Blog

The Nature of Life

(and Inga Simspon’s Nest)

Having just returned from the Festival of Colour, held annually in Wanaka in New Zealand, amongst the beautiful mist covered mountains of the south island, I’m taking a moment to appreciate nature. The animated conversation in the bus with Alison Ballance, author of many non-fiction books about the environment, including the endangered KaKapo helped head me in this direction. Perhaps too this reflection is also inspired in part by the visuals of Nepal I could see but not hear on the television screen at the gym, with the horrific news of the death toll of the earthquake and avalanche now over 4,000. Counter-posed with the execution of two of the Bali Nine, both media stories emphasized how life can be cut brutally short. The place I had just left in New Zealand had earthquakes further north while I was there, and not long ago much of Christchurch was leveled by one such an event. For all human’s mastery of many things, nature in its fury can bring us down to size pretty quickly. There is nothing more frightening (and magnificent) to me than the sea—must have been too young when I saw the Poseidon Adventure…

As a walker (very long distances generally) I have become increasingly aware of the power of nature in a different way. On long walks one comes to live in the moment—and each moment when walking in the wild, or not so wild forests and farmlands of France and Spain or the UK, there are always wonderful moments: the first tulip bud peeping out of the ground, the rain droplets on spider webs in sunlight. Such moments lead to a rush of well-being. A feeling that all is well with the universe—and one’s self. In this rush to everywhere and KPI driven world, miss this and we lose a sense of ourselves.

So it was a well timed birthday present that I just finished reading. Inga Simpson’s Nest is a lovely work of fiction. It is slow paced as such a book of reflection and nature should be. While there is a mystery of two missing children and a lost father interwoven into the fabric of the story, it is primarily a story of loss and regeneration, as Jen the heroine tries to come to terms with her past. She lives in lush vegetation in Australia’s north, and it the bird’s in particular that shape her world, them and her drawing of them given her a purpose, though teaching the next generation, young Henry, is what keeps her grounded. The author/ heroine’s observations of nature are rich and real, and bring alive the Australian habitat, sounds and smell included. It is a book to help you slow down and think. And one for bird lovers.

An existential take on book criticism

 

Maybe it’s because I watched the world leaders walking arm in arm behind a massive Parisian crowd. Maybe it’s just New Year reflections, or that fact I was staying with a therapist friend and his bookshelf was more erudite than mine, resulting in an intense ten hours reading Yalom and Vickers, both therapists who write fiction. Combined with my own pending first mainstream fiction release, perhaps it is not surprising that I have woken up thinking about book reviews.

It is so easy to be critical. To forget the hours that went into the writing, to dismiss the person behind the words. We know all too well that Social Media can lead people astray, give them a false sense of anonymity and self-importance. Kitty Flanagan in a weekend column let loose her thoughts on parenting and lamented she wouldn’t be taken seriously because she didn’t have children—but suggested no one criticize her column unless they’d written one themselves. There is wisdom in this…walk a month in a man’s moccasins and all that.

We all (well most) read, some more than others, and that gives us the right to review and criticize. Or at least the hundreds of thousands of reviews on Goodreads would seem to have us believe this is the case. Very few of these reviewers have written a full length book. But whether they have or not, we are all entitled to our own opinion and books are meant to make us think and feel—so yes, I welcome these reviews if it means people are reading. But can I also challenge people to think. Not just about the author and their book, what they might be trying to achieve, whether they did or not. In reading the reviews of a shortlisted Booker book, We’re all completely beside ourselves I was bemused that there was a tendency to score 1 or 2…or 5. I, for the record, gave it a 5. It is beautifully written, and I Iove the characters and the premise. By my take is no more worthy than those who were polarised at the other end: some people just didn’t like the “twist” and the author lost readers here—and transformed others. This is the risk good authors take. The middle road is rarely one that soars to great heights.

As an author, taking a risk is scary. Everyone wants there book to be read, most want it to be liked. Maybe we hope to entertain, some to transform lives. There are certainly books that have done this for me; why else would I read. That can be a transformation into another world, briefly, or into a different way of thinking that lives beyond the final page.

So when you write a review, remember the writer is human by all means, but I put forward a greater challenge. Remember and think who you are, why you felt and reacted the way you did, why you soared, or why you were disappointed. There are indeed really badly written books. To my shame, as an early reviewer, annoyed that a particular author was well reviewed when I thought mine was better (in retrospect both were pretty bad), I was less kind than I should have been.

Yalom on his book on dying says we can’t take with us what we were given—only what we gave. In reviewing books as general readers we have a responsibility. Not just to the author, and the readers who might pay attention to our opinion (or not), but to ourselves. Don’t lie—be truthful about your take on the book you have read. Be also truthful about yourself and how and why you interacted with the book. And above all? My resolution for this year, not just in my book reviews, is to be kind. There isn’t enough of it in the world—we need more.