Confessions of a Festival Lackey

Three days on and I'm finally emerging from the wonderful afterglow of the Melbourne Jewish Writers' Festival. Over a year in the planning, the two days and one night turned out to be everything we'd hoped for and, to lean on a crappy cliche, more. Eighty writers from Melbourne, interstate and overseas, sixty volunteers and over two thousand tickets sold to sessions. Holy gefilte fish... Having been to a fair few literary festivals in my time, mostly as an avid lit lover/sycophant but more recently as a participant, I have to say this ranks up there with the best. I know, humility isn't my strong point. I could babble on about this for days but I've managed to whittle it down to a few highlights:

Favourite Sessions In Which I Did Not Participate
I went to plenty of really great sessions but three really stood out. Rachael Kohn's live video discussion with living legend Irvin Yalom was a scintillating exchange of ideas between two people of towering intellect, passion and talent. It really kicked the first day off with a bang. Peter and Renata Singer's session on the moral lessons a reader can learn from great literature was also a true delight to behold. Both Peter and Renata are amazing thinkers and I greatly appreciated the depth and substance of their perspectives on a whole range of books I already loved but hadn't quite thought of in moral/ethical terms before. Finally, Dara Horn in conversation with Tali Lavi was not only great fun but also gave the audience fantastic insight to the work (and workings) of one of American literature's young guns. Extra credit to Dara who took a punt on coming out to an inaugural festival that might just as well have tanked but, thanks in part to her, did exactly the opposite.

Session I Wished I'd Seen But Got Waylaid As A Panellist In The Other Room
By all accounts the session on Landscapes: The Sense of Place in Literature was unbelievable. No surprises there; the panel consisted of Linda Jaivin, Dara Horn and Maria Tumarkin and was chaired by Tali Lavi. I also would have loved to have seen the session on Trauma with personal fave Arnold Zable, who has worked with refugee communities and bushfire survivors, and Zeruya Shalev who survived a suicide bombing.

Personal Highlight #1
Who doesn't love crapping on about their favourite books? Heck, I've made an entire blog of it. So my session on Forgotten Gems with Arnold Zable and Renata Singer, chaired by former Jewish Museum director Helen Light was a real thrill. Arnold did Bruno Schulz's Street of Crocodiles, Renata did Clarice Lispector's Near To The Wild Heart and I (surprise surprise) did Mr. Theodore Mundstock by Ladislav Fuks. The audience really got into it too, with everyone jumping up to share their favourite 'forgotten' books. Great fun all round.

Personal Highlight #2
The Festival Hub. Whoever came up with the idea of combining the signing area, book store, coffee shop and general mingling space into one large marquee was a genius. There was a constant buzz as authors, volunteers, punters, booksellers and random strangers who happened to be passing by mingled and soaked up the incredible atmosphere.

Also, being behind the scenes, I got a lot of interesting insights into what it means to organise and participate in one of these beasts. Here, then, is a bit of advice for participants or, as I like to think of them:

