Sweet Read Review - The Lovers

This isn't like any other book. It's more like abstract poetry. There is no plot, the characters are hazy except in their relationship, which is dissected minutely by each party. It is like a modern fable set in a nondescript Middle Eastern country and each short chapter is like a line of the poem. 

I realised this early on and read it as such, so I enjoyed it more than other reviewers seem to have. It's more about the feeling it gives you. I liked the use of a friend's stories to show how others see the couple. I also liked that the writer of the letters in the letter section is ambiguous and could be either Amir or Jamila. I liked that the ending was unclear. They could have parted forever or they could have reunited. It depends on how you feel - tragic or hopeful.

It was, admittedly, a bit ambitious and perhaps too long for what it was. However, the short chapters made it easy to read, which with this kind of writing, is very important. - Angela

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

Motherhood - Mullumbimby and Pride and Prejudice

Lucashenko’s critically acclaimed book Mullumbimby begins with a reference to the iconic opening quote from Austen’s Pride and Prejudice: “it is a truth universally acknowledged …” There are many core differences between these two books; one a regency-era English text centering on the lives of the upper class, the other a contemporary Indigenous-Australian text about a Goorie single mother running her farm and getting unwillingly caught up in local politics and a native title land dispute. There are also core similarities: both texts explore themes of motherhood, class, and financial strain in different but equally humorous and complex ways.

In both cases, it can be said that this opening line reflects the underlying theme of motherhood. In Pride and Prejudice, the mother is desperate to see her daughters married. In Mullumbimby, Jo just wants her daughter to stop being a pain in the neck by drawing all over her cousins skin with a Nikko pen.

Mrs Bennet is in many ways a caricature of an embarrassing  parent to her gently bred daughters. Loud, vulgar, and rude, with a selfish streak a mile wide. While her desire to see her children settled is in many ways reasonable when considering the context, it quickly becomes clear that this goal overtakes any concerns about her children’s happiness and well-being. She puts Jane in danger, she threatens to disown Lizzie over refusing Mr Collins, and she celebrates the marriage of her favourite child to a man who lead her into social ruin. For children of narcissists, the closing lines of Pride and Prejudice represent absolute freedom: those who once ran your life are now a minor irritation, instead you now have the power to surround yourself with  those loved-ones who treat you with mutual respect.

Jo is not a narcissist, but on a superficial level she shares some of Mrs Bennet’s struggles. Mrs Bennet wants to see her daughters married in a world where marriage is their only chance at security and social standing. Jo, on the other hand, wants her and her daughter to reclaim part of their rightful land, giving her daughter share in something of deep on-going significance.  However, to do this she must go directly against her daughters’ current wishes. The pit-falls of parenting are explored throughout the book, giving life to a complex and realistic mother-daughter relationship that stays a strong, constant backdrop to all the events that unfold.

Mrs Bennet’s love is conditional, Jo’s love for her daughter is a strong and constant force. It allows her to become “as massive as a mountain, as heavy and immovable as Chincogan or Bottlebrush.” The love and protection she feels for her  and daughter is as much a part of her cultural heritage as the land she has reclaimed. Mrs Bennet and Jo both seemingly have goals that tie directly into building fulfilling lives for their children, but only in Jo’s case is this true. She has unconditional love and a protective drive where Mrs Bennet only has selfishness.

Despite this, Ellen still gets hurt. This is a moment of painful realism, confronting Jo again with the sad truth that you can’t always protect your children. Sometimes you’ll do everything you can to protect your daughter, and the fear will creep up behind you and get her anyway. Sometimes the choices you make for your family will hurt them in the short term, and you just have to hope that they’ll grow to appreciate it. These things are harder to face when you don’t just blame the people around you for not falling in line with your vision, but Jo’s success as a mother lies in her ability to see people as they are, herself and Ellen included.

 Mullumbimby ends with a second and final reference to that iconic opening line. While Pride and Prejudice ends with the tacit acknowledgement that Elizabeth’s mother is someone she’ll always be a little ashamed of, Mullumbimby’s final thoughts on motherhood are very different.

It is a fact universally acknowledged … that a teenager armed with a Nikko pen is a wonder to behold, a precious, precious thing that we all must keep close to our hearts, and protect by any means necessary.

It’s clear that through every tough decision, argument, and upheaval, Jo will always be proud of Ellen.

