The Adventure of English (2003), Melvyn Bragg

I had a bit of a hiatus from reading, having exhausted the library of literature that I have with me in Japan. Then I remembered that Jeremy read a book many months ago, and he’d asked me to read it, but I hadn’t been in the mood, as this book, The Adventure of English – THE BIOGRAPHY of a LANGUAGE, by Melvyn Bragg is not fiction, and I don’t often read non-fictional accounts of history.

Actually, I’m very interested in history and I like to dabble, but it took me a while to get into the grove to read an entire novel-sized book regarding the history of the English language.

Once I started, though, I thoroughly enjoying reading about my own language. I wonder if any other language in the world has such a history that has been borne from so many languages and been through such turbulent times, facing extinction over and over and even causing the bloody end of some who died to save the language.

This is history I knew very little about and it’s fascinating to see how the language has evolved and grown to the global proportions of the English language that we know and love or despise today.

I now have an appreciation of English and I can see for the first time the beauty of my native tongue. I stand in awe of the masters of the literary world who have used the language, twisting its form and combining words into phrases that have stood the test of time to become the clichés of our modern world, idiomatic expressions we don’t know the origins of but we use without flinching.

The poetic Beowulf drew directly from the old-English and Norse origins of the language and beautifully portrayed a time long-gone. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales mixed social Englishes and introduced many new words into the English language directly from the French. English, it seems, is too a romance language and was woven into Sonnet brought to England through the escapism of Sir Thomas Wyatt from Henry VII hypocritical judgement and allowed to season through Sir Thomas Sidney’s love-lashed poetry under Elizabeth Is watchful gaze. The sonnet’s Iambic pentameter was mastered by Shakespeare who invented words by the thousands and brought more of the other-worlds into the English language.

Such a variety in the origins of the language led me to do a quick search into the history of some of the words I just wrote. Revealed is the diversity of our language, and most surprisingly how much Old English, of Germanic origin, we still use:

Thoroughly = Old English thuruh
Language = Latin linga
Borne = Old English beran
Turbulent = Latin turbulentus
Beauty = Old French biaute
Awe = Old Norse agi
Literary = Latin littera
Cliché = French cliché
Idiomatic = Latin idioma
Expression = Old French expresser
Flinching = Obsolete French flenchir
Portrayed = Old French portraire
Social = Old French social
Woven = Old English wefan
Sonnet = Italian sonetto
Escapism = Old North French escaper
Season = Old French season
Gaze = Middle English gasen

When English exploded from the shores of the UK and leaped across oceans to the US and continued its journey to India, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and many other nations that were, at various times, controlled by England, the language began to truly mutate, taking on new ideas and concepts that were relevant and specific for the place and time of their new and sudden beginning. The language ceased simply evolving, new words were invented seemingly out of thin air. The English language became fat with diversity and burst its seams.

Now there are so many dialects of English we use terms such as “American-English”, “Australian-English”, “The Queen’s English”. There’s also “Janglish” or “Ingrish” in Japan and similar variations all through South-East Asia. Not to mention the entirely unique Englishes that came from the extreme conditions of slavery and by forcing the English Language on displaced people in the islands of Caribbean.

The writer, Melvyn Bragg, suggests there are now more non-native English speakers using English as a second language to converse with others of different cultures or neighbouring tribes than there are English speakers on a first-language basis. This is interesting and shows that the language named for its origin in England will continue to change and embrace new cultures, new languages and new speakers around the world.

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Fury (2001), Salman Rushdie

Rushdie always reveals so much of himself through his writing and it is easy to see how his perceptions have changed since his exile from his homeland. This novel comes as an eerily timely insight into the time bomb that was growing in the hearts and minds of people around the world prior to the attack on Manhattan’s World Trade Centre. The novel missed out on being a prediction by a narrow margin.

Fury is not a novel you can read in short bursts while sitting on a toilet or waiting for the kettle to boil. It is entirely engaging and very fast paced, and it also contains the longest paragraphs and verbal diatribes of any I have read before. I have daily train rides of up to half an hour and I often had trouble finding where to put my bookmark when the train pulled up and I was in the middle of a 6 line sentence. Only Rushdie could pull it off with such resounding brilliance and beauty in every word he pours onto a page and into the eyes of the reader.

