Author: TravellinPenguin

I really enjoyed this book. It was not really a thriller but the suspense kept me turning pages. David Kelsey is a scientist. He used to date Annabelle but he moved in order to get a higher paying job and she married someone else. But…David is obsessed with Annabelle. Although she is now married he completely ignores that tiny fact and behaves as if they are engaged.

I don’t want to say too much about this book because I don’t want to spoil it.  David keeps a house outside of the town he works in. He tells people at the boarding house he is visiting his mother in a nursing home each weekend but he is really going to the house he built for Annabelle. He takes on another name and lives as another who is married to Annabelle. His fantasies and conversations with her in his weekend house keep him going. It is beginning to tell she has little interest in him.

The entire story is how he becomes more and more obsessed with her, the conflicts with several people that arise from his obsession and how it is all resolved at the end.

He becomes sicker and sicker with this obsession. The suspenseful part of the book is how other people, namely his friends, Wes (who has a wife he can’t stand to be with) and Effie ()who is completely in love with David) interfere in his plans. Every time he plans something one of them seems to crop up.  David begins with his fantasy life with Annabelle and then a particular event happens. This changes the entire direction of the story and the continued interference of those around him cause the suspense. You are always wondering, ‘how in the world is this going to end?’.

I think Patricia Highsmith is a brilliant story teller and I have not yet come across another author who can weave a story into the knots that she does. Last year I saw the play The Talented Mr. Ripley but have not read the book. I also saw the film Carol but have not read the corresponding book Ms. Highsmith wrote. Mr. Penguin read Strangers on a Train and I have yet to read that but I do remember the Alfred Hitchcock film. I wish this was a movie because I would love to see how they do it.

I would love to know what others thing of this book. I really enjoyed it.

This week has been a lovely movie going and reading week with a bit of other stuff thrown in. I have seen two movies since I last wrote. Hidden Figures, the story of the three African-American mathematicians who worked at NASA at the time of Alan Shepherd’s first orbit around the earth.  I remember those days so well. They were exciting times and I enjoyed this movie very much. I thought it was well done and I loved the actors who played the main characters.Though Kevin Costner looked so old.

I went to hear Rosalie Martin, Tasmania’s Australian of the Year speak on International Women’s day about her voluntary project she has been doing at Risdon Prison teaching literacy skills. As a speech pathologist I have known Rosie for many years as a colleague and she spoke of ways to establish ‘kind communication’ when speaking to others or teaching her autism students and prisoners. Speech pathologists have a great deal of knowledge of phonological awareness and meta-linguistics related to literacy development. Many teachers have yet to realise this and I remember my own struggles with teachers over the years about their students who weren’t developing communication skills or literacy developments.  The speech was motivational and inspiring. Rosie has now completed a criminology degree and combines the two areas very successful. Most interesting.

Saturday I took myself to the State Cinema in North Hobart to see the film, David Stratton, A Cinematic Life. If you are an Australian you will most likely have followed film reviews by David Stratton and Margaret Pomeranz  over the years on SBS and later ABC. David Stratton has viewed over 42, 800 plus movies since he was 12 years old and has card catalogue files and notebooks with reviews and comments about everyone. His personal archive in his home was stunning. I could have watched an entire film about that. If you are a follower of Australian film then run, don’t walk to see this film. I could easily sit through it again and the clips of so many Australian films were wonderful. I was also proud to know that Australia produced the first feature length film in the world in 1906. It was about the bushranger Ned Kelly.  Hollywood did not exist at the time and the clip was shown at the film. Just so interesting.

Books I am reading or have finished:

I finished the End of Eddy by Edouard Louis. It is a French translation of his growing up in poverty in France as a gay boy and having no idea what is actually happening and why he is the way he is. I will write separately about this book. I loved it very much and so far it is the best book I have read this year. It should be required reading in every high school in the world.

I finished Patricia Highsmith’s book This Sweet Sickness which I also loved. I will do a separate review on this book quite soon also. I  loved it. She writes very well of one man’s obsession with a woman he loves and how he descends into complete madnes. A very complex love story.

Today I am off in our 31 C degree heat to my play reading class where we continue to read Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. 

I am enjoying the story very much. One of my classmates taught at Sydney University and he is very experienced in literature and drama. He supplied us a wonderful introduction to this play. I hadn’t realised it was part of the plays of the absurd. It really is very funny. So many truths in it also told in a very circular fashion.

