Diary of Bodies 9: upcoming events to beat the winter blues (maybe)

As I write this it’s freezing and blustery, though, thankfully, there’s a deep blue sky – this neck of the woods really does know how to beguile and contrast. Perhaps we should just enjoy the feeling of winter, because it’s a feeling that will become increasingly rare as we cook our planet into smithereens?

In any case, enough of the grim stuff.

Over the coming weeks I have a handful of events in Canberra:

• I’m pleased to have been asked to help launch the new Harry Hartog store at the Australian National University, 6pm on Tuesday 16 July; the Harry Hartog group has been very supportive of BODIES OF MEN, so it’s lovely to, well, return the love
• I’m very much looking forward to being in conversation with prominent journalist and novelist Michael Brissenden, in the cosy and stylish Muse Restaurant & Bar (and bookshop), at 3pm on Sunday 11 August
• I have two events at the Canberra Writers Festival: a panel on the creative process with Karren Viggers, Kathryn Hind, and Patrick Mullins, with Emma Alberici at 3.30pm Sunday 25 August; and I’ll be chairing a discussion on ‘growing up queer’ with David Marr, Sally Rugg, and Professor Sally Wheeler at 5.30pm on the same day
• it will be interesting to visit a new arts facility in Canberra, Terroux, a private rural property that is now offering artist residencies and events – I’ll be in conversation with Dr Christina Spittel and Dr Glenda Cloughley, 2pm-5pm, Saturday 31 August

And before I head to the couch with a blanket and a book, I thoroughly enjoyed chatting about BODIES OF MEN with journalist Genevieve Jacobs for RIOTACT – our chat in the cafe of the Australian War Memorial resulted in a brief video interview as well as a terrifically engaged written piece.

Onwards.

Reading uninterrupted

Devastating

A good thing about being down and out with a bad case of winter ’flu, apart from the distinct possibility of a deep, sexy (maybe) radio-esque voice, is being able to read uninterrupted.

This week I finished Richard Flanagan’s epic The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Vintage, 2013), which was the winner of the 2014 Independent Booksellers Award and has been shortlisted for other highly regarded literary gongs. I’m not going to review the novel – I wouldn’t know where to begin – but I do want to say that it’s extraordinary. Unflinching, devastating, multi-faceted, and ultimately very moving indeed. It focuses on an Australian doctor who was a POW on the Thai-Burma ‘death railway’ during the Second World War, but it also explores many other points of view, including the lovers of the men as well as those who found themselves guards and committed almost unspeakable atrocities. It’s sprawling, filmic, at times meandering, but it’s impossible not to be affected. Amazing that on the day I finished reading the work, Prime Minister Shinzo, Japan’s current head honcho, gave a presentation to a rare joint sitting of the Australian parliament; the associated speech by Tony Abbott, Australia’s prime minister, is a different story.

2014 Independant Booksellers Award

2014 Independant Booksellers Award

2014 Independant Booksellers Award

2014 Independant Booksellers

Chekhovian

Another book that’s been a part of my sick-bed (sick-couch, really) reading is The Wild Goose, a novella by Mori Ogai and translated by Meredith McKinney, the daughter of revered Australian poet Judith Wright. Ogai is considered one of the most notable writers of the Meiji era (1868-1912), during which Japan experienced significant changes in social and economic structures and foreign relations. McKinney has translated a work written by a man who was born in 1862 ‘in a Japan that had been officially closed to the rest of the world for centuries,’ as stated in the introduction. But Ogai went on to spend time in Germany where he immersed himself in western literature and although he was always convinced that Japan had to embrace modernity he also came to understand how much would be lost in the process. The Wild Goose, which has been beautifully produced by Finlay Lloyd, it’s a truly gorgeous object, is a story of love, entrapment, and the power of commerce. It is remarkably unformulaic, and it’s intriguingly Chekhovian in both spirit and scope. I’ll review it for Verity La soon, but I can tell you that it’s a novella that has got beneath my skin.

In the meantime, I really should hack up my other lung.