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Musing Mondays

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Musing Mondays (BIG)Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about mid-year reading…

Now that we’ve come to the middle of the year, what do you think of your 2009 reading so far? Read anything interesting that you’d like to share? Any outstanding favourites?

I think I’m getting there with my books. I’ve noticed that this year especially, my tastes have become more narrow, which is unfortunate, but it means that I’ve read a lot of different books to get to this stage. I think.

I’ve reread a few books, including Jane Eyre recently, which, when you’re working through a list of books you want to read, can be seen as wasting time. But I could never, ever think that reading Jane Eyre is a waste of time.

Thanks to blog’s like Matt’s and Mae’s, I’ve found new books to read and love, and The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov definitely stands out here.

I’ve also started reading more about the Beats, which made Junky so much more rewarding, and I’ve started dabbling in comics and graphic novels, which I never thought I would.

Interestingly enough, when I first started this blog I would pretty much review every book I had written. Now I review only a small fraction of the books that I read, because, dabbling into new genres, and moving more towards literature and away from airport fiction, etc., I’m finding it more difficult to keep up with the original intentions of With Extra Pulp.

Now that I’ve begun reading Proust, I am not sure what the rest of the year will hold for me, reading-wise. Maybe Sydney will have a different effect on me as well.

What books have you read so far this year? Anything worth mentioning?

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June 29th, 2009Monday MusingRead More >12 Comments


Next - Michael Crichton

nextTalking animals are cool. Talking animals that have a moral lesson are not cool.

Next by Michael Crichton was published about three years ago as a science fiction action novel with a moral: Don’t patent genes. Unlike Jurassic Park, which has a bit more moral ambiguity (dinosaurs are just freaking awesome), action sequences involving velociraptors and a hot paleobotanist, Next features an assortment of largely flat, unlikeable characters, whose only roles seem to be to represent various stakeholders in the scientific and ethical debate surrounding the patenting of genes.

This is why reading too many books by the same author is dangerous. They get tiring.

There are elements of this novel that are actually cool: The spunky and quick thinking female lawyer Alex, who can and will wield a shotgun to protect herself and her son from evil bounty hunters after their cells; a talking and swearing multilingual orangutan AND a parrot that knows the words to “Danse Magic Danse” by David Bowie/Goblin King. (Yes, folks, I’m talking about Labyrinth!

There are many interwoven stories within this novel, but this is not executed neatly. It’s understood, generally, that character development is often sacrificed at the hands of exciting action, but Next not only lacks exciting action, its weak attempt at character development is sporadic, lazy and full of cliches.

Crichton tries to explore the current climate and potential possibilities around genetics and biotechnology, but his agenda is far too obvious: he even ends the book with a section on “what he learned through his research” which is a more factual way of telling us to STOP GENE PATENTING. Yes thank you, we get it already.

By far, the best characters in this novel were the transgenic animals. If you don’t know what that means, read Next but don’t expect a stellar piece of writing. But once again, we get a condescending story about the dangers of playing God with our advanced technical prowess. Power = responsibility, etc. You’ve heard it before.

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June 23rd, 2009ReviewsRead More >3 Comments


Macbeth: A Contemporary Rock Opera

I like a good rock opera as much as the next person. And side balcony seats in the Cremorne theatre at QPAC are surprisingly not terrible (if you can stand your rear end getting numb after twenty minutes of sitting).

How could Macbeth possibly go wrong? Awesome storyline + fantastic costumes + some kick-arse songs = two hours of an engaging modern take on Shakespeare (and purists who are abhorred should really take a chill pill).

Apart from Adrian Corbett (Macbeth) and Angela Lumicisi (Lady Macbeth), the singing is actually quite mediocre. In fact, I briefly (like, nanosecond briefly) met Adrian after the show, and considering he had lost his voice, I would give him ten gold stars for that performance.

Macbeth

The witches’ voices were piercing, and most of them had the creepy crawly hand movements down, except for one, who seemed to act like a chimpanzee. I love chimpanzees. Not when they are actually a woman with large frizzy hair. Then it’s just scary.

Apart from the off-key singing, the show is actually kind of entertaining. There aren’t enough so-good-it’s-goosebumpy moments but it flows, and the musicians seemed to know what they were doing. The songs are based off the actual Shakespeare script, thank goodness, but given this, it would have been nice to hear a bit more diction in the various voices. It might be a pretty song but it’s an opera: the audience needs to understand what’s being sung.