Only a wild optimist, a stupid brain-dead Pollyanna or Pangloss, throws away what’s most precious, what’s so rare and satisfies his deepest need, which you know and I know you can’t even name or look at without the shutters closed and lights out, you have to put a cushion on your lap to hide it until somebody comes along who’s smart enough to know what to do, somebody whose own unspeakable need just happens to make a perfect fit with your own.

He writes the truth, the whole, ugly, gritty, profrane and scary truth. It’s a truth that hadn’t been revealed in all its hideous glory when the book was written, but something the world is now facing and yet people still try to hide from it. To hide from that Fury that lies within us all. Rushdie was brave enough to write it and smart enough to know how without offending the country that now protects him.

I was going to recommend that Jeremy read this novel as an introduction to Rushdie’s writing. I was thinking that the content and setting of this novel would interest him more (and confuse him less) than his earlier novels set in, or surrounding, Bombay and its rich and diverse histories. As he is an American, I’m sure Jeremy would find this novel interesting, I’m just not sure if he’ll ever have the long bursts of available time to read a novel with 5-page paragraphs.

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Ishmael (1992), Daniel Quinn

This is a great novel. Let’s not get confused about that. The narrative is at times simple and childish, but it is important and should be read. The front cover bears the quotation:

From now on I will divide the books I have read into two categories – the ones I read before Ishmael and those read after.

It may not affect the opinions I have on the books I have read and will read, but it certainly has adjusted my view of the world.

Daniel Quinn reflects on how humans have come to be exponentially destroying the world. He explores the differences between societies built around agriculture and those built on the nomadic system of hunting and gathering and the semi-nomadic system of herding. The premise of the novel is that the agricultural-driven cultures are consuming the world at the expense of all else while the alternatives have been following an age-old natural law that allows man to live in equilibrium with the rest of the world.

He offers a very interesting interpretation of the first couple chapters of Genesis, which I found truly enlightening and entirely plausible. I think anyone who has ever struggled with the question “why?” when reading Genesis would be very interested in Quinn’s theory. Quinn points out that Genesis was written by the ancestors of the Hebrews, the Semites, who were herders and it’s written as an observation of human society’s change to agriculture. I grabbed our household bible and read Genesis chapter 4, and I was surprised by the clarity of Quinn’s theory.

Quinn describes how humans have taken themselves out of the laws of nature. He uses the term “the gods” to describe such laws and to make his theory open to the interpretation of all religions and non-religions. As he says, humans are consuming the world and leaving nothing for the rest of the animal kingdom.

On the topic of the other animals living on Earth he makes a very interesting point. If we look at the process of human evolution we can see how we have learned slowly over time how to use tools and make things. Each generation passes the information on to a new generation and we build on what we already know. He points out that certain species of animals are in the process of this same form of intellectual evolution. Dolphins and Apes are learning to use make and use tools and are passing that information to their children. Wow! To think that in a few thousand years we could be sharing the world with other intelligent species. Imagine what we could learn! However, as Quinn points out, we have to allow these species the chance to evolve by not destroying their habitats.

On the topic of consumption he raises the dichotomy of over-production and the millions of people starving and his theory is that the more we produce, the more we encourage population growth. If we produce enough to feed our current population plus some, people will continue to procreate and there will always be people starving.

Quinn’s theory is good, and it is a well known fact that humans are not obeying the natural laws of equilibrium when it comes to the topics of consumption and population, but not for the same reasons that Quinn suggests. The greatest proportion of beef production takes places on cleared Amazon land, farmed by people in South America to feed the obese McDonalds patrons of North America. Overproduction by, and for, the first world leads to waste. The food doesn’t feed the starving.

According to Quinn, the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil, as described in Genesis, represents how we have come to think of ourselves as possessing the knowledge to construct our lives in the way that is best for humankind. Quinn describes our future as a plane crash. We’re currently airborne and we think we’re in flight, but in reality we’re plummeting towards our doom. We could abandon our plane now and survive or stay put and die (see Genesis chapter 3 for the biblical interpretation of our flight).

