Reading matters

'The Spare Room' by Helen Garner

Fiction - hardcover; Canongate; 180 pages; 2008.

Even before I started reading Helen Garner's The Spare Room I knew I was going to like it. It was the design of the book that convinced me, because surely a publisher wouldn't go to all this trouble to make it look so beautiful if the content was rubbish? The cover image grabbed me initially when I ordered it online, but once I had it in my possession I loved the whole package: the gorgeous cover image (tulips are my favourite flowers); the dust jacket with its luxurious matt sheen; the pretty endpapers (tulip petals interspersed with green leaves); and a green bound bookmark.

But putting the sheer physical beauty of the book aside, The Spare Room is also rather special because it is Garner's first novel in 16 years. Her last novel, Cosmo Comolino, was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award in 1992, but she then took a different writing path, concentrating on short stories and journalism. The first (and only) Garner I have read was The First Stone, a non-fiction account of a sexual harassment scandal at a residential college at the University of Melbourne, which caused much controversy upon publication in 1995. I ate that book up in the course of a day and closed the last page feeling dazed, slightly dirty and not quite sure whether the author was a genius or a traitor. Having now read The Spare Room my opinion lies toward the former rather than the latter.

That other great Australian author Peter Carey endorses Garner's talent by describing her new book as a "perfect novel".  Of course this is an oft overused trite phrase but, in this specific case, it's a wholly appropriate one. In fact, I'd go so far as to describe it as a sublime novel, and one that works its way into your subconscious so that you find yourself thinking about it when you are doing other things.

Reviewing the book is difficult though, because the synopsis sounds terribly dull and depressing. A 60-something woman offers her spare room to a cancer-stricken friend of the same age and then finds their relationship tested to the core, doesn't really grab you by the throat, does it? And yet, in Garner's careful hands this story becomes a thoroughly engrossing one. The carefully measured prose, stripped of unnecessary clutter, serves to remove the claustrophobia of such a dark storyline, imbuing it with a light-hearted touch. Indeed, there were many times when I laughed out loud, not the least of when Nicola, the cancer sufferer, asks Helen, the friend caring for her, to buy some organic coffee for an enema.

When I saw her brewing the organic coffee in the kitchen after dinner, I said tentatively, 'Do you need a hand to set it up? I can...'
She shook her head, too busy to listen.
'I wonder, though,' I said, as she forged off to the bathroom with the equipment. 'Is it a good idea to have a coffee enema at bedtime? You don't think the caffeine might keep you awake?'
'Why on earth would it do that, darling?' she said breezily. 'I won't be drinking it -- I'll only be putting it up my bum.'

Supposedly based on Garner's own experience of caring for a dying friend, The Spare Room has a genuine ring of authenticity about it. You can understand Helen's anger, her fear, her inability to look after her dying friend, even if it is for just three weeks, because you know to be in a similar situation you'd probably feel the same way. Why should a friend do what a family member should be doing? And what happens if this friend dies in your spare room?

This is a novel about death and friendship, about drawing lines and crossing them, about facing up to hard truths and shying away from things we'd rather not confront. But it also embraces other uncomfortable issues, including whether it is permissible to believe in alternative therapies if Western medicine does not have a solution, but all the while it never preaches, never comes across as heavy or patronising.

The Spare Room is one of those books that throws you in at the deep end and, to completely mix my metaphors, you either run with it or you don't. I'm pleased to say I ran with it... and only wished it was longer than its brief 180 pages.

'The End of the Affair' by Graham Greene

Fiction - paperback; Vintage; 191 pages; 2003.

Is there anyone out there who doesn't know the basic premise of this book, which was first published in 1951 and has remained in print ever since? It must be the late Graham Greene's most famous novel. It's been adapted for the screen twice -- in 1955, starring Deborah Kerr and Van Johnson, and in 1999 starring Julianne Moore and Ralph Fiennes -- and transformed into an opera in 2004 by the American composer and pianist Jake Heggie.

I've long wanted to read it -- encouraged by several other bloggers, it must be said -- but it took me a few years to get my act together. I don't know why I waited so long. The End of the Affair is a dark but ultimately compelling tale about one man's tortured relationship with a woman he cannot have and the decisions people make that impact on the rest of their lives.

'The Clearing' by Tim Gautreaux

Fiction - paperback; Sceptre; 374 pages; 2003.

The fetid, snake-ridden swamps of Louisiana come alive in this dark, depressing and violent tale set in a lawless logging camp during the 1920s.

Two brothers rule the roost here. Randolph Aldridge is the mill manager, while his elder brother, Bryon, is the town's policeman. But their brotherly bond is not as straightforward as it seems.

Byron had initially been groomed by his father, a Pennsylvania lumber baron, to take over the family business. But then he enlisted in the First World War, from which he returned a broken man. Unable to stand the pressure of his father's expectations, Byron fled the family home in Pittsburgh, never to be heard of again...

Randolph stepped into the breach and learned the family business. But when his father discovers that Byron has been employed as a lawman in a cypress mill down south, he buys the mill and its tract of lumber. He then sends Randolph to manage it and to convince Byron to return back home, far from an easy task.

