Author: TravellinPenguin

I must say I am about 100% better than I was a week ago. It is amazing what a week in the heat, sun and light can do for someone when winter is taken away. We are in Koh Samuii, Thailand, eating everything in sight, reading, swimming and resting. Lots of resting. From what I am not sure but we are doing it.

I have just finished the Australian book (Text- first published in 1965) Aunts Up the Cross. This is a bohemian memoir of growing up in the 1920’s and 30’s through to about 1945 in Kings Cross, Sydney. It is the most wonderful read and extremely entertaining.

When a book begins as this, one must keep reading:

My great-aunt Juliet was knocked over and killed by a bus when she was eighty-five. The bus was travelling very slowly in the right direction and could hardly have been missed by anyone except Aunt Juliet, who must have been travelling fairly fast in the wrong direction

The introduction to the book is by writer and humorist Clive James. He also does a wonderful job introducing this story. He writes his intro in 1996:

Here at last is the living proof that a civilised, unpretentious, fully evocative prose style had been available in Australia ever since the young Robin Eakin (her maiden name) handed in her first essay. All we had ever needed to do was look in the wrong place. And so often happens, the true art was filed under entertainment.

Robin writes of the eccentrically large house they lived in (though in later life she said it wasn’t as large as she remembered it)

Her father was a doctor in the area and everyone seemed to know him. Her mother entertained anyone who came to the door. They always had relatives, friends and completely unknown people staying with them. She fed the entire community. Her parents had a loving, sometimes volatile relationship and the tricks her father played on people were laugh out loud funny. Her ancestry of all of the aunts plays an important role though she never met half of them. Death came frequently to her house over the years but in such a way it is hard not to read bits out loud to your partner. Is there such a term as “ludicrous deaths?” This book certainly has it in abundance.

I won’t say a lot more as Mr. Penguin is reading this book now and I don’t want to spoil it. If you are Australian and have not read this book then you must remedy the situation.

If you are not Australian you must read it in order to learn we do not all live in the outback with hats and corks on our heads.

The history of Kings Cross from the 1920’s up to the time of WWII is fun and enlightening. It was a very different place to how it is now. I loved it and the people inside this book will be with me forever.

Now for the “travellin’ part of the Penguin.  We were out by the pool the other day. A couple sat reading in the chairs beside us. I could see the woman was nearing the end of her book. I crane my neck around deck chairs and posts to get a glimpse of what people are reading when I am on holiday. Does anyone else do this?

She threw down the book and burst out, “Well!!!  He didn’t make it in the end.”

When she put the book down on the little table beside the chair and headed for the pool I had to get up and follow her lead, also into the pool. By then I HAD to see what the book was. Blast the spoilers.

The Chamber by John Grisham. Popular holiday reading by many people. I quite like the occasional John Grisham courtroom drama.

It turned out they were a couple from Melbourne and we have made ‘Holiday Friends’ with them. We chat to them at breakfast in the morning. Complain about our noisy neighbours and squabbling children. Last night as we walked to dinner the smell of marijuana was very strong down our outside hallway. What fools. Thai authorities do not smile upon drug use in this country. My worst nightmare, outside of being dragged off a campsite by a saltwater crocodile in the Northern Territory, is a long stint in an Asian prison on drug charges. I wouldn’t even pack tobacco for being so paranoid.

Thursday we leave for Singapore for about 5 or 6 days.  I think I am getting ready to face chilly, windy Tasmania again. I always thank the powers that be for having an Australian life and the blessings that are.

I have scattered a few photos through in case you want to see how hard we all have it this week.

I am in the middle of a big winter shake up. WINTER= Beautiful sunny days. But by the end of it I am fed up with the short days with dark coming too early. I am tired of the cold. I am tired of the damp. I think many people who live in the southern regions of Australia feel this way in winter and head for warmer climates if only for a couple of weeks.

We are leaving this afternoon for 8 days or so to Koh Samuii in Thailand. We are going to lie on a chaise lounge between the beach and the swimming pool. Picture me at the bottom of the pool, long snorkel and a drink in hand. I might sit there for 2 or 3 days. The hot sun beats down.

Then we are going to Singapore to  be around people for a week and celebrate our 46th wedding anniversary.

There have been family issues back home,(Michigan)  including my very old mother who is probably in her final year. It all makes me sad and winter is not a good time to be sad.  When I seek refuge in a book I am reminded I am reading War and Peace.

I have finished five parts out of ten. I have enjoyed it for the most part but it dawned on me the other evening I do not care about these people.  I enjoyed the strategy and conversations during the war scenes. Those were the scenes I thought I would dislike the most. They weren’t. It is the domestic part I get so impatient with. The society rules, the silly women who are presented again and again. The men who prance around. They are either silly or weak. I am tired of them. I want to get back into the books with strong women, modern women. Yes, women with smart phones and important jobs.  I can’t take anymore of it. I am, yes, quitting.

I have SO MANY tbr books on my shelves that look like adventure. They look like fun. They have beautiful covers. I don’t care if the stories are new or old, they are books that I want to spend time with.  When one is older, one is conscious of how little time may be left in the scheme of things. Even 20 years is not a great deal of time considering how fast the years go by.

I always wanted to read War and Peace. I wanted to be able to say, “Oh yes, I read that.” Am I comfortable not being able to say it? Yes, Absolutely. I get the gist. I will, however continue to follow the others who are reading and writing about it.   I have partial interest in hearing what might happen. I might pick it up again but when winter depression and Seasonal Affective Disorder has left me. When family issues overseas don’t occupy so many of my thoughts. When politics are better?  Ha!!

I am going to take a couple of copies of ‘real’ books with me. For the poolside. Something interesting or fun. I have many books on my Kindle and I can access the eBooks from the library.  I am going to work on my photography. I am going to take walks along the beach. The camera is packed. The Penguin is ready. Mr. P. has his things ready.  The housesitter comes tonight. The cats are at camp (cattery).  As one person, name unknown, once said.  “Elvis has left the building.”   Out of the way. “We are leaving the building.”

Stay tuned.

The week before last I went to an author interview in the city. I posted up Part I and said I would post up the main books of Mr. Dessaix this week. They have been reissued, as some were out of print, by Xoum Publishing.  You can view Part I here.

Be sure to notice the flashy new covers. I quite like them.

When we talk of Robert Dessaix we most commonly think five main novels he wrote. Most are autobiographical or linked to history. In the talk I attended he talked briefly to each one. There are other books one can read that are not mentioned below. I thought I would give you a brief explanation of what he said as he referred to them.

My Mother’s Disgrace-  This is  his most autobiographical book. He talks about growing up in Sydney to adoptive parents. He discusses the relationship he found later on to his biological mother. The difficulties of coming out ‘gay’ during that time period and his family’s reaction to it.

Night Letters – In this novel he writes of his visit to Venice, Italy. He is coming to terms with his recent diagnosis of HIV. The books discusses much history of Venice and how he incorporates his thoughts of his illness into this holiday destination. He writes in his hotel room every night as he comes to terms with where his life is heading.

He mentioned the first two books are often taught in the school curriculums. He told a funny story of a Marist College in New South Wales where these books were on the reading curriculum. He asked the representative at the school how does a book with the content of homosexuality and AIDS make it onto a curriculum in a Marist school? The reply was, “The Brothers don’t know what they are about.”   (More audience laughter)

Corfu – He mentioned he likes this book quite a bit more and thought it a good starting point for those who haven’t read him. Although he stated the critics didn’t seem to appreciate it much and he will always remember some of the cutting remarks he read. He begins to explore in more depth the ordinariness of people around him. He decides what is important to observe whilst travelling. He ties that in with what he also feels about himself.  He discusses how intimacy in all its different forms makes up your life.

Twilight of Love: Travels With Turgenev – This is a non fictional account of his love for Russian literature. He attended Moscow University and taught Russian language. His favourite was Turgenev. He decided to learn more about him and visited his homes in Germany, France and Russia. He was interested in his love life around the married opera singer Pauline Viardot and the triangle of love she lived in. There are themes of love, sex, theology and eventually death. I have read it and think it a book one reads once without asking questions and then needs a re-read to consolidate all that is in it. This is especially true if one is not familiar with Russian literature.

Arabesque – This book was not discussed in quite the detail as the others as we only had one hour and then questions. I have taken the synopsis from Amazon below:

One Sunday afternoon in a secluded valley in Normandy, Robert Dessaix chanced upon the castle where the famous French writer Andre Gide spent his childhood. Recalling the excitement Robert felt when he first read Gide as a teenager, he set off to recapture what it was that once drew him so strongly to this enigmatic figure. On a magic carpet ride from Lisbon to the edge of the Sahara, from Paris to the south of France and Algiers, Robert takes us to the places where the Nobel Prize-winning author, in ways still scandalous to modern sensibilities, lived out his unconventional ideas about love, marriage, sexuality and religion. Featuring meditations and conversations with fellow travellers on such diverse subjects as why we travel, growing old, illicit passions, and the essence of Protestantism – and illustrated with over 100 stunning illustrations and photos – Arabesques is Robert Dessaix and travel memoir at their absolute finest.

He did go on to talk about the different selves people seem to live in. He believes everyone has more than one self and if you live in a small town/city sometimes it is hard to live out all those selves. He enjoys travelling because he can let some of his other selves come to the fore. Being gay and a well known writer he made a funny remark, “How does anyone have an affair in Hobart?”  A woman from the audience called out, “Get a different car!”  The room erupted into laughter.

We covered a great deal of Dessaix territory in this single hour at the bookshop. I have read his books, My Mother’s Disgrace; Night Letters and Twilight of Love. I have Arabesque and Corfu sitting on the shelf.  I think sometime I will have to have a Dessaix month and reread the books I have read as it has been a long time, and get into

the ones I haven’t. I feel I have a better understanding of what he is saying.

It certainly was an evening of enjoyment and our heads swirled afterwards with

so many topics.