I’m pretty sure this rundown of the show is quite pointless only because the show is running till the 20th, and as probably sold out to hordes of high school students. 6/10 because of the groovy gothic costumes and Lady Macduff’s toy baby.

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June 18th, 2009ReviewsRead More >2 Comments


The Happy-haps/Currently Reading


If you look closely, there is no book more visual than Three Trapped Tigers, in that it is filled with blank pages, dark pages, it has stars made of words, the famous magical cube made of numbers, and there is even a page which is a mirror.

- Guillermo Cabrera Infante

I’m currently having incredible difficulty finding time to read.

I blame a number of factors:

1. My recently rekindled love affair with Brisbane music which has seen me out on the town the last three nights in a row. I don’t know about you but I find it incredibly hard to read a book after getting home at 2am with my ears still ringing and mascara stubbornly refusing to be removed properly.

2. A number of writing projects which include a CD review for FasterLouder, an article for BloomAsia, and a couple of other little tidbits to be sending out soon. Maybe somebody somewhere, someday, will actually pay me for my efforts, but for the moment I’m happily slaving away for the love of writing.

3. The stresses that are inherent when jobhunting and being invited for an interview/open day for a company that is far from what you ever imagined doing with your life. In short, I might have to make the choice between moving to Sydney to pursue my dream, with employment still a grey area, or possibly having to stay in Brisbane, possibly long term, to work a full-time job while I continue to write in my limited spare time.

4. Been a bit under the weather the last few days, and not in the fun curl-up-in-bed-with-good-book kind. I blame my ridiculously cold bedroom which doesn’t not want to retain any heat. Ever.

Therefore, my currently reading list STILL consists of G. Cabrera Infante’s Three Trapped Tigers, Wake Up, Sir by Jonathon Ames which so far, is a shameless and self-proclaimed, um, rip-off, of beloved man-servant Jeeves. I ended up putting Next by Michael Crichton away, my head just isn’t digging the science fiction/genetic patenting debate at the moment. Oh, and the Playboy short stories still feature sporadically in my currently reading list.

I also have a bookswap on Tuesday, which will of course continue the exponential growth of my TBR pile. Woot.

stephenfryasjeeves

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June 14th, 2009GeneralRead More >2 Comments


The Perils of Reading Bronte

The Perils of Reading Bronte:

1. Other books really cower in the shadow of it. I haven’t found a book as captivating as this since finishing it yesterday.

2. Unlike Pride & Prejudice, which fills women with an unrealistic hope of the existence of “gentlemen”, this just crushes you, the reader, with the heavy truth that sometimes even the most perfect of loves is doomed. DOOMED.

3. The book itself is frustrating as hell: The actual story of Catherine and Heathcliff is teasingly short and we are left with the remnants of their offspring, barely a notch on their parents’ belt (in dislikeability as well as strength of character).

4. While reading Wuthering Heights, you, the reader, will become so absorbed in the smokey, romantic scenery of the moors, that upon finishing, you will return to reality to find it bland and harsh in comparison.

5. It inspires one to write, while dangling in front of them the essence of perfect writing - unattainable in all its glory.

6. Once completed, the experience of reading it for the first time is lost forever.

7. It makes the most stoic of us cry (not that I’m stoic by any means but you get the idea). People I know to be non-criers have cried from this. And when reading in public, it’s a terrible cause for embarrassment.

8. It’s a terribly depressing book. I love a good downer as much as the next person of melancholy humour, but not even P.G. Wodehouse could get me out of this funk. I growled at anybody who came near me while I had this book in my hand, and for the rest of the day afterwards.

9. I HATE Catherine. So much so that I sometimes forget that she is a character, not a real person. This is hardly the type of emotion one should walk around carrying inside them.

Thus ends my list of perils.

Rather than round it up to an even ten, I’m going to leave it at that. This definitely goes up on my pedestal of life-changing books, for all its perfect phrases and infuriating characters, and is currently headbutting against Jane Eyre for my favourite Bronte book. I’ll let you know the result after this round.

A few more tidbits…

I cannot possibly begin to review Wuthering Heights purely because I would not do it justice. The book deserves one of those literary criticisms usually written by Honours or PhD students.

I was warned by the friend who lent it to me that its exquisite literary fineness causes many other books to shrink in comparison. I laughed, maintaining that my mind isn’t usually changed that easily.

I finished the book in about 7 hours, and managed to cook dinner with one hand while my nose was still buried in the pages.

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June 10th, 2009Literary musings ReviewsRead More >5 Comments


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