Gillian Polack's Blog, page 280
December 14, 2010
gillpolack @ 2010-12-14T17:22:00
Today is all about the assumptions we make about why certain novels are Important*.
Literary style and number of pages and if Serious Politics with Significant Insights are involved all play a part. What I'm trying to work out is the role the reader plays and how close they need to feel to the novel: what bridges exist to bring readers into the world of the novel, how deep characterisation is, the nature of the world-building - that sort of thing.
I don't think there are any easy answers, but I do think the personality of the writer and how they express it through their writing plays a part. Also, the nature of the first reactions to a novel by the Chattering Classes. So many people will believe something this a work of genius because the writer has the right attitude and the Chattering Classes say so.
The question is, when neither is true, are there any other things I can point to and say "Look, this novel is Important." There is also a difference between being exceptional and being Important.
*except the bit of today that's about Y getting into med school and me jubilating for her and about having lunch with Cat
Literary style and number of pages and if Serious Politics with Significant Insights are involved all play a part. What I'm trying to work out is the role the reader plays and how close they need to feel to the novel: what bridges exist to bring readers into the world of the novel, how deep characterisation is, the nature of the world-building - that sort of thing.
I don't think there are any easy answers, but I do think the personality of the writer and how they express it through their writing plays a part. Also, the nature of the first reactions to a novel by the Chattering Classes. So many people will believe something this a work of genius because the writer has the right attitude and the Chattering Classes say so.
The question is, when neither is true, are there any other things I can point to and say "Look, this novel is Important." There is also a difference between being exceptional and being Important.
*except the bit of today that's about Y getting into med school and me jubilating for her and about having lunch with Cat
December 12, 2010
gillpolack @ 2010-12-13T09:31:00
Today I have mde myself a list (again). The idea is that I catch up on yesterday. It is, therefore, a very daring list.
It can be made more daring. If there's anything you think should be on it, just say. I can't guarantee to (for instance) find a glider and launch myself from the top of the Empire State Building, but I'd certainly be happy to add it to my daring list.
It can be made more daring. If there's anything you think should be on it, just say. I can't guarantee to (for instance) find a glider and launch myself from the top of the Empire State Building, but I'd certainly be happy to add it to my daring list.
gillpolack @ 2010-12-12T16:38:00
My body got used to all that Weather and now it's getting migraines when the sky is blue and fluffy-white. I made two and a half litres of cherry liqueur notwithstanding (the rest will wait til tomorrow) and I've done the broadbeans.
December 11, 2010
gillpolack @ 2010-12-12T10:58:00
I've just come back from a lovely visit to the farmers' market, with Kate (thanks Kate!). The farmers were full of useful information - the recent rain was the most in 135 years and the flooding means very few heritage vegies (although I found some black kale), a small and late apricot crop and a short cherry season. Cherry growers aren't growing whitehearts any more, though the new variety, sunburst, might be related.
I have enough meat for nearly three months and heaps of cherries (from Young, which is to cherries as Batlow is to apples) and broadbeans. The cherries are for liqueur and the broadbeans for fun.
What do you do with so many broadbeans, that farmer asked - I slice the very young ones as they are, and fry them with my fresh garlic and maybe some onion or my fresh shallots and maybe some fresh lemon juice. The old ones I shell and cook in a dozen ways. Shelling gives me an excuse for watching Star Trek later today.
Four kilos of each is a lot of fun liqueur.
What else did I get? Free range eggs from Bombala, garlic (the farmer gave Kate an extra bulb because she knew all about pickling garlic), avocado, a cos lettuce, a red cabbage, tomatoes, peaches and nectarines, shallots, the last of the sugar snap peas (I asked, and the crop is indeed ending - very early), a zucchini so big it should have been a marrow (how do you cook this, that farmer asked - I stuff it with micemeat and a bit of mint and rice and onion and maybe some tomato and it does nicely for a series of weekday lunches), some white zucchini (which are neither white nor zucchini, really) and some ordinary beans.
