Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth

Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth

The written word is a magical thing to behold, and there is nothing more magical and amazing than a fairy tale and its retellings. The world and magic of fairy tales permeates most works of literature these days. Folk and fairy tales, as the beginnings of story telling along with the myths of the ancients began as an oral tradition. Some books have carried on this tradition and one is Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth, published in 2012.  Though a literary work, it has the feel of a tale that could be told by a campfire orally without referring to the page, and this magic about the story is something that I loved.

Set in Renaissance France, it tells the story of Charlotte-Rose de la Force, a member of the court of the Sun king, Louis XIV, and the time she spent there as a young woman, and her eventual exile to a convent. Here, she is told the story by one of the nuns, Soeur Seraphina of a young girl a century before, locked away in a tower.

Margherita lives in Venice one hundred years before, leading a happy life until she is taken away, and sold by her parents for a handful of bitter greens. She is alone in the world until somebody hears her singing, and comes to see what the sound is. When Margherita discovers what is below her lonely and desolate home, she looks for a way to escape from the clutches of the witch, La Strega Bella, whose story is as interesting and carefully woven through that of Margherita’s story.

Not only did this book take me back to my love of fairy tales but to my love of history and let me travel back to a world that I can now only access through the pages of history. Like Margherita, Charlotte-Rose is locked away and forgotten for many years. The novel’s historical fiction aspect is just as intriguing as its fairy tale aspect, and the conflict between Catholics and Huguenots in Renaissance France highlighted just how fragile and important our beliefs are to us, whatever they may be. Charlotte-Rose, a Huguenot, held onto her belief for as long as possible and was a very strong female character. I saw her as in control of her femininity and proud of it yet also determined to make the most of the society she was born into and become a part of it the way women of her stature were expected to. It was this combination that kept me reading this book, and not wanting to put it down at all.

And when each part of one woman’s story ended on a cliffhanger, I was desperate to find out what happened, pushing my way eagerly and carefully through the next section so nothing went amiss. I won’t give away the ending but I will say that it is one of the best books incorporating history, romance, fairy tales and drama that I have ever read and was extremely well executed. I would give this five out of five stars, and definitely recommend it if you enjoy any of these genres or if you are just looking for something different by a wonderful Australian author to read.

Book clubs

The idea behind book clubs has been something of intrigue and interest to me for a long time. I like the idea of chatting about something I have enjoyed reading with a group of friends who also read the book, and I think that they have a place in reading society.

Yet there is something about them that I have always struggled with: what is on offer to read. I’m by no means a narrow reader, in fact, I read quite a broad variety but if I am not enjoying something, I struggle to get through it and in fact often put it aside in favour of something else. This leads me to my thoughts on book clubs.

I know that there are several ways to agree on a book: voting for a book, or one person chooses per month or, somebody assigns the books each time. This might work in most cases but what happens when the books being chosen are constantly not what some people want to read? And if we go on the voting system, is this fair because potentially there will always be one or two members whose choices may always be vetoed by every one else and thus they may never get a turn to choose a book.

A few years ago some friends were doing a Jane Austen course and trying to set up a book club, to which they invited me. I suggested that it be continued afterwards in the planning stages and put forth the rule that we must all agree on a book, i.e. if there was one objection, then that book wouldn’t be read to make it fair. Why? Because if someone’s suggestions were always vetoed but the others always okayed, then this would never sit well with me for whomever that person was. There were some books that each and everyone of us would have objected to. So it never eventuated.

Availability of books, I find is also something that turns me off. Library book clubs in my area reserve the books – subject to availability. So there is every chance in a book club of ten people, three or four people may not be able to access that particular book if there are not enough copies. I see this as an obstacle: if you can’t access the book from a library or purchase a copy or borrow a copy from a friend, then you can’t participate. This, I feel, would make the member(s) unable to read the book feeling left out of the club, because not everyone will be able to access the book every time.

And if you don’t enjoy the book? In that case, I feel like I have wasted so many hours on something when I could have been reading something I enjoy. And I’ve heard all the arguments about reading out of your comfort zone, but to be perfectly honest, if it is a genre or author I am just not comfortable with, then there is no chance I can even try it. If the storyline described in reviews or on the back makes no sense to me, then it just makes it too hard to discuss.

My idea of a book club would be one where perhaps every member agrees on the book as stated above. If one out of six disagrees, I would hate to force them to read it not only because I would hate it to happen to me but because I wouldn’t want that person to be unable to finish the book. And I think the access to books is important because not every resource has the same books. I might be a little idealistic here, though, but this is just how I feel and think of as important. Book clubs don’t work for everyone. The social aspect is nice. My ideal book club where you all choose a book together or an author and their corpus of work is much like the book club in The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler.  But whether or not everyone can in that scenario agree on the books or author is something else that must be tackled. 

