October 3, 2007
An ideal marriage
An ideal marriage I have discovered, as indeed I am longing to get through the nonfiction books in my stack, but I can’t bear to give up lies for too long. So I am reading two books at once now, nonfiction complemented by a collection of short stories: the former being Kate Grenville’s Searching for the Secret River, and the latter is Jack Hodgins’ Damage Done by the Storm. Perfect! Why didn’t I think of this sooner?
Grenville’s book is wonderful so far, though I am approaching it from a strange place having never read The Secret River. It’s asking a lot of the same questions as Bernice Morgan’s novel Cloud of Bone, but from an Australian point of view, about remembering and forgetting, and the price we pay for either. Even some of the scenes are reminiscent, which is strange for two books of nonfiction and fiction respectively. And just getting into the Hodgins (one story before bed, you know). I’ve read his A Passion for Narrative before, and am excited to see his theory in action.
I have also become a compulsive squash buyer. Soon this will have to stop.