Of course, Quinn’s accuracy is pin-point on this issue. Everyone knows that we’re destroying the planet and our future with it, but we don’t know what to do. We continuously think we possess the knowledge, but it seems every time we try to advance we make things worse. The book was written in 1992, and I believe we’ve made some good moves since then, what with the invention of (but yet to be released) hydrogen car and advances in Solar energy made by Australian Scientists in recent years. However, the question remains “Is it enough?”

Australian Greenhouse Office
Solar Cities: A Vision of the Future
Solar hydrogen - energy of the future

I was afraid, while reading the novel, that Quinn was advocating that we relinquish our ties to the lifestyles that we have grown accustomed to and join the remaining tribes of hunters and gatherers scattered in small numbers around the globe. In high school we visited the property of Ted Trainer, an alternative lifestyles expert and a professor at the University of NSW. He believed that humans needed to return to an entirely self-sufficient and communal lifestyle in order to survive.

From consumer society to sustainable society ...
... and how do we get to there?

His theory (as I understood it with the limits of my high school experience) stated that if we live in small communities and produce only what our community needs and when it needs it, that we won’t need roads and transport and cars and trucks and highways and aeroplanes, which will get rid of pollution and geological damage etc etc etc.

He had a good point, but one thing frightened me. What did this mean to the Global way of life that we now have? How could I travel the world and explore other cultures and eat foods that I am yet to taste if I lived in a tiny community with the same 100 people to see every day. Even at that stage in high school, before I knew about the internet or had dreamed of living in a foreign country, my best friend lived on the other side of Sydney. Without a car and a road to drive it on, I couldn’t know her. I wasn’t ready to reduce my world and limit my options so I rejected his theory.

The same fear entered my mind while I was reading Ishmael. I’m an Australian living in Japan with Jeremy, an American. How would we have come to be here if we lived such alternative ways. It’s true, if we had been born and raised in a tribe where we could spend a few hours a day hunting or gathering what we needed to survive and the rest of the time we spent sharing our time with our communities, then we’d be happy and we may not wish for anything else. But I don’t want to give up the life I am currently living. Jeremy and I are thinking about moving to Mexico.

In the last few pages of the book Quinn redeemed himself and admitted that we won’t want to give up all our luxuries and comforts. We DO need to build a new aeroplane that flies in accordance with the laws the aerodynamics, not against them, but how? Quinn leaves us with not much of a suggestion of what we should actually do. He gives us a little hope because we’re an inventive race and we can find a way. I guess he’s right, and those inventions I mentioned earlier are part of it, but how can we know that we’re advancing correctly this time round and not just making more mistakes that will bring us even closer to our doom? Quinn, Quinn. Why did you leave me hanging like this? I still don’t know what to do!

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Blogs (2004)

I just stumbled across a Blog with its first entry stating that the author is enrolled in some kind of Blog writing seminar. A Blog writing seminar … WTF, mate? Is there a subtle art to this that I am unaware of? I wanted to find out, so I surfed my “next blog” button and this is what I found:

• A lot of Blogs from Singapore with horrible poppy background music and a strong pink theme bearing a very persistent popup asking me to install software with the only available option being “yes”.


• Several Linkin Park Blogs with equally annoying background music.


• A majority of teenage angst / broken heart Blogs leading me to question why teenagers continue to subject themselves to constant rejection from the same person over and over again.


• A few Blogs showcasing decent photography, but a larger number of Blogs showcasing awful photography (Do I really want to see a blurry picture of an aeroplane parked at Melbourne airport?)


• A lot of blatant advertising with 100 Blog entries linking to the same commercial page.

What do they teach in these Blogging seminars?

It occurred to me that a large proportion of those teen-angst Blogs could be entirely fabricated for the entertainment of their readers, after all is anyone really THAT daft that they wouldn’t just move on and find someone else to have a hopeless crush on? Those Blogs run like a daily soap opera, and I would see their appeal if there weren’t so many of them.

I actually have stumbled across some interesting Blogs, my favourite being the one about bumble bees and other such scientific fun. Then, of course, there’s Jeremy’s Blog, the only one “featured” on my sidebar.

There are also a huge number of Blogs written in languages I can’t read, so there is some potential there for me to be missing out on very important information. Perhaps the Blogging seminars in Paris are of a much higher calibre than those in Singapore, but I’ll never know because my French is a little rusty.