Five Commandments For Writers At Festivals
1. Thou Shalt Not Be An Egotistical Douchebag. The best part of MJWF was how wonderfully collegial most of the writers were. They hung out, watched one another's sessions, were happy to talk with eager attendees; basically, did everything to give the fest a great vibe. Of course there were a couple who - despite their relative insignificance when held next to some of the other participants - thought themselves above it all. Reverse kudos to one spectacular douche who ruined his session with boring hagiographical arse-licking then had the audacity to castigate the organisers for failing to give him the respect he (and his subject) deserved. Add to that his disgusting rant against one of his fellow panellists who he (wrongly) accused of undermining him before the session. Bad form from a thoroughly average human.
2. Thou Shalt Remember It's A Festival, Not An Academic Conference. Ok, we get it. You're smart. You know a lot about the subject. But this is a fun gathering of like minded book lovers, not some stuffy university snorefest. By all means engage in a deep, intelligent, robust discussion with your fellow panellists, but don't open with a twenty minute exegesis of the minutiae of your area of interest. Wrong place, wrong time.
3. Thou Shalt Not Be An Overt Advertising Robot. You wrote a book? It's just come out? You want to promote it? No shit! That's why you were invited. And yes, a writers' festival is the perfect vehicle in which to do so. But judging by book sales at the event (and there were A LOT of them), the best kind of promotion was simply participating in an engaging way in whatever panel you happen to be on. People will want to read your book if they like you. Unless you are actually launching said book, there's no need to shove it down their throats.
4. Honour Thy Reader. Writing is a lonely, soul destroying pursuit. We don't get the chance to meet other people, let alone those who actually give half a shit about what we do. Therefore, when the opportunity arises, grab it with both hands, dance with it, hump it like an over-excited puppy, do whatever to seize the moment. Readers love chatting with you. They want to meet you. They want to know that you're a human too. They want to bounce their ideas off you, no matter how batshit crazy some of those ideas might be. This is the opposite of Commandment 1. Act accordingly.
5. Thou Shalt Turn Up. The one big disappointment of the festival was the no show of Israeli superstar (and personal favourite of mine) David Grossman. Apparently there was some miscommunication about the day - he thought it was to be Monday night when it was quite clearly scheduled for Sunday. Not throwing blame anywhere, but if you are a participant, make sure you know exactly when your session is booked and do everything humanly possible to be there. Luckily Sally Warhaft, who was supposed to conduct the interview, instead ran an impromptu session on politics and the media which was very well received by the disappointed crowd. Still, my point stands. Know your time. Be there. Of course, if you are likely to break Commandment 1 (and this most certainly doesn't apply to David Grossman who made an honest mistake and felt terrible about the whole debacle), feel free to ignore this one. You are not wanted. Douchebag.

Don't want to end on a sour note, so here are a couple of my favourite pics.

Irvin Yalom in Conversation with Rachael Kohn

The Festival Hub in Full Swing

Post-Session Selfie With Arnold Zable

Yukkin' It Up With Dara Horn

Neurotica Session with Nathan Serry, Kerri Sackville, Eli Glasman and Raphael Brous

It's Funny 'Cos It's Us with former Supreme Court Justice Howard Nathan, Dave Bloutsein and John Safran.

In-Panel Selfie seemed only fitting for a session called Voices From The Cloud: Internet Writing with Lee Kofman and Michael Gawenda

A carefully chosen excerpt from the festival banner...

Required Reading: Melbourne Jewish Writers' Festival

Less than a week to go before the inaugural Melbourne Jewish Writers' Festival is upon us. If you're from Melbourne or can get down here for the weekend, you are in for a real treat with three nights and two days of amazing sessions. Veritably plutzing with excitement, I've pushed the usual bedside pile to the far edge of the table and plonked a few festival-relevant books in its place. For those looking for a quick primer on what to read before you come (of course you don't have to have read a single thing to enjoy this event), I recommend you hit up a few of the following:

Falling Out of Time by David Grossman: An extraordinary meditation on grief and loss
The World To Come by Dara Horn: Not her latest but the one that saw her smash it out of the park. An art heist family drama par excellence!
Sea of Many Returns by Arnold Zable: Everyone champions Cafe Scheherezade but for me it is this more recent novel that crystallises Zable's beautifully humane themes. A deeply moving book about exile, displacement and the meaning of home.
My Father's Compass by Howard Goldenberg: By turns heartbreaking and hilarious, Goldenberg's memoir is a wonderful read. I guarantee you will never forget THAT bath scene.
Murder in Mississippi by John Safran: A rollicking true-crime adventure by the reigning king of awkward comedy. You just can't make this shit up.
The Poet by Alex Skovron: His session might be about translation, and he is best known for his poetry, but Skovron's novella, The Poet, is his masterpiece. A slim, Kafkaesque work of great style and even greater substance.
Nazi Dreamtime by David Bird: A fascinating study of one of the weirder footnotes of Australian history, Bird looks at the scarily large contingents of Hitler enthusiasts during the war years.
Three Dollars by Elliot Perlman: By now a local (and possibly Australian) classic, Perlman's debut marked the start of a truly shimmering career.

