Witches Abroad

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The human experience is a weird, sometimes woeful, and wondrous thing. While a lot of it is made up of suffering, anxiety, hardships, and bad luck, a substantial portion of it is filled with lovely things such as fairytales: gifts that keep on giving for years and years and years.

I have just closed the cover on Witches Abroad, the 12^th book in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series in which he very cleverly creates another hilarious adventure by taking two aspects of human existence and reshaping them for better and worse. The first is travel and the absolute nightmare that it can be, and the second is fairytales and how dangerously limeless they are.

Ensuring that a young servant girl does not marry a prince should be a pretty easy task – you would think. But for the witches Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlick, it could not be more difficult. When Magrat inherits a magic wand and becomes a Fairy Godmother, she discovers that she must travel to Genua, a place where fairytales are running rampant and Happy Endings are making everyone miserable. With the ‘help’ of Granny and Nanny, she must stop a servant girl from marrying a prince and free the citizens of Genua from fairytale tyranny. That is if they can ever get there – between the language barrier, transport troubles, and questionable cuisine, it’s going to be a long trip.

Our favourite trio of witches is back and getting up to and into even more trouble than they have done before. Between Granny Weatherwax outconning conmen and Magrat solving world hunger with pumpkins, Witches Abroad is another fun and hilarious romp into an area of the Discworld that we have never seen before. Reminiscent of the bayous of Louisianna mixed with a swamp-tropical jungle, Genua seems like the last place in which to find fairytales. Pratchett overtly references practically every classic take you can imagine from The Wizard of Oz to The Frog Prince to Cinderella.

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As well as a laugh-out-loud trek through swamps and familiar plotlines, the book is a commentary on the woes of travelling as well as an exploration into how it can affect relationships. While happy endings are the Big Bad in this book, in a similar way to Moving Pictures and even Soul Music, it’s the strain that travel can put on relationships that keeps us flipping pages. Travelling unearths another layer of personality and I have seen what could have been lifelong friendships fall apart because the parties went travelling together. Of course this is not always the case, but it happens and it’s another layer to this book that makes it a well-rounded and compelling read.

‘There’s no place like home’ is definitely a message that comes out to play in this story, working wonderfully with Pratchett’s signature wit and dismantling of beloved stories. Witches Abroad is another delightful read in the Discworld series!

Author: Terry Pratchett, 1991

Published: First published in Great Britain by Gollancz in 1991. Pictured Corgi edition published 1992.

Witches Abroad is the 12^th book in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series.

The Master and Margarita

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Continuing on with my mission to read my way through my entire personal library as well as broaden my literary horizons, this week I have taken a trip to Soviet Moscow and witnessed some delightful mayhem at the hands of the Devil himself. This week the book of choice was Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita.

On a warm summer day, the Devil turns up in Moscow. He strikes up a conversation with two artists that ends with one being decapitated by a train and the other in the asylum. This seemingly innocuous occurrence sets the city abuzz with strange happenings: people disappearing, money turning into champagne labels, and people being turned into witches and flying pigs. At the centre of it all is Woland, an eccentric magician of the black arts and his entourage of various curious characters including a naked woman and a giant black cat. But while the law buckles underneath the weight of the chaos and the asylum becomes in danger of being packed to capacity, it seems that some people are immune to the destructive powers of the Devil: a despondent writer known as The Master and his adulterous lover Margarita.

Time for a little history. The Master and Margarita was originally digested and circulated underground, having been written during Stalin’s reign of Soviet totalitarianism. Despite Bulgakov being praised as one of Stalin’s favourite playwrights, the book didn’t come into public consciousness until after his death when, in 1966 (almost thirty years after Bulgakov’s death), the first part was published in the Moskva journal. Since then, it has endured, gone from strength to strength, with many of its poignant phrases becoming modern Russian proverbs and even having reach in the West – apparently the Rolling Stones’ song Sympathy For the Devil was inspired by Woland.

