The Faraway Tree

I just received an email from someone asking me to campaign against the US ‘bailout’, saying that it’s dangerous and poorly thought out, and should be transparent and better organised. It’d be nice to vote.

Which introduces my point. It’s simple: if you have the privilege of being a US citizen, please a) vote; b) think about it when you do. I am sure you all have realised this before now, but I thought I’d reiterate it again. You’ll be choosing the leader of more than your country. Best wishes.

About three things I was absolutely positive.

First, the Doctor was a Time Lord.

Second, there was a part of him – and I had a pretty damn good idea how dominant that part might be – that yearned for Rose.

And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.

(The rest of my tongue-in-cheek review is after the break. This is a spoiler for only Pt 1 of the final, as I am waiting the requisite week to discover just how horribly my spirits will be dashed in the final episode. My spirits are currently so dizzyingly high they are in orbit. Read on below…)

(more…)

One day, two weeks ago, Spring announced itself in the form of a sunny day. How did we know it was the first Spring day of the year? It wasn’t a chronological thing. It just… happened. And everyone understood. Anyway, since then it’s been getting steadily warmer and noisier. Today it’s blue, light and airy outside. Early this morning I wondered what was annoying the birds so much. Then I realised: it’s Spring! They’re just back. I hadn’t realised how quiet Winter was. So, because I am a writer and willing to wax descriptive about anything and everything, I give you: the soundscape of Spring! There’s whistling, warbling (magpies, of course), screeching and squawking, chirping, chattering, trilling and tweeting (no derisive laughter as yet: no kookaburras). There’s the sound of leaves crackling as birds skitter and bounce about, then the soft fwop of birds flapping under my window. This is followed by a small snap as a dragonfly meets its untimely demise. There’s the sound of the wind through the unkempt gum tree out the front. Also belonging to Spring is the occasional buzzing of mowers and whippersnippers, like particularly aggressive birds, and the rattle of screen doors. Other than that, everything is still: people are indoors having lunch, or at the markets eating fresh donuts and listening to bagpipes while they buy fresh vegetables, books and flowers.

I do like living in a small town!

I did forget to tell the blog that I am now officially published! Hip hooray! My first short story ever published. It is called ‘A Drowning‘ and it’s in Issue 36 of Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine! But it gets better! The magazine is only about $5 in pdf on their website! (If you google them they’re the only Australian Sci-Fi and Fantasy magazine by that name… then again, they might be the only thing ever by that name… I call a holiday!
Also, to witness the awesomeness of this occasion, the sun is shining through pouring rain and making the water look like magic. Leaves are sparkling like diamonds.

There is a category of books whose defining feature is that they are, simply, a shining delight to read. To this category belongs Eva Ibbotson. So far I’ve read The Star of Kazan, The Secret Countess (formerly The Countess Below Stairs) and A Song for Summer. After Kazan all I wanted to do was go to Vienna and eat pastries. After Countess I wanted to work downstairs at an English manor house whose inhabitants were bound to each other as firmly as they were to the code that separated them. After Song for Summer I wanted to take care of children in a tiny, eccentric boarding school in Austria: somewhere with steep, green slopes covered in edelweiss. I have a suspicion that when I’ve finished A Company of Swans all I’ll want to do is dance ballet. Eva Ibbotson is, quite simply, magic. She fills her stories with the secret light that her heroines seem to hold: an exuberance of life, a love of humble, practical, creative and good things, real, fascinating and endearingly ridiculous people. She believes in happy endings, despite the awful things her characters have to triumph over. She shows that living and loving is done by giving. She lingers in the detail of daily life. She paints people, scenes and places with it, finding great humour and great pathos, and uses it to endear us to the world. I read fantasy, but Eva makes magic from life.

Here’s where I diverge from a non-Christian appreciation of the books. It’s not a major thing, but when I review I can’t not mention a balance to the scales of judgement. I do find the ‘European’ (i.e. frank and casual) attitude to extra-marital sex disconcerting, because I’m not used to it in real life. However, I appreciate that it is a product of not only what I presume to be the author’s mindset but also – and this is what makes the difference – the mindset of the characters. For example, a man ’sowing his wild oats’ was not frowned upon in Edwardian Britain. Therefore, we can see how others might not blame him for this within the novel. Even, apparently, strictly brought-up young women whose ideas of morality have no anchor in faith. This casual attitude is not generally frowned upon today. However, I do frown on it – I think it’s genuinely destructive – so this is bound to flavour my response to otherwise endearing characters who make those particular life choices during the course of a novel. I’ll admire someone who’s shown strength of character in the face of temptation just that little bit more than someone who sees no need to hold out. This is why I like Edward Cullen more than Marek. I understand both of them, but I respect how hard Edward had to work… In closing, though, I will make this statement: Eva Ibbotson might be very frank, but she is a tactful writer when it comes to the bedroom. Descriptive in generalities, not details, and for this I am grateful.