Hopefully that gives you a bit of a start. There are a bunch of other fantastic writers who I have not read but I'm sure you'll also love - Irvin Yalom, Zeruya Shalev, Maria Tumarkin, Linda Jaivan, Andrea Goldsmith and more. Check out the whole program on the festival website and be sure to buy your tickets soon. Sessions are starting to sell out!

Microviews Vol. 51: Five Star Frenzy!

For reasons that some of you already know and will become apparent to the rest of you soon, I've been AWOL for the better part of a month. I'm pretty excited to mark my return with a first for Bait For Bookworms - a Microviews entry featuring five amazing books that scored my ultra-rare five star rating. Most excitingly, three are debuts. Skim through, jot down the names then get your arse to your nearest bookstore. By the time you've finished all five I should have some new entries for you to read.

An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alammedine
What makes a life worth living? How do you forge a meaningful identity once you have cut yourself off from the wider world? I know, I know. These are precisely the sorts of questions that made me drop out of Philosophy in second year uni. But don't despair. By the grace of Kant (or Nietzsche or Kierkegaard or... why am I even pretending to remember which God we were supposed to worship???) Rabih Alammedine brings you the answers you never knew you wanted in what is, without doubt, one of the most joyful reading experiences I've had this year. Aaliya - 72 years old, blue haired, crotchety - sits in her Beirut apartment translating the classics into Arabic; one a year, starting on New Year's Day. It is her singular purpose, to the exclusion of all else. That's not to say she doesn't ponder life outside. She loves her war-torn country even if it kind of pisses her off. But her real love is the piles and piles of books that clog her small living quarters. They are her everything and it's not hard to see why. Aaliya has impeccable taste - Coetzee, Bolano, Saramago, Sebald. To each she gives serious thought, offering up all sorts of opinions and observations. In less deft hands a book of this kind might have been bogged down in stodgy pontification. Not here, though; Aaliya's thoughts are an absolute delight to read. She is funny, feisty and, at times, gleefully acerbic. But this isn't just book porn for the literati. Alammedine keeps the narrative string nice and taut; disaster looms and, eventually, strikes. If you love reading, if you love thinking, if you love a good laugh, if you have even a skerrick of soul, An Unnecessary Woman is the book for you. Seriously, I can't possibly recommend it highly enough.
5 Out of 5 Blue Rinses

Dept of Speculation by Jenny Offill
Reduced to its essence, Dept of Speculation is the story of an ordinary marriage. A couple meet, fall in love, get married, run the gamut of typical marital problems (kids, fidelity, ageing) and so forth. That Jenny Offill has managed to craft such a prosaic set of non-events into this sparkling jewel of a novel is nothing short of breathtaking. Dept of Speculation reminds me of another incredible Granta book, Hillel Halkin's Melisande! What Are Dreams? The two share the same sense of quiet warmth that draws you in, messes with your heart then leaves you in a wistful cloud of almost post-coital bliss. Come to think of it, Dept of Speculation has been the missing part of what I now consider my Holy Trinity of books about love. Read Offill, Halkin and Skarmeta's The Postman - all very slim novels that punch well above their physical weight - and you will know all there is to know on the subject. Take that, Rilke!
5 Out of 5 Lost Letters

