The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work

Alain De Botton

Hamish Hamilton 2009

The flat is quiet and guilty. Nothing here moved while, on the banks of the Thames, the accountant was meeting with IT and striving to keep his temper with an intern. He notices the bath towel thrown hastily over the sofa after the morning shower. The challenge lies in knowing how to bring this sort of day to a close. His mind has been wound to a pitch of concentration by the interactions of the office. Now there are only silence and the flashing of the unset clock on the microwave. He feels as if he had been playing a computer game which remorsefully tested his reflexes, only to have its plug suddenly pulled from the wall. He is impatient and restless, but simultaneously exhausted and fragile. He is in no state to engage with anything significant. It is of course impossible to read, for a sincere book would demand not only time, but also a clear motional lawn around the text in which associations and anxieties could emerge and be disentangled. He will perhaps only ever do one thing well in his life. p266

We walked for three hours in the rain until the line took us to the edge of the town of Sittingbourne, where we decided to stop in the hope of finding something sweet to eat. It was a place where, as often and inexplicably happens in small communities, everyone had chosen to enter the same profession - in this case, hairdressing - as a result of which most enterprises appeared to be close to bankruptcy. Luckily, we found a teashop advertising homemade cakes and what was termed an Old World atmosphere, and took our seats at the back. How cheerful one would have needed to be in such a place in order not to regret existence. A woman wearing a historically styled bonnet arrived with a opt of tea. 'I'll let one of you be mum,' she declared - which for a time prevented either Ian or me from taking the initiative. p208

I was told there'd be cake

Essays by Sloane Crosley. 2008. Riverhead Books

Another reading while turning pancakes book. Just right for my current short attention span. Sloane writes about her evil bully of a boss, her level of vegetarianism weakened by sashimi, origins of her name, being cornered into bridesmaid duties by a forgotten high school friend, a collection of toy ponies she wheedles out of her boyfriends then feels pathetic about, being a slack volunteer at the butterfly exhibit of the Museum. Her humour is dry and the range of references is very young-lady-in-New York.

The subplot of modern marriage assumes that a wedding is the crown jewel of any best friendship, a time when otherwise rational women are legally permitted to misplace their minds, and treat their friend like heel-skin-shaving employees. This is something we tolerate of our closest pals, but I had barely spoken to this woman in a decade....It's a wedding, not an episode of This Is Your Life. p146

It's not my fault they print them

Catherine Deveny. 2007. Black Inc

What do you read when you want to read but need to flip pancakes. I read collections of magazine style articles. An endless weekend paper. Catherine does a fine job of building up an argument or a joke to a good stew. And reading about TV is in my opinion so much finer than actually watching it. Righteous, funny, proud of her opinions on all the key topics: births, hitting children, marriages, changing names, and the Brownlow. And it's all such a relief.

Most kids don't give a rat's about the improvised music workshops, organic gardens and interpretive dance classes they do at school. But the parents, eyes blazing, face alight, will bore you senseless about them in an attempt to convince you of their coolness. All it actually does is convince us that they are Wannabe Creatives; insecure dags who had friends in bands but were never in bands themselves. Too much exposure to organised creativity immunises children against creativity. p62

30 Days in Sydney. A Wildly Distorted Account

Peter Carey. 2001. Bloomsbury

Poetic writing and cities, if that was a genre, it would be one of my favourites. Society seen in the structure and symbolism of the city.

And then, in my dream, I peered down from the top arch of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and had the insight which would never leave me, not even in my waking hours. Asleep in my bed in Wollahra I saw the Central Business District as if for the first time. I saw how it held itself back fro the edge of the beloved harbour as if it understood how vile and crooked it had always been. In a society which values the view above all else, here was the heart of the city, a blind place with no vistas, a dense knot of development and politics and business and law. This was Macartur's monument. A physical expression of two centuries of Sydney's own brand of capitalism, the concrete symbol of an unhealthy anti-democratic alliance between business and those authorities which should have controlled it. p.92

Some of the slurry half-dream-half-drunk macho posturing got on my nerves; not enough to put me off the book.

Eating Between the Lines. Food and Equality in Australia.

Rebecca Huntley. 2008 Black Inc

Essays about the politics behind the way we eat. Like a series of magazine articles; many illustrated in interviews with representatives of the common person.