Five Cosy Classics for Christmas Reading

If you are an Australian like me you probably aren’t looking to curl up next to a roaring fire with a good book and a blanket this Christmas. Luckily for us there’s many sunny-weather ways to get cosy with the classics; from slathering yourself in sunscreen and lying out on the deck with a copy of ‘Saving Francesca’ in the morning to cuddling up with your own little Snugglepot and Cuddlepie at night. Here’s a list of five cosy classics for you to enjoy during this holiday season.

Dog Songs

Mary Oliver

If you need a quiet moment between festivities and large meals, this book is a wonderful way to step inside someone else’s head for a few moments. Oliver’s verses meditate on simple joys and personal connections, and her love for life radiates through the page. Gratitude, love, and togetherness are all strong themes, so it’s also a wonderful way to think about how much you love your family while you all take a bit of a breather from talking to each other.

Christmas Days

Jeanette Winterson

At times hilarious, at others heartbreaking, ‘Christmas Days’ is a collection of short stories that captures the spirit of holidays: often chaotic, sometimes combative, and always full of love. The variety of genres means that any of your friends and relatives who pick this book up off the coffee table will find at least one story that interests them, and the unique and energetic writing will likely inspire some fun conversations over lunch.

White Teeth

Zadie Smith

If you’re not up for some heavy themes in your holiday reading, you might want to give this book a pass until January. While it contains potentially triggering topics like suicide and racial and class divides, White Teeth is a deeply compelling story that interrogates traditions and family pressures while embracing the love and connection that tie friends and families together. Smith skillfully entwines humour with tragedy and elevates the sordid and difficult-to-read plot details into a clever reflection of everyday life, creating a read that somehow manages to be both enjoyable and devastating.

The Summer I Turned Pretty

Jenny Han

If you love Young Adult fiction and want some lighthearted reading, give this book a gander. Centred around a girl who views her life between summers as a stasis period, The Summer I Turned Pretty captures both the magic of holidays for the young and the growing pains that occur as you move towards adulthood. Belly’s relationship with her mother and her friends shines strong throughout the book, creating a loving and realistic backdrop to her teenage turmoil. A perfect afternoon read while you digest that huge Christmas lunch.

Merry Christmas, and Happy Reading!

Once more, with feeling

How to start writing about one of the most famous books in literature without it sounding like an English essay? I suppose not spending precious moments deconstructing the text. It’s been done a thousand times over! With all the energy spent on analysing Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, it’s a wonder the book itself doesn’t jump off the shelf screaming ‘IT’S ALIVE'!’".

That’s not to say it shouldn’t have been or continue to be scrutinised with the intensity of a 4th year anatomy student. But we, or at least, I am not a scientist. I am a reader who prefers to explore feeling. How did a book make me feel? What emotions were provoked by the writing?

Over the years Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has made me feel inspired, furious, envious (who could ever match that originality?!). It made me fall in love with poetic writing laced with multiple meanings. It made me laugh (Gene Wilder’s Young Frankenstein is one of my favourite films of all time). It showed me that even horror can be beautiful, and that the idea of good and evil is complex and undefined. That judgement of difference is weak and that above all, empathy is the most important aspect of humanity.

All this from a story about a 19th Century, obsessed, arguably hysterical male doctor? A story about the very embodiment of Gothic era masculinity? A story, a work of art, written by a woman of such a uniquely creative mind living in the biggest cliche of our lives - a man’s world. Even the monster is named after a man. Did Mary Shelley feel that same anger as the monster did when her book was published without her own name? Did she tremble in the years that followed as her life echoed her story?

Though on the surface Frankenstein is a story about men (and I am not the first to debate whether that God-like feat accomplished by Dr Frankenstein was the ego rubbing that led to the novel’s popularity), it’s impossible to ignore the multifaceted prose and history that contribute to it being an intensely Feminist work. Mary Shelley was, after all, the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft. Could this work be her monster? Her creation, sewn together from the pieces of furious ideological thinking her mother left her?

Frankenstein is an emotional, tactile novel. You read it and sense the icy finger of lonely desolation on your nape. A women, almost alone in a thundering Swiss cabin. You can taste the bitterness of rejection and paranoia. To be in love with a man like Percy Shelley! But in reading Frankenstein, you also experience the warmth of birth and love. The pleasure of the acquisition of knowledge. The sublime feeling of reading what truly is a work of art - the words of a woman of incredible talent. To me, Frankenstein is the greatest example of classic English Literature. The layers and nuance mean that it reads differently each time it is approached. It was, and in many ways still is, way ahead of its time in content and technique. It’s political, allegorical, thrilling, intelligent and quite simply, beautiful. It made me feel something. It made me feel everything.

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Blog post written by Sophia Vassie of Bin Chicken Books, which you can follow on Instagram and Facebook.