The long blue day

The long blue day often visits him. This year seems to have encouraged them again. He loves the colour blue, but the blue of bitter moods is a punch, an ache. It seems so hard to get anything worthwhile done, to start anything beautiful; the focus is scattered, wayward, lazy. Instead, he doodles with a mouse, clicking from one pretty trinket to the next. When he looks out of the window, there is his neighbour standing over their last living azalea, the only one to have survived the drought. It hasn’t rained for a long time, except in his heart. 

never again will a story be told as though it's the only one – john berger

We are nearly there, and my friend turns to me, touching my arm. I smile, and she points out a distant snow-brushed peak. The hills are black ash but already trees sprout bright dresses of life. Snug houses, flame-licked but whole, sit amongst silent forest ghosts. There is one home coming up on our right, burnt with memory, where she will be waiting. Three and a half decades ago, she held me, briefly, before I went to other arms. Now, as we turn down the drive, I see her. She stands under a carport, her face in the light, shining. – SmokeLong Quarterly, 2003

Review of Speech Matters by Katharine Gelber

This is an exceptionally clear and well organised text, making it easy to read for just about anyone interested in matters of free speech, particularly with regard to political speech, which is her interest of concern. Katharine Gelber researches, writes, and teaches in the field of politics and human rights, being an Associate Professor of Politics and Public Policy at the University of Queensland. Speech Matters: Getting Free Speech Right is her fourth book.

Continued at M/C Reviews: Culture and the Media.

Review of Irrepressible: The Life and Times of Jessica Mitford by Leslie Brody

On first glance, I was unsure about the author’s attitude to her subject: the cover of the book shows a rather evil-looking Jessica Mitford stubbing out a cigarette in an ashtray. Is Leslie Brody critical of Mitford’s life as a muckraker, Communist, civil rights activist, aristocrat, sister to the fascist Diana and Unity, and writer? It turns out that she is definitely not; in fact, quite the opposite. Her strong principles and fun-loving attitude to life are celebrated here.

For those unfamiliar with the Mitford family, they were a large and unusual clan who lived in Swinbrook House in Oxfordshire, England from 1926. Lord and Lady Redesdale (‘Farve’ and ‘Muv’ to their children) had six daughters and one son: Nancy (writer of Love in A Cold Climate, amongst many others); Pamela (nicknamed ‘Woman’ because of her domesticity); Tom (killed in WWII); Diana (married British fascist leader Oswald Mosley); Unity (worshipped Hitler); Jessica; and Deborah (or ‘Debo’, who became the Duchess of Devonshire). Jessica’s nicknames included ‘Brave Little D’, which her mother called her, ‘Boud’, ‘Hen’ and ‘Susan’, which was used by Nancy, who was also called Susan by Jessica, just to make things confusing. The name that really stuck, though, was Decca.


Continued at The Compulsive Reader.

Review of Your Voice in My Head: A Memoir by Emma Forrest

Emma Forrest's memoir about having a mental illness—in her case, a type of bipolar disorder with rapid cycling between depression and mania—is engrossing and involving. She knows how to write poetically and viscerally, conveying the pain and despair of her illness in vivid terms. At times she comes across as self-absorbed and irritating in her self-abuse, but that is the often the nature of mental illness. When something goes wrong with your mind, it is difficult to control your thoughts and behavior; Forrest shows this well.


Continue reading at Metapsychology Online Reviews.

Review of The Memory Palace: A Memoir by Mira Bartók

The Memory Palace is one of the most beautiful, tragic and hopeful memoirs that you will ever read. Mira Bartók's artistry, imagination, compassion, and skill with words have created a book about family and mental illness that will be read for many years to come by a wide range of people: the mentally ill, their families and friends, mental health professionals, social service workers, and—I would hope—politicians and the wider community.


Continue reading at Metapsychology Online Reviews.

Review of Evergreen Review Winter 2011

The history of Evergreen Review is an important part of the experience of reading the journal, but could be easily missed if you happened upon the website without knowing anything about it. Click on the ‘History’ link at the top of any page, and what is revealed is impressive and significant, to say the least. It was founded by the legendary Barney Rosset in 1957, and the first issue contained work by Jean-Paul Sartre and Samuel Beckett. The second issue was the first collection of work by the Beat writers, such as Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and Gary Snyder. Rosset had also bought Grove Press in 1951 when he was twenty-eight, and went on to publish the work of numerous writers such as Beckett, Ionesco, Pinter, Duras and Borges, as well as William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch, D H Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, for which he fought, and won, legal challenges against obscenity.

Continued at The Review Review.