Nickel and Dimed

Barbara Ehrenreich is such a great journalist, I'd read her on anything, even if I wasn't particularly interested in the subject. But in Nickel and Dimed - On (Not) Getting By in America - her subject is the struggle on the fringes of affluent Western culture, and those who struggle it. Having struggled on a few fringes myself (oh to be an Artist in this benighted place) I was moved by those among whom Ehrenreich lived & worked while researching this book. Acknowledging her priveleged middle class background, and knowing she couldn't really 'experience' poverty, nonetheless she steps away from her safety nets & tries to make do on her minimum wage jobs - finding accommodation, health care, food, petrol. Finding support and unexpected kindness. But also finding deeply ingrained desperation, no hope that anything will improve, and an unfightable undertow in the struggle of the working poor.

Many of my fellow Australians would recognise this clawed existence (although we do have universal free health care here). I earlier spoke of my "struggle". But I come from the robust lower middle class, had good health care as a child, which set me up physically, lived in a house with two parents until I was 17, speak this language English well, and have always been encouraged to strive for goals beyond the daily need for food and shelter. Reading of the people in Ehrenreich's stories gave me pause, and made me angry. And made me vow never to again to say "Oh I'm so broke".

What Makes Sammy Run?

Budd Schulberg, who would go on to write the novel Waterfront & the screenplay from it On The Waterfront, shocked Hollywood in 1941 with this novel. It concerns the rise and rise of unscrupulous, out-for-himself Sammy Glick as he makes his way from copy-boy at a New York newspaper, clambering over bodies, to become a big-shot Hollywood producer. The pithy prose & vivid characters, along with a rolicking plot, make this novel a "read it all on one go" book.

The New York Times named it "best first-novel of the year". Schulberg's father, the legendary producer B.P. Schulberg, told him "You'll never work in this town again. How will you live?". He was fired by a purple-with-rage Sam Goldwyn, Hedda Hopper accosted him to harrumph "How dare you", and Louis Mayer wanted to "deport" him. He was attacked simultaneously by the Communist Party and John Wayne. In fact, even in the mid-sixties, Wayne tried to strangle Schulberg at a party, then challenged him to a duel.

Of great interest, though sobering, is Schulberg's Afterword, written in 1989. He laments "The book I had written as an attack on antisocial behavior has become a how-to book on Looking Out for Number 1."

Blindsight

Maurice Gee is one of new Zealand's best writers of fiction. In Blindsight he achingly unravels the entwined family relationships of the Ferrys, in particular the brother and sister, as narrated by the now old Alice. An unknown young man arrives on her doorstep and his soft insistence breaks open her carapace, and reveals the darkness at the heart of her family. "Father taught us how not to love" is the first line of this novel, and by the time it is repeated as the ending I felt wrenched by this story, yet strangely calm. Gee's prose is incisive and unsentimental - as is his protagonist. He has the ability to involve the reader with his characters, who scarcely seem to be characters but living beings with all their faults and regrets, yet all their painful ability to - yes - love.

Atonement

I came late to Ian McEwan. I read Enduring Love last year & was enraptured. I bought The Innocent (paying retail price!) and was left gasping for breath (in a good way.) Each McEwan I read become my favourite, and so it is with Atonement. The story is involved and the characters complex, yet he writes with such utter simplicity. This is a superb book on the nature of ourselves as flawed human beings. I cried at the end - not only for the lives of these imaginary people (ain't it strange?) but also because the book was finished & I would never again read it for the first time.

After finishing Atonement, I picked up and put aside four books after reading a page or two. I was restless & hungry for more transporting writing. Luckily I've landed on Blndsight by Maurice Gee, a delicious follow-on.

Don't Let The Pigeon Stay Up Late

Following the scintillating brilliance of Pigeon's first outing Don't Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus, Mo Willems' story here exposes the machinations of our mini-Machiavelli Pigeon as he tries to wheedle, threaten, demand, charm and skive his way into staying up late. Line destined to become a classic: "You wouldn't say no to a bunny, would you?"

Bambi vs Godzilla

No, not Marv Newland's sublime 1969 film "Bambi Meets Godzilla". The astringent David Mamet holds forth on the nature of the film business, in particular how film narrative works (and how it doesn't). Its sub-title is "On the Nature, Purpose and Practice of the Movie Business", and he delivers on that with penetrating criticism and acerbic wit. Mr Mamet's appreciation of the craft of film making, as practiced by the craftspeople, is palpable. He digs the nuts and bolts of the work. He has great stories to tell, and is a consummate storyteller. In the process, he talks about how we are as human creatures, our purity, our venality, our common mix of both.

I like Mr Mamet's plays & films. I like very much his prose writing, its simplicity, pointedness, particularity, and boldness. For me, through his writings on theatre, film and writing itself, he constant delves beyond to refer to our humanity. And he is funn-nee.

The back cover quotes (inter alia*) Steve Martin thus: “David Mamet is supremely talented. He is a gifted writer and observer of society and its characters. I’m sure he will be able to find work somewhere, somehow, just no longer in the movie business.”

*inter alia appears by kind permission of Stan Orbit