The book is made up of two stories that become interconnected. The first being set in modern Moscow where the Devil turns up to wreak a little havoc, and the second in ancient Jerusalem starring Pontius Pilate. The entire story is a cheeky and mischievous satire of Soviet life mixed with religious allegory: the joke being that only the morally- fluid (to just the right degree) can come through a visit from the Devil unscathed.

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Bulgakov’s cast of colourful and charismatic characters, described with a nonchalant omniscient narrator’s voice, reminds us of the chaos of Carrol’s Alice In Wonderland – but with more nudity and decapitation. What’s really delightful about the whole thing is that there is no targeted character to hate or properly vilify. While Woland and his entourage are definitely the cause of the chaos and destruction of social law, they are not painted as villains: indeed, when the Master and Margarita encounter them, they are perfectly pleasant and gracious hosts. The mayhem that ensues after their little party tricks highlights the flaws of a rigid social structure and a binary belief system. Neither the Master nor Margarita are saints, but they are rewarded for their moral ambiguity, committing sins which are textbook-wrong but do not badly hurt or inhibit other parties, thanks to the way they approach and handle them.

The Master and Margarita is an out-of-control carnival of magic, flesh, vodka, madness, drama, and comedy. It’s a story with many layers, each one a very tasty treat.

Author: Mikhail Bulgakov

Published: Moskva Journal, 1966. First published in Great Britain by Collins and the Harvill Press, 1967. Pictured Vintage edition published 2003.

Well Hello: Meanderings From the World of 'Chat 10 Looks 3'

 

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You only need to look at the number that makes up the ‘non-fiction’ category this page’s little side-widget to know that I don’t read a lot of non-fiction. It’s kind of ironic because, like most people, my tastes are influenced by the people I surround myself with, and the media I consume. Considering that non-fiction is a veritable well of inspirations and recommendations for broadening one’s cultural horizons and tastes, you’d think I’d be all over it. 

Well, after literally just closing the cover of this week’s read, I can tell you that I’m inspired to be a lot more adventurous with myself: everything from books, to films, art, and cooking. This week I read Leigh Sales and Annabel Crabb’s Well Hello: Meanderings From the World of ‘Chat 10 Looks 3’. 

This book is a delightful 300+ compilation of interviews, transcripts, lists, and anecdotes from Sales and Crabb’s podcast Chat 10 Looks 3, which features the two friends chummily chatting about what they’ve read, watched, or cooked during the week. I’d never heard of it before and have, since starting the book, taking to listening to it from the start on my morning runs. And it’s absolutely delightful!

It’s funny actually; because I’ve been listening to the podcast parallel to reading the book, it actually made the reading experience easier because the chummy and nonchalant tones of the two ladies is exactly the way you want to read this. On the surface the book is a collection of the podcast’s highlights loosely organised into chapters with a relevant theme (e.g. music, cooking, etc.), but on a deeper level it’s a warm and lovely depiction of an everyday friendship. I think the most lovely thing about it is that because it’s a friendship between two people within public awareness, and it’s been on display in audio form, book form, and live show form, it inspires other friendships, and positivity, and random acts of kindness (see the chapter about the Chat 10 Facebook Community). This is so lovely because it’s real and attainable and what the world needs, especially in these troubled times. 

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I also love that this book has inspired me. To cook more, bake more, read a wider and diverse range of books and articles, listen to different music... maybe even get around checking out Hamilton...

For a warm, funny, inspiring, and just all around delightful afternoon read with your cup of tea or morning coffee in bed, I would highly recommend Well Hello!

Authors: Leigh Sales, Annabel Crabb & Miranda Murphy

Published: Penguin Books, 2021 

One Hundred Great Books in Haiku

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Sometimes it can be hard for one to find a short and succinct read that delights and informs. Such little books are very hard to find. But they do exist!

About a week ago, my partner and I found ourselves in a bookstore and came across a delightful little work by David Bader, which condenses one hundred ‘great’ literary works into haiku. We then had a most enjoyable time, while waiting for our lunch to be served, reading them to one another and trying to guess what books they were.

One Hundred Great Books in Haiku is exactly what its title suggests. Following a humorous foreward by Bader, it’s a collection of original haikus that hilariously summarise a bunch of literary classics.

