Message – Book Review (Young Adult novel)

“I did it because you are the epitome of ordinariness…”

Markus Zusak once again cleverly goes into the readers’ minds in I am the Messenger (published by Random House) and keeps you guessing about the real story’s message until the end.

A bunch or ordinary card playing, boozing mates are intertwined in a game of discovery of ones self and the greater person.

Ed, twenty something, is sent a playing card and instructed to follow the clues by a mystery source. The journey creates extraordinary ramifications for ordinary people. Simple acts of kindness involve bank robbers, priests, wife beaters, old ladies and even ice-cream. We also observe Ed’s relationship with his trusty dog ‘Doorman’ that gives the story some commonness.

I relate to Zusak’s descriptive writing. He brings everyday situations alive with his personifications: “a small tear lifts itself up in her eye. It trips out to find a wrinkle and follows it down.” Sounds so much better than “she cried.”

Zusak has created a book that we can all assimilate life with. The times we could have mowed the neighbours lawns when their kids were sick, cooked an extra batch of Bolognaise for a new Mum when we had the chance and simply paid an honest compliment, at the risk of sounding contrived, when we thought it was due. His message is a powerful one that centres on our collective vulnerabilities and innate ability to reach out. It could be perceived as a little ‘schmaltzy’ with its deeds but the fact the deeds are simple everyday ones most of us could do, gives it credence.

Zusak even gets Ed to say: “What would you do if you were me?” He invites and involves the reader like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. “Your fingers turn the strongness of these pages that somehow connect my life to yours…the story is just another few hundred pages of your mind.*”

This book cannot be compared to The Book Thief. It is written in a different time and language. However, like all of Zusak’s books it talks about hardship and overcoming adversity with human spirit.

I like hopeful endings.

"Stories have always told me where I was from," Zusak told Teenreads.com interviewer Tammy L. Currier. "[My parents'] hardships and struggle to live decent lives are probably the basis of everything I approach. Also, when I see my friends, we laugh and carry on, and it's our stories that give us that laughter. I guess without stories we'd be empty."

*I am the Messenger, Zusak Markus, Random House Publishing, 2003, p.89

http://biography.jrank.org/pages/389/Zusak-Markus-1975

http://www.randomhouse.com/features/markuszusak/

Tupperware - Argh!

Tupperware party – I hear the words and I run a mile. Not another night of listening to useless information about overpriced plastic containers and contraptions. Not to mention feeling inadequate as I scan the catalogue for something under thirty dollars – oh look a spatula. Meanwhile Auntie Lyn next to me has spent her one hundred and fifty dollars to get the host up to her gift quota. Help!

I must attract party planners because I have been to several over the years. Chef’s Toolbox (another spatula,) ENJO (everyone need s $50 cloth – not!) The Body Shop (at least I got a foot pamper) and the trusty Tupperware party (got about six melon ballers and three egg separators I never use.) Thankfully, I’ve avoided others like Learning Ladders, Bevilles Jewellery, Scrap’n Stuff Scrapbooking, Sketch Kids Clothes and Intimo to name a bunch. Hubby had a meeting or I was definitely away that weekend – nudge, nudge, wink wink.

There is an unspoken rule that if you go to one of these home party-plan events that you make a purchase. Some demonstrators even come up and ask you what you are ordering. I wouldn’t dream of siphoning money from my friends’ purses. I’d prefer to have them over to eat, drink and share stories not pass $30 lunchboxes around. But that’s just me.

Perhaps I’m beyond the orderliness of Tupperware, have an aversion to plastic ware, or I simply don’t have time for small ‘polymer’ talk. I can’t think of anything less riveting than a Tupperware night. Especially when your bogan demonstrator dishes out the same insipid comments and tired jokes. Do I really need to know about how a freezer works and how to cram five hundred grams of mince into a plastic tub? It’s meant to be my night off.

I’m like the annoying kid in the class with snide comments and loud whispering just to get me through to catalogue crunch-time. Then I spot something I think would be useful and it’s about forty dollars over budget, or sorry we don’t have one of those, it’s out of season. It’s plastic for Pete’s sake!

I have very good friends that swear by the world of party planning and it has launched them back into the workforce, boosted their confidence and opened up new opportunities. I commend them for this but it doesn’t mean I support the sneaky marketing schemes of the big businesses behind them. Spend over fifty dollars and you get a free product, but the product you want is five cents short of that of course. Book two more parties to secure your host (the one who has fed and wined you) a gift that they deserve. A lifetime guarantee (with clauses.) They even have a party plan portal where you can get advice on how to lure in the masses.

I did my bit for conserving the environment and minimizing cling wrap. I purchased a Bake to Basics thirty-four dollar and forty five cent square container. Good for cupcakes and slices it says. Aunty Lyn was happy with her rice cooker and Fridge Smart set. 

I know that I could talk the talk and insert jokes to the script just like a Tupperware demonstrator, but I also know how insincere it would be of me. I’ll just stick to being a Tupperware cynic with my fellow ‘what’s wrong with Décor?’ critics. That’s for you Mrs H.

Have you seen this great new ‘must have’ range? Trust Suckerware…oops Tupperware.

