Friday Five: Films on a plane

1. Emily: Still not my favourite Bronte, although Emma Mackey is brilliant and the moors look pretty.
2. EO: What with Banshees of Inisherin, this may be the Year of the Donkey.
3. The Fablemans: The making of an auteur. It's clearly very autobiographical and gives away a few secrets (putting pinholes in the film; allowing light through to simulate flashes from gun-shots). The personal and insular focus, with specific parental relationships, is the same kind of film-making therapy as demonstrated in Honeyboy.  Lock-downs clearly led to lot of navel gazing and subsequent oversharing. This is great if you want to know all about your directors/ actors/ film practitioners, but a bit self-indulgent if you don't.
4. Marcel the Shell with Shoes on: A cute and quirky animation in which a shell tries to find his family. As well as exploring the sense of identity and belonging to a community, the film also addresses the issue of on-line fandom and virtue-signalling activism. It's far more affecting than it has any right to be. 
5. M3GAN: Science-fiction horror, which is also funny and cine-literate with self-aware references to previous works in the AI-companion-goes-feral genre.

Middle-Aged Fantasy: The Winter Sea

The Winter Sea by Di Morrissey

Pan Macmillan

Pp. 416

This novel is pure escapism and wish fulfilment. Cassie decides to leave her high-paid but unsatisfying legal job and husband in Sydney for a holiday on the coast. On a whim she buys a dilapidated restaurant and turns it into a roaring success with the help of the local fishing community. The spanner in the works (of course there has to be one) is in the form of a historic family incident with far-reaching repercussions. Because it's a typical holiday read there is a caring community for affirmation, an abandoned dog for company, and a handsome vet for romance. It contains a lot of stereotypes which are completely undemanding.

One of these stereotypes is the notion of Italy and the history of emigration. There are several flashbacks, which direct the reader to the old country where “Italian families are always there for each other” in a sort of Sicilian Godfather-like way. Italians love fishing and women, and they have romantic notions of both.

Characters describe things to each other in a manner that is clearly meant as exposition for the reader, and historical nuggets are dropped into the narrative with resounding clangs. The transition to being Australian is not easy; as someone worries that their English might not be good enough to pass the test they are told, “It could be in any language. If they don’t want you, they will make it impossible for you to pass.” We are reminded that Italians were put into internment camps during the war. “People are in here just because they’re Italian. Doesn’t matter what their political convictions are – Fascists, Communists, neutral. It almost makes you cry when you think of the poor buggers who left Italy to escape Fascism only to end up here.”

Cassie is a modern woman who decides to make a break, in parallel with these characters from the past. We are meant to see her as an independent woman, who is better-off without her overbearing husband, Hal and patriarchal career. This burgeoning feminism is not extended to other female characters, however – more Italian stereotypes. Moving home and setting up a new business is remarkably easy to do as Cassie buys a place in Whitby Point, by the sea (Ulladulla, NSW coast), with a more relaxed pace of life than in her previous Sydney home, which suits her interests. She extends this minimalism to her restaurant, which she decides to run with no real business plan. It is busy but idyllic and the dream of many a middle-aged idealist.

By trying to force a modern character into a tried and tested romance formula, Morrissey’s character’s credibility strains at the seams, but she has enough fans who will love it anyway and there’s no point in ruining a perfectly good fantasy with realism and detail.

Ulladulla Harbour and Foreshore

Friday Five: Value Portraits

A few weeks ago I organised a workshop in Canberra for my work team. As part of a session about our organisation's values (respect, integrity, collaboration, excellence and innovation), I took them to the National Portrait Gallery, where we all chose an artwork of a person who we felt represented those values, and shared our findings with the group. These are the results:

Adam (Adam Goodes), 2014 by Alan Jones

Adnyamathanha/ Nurangga man Adam Goodes (b. 1980) is a former champion AFL footballer who played 396 games with the Sydney Swans. Recognised as one of Australia's great footballers, he is a dual Brownlow medalist, a four-time all-Australian, and a member of the Indigenous Team of the Century. With his cousin and fellow Swans star, Michael O'Loughlin, Goodes established the GO Foundation in 2009 to provide educational opportunities and mentoring for the next Indigenous generation. Awarded Australian of the Year in 2014, he has challenged endemic racism both on and off the field. After his early retirement in 2015 following repeated on-field heckling and a lack of support from the AFL, he co-founded the Indigenous Defence and Infrastructure Consortium, which helps First Nation businesses work in long-term building projects.

Goodes' pride in his cultural heritage and the dignity on his stand against racism inspired Alan Jones, a self-confessed Swans supporter, to paint this dual portrait for the Archibald Prize in 2014. "I have enormous respect for the strength and integrity he shows both on and off the field. Adam is an amazing athlete but also so much more than that; he is a son, a brother, an extremely proud Indigenous Australian... and a great role model in so many ways."