It's a lot of food, but not nearly as much when you consider that the meat is already in the freezer and that bags of broadbeans will be in the freezer by tonight and that the cherries will be getting sloshed in my library very, very soon and the big zucchini (which is really a marrow) will be baking away.
One nectarine and one small tomato have already suffered the fate of all good food. I had to check that the farmers' market stuff was up to scratch, after all, given the floods and whatnot. My verdict? Supermarket nectarines 1, farmers' market nectarines 10, on a taste-scale of 0-10.
I have enough meat for nearly three months and heaps of cherries (from Young, which is to cherries as Batlow is to apples) and broadbeans. The cherries are for liqueur and the broadbeans for fun.
What do you do with so many broadbeans, that farmer asked - I slice the very young ones as they are, and fry them with my fresh garlic and maybe some onion or my fresh shallots and maybe some fresh lemon juice. The old ones I shell and cook in a dozen ways. Shelling gives me an excuse for watching Star Trek later today.
Four kilos of each is a lot of fun liqueur.
What else did I get? Free range eggs from Bombala, garlic (the farmer gave Kate an extra bulb because she knew all about pickling garlic), avocado, a cos lettuce, a red cabbage, tomatoes, peaches and nectarines, shallots, the last of the sugar snap peas (I asked, and the crop is indeed ending - very early), a zucchini so big it should have been a marrow (how do you cook this, that farmer asked - I stuff it with micemeat and a bit of mint and rice and onion and maybe some tomato and it does nicely for a series of weekday lunches), some white zucchini (which are neither white nor zucchini, really) and some ordinary beans.
It's a lot of food, but not nearly as much when you consider that the meat is already in the freezer and that bags of broadbeans will be in the freezer by tonight and that the cherries will be getting sloshed in my library very, very soon and the big zucchini (which is really a marrow) will be baking away.
One nectarine and one small tomato have already suffered the fate of all good food. I had to check that the farmers' market stuff was up to scratch, after all, given the floods and whatnot. My verdict? Supermarket nectarines 1, farmers' market nectarines 10, on a taste-scale of 0-10.
gillpolack @ 2010-12-11T23:49:00
I decided this morning that today was a day when I would post something of ineffable wit, but I had a few emails to answer first. A review intervened and was duly written and my wit faded a little more.
After I'd email my review, I started thinking I ought to say something wildly intelligent here, but then my mother rang. Before I could get my thoughts sorted, I found myself reading The Historian (I've been meaning to check Kostova's work for a while, because it's obviously relevant to my own work) and then more emails snuck in.
Suddenly it was 3 pm and I was being picked up for Sanctuary. Now I am fully up to date on the current season and it's nearly midnight. I think ineffable wit shall remain something I read on other peoples' blogs.
The other post I didn't write, but could, if someone out there betrays an interest (quick, hide your faces! look disinterested!) is how a potential enemy, preferably semi-anonymous, is far more effective at raising the tension levels in a novel than someone understandable. This is the issue I'm facing this weekend with my own writing.
The kick is the follow-on: when writers take the semi-anonymous watching stranger and unknowable evil path, the tension levels may be great, but they have to be awfully careful about what stereotypes they're reinforcing. The minute we understand something properly, it's less scary. The minute we don't understand something, it fuels our fears. Two sides of a coin.
After I'd email my review, I started thinking I ought to say something wildly intelligent here, but then my mother rang. Before I could get my thoughts sorted, I found myself reading The Historian (I've been meaning to check Kostova's work for a while, because it's obviously relevant to my own work) and then more emails snuck in.
Suddenly it was 3 pm and I was being picked up for Sanctuary. Now I am fully up to date on the current season and it's nearly midnight. I think ineffable wit shall remain something I read on other peoples' blogs.
The other post I didn't write, but could, if someone out there betrays an interest (quick, hide your faces! look disinterested!) is how a potential enemy, preferably semi-anonymous, is far more effective at raising the tension levels in a novel than someone understandable. This is the issue I'm facing this weekend with my own writing.