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The overall reading experience is one of absolute delight, uplift, and warm chuckling. Not only are the poems very funny and entertaining, the book also inspires one to grab these great works from the shelf and become absorbed.

For the witty literate, I would highly recommend One Hundred Great Books in Haiku.

Author: David Bader, 2005

Published: Penguin Books, 2005.

Best Foot Forward

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Like TV interviews or daydreams, there’s a wonderful intimacy in autobiographies that I absolutely adore. While the initial inspiration to read someone’s autobiography is to find out more about a person you admire (or at least find interesting enough to purchase their book), there is this warm, underlying intimacy in that this person’s word (although printed and distributed to the masses) have been written by them expressly for you. A good autobiography feels as though the writer is right there across the table from you, regaling you with their delightful stories and messages. This is the feeling I am currently relishing in, having just closed the cover of Adam Hills’ Best Foot Forward.

The book chronicles various poignant and inspirational moments throughout Hills’ career; a fascinating one that has morphed into everything from stand-up comic, radio DJ, TV show host, spokesperson, and celebrated cultural darling. Fans of Hillsy will recognise such uplifting and memorable stories such as when he met the Queen of England, the Dalai Lama, and the Muppets, not to mention a few new ones and some behind-the-scenes titbits that haven’t been dropped on stage or screen.

If you love Adam, then you’ll love this book! Those who have seen Spicks and Specks, The Last Leg, and his stand-up shows will delight in the prose, which is that genuine and down to earth, anecdotal, method of telling stories with profound meaning or incredible inspiration that Adam has in spades. Like a three hundred page transcript of one of his shows, Best Food Forward tells these genuine, but also slightly unbelievable (to me and you at least) stories that are awesome in that they involve this exciting level of celebrity in them, but at the same time blur the distinction between celebrity and mundane as they are told in this delightfully innocent and casual way. The anecdotal vibe really gives the book an intimacy and genuine edge that’s really lovely.

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As a person that multiple nations already know and love, Best Food Forward tells us that little bit more about Adam; like a friend we’ve known for years, but are still discovering little quirks about. It’s an entertaining, funny, and often heart warming read that everyone (Hillsy old-hats and newcomers alike) will enjoy.

Best Foot Forward is the autobiography and first book written by comedian and TV presenter Adam Hills. He began writing it in 2003 with various journal entries detailing exciting or inspirational events and it became a fully-fledged autobiography, published by Hachette and hitting shelves a few months ago.

Catch-22

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We have all taken the message from war novels and combat movies that war is Hell. Certainly this is a recurrent theme in a large chunk of American war literature that depicts the trauma and gruesome travesty of the entire enterprise. It wasn’t until the ‘60s –with the publication of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22- that the presiding images and tones of war novels were completely blown apart.

Catch-22 –now a commonplace term in the English language thanks to Heller- tells the story of aircraft Captain Yossarian who has become overexposed to the ideals of patriotism and a courage to do his duty for his country and has instead started to perceive the war as a personal attack on his life. In a determined effort to evade his missions he concocts a mission of his own: to get sent home… by any means.

If you have ever seen mind-screwing films coated in dramatic irony like Terry Gilliam’s Brazil or the Coen Brother’s Burn After Reading then you will love this book! Written in a delightfully chaotic and fast-paced tone –like meerkats on Redbull- it’s a very visual book chronicling a series of insane events while simultaneously looking at war from an entirely different point of view. 

As the book begins –with Yossarion in hospital faking liver complaints while the doctors wait for him to become diagnosable- there is this wonderful sense of fun in the face of the macabre. For a while it’s a bit reminiscent of M*A*S*H with a whole cast of hilarious and cartoonish characters dominating the scenes. However, amidst the pranks of the enlisted men and the petty and bumbling rivalries of the Majors, Colonels, and Generals there is this mischievously sinister undercurrent. Dr. Samuel Thomas summed it up perfectly in his contribution to Peter Boxall’s 1001 Books Your Must Read Before You Die:

“Heller presents war as a form of institutional insanity, a psychosis that overtakes the machinery of public and private life.”

