It's all right for some

People have been quite mean about Martin Amis over the years. Just because he's a bit clever and got a large book advance once (for a book I haven't read) and had a famous father and he even got a bit of stick because he said he was upset that one of his extended family was murdered by a famous serial killer because some people thought he didn't know her well enough to grieve publicly for this poor woman who had been thought of as a runaway for decades until they found her body in a house of horrors in the 1990s which is a bit of closure but utterly tragic and I think if my second cousin once removed had suffered a similar fate especially if I had been at a young and tender age then I'd be a bit upset too.

Anyway, I've always been quite fond of him.

His books have made me laugh and cry and despite the pyrotechnics (I mean honestly, managing to depict everything going backwards in Time's Arrow without being tiresome was quite a trick) and the fact that he's always making me THINK a bit more than most books I'm reading for fun, I think he's rather sweet and probably a big old softie behind the tough facade.

But I do find myself with a bit of something that can only be described as resentment after finishing The Pregnant Widow

I mean, why didn't I go to university with people who happen to have castles in Italy who invite me to stay so I can spend months and months sitting by the pool reading my way through centuries of English novels?

We're assured repeateld that everything in the castle really happened and it's with the greatest amount of envy I read how much the main character read.

It was A LOT of books.

But they were chosen to make LITERARY POINTS about GENRE

Of course, I'm not sure it's meant TOO literally because with the best will in the world I doubt if anyone could read all of Austen in a week as he appears to do unless the summer is in fact eight months long...

And even though the book itself is hundreds and hundreds of pages about young folk getting it on and talking about getting it on it's such a BOOKISH book that I felt like my MIND was involved.

I mean he lends a woman he doesn't realise he fancies Pride and Prejudice

and

they

TALK about it

with quotes

and new theories about the sexual persuasion of one of the Misses Bennet (not to name names)

I mean, I once lent a boy I liked Under Milkwood and he never read it much less spend hours coming up with a dissertation on life in a Welsh village.

Sigh.

On tea and hockey and the dangers of swans

Last week I tried very very hard not to follow my usual path of wasting Jasper Fforde's latest book by reading it all at once.

I did very well for a couple of days. I limited reading to the busride to and from work and a bit before going to sleep. I didn't avoid watching telly or talking to people. But then by Sunday night, there was only about a quarter of it left. So I read a few pages then a few more then I thought "just one more chapter" and then there was such a small number of pages left that it seemed silly to save them and oops what do you know that's the end already and it's 1:00 am.

And now I'll have to wait another year until there's a sequel.

Which of course is FANTASTIC news - I mean that there'll be a sequel - because Shades of Grey is marvellous.

He's used his usual preposterousness that made the Thursday Next series such an absurdist delight. Everyone seems to drink tea and play hockey but are acutely aware of the dangers of swan attack and ball lightning.

Gradually, you realise that this is a very different society from ours that arose from the ashes of a dimly-remembered Something that Happened and the characters are not really much like you and me at all.

It's as if the coloured children from Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake were re-imagined as P G Wodehouse characters.

And it's utterly charming.

Where were the hats?

Dear ABC

I very much enjoyed viewing the telemovie Miss Austen Regrets last night. It was a beautiflly written and acted dramatisation of Jane's life.

But I'm afraid that I do have to take issue with some of the costuming decisions.

I have been watching historical dramas for almost thirty years and feel that I've developed some expertise in this field. For instance I can spot at a glance the difference between Regency, Victorian and Edwardian attire.

This expertise has given me the unshakeable belief that until about 1960, English folk unless in the direst of penury would at all times when outdoors be wearing hats.

In most of the outdoor scenes (beautifully filmed against stately English home backgrounds) Jane and the other characters were hatless despite the clarity of the sunshine.

Was there perchance a milliners' strike during the production of this film? Did the high quality of the actors mean that this item of costuming was unaffordable?

I realise that you didn't actually MAKE this film but you are responsible for scheduling particular programs. Please note that traditionally the 8:30 Sunday timeslot has been for "bonnet dramas" and they are called that for a reason.


Yours sincerely

Mary

White Powder

According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the US Republicans read C.S.Lewis.

Or at least saw the movie

WASHINGTON: Conservative Republicans have begun sending bags of salt to Olympia Snowe's Maine office as part of a protest at her decision to break ranks and vote for a compromise version of Barack Obama's health-care scheme.