Dr Joan M Redshaw by Barbara Tribe 

Joan Redshaw AM (1921-1944), medical practitioner, graduated from the University of Sydney in 1944 before travelling to London to complete post-graduate studies in paediatrics at the Great Ormond Street Hospital. Returning to Australia in 1948, she became the first woman ship's surgeon to be employed by the Orient Line, famously performing an appendectomy on the Red Sea. On board, she met Captain Arthur Strong, whom she married in 1949. For twenty years from 1951, Redshaw was a paediatrician and general practitioner in Nabiac, on the mid-north coast of New South Wales. A member of the Women's Advisory Board to the NSW premier, she spent twelve years on the council of the Medical Association. As president of the International Women's Association, she campaigned against child marriage and female circumcision; her local community involvements included crisis accommodation for women affected by domestic violence, and alcoholic programs.

Barbara Tribe was a significant sculptor and the first woman to win the New South Wales Travelling Art Scholarship. She spent most of her career in England, exhibiting with the Royal Academy and the Royal Society of British Sculptors.

Quentin Bryce (2016) by Michael Zavros

The Hon. Dame Quentin Bryce AD CVO (b. 1942), academic, lawyer and human rights advocate, was the first woman to be appointed governor-general of Australia. Born in Brisbane, she spent her early childhood in Ilfracombe in central western Queensland. She attained degrees in arts and law at the University of Queensland, where in 1968 she became the first female member of the law faculty. By the time she retired from teaching in 1983, she was increasingly involved in human rights and advocacy work. Between 1984 and 1993 she was director of the Queensland Women's Information Service, director of Queensland's Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and the Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner. In 1997 she became principal and chief executive officer of the Women's College within the University of Sydney. Six years later she became governor of Queensland. In 2008 she was appointed Australia's 25th governor-general, and served in this role until March 2014.

Michael Zavros commenced work on this portrait in 2015, when Bryce became chair of Queensland's Special Taskforce on Domestic and Family Violence. Zavros included the proteas as the emblem of the Taskforce, but also to signify the sitter's strength and wisdom, and the dignity of her longstanding commitment to justice and human rights.

Professor Penny Sackett, astronomer and physicist (2011) by Andrew Mezei

Penny Sackett (b. 1956), physicist, astronomer and former Chief Scientist for Australia, gained her PhD in theoretical physics at the University of Pittsburgh. In 2002 she was appointed director of the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Australian National University. Responsible for the Mount Stromlo Observatory, she had to endure its destruction by bushfires in January 2003, and negotiations for the insurance payout and rebuilding of the heritage-listed facility. Sackett was one of an international team of 73 astronomers who discovered the first known earth-sized planet orbiting a normal star other than the Sun in the inner Milky Way in 2006. Appointed the Chief Scientist for Australia in late 2008, Sackett remained an adjunct professor at ANU and continued to supervise research students. She resigned as Chief Scientist in 2011, announcing that she intended to contribute to science in other ways.

Entering this portrait in the Archibald Prize for 2011, Andrew Mezei said that he aspired to paint Sackett after hearing her speak on the radio. He wrote: 'She responded to scepticism about climate change with eloquent reasoning … I wanted to show her femininity as perfectly compatible with her impeccable focus on facts.' The setting is imagined, though informed by various images of Mount Stromlo Observatory.

Lowitja O'Donoghue (2006) by Robert Hannaford AM

Lowitja O'Donoghue AC CBE (b. 1932), Indigenous rights campaigner, is a Yankunjatjara woman. Removed from her mother at the age of two, she was raised in a mission home and worked as a nurse before joining the Department of Aboriginal Affairs in 1967. By 1975, she was its regional director in South Australia. She was Foundation Chair of the National Aboriginal Conference in 1977 and chaired the Aboriginal Development Commission from 1989 to 1990. O'Donoghue was Australian of the Year in 1984, when she became the first Aboriginal person to address the General Assembly of the United Nations. While Chair of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission between 1990 and 1996, she helped to draft the Mabo legislation. Currently she is Patron of Reconciliation South Australia and of the Lowitja Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health.

Robert Hannaford said of O'Donoghue that he observed a 'vast understanding and sympathy in her face, a sadness', but also thought she looked 'fantastic in that light I've got in that studio'. The pair became friends during the many hours of sittings involved in creating the work.

