Whale Rider

This may be one of my absolute favorite first lines (as of yesterday when I read it)...

"In the old days, in the years that have gone before us, the land and sea felt a great emptiness, a yearning".

Witi Ihimaera in The Whale Rider.

Email From The Sarge

Hi Sweetie,
just read you blog and I had a good laugh, thanks a lot. It got me
thinking about a book that I read many years ago called Sharks, Skates
and Rays (Shadows in the Sea) by Captain William McCormick and others.
Out of print but you may find one in the library or the second hand book
shop somewhere. I found it one of the most informative books about sharks.
Also, I don't remember giving you THAT advice.
Love Dad

Richard Newsome and The Curse of The Leviathan

If you come here to regularly peruse the crisp dialogue of the lackadaisical Leviathan firstly, congratulations you have impeccable taste, and secondly you will know that I have (on occasion) embarrassed myself in the presence of authors (so far we have Charlie Higson, Gary Crew, Shaun Tan, Natasha Solomon, Michael Robotham and Morris Gleitzman - but the list is always growing).

The problem is I have the best job in the world. I work at a bookshop (and general hub of reading) in Brisbane where I regularly have to "liaise" with authors and publishing people. This is all very well and good (I have more than enough pencil skirts to make me seem eminently sensible) but I have this habit of freaking them out.

Last night my boss asked me to run an event with Richard Newsome, a Brisbane based author with a swag of awards and two books under his belt. Now, as I mentioned in my previous blog I am still somewhat under the weather and my voice has been dropping in and out like a radio channel in Dolby. So when I realised it was going to have to be a Q and A I had a mild panic (which was then somewhat nullified by a friend giving me a small plastic fox - long story, don’t ask).

Richard arrived and (having already image searched him, learning from my mistaken identity bungle with Morris Gleitzman) I introduced myself, he signed some posters and books and we waited for the guests to arrive. It was a pretty good turn out for a Tuesday night and my pal and colleague Rosie Blum was at my side providing much needed backup and apple pie. There were a few precocious kids with well worn copies of The Billionaire’s Curse and The Emerald Casket cradled in their laps and some star struck mums to boot.

I delivered my prepared speech (where I forgot to mention his swag of awards) and we got into it. I felt like Andrew Denton or worse (and maybe because I was wearing a pencil skirt) Jana Wendt. I found myself nodding knowingly at his comments and anecdotes, leaning against my palm in an act of profound numpty-ness and laughing like a banshee in need of a lozenge.

Occasionally my voice would break or a joke would fall a little flat (my jokes of course; his were hilarious) and I realised how much of my humor relies on a plosive delivery and emphatic hand gestures (because of the plague I could barely keep my head up let alone flail my hands about). I felt like the only joke that was going to work was, “I once caught a cold this big…” and I only thought of that one this morning.

Despite my cold, my squeaky voice and occasional omission of important information, it was a great event and Richard was a truly lovely guy (not to mention a talented writer). After the event he and his lovely little daughter Ella grabbed a copy of the Clementine Novels (a recommend from the leviathan), signed my book and disappeared into the night (well, okay not really. In fact we approached the Bastian of all great modern friendships ad came up trumps- we are now facebook friends).

So maybe I have broken my embarrassment streak (here's hoping) and am now being ushered into the glorious light of adulthood... nah, I doubt it.

On the way home I opened my copy of The Billionaire's Curse to read his inscription...

To Sarah, my great inquisitor. Richard.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Carl Jung - First Line of Four

"The hypothesis of a collective unconscious belongs to the class of ideas that people at first find strange but soon come to possess and use as familiar conceptions".

Carl Jung in Four Archetypes.

Why a Spoon, Cousin?

http://justdessertsreviews.wordpress.com/2010/07/12/rubys-spoon-by-anna-lawrence-pietroni/

So, I may have lied about not doing any writing... sorry, baby.

The 'C' Hole

I know, I've been a bad blogger.

I'm sorry, baby. I know, I know, I haven't been thinking of your feelings. I've been inattentive. I never called. I'm sorry, baby. I would never want to hurt you. I've just had stuff to do. No, don't cry. I hate it when you cry...

Ahem.

So, it’s been a while since I posted anything substantial that wasn’t a photo of a shark or a moaning session about a member of my family. This is because I have had three cold/flu/black plagues and a bout of gastro which left me face down on the living room floor for three days watching Lois and Clarke the New Adventures of Superman. It’s not just you, gentle readers (hi mum). You'll be happy to know that I have, in fact, neglected all writing related duties. A 360 degree fail on all counts with one exception. The exception being the reading of everything Carl Jung has ever written about myth criticism and archetypes. And all I can say about that is,

I am in the C hole.

I mean, what the hell, Carl. WHAT THE HELL!

Hang on, I'll be right back.

I'm back. I put the emergency Enya on. Give it a sec... there it goes. I am now taking a deep breath, pushing the stack of Jung books away and having what can only be described as a Wasp volume swig of gin.

Let me back up a little and explain.

I am looking at a few things for my exegesis to support my claim that the feminine cannot really ever be removed from a story. When a female character is absent from the text (as in the case of Moby Dick) it reforms and takes the form of a landscape instead. One of the ways I plan to support this claim is looking at Jung’s work on the female archetype and his critical work on myth.

I have found some interesting stuff so far. Especially with reference to mans relationship to the water. Yep, my old pal Jung has some interesting things to say about this subject. If by interesting you mean CONFUSING AS ALL HELL! For example (in regards to the story of Moses) Jung says this,

"This story is an amplification and elucidation of the legend of the seven sleepers and the problem of rebirth. Moses is the man who seeks, the man on the "quest". On this pilgrimage he is accompanied by his shadow. Joshua had is origin in the depths of the waters, in the darkness of the shadow-world..."

Um.

Agh.

*cough*

Whatever happened to the days of "Sarah, can you spell CAT?" and "Sarah, can you spell your name?" I miss those quite, simple times, when scraping your knee was the worst thing that could happen and a cardboard box could fill a day with endless amounts of excitement. These days I have to address radical interpretations of the subconscious mind and the stability of the collective unconscious.

Now, where did I put that gin?

Charlie and The Shark