Salt is used on US roads to melt snow.

''Olympia Snowe has sold out the country. Having been banished to our world after Aslan chased her out of Narnia, Snowe is intent on corrupting this place too. So we should melt her,'' said one of the organisers of the rock salt protest.

Part of me thinks it's an imaginative and witty way to make a point but, you know, it does sound like misogynistic bullying.

And aren't there still security measures in place to stop politicians being sent bags of white powder?

Too late for the bandwagon but I'll play the same tune

My two-year-old was holding the copy of Debra Adelaide's Household Guide to Dying I'd borrowed from the library a few months ago but couldn't bring myself to read thinking it might be unnecessarily upsetting or depressing when there were likely to be other more cheering things to read like um the newspaper.

"What's this?" she asked.

"It's a book about death," I said.

She laughed and threw it back on the bed. "No it's not. It's a book about teapots!"

As practically everyone else already knows, we were both right.

I started to read it that day and didn't stop until finishing it after midnight by which stage I was a teary emotional mess.

I've often thought there should be warnings on the front of books like they show at the beginning of telly shows.

This Household Guide's would say "Some readers should be advised they may have strong emotional reactions to the contents of this book. These include parents of young children, sick people, anyone who has ever had a serious illness, anyone who has known anyone with a serious illness, anyone who is scared of sudden death, slow death, leaving things undone, in fact anyone really."

Apart from that, it was utterly charming, especially the chooks called after the Bennet girls.

Love and Marriage

Last week-end The Sydney Morning Herald was stirring the pot with >a long feature by sex therapist and psychologist Bettina Arndt about s*x in marriage saying:

different libidos were creating a generation of men who were “miserable, angry and really disappointed” that their need for s*x was “being totally disregarded in their relationship”.

Now I didn't read the actual feature because I suspected it would make me angry and I note the Hoydens are a bit worked up about it this morning...

But I did get a bit teary when this letter turned up in the letters page today:

Reading between lines
My wife was a very avid reader in bed ("Sex, wives and libido", Good Weekend, February 28). I didn't know whether she found the novels so interesting or whether she wanted to be sure that by the time she put the book down I was fast asleep. Once, I told her that the girlfriends I had before I met her never read in bed. Yes, she answered, because they were illiterate.

When she complained that I was snoring, I told her that this was my mating call, but she said that this didn't work with her. When I told her that I really must be getting old as the girls don't even whistle any more in the street when I pass, she reassured me: They still do, but your hearing is gone.

I was very happily married for over 40 years and I think a mutual sense of humour is the most important ingredient in a successful relationship.

This is in memoriam.

Andrew Partos Seaforth

Awww

Ambivalence about bonnets

I can't say I was actively looking forward to Cranford, the ABC's latest BBC bonnet drama.

But I was planning on watching it.

I love a good bit of historical drama especially when it has a decent budget and nice clothes and the sort of high production values the BBC sees fit to lavish on such things. (Thank you BBC!! If national telly licensing will save the Australian television drama industry I say "bring it on!") One of my favourite games is playing "spot the star of British stage and screen in fancy dress". And if it's based on a book I haven't read, well then there'll be a surprise at the end for once, won't there?

But it must be said, Cranford did not start well.

Dame Judi Dench, Imelda Staunton and other famous older actresses were running round in big skirts and bonnets arguing over whose gossip was more extraordinary? Not nearly as funny as I think I was expected to find it. And my Beloved agreed.

In fact, when the phone rang 15 minutes in, we both lunged for the handset. He was extremely disappointed to find it was for me.

But then I persisted, thinking "it's got to improve. Dame Judi, Michael Gambon and Julia Sawahla and the brother from Party Animals who isn't going to be the next Doctor aren't THAT hard up are they?"

It seemed a slim hope as Victorian novel cliche of dutiful daughter giving up love followed cliche of matchmaking stepmother followed new big city doctor trying to win over wary locals. Yawn.

But then something changed. I came to trust in the magic of the personable young people falling in love and by the time of the cough in the morning becoming the dangerous fever that night I was hooked. (this isn't really a spoiler because THIS IS A VICTORIAN NOVEL but all the same stop now if you don't want to know) By the time of the harrowing deathbed scene I was a teary blubbery mess.

Well done Mrs Gaskell! That did the trick.