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What’s Wrong with Comfort?
This essay gives my belated response to my friend’s ten-year-old daughter who must have turned eleven by now. When mother and daughter visited us in Tasmania last year, my husband and I were planning to move back to Perth. Of the few travel options, we had once toyed with the idea of driving, and even[…]
The Pioneers by Katharine Susannah Prichard***
I quite enjoy the book until the last chapter. Before writing about my disappointment, let me say what I like first. Published in 1915, Prichard’s descriptions of the lives of the early settlers are genuine enough. I get to know about the harshness of the nature, an absence of culture and civilization, and hardships in[…]
Bel-Ami by Guy De Maupassant
This is the first book I borrowed in a Perth library after I moved here from Tasmania; to be precise, I borrowed this book from the Mundaring Library. Through the eyes of Bel-Ami, Georges Duroy’s nickname, given to him by the daughter of one of his mistresses, I get to know Paris in 1885. The[…]
2nd January 2023
I read thirty-five books last year. Taking into account each book has an average length of 250 pages, and each page has about 200 words, I have consumed a total of 1.75 million words. And how much did I produce? I published my third novel that has around 67,000 words. I wrote thirty-five reviews, giving[…]
1st January 2023
If only an author with a life full of hardships can come up with great literature, my dilemma is whether I should hope for such a life so that I can write great works. I started reading one of the greatest Spanish literary works, Don Quixote by Cervantes in the new year. It wasn’t clear[…]
All the Names by José Saramago
My second reading of Saramago’s “All the Names” makes me realise how little I remember of the story. I almost had no recollection that Senhor José did not meet the unknown woman all the way through. She committed suicide two days after he broke into the school where she studied as a child, and later[…]
The Immoralist by André Gide
It requires an illness to get to know yourself better. It is not the length of a book that matters. This short book (of 124 pages) embodies such great histories and philosophies that I could only give it full justice by studying it. I took copious notes, recording the route that the protagonist took from[…]
Fatelessness by Imre Kertész****
Can you write anything new about the holocaust? Yes, if you have a fresh perspective like Kertész. Though absurd, a sixteen-year-old survivor (he was only fifteen at the start of the story) of the concentration camp, Gyuri reminisced the bad old days of his prison life. There was a moment every day that he enjoyed[…]
Heinrich Böll’s “The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum”****
This is the first book I read twice within half a year. Why? For one thing, it is a very good read. The real reason is I had to read it again in preparation for my book club meeting. This entry gives both reviews that were written five months apart. Review of my first reading[…]
Julian Barnes’ “The Noise of Time” ****
“The Noise of Time” is one of the best books I read in 2021. Barnes tells the story of Dmitri Dmitrievich Shostakovich in his way. The music compositions, though important, are not the focus of the novel. It is more about how Shostakovich struggled to keep composing in Stalin’s Russia, how he struggled to remain[…]