The Susanne

This was my first Faulkner. I read it in pre­par­a­tion for a course in mod­ern­ism which I’m taking this autumn (I wanted to get a head start on the read­ing list as I’m taking five courses instead of the recom­men­ded three).

At first I really struggled to get into it. I didn’t find it very inter­est­ing after read­ing the back cover, saying it was the story of a woman’s death told by mem­bers of her family, and then all the chapters were pretty boring at first. None of the char­ac­ters seemed to have any­thing inter­est­ing to say. But then, some­thing changed. It might have been that I got to know the char­ac­ters a little better, it might be that their weird­ness became more evid­ent, but I star­ted loving it!

I spent a week on the first 50 pages and then about a day on the rest. I simply couldn’t put it down. I loved the fact that the char­ac­ters, Addie Bundren’s family, were if pos­sible even more weird than my own family. I loved that they were so honest about everything even when they hid things from each other: they may have hidden the facts of things but they always left their heart on their sleeve. I loved that they all thought ‘I’m the only one who really, truly loved her.’ I loved that every­one else had their own the­or­ies about the dif­fer­ent mem­bers of the Bundren family and that none was right. I loved it because it made it so clear that life is so ambigu­ous, truth is in the eye of the beholder, and that what others think never mat­ters until you let it.

Here’s a link to the book on amazon; I strongly recom­mend read­ing this. If you’ve a weird family or if you’ve the most normal family in the world, this will give you a new per­spect­ive on life. I promise!

I read this book in Sicily, on the beach and on the bus. It was a great com­pan­ion because it com­pletely cap­tured my atten­tion, leav­ing me almost obli­vi­ous to the annoy­ing voice of our Sicilian tour guide (on the 13 hour guided trip to Piazza Arm­er­ina and Agri­gento) as well as keep­ing me from work­ing myself into a fit over the crying babies and loud Trøndere at the beach.

As to the story, well, let’s just say I was mes­mer­ised. It’s one of those stor­ies where I get so caught up in the action and in the feel­ings of the char­ac­ters, I feel like they’re friends of mine and I feel a deep sense of loss when the story ends and so con­sequently my acquaint­ance with them.

Whilst I was thor­oughly sick and tired of Char­lotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (the char­ac­ter) about twenty pages into the story, I never tired of neither Gil­bert Markham nor Helen Graham/Huntingdon. I loved the por­trayal of Gil­bert as a silly, con­ceited, spoilt but essen­tially lovely and kind man, depic­ted (as modern read­ers know, but which was not known at the time of pub­lic­a­tion) by a woman. I loved Helen Graham’s piety, her folly, her sil­li­ness and her mar­tyr­dom (please allow me this little exag­ger­a­tion) and I did not for one moment resent her or feel annoy­ance at her like I did towards Jane Eyre.

Beau­ti­ful though grim story, def­in­itely worth a read, a tear and a laugh.

If you’re think­ing of buying it, here it is on amazon.

Last exam under my belt and summer hol­i­days are here. It feels amaz­ingly good, amaz­ingly weird and amazingly…empty. All of a sudden, after all those weeks of revi­sion and nerves and stress — I don’t know what to do with myself! I find myself feel­ing guilty for not doing any­thing ‘worthwhile’.

Imme­di­ately after the exam yes­ter­day I headed to the uni­ver­sity book­shop and picked up a book I’ve been want­ing to read: Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones. The only white person on the trop­ical island Bou­gain­ville is Mr Watts, who is self-​appointed teacher in the school where there’s only one book: Great Expectations.

Soon after, as my intense panic star­ted to let go, so did all my energy. I was com­pletely knackered! Met a mate for a drink at the com­pletely empty uni pub, and then headed straight home, head buzz­ing from the one pint. The Sister came over in the even­ing with a bottle of wine and the night was spent on the sofa, except for when I cooked up some kangaroo for our nour­ish­ment and enjoy­ment. I really like kangaroo meat, it tastes so meaty and deli­cious. And there’s hardly a drop of fat in it. That means, of course, that it has to be cooked very care­fully so it doesn’t dry up. What i did was brown it quickly in butter on a high heat, then put it aside in alu­minium foil to rest while I made everything else, and then finally put it back in the skil­let for just a few seconds on each side right before serving. It was per­fectly dark brown and crisp on the ouside, and a dark, rich rare red on the inside. Yum! Sorry no pic­ture - I had no energy. But here’s one of what it once looked like: