'Ash Road' by Ivan Southall

I've chosen this for the Bushfire category of my 2025 Aussie Reading Challenge. I seemed to remember a few different fire themed novels around the place, including one called, 'You Name it, It's Burning.' I couldn't put my hands on that one, but luckily Ash Road was in a pile of recent acquisitions from a goodwill shop.  

MY THOUGHTS:

This was first published in 1966, and won the Australian Children's Book of the Year Award for Older Readers in 1966. It is one of those stories that just covers one single day.

Three fifteen-year-olds, Harry, Graham, and Wallace, are delighted to be camping unattended in the Aussie bush. They're a bit annoyed when they're forbidden to light campfires, since they'd been looking forward to their own cooking, but the north wind is hot and hard, and the scrub as dry as tinder. The locals know that a tiny flame may quickly become a monster. During the early hours of the morning, the boys accidentally start a raging blaze anyway, when Graham knocks over their bottle of methylated spirits near their faulty heater.

Consequences are catastrophic. Many properties are burned to the ground, livestock and wildlife are lost, and human lives seriously endangered. As well as the culpable trio, the story focuses on several residents who live along Ash Road and mistakenly assume their location will remain well out of the raging fire's path. While able-bodied adults head off to assist with relief efforts, the children and elderly folk left to hold down the fort are terrified to find the fire closing in on them. 

Five-year-old Julie Buckingham unwittingly overflows the bathtub and depletes the family's rainwater stores; Grandpa Tanner remembers an identical blaze around 1913, Peter Fairhall feels frustrated by his grandparents' protective initiative to send him away, and the George family are trying to protect their perishing raspberry crop. The day doesn't unfold the way anyone expects. 

It was a contemporary tale of its time, but Australia was on the brink of a total change. Currency is still pounds sterling, temperature is measured in Fahrenheit, and distance in miles. Only fairly senior citizens would remember this now. (Not me! I wasn't born yet.) Therefore it's an interesting snapshot from the not-so-distant past. I once updated all my technology details for the second printing of a contemporary novel, but this example suggests it may be more interesting to let novels age like fine wine. I would never change things again.

Under Southall's skillful pen, the fire becomes the main antagonist it deserves to be. 

'The smoke cloud was a pale brown overcast with billows of white and curious areas of mahogany and streaks of sulphurous-looking yellow. The sun shone through like a white plate in a bowl full of dye... There was ash on the road too, unnumbered flakes of it lying in the gravel and in the grass at the edges and caught up like black flowers in twigs and foliage... It was like a black and white photograph of enormous proportions, in the midst of which candles burned mysteriously.'

And how about this excellent description of the vile temper of the day itself.

'It was an angry day; not just wild or rough but savage in itself, actively angry against every living thing. It hated plants and trees and birds and animals, and they wilted from its hatred or withered up and died or panted in distress in shady places.'  

In spite of his evocative descriptions (which I believe helped win him that award), I find the fleeting time span covered doesn't really do justice to the extensive cast of characters. The plot has unpredictable moments when it draws complete strangers together, but it is ultimately one day in their lives. An extremely traumatic day, I grant you that, but I prefer longer time spans in stories to really get to know people. And the untimely death of one character who couldn't ever win a trick saddens me enough to knock off a couple of stars. 

Still, if part of Southall's goal was to warn people about the potential terror of bushfires, and subsequent need to take extreme caution, he surely succeeded.

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'Meditations for Mortals' by Oliver Burkeman

Summary: Meditations for Mortals takes us on a liberating journey towards a more meaningful life – one that begins not with fantasies of the ideal existence, but with the reality in which we actually find ourselves.

MY THOUGHTS:

Oliver Burkeman's Four Thousand Weeks was among my top reads of 2022, which inclines me to pick up anything else he writes.  

He suggests the uplifting benefit of the 'Done' list, as opposed to the guilt-inducing 'To Do.' For, 'it implicitly invites you to compare your output to the hypothetical situation in which you stayed in bed and did nothing at all.'

He addresses how to tackle reading lists in our culture of TMI, for as he says, it's evident in the 21st century that we're no longer hunting for needles in haystacks but facing towering mountains of needles. Treating our TBR piles as rivers instead of bottomless buckets is key here. We can dip in to pick a few choices here and there, without feeling guilty for letting others simply float past, even those deemed special or important by others. We should resist the urge to stockpile knowledge in our reading, and simply trust that each good book is subtly changing us into better people. Oh, and it's quite okay to read just for fun.

