Book Book

by Fiona Farrell

As war is waged in the Middle East, a woman in New Zealand has her nose in a book. Kate is immersed in other battles, engrossed in eyewitness accounts of an earlier war in ancient Persia. She has grown up, left her Otago home and returned, and in all these years books have shaped her life and made sense of the world - offering mystery and solace, entertainment and enlightenment. In an evocative and moving mix of memoir and fiction, award-winning novelist Fiona Farrell writes of life from The Little Red Hen to Owls Do Cry, from T.S. Eliot to Aphra Behn. Frequently funny, always original, Book Book is another extraordinary offering from the author of The Hopeful Traveller.

Genres: Fiction, Book Club, Books About Books, Novels

367 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Fiona Farrell, ONZM (born 1947) is a New Zealand poet, fiction writer and playwright.

Reviews

[Kiwiflora · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read a brief biography of the author and you will find a most versatile writer who has written novels, short stories, plays and poetry. She has received a number of literary awards and held a number of residences. Fiona Farrell is one of NZ's most prolific and successful writers, and it all started in Oamaru, home of the more famous Janet Frame. I don't know from reading this book how much is fact and how much is fiction. But it is clear that much of this book is autobiographical. And at the centre of it all is her love of books and reading, and how they are closely associated with events in her life as they unfold.

The story is told in the third person being Kate, a child growing up in Oamaru with her family, her school days, teen years, going to university in Dunedin, falling in love, marrying, travelling to and living in Oxford, then Canada, having babies and rearing children, returning to New Zealand and onto middle age. Which is where the story opens. Kate is sitting reading books from her father's bookshelves, a book about ancient wars in Persia, while a modern day war is also happening in the same part of the world. There are parallels of course between the ancient war and the modern war.

The book then reverts to Kate's childhood and all sorts of books, fact and fiction, from all eras form the backbone to Kate's life. Kate/the author has a very deep love and almost spiritual bond with the books that have shaped her life, and this shines through. What also comes through very strongly is the post-war 1950s childhood and growing up in small town New Zealand, at a time when New Zealand is finding its own identity in the big world, and dealing with the aftermath of WWII. A number of other themes emerge as Kate grows up - university education for women, rise of feminism, mothers and daughters, career vs babies. The one that stayed with me the most was Kate's search for her own identity, particularly when she is in Oxford with her husband, as a 'colonial' in the 'home' country.

I found this whole book very moving. Reading about many of the books in the novel was like meeting old friends, and I can more than relate to Kate's love of and need for reading to keep her grounded and able to deal with the world around her.

[Tui · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoying this. Farrell is always good but this is a book by a reader, about a reader, for readers - I love the idea of a book framed and immersed in books. Very readable; I love the familiarity of a NZ narrator and I especially enjoyed the chapter where the narrator begins reading New Zealand fiction, beginning with Frame. The feeling of becoming aware of my own country's literature as my own was/is such a homecoming and Farrell really captures that.

[Marcus Hobson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have ended up reading Fiona Farrell's books in the wrong order.

Sadly I read The Broken Book before this one, and in some way that has spoilt the continuity with themes from this work being explored further in later stories. And more successfully in the later work.
I enjoyed this story about Kate - who must have been modelled to a great extent on Fiona Farrell's own life - as we track her from humble beginnings in Oamaru, through her childhood and then away to university in Dunedin and off to live in England and Canada before returning with her own child to a much changed homeland.
Book Book is a series of memories and episodes punctuated by quotations from many of the books that were experienced along the way. This is the best part of the book, this close relationship between the quotes and the text around them, either to put them in context or to show the growth and change in literary tastes. From childhood books to the school set texts and finally to the depth of university texts. I also like the way that these quotations travel like the author, crossing the world to bring in English works and then Canadian ones to.
As a fan of the Canadian writer Robertson Davies, I particularly enjoyed Farrell's comments about the man himself encountered in person.

The Broken Book is more successful because the stories are better told, sometimes the same stories, but sometimes they are linked between books and history and experiences of the natural world. You can sense the beginnings in this book, waiting to become more powerful stories.

Well worth a read.

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anne Tyler once said that she wrote in order to live other lives. That expansion of experience and perspective is largely why I read. And why I love a good memoir. Farrell's fictionalized memoir offers an especially engaging take on how writing and reading shape our sense of our lives -- as challenge, consolation, perspective. . . .

[Clare Sullivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this. Beautifully written and expressed for me thoughts and feelings I have had.

[Tinanz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like spending time with a school friend, with her era and experiences so familiar. I loved the framing mechanism of a life through books; it made me stop and consider what I'd choose for my own literary journey. The only part that didn't work for me was the outer 'wrapping' of the present-day war.

[JanGlen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a series of stories or memories told by Kate (based on Fiona Farrell herself) beginning with her childhood and moving through university years, marriage, OE and family. Each memory is accompanied by a quote from a book relevant to the time period or theme of the memory.
I absolutely loved it as it was often my world she was describing. It was instantly recognisable but looked at from another's perspective, and with another's experience. I have yet to read anything that gives a better feel for what but it was like to grow up in New Zealand in the 1950s and 60s.

[Karelis Ramos · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this. I think she’s a good writer, and I liked that each story had a quote from a book. Some of the stories are better than others, but there are a lot of interesting reflections and lessons throughout. I read this while traveling through south New Zealand in the Otago region, and connected with the places as she told the stories. It’s was a calm, slow and enjoyable read.

[Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a gem. Fiona Farrell in the spirit of Elizabeth Jane Howard remembers minute detail from her childhood that she weaves into an engrossing story of growing up in a particular time in New Zealand

[zespri · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book about books, so for any reader this book would bring pleasure. Kate tracks her journey with the books she is reading at the time, which makes for an interesting premise.

[Bachyboy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a little slow to start but then it came right. This is the story of the first part of Kate's life and is very cleverly constructed around excerpts from the books she would have been reading at the time. More like a memoir but worth the effort.

[Cath · Rating 3 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed this. I didn't really relate to it (and I think the success of the book is how people have related to it). If you grew up in NZ and know the SI from the 50s and 60s then this would be wonderful, for me, not so much.

[Vicki Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have liked everything I have ever read by Fiona Farrell and this was no exception. The descriptions and thoughts of the main character are exactly as I see the world myself. Great illustration of Oamaru and a wonderful weaving of books throughout a lifetime.

[Lindi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dull

[Sandra Scott]

I tried really hard, but just couldn't get into the story!