What Randolph, a city man born and bred, finds when he moves to the Nimbus Mill leaves him numbed and shocked. Not only is his brother mentally unstable and prone to be a little trigger-happy, the timber town is incredibly violent. Racism, gambling and drinking is rife.

When Randolph decides to close the local saloon on a Sunday to curb the workers' rampant alcoholism little does he know that he may as well begin digging his own grave: the saloon's owner, a Sicilian with organised crime connections, doesn't want to play ball. In refusing the Sicilian's bribes, Randolph finds himself caught up in a culture of escalating violence. It is only when his wife unexpectedly decides to join him from their home in Pittsburgh does Randolph realise the danger that he and his loved ones may be subject to...

'The Secret River' by Kate Grenville

Fiction - paperback; Canongate; 349 pages; 2006.

You generally know that a book has had an impact when you dream about it -- or when you wake and it's the first thing on your mind.

This is what happened to me with Kate Grenville's Booker short-listed and much acclaimed The Secret River.

I had not expected to like this book. This is because I think there are too many Australian novels about the country's convict past and one more wasn't really going to add anything to the sum of human knowledge. But I was wrong about this one.

On the face of it The Secret River is a good old-fashioned tale about a poor Thames waterman who, having been found guilty of stealing some precious timber, is sent to the other side of the world -- New South Wales -- for the term of his natural life. Here, accompanied by his wife and children, he is eventually pardoned and then tries to make a new life for himself as a waterman on the Hawkesbury River. He secures a 100-acre plot in the forest, where he builds a hut and plants a cornfield, and contends with the native population and their intimidating ways...

'Phaic Tan: Sunstroke on a Shoestring (Jetlag Travel Guide)' by Santo Cilauro, Tom Gleisner and Rob Sitch

 
Humour - paperback; Hardie Grant Books; 252 pages; 2004

I don't normally review books by quoting great slabs of text or "lifting" the entire blurb, but with this laugh-out-loud spoof travel guide I couldn't resist, and so, I quote from the back cover:

"For too long now Phaic Tan has been closed off to the outside world, a country visited each year by just a handful of hardy travellers, aid agency workers and hostage negotiators. But now, thanks to this fully up-dated Jetlag guide, everything you need to know about planning a trip to Phaic Tan, birthplace of the trouser press and irritable bowel syndrome, is here."

Up until 5 August 2005, this book was unavailable outside of Australia, where I happened to pick this up last Christmas on the recommendation of some friends. The team behind this very funny book are well-known in Australian comedy circles, having written and directed many of their own television shows as well as a couple of feature length movies (The Castle and The Dish).

'The Coma' by Alex Garland

Fiction - paperback; Faber and Faber ; 192 pages; 2005

Alex Garland is the author of the The Beach, later made into a movie with Leonardo di Caprio, and The Tesseract, neither of which I have read. Now, having read his novella The Coma I may have to rectify that situation.

To be honest, I'm not quite sure how one should review a book like The Coma, it is quite unlike anything I have ever read before. The writing is sparse and simplistic in a Kafka-esque kind of way. And because of this the story's gentle, rhythmic nature lulls the reader into a false sense of security. Initially, you think The Coma is a childlike tale of a man recovering from a traumatic head injury. It's only later, towards the end of this page-turning read, that you realise that you have been taken on a chilling journey through the depths of human darkness and despair. It is quite possibly the most frightening book I have ever read.

'Molvania: A Land Untouched by Modern Dentistry (Jetlag Travel Guide S.)' by Santo Cilauro, Tom Gleisner and Rob Sitch

Humour - paperback; Hardie Grant Books; 176 pages; 2004

If you are like me and are somewhat addicted to travel guides, be they Lonely Planet, Rough Guides or something similar, you will greatly appreciate Molvania: A Land Untouched by Modern Dentistry.

Written by a team of Australian comedians — the same men behind the films The Dish and The Castle and the current-affairs mockumentary series Frontline — this is a spoof travel guide for a fictional nation located somewhere in the Baltic region of the former USSR.

'Losing Gemma' by Katy Gardner

Fiction - paperback; Penguin; 307 pages; 2002

As much as I know I overuse this phrase to describe books I like, I'm going to use it again anyhow; this is a page-turning read that you can't put down.

It's a gripping story about two young English twenty-something backpackers who journey to India on an "adventure of a lifetime" yet only one comes back alive. The two female travellers have been friends since childhood; Gemma lacks confidence and is somewhat frumpy and bookish while Esther, the main narrator of the story, is headstrong, pretty and successful. Unfortunately, during their travels the cracks in their friendship begin to appear and both wrestle with the unexpected emotions this causes.

This is by no means an "intellectual" read but it has an intriguing undercurrent of menace which propels the plot along at a cracking pace. As one strange thing after another occurs to the girls on their trip, it's hard not to wonder what will happen next. Of course, we are told right at the beginning that Gemma dies and despite the fact that you know this Gardner holds your attention by not revealing the means of death until the very last moment.

The book also has an interesting twist at the end (although I guessed it fairly early on) while the descriptions of India and the intricacies of the backpacking lifestyle add an exotic flavour. And if you can bear the often whiny, self-obsessed voice of the narrator, this is a book to enjoy in just one or two sittings.