On reading The Road

As you may already suspect, I am a voracious reader. I devour books with the fervour of a fat masterchef. What I don't do often enough is let them settle when I'm done. Digest. I scoff them down one after the other without thought for indigestion.



After having Cormac McCarthy's The Road staring at me from the bookcase (pantry) for over a year I finally took it from the shelf and read it. I'd heard all the talk about how horrifyingly bleak it was, but had (& have) not seen the film, so I came to it with a fresh palette so to speak.

I read The Road in 3 days, beginning it on the train to the Emerging Writers Festival (which I'll blog about later). The writing style is plain and honest. The structure leads you into the story one paragraph at a time and keeps you reading. There are no chapters. The writer's use of "the man" and "the boy" is clever. By not assigning names and therefore fixed identities to these characters he has made them "every man" and "every boy"; representative of humankind.

The boy's constant need to be reasured that they are the "good guys" is understandable given his child's perspective. To survive in the face of such widespread devastation; the total breakdown of society, is a difficult, seemingly impossible, thing to do. In order to do it, lines must be crossed. There is no room for regret, for weighing the right and the wrong of a thing; action (& sometimes inaction) is primal; instinctive.

What sustains "the man" is not the food they manage to find along the road, nor is it the gun he carries. What sustains him, what motivates him to keep going, is his love for "the boy". Though he is forced to face the very vilest parts of mankind, both within himself and in other people, it is humanity - the goodness of it - that makes survival possible. The human spirit needs a reason to fight; needs something worth fighting for. Without it, why would we bother, when it's much easier to give up.

When I'd finished reading The Road I chose another book from the shelf, but I found I didn't want to start it just yet. If we don't ever allow ourselves to feel hungry, how can we ever fully appreciate what we eat.

I have found that The Road is a meal best digested slowly; thoughtfully.

Delving into History

As you may or may not know, I am currently working on a piece of historical fiction...a novel, no less...

In May I was lucky enough to win the Herb Thomas Memorial Trust Award and received a nice juicy cheque to spend on developing my writing career. Thanks to that money I have been able to afford a range of workshops and seminars at the Victorian Writers Centre, as well as a few choice events at both the Emerging Writers Festival and the Melbourne Writers Festival, which has just been and gone.

I thought it was about time I blogged about the two events I attended - a masterclass with John Boyne (The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas), and a seminar/lecture with Alexander Waugh (Fathers and Sons) and Glen David Gold (Sunnyside).

Both of these events were exciting for me. Just to break away from the monotony of my daily life as a mother and to escape my four walls and interact with other adults, specifically writers, is a treat.

John filled our day with readings from a wide array of historic novels, which proved somewhat difficult seeing as the titles and authors names were missing from many of the pages we had stapled together (there was a large amount of rustling). He also made us write and read what we had written aloud. No one missed out, we all had our turn in the spotlight or under it.

It's all in the details. That's one of the things I took away from this intensive day, along with the email address of a lady I'd like to stay in touch with (she's writing about her great-grandmother's immigration experience). It's the details that will bring to life any character in any time and any place. Specifics. Novelists should never generalise. Ever.

As for the other two writers, well I have to tell you that Alexander is a true and natural comedian. What surprising fun he was! He believes we should all, as writers, sit down and write 3000 words about each of our parents (more if we can - he certainly did). He says we'll be surprised at how little we actually know about them.

Glen's most helpful advice, at least to me, was that research needs an emotional context, that key emotions unlock scenes. He said that good (great) historical fiction needs three things - research, imagination and emotional continuity. Not all facts are interesting, he said, but the facts aren't what's important, it's whether they are interesting to the reader. It's how you dress it up.