Jessie Burton again turns to the past to harness inspiration for her second book, The Muse. This time the plot moves back and forth between the 1930s civil-war-ravaged Spain and the 1960s London, yet the […]
Writer’s Block: Getting Out of the Rut
I’ve been working on my novel long enough to expect to get stuck in a rut at least once a week. What I make sure, though, is that these ‘recovery periods’ as I call them, […]
Good Omens: Books, Bikers, and a Bentley
This is one of the very few books that has managed to leave me in tears (of joy and uncontrolled laughter) after every few pages. Good Omens, written by the unsurpassable Neil Gaiman and Terry […]
The Miniaturist: Book Review
Jessie Burton’s debut, The Miniaturist, derives inspiration from a 17th-century hobby for young wives, an ostentatious curiosity cabinet on display at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, that was built in the late 17th century, commissioned by Petronella Oortman, who wanted a replica of the luxurious townhouse in which she lived in the centre of Amsterdam. Burton’s Petronella Oortman is an 18-year-old country girl, from an impoverished aristocratic family, married off to a wealthy merchant, who, instead of his affection, presents her with the minute replica of the house that she was brought to. The purpose of the gift is to distract curious Nella from focusing on her rather distant husband, but she sees it as ‘no more than an insult to her fragile status.’ It all begins like a naive child’s play, but it eventually turns into something rather ominous with disastrous consequences. The Miniaturist is a true reading delight, well-structured, well-worded, with intriguing characters who go through a major metamorphosis by the time the novel reaches its thrilling denouement.
The Worm
A worm Lives in my throat Gnaws at the core The rotten apple Force-fed every day Eggs pregnant with doubt Wants me to shout Whenever they say ‘Hold your tongue’ ‘Speak not your mind’ It […]
Caraval: All About the Game
I enjoy carnivals, circuses, harlequins, masks, mystery, and the complete overturning and subversion of social norms, rules, and conventions that goes with them. One of my favourite books is Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus […]
Adichie’s Defense of Feminism
The word feminist has been ladened with a load of negative baggage: you hate men, you burn bras, you hate your own tradition, you think women are better than men, you don’t wear make-up, you don’t shave, you’re always angry, you don’t have a sense of humour, you don’t use deodorant, etc. In her 2012 TEDx talk and later on, in her essay titled We Should All Be Feminists, award-winning writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie seeks to rectify the injustice done to the definition of feminism and show how necessary and significant it is today.
Finding Inspiration – Part One
You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfume and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads. – Ray Bradbury
All writing starts with words – your own, or someone else’s, but where does one find these words?
Do you remember the first book that had an impact on you? Was there a book in your childhood that had a significant influence that you didn’t notice at the time? What about classics – Austen, Dickens, Stevenson, James? Where to seek for inspiration beside between the covers?
The Spy: The Dancer Whose Clothes Kept Falling Off
Most people swoon at the very mention of Paulo Coelho, a Brazilian novelist who rose to prominence in the late 1980s with The Alchemist, regarding his every word as a droplet from some source of pristine knowledge and positive energy, leaving me (and most probably a handful of other skeptics) feeling like an utter villain for daring to cast even the palest shadow of doubt and critique upon any of his works. I read The Alchemist for the first time in high-school because a bunch of my amulets-wearing, guitar-in-the-park-playing, on-the-floor-sitting friends were drooling all over it, and then I read it again quite recently, and even though more than a decade ago I pretended to ‘totally get it’ and called it ‘deep’, now I realised that, essentially, my feelings have not changed – it is still a bunch of metaphysical mumbo jumbo, a pop-philosophical self-help book neatly wrapped in fiction. I tried giving Coelho some more chances after the initial debacle, but I never seemed to manage to get over the humdrum spirituality and constant attempts by the writer to give me plenty of unsolicited advice about love and life, and love. Then, a couple of weeks ago a friend came all moon-eyed and shoved a copy of Coelho’s newest, The Spy, into my chest saying that I had to read it because it was ‘great’ and ‘totally different than anything he wrote so far.’
Erna Grcic 