Diary of The Fall by Michel Laub
Here's a strange case of art imitating life. Many years ago I knocked out my friend's little brother at the kid's barmitzvah. We were spinning him in the air - a manoeuvre know as "the helicopter" - when he lost his grip, flew across the room, and smashed his head on the ground. He spent the night in intensive care. We were encouraged to continue to celebrate in his absence because, well, everything had been paid for and, after all, it was still his barmitzvah. Michel Laub's extraordinary novel begins with a similar event. Joao, who is not Jewish but who wants to fit in with all his Jewish friends, has a thirteenth birthday party modelled around a barmitzvah and, during one of the key dances (another tradition that ignores geographical boundaries - jumping from a chair into a net of waiting arms) is dropped by his friends. This nasty schoolboy prank serves as the catalyst for a considered excavation of assorted memories that the narrator embarks upon many years later when confronting his father's impending descent into the cloud of Alzheimer's. Diary of The Fall is really three sets of memories - the narrator, his father and grandfather. They drift in free flow, each wholly distinct but liable to intersect and overlap as the mercurial narrative unfolds. All of them struggle with their own reality. The narrator fell out with his father after the faux-mitzvah incident and their slow path to reconciliation is key to the book. The father too is locked in an existential battle - with his own illness, with the shadow of the Holocaust that came to define his childhood and with the suicide of his own father. And then there is the grandfather, perhaps Laub's most astounding creation. A survivor of Auschwitz, he keeps a diary of fabrications, through which we come to understand the extent and intractability of his suffering (there is a considerable dose of "He Doth protest Too Much" in his observations about hygiene and order). Laub feeds us in fragments; piling each upon the one before until the weight of the whole becomes almost unbearable. Structurally, it is a fascinating experiment - the pages aren't numbered but the paragraphs are -; one that initially seems slightly disorienting but, in context, comes to make perfect sense. Deftly translated by the wonderful Margaret Jull Costa, Diary of The Fall is a rare thing of great beauty, engaging and profound. A must read.
5 Out of 5 Repressed Memories

The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld
For some strange reason, my only reference point for really powerful prison 'literature' is film. The Shawshank Redemption. Sleepers. In The Name of the Father. American History X. I could go on. Now, before the pedants among you start berating me, I know that many of them were books or stories first. But, to me, their real impact was best achieved on the big screen. Here, then, is the game changer. At last I've found a book about the brutality of prison life that punched me in the guts just as hard as any movie I've ever seen. Told through snippets of voices, constructed dreamscapes (or should I say nightmares) of life on death row, Denfeld's debut is a marvel of empathetic storytelling. Centred around a condemned prisoner who, to the astonishment of all around him, wants to abandon his avenues of appeal and just die, it is both a ferocious indictment on the prison system and a profound consideration of the nature of punishment. Desperation, corruption, violence and misery abound, all but snuffing out the tiny glimmers of hope that try to slip through. The effect is claustrophobic, almost suffocating. When you finally catch your breath, you'll be thankful for having read it.
5 Out of 5 Morgan Freemans

The People In The Trees by Hanya Yanagihara
After dropping out of Philosophy in uni (see above), I picked up Anthropology to plug the gap in my degree. For the most part it was a horrible, horrible mistake. Sure, the subject is interesting, but the guy who taught it was so fixated on showing off about the brief time he spent on field research forty years beforehand that he didn't really bother to teach us anything of worth. We did, however, get to see photos of his naughty bits, which he paraded proudly alongside those of, um, better endowed island natives. Which leads me to Hanya Yanagahira's excellent debut, The People of The Trees. Based loosely on the case of Daniel Carleton Gadjusak (who discovered kuru), it is the fictional memoir of Nobel Prize winning doctor, anthropologist and, convicted pedophile, Dr. Norton Perina. Early in his career, Perina joins an expedition to Micronesia where he discovers a tribe of people who have chanced upon the fountain of youth. By eating the flesh of a rare turtle, they acquire almost unimaginable longevity (hundreds of years, possibly more). But eternal life comes at a terrible price: turtle flesh causes dementia. Told as Perina's memoir, carefully edited by his sycophantic acolyte Ronald Kubodera, The People In The Trees reads as a fascinating anthropological text. Indeed, there were times I lost myself so deeply in the narrative that I forgot it was fiction. However, behind the gripping tale of scientific discovery, lies a much darker subtext, one that raises some very difficult ethical questions. What are the limits of human experimentation? To what extent may the scientist interfere in the lives of his study subjects? Perina entrenches himself in the islander society and, ultimately, starts bringing its people home where they are essentially locked in glorified cages so their 'purity' is preserved. Also, unsurprisingly, the memoir acts as a self-serving justification by Perina. We know he was convicted of sexually abusing one of the island boys (he adopted over fifty of them and brought them to live with him) but his memoir frames the accusation as the ungrateful rebellion of a particularly problematic child. It is easy to believe him, especially with Kubodera's artful editing. It is not until the very end that we come to understand what really happened. By that time, we already know that Perina and Kubodera have disappeared. Needless to say, your heart will be ripped straight out of your chest.
5 Out Of 5 Bark Canoes

