Holiday Reading

While travelling I read the following:

- The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood

- The Secret History by Donna Tartt

The Penelopiad was a Christmas gift, which I received pre-Christmas. A nifty 'summer reading' catalogue from Brisbane's Better Bookstores either came in the post or fell out of a newspaper - I can't recall which. My partner sat down and happily circled books he would like to receive for Christmas from his mother. Unbeknownst to me, he circled a few things that she could purchase for me as well. Receiving Christmas presents is a new thing for me - having never received them as a child, I now get a reasonable amount of loot as an adult because I am vicariously part of a family that celebrates these things. What a scam!

The Penelopiad is part of a new series that I am very excited about: a re-writing of myths by celebrated authors. Canongate is the publisher. The first two releases in the series are this and The Weight by Jeanette Winterson (which I also read, post travel). Given that Canongate chose two of my favourite contemporary women writers to re-tell a myth of their choosing, and both chose myths from the Greek classical canon, I was won over without much hard work.

But on Canongate's list were a number of authors I had not heard of - including Donna Tartt. I scratched around in my little grey matter for anything - anything at all - to do with Ms Tartt and could find only: "sounds like chick-lit to me." Now, pretty much everyone knows I'm a judgemental elitist book (among other things) snob so we'll just move on from there. I have to admit though that I'm reasonably privy to chick-lit having enjoyed Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones and Rebecca Sparrow's the Girl Most Likely - mostly because my closest friend in the whole wide world is unremittingly and unapologetically a chick-lit / chick-film fan. I adore her for it.

In any event, there I was in one of Brisbane's Better Bookstores (if you ask me - Brisbane's Best Bookstore - Folio Books happily killing time when I hovered indecisively over the New Myth offerings. Turned subtly away by my partner, I discovered The Secret History by Donna Tartt which was reduced to barely a third of its retail price and about a group of classics students. So I bought it.

All this serendipitous intermingling of coincidences, connections and themes is confusing me and making this post awfully long.

Margaret's contribution was delightful. She vividly reimagined the world of Penelope and the world of Greek cosmology, drawing on feminist historiography (whether consciously or no - but probably consciously) to recreate Penelope's story and to tell the story of the 13 hanged maids. I was impressed and amused and engaged be the number of different styles Margaret used to tell the story - Homeric epic and first person narrative for Penelope, and Greek dramatic chorus and burlesque for the maids. Oh, it was wonderful - read it! It took me less than 9 hours (the flight from Brisbane to Bangkok including food eating, toilet trips and silly self-portrait photo shoots). In response to some of the reviews I've read which appear to complain about Margaret's feminist take on the story: (a) It's Margaret Atwood; and (b) If you want the male hegemonic version, read Homer's Odyssey. So there.

I also enjoyed Donna Tartt's The Secret History. A much more narrative driven, pseudo thriller, it was a great book to have while travelling - except that I became so involved in reading it that I wanted to finish the book, more than visit people and places. It also displaced me; Donna described places in such an evocative fashion that I was discombobulated by finding myself physically in humid Viet Nam while mentally I was in the solitary surrounds of a US college in winter.

The story is about a small group of college students - told from the perspective of one, more different than the rest. The students are the tiny class of an exclusive professor of classics. You know, at the beginning, that one of them is murdered by the others. You know, towards the middle, why and how. The gripping aspect is the unravelling of the characters and their motivations, and the sense of desperate belonging that the narrator experiences within the group. It also had me because I have an attachment to solitary cerebral life, and the sense of being more grounded in the world and literature of centuries past than the thrashing of the present day. Thucydides said it well in his Peloponnesian Wars, but I've forgotten the quote now. I'll dig it up. Donna's writing is clear and well-structured; her emotions well expressed. I look forward to the myth that Donna Tartt will choose to re-tell.

- Oanh