Six Degrees of Separation: Romantic Comedy to All That I Am

 

Welcome to this month's edition of Six Degrees of Separation, which is a monthly meme hosted by Kate from Books Are My Favourite and Best.  The idea is to start with a specific book and make a series of links from one book to the next using whatever link you can find and see where you end up after six links.  I am also linking this post up with The Sunday Salon, hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz. 

 

This month's starting point is Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld. When this was announced as the starting point I was pretty pleased. I mean, I read plenty of books which might be counted as romantic comedies. Except when it came to making the first step when I was writing the post I got very stuck. And the theme I ended up following wasn't particularly romantic or funny!

One author who came to mind when I thought about romantic comedy is Emily Henry. Her book Happy Place was also released in April 2023, the same month as the Sittenfeld book. Emily Henry's next book is going to be called Funny Story so that must surely be a romantic comedy. She announced that this week.

Also announced this week was the winner of the Miles Franklin award for 2023 which was Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens by Shankari Chandran. I read this book last year and liked it a lot, which isn't always the case for me and award winners.

Another Miles Franklin award winner I have read and enjoyed many years ago now is That Deadman Dance by Kim Scott who is an indigenous author. (my review)

I mentioned above that I am not always enamoured by award winners. One Miles Franklin award winner that I tried unsuccessfully to read was Carpentaria by Alexis Wright. She too is an indigenous author.

So I have given you two Miles Franklin Award winners I have read and enjoyed, one I DNF'ed so my next step is another winner by another indigenous author, Tara June Finch which is called The Yield. I own this book but I haven't read it yet!

My final link in the chain for this month is another Miles Franklin award winner that I have read which is All That I Am by Anna Funder. I really wanted to finish with this book because the starting point for next month is Anna Funder's new book, Wifedom. (my review)

Are you joining in on Six Degrees this month? Where did your chain take you?

Carpentaria by Alexis Wright

Carpentaria is Alexis Wright's second novel, an epic set in the Gulf Country of north-western Queensland.

The novel's portrait of life in the precariously settled coastal town of Desperance, centres on the powerful Phantom family, leader of the Westend Pricklebush people, and its battles with old Joseph Midnight's renegade Eastend mob on the one hand and the white officials of Uptown, and on the neighbouring Gurfurrit mine on the other.

Wright's storytelling is operatic and surreal: a blend of myth and scripture, politics and farce. The novel teems with extraordinary characters - the outcast saviour Elias Smith, the religious zealot Mozzie Fishman, the murderous mayor Bruiser, the moth-ridden Captain Nicoli Finn, the activist Will Phantom, and above all, the rulers of the family, the queen of the rubbish dump and the fish embalming king of time, Angel Day and Normal Phantom - figures of such an intense imagining, they stand like giants in this storm-swept world.

I am torturing myself!

I have pretty much decided that I am going to stop reading this book that I am struggling with. I have been reading it for what feels like an eternity, but in reality is only 5 days. Normally I can read a 500 page book in 3 days - with this one I am only 200 pages in.

What I am struggling with is that I should just return the book, but I can't help but think that I should reborrow it and try again later? I can only think of 3 books that I have put down in the last couple of years with no intention of ever finishing....and each one was a dilemma for me!

It is an added dilemma that this was the winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award which is one of the most illustrious literature award in Australia, so I should like it....right?

So for now, this is a DNF. There's no guarantee that I won't try again at another time.

Miles Franklin Award winner

And the winner was:



Carpentaria by Alexis Wright:



A portrait of life in the newly established coastal town of Desperance centres on the powerful Phantom family, whose members are are the leaders of the Pricklebush people.




It does sound like an interesting read from articles I have read about it. I've added it to my TBR list!

Miles Franklin short list

The short list for the Miles Franklin award for 2007 have just been announced. The Miles Franklin award is the most prestigious prize awarded for Australian Fiction.

The finalists are:


Careless by Deborah Robertson

In the midst of her life with her small brother and unpredictable mother, Pearl is a child who strives to get things right. But the events of one summer's day are about to change her life, and nothing may ever be right again. In ways connected but unforeseen, this child's tragedy will also enter the lives of two strangers. Sonia lives in a cooler, greener part of the city, where she is learning to live alone after the death of her famous husband. And at the edge of the city, close to the beaches, in a run-down building, the young sculptor Adam Logan contemplates the celebrity that his artwork has brought to him. Through a seductively woven plot that reflects the interlacing nature of our lives, Careless explores the ties of caring and responsibility, for the living and the dead, that are formed, and broken, in our society.

Carpentaria by Alexis Wright

A portrait of life in the newly established coastal town of Desperance centres on the powerful Phantom family, whose members are are the leaders of the Pricklebush people.




Dreams of Speaking by Gail Jones

'She wished to study the unremarked beauty of modern things, of telephones, aeroplanes, computer screens and electric lights, of television, cars and underground transportation. There had to be in the world of mechanical efficiency some mystery of transaction, the summoning of remote meanings, an extra dimension - supernatural, sure. There had to be a lost sublimity, of something once strange, now familiar, tame. We must talk, Alice Black, about this world of modern things. This buzzing world.' Alice is entranced by the aesthetics of technology and, in every aeroplane flight, every Xerox machine, every neon sign, sees the poetry of modernity. Mr Sakamoto, a survivor of the atomic bomb, is an expert on Alexander Graham Bell. Like Alice, he is culturally and geographically displaced. The pair forge an unlikely friendship as Mr Sakamoto regales Alice with stories of twentieth-century invention. His own knowledge begins to inform her writing, and these two solitary beings become a mutual support for each other a long way from home. This novel from prize-winning author Gail Jones is distinguished in its honesty and intelligence. From the boundlessness of space walking to the frustrating constrictions of one person's daily existence, DREAMS OF SPEAKING paints with grace and skill the experience of needing to belong despite wanting to be alone.


Theft: A Love Story by Peter Carey

From Australia to Manhattan via Tokyo, Peter Carey’s new novel is a strange sort of love story. Once famous artist Butcher Bones is reduced to being a caretaker for his biggest collector and nurse to his erratic brother, Hugh. When the mysterious Marlene turns up, events take a very peculiar turn.