Last week was most comforting with books and films. I always get a great deal of satisfaction from these two areas of my life. I didn’t follow the world news anymore than to listen to the headlines each morning on the ABC radio just to see if our seven continents continue to exist. They do, so I continue to distract myself with more pleasant things.

I’ll be back soon with another Tuesday trivia and the book reviews of the previously mentioned books.

What do you do for comfort in these politically turbulent times?

The Classics Club has announced it is time for the 15th Spin (here). I did one early last year but have not done one since. Each blogger lists 20 books and numbers them accordingly. The book must then be read and reviewed on your blog by 1 May, 2017.

However I am going to change one little thing this time. I am only going to list 10 books. They are ten books I have had on my shelf for quite awhile. They are also quite short books. I want to get all ten of them read quite soon so I can either pass them on or sell them. They are TBR books I want to exit the house. I am trying to get the number of books off my shelves.  I know it is an impossible task as I then buy ones to replace it but believe it or not I am slowing down. I am going to concentrate on these 10 over the next few months.

I will be travelling in April and as they are short I can read them and leave them behind with the Book Phantom note in it with its email address. I think that would be fun too in order to see where they end up.

So here are the books:

1. and 11.     Fly Away Peter by David Malouf:   For three very different people brought together by their love for birds, life on the Queensland coast in 1914 is the timeless and idyllic world of sandpipers, ibises and kingfishers. But the WWI is beginning. Two of the young men are drawn to the war. It is a story of the continuities of nature vrs. the obscenities of war. I have not read this before and it does sound interesting.

2.and 12.     The Ballad of the Sad Cafe by Carson McCullers:  An American gothic tale of love and betrayal in the deep south of the USA. The story of Miss Amelia, a very unconventional woman. 6 feet, 2 inches, strong and self reliant, married to Marvin Macy, the meanest and most handsome man in town and then she threw him out after ten days. Her tale running a store alone when a strutting, hunchbacked dwarf, comes to town, steals her heart and transforms the store into a buzzing cafe. When her rejected husband returns a bizarre love triangle ensues and the battle of the sexes begins.  Need I say more? I hope to read this soon. Sounds like fun.

3. and 13. Mozart’s Journey to Prague by Eduard Mörikes  Mozart is on his way to Prague for the opening of Don Giovanni. He steals an orange from a Bohemian family’s garden on the way and gets caught by a furious gardener. When the gardener’s family discovers who he is he is forgiven and welcomed by the family who have adored his music. Sounds like fun.

4. and 14. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

5. and 15.  On Listening by Martin Flanagan:  Part of the Curiosity Lecture Series, Penguin Special, non – fiction. A poetic and eloquent edition on the power of listening.

6. and 16. The Village By The Sea by Anita Desai:  A small fishing village near Bombay is still ruled by age old seasonal rhythms. Hari and Lila have lived in Thul all their lives, but their family is now desperately down on their luck. Their father drinks; their mother is seriously ill and there is no money to keep them fed and clothed. This is their tale. A tale from India.

7. and 17.   The Guilty Party and Other Stories by O. Henry:  I have always loved O. Henry so looking forward to this. A book of 11 short stories.

8. and 18.  The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin:  I have been reading a great deal in the media lately that 1984 by Orwell and this book by Baldwin are more relevant than ever regarding the political climate in the world. The blurb on the back states, “Reviewing this short but powerful study of the Negro problem in America.”  A good book to revisit.

9. and 19.   How I Came to Know Fish by Ota Pavel:  This is one of the Central European Classics published by Penguin in a set. Written in 1974, it is Ota Pavel’s magical memoir of his childhood in Czechoslovakia. Fishing with his father and his Uncle Prosek- the two finest fishermen in the world- he takes a peaceful pleasure from the rivers and ponds of his country…until the Nazi’s invade.

10. and 20. The Railway Station Man by Jennifer Johnston:  Published 1984, The railway station had been abandoned and decaying since the line was closed. But when the strange Englishman arrived, the war hero with a ruined body and scarred mind, he and young Damian Sweeney began to restore the old station with meticulous care, believing it could live again. Helen Cuffe, widowed, desultory and detached from his disapproving son, looks on…. hmmm.

Well you have the list. After writing out those descriptions I want to read all of them right away. So different from one another. I like the idea of the various countries these stories represent over a considerable span of time.

Stay tuned for Monday is the day that the Spin Number is announced.  I, for one, am looking forward to it.