The General Returns To His Labyrinth: Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927 - 2014)

I suppose the writing was on the wall once doctors released Gabriel Garcia Marquez from hospital last week, but even so I was saddened to read that he died today. A pioneer, a poet and, for me, a personal hero, Marquez will be missed in the physical sense but, thanks to an almost unparalleled body of work (not to mention his gifting of magical realism to the literary world) he will always be with us in spirit. No doubt his death will cause a flurry of interest so if you're looking for a place to start, might I suggest his novellas, particularly No One Writes To The Colonel and Leaf Storm. They will change your world. When you're ready, move on to the incredibly complex but truly amazing General In His Labyrinth and Autumn of The Patriarch. Then read the rest. A fitting tribute to one of the true greats.

The Sci-Fi Author, Blessed Be He (Step Aside JK Rowling!)

Three cheers for the authorial bait-and-switch. Dickens writing as Boz, Stephen King as Richard Bachman, Dean Koontz as about three hundred different people, John Banville as Benjamin Black, JK Rowling as Robert Gailbraith... the list could go on forever. But given the time of year, here's one that I couldn't possibly... err... pass over.

Now, I doubt many of you are particularly au fait with the contemporary Czech science fiction movement so let me get you up to speed. For the past couple of months there's been only one book that matters - Altchulova Metoda (Altchul's Method) by Chaim Cigan. The first in a four book series it (according to Radio Praha) mixes "politics, prison cells and the secret police with the Middle Ages, Moses and Jewish history – a science fiction thriller told across continents and epochs." All pretty standard sci-fi stuff, I suppose (notwithstanding the heavy Jewish motifs).

So why the big fuss? It's not the book itself that's set tongues wagging so much as the identity of its author. The jacket guff claims Cigan to be a Czech emigre who now lives in Canada. Geography allayed suspicion in the absence of face-to-face interviews. Sure, the book was a success, but the Czech press weren't exactly about to to send hordes of reporters across the sea just to interview a genre writer. The phone works just fine, thank you.

However, within weeks of its release rumours began to circulate. This Cigan fellow... he just wasn't ringing true. Something was fishy... might I say, gefilte fishy. A bit of scratching around revealed Prague's best kept secret. No, not the location of the legendary Golem but, in literary terms, not that far off. Chaim Cigan was none other than the Chief Rabbi of Prague, Karol Sidon. Turns out he has a slightly unconventional idea of what makes a... sorry for this... "good book". As he said:

"Before I began writing this I couldn't read anything but what is considered lowbrow sci-fi literature, which I really love… The story almost unraveled by itself; it was fascinating for me to watch what kind of stuff was going on in my head."

Altchul's Method has yet to be translated into English and my Czech is, to use the vernacular, neupotřebitelný (work it out for yourselves). No doubt it's just a matter of time. Thankfully I still have lox of books to read in the meantime.

*Disclaimer: Yes, I am ashamed of almost very pun in this post.
** Double Disclaimer: I'm still a bit proud of the "gefilte fishy" one.

It Started With a Word: The Inaugural Melbourne Jewish Writers' Festival

Well, I've been sitting on the details of this for a while now but FINALLY I can let it out: having spent the past year on the organising committee of the first ever Melbourne Jewish Writers' Festival we've finally unveiled our full program. And holy crap is it awesome (if I may say so myself). To be honest, I'm still kind of blown away by what our little team of incredibly hard working lit lovers has managed to put together. In addition to all the phenomenal Aussie writers on the bill (Elliot Perlman, Arnold Zable, John Safran, Michael Gawenda, Peter Singer, Kerri Sackville, Linda Jaivin and heaps more) we've managed to rope in Israel's Zeruya Shalev, New Yorkers Dara Horn and Matthue Roth as well as live link ups to superstars David Grossman and Irvin Yalom. Oh, and there's an opening gala of readings and original performances hosted by the inimitable Rachel Burger.