From a chapter called “Lebs make the best Lamb”:

…”my mother, born and bred here and having shed her Italian name through marriage, still feels some of the stigma. I tried to explain to her once that all things Italian were now cool. We were acceptable. We now live in a suburb awash with lattes and Pelegrino, where clothes proudly display their Italian origins and Italian food is popular with gourmands and the hoi polloi alike. It means little to her. ‘Sure they like our food now. Why wouldn’t they? It’s a lot better than what they were eating before we came. But it doesn’t mean they accept us.’ P 133

Hobart blue and yellow

Hobart

we grew stuff,

ate it

and are excited

Housekeeping Vs The Dirt

Nick Hornby, 2006, Believer Books

Finally read a book which ended a spell of being tongue tied. Nick Hornby writes a series of magazine columns about reading; what he bought; what he read; and what else happened in his life. A funny mix of mundane and reflections on reading. He likes to read and he also likes music, soccer, drinking and somehow in an amusing way works all those interests into columns. The charting of how one book liked or otherwise leads to the next seems familiar.

And on my reading list

There's been a mini festival of Alain de Botton. What's not to like? He's funny, likes Proust, and is intellectually interested in love.

Kiss and Tell is an early novel (Macmillan 1995). Alain, in first person, is writing the biography of his girlfriend. A very biased history, based on Isabel's memories and shifting revealing of the facts. The author studies her writing, past, friends, cooking, as if she is the subject of an in depth biography. That makes her sound peculiar, whereas this is a fairly standard love affair and two quite ordinary people.

So many questions about this book. Is it non fiction. There are photos documenting the life story of Isabel. Is she made up? Or is she real, and how did she ever agree?

p233 Alain's best guess for a personal ad for Isabel...

Young, beautiful but doesn't usually think so woman, not used to filling in such boxes and thinks people who do should make friends with their neighbours, eats carrots at bus stops, tired of having maso-chistic relationships, loves gardening, good driver, bad at programming videos, prefers margarine to butter, flirts with the idea of throwing in her job every Monday (dull job, doesn't wish to be judged on it, so won't mention it, avoids the subject at parties, and suspicious of those who don't), quite tidy apart from the kitchen. Hates gherkins, gangster films, Milton, the Rolling Stones, putting out the rubbish bins on Tuesday, too many bones in fish, getting to bed past midnight during the week. Sometimes loves her parents, swimming, gossip, picking something big out of her nose, Bob Dylan, orange juice, Vaclav Havel, reading in the bath.

A.B. Yehoshua Friendly Fire. A Duet. 2007 Harcourt Inc

Heard the author interviewed on the Book Show. Set in current day Israel touching on the war and societal tensions this is mainly a story about a husband and wife who have been married for 30 - 40 years. Written concurrently from both points of view, like a duet. The wife goes to mourn her sister with her brother in law, travelling alone to Africa. The husband stays at home and continues his life and work, but finds himself made busy by the requirements of the wider family. I really enjoyed the characters in this book, they seemed real and flawed. The gentle symbolism is very deftly handled.

st erth's

St Erth's is a formal cool climate garden in Blackwood with espaliered fruit trees, rows of organised fecund vegetables (of impressive yields, described in tonnes). Bush to play in and Kookaburras to listen to. Mossy, slippery and quiet with signs of wombats. Magic.

What Joy wore to her birthday

bread and the adventures of the sour dough culture

A friend from the co-op helped us start our own sour dough culture. It's like a pet needing feeding. Now working through a 20 kg bag of flour. Our latest yum experiment - half rye with pecans. 

Freeform is good but loaf shaped ends with a cleaner oven and a glorious shape.

heronwood

Seaside Dromana. Long lunch. Stroll around inspiring gardens and a rummage in Diggers store. Full day's outing.

tough client

made a dinosaur hooded overall in preparation for the dress up party. kids are tough client. very fickle. likely to shamelessly bow to peer pressure (fairy princesses). the ladybug starting point remains now only in my imagination.

cooking with help

the fun. the danger. the mess. is it educational or delusional. who knows. with 'help' one really can't tell.

Growing, An autobiography of the years 1904 - 1911

Leonard Woolf. The Hogath Press. London. 1967

Leonard (husband of Virginia) tells of his time in the civil service in Sri Lanka. A time about a century ago is cleanly described; pearl fishing, jungle elephants and leopards, solitude, mad dogs and Englishmen.

" ...I would  never put golf very high in the hierarchy of good games; it is too slowly long drawn out and therefore the anger against one's opponent, which in tennis and rackets, for instance, merely adds an occasional, momentary spur to one's efforts or exhaustion, in golf is apt to smoulder unpleasantly and sadistically."p119

the kangaroo pouch

Elizabeth Zimmerman wizardry, a jumper called the kangaroo pouch. Knit on circular needles without seams. Sleeves are set in and turned  like a sock heel. Magic. Less magic is knitting a sleeve on circular needles. Knitting looking like an octopus now with three circular needles in use. Happy knitting , just not so transportable. 

Joy is keeping busy with cutting and sticking.

the end of slavery and measured meringue success

Pessach, the end of slavery commemorated with a no grain 8 day festival. If it was not for the Matzoh, nuts and eggs, a girl could really detox. In preparation we made some coconut macaroons with chocolate and pistachio meringues (these could have been higher). Anyway we are well prepared.