Grimly Compelling: The Good People

The Good People by Hannah Kent

Picador

Pp. 380

Set in 1825 in South-West Ireland, this novel explores liminal spaces and inexplicable things. In this world many follow the ‘old’ beliefs that children (and adults) could be stolen (swept) by the fairies to be replaced by changelings. Folklore and superstition are important here; herbs and flowers have healing and harmful powers; each chapter is named for one and begins with a botanical pen and ink drawing.

Nóra is caring for her daughter’s child, Micheál, after her own daughter has died. The boy has a disability which prevents him from speaking or walking and, after her husband Martin’s mysterious death at a crossroads (a place of magic), rumours abound that something may be not quite right with child. Nóra hires a servant girl, Mary, to help her to care for Micheál, and when Mary hears gossip from the women at the well that Micheál may be a changeling, she and Nóra enlist the help of Nance, the wise woman in the woods, who is believed to consort with the fairy folk, or the Good People, as they are also known.

This is a traditional battle between female and male energy, where women with knowledge are punished as witches, while men and priests hold all the power. There are glimpses of domestic violence and mental and physical cruelty in the community as the women cower to their husbands. Nóra is isolated in this society and, when there is cold and hunger, she is the last to be considered, leaving her to make wild choices.

We first meet Nance when she turns up at Martin’s wake and begins keening. The new priest, Father Healy, takes an instant dislike to Nance and lectures, against “the old ways that keep Irishmen at the bottom of the pile. ’Tis a new age for Ireland and for the Catholic Church. We’re to be paying our pennies to the Catholic campaign, not to unholy keeners.” Depending on who’s telling the story, Nance is either the “handy woman” or the “interfering biddy” who believes in the potency of the old ways and receives several visitors “mainly the men... who did not trust the doctor or could not afford his labelled tinctures” to whom she supplies herbal remedies.

Brimming with Hardy-esque pathetic fallacy, the novel credits the seasons with paramount importance in an agricultural community. Life is cyclical in its natural rhythms: Nóra and Nance both believe that all is connected in ways the Catholic Church doesn’t encompass. Under the instruction of Nance and with the reluctant assistance of Mary, Nóra tries to return the changeling child to the fairy world by submerging it in the river.

The novel is based on a true story of infanticide in 1826 where an old woman of advanced years known as Anne/Nance Roche was indicted for the wilful murder of Michael Kelliher/Leahy, who had been drowned in the river Flesk. In this version, the final chapters take place in a courtroom, which opens a completely new world, and exacerbates the claustrophobic nature of the valley community. The characters are trapped in crucible of superstition, poverty and geography, with no way out except for torturous ordeals of fire and water.

Hannah Kent writes a grim and atmospheric tale with a compelling style. Both deeply sad and historically interesting there is a lot to appreciate, preferably when read by a warm fire with a tot of strong drink to keep out the cold weather and the bleak spirits.

Friday Five: Anniversary Dishes

For our anniversary we went to have dinner at The Boat House - great recommendation from friends when we suggested we wanted something a little bit fancy but not pretentious or intimidating. We had a set four-course meal for an expensive but reasonable price, and some of the dishes are photographed above. They include:

1. Burnett Heads tiger prawn fennel, zucchini, macadamia milk
2. Dry aged duck breast fig, radicchio, mushroom & duck sausage
3. Slow roasted pork belly fermented blueberries, butternut, parsley
4. Humpty Doo barramundi fumé, cherry tomatoes, squash
5. “Little Joe’s” scotch fillet gem lettuce, potato dauphinoise, pepper jus
6. Thai basil vacherin yuzu ganache, passionfruit, finger lime
7. Raspberry sorbet yoghurt mousse, white chocolate, Davidson plum

Back at home we had this delicious 2010 Dolce Vita from Valli that we bought before we left New Zealand and have been saving for a special occasion. I think 21 years of marriage deserves that celebratory status.

Unconvincing Café Crime: The Secrets of Strangers

The Secrets of Strangers by Charity Norman

Allen & Unwin

Pp. 334

Published in 2020, this fast-paced action novel about five strangers held captive by a gunman in a London café instantly recalls the Lindt Café siege in December 2014, when a lone gunman held hostage ten customers and eight employees of a chocolate café in Martin Place, Sydney, Australia. There have doubtless been many events such as this in London, but the novel doesn’t feel as though it is set in that city at all – there are no landmarks or sense of place, the people are caricatures rather than characters, and there is a reference to playing soccer, betraying the fact that the author has lived in New Zealand for the past twenty years.

The novel is written in the present tense and structured in short chapters with different third-person-omniscient perspectives to make it feel immediate and resemble a TV drama or a play. Neil is an erstwhile teacher, now homeless due to a gambling addiction, Abi is a defence lawyer, Mutesi is a Carer at an aged care facility, Sam is the gunman who has shot Robert, the café owner, and Eliza is the police negotiator.

