the portal

WWII is a busy time for the sardonic narrator of this highly original Australian novel. His job is to collect the souls of the dead, so it’s not surprising that his voice is a little detached and tinged with irony. He tells the story of a resilient young girl, Liesel, and her wartime experiences in a small German village. Liesel’s father teaches her to read in the inky nightmare hours, and her subsequent hunger for words emboldens her to become a serial book thief. Liesel’s accomplice is her cheeky and ardent admirer Rudy, with whom she raids orchards and fights bullies.

When Liesel’s parents agree to harbour a young Jewish man in their basement, she forges a strong friendship with him through their shared love of words and loss of dear ones. This bond forms the basis for a complex and involving tale which reveals the profound effects of war on a young girl and those around her. Despite harrowing scenes, it manages to celebrate great love, self sacrifice and the endurance of hope. An inspiring read!

Mrs Sweeney

Native American Indian Sherman Alexie, presents a troubled hero who has been in and out of foster homes all his life. He is about to commit a terrible act of violence when at the crucial moment he is shot back through time. The speed with which this unusual story unfolds is breath-taking as ‘zits’ is transported to the Battle of Little Bighorn, the Civil Rights marches and other critical times in history. Right at the moment of terrible violence being committed he is moved to another scenario. These journeys seem to be saving ‘zits’ from himself. This is a superb book, both funny and dark and is one of the best books I have read this year.

Ms Boyd

I was eager to read Border Crossing after having read Barker’s Regeneration trilogy about Siegfried Sassoon (who suffered from shell-shock), his psychologist Rivers (who becomes something of a father figure for the soldiers) and other soldiers in World War One. Border Crossing follows a psychologist who specialises in minors who commit atrocious crimes. He becomes reacquainted with a man he first met as a 10-year old and who has just finished serving a sentence for a murder he committed at that age. The young man wants the psychologist to help him work out why he committed his crime. Both texts explore psychologist/patient relationships, paying particular attention to the way that the psychologist’s weaknesses also become apparent through the process. Barker (female) creates believable male voices and explores the role that memory and the sharing of memories plays in shaping what we believe about ourselves and others. However, this text lacks the poetic style of the Regeneration texts, and, while it is engaging and interesting, I felt it ended weakly.

Australia has lost one of its literary treasures, Ivan Southall, who died on the 15th November at the age of 87. Mr Southall was particularly prominent during the 1960’s and 1970’s, when he penned one of my favourite books from childhood – Hill’s End - a story about children who must fend for themselves in the Australian bush when a wild storm attacks their town. His other novels include award winning classics  Josh and Ash Road.

Mrs Sweeney

Melbourne author Nam Le has won the prestigious Dylan Thomas Prize for Literature, worth $140 000! The son of Vietnamese refugees who came to Australia when he was a baby, Nam Le is a qualified lawyer who quickly realised he didn’t want to live the corporate life.

His book The Boat is a collection of short stories set in diverse locations. When asked about this aspect of his work Nam said he is interested in the  the way

 ’fiction makes strange even the places we think we know. Subjectively, no two neighbours live on the same street, let alone in the same city. However, fiction can also evoke our familiarity with strange things. It’s this tension I’m interested in — the artifice and agenda behind making familiar things strange, strange things familiar’,

 (http://www.namleonline.com/q&a.html  18/11/08). 

The Dylan Thomas Prize is the world’s largest literary prize awarded to an author under the age of 30.

Mrs Sweeney

Well! What an unexpected turn of events! Despite the fact that before the day Alex was a one man team, and on the day he turned up AFTER his surrogate team had answered his round of questions…the Silverthorn team won the final by a narrow margin! Last minute ring-in, James, was fast, accurate and unflappable! Elliott was his usual loquacious self (without actually answering any questions), and Alex arrived in time to contribute to his teams’ points during extra time and the Quirky Questions. Well done team – your names will shine on the Scotch Factor Trophy.

The Macbeth experts (James, Daniel and Jamin )answered some pretty tough questions with aplomb, impressing myself and others with their detailed knowledge of the play, and ‘Eats, Shoots and Leaves’ members – Sam, Stuart and Ed, competed valiantly considering only 2 out of 3 team members had read their book- Two Pearls of Wisdom!

Mrs Sweeney

A fascinating novel about the life of a half-caste Chinese man living in Penang who befriended a Japanese man who actually turned out to be a spy. All the time through the friendship the Japanese man was like a mentor to the half-caste and eventually the Japanese invaded Malaysia and Singapore through the help of the information given to the Japanese man. The half-caste Chinese man was rebuffed by family and friends as he was torn between these relationships. Worth a read!

Kafka on the Shore tells the story of two characters, young Tamura who runs away from home at fifteen and the simple-minded Nakata who has never recovered from a strange accident in his childhood. Their parallel quests are filled with extraordinary characters and events: a murder riddle, raining fish, soldiers lost from WWII in a secret forest, conversations with cats; to create a novel that is completely engrossing. The novel leaves as many questions as it resolves and is highly recommended.

Stark, brutal, real. No glamour here, no heralding of bravery…just life in the trenches replete with corpse-fed rats, suffocating mud and the endless, sanity-stealing lice.

It’s fascinating and enlightening to read how Canadian soldiers regarded their superiors and the English  as enemies – even more so than the Germans…to learn how a man could kill one German soldier with his bayonet and then share a cigarette with his victim’s brother as they shelter from the bullets raining down from both sides. Such situations are so horrific and insane they become chillingly ludicrous.

In this account of WWI by a man who fought in the trenches, the numbing fear is tangible; the scream of bombs is audible. Unrelentingly Harrison describes battles merging into marches marked by desperate fatigue or drunken escape. It is a deeply moving account of young men who do not know why they are fighting, and who long for good food, clean sheets and quiet safety.

Mrs Sweeney

Brilliant though his writing is, Shakespeare often proves to be daunting and difficult to appreciate for students of English Literature. Marsden has done such students and their teachers a great service by writing this novel version of Hamlet. The story is as intriguing and passionate as ever, there are tastes of Shakespeare’s beautiful language, and the spicy bits in the first few chapters are likely to keep young adults reading into the night. Bravo John Marsden…I hope more of the bard’s plays will receive his treatment.

Mrs Sweeney