Regarding self-esteem, Burkeman suggests that too many of us tether it to the most crazy-making standard of all, which is 'realizing our potential.' This is a recipe for staying ever restless, for how can we ever know there is not more potential left to realize?

Then there's the TMI of daily living in our world of western media and digital technology. The horror and injustice of the whole world is flashed before us daily, with the implicit demand that we react with heartache and empathy every single time. Burkeman breaks the news that social media platforms invite us to care about more human suffering than the greatest saints in history would have encountered in their entire lives. No wonder compassion burn-out hits some of us so hard. His advice is not to retreat into our shells, overcome by the sheer hopelessness of it all, but simply to focus on one single battle we're willing to get involved with. 

He echoes advice I always seem to need hearing. Worrying is trying to figure out ways to cross bridges we may never even come to! (It's similar to Mark Twain's wisdom about refusing paying debts we may never owe, Jesus' teaching that every day has trouble enough of its own, or perhaps the old proverb, 'Don't trouble trouble until trouble troubles you.') To all this, Burkeman would add, 'Don't let the future destroy the present!' This has been a major stumbling block of my life, so I always appreciate having it reinforced.

Very interestingly, he's isolated the optimal number of hours required to chip away at our passion projects or professional goals, before our brains turn to mush and diminishing returns set in. It is just 3 - 4 hours! Therefore we'd do well to set non-negotiable rings around this time block, and let the rest of the day fritter itself away in the inevitable paperwork, errands, walks and socializing, or what Burkeman calls the 'usual fragmentary chaos of life.' Yet without being too rigid, we ought to make this goal 'daily-ish' for things have a way of happening. 

One thing I have trouble agreeing with is Burkeman's notion of 'scruffy hospitality.' This is allowing ourselves to be 'real' when we invite people over, and not putting it off until everything is perfect. Although I always feel refreshed as the recipient of scruffy hospitality, I fear I'll never be able to embrace this one. It goes too much against my upbringing, and as my in-laws are also pretty perfectionistic, it's a double whammy. Besides, there is always a fear lurking that my 'pristine' is a match for other people's 'scruffy' anyway. So nope, I think I'll always be running around with dusters and vacuum cleaners to create the illusion that I've got my act together. 

But the theory is good. 

I'll finish off with his comment about 'what premodern people knew.' It is simply that since life is so inherently confusing and precarious, then joy, if it's ever to be found at all, is going to have to be found now, in the midst of confusion and precariousness.

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'Spiderweb for Two' by Elizabeth Enright

Summary: It's the fourth and final instalment of the Melendy Quartet. Left alone when Rush and Mona go away to boarding school, Randy and Oliver are lonely and bored until a mysterious letter brings the first of many clues to a mystery that takes all winter to solve.

MY THOUGHTS:

For years it seems Then There Were Five was meant to be the last book in the Melendy series. While the first three were all published between 1941 and 1944, this final novel didn't appear until 1954; ten years from the starting point with a seven year gap. That struck me as a red flag at the outset. (When Mary Norton did a similar thing with The Borrowers Avenged, it was a facepalm.) 

Then the story concept fueled my misgivings. While Mona, Rush, and Mark are all away at boarding school, Randy and Oliver are at loose ends with nothing to do but mope around Four-Story Mistake by themselves. One day they receive an anonymous letter that sparks an intriguing scavenger hunt to occupy them all season while the others are away. I hated the idea of the older siblings being written out of most of the action, but being a Melendy book, I read it anyway. 

It isn't half bad. The clever, poetic clues are a challenge for us readers as well as the two kids. The masterminds behind the challenge really intend for them to work hard for it, and it is great when we discover their identities. Not in the least surprising, given the extreme inside knowledge they evidently possess, but very satisfying. 

The whole boarding school thread is a bugbear of mine. What a shame to break up such a close-knit family who all love their home. When Randy and Oliver suggest homeschooling their own kids, I'm right on board with them. Still, having said that, I understand Father Melendy's reasoning in this instance. Given their ages and exceptional talents, it is inevitable that Mona, Rush, and Mark require far more specialized training in their fields than Carthage Public School is able to offer. 