But wait there's more.

Put away your free steak knives, because I'll be making one of my increasingly rare public appearances to participate in three panels and I don't like sharp pointy things. The first, surprise surprise is about blogging. I'll be sitting alongside Australian journalism God Michael Gawenda and slam poet, novelist and zany video game programmer Matthue Roth riffing on life in the cloud. Next up is a gabfest with our two Yanks during which I expect not to get a word in edgewise. And, finally, I'll be sharing my favourite "forgotten gem" - an unrecognised Jewish classic - along with Arnold Zable and Renata Singer. If only I could choose between the veritable chest of such gems in my library. Best I can guess at the moment: it'll probably be Czech.

Early bird tickets went on sale today from the festival website. If you're in Melbourne or can head down at the end of May, get online and buy yours now.

And now a sexy picture:

Springtime For Hitler (Again): Look Who's Back by Timur Vermes

A spoiler for those of you who have yet to see the near-perfect jacket design of Timur Vermes's gutsy novel: Adolf Hitler. That's who's back. Without any attempt to explain the intervening sixty years, Vermes plops the most hated man in history into a field on the outskirts of modern day Berlin. At first, poor old Adolf thinks the war is still on and can't understand why the kids playing soccer (obviously Hitler Youth, though how dare they not wear their uniforms) not only don't show him the proper respect but don't even seem to know who he is. Then it dawns on him; there is no war, Eva's dead, his cronies are gone and, well, Germany has gone to shit. Adolf is angry. Batshit crazy ranting angry. Yep, Adolf is right at home.

Wandering back into the big city, Hitler is taken in by a kindly newspaper vendor who thinks he must be a method actor; the best he has ever seen. As luck would have it, the newspaper stand is in the entertainment district and the vendor knows some people who know some people and, before you can say Mein Golly Gott, Adolf finds himself as the political commentator on a popular comedy show. His rants bring the house down, making him (much to his confused delight) the most popular entertainer in Germany. Hitler is well and truly back!

Needless to say, Look Who's Back could have been a tasteless, vulgar exercise in cheap comedy (or worse). Yet, in Adolf Hitler Vermes has the perfect vehicle for "big idea" political and cultural satire. It is scary to admit, but it doesn't take too much tinkering to make the evil despot's diatribes disturbingly relevant. There are some hilariously light touches - Hitler trying to understand computers (especially U-tube, as he calls it) or getting his head around Goth culture - but Vermes really digs his claws in when it comes to Angela Merkel (Adolf does not approve), the modern German political system and the very difficult relationship the country has with its past. Some of the best laughs come from the deepest cuts. When Hitler visits the fascist party headquarters he is horrified to find it peopled by pimply kids and reprobates. He takes them to task on camera, completely eviscerating the movement. It is considered his best skit yet. Meanwhile, his greatest opposition comes from right wing thugs who think he is mocking their great hero. Hilariously (at least in terms of irony), he is bashed by a couple of skinheads and almost killed. Thereafter, every left wing party tries to co-opt him as their own - a hero for the anti-violence, anti-fascist movement. You can't help but laugh.

Look Who's Back is a very funny book. It is also frightening. The idea that contemporary culture's obsession with celebrity could bring Hitler back to power might seem somewhat hysterical but it provides serious food for thought. As I finished the novel I was reminded of that line in The Clash's White Man In Hammersmith Palais: "If Adolf Hitler flew in today/ They'd send a limousine anyway." Scary but, I fear, quite true.
4.5 Out Of 5 Unfashionable Moustaches

Ah, heck - I just have to post the cover. Pure design genius!