The book turns away from traditional heroic war tropes and focuses on the war as a playground for psychological, social, and economical warfare where even your fellow Americans are out to get you. There is no character that you don’t hate, pity, or support at least once in the five hundred pages that brutally and wonderfully depict the awful and ironic catch-22 that they are all in.

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Amidst all its intelligent writing and scathing tones, it’s also a very immersive book in that you are transported to the medical tent or the chaplain’s tent or Major Major’s tent and can feel firsthand the frustration, anger, and dismay that plagues the characters. And it’s very easy to while away hours reading this as Heller’s non-linear timeline –that crashes into other ones running parallel- completely eradicates all sense of time passing.

War is Hell and Catch-22 –although wickedly funny in a horrifying and cringing way- is a wonderful depiction of it, being as crazy, bizarre, and irrational as the real thing.

Catch-22 was written by Joseph Heller and published by Simon & Schuster in 1961.

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

I like the odd ghost story, I like the odd bit of science fiction, and I definitely like the odd bit of sleuth and whodunit novel. Therefore, I rather loved Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. Written by Douglas Adams, the brilliant mind that brought us The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, this book has to be one of the freshest, funniest, and most intriguing novels possibly of all time. Netflix have made a series based on the character and the premise so it’s definitely got to be doing something right. 

The book has a number of beginnings and chronicles a series of strange events that do end up interconnecting, even though you may not see it until Dirk, like Sherlock Holmes, points them out at the end. The main story focuses on the roadside murder of a millionaire computer company founder and special detective Dirk Gently using his holistic methods that explore the interconnectedness of everything to solve the case. With the reluctant help of a former college friend and employee of the deceased, Dirk explores every impossible clue in a race against the clock to find the murderer and save all humanity. 

Whilst Dirk Gently adopts a recognizable and humorous tone in the way it is written, there are much larger and darker things underlying the text. Adams returns to exploring questions of history, humanity, life, the universe, and everything and fuses the genres of ghost story, science fiction, and pulp fiction detective story together to do so. A multitude of complex themes are dredged up and thrown at you including time travel and its effects on British telephones, hypnotism, Bach music, computer jargon, and missing cats. 

But while all this can become convoluted and difficult to digest, the sharp and humorous tone of the book makes it that little bit more accessible and works as a wonderful balm that prevents the reader from getting too overwhelmed and shutting down. 

Of course, it also helps in describing such an absurd character as Dirk Gently. A funny and intelligent equivalent to the crazy cat lady or village witch, Dirk is a character that no reader can honestly identify with, but his eccentricities and the way that everyone else in the book reacts to them is what allows readers to form attachments. As both characters and readers gawp and gape at the absurd things that come out of Dirk’s mouth, there is created a relationship and readers are completely immersed in the world of the book because they know just as much as the rest of the characters do; a bit like The Hangover, if you want a filmic example. 

While we are given omniscient insight into what’s happening in other parts of the book’s world, there is not that much of a distance between characters and readers when it comes to understanding this detective and how he can make sense out of the seemingly meaningless and totally unconnected events of the novel. 

Unlike a Sherlock Holmes novel, you give up your endeavors to decipher the clues and come to a conclusion before Dirk pretty early on as electric monks, conjuring tricks, and horses in bathrooms just render the calculating part of your brain comatose. 

It all sounds a bit heavy and weird and it is precisely that, but if you don’t mind a bit of quirky literature, then I would definitely recommend Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. 

Author: Douglas Adams 

Published: Simon & Schuster (first U.S. edition), 1987

The Taming of the Shrew (Norton Critical Edition)

Shakespeare’s comic play-within-a-play gets taken to new levels of enjoyment (for some) and understanding with the Norton Critical edition. I’ve reviewed a couple of Norton editions before, but I don’t think I’ve expressed how good they actually are, particularly for texts that are written in older forms of English or indeed general craft. Norton Critical editions, for texts that can be challenging to read such as Shakespeare’s or Medieval forms of poetry or whatnot, are pretty valuable for the avid and invested reader because they provide a laundry list of translations, interpretations, and modernisations that really help in not just understanding the central plots of the stories, but gaining further insight into their histories, the influences of the authors, and other stuff. Some of the critical essays, different versions of the stories, and translations are really interesting and they do help to widen the mind and make it think just that little bit more critically, theoretically, and creatively about texts. So brava for Norton! 