Just the same, I can't help taking off a star for their absence anyway. Don't get me wrong, Randy and Oliver are both delightful. I love her endearing, whimsical nature and his self-contained nerdiness. But I feel we need more of the others to make any plot really shine. It lacks a certain spice without Mona's performative ways, and Rush's mischievous, spot-on sense of humor. Even though we never get to physically hear Rush's excellent piano playing through the pages, this final book is still a bar short of a symphony without him in it more. We need all four siblings as the corners of a whole package, the Melendy Quartet.

As a point of interest, I'm positive Randy is one of those rare, highly creative souls with synesthesia, that condition when one or more of the five senses crosses paths with awesome results. We're not told outright, but when she describes her perception of different days of the week as different colored, her unusual piquancy all through the series all makes sense. (She shares this attribute with The Story Girl, created by Lucy Maud Montgomery.)

Needless to say, my favorite chapters are the ones when they're all reunited, for Christmas and summer breaks from school. 

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Start with The Saturdays, then The Four-Story Mistake, followed by Then There Were Five.

(And for a treat when the Melendys grow up, click here.)

The weirdness of Life (A mid-year update)

Here's a pause in my usual book review content to bring a mid-year update. Although the first half of 2025 seems to have sped past on wings, it has been eventful in a few ways. Above you'll see an AI generated image of a Mother's Day photo with my three kids that looks very true to life. From left to right is Logan, myself, Blake, and Emma. Now for what's been happening.   

My Decision to Quit Masters

Having done very well in my Graduate Diploma, I was quite gung-ho at the start. I expected it to be another cool goal to tick off and add to the inventory of things I've done, that I never expected to. And I was convinced that my idea deserved it. Fan fiction is an unmined treasure trove and my recently finished 92000 word effort had broken a decade-long drought of writing no fiction. The restoration of my mojo made 2024 phenomenal for me. 

But the academic pressure instantly got ahold of me. I have plenty of cool insights about the awesomeness of fanfic zipping around in my head like the flying keys in Harry Potter. Yet I couldn't fool myself that I had a chance of catching hold of them all in the time frame required to create any sort of cohesive exegesis. To make the attempt would be to fall short of my vision and not do them justice. 

Secondly, I sensed that my story wouldn't bear the weight of what I was hoping to load it with. The academic expectations would be far too heavy, like trying to wrap a courtly robe around the shoulders of a lovely paper doll. My addition to the Little Women universe is pure fun. It is popular fiction, padding out tantalizing, 'What ifs'.  I was just daydreaming, getting carried away on the waves of possibilities, filling in gaps left by Louisa May Alcott. To turn it into a major project for a Master of Creative Writing would require the sort of serious thinking I was so happy to shake off during its conception. This isn't literary fiction, folk. Whatever I came up with would've felt like wearing somebody else's coat. 

The upshot was, I froze. Then time became an issue. With all of the above playing on my mind, I made a quick decision to withdraw from the course before the census date to avoid adding the fee to my already hefty student debt. There were three days left, so I went with my heart. I couldn't help feeling like a ding-a-ling, and that I'd let people down and lost face. It was an unfortunate way to begin 2025. I think I've learned something about myself but at quite a cost. (My kids actually called me a duffer to my face.)

The new development the same day

I popped into the Goodwood secondhand bookshop on the heels of making that shamefaced decision, to cheer myself up. I went straight to the adolescent fiction section. Vintage YA novels are pretty reliable pick-me-ups. There I took a chance on The Saturdays, by Elizabeth Enright, which I started reading on the train on the way home. That way I could distract myself from the sadness I'd just generated. 

To my surprise, the characters really took off in my head. I bought the rest of this series on kindle, and discovered a few comments here and there that its fanbase would really love to know what becomes of these siblings when they grow up. Some people even stated outright that this series deserves some quality fan fiction.  

So that's sparked off another of my passion projects. Now, along with my Alcott stuff, I've started writing fanfic about the Melendy quartet, a bunch of young brothers and sisters whose existence I wasn't even aware of when this year commenced! It's going to be pretty low profile, because all these comments were written in blog posts and reviews from many years ago. I doubt they're on many people's radars anymore. But there will be well threshed out stories available for the rare soul who discovers them in future and wonders whatever happened as they move into adulthood.  

I've found this is so much the way life is. One impressive looking door might close (even if you slam it shut yourself) and then a more modest, but very appealing crack might slip open, which you weren't even looking for.  