Gendered books and reading

On Goodreads recently, someone began a post asking if boys or girls read more, which turned into quite a heated debate on how boys and girls read and what they read. Some people said it was equal, others, such as myself, said it depends on the individual and gender has nothing to do with it, whilst others took, in my view, a hard sexist line that girls read more. some saying because they were smarter (insulting to many of my intelligent male friends) or that boys were just embarrassed to say they read (again I found this an insult to my good male friends who do read).

I acknowledge that many YA books and perhaps a good majority of books are marketed towards women – and that males, some might say, are given limited choice in biographies, some fantasy and sci fi beyond the tween years. Maybe this is true. But maybe, just maybe, society is to blame. We praise boys for excelling at sports and praise girls for excelling, at least in many cases, in acadaemia. Girls are perhaps taught not to be rough and tumble and the expectation is that they won’t be.

In literature, you see both sides of the coin with male and female characters. Take some of the most popular characters. Judy, from Seven Little Australians by Ethel Turner or Jo March of Little Women in comparison to their sisters: they are tomboys, flouting the image of the ideal girl. In both these books, we get the spectrum of female behaviour, and undoubtedly, these books are most often given to girls, boys may only read them if they have to for a course, and perhaps rarely if they choose to – I cannot speak for every boy however, and maybe there are some who enjoy these books.

Along the same lines of what I see as diverse female characters, I can name Hermione Granger, George and Anne of The Famous Five, Arya and Sansa Stark who completely contradict each other and Matilda. These last examples are from books I have read and observed that boys and girls will equally read, perhaps because they are filled with humour, and other male characters that boys will enjoy.

The other issue is covers. Books may have covers that try to lean towards one gender or another and this could be another skewed analysis. Pink and a topless man is supposed to appeal to girls (I have to say, all my books are various colours and not one has a topless man on it), and supposed “masculine” colours and images – whatever one might define these as – are meant to appeal to boys or men. Okay, fair enough if they appeal to you but one shouldn’t assume they will appeal to every member of that gender group. Why?

I have two very good male friends, one from school, and one from university. They read a myriad of things and we are always recommending or suggesting books to each other. Do they care about covers? No, because to us, a book is a book and we choose our reads based on what we enjoy reading and what we think we might like. I don’t want to read Twilight just because I am a girl and therefore I am supposed to like it. That is ridiculous reasoning.

Another genre I think is sometimes skewed a little more towards men is history. I like history and so do many of my friends. There is nothing in my view that says books have to have a “female look” or a “male look” to appeal to either genre: people should be able to choose what they want to read.

I most certainly hope when I am published, my books do not feature my female detective in a naked sillouhette to appeal to men, because that isn’t her character. I want her character to be represented faithfully. Cover art, I understand is different to the story, but if authors are to reach a wide audience, a compromise must either be made to have a gender neutral image on the cover or people need to get over their prejudices and assumptions of gendered books and just have the book on their shelf. Who cares as long as you enjoy the story?

And as for children’s books? Let your child gravitate towards a book that interests them. Why should we lock them into “gendered reading”? And for that matter, just because a child is a certain age doesn’t mean they read at that age level. We all mature differently and read differently and I think we need to start showing this in our shops, shelves and libraries, because assuming how the genders and age groups read is, in my view, limiting for everyone.

What is your favourite book?

As a reader, the one question I hate to be asked is what my favourite book is. You may wonder why I don't like this question and it is simple: I just can't choose a favourite overall. I have many favourites, and just can't narrow it down.

I don't either have a favourite genre, as I dabble in many genres and rather than not liking one or another, there are books within the genres I am more apt to stay away from. I find it rather hard at times to make those decisions especially on the spot. It is a question I hate to answer and hate it when people tell me that "oh you must have a favourite book and author, because everyone does." 

Okay so most people might have a favourite but not everyone does. It can be so hard to choose a single favourite over so many wonderful tomes that have taken me on so many journeys across the world, times and other worlds like Narnia, Westeros and Middle Earth. So many stick with me that it feels wrong, a betrayal almost to choose one over another. 

I often find it easier to choose a favourite character, whether it is Hermione Granger, Arya Stark or Lucy   Pevensie. Or the strong, smart female characters and often their kind male counferparts, and hating the characters who would try and thwart my favourites like Joffrey or Voldemort or Draco Malfoy. 

Sometimes it is hard to decide favourites and those I do not like. I sometimes never quite know what to think of these characters, because they are ever changing, and evolving, but all characters are and my kind may change. 

I ind it hard to choose a favourite author too. Purely because I sometimes can't decide. 

Short and sweet but I will be back as soon as I can. Choosing a favourite book...I have No advice on how to choose one 

Censorship

The written word is influential, sacred and powerful. The influence and power of the written word is seen in many ways and is most often abused when used for propaganda or to push ideology upon people that is merely the belief of those in charge and without basis in fact. Influence and power goes hand in hand with censorship, as through inclusion and exclusion of certain words and texts, one is forced to take the included texts on face value at a basic level and perhaps believe what they are told or what they read is fact is true when they do not have access to an opposing viewpoint. This is just one factor in censorship, and one that perhaps may work in theory but will eventually backfire, as there will always be those who wish to get the full story and gain an understanding of the truth through their experiences. A recent fictional example of how this can happen is in Jackie French’s Pennies for Hitler, where a young boy, Georg, brought up in Germany and in the midst of the Nazi Regime, believes what he is taught about perfect Aryans until tragedy forces him to run to England, where he is affected by what he sees there, and hears, and by the Blitz. Following this, his evacuation to Australia brings it all together that the Nazi’s are not who he thinks they are and where he learns that friendship and loyalty and kindness are more powerful than hatred. As an example of how keeping information from citizens, though not explicitly stated, French shows these changes through Georg, and in my opinion, armed with what I know about World War Two Germany, this book is an exgcellent example of how people’s opinions can be changed by words and access or non access, or denial and lies about events.

Some words are seen as scary or objectionable by various people and groups, even governments, in which case, these words go against the institution and will be censored for “the good of the public”. It is these perceived threats that cause governments, schools, libraries or even just one small community group within the larger community to ban books. Banning books is a form of censorship: By restricting what people have access to, you censor what they can learn, and by cutting out vital words of texts that give context as to time and place, or even changing and modernising these words as Chorion have been doing with Enid Blyton’s books, the story loses all meaning and the question must be asked how many times can we change a text before it loses all meaning, and why do we nitpick one author and not authors from years before her? What is it about Blyton that is so offensive? This is what brings me back to once you start, where does it end? How long is a piece of string? Will new authors have to worry about the words they so carefully choose and craft into stories for fear of offending the delicacies of somebody who doesn’t understand a certain word or finds the subject matter offensive based on religious or cultural or political reasons? (From previous research, these are the main reasons for censorship and banning books).

If it is not a big government body, it may just be the complaint of one or two people to a school or library about an innocent children’s book that they do not want their child to read. Fine. Don’t buy the book for your child, but let the other kids enjoy it. Curiously, many banned books over the years have in fact been what those of us in the literary world classify as children’s literature. Some examples are:

·       Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl was banned because it was too depressing (What do they expect from a diary written by a girl in hiding in WW2? Puppies and sunshine?)

·       The Harry Potter Series by JK Rowling was banned because they promote witchcraft, set bad examples and are too dark (Fantasy, and again, of course they are dark. It deals with good and bad and in my opinion hardly set a bad example – much worse happens in the real world)

·       The Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson was banned because of Profanity, encouraged disrespect of adults, death being central to the plot, encouraged secular humanism and/or Satanism and blending of fantasy and reality.

These three examples are all books I have read multiple times, and clearly I haven’t been depressed, started worshipping Satan or practising witchcraft because I read them (It’s true, I haven’t). When I write fantasy, or read fantasy, of course I expect some degree of magic or another world. And I cannot think of a single kids book in which the adults go off on adventures with the child characters.

I am anti-censorship. I do not believe in it and I think the above reasons are ludicrous. I don’t think it works because it just drives the books underground or people will find another way to get them and read them. You can’t cancel out a book forever unless you burn every copy plus any manuscripts the author and publishers might have. Nobody has the right to tell me what to read and I don’t have the right to tell them what to read. Having such free and fluid access to a wide choice of reading material is something I expect in a community where we are not ruled with an iron fist or communism.

Reluctantly though, I understand there is censorship and partially understand and accept why people do it but believe when it comes down to saying “Well my child isn’t going to read this” it should be left at that and not make other people’s decisions for them. I call this self-censorship, whereby we ignore what we do not like and let other people read it – we do not say “Well I find so and so (Insert any title here) objectionable because of a, b and c, so therefore everyone must and therefore it should be banned” – this is so far from the truth. Everyone is different. My aforementioned reluctant understanding comes from history, cultural and literature studies, and in fact an essay written on censorship. Just as it is not my choice to say to someone “You can’t read Twilight or One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” for example (the former a book I will never read, the latter I read and hated), it is not their choice to tell me I have to read Twilight and that I can’t read A Song of Fire and Ice or Agatha Christie.