All's Well That Ends Well: Tales From The Arse End of a Novel

A recent feature in The Independent got me thinking - why do we always fixate on literature's best opening lines? Yes, there is an incredible art to crafting the perfect hook. And a couple of obvious ones immediately jump to mind:

"All happy families are alike. Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

"When Gregor Samsa woke one morning from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed right there in his bed into some sort of monstrous insect." Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis. (Obviously using the Bernofsky translation here).

Heck, I could rattle them off all day. I even know the beginnings to a bunch of books I've never read thanks, in part, to the constant deluge of articles about the best first lines in literature. The general agreement that seems to surround a certain few seem to suggest that they are self-perpetuating creatures much like The Most Photographed Barn In America from Delillo's White Noise. It's like a bloody mantra. For what it's worth, you might want to resist the intense gravity of consensus and branch out because there are some rather excellent openings that just don't get the recognition they deserve:

I'm Brodeck and I had nothing to do with it. Philippe Claudel, Brodeck's Report.

Looking back on it later it could only have happened because Budai had gone through the wrong door in the confusion at the transit lounge and, having mistaken an exit sign, found himself on a plane bound elsewhere without the airport staff having noticed the change. Ferenc Karinthy, Metropole

At the end of the twentieth century, the young Montano, who had just published his dangerous novel about the curious case of writers who gave up writing, got caught in the net of his own fiction and, despite his compulsive tendency towards writing, suffered a complete block, paralysis, a tragic inability to write. Enrique Vila-Matas, Montano's Malady.

Great. Now I've gone and got myself caught up in the very thing I'd come here to slag off. But it's so much fun!

I digress.

While the merits of a punchy opening are self-evident, spare a thought for the poor arse-end of a novel. Too often overlooked, a great last line can ensure the novel stays with the reader long after it is shelved/given to the Salvos/sold at your grandma's garage sale. You can blame Karl Marlantes for this latest obsession of mine. As I finally reached the end of his uneven but rather brilliant brick, Matterhorn, I was so blown away by the last line that I forgave all the book's imperfections. Spoiler alert: This will not spoil the book for you. Check it out:

"He knew that all of them were shadows: the chanters, the dead, the living. All shadows, moving across the landscape of mountains and valleys, changing the pattern of things as they moved but leaving nothing changed when they left. Only the shadows themselves could change."

Sublime. Those three sentences have haunted me for two weeks now. What then of other last lines? To me there is a clear frontrunner. Nothing has punched me in the gut quite so hard as Jospeh K.'s cry of existential resignation at the end of The Trial.

"“Like a dog!” he said, it was as if the shame of it should outlive him."

Among the classics, a few others stand out:

"For all to be accomplished, for me to feel less lonely, all that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of hate." Albert Camus, The Stranger.

"He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die." Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian.

"The creatures outside looked from pig to man; and from man to pig; and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which." George Orwell, Animal Farm.

Not that I'm offering anything new here. You can readily find all those with a basic Google search for "best last lines". I want to start a new mantra. Reload the canon, so to speak. So here are a few of my favourite closers from off the beaten track:

"And now, as he turned and joined in on the kicking and screaming, and the paddywagon had begun to pull away from the cemetery-in-shambles which would be the final installment in a ten week media blitz, he knew for certain that nothing was finished, that John was not in a better place, and that an object in motion tends to stay in motion. A lord at rest tends to roll in his grave." Tristan Egolf, Lord of the Barnyard

"A new legend will arise of a great flood sent by God upon a sinful humanity. And there will be stories of drowned mythical lands said to have been the cradle of human culture; there will perhaps be legends about some country called England or France or Germany...'
'And then?'
'... I don't know how it goes on.'" Karel Capek, War With The Newts

"And the mouse took her own life." Jesse Ball, The Curfew.