Beautiful, pure, and perfect Bianca, daughter of a wealthy merchant, is the centre of much fawning from the men in town. With so many suitors bidding for her, her father arrives at a method by which to determine whom she shall wed. Whoever can find a suitor for her sister, the stubborn, fiery, opinionated, and disagreeable ‘shrew’ Katherina, shall have Bianca’s hand in marriage. Thus one clever suitor persuades the arrogant, stubborn, and cunning Petruchio to ‘tame’ Kate, gain her hand in marriage, and make her the perfect wife. 

Taming of the Shrew is a timeless battle of the sexes that has been revamped and remodelled time and time over. We see remnants of it everywhere in popular culture from the modern version of the 90s, 10 Things I Hate About You to even the Tracey and Hepburn classic Adam’s Rib, not to mention many references to it in David Williamson’s Dead White Males. 

A comic play-within-a-play, what makes Taming of the Shrew (indeed practically all of Shakespeare’s works) so timeless is the fact that pretty much any type of reading can be applied to it: Feminist, postmodern, Marxist, queer theory, and that is what makes the Norton edition so special because it allows you to think about the play in all these ways, which then bring further meaning to it. Though I have to make the point that I don’t think Shakespeare ever intended for such analysis to be applied to his works, he was popular writer after all and not about literary critical acclaim so much as just writing for the masses. 

Filled with drama, romance, trickery, comedy, and feminist, Marxist, queer, and other such readings, The Taming of the Shrew (Norton Critical Edition) still stands as a classic in the literary canon and when you’re presented with all the other readings, translations, and interpretations in this edition, you can see why. 

Dead White Males

Written by Australian playwright David Williamson, Dead White Males is a brilliant satire that attacks the modern reader. Dealing with many complex themes and binaries such as modern vs. archaic, man vs. woman, and teacher vs. student, this play is absolutely captivating from the first act where William Shakespeare gets shot! 

At university, Angela Judd studies a quite demanding course: Literary Theory 1A. Her teacher, Dr. Grant Swain, is a passionately radical theorist and fierce intellectual who attempts to drum it into his students that there is no ‘reality’, merely a state of being ‘constructed’ by ‘ideologies’ adhering to a patriarchy. At the start of the course, Angela is smitten with Swain and his ideas, but as she studies the three generations of her family for her final paper, she begins to realise that his way of thinking is not as ‘true’ as she first thought. Whilst she struggles with sparking a relationship and the friction of her acutely feminist mother and aunts as well as her misogynistic grandfather and mild-mannered father, Angela begins to realise that there is a truth in ‘human nature’ and not everything is concrete when it comes to literature. 

This play came into being after a literary conference where a male academic gave a paper on deconstruction and post-structuralism. When no one could understand what the academic was getting at, he merely answered, “just keep writing and we’ll tell you what you’ve done”. This caused much anger to ensue, the result of which is this biting satire that just shatters the world of theory and literature. There’s a bit of every theorist that comes centre stage and takes a bash at literature here, all culminating in this wondrous frenzy of concrete statements and theories that, when you think about, really could fall in upon themselves. We’ve got Foucault, Cixous, a bit of Barthes… feminism, multiculturalism, structuralism, deconstruction… all vying for their fifteen minutes of fame. The whole thing is wonderfully written with great intelligence and incredible biting wit! I adored it! 

Whilst this all sounds a little dense, it really isn’t. The whole thing is remarkably easy to power through and is balanced out with just as many poetic and literary elements as there are of competing theories. Shakespeare takes the brunt of criticism and examination and by having him as a character within the play that’s a reflection of the protagonist’s mind, it brings this great metaphoric as well as metafictive element to the piece; bringing with it much of the humour when we consider that he represents one side of the binary that still holds relevance to this day: modern vs. archaic. Why do Shakespeare’s works continue to make the canon? You might or might not find an answer in this play! 