The place of censorship in my opinion has no place in today’s society with the Internet giving easy access to books in a myriad of ways – e-books, bookstores and online texts. I question whether censorship is worthwhile and the cost of banning books when you can just go somewhere the book is not banned to buy it. When it comes to that, how do you police where people are taking it? And where would it stop? What belongs behind the curtain and what doesn’t? For me, it is the same issue as how long is a piece of string and everyone finds something they do not like in all books. Yes, even me. The freedom of choosing what I read is what I love the most, and to have that choice taken away from me, from the world, is a nightmare that I hope never comes true. Choose what you read, not what everyone else reads. 

Books and Me

 For as long as I can remember, books have played a vital part in my life. They have been as important as water, oxygen or exercise, from fairy tales to Beatrix Potter, JK Rowling and on towards Sherlock Holmes, and more modern sleuths and a variety of other characters from all different time periods have enriched my life as I march along beside them, partaking in their challenges.

Some books have fallen naturally into my hands, whether it be an interest in the genre, a recommendation, gift or just a spur of the moment purchase. Others have been introduced to me through studies, and warmly welcomed into my world, into my family of books. I still have some of these first copies, stained, well-read and in some cases with pages falling out – a sign that the book is truly loved. However, there have been some books that I resisted reading for whatever reason, whether it be the “But everyone is reading it” line, or the “Oh but you liked this  and so and so, so therefore you will like this,” or whether it was just assumed I would based on age, gender or prior loves of popular culture. One of these books I resisted for as long as I could in spite of incessant hounding was Harry Potter. Until a friend said to me that she’d read a book I had just finished if I read that, I did not want to read it, or at least wanted to come around to it in my own time, which I did. Now, you would not dare argue anything about it with me. It has a loving home in my heart, alongside Narnia, and its own shelf. There have been other books, like Twilight, I refuse to touch, because of assumptions made based upon my age and gender that I would like it, and having spoken to some people, have heard things that turned me off of it. It is in the class of books I feel that I will never pick up.

As an avid reader, over about twenty years, I have read 727 books to date, and the list keeps on growing. It is possible that over the years I have lost some titles that may never be recovered, and that I have read more than the 727. Of course, out of these 727, I have read and re-read favourites like Narnia, Harry Potter and The Secret Garden many, many times alongside new books discovered each day, week, and month.

Through reading, I can travel without my passport and visa, via book or eBook. I can visit a new world by falling head first into a wardrobe full of fluffy fur coats, by running head on at the invisible barrier or even just travel back in time to a war, or another century where things seemed simpler, less complicated by the technology that exists in our lives (and also has a place in modern books) today. I fight alongside heroes against tyrants, feel the pain when a loved one dies. I can hurl myself into history, back to the Roman Empire, or traverse through the Parthenon, examine Greek Pottery and listen to the haunting whispers of the concentration camps of Europe.

Books are a great comfort to me. They are always there to welcome back into their world with gracious arms, and without judgement of when I last read them or whether picking them up for the first time. They are always there to take me on a journey into a world that, if books did not exist, would be lost to me, and to all of us. 

What I like to read

Whenever somebody asks me what my favourite book, series, genre or author is, I have to admit I groan a little. Not because I hate reading but because I love reading and I have so many favourites that it is too hard to narrow it down to a list of ten even.

If you were to ask me what the first book I remember reading that made me fall in love with the world of books, that's a little easier. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by CS Lewis. Since then, it has been a steady diet of fiction and non fiction, crime, classics, fantasy and historical fiction, biographies, essays, modern history and ancient history, and many, many other topics including forensics for writers. There are so many books I have read since age six when I learnt to read that it is quite possible there are quite a few that have been forgotten from my ever growing list, well into the 600s now, and growing towards 700 and more.

I am not averse to reading multiple books: one novel, one non fiction and one or two others from other genres, just in case I get bored of reading one at some stage. And that happens. I can hit overload with a series or topic and need to read something else so I don't lose myself and lose my place in the other book. Some series, like A Song of Ice and Fire, have such thick books, that as much as I enjoy them, I hit overload and need to read something light just to recharge my brain.

Sometimes I get stuck in a genre for a while. I had a huge fantasy phase a while back and my brain just collapsed from all the different worlds I had visited across the fantasy island and enchanted forests. I journeyed back to Mary's secret garden to repair that overload.

Many people stick to one genre, but many of my reading buddies and friends read broadly and widely. When asked what I don't read, its easier to say that its more individual books and authors that might not ever appeal to me rather than genres. As to themes? Well, all books have themes, some I like, some I don't. I read with an open mind though, and was quite happy to read a book of CS Lewis' letters with references to the Bible even though I'm not overly religious  myself. Reading with an open mind is best.

A lifetime of reading has shown me how many books are out there and what I do and don't like and that we all respond to books differently. It has also shown me that just because one is a certain age doesn't mean they will read at that age level or indeed like those books - another blog, I think, to write on that topic. With that, I leave you so I can revisit my forensics book.