The kick is the follow-on: when writers take the semi-anonymous watching stranger and unknowable evil path, the tension levels may be great, but they have to be awfully careful about what stereotypes they're reinforcing. The minute we understand something properly, it's less scary. The minute we don't understand something, it fuels our fears. Two sides of a coin.
December 10, 2010
gillpolack @ 2010-12-10T22:47:00
Tonight is all about procrastination. Instead of doing all the things I meant to do, I cleared a corner where my lounge room meets my kitchen. I washed all the stones and shells and now I have a functioning dust-free water feature. The water feature was given to me by one of my neighbours, for a major birthday, so just cleaning it brought back all sorts of memories of Bev.
When I worked through the stones and shells, though, there were more memories still. I bought that nice slab of marine agate when I was in Year 11. My allowance was supposed to be for clothes and shoes and birthday presents, but I spent a generous part of it on that marine agate and those chunks of azurite and malachite and that small piece of selwynite (there's a story behind the selwynite). Later on I bought some boulder opal and then some rather prettier opal. And the summer in between school and university, I went with the family to New Zealand and that's where the paua shell comes from and the NZ jade. I have better shell and better jade elsewhere, but these were the pieces that were left after I turned the rest into jewellery and trinkets and gave it to my friends: that jade and that shell represent many friends.
When we went to Queensland (1971?), I spent all my pocket money on a thunderegg and a horseshoe clam. I have both halves of the clam, but not all the thunderegg. We wanted to find our own thunderegg and had explored much mountain with that intent, but we found nothing. We did better (much better) when we went to South Australia. I collected at least four types of limestone that trip (and it was before I was nine, because when I was nine I was very proud of having nine different Australian limestones) and I still have the flint nodule I found near Mt Gambier.
There's the graptolites from the Brisbane Ranges, some chert from Victoria somewhere (could be almost anywhere - we had to go through Victoria to get anywhere at all: all journeys began in Melbourne - but I think I found it near Gembrook, the same trip I found my favourite piece of granodiorite ever, which is unaccountably missing) and a fossilised sea urchin from a beach near home. What I need to add to the collection are my twinned gypsum crystals that we collected in the Hattah Lakes. My aunt (I think) gave me the piece of petrified wood and my friend Cristina sent me the gorgeous fossil from the Andes. She collected it herself and backpacked it across many mountains and it's a thing of awe to me.
The other bits and pieces that needed washing were my ohajiki and an enamel thimble. They belong with the rocks and shells. Always.
When I was a child all of these places were open to collectors, but virtually no-one bothered with them. Now most of the places are closed and a child like me would have to spend even more of her pocket money on rocks.
Every now and again I wondered what it would be like to have normal holidays, when I was young. Now I look at my few remaining rocks and I'm really glad I learned the rock habit instead of the clothes habit. I may never look elegant, but I'll always know how to tell limestone from sandstone and exactly where to hit shale with a geo pick if you want to see the graptolites within.
I'm certain this makes me a better writer. It definitely makes me a better teacher. And I still pick up the small piece of bloodstone and want to write stories about it, exactly the way I did when I first spotted it, when I was thirteen.
When I worked through the stones and shells, though, there were more memories still. I bought that nice slab of marine agate when I was in Year 11. My allowance was supposed to be for clothes and shoes and birthday presents, but I spent a generous part of it on that marine agate and those chunks of azurite and malachite and that small piece of selwynite (there's a story behind the selwynite). Later on I bought some boulder opal and then some rather prettier opal. And the summer in between school and university, I went with the family to New Zealand and that's where the paua shell comes from and the NZ jade. I have better shell and better jade elsewhere, but these were the pieces that were left after I turned the rest into jewellery and trinkets and gave it to my friends: that jade and that shell represent many friends.
When we went to Queensland (1971?), I spent all my pocket money on a thunderegg and a horseshoe clam. I have both halves of the clam, but not all the thunderegg. We wanted to find our own thunderegg and had explored much mountain with that intent, but we found nothing. We did better (much better) when we went to South Australia. I collected at least four types of limestone that trip (and it was before I was nine, because when I was nine I was very proud of having nine different Australian limestones) and I still have the flint nodule I found near Mt Gambier.
There's the graptolites from the Brisbane Ranges, some chert from Victoria somewhere (could be almost anywhere - we had to go through Victoria to get anywhere at all: all journeys began in Melbourne - but I think I found it near Gembrook, the same trip I found my favourite piece of granodiorite ever, which is unaccountably missing) and a fossilised sea urchin from a beach near home. What I need to add to the collection are my twinned gypsum crystals that we collected in the Hattah Lakes. My aunt (I think) gave me the piece of petrified wood and my friend Cristina sent me the gorgeous fossil from the Andes. She collected it herself and backpacked it across many mountains and it's a thing of awe to me.
The other bits and pieces that needed washing were my ohajiki and an enamel thimble. They belong with the rocks and shells. Always.
When I was a child all of these places were open to collectors, but virtually no-one bothered with them. Now most of the places are closed and a child like me would have to spend even more of her pocket money on rocks.
Every now and again I wondered what it would be like to have normal holidays, when I was young. Now I look at my few remaining rocks and I'm really glad I learned the rock habit instead of the clothes habit. I may never look elegant, but I'll always know how to tell limestone from sandstone and exactly where to hit shale with a geo pick if you want to see the graptolites within.
I'm certain this makes me a better writer. It definitely makes me a better teacher. And I still pick up the small piece of bloodstone and want to write stories about it, exactly the way I did when I first spotted it, when I was thirteen.
December 9, 2010
gillpolack @ 2010-12-09T11:03:00
When the storm broke late last night (everything before one am was dramatic lead-up), there were interesting noises to investigate. My favourite was a giant 'glurp, glurp, glurp' outside my bedroom window. A monster was apparently emerging from the depths. I am very well-acquainted with monster-emerging-from-the-depths noises, if any of you wish to quibble with my diagnosis.
When I looked to find the monster, I discovered that the driveway for the flats was at least six inches deep in water. That water had a single drain to go down and vulgarly pushed its way down, giving a big gulp from time to time. Every time there was a glurp, a furl of water would ripple outwards, valiantly fighting the incoming (vulgar) tide. A half hour later, there was just a small puddle. This is an advantage of being 650 metres above sea level.
The other oddity is that the street side of my flat was almost completely dry. My patio looked as if a light rain had fallen, but that was all. One one side the sky was black with red tinges and the rain was bucketting down and on the other, the sky was a normal midnight sky, and the peaceful streetlight cast everything silver. I walked back and forward, checking out both sides until the storm shifted and there was nothing more to look at.
I wouldn't be downstream from Canberra right now. It's still raining here so they're still flooding. And they don't get glurps.
When I looked to find the monster, I discovered that the driveway for the flats was at least six inches deep in water. That water had a single drain to go down and vulgarly pushed its way down, giving a big gulp from time to time. Every time there was a glurp, a furl of water would ripple outwards, valiantly fighting the incoming (vulgar) tide. A half hour later, there was just a small puddle. This is an advantage of being 650 metres above sea level.
The other oddity is that the street side of my flat was almost completely dry. My patio looked as if a light rain had fallen, but that was all. One one side the sky was black with red tinges and the rain was bucketting down and on the other, the sky was a normal midnight sky, and the peaceful streetlight cast everything silver. I walked back and forward, checking out both sides until the storm shifted and there was nothing more to look at.
I wouldn't be downstream from Canberra right now. It's still raining here so they're still flooding. And they don't get glurps.
December 8, 2010
gillpolack @ 2010-12-08T20:56:00
I have a whole chapter of a novel in a satisfactory state. Except I suddenly ache to go back and do some more checking of the science - that has to wait, though, til I've written more science and can talk to more scientists. I also have much of an outline of the rest and lots of little scenes that make sense of the characters. (Note to self: must sort out the medieval masculinities thing more, too.)
My next task is to find out how other people write history and what writing tricks they use to bring it to life for readers. Also to write that cookbook.