  

*Plastics are polymers, and are composed primarily of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen

Say Goodnight, Not Good-Bye

I have this thing. In fact I have lots of these ‘things’ but it was this particular one that resurfaced at my Uncle Des’ funeral yesterday. I must go to sleep, exit a phone-call, or farewell a friend or family member with a see you soon, later gator or goodnight and definitely not a goodbye. The latter has an eerie finality about it that doesn’t sit comfortably with me.

I’m not a seasoned funeral attendee and still cannot believe what has transpired in the last two weeks. My healthy, fit and dry-witted uncle who was living ‘the dream’ with his newly built home in Inverloch had a massive stroke. Sixty seven years young. Of all the uncles he was the least likely to be resting in a casket. Tragically he is and I had to watch his gorgeous wife and beautiful four daughters weep with sorrow and say goodbye…or was it goodnight?

I didn’t hear the lyrics incorrectly. The song sung by Beth Nielson Chapman, written after her own terminally ill husband passed on, said exactly the thing I insisted on, “Say Goodnight, Not Goodbye.”

Say goodnight not good-bye

You will never leave my heart behind

Like the path of a star

I’ll be anywhere you are

In the spark that lies beneath the coals

In the secret place inside your soul

Keep my light in your eyes

Say goodnight not good-bye

Don’t you fear when you dream

Waking up is never what it seems

Like a jewel buried deep

Like a promise meant to keep

You are everything you want to be

So just let your heart reach out to me

I’ll be right by your side

Say goodnight not good-bye*

Nothing can bring back the physical when life is spent, but the spirit is sleeping and will never leave loved ones. Small but comforting words.

In these tender words of my sweet cousin Kim** “despite the difficulties, despite the tears, we laughed, we remembered, we rejoiced in what was truly an inspirational life…his words still linger, his opinion is still known. 

Even though we knew him, we now know him so much better because we have all come together to share our stories, through the blog, through the eulogy, through the pictures, and through the memories.”

My dear cousin Jane’s blog was one of the most moving things I have ever read and even a stranger that didn’t know Des would have felt his family’s suffering and ultimate love that just said goodnight…for now

* Beth Nielson Chapman – lyrics to Say Goodnight from the album Sand and Water

**Comment left at www.desmeagher.weebly.com written by Jane Meagher (daughter of Des)

Letter To...

‘Turning Point’ is a pivotal moment in your life that brings you in a new direction. Things become a lot clearer and you are moving forward again. In a narrative it can be the climax followed by the resolution. In maths it can be the stationary point of the compass moving round and round, pressing it’s subject.

There I was with every orifice open to the five women delivering their very personal letters at Women of Letters* at Thornbury Theatre on a miserable Melbourne Sunday afternoon.

With a Cab Sav in one hand I listened to the very diverse panel of Australians.  The first lady discussed her breast reduction and poor self image rather humorously. The next talked about her choice to be involved in filming over being a musician. The third let us in to her very raw feelings for a past boyfriend with an anxiety disorder. The following had a similar turning point when she realised she was clinically depressed. Through a video link up we listened to one lady and gained an insight into politics and how being a school mum was her turning point to fight for democracy. The fifth and final speaker was eccentric and fittingly as wild as her red hair. Her turning point was when Winona Ryder was caught for shoplifting,. Her idol caught like a deer in the headlights. A nice lighthearted final speaker.

All were read with purpose and beautifully and tastefully articulated. No tears and self-indulgent comments. Just a moment when we as a collective body felt that turning point and lived it for those six or so pages of each letter.

After the speakers had presented their letters, we had an opportunity to write a postcard or aerogram ourselves. I can proudly say that I was one of Marieke Hardy’s missal writers. Keeping the art of snail mail alive. I even posted it!

It was such a wonderful moment when I realised my recipient was one of my turning points and told me to write because I never knew what it could truly bring to me until I tried.

Being there was a turning point…

*On the last Sunday of the month six different women from interesting celebrity, sporting, pioneering, musical, political etc backgrounds come together to respond to a topic via a letter (read aloud by them) to like-minded women and men. The whole purpose is to preserve the ritual of letter writing and help fund a vegan farm in Kilmore called Edgar’s Mission.

I was lucky enough to be attending with a dear friend who also happens to be Marieke’s cousin and we sat in the front row, ears tuned to the creative thoughts of these women.

All the letters are unsighted and uncollaberated beforehand and can be humorous, soul searching, outrageous and more often than not inspiring.

The speakers I listened to this month were Maude Davey, Natalie Van Den Dungen, Sian Prior, Missy Higgins, Joan Kirner and Lorelai Vashti 

Dust – Book Review

Dust is everywhere in this house and you don’t need a white glove to prove it. From the bedside tables to the kids’ bookshelves, I can see evidence of a tardy housewife.

My excuse is that dusting sets me off sneezing. Great fits of “achoo,” a spray of snoot and a nose that sniffles and snuffles for the remainder of the day. Why would I want to dust?

So what is dust? ‘Dust is a general name for minute solid particles with diameters less than…500 micrometres. Particles in the atmosphere arise from various sources such as soil dust lifted up by wind, volcanic eruptions, and pollution.’ 