My volunteer work with Meals on Wheels

Here is another new facet of my life. I've joined this great organization as a volunteer. Twice a week, since January, I've been delivering lunches to folk in the community. I'd estimate that I've knocked on more doors in the last five months than I'd done for the previous ten years. And I'm enjoying it too. Something about hopping into a car laden with three course meals, seeing more of the local district (some behind closed doors), exchanging greetings and smiles with householders, and patting dogs and cats, makes these days good ones. I've been into both palatial seaside homes, and tiny holes in walls. Now that winter is setting in, I can also state that I've delivered in heatwaves and rainstorms.

I'm making the experiment to quit bookstagram, at for the time being, and then reassess my presence on that platform at the end of the year. You can read more about it here. 

Okay, back with my normal agenda next week in July. If you follow along with this blog, I hope you're well and flourishing.     

'Pennies for Hitler' by Jackie French

I'm including this book for the migration category of my 2025 Aussie Book Challenge. What a desperate and reactive migration story it turns out to be. I discovered this one in a local Little Free Book Library, long after I'd set my categories for this year's challenge. I'm loving and appreciating the serendipitous nature in which perfect books tend to gravitate into my hands. 

MY THOUGHTS:

The story begins in 1939 when young Georg's happy, sheltered life is abruptly shattered. Right before his eyes, his poetry-loving, academic father is killed at a graduation ceremony that becomes a frenzied riot. That same night, the ten-year-old is smuggled out of Germany in a suitcase to avoid being murdered for supposedly being the spawn of a Jewish menace, an accusation that takes him entirely by surprise.

Georg takes refuge for a while in London, but when bombs begin raining on the city, his Aunt Miriam sends him on an evacuation ship to Australia, where he's assigned to live with the Peaslake family of Bellagong, whose son, Alan, is fighting in the army. Australia, which Georg first regards as a 'strange, untidy country where every color looks slightly wrong' becomes his refuge and oasis. It contains total strangers who he grows to love with all his heart. 

What a terrific novel, cramming such a lot of introspection into the four or so years it spans. This traumatised kid surely needs counselling, but living in survival mode makes mental health care a luxury. Georg, now known to everyone as George, must be his own counsellor. 

First he deals with some pretty major cognitive dissonance. All the propaganda he'd ever taken on board at school had been the cruelest lie all along. Nothing quite like having to be sneaked across your country's border in carry luggage to destroy your illusions about your country's leader. Georg must adjust to a whole new culture and master a foreign language to save himself, right on the heels of the most traumatic blow of his life. Then in Australia, imposter syndrome is added to the mix. He has no way of knowing how his new caregivers might feel about unwittingly sheltering a German boy beneath their roof, so makes his own quiet conclusions. 

When circumstances take him off guard yet again, and he's about 14 at this stage, he finds out for sure. 

This book's finer details about living in the WW2 era adds great colour and authenticity to the story. (In Georg's London life, treasured paintings and exhibits were evacuated from museums, and an edict was given for household pets to be euthanized, as part of the war effort. In his rural Aussie life when the threat of Japanese invaders loomed, road signs and station names vanished so the enemy couldn't possibly figure out exactly where they were.) I appreciated the depth of research on Jackie French's part. 

Such a great tale, taking the concept of an unsung hero to a whole new level, for Georg's extreme heroism must be a complete secret for his continued survival. Or so he thinks. It passed my 'tears test' with flying colours, and deserves full marks. 

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'After the Funeral' by Agatha Christie

I notice I haven't reviewed an Agatha Christie novel for a little while. Here is a good one to break the drought.  

MY THOUGHTS:

The scene is Enderby, a run-down Victorian manor house. 

Elderly Richard Abernethie has just died. He'd brought up his younger siblings and outlived all but two. In addition, there is now a bachelor nephew, George, and two nieces, Susan and Rosamund, along with their husbands. When the extended family returns after the funeral for afternoon tea, flaky Aunt Cora puts her foot in her mouth. She says, 'He was murdered, wasn't he? I thought from what he said...' 

Cora has a long history of social faux pas, but now she's done it once too often. The following day, she's discovered viciously murdered in bed. The killer struck her skull with a hatchet and tried to make it appear like a simple robbery. 

Although there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding Richard's death, loyal family lawyer, Mr Entwhistle, can't shake off an uneasy feeling. He'd hate to think bad of the family he's served for decades, but before long Cora's live-in companion, Miss Gilchrist, seems marked for murder too. It appears evident that one member of the Abernethie family is a rat, trying to dispose of anybody who might have the slightest inkling of whatever Richard said to his youngest sister. 

