'Grisly relish'—curses, she's onto me!

Here's a great review by one of Raych's mates:

But the sort of suppressed sexuality barely hinted at in the original is in Lanagan's book explored with a great deal of confidence (and sometimes rather grisly relish) for the book begins and ends with gang rape and there's a whole bunch of alternately compelling and disturbing looks at human-animal sex in between.

If you're disturbed by the notion of human-animal sex being compelling, just make yourself feel better by thinking of this book as saying something allegorically about the limits of human civilization and what lies beneath the surface. I'm sure this book, and most other fairy tales, function primarily at the level of the allegorical, but Tender Morsels is so good - and so uncomfortably so at points - precisely because it keeps the allegorical so earthly and literally immediate.

Useful recipes

Included with a piece of Viagra spam:

TO MAKE CLEAR GELLY OF BRAN Take two pound of the broadest open Bran of the best Wheat, and put it to infuse in a Gallon of Water, during two or three days, that the water may soak into the pure flower, that sticks to the bran. Then boil it three or four walms, and presently take it from the fire, and strain it through some fine strainer. A milky substance will come out, which let stand to settle about half a day. Pour off the clear water, that swimmeth over the starch or flomery, that is in the bottom (which is very good for Pap, &c.) and boil it up to a gelly, as you do Harts-horn gelly or the like, and season it to your taste. TO BAKE VENISON Boil the bones (well broken) and remaining flesh of the Venison, from whence the meat of the Pasty is cut, in the Liquor, wherein Capons and Veal, or Mutton have been boiled, so to make very strong broth of them. The bones must be broken, that you may have the Marrow of them in the Liquor; and they must stew a long time (covering the pot close:) that you may make the broth as strong as you can; and if you put some gravy of Mutton or Veal to it, it will be the better.

I like 'Pour off the clear water, that swimmeth over the starch or flomery'. Also, the assumption that I'm always whipping up a batch of Harts-horn gelly when I've a few minutes to spare.

And then I wondered, what are 'walms'? And Practically Edible, the Web's Biggest Food Encyclopedia tells me that it's a 'surge upwards of boiling water'. 'Cooking instructions might also tell you to bring the water to a boil till 'it boil high with great walms in the middle of the Kettle'.

Well, I never.

Dani made me do it

'You haven't updated your blog since the 27TH OF NOVEMBER!' she said. Also, she was cranky that I hadn't mentioned her by name. So here I am, salving my conscience on two counts.

Today I am writing selkies (Dani knows about the selkies—she read about them back in, when was it, Dani? February? Early, anyway.), specifically, the first third of the novel, which is the witch Messkeletha's story—and actually, she gets the best deal out of the whole selkie matter, but of course she can't get away without some form of misery and lovelornness, so, you know, get ready to feel her pain, people.

The second section will be told by Daniel Mallett's father, and that will be pretty much utterly miserable, oh my goodness yes. :) That's the biggest job ahead of me; the third section (the X⁶ novella) only needs a bit of tweaking by comparison.

So there you are, updated. There are other things, such as Spanish, Portuguese and Catalan translations of Tender Morsels, and next year's workshops here in Sydney and in Byron Bay, and sons flying off to Amerikee, or staying home and turning 17(!), and OMG Christmas approaching (beachside holiday, nice and low-key), and working 3 days a week which is the perfect amount, and the crazy weather (today is, um, brightly autumnal). Okay, now you're updated.

Back to Rollrock Island. Oh, I think I forgot to tell you, Dani—it's now called The Brides of Rollrock Island. This is because Meg Rosoff told me that her publisher told her that books with Bride in the title sell squillions more than books without. So from now on all my books will have Bride in the title. Good idea, hey?

Tender Morsels is on the UKLA longlist

Along with a swag of wonderful books—go over here and have a look.

That's the UK Literacy Association, if you were wondering.

The UKLA Children’s Book Award is a national award conferred by education professionals and it is held in high esteem by teachers, who regard the shortlist [announced in March next year] as a reliable indicator of the best books of the year for inclusion in class and school collections.

The announcement of the UKLA Children’s Book Award 2010 will be made at the UKLA International Conference in Winchester July 8th 2010.

It's listed in the age 12–16 section. I think it would be very interesting if it made the shortlist. :)

Some people like to be challenged

And Biblioaddict is one. She's just acquired 7 new books, and one of them is

Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan. I’ve wanted to read this book for so long that it’s almost impossible to believe that I actually finally have a copy. ... I can’t wait to read this, if only to satisfy my curiosity about my reaction to this book. The subject matter in Tender Morsels isn’t usually my cup of tea, but I’m excited to be challenged by this book. I think it’s always good to make sure I’m challenging myself on a regular basis. How else do I learn when my tastes have changed? How else do I learn that sometimes I don’t know my reading taste as well as I thought I did?

YALSA Best Books list

Tender Morsels didn't make the Top Ten, but it did make the main list.

(via Perry at Matilda)

About women's work, particularly their writing work

Here. Yes.

Three other depressing stories: Sheng Keyi's story (trans. Eric Abrahamsen) 'An Inexperienced World' in the latest HEAT (the beginning of which is available, Jonathan points out in the comments, online—thanks, Jonathan!). Something depressing about this being the first item in the issue, but mainly it's the story itself. It's about a women 'well past thirty and possessed of a certain experience of life', which suggests to me that the author might well be under thirty ('born in the 1970s' says an online bio) or just on the cusp of it. I seem to have recently read quite a lot of stories by young writers, male and female - but it's particularly distressing from young women - that are essentially about feelings of revulsion for the state of middle age, and a particular contempt for middle-aged women. This one seems to think that middle age is all about mourning for lost youth, lost vitality, lost sexual attractiveness, that those losses sit centre stage in the woman's mind and render her almost incapable of interacting with 'normal' (generally younger, or male) people. It's like those scenes in Hollywood movies that are young studio executives' imaginings of how established couples relate: they're bored solid with each other, and the woman is pathetic because she's not the young beauty her husband married, and any affectionate behaviour he can demonstrate towards her is to be regarded as a great kindness of his in the face of his own loss. That Julie Christie/Alzheimer's movie seemed to stink of that. Away From Her. Anyway, read the 'An Inexperienced World' and tell me what you think.

I woke up at 2.30 am last night and couldn't get back to sleep, so I took my book light and 10 Short Stories you MUST Read and read on the couch for a while. Robert Drewe and Peter Temple. Two stories about middle-aged men behaving poorly, which was depressing enough in itself - I suspect they might have been meant to be mordantly funny - but the casual way that the women were presented, either as trophies or viragos... Did anyone else get the irrits at this?

Yairs, should stop now. The Harriet Evans article is via @tansyrr.