I also realised that my “next blog” button is only linking to the most recently updated Blogs, which helps explain the predominance of those daily soap operas over anything with really interesting content. Unfortunate for me since there’s only so much streaming Alannis Morisette I can handle.

I hope those Blogging seminars are teaching something important, perhaps we’re on the verge of a whole new era of Blogging. Gone will be the days of fluorescent pink diaries that would be better suited to being padlocked and hidden under someone’s pillow and in their place will be a truly fascinating array of Blogs titled “My first blog”. You can guess how interesting they will be.

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Freaks and Geeks (1999), Paul Feig

Having run out of books to read for the time being, and not feeling particularly inspired to review most of the books I’ve read recently, and not being able to sufficiently remember the good books I’ve read in the past, I come now to reviewing other mediums, such as television and the show that should have been a huge success, Freaks and Geeks.

I’ve never really shared the television tastes of the majority and I am used to having my shows subjected to obscure timeslots, but I had hoped that Freaks and Geeks could survive through the strength of a cult audience.

Set in 1980, the show revolves around Lindsay Weir, her friends (the Freaks) and her brother’s friends (the Geeks). It follows the format laid out by the Wonder Years by being set in a past decade and following the growth of school-age children. However, unlike the Wonder Years, Freaks and Geeks tackles more serious issues such as the disadvantages faced by children from families that lie outside the realm of cookies and hot milk. Freaks and Geeks takes the innocence of the Wonder Years and it’s First Love theme, and makes it more real and, by being set closer to now, also much more relevant.

The 1980s saw the fazing out of the hippy era and disco, and the introduction of heavy rock and punk into the mainstream corridors of high school. Teenagers started to take their independence and individuality seriously. Rebellion in school increased, family ties were loosened as teenagers struggled to find meaning in the fast-paced decade that introduced Atari game consoles into family living rooms (“an a-what-i?”) and made Star Wars a house hold name (Star Wars was released in 1977, but was embraced by the children of the 80s).

The series lasted only 1 season before being pulled from the airwaves exactly at the moment that loyal viewers became securely hooked. Freaks and Geeks suffered the misfortune of battling through a Saturday night timeslot in the US and by being released at the same time as a goofy comedy set in the 70s that was hugely successful. It seems that the US Audience at that time was not in the mood for the subtle humour and sometimes nose-sniffling drama of Freaks and Geeks.

When Freaks and Geeks vanished off Australian airways I was very surprised and angry that the tastes of a foreign audience were able to dictate my viewing choices. I’ve never really shared the television tastes of the majority and I am used to having my shows subjected to obscure timeslots, but I had hoped that Freaks and Geeks could survive through the strength of a cult audience. I have since discovered, with the help of the internet, that I was not the only person watching the show and that there was, as I expected, a large audience of people upset by the removal of Freaks and Geeks from the airwaves.

The surviving series was popular enough to warrant a release on DVD which can (and should) be bought and watched. Then watched and watched again. I have just finished watching the complete series again, this time with Jeremy (who regrets never having watched it before). He said that he remembers the posters advertising the show in the US, and would have watched it except for its Saturday night timeslot. When we hit the final episode, it was with a heavy heart. We both wish the series would have continued and we could have known what was to happen to Daniel and Kim, Ken and Amy, Nick, Lindsay, Sam, Neil, Bill and yeah, even Millie and Alan. Unfortunately, due to stupid programming and evil network, all we can do is guess what the creator, Paul Feig, had in mind.

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True History of the Kelly Gang (2000), Peter Carey

Peter Carey has written many books and they’ve all sold very well, but to be honest I’ve only ever read this one novel that he has written. It was given to me as a gift from my mum, because she is a Carey fan and wanted to read the book. Little did she know I would move to Japan and take the book with me before she ever had the chance.

Carey shows the history and the reasons why. He takes the myth out of Ned Kelly, the Australian equivalent of England’s Robin Hood and the US’ Billy the Kid, and turns him into a real person and a man who was barely more than a child.

I was a little disturbed by the declaration under ‘acknowledgements’ that Carey “laboured for four exhilarating weeks”. It was a shock to me that a book could be written in such a short period of time. However, I think it indicates his interest in the subject and his fervour in writing the book that all Australians should read. Non-Australians should also read it because it is a fabulous insight into the convict history of Australia and dispels many stereotypes and myths that cause misunderstandings about Australia’s history for the rest of the world.