"With a quick gesture he tosses back his straight greying hair, dragging his feet a bit, as if each step raised clouds of ashes, although there are no ashes in sight." Harry Mulisch, The Assault

"When he turned to look up for the last time at Ephraim, all he saw was a six pointed star turning slowly against the black sky." Michel Tournier, The Erl King (Also published as The Ogre)

"It all works out just right, and it turns out that you can get shot in the stomach and live, if you do it just right, and it turns out that I'm okay, it just happens to be the most excruciating pain I have ever felt in my life, and it feels really good." Charles Yu, How To Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

That'll do me for now. Can't think of a punchy way to end this. (Insert best ever closing line to a blog post here)

Kafka's Metamorphosis: A Classic Transformed

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (Tr: Susan Bernofsky)
When it comes to the cult of Franz Kafka, I have always been a lonely island miles off the coast of the greater archipelago. Sure, I love the usual suspects - The Trial is my favourite novel of all time. In The Penal Settlement is one third of my holy trinity of short stories (Peretz's Bontshe The Silent and Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart make up the rest), though it sometimes vies for position with The Hunger Artist. But when it comes to the one story that everyone seems to fall over themselves to love, The Metamorphosis, I am, at best tepid. Conceptually it is a work of genius but I have always thought it a little stale in execution. It was with some hesitation, then, that I picked up Susan Bernofsky's new translation of this "classic" tale and, colour me off-grey indistinguishable insect colour, I am a convert. I probably need not proselytise too much; I get that I am the guy who is turning up late to the party. But holy mother of Joseph K., Bernofsky has breathed so much new life into it that it was like reading the book afresh (her choice not to name the insect is itself a great start). I am reminded of Breon Mitchell's astounding translation of The Trial which managed to inject Kafka's humour back into the text and restore its timeless tone. So too Bernofsky has made The Metamorphosis something that might well have been written last week by a funny yet tortured writer struggling to make sense of a world spun out of control. It's current and exciting, yet entirely faithful. No matter what you think of The Metamorphosis - and I'm guessing that most of you love it - I urge you to go out and read this latest translation. I dare say it will transform before your eyes!
5 Out Of 5 Crushed Carapaces

Our Man In Hanoi: A Brief Encounter With Graham Greene

It's funny how fate sometimes lands you in the lap of literary history.

There I was, happily traipsing through the streets of Hanoi, taking happy snaps of my grandmother and me eating all sorts of unidentifiable creatures, when a friend commented on one of my Facebook pics that I was at the hotel in which Graham Greene wrote The Quiet American. That's right, no expense has been spared for this holiday extravaganza with 90-year-old gran; we're shacking up at the Hotel Metropole, the only building here that is older than she is. A few quick chats with the manager and I tee up a visit to the Greene suite (which, I find out, is still used as a regular room).

Fast forward a couple of hours. The concierge leads us through the narrow corridors, swipes his key card and presto... we're in the room. Well, not that room. Turns out there was a slight miscommunication. I am in W. Somerset Maugham's room, the place he worked on The Gentleman In The Parlour. I plonk myself down at his desk, feeling thoroughly British. See:

It's cool but it is not THE room. Rumours abound that Graham's place is the showpiece, left intact from his days writing what is arguably his most celebrated work. Heck, I can make believe, if only for this experience, that I actually like The Quiet American. There's even word that his typewriter is still on the desk. I am practically plutzing to see it. I ask the concierge who says that unfortunately he doesn't think it's available to see. I become a petulant child... "But... But... But the manager promised!" A few quick calls and he comes back. The room is ready for me to see. I feel like a total dick but one who is about to play with Graham Greene's typewriter.

A gold plaque announces room 228 as The Graham Greene Suite. There's a second plaque telling me it's also the room where Australian Governor General Quentin Bryce had her headquarters while in Hanoi, but I don't really care. I am a proud aussie and all but seriously this room is about one person and one person only. And maybe his typewriter. The door opens to... just another opulent Metropole suite. Yes, any remnant of Greene's stay has been swept aside to make way for the ugly intrusion of modern technology. Large flatscreen TV. Fancy iPod dock with garish speakers above the sacred desk. It's a travesty. I compose myself, let the disappointment wash away. Graham Greene may well and truly have left the building but HOLY CRAP I'm at the desk. I'll just pretend there's a typewriter. Clackety-clack.

I suspect the concierge thinks I'm insane. I ask him to take a photo of me with the great man. Now we're besties and everything. Say "existential Catholic angst".