It is high time for Entwhistle to call his good friend, Hercule Poirot, out from retirement. If anyone can get to the bottom of the evil menace, surely he can. 

When Poirot investigates the backgrounds of everyone who was present after Richard's funeral, he regards each and every one of them as people who would never commit murder as a general rule, but might make an exception for a special case. (Of course any subsequent incidents are strictly necessary for cover-up.)

He says:

'Let us admit without more ado that the world is full of the young, or even the middle-aged, who wait patiently or impatiently for the death of someone whose decease will give them, if not affluence, then at least opportunity.' 

That applies to everyone. Doesn't it always?

It was a fun read. Several relatives drop humorous one-liners, especially when they're brought together again, ostensibly to select personal keepsakes from Richard's estate. The investigations cleverly paint a composite picture of Cora's character, after she's dead. And some of the other relatives are larger-than-life. George, the closet gambler, Rosamund, the air-headed actress, and Uncle Timothy, the tedious hypochondriac whose wife, Maude, lives to pamper him.

When Poirot gathers them all together in the drawing room to make the big reveal, I still didn't have a clue who to point the finger at, and I prefer it that way. It turns out the crook was willing to go to devious lengths to deflect suspicion. 

* A quick note on my edition's cover: we need to progress pretty far into the story before the significance of the nun becomes apparent. The younger generations' discussion of ladies of the cloth is very amusing once we get there. 

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'Then there were Five' by Elizabeth Enright

This is the third novel in Elizabeth Enright's Melendy Quartet, and I love this original cover design of all five young protagonists, along with the two dogs. Why shouldn't Isaac and John Doe get a look in. If you begin with my reviews of The Saturdays, followed by The Four-Story Mistake, then you'll be up to this one. 

MY THOUGHTS:  

What I find exceptional in this vintage series is Elizabeth Enright's seasonal continuity. This installment takes place in the summer that was highly anticipated during the spring of The Four-Story Mistake. Enright's nature writing, rather than comprising mere background detail, beautifully becomes the backbone of all the unfolding events in the plot. 

The main theme of this third novel is how the Melendys come to adopt a new adolescent brother named Mark, who is almost the same age as Rush. When they first meet him, Mark lives with his abusive cousin Oren, who mistreats him horribly. The manner in which circumstances release Mark from Oren's tyranny is very dramatic, but I won't spoil it.

We are at the point where some reviewers believe the Melendy Quartet departs from its simple charm, since the sordidness of real life breaks in too rudely for them. However, for me the whole point of this third novel is the contrast, and the fact that the Melendy milieu proves strong enough to withstand the dark side of life. By the end, Mark changes from a lonely, starving outcast who craves company to the happy member of a loving family. He's nourished by plenty of wholesome food, literature, music, gardening, and cheeky jokes. In short, all the things that make life good. 

In a world in which we're counselled to slow down and enjoy the small things, that's exactly what the Melendys do. We can't help taking on board their refreshing influence while we immerse ourselves in these stories. (Yep, even though Rush and Mark eavesdrop on some law-breakers at an illicit booze still - horror to some readers! Come on guys, this is a pretty tame story and that incident is great fun.) Those of us who need it even receive encouragement to drop our too-high housekeeping standards.

'Gradually the house regained its normal expression: a look of reasonable order and unprosperous but homely comfort.' 

The WW2 era with its restrictions continues in the background. Father acquires a government job so secret that he can't even allow himself to think about it too loudly. But holding down the home front is his brilliant brood. Mona indulges her new passion for becoming a kitchen goddess, Rush still finds inspiration to compose a stunning sonata even while racing about the district spying on crooks, and Oliver quietly conducts his own private life where butterflies and moths loom large. Observing and appreciating the others with all the energy of her gentle, affectionate heart is the lovely Randy, who can certainly never be accused of taking anything good for granted. 

When Cuffy gets called away for a fortnight to help a convalescing cousin she wonders how they'll ever manage without her. Well may she ask, and the answer to that question comprises a good portion of this book. 

Once again, you must start with The Saturdays, then The Four-Story Mistake, and then you're up to this one, followed by Spiderweb for Two, the very last book in this series.

(And for a treat when the Melendys grow up, click here.)

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