Three Things #2

READING: Saw the heading “The genre debate: Literary fiction” and I was hooked when Austen aficionado and author Elizabeth Edmondson said “literary fiction is just clever marketing”.
and continued…
In the third of The Guardian’s series on literary definitions “Jane Austen never for a moment imagined she was writing Literature. Posterity decided that––not her, not John Murray, not even her contemporary readership. She wrote fiction, to entertain and to make money.”
followed by…
“Genre fiction is a nasty phrase––when did genre turn into an adjective? But I object to the term for a different reason. It’s weasel wording, in that it conflates lit fic with literature. It was clever marketing by publishers to set certain contemporary fiction apart and declare it Literature––and therefore Important, Art and somehow better than other writing.”
with mandatory…
“Which brings me to the touchy subject of literary snobbery. Perhaps I should call it LitSnob. Lit fic: good. Popular, commercial, trash and pulp fiction: bad.”
there’s more…

Worth reading even if it makes your blood boil––includes 110 comments!
Website https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/apr/21/literary-fiction-clever-marketing-genre-debate

The Guardian report is from her speech given at an Oxford Literary Festival debate and was first published Monday 21 April 2014. Sadly Elizabeth Edmondson (Aston) passed away 11 January 2016. GBW.

Jane Austen by Author Elizabeth Edmondson

LOOKING: Love reading the adult works of author Nick Earls and can brag that I had tenuous, almost ethereal, contact with the man at a book-related charity event. Okay, he was in the same room and he did nod hello. By some weird default in the booking system, I was seated at the head table with Mr Earls and treated like a VIP. I kept getting covert glances from the other diners, socialites wondering who the heck I was. I felt nervous but not intimidated.

Anyway, I have just enjoyed watching a short YouTube video of Nick Earls talking about his children’s book series “Word Hunters: The Curious Dictionary” co-written with Terry Whidborne. Also, author and blogger Kate Forsyth did a good book review.

Promo blurb reads “Twins Lexi and Al Hunter stumble upon an old dictionary and the world as they know it changes. They are blasted into history to hunt down words that threaten to vanish from our past and our present.” And use word nails – sorry, the video is no longer available but you can read the publishers PDF notes for teachers here. GBW.

THINKING: (My apologies because part of this post was accidentally released earlier) Reusing old books, repurposing their mellow covers and yellow pages into something other than pulp––there are good illustrations on this subject but I was musing about reusing the forgotten cotton carry bags in our car boot. Whatever we buy, potatoes, pistachios, mangoes or marshmallows, we will need to bring our own grocery bags to supermarkets in Queensland from 1st July 2018. Plastic bags are banned. The perfect opportunity to reuse single-use carry bags with huge logos on them, like the paper Folio Books bag in muted charcoal with strong handles which currently houses old draft manuscripts.

I’m sure my grandmother’s 1950s wicker shopping basket is in the garage somewhere. It’s the original multiple-use item. Imagine me with the arched handle hooked over my arm, resting in the crook of my elbow, as I peruse the iceberg lettuces for just the right one. A chip off the old block? That’s how my grandmother used to shop with nary a polyethylene-sealed item in sight.

Here’s to the olden days and onward to a cleaner, healthier environment! GBW.

POSTSCRIPT: Every Saturday I change my Home page Photo Of The Week.

Remember, one post with three acts READING, LOOKING, THINKING an idea started by Book Jotter, innovative blogger Paula Bardell-Hedley. Her invitation to participate offers a slight change from ‘Thinking’ to ‘Doing’ if that suits your purpose but I’m sticking with the first format. I can love, like or loathe in three short bursts!

♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward

Three Things #1

One post with three headings READING, LOOKING, THINKING an idea started by Book Jotter, innovative blogger Paula Bardell-Hedley. Her invitation to participate offers a slight change from ‘Thinking’ to ‘Doing’ if that suits your purpose but I’m sticking with the first format. Also, I am restricting myself to around 200 wordcount per heading. I can love, like or loathe in three short bursts!

READING: Let’s not pretend we always read high calibre books like Booker Prize winners and heady non-fiction tomes, most people like a bit of lowbrow stuff to pass the time without stretching the brain too much.

This is why I love reading ebooks on my iPad, so accessible via OverDrive, and so many back numbers that it’s easy to binge on a writer’s complete oeuvre. At the moment my guilty pleasure, no, rephrase that, my escapism is prolific British author Simon Brett and his Fethering Mysteries series. A cross between Agatha Raisin, Miss Marple and cosy crime books featuring ‘mature’ women, Brett has created retiree Carole Seddon and her neighbour Jude, a healer, who live in an English seaside village which thrives on gossip and, you guessed it, murder. Amateur sleuths Carole and Jude manage to solve crimes without external help, e.g. police, by persistence and sheer nosiness. Exploits often revolve around fragmented marital relationships. The first book I read was “Bones Under The Beach Hut”, coincidentally while I was on a beach holiday, and have enjoyed the consistency of the characters ever since, although some plots are more gripping than others. Apart from Fethering series, Simon Brett has also written the Charles Paris, Mrs Pargeter, and Blotto & Twinks series of crime novels. GBW.

LOOKING: My movie review of the HBO television version of Liane Moriarty’s “Big Little Lies” could be filled with vitriol but I’ll rein it in.

How did it go so wrong? Why base the story on a best-selling book if you aren’t even going to try to recreate the ambience? I was one of the first to read and review the novel “Big Little Lies” by Liane Moriarty (before I became a blogger) and I knew it was a winner. Modern, edgy, clever, the plot was enhanced by social media comments from witnesses, police, etc, which obviously didn’t translate to the screen. In the turgid, overblown DVD 3-disc version, which thankfully I borrowed free from the library, the school-obsessed mothers were rich, pampered, spoilt like their children and their husbands were just as bad. I could not relate, nor feel any sympathy for the movie characters although they were portrayed by big-name actors. I can’t even begin to write about the weak build up and even weaker ending. Moriarty’s name does not get credited on the DVD case and the words ‘based on’ is unreasonable. In my view, the book is brilliant and regrettably I think anybody who has seen the HBO depiction will have a tainted view of the genuine meaning. GBW.

THINKING: Dog eats possum in suburban backyard. No, not a newspaper headline, something which happened in my quiet, sober suburban street two days ago.

For a start, there are three dogs which is against Council bylaws and one of them has just birthed ‘accidental’ puppies. They are territorial so they bark at anything that moves, people walking, kids on bikes, and possums. Possums are a fact of life in my suburb, we have possum-proofed our house. On a moonlit night they will pound across the roof, jumping from tree to tree, house to house in search of food. I won’t go into the habits of possums, the main thought I can’t get out of my head is my neighbour calmly telling me the mother dog caught and ate a possum. Horribly, I had heard the commotion, the desperate squealing, so my fears were confirmed. The said neighbour let this happen because it was ‘good nourishment’ for the lactating dog. Suburban possums are full of parasites, the least of which is worms. That dog has now given those worms to her puppies. I’m not squeamish, I understand how the animal world survives but that’s in the countryside, not a suburban block where owners need to conform and dogs need to be domesticated. GBW.

POSTSCRIPT: Every Saturday I change my Home page Photo Of The Week.
Join in with your Three Things––for more information here’s the link:
https://bookjotter.com/category/three-things/

♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward