectual captivity, and what he realizes is that, for all its lunacy, theirs was a grand adventure.
As he recollects the events that led to his father’s demise, Jasper recounts a boyhood of outrageous schemes and shocking discoveries—about his infamous outlaw uncle Terry, his mysteriously absent European mother, and Martin’s constant losing battle to make a lasting mark on the world he so disdains. It’s a story that takes them from the Australian bush to the cafes of bohemian Paris, from the Thai jungle to strip clubs, asylums, labyrinths, and criminal lairs, and from the highs of first love to the lows of failed ambition. The result is a rollicking rollercoaster ride from obscurity to infamy, and the moving, memorable story of a father and son whose spiritual symmetry transcends all their many shortcomings. A Fraction of the Whole is an uproarious indictment of the modern world and its mores and the epic debut of the blisteringly funny and talented Steve Toltz (goodreads).
Our first meeting will be held in H5 in the Horton Library on Tuesday the 25th of October, 2011 at 12:45pm.
Drinks and snacks provided.
We will be discussing:
Microserfs by Douglas Coupland
Douglas Coulpland is a witty writer with a crafted and formidable pop style.
“Coupland’s writing is a fast river of fresh perspective and comic dialogue” – Houston Chronicle
At Microsoft, Dan, Susan, Abe, Todd, and Bug are struggling to get a life. The job may be super cool, the pay may be astronomical, but they’re heading nowhere. However hard they work and however many shares they earn, they’re never going to be as rich as Bill and with all the hours they’re putting in, their best relationships are on email. They decide that something has got to give…
“People our age are abandoning the tech megacultures in droves, starting up their own companies, or joining small, content-based start-ups. There’s a recruiting frenzy going on…”
More quotes from this hilarious book:
“Work crawled to a standstill today as Bug shared anagram software that spits out all the combinations of words you can make with your name. Michael was mad, because we lost several combined people-hours doing it. Everyone’s faxing and emailing their relatives and friends their name-as-anagram for Christmas tomorrow. It’s the low-budget gift-giving solution…”
“It seems everybody’s trying to find a word that expresses more bigness than the mere word “supermodel” – hyper model – gigamodel – megamodel. Michael suggested that our inability to come up with a word bigger than supermodel reflects our inability to deal with the crushing weight of history we’ve created for ourselves as species.”
You can download Microserfs as an iBook or borrow a print copy from the Senior Library.
At the library, you’ll also find other titles by Douglas Coupland:
Hence he had learn’d the meaning of all winds,
readinginthedark 