There are three main components of dust: dead skin cells, the dried faeces and corpses of dust mites (nice!) and tiny fibres shed by clothing such as cotton.**

The story I am reviewing today though is far more serious than a dusty bookcase. It is about the humanitarian disaster in Niger, Africa, in 2005. Entitled Dust, by Colin Thompson, published by A.B.C Books, this picture book follows the tragic journey of a mother and child starved and exposed to the elements.

The book starts by saying: “I died last night” and haunting illustrations give weight to the text. Fourteen well-known illustrators designed a double page each and the unique styles interpret the journey of death for this nameless African mother and her child.

“I had no years to fall in love, no weeks to laugh, no days to learn that two and three make five.”

There is a sad reminder that the western world ignored their pleas when it shows a man wearing cufflinks shoveling his left-over dinner into the bin on top of a newspaper that writes about the famine in World News, in contrast to a two million dollar wedding entertainment article.

The second last image in the story has a corpse carrying a sickle and lantern with skulls scattering the ground. He is holding the hands of other cultures.

“Tomorrow we will be back in the dust, gathered by the wind and spread across the world.”

Perhaps this is saying that the Africans' plight will be spread across the world or that they will merely be dust - forgotten under our feet.

It is the final image that shows the frailty of life. Four burning matchsticks with earth the centre in each matchstick head, are glowing, burning, and finally burnt out. A message to the world how quickly we pass from life to death and that we have only one Earth.

This is not your usual picture book but it is a story that needs to be read and shared with your children. Thompson has poignantly retraced this dreadful famine and highlighted the waste of life through beautiful illustrations and evocative text.

While my dusting prelude was completely insignificant it does have a similar theme of neglect.  In Niger, we neglected people who were thirsty, starving and weak. Let’s owe them the respect of being remembered before they were dust. 

*Wikipedia

**answerbag.com

picture - illustrated by Colin Thompson

Story to Tell

The second hand bookstore is always full of surprises and while it is backbreaking work lugging books up the hill from the school shipping container and sorting and pricing boxes, it is cathartic sitting among thousands of pages of books. Vintage, new, hardly read, dog-eared, names inscribed, ex library or with the bookmark still resting between the pages. Every book has (pardon the pun) a story to tell.

My reward for spending so much time voluntarily running the bookstore for the fair is free access to the books. Not surprisingly I don’t grab for the shiny covers or the chick lit. I prefer to pick up books with a history like the weather beaten copy of Lord of the Rings (definitely an early print from the 70’s and a well-loved book with pages loosened at the spine. I am like the Lost Dog’s home for books. I cannot send a book to the recycle bin if a child has scrawled on its pages. I did the same with my books as a child, pretending to be a librarian and stamping the back page. I wasn’t being destructive. I was expressing my love for books at an early age – just like this child.

As I sneeze my way through dusty book after dusty book, I find a cricket story for my son and a book about dogs for my daughter; again pretty grotty books that some child must have read over and over again. Then I stumble on The Prose Works of Henry Lawson and on the back cover is a membership to the Marvic Book Club in Ascot Vale. The postcode reads as W2. The book was printed in 1935. Inside in lead is written, “This book is 3’ per week. Obviously the price you paid back then to loan books. I wonder if they had wine and nibbles at their book club?

I love the treasures that surface every week in the second hand book store and think of friends and colleagues that might be matched to certain books just like families are paired with stray cats and dogs. Veggie growing suits this friend, readers are appropriate for Preps, bike touring for my neighbours, crime for another friend and so on. I even found a book, Two for the Road, which my friend’s husband was pictured in. Apparently her Auntie’s sister-in-law was the author. Such a small world – I promise I’ll review it later.

Don’t worry I will sell some of the books, but my friends also deserve a new book in their lives. I am the gatherer and distributor of once treasured books for both the young and old. My book club loaning sticker would read: All I ask is that you enjoy and love this book!

Is that Name a Poke?

“A little ray of sunshine has come into the world. A little ray of sunshine in the shape of a girl…”

It’s so exciting when you hold your newborn child and name them after nine months of scouring name books and agonising over a mutually acceptable name. It’s a name for your child to own and grow with.

Recently the major papers published the list of the most popular names in Victoria for 2010. A lot of the classics like Ruby, Charlotte and Mia appeared for the girls. Jack, William and Thomas topped the list for the boys*. These are traditional names that fit a newborn as well as a senior citizen’s face.

Recently, an Egyptian father was happy to forego the traditional names of his country by naming his newborn daughter Facebook in appreciation of the role that this social media site played in Egypt’s revolution.

We all watched the bloody protest unfold with thousands packing Tahrir Square and other cities in Egypt demanding the end to President Hosni Muburak’s reign. This father was that impressed by the influence of social gossip and networking that he named his precious daughter after it.

Imagine when Facebook grows up and her teacher says “Get out your laptop Facebook and Google the Egyptian uprising from 2011.” That might explain a few things for her. 

Perhaps if the trend in social uprising continues she will have friends called Yahoo and Twitter!