The most interesting and believable of these characters is Eliza, who is co-ordinating between the gunman on the phone and those directing the police operation on the ground. Tension abounds when they want to enter the building although she cautions against it. Her communication with Sam must be rational and calm as she tries to establish a rapport and get to the crux of the matter.

Everyone has the capacity for both good and evil and Sam is plagued by memories of a two-faced puppet, an obvious metaphor for his relationship with his manipulative step-father. The owner of the café, Robert, whom everyone thought was a good guy, is actually a snake and uses coercive control on his partners. He’s a narcissist and a sociopath, and few people can see through him as he gaslights women (including Sam’s mother) and convinces them they have gaping holes in their memory and forget whole conversations.

In a very conventional outlook, we are guided to believe that children are the future and the reason for living. Mutesi is only afraid for her grandson; Abi is undergoing IVF in a desperate attempt to conceive which has taken over her life and that of her partner, as if she is nothing without offspring.

The situation is extremely unrealistic, with sympathetic cups of tea; coherent stories told and a neat tying-up of ends. In a cosy conclusion it provides a satisfying story (no innocent bystanders are shot) and we are almost directed (the words is used advisedly) to feel sympathy for Sam because of the incidents in his past. Although it is dangerous to assign labels if one is not a clinical psychiatrist, it may be that Sam is on the spectrum and possibly lives with ADHD. He has suicidal thoughts and ideation, and is taking Ritalin to help focus his attention. And yet he shot someone, held up others at gunpoint, and clearly has terrifying anger issues. 

We are told, “People survive. Human beings go on. They have a capacity for love and a capacity for evil, but they go on.” It doesn’t ring true that contemporary Londoners would be that equable or forgiving, and the novel can’t decide between being a gritty police procedural and a charming endorsement of humanity.

Friday Five: Books Read in March

 

1. The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orrigner: Spanning several years (and 600 pages), this is an epic historical novel in the style of Dr Zhivago traversing Europe from grand opera houses to forced labour camps and many things in between. Andras Lévi is a Hungarian architect student who travels to Paris on a scholarship in 1937. Clearly things are going to go rapidly downhill for him, his friends and his family in great (sometimes excessive) detail. There is romance and passion beneath the politics and, as many of the characters are involved in the theatre scene, it sometimes feels staged and melodramatic.
2. Mr. Macgregor by Alan Titchmarsh: Yes, 'that' Alan Titchmarsh (English gardener, broadcaster, TV presenter, poet and novelist). Apparently gardeners are sexy these days and a valued staple of any TV station's talent. From the lights of the studio to the marquees of the Chelsea Flower Show, it's full of 1980s stereotypes including cowboy builders, bitchy gay presenters, man-eating female news reporters and division of women into the categories of young, attractive and nubile or old, fat and ugly. There are plenty of adjectives, and a couple of jokes, but none of them are original. According to a quote on the jacket, Jilly Cooper found it 'absolutely charming... made me understand a lot more about men.' I sincerely hope not.
3. We, the Survivors by Tash Aw: We know from the beginning of the novel that the narrator has killed someone, but we are not sure who and why; all that is apparent is that he doesn't seem to show any remorse. As he tells his tale to a journalist, the Albert Camus-like nihilism gives way to a raging sense of injustice about the casual and heartless treatment of illegal immigrants. The author sets the novel in Malaysia, where, through evocative prose the 'other' is made empathetic and the economic consequences become humanitarian ones. The burgeoning sentiment of connection to the land is at odds with the capitalist ethos of exploitation of natural resources and cheap labour. Language is important in the war against dehumanisation, and Tash Aw uses words with a surgeon's precision. 
4. Think Again by Adam Grant: Examining the power of knowing what you don't know (which is also the subtitle of the book), organisational psychologist Adam Grant weaves research and anecdote together to help us exercise our curiosity. The world is a little short of understanding and tolerance right now, where people take up a position on a subject and refuse to budge, scared they may be accused of betraying their ideals or losing face, when really they are adapting their position based on new knowledge. It's interesting to reframe our thoughts by highlighting our similarities before our differences and allowing mental flexibility to triumph over rigid resistance.  
5. The Cat and the City by Nick Bradley: This month's Family Book Club choice was by Scary Sis, and it proved quite a hit with the group. The collection of short stories are loosely connected by a calico cat which wanders both through the pages of the book and also through the streets of Tokyo, communicating with factory workers, tattoo artists, homeless people, jilted lovers, taxi drivers and agoraphobic gamers, among others. Including photographs, manga, footnotes, haiku and a work in translation, the styles are different and engaging throughout, each snapshot working together to create a wonderfully evocative image of the culture and flavour of this busy Japanese city.