Tonight, though, my aim is to shuck off my migraine and write two more book reviews. Also to eat chicken soup. I don't actually want chicken soup at all, but it's good for me. We have more Weather incoming and chicken soup is fortifying.
My next task is to find out how other people write history and what writing tricks they use to bring it to life for readers. Also to write that cookbook.
Tonight, though, my aim is to shuck off my migraine and write two more book reviews. Also to eat chicken soup. I don't actually want chicken soup at all, but it's good for me. We have more Weather incoming and chicken soup is fortifying.
December 7, 2010
gillpolack @ 2010-12-07T22:33:00
Should I do a post looking back on this year? It's been an exceptionally bizarre year, even for me. I can't decide if it's worth the effort, though, so I'm asking for opinions. Snide remarks are fine, too.
gillpolack @ 2010-12-07T12:08:00
Pyr is celebrating its hundredth book.
Because the book in question is by James Enge, they're giving away a Morlock novella on their website. I just read it and it's a great introuction into Enge's twisted imagination. (I just realised Mr Enge is probably reading my blog - I'm just wondering if I can find evil things to say and make myself an enemy for life - except I happen to really enjoy that twisted imagination and I'm looking forward to The Wolf Age immensely and it's sitting in my pile of more urgent reads. I'll also point out - in relation to the story - that 'wyrm' can mean all sorts of things, but 'bug' isn't one of them as far as I know. But that I really enjoyed the short story anyhow.)
Quite seriously (putting evil Gillian to the side for a moment), the more I read the Morlock books, the more I enjoy them. The Wolf Age isn't high on my To Be Read pile because I have a duty towards it, but because I know I'm going to enjoy it thoroughly. I guess I'd better stop faffing around here and get some of the duty stuff done so I can get to reading time. Today's foulest task is all to do with forms and more forms. If I do not do the forms then I shan't get to Europe (money!) but I am so over forms.
There's no logic in it. I oought to be over books, since I read so many, but I'm not. I only really have a few forms to deal with, on occasion. But I hate them with a vengeance. I used to hate them more direly than that, but I found myself explaining to my supervisor how the Australian Bureau of Statistics numbering systems operate and I realised that ten years of being a public servant have left their mark. I understand forms and processes. I just don't, don't, don't want to do them!
I wonder if I let my brain implode while I make a start, if that will make the job less tedious. I wonder what reading The Wolf Age will be like with an imploded brain? Watch this space...
Because the book in question is by James Enge, they're giving away a Morlock novella on their website. I just read it and it's a great introuction into Enge's twisted imagination. (I just realised Mr Enge is probably reading my blog - I'm just wondering if I can find evil things to say and make myself an enemy for life - except I happen to really enjoy that twisted imagination and I'm looking forward to The Wolf Age immensely and it's sitting in my pile of more urgent reads. I'll also point out - in relation to the story - that 'wyrm' can mean all sorts of things, but 'bug' isn't one of them as far as I know. But that I really enjoyed the short story anyhow.)
Quite seriously (putting evil Gillian to the side for a moment), the more I read the Morlock books, the more I enjoy them. The Wolf Age isn't high on my To Be Read pile because I have a duty towards it, but because I know I'm going to enjoy it thoroughly. I guess I'd better stop faffing around here and get some of the duty stuff done so I can get to reading time. Today's foulest task is all to do with forms and more forms. If I do not do the forms then I shan't get to Europe (money!) but I am so over forms.
There's no logic in it. I oought to be over books, since I read so many, but I'm not. I only really have a few forms to deal with, on occasion. But I hate them with a vengeance. I used to hate them more direly than that, but I found myself explaining to my supervisor how the Australian Bureau of Statistics numbering systems operate and I realised that ten years of being a public servant have left their mark. I understand forms and processes. I just don't, don't, don't want to do them!
I wonder if I let my brain implode while I make a start, if that will make the job less tedious. I wonder what reading The Wolf Age will be like with an imploded brain? Watch this space...