Filled with frustration, drama, romance, theories, and plenty of comedy, Dead White Males is a brilliantly written play in two acts that just crackles with wit! I thought it was fantastic! 

Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters

Sense and Sensibility, originally written by Jane Austen, gets shaken up and salted as Ben H. Winters rewrites the romantic tale and adds in the elements of giant sea monsters, sea witches devouring men, pirates, and gore. A member of the Quirk Classics Collection, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters is a fantastic read, one that can appeal to a wider audience than the original tale of reason and romance. 

When they’re father is eaten by a shark, the Dashwood sisters, Elinor, Marianne, and Margaret, and their mother, are forced to leave their beloved home in Norland and live in a small shanty on the Devonshire coast. They quickly discover that living on an island is not as romantic as they initially imagined, as their new home also plays host to all manner of gigantic sea beasts and a dark and mysterious legend. Whilst avoiding the tentacles that bay for their blood, both Elinor and Marianne fall in love, Elinor with the sensible and sedate Edward Ferrars, and Marianne with the dashing and romantic Willoughby, although a mutual friend of their mother’s relation also admires Marianne: the reserved and dutiful Colonel Brandon who has had the misfortune of being cursed by a sea witch and is afflicted with a forest of tentacles over his face. As well as battling with vicious sea beasts, the Dashwood sisters must also combat against the bonds and pressure of society, pressures that oppose the girls’ romances. 

The Quirk Classics collection is a recent phenomenon, one that I think is a very practical and interesting idea. After reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, I was hooked on the writing and loved, really loved the fact that I could read these and understand the basic stories that fill the pages of the original works. Unlike Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters actually has a story of its own running parallel with Austen’s romantic tale. Whilst the Dashwoods are battling between their heads and their hearts, the character of Margaret has a much larger role and there is a whole new history and angle added to the original story. 

It was much more complex than Pride and Prejudice and Zombies because it has much more of a back-story and certain scenarios in the original story have been drastically altered in order to fit the sea-faring theme. It’s a wonderfully entertaining piece of fiction though. I loved it and got through it in just over a week. 

Filled with giant sea monsters, deaths, devouring, romance, drama, comedy, gore, and pirates, with the occasional illustration dotted throughout the book for a bit of visual delight, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters is a wonderfully engaging and entertaining read that was really easy to get hook on straight away. I absolutely loved it! 

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Written by Seth Grahame-Smith, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies takes Jane Austen's classic romantic tale of first impressions, and twists it into a fun mess of action, romance, and gore.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains."

A mysterious plague has fallen upon England causing the dead to rise from the grave and devour the living. Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennett is determined to rid her country of this fearful curse and wipe out the zombie menace. But she is soon distracted by the arrival of the arrogant Mr Darcy. Can Elizabeth rid her country of zombies and overcome the social prejudices of her class-conscious society?

Part of the new Quirk Classics collection, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, was an entertainingly twisted retelling of Jane Austen's original romantic classic. It's basically just the same story, but with the added element of action and gore.

It's written to be not as challenging as Pride and Prejudice, which I personally found rather difficult to follow when I first read it. The language is not as dated as the original tale, making this book one that you actually wanted to read. I sort of wish we'd studied this in year 10 as oppose to Pride and Prejudice, I would have actually understood what was going on.

The book features illustrations that can be a little bit too detailed at times, especially the ones depicting the Unmentionables devouring the bodies of those whom they've just killed, but this just goes hand in hand with the graphic scenes the write has created with words:

"She delivered a vicious blow, penetrating his rib cage, and withdrew her hand - with the ninja's still-beating heart in it. As all but Lady Catherine turned away in disgust, Elizabeth took a bite, letting the blood run down her chin and onto her sparring gown."

How can you not be intrigued by that? Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was a an exciting book filled with action, romance, ninjas, sword fights, cannibalism, and of course, thousands upon thousands of zombies. A brilliant, albeit grim and twisted retelling of the original tale of first impressions and overcoming prejudice in society, I was completely enthralled the whole way through.