As a historical piece, it is difficult to separate fact from fiction. Carey writes in the ‘hand’ of Ned Kelly, and the chapters of the books are separated into bundles of supposed letters written to his daughter. I am certain that Carey researched thoroughly for his novel, as it must have been as important to him to write the truth as it is for us to read it. However, in any piece of creative writing there must always be room for artistic interpretation.

Regardless of how accurate the information is, the story provides a heart-breaking account of the rough life of early settlers, the families of convicts and the poor who were hounded by the police in a country whose law was not bound by established traditions. The local police were the only law that mattered for the people who lived in small rural settlements and were isolated by rugged mountains and swollen rivers from the big cities where the important decisions were made that could ultimately make or break their lives.

The novel is heavily Australian. Jeremy is currently reading it, slowly. He said that he has to read it more carefully than he usually reads a novel because of the odd use of punctuation (the novel uses the writing style of a poorly educated man living in the early 1900s) and the Australian colloquialisms that permeate the pages of the book.

“Come said she lifting the hem of her fancy dress and drawing me out through the steamy slippery kitchen into the hotel veggie garden where my Uncle Wild Pat the Dubliner were lying blotto under the tank stand. Not a glance did my mother give Wild Pat but escorted me down between the dunny and the compost heap and there she asked me bluntly how I liked her dancing partner” (p.65).

Australians know how the story ends, as does anyone who saw the movie staring dreamboats Heath Ledger (Australian export) and Orlando Bloom. This does not detract from the story. Carey shows the history and the reasons why. He takes the myth out of Ned Kelly, the Australian equivalent of England’s Robin Hood and the US’ Billy the Kid, and turns him into a real person and a man who was barely more than a child.

It’s a story that has been told and should be read, not so that we can glorify the memory of our most famous outlaw, but so that we can understand the role that society plays in shaping the future of children and the importance of giving everyone the same opportunities no matter their economic situation or their relationship with people who stand outside the acceptable limits of society’s norms.

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Night Letters (1996), Robert Dessaix

This novel is an intricate exploration of death as one man struggles to come to terms with his mortality when he is diagnosed with an “incurable disease”. The entire plot develops through beautifully narrated insights, written in letters to an undisclosed friend in Melbourne, as the protagonist journeys through Italy.

During the journey, expect to learn a few things.

The story borders on the realms of magical realism as fiction blurs with fact and blends with the stories of Italy’s opulent history. The author is evidently influenced by one of the literary greats, Salman Rushdie, who is openly paid homage to inside the pages of the book. However, the novel is an original masterpiece, inviting the reader to share in the shattered hopes of the dying man and accompany him on his tour through Italy.

Night Letters has the most subtle plot developments of any novel I have ever read. The story unfolds in slow, gentle waves that carry the reader along with the thoughts of the protagonist. The novel finishes without any absolutes, but a delicate change has occurred for both the narrator and the reader and how we view our impending mortality.

During the journey, expect to learn a few things. The author explores the inner workings of Dante, discovers the legends of Italy, discusses the history of the church in Europe and dabbles with Taoist philosophy while the protagonist searches for meaning in life through suffering and death.

I lent the book to Jeremy as soon as I finished it. He was inspired to suggest we take a trip by train one day, just by turning up to the station and following our instincts from there. We ended up journeying around the rim of Biwako, Japan’s largest lake. We got stuck in a tiny country town for 1½ hours, which was a delightful break from the thriving megatropolis that is OsakaKobeKyoto.

On our way home we experienced an Earthquake. I noticed the train was shuddering rhythmically and I asked Jeremy what was happening. He answered with certainty that it was an earthquake. I was excited because I have never felt anything like it. Australia is a very stable country and Japan is the exact opposite, but in my 10 months of living here I had almost forgotten the impending threat of natural disaster that hangs over us.

That same night, a second Earthquake hit while we were relaxing after our busy day by watching ‘Back to the Future’. The second one was noticeably larger and my excitement was quickly replaced by fear. I became a little neurotic with the urgency of turning off the gas and finding a solid doorway to stand under. The lights were swinging violently above us and the floor beneath our feet rolled in steady waves. All sense of stability vanished, replaced by a fleeting awareness of the transience of mortality.

Read the book

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