Dress-ups

We are the happy owners of a freecycle toy box. The original owner has had it since she was 6 and is now 44. (with applied maths that's 38 years) It's perfect size on castors in a light ply with rope handles. Now in constant use as a dress up box, a tea party table, and also as a second doll's house - the warehouse apartment(?)

Super undies

I've been looking at t-shirts in a new light. Would these be better as super undies? Soft cotton, especially with funny pictures - the answer can only be yes! Two made so far and there is no reason to stop yet. Sewing knit fabrics, even, yes I am. Although the knit fear plus a 3 year old 'helping' slowed things down. Need to use the stretch of the fabric better as my first attempts are a little on the super sized side.

The White Tiger

Aravind Adiga. Free Press. 2008

To sum up - in the old days there were one thousand castes and destinies in India. These days, there are just two castes: Men with Big Bellies, and Men with Small Bellies.

And only two destinies: eat or get eaten up. p.64

Booker Prize winner. Involving story, painfully true, about life and death, horror and terror in the 'Darkness'- the poor half of India. Habits of servitude, anger and dependence, so easy to imagine, are aptly described and inhabited. Corruption of civilization, especially in politics is mercilessly noticed. 

The White Tiger is an (anti) hero, with a full range of emotions and motives. I felt pity, sympathy, almost kinship for him. An admirable writing achievement, for a murderer. Most of the characters are not good nor respectable. In their midst, we get to know the White Tiger well and he appears respectable. Although his conscience is not clear it is well examined. The pervasive ridiculous corruption around him, lends him a certain purity.

Clever use of repetition to highlight injustice. Key visual after controversial events, such as comparing the death by murder to that of untreated TB. Built like a legal defence of the White Tiger's innocence.

Sprays: A Collection of Verbal Touch-ups

HG Nelson, Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd, 2008

Speeches made by HG Nelson on various topics including; fashion, racing, Lachlan Murdoch's bucks night, debates about blokes being duds, and a keynote address at a local government seminar. The jokes are all sport talk, which really appeal to me for no obvious reason. The local government theme is called

Firecrackers, home slaughtering and sprinklers on Australia Day are the real stumpers confronting local government as they plough through a heady agenda of community renewal and sustainability. (How did he guess?)

So if you dud out tonight and ...leave a loser, pop into the room of mirrors when you get home and have a bloody good hard look at yourself. When you find the door handle and emerge tomorrow around 7am, be prepared to put in and become a local government winner next year. p98

Domestic remedies

When things get too much, what do you do? I try all sorts of things before remembering that what I really like is a day of domestic smallness. Today was just that sort of day: we baked Anzac biscuits in time for morning tea, made stock for soups of the future, Joy tried out cutting with a sharp knife (all fingers are still intact), made dinner for tomorrow, played with new boots (fine Italian craftsmanship is a cure for lots of ills) and read about the magic of Voom (The Cat in the Hat comes back - Dr Seuss). All is much better now.

The Pages

Murray Bail, 2008, Text Publishing Melbourne

Lovely and poetic in parts. Bit too clever or post modern or something. Emotions morph into landscapes, sunsets, and quiet farmers with landscape-like brows.  Severe and stark. That can be exactly what one wants sometimes...

I did enjoy the duality between philosophy (Erica) and psychoanalysis (Sophie). But women are hysterical or earthly passive. Love is a sudden alien surprise. There is (even) a rescue by a gallant knight character.

Erica comes to the country to study  the pages written by Wesley Anthill a self styled philosopher. Wesley's story is told interspersed through the present day story. Wesley's story would have been enough for me. There is a grand finale in his story revealed with great fanfare. boom boom ta da surprise! Shortly after his narrative ends.

Thinking about thinking gives Wesley and Erica headaches and gives the book a slow, plodding texture.

The Spare Room

Helen Garner. 2008. Text Publishing Melbourne Australia

Is this 'Monkey Grip' for ladies in their 60s? Instead of junky boyfriends and love, in this story the disturbance is by hippie friends with cancer and death. 

Helen cares for her bohemian friend with cancer. Nicola believes in all sorts of quasi medical miracles (vitamin c, cupping, electrode treatment). She refuses to face death, leaving that full sad knowledge to her carers. Carers become punitive mothers.

I really enjoy books set in Melbourne and look forward to the padding within the narrative for the scene descriptions. This story is set somewhere on the Broadmeadows line, near Moonee Ponds. The setting for clinic in Flinders Lane is so familiar. As is dinner at the Waiters Club.

Sparse elegant writing. Home life effortlessly described.

The morning was grey and gentle, with doves. p103

travels and holidays

Farm near Colac to see the heifers, skittish as deer. Sandy Point beach holiday with all the trimmings: sun, heat, water, sand, wilderness, friends and food.