Poem published by Verity La.

Hi Everyone,


A poem I wrote, 'Roaches Dancing' has been published on Verity La., a great online lit mag. You can find the post here. Check out other posts on the site while you are at it. There is some choice poetry, great interviews and reviews, and of course fiction there.


It has already been making some whirls, with brad from Maekitso's cafe dedicating a poem to mine. 


It is a real poetry love-fest!


Now we're ready for Christmas!


Love,
Joran


P.S. Please allow me to plug my other blog: Syphilis of the Brain - it is my latest brain child (get it? Brain?) and on it I post whatever I come across on a day to day basis and whatever catches my fancy. Links to music. To films. Odd photos. Art I really like. It pretty low-brow. But low-brow is good, isnt'it? 

REVIEW: Map of the Invisible World - Tash Aw (2009)

http://www.harpercollins.com.au

Tash Aw's second novel 'Map of the Invisible world' is a great story set in Indonesia turbulent 1960s.

Two Indonesian brothers are separated when young. The older brother, Johan, is taken, from their orphanage on a remote island, to Malaysia by a rich couple, the younger, Adam, is adopted by a Dutch painter who lives in a coastal town in Indonesia. 

Adam tries to remember his brother, but he always stays out of focus, like a faceless figure in the corner of his eye, no matter how hard he tries. His upbringing by Karl, the painter, is full of love, but paradoxical. Karl wants nothing else than to be Indonesian, but his white skin in the post-colonial Indonesia of the early 1960s forbids these aspirations. It is a time of clashes between the PKI (Indonesian Communist Party) and the government and its armed forces. President Sukarno is trying to juggle these powers and keep Indonesia safe and under control. 

Johan remembers all too well and has become nihilistic, with more money than he can spend and the indifference from his adoptive father, he runs across the newly developing capital of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, looking for peace.

Around Adam's 13th birthday things spin out of control, when Karl is taken prisoner by the Indonesian government, accused of being a communist spy. This, of course, is a false accusation. He is taken to Jakarta and thrown in jail. Left alone Adam goes through old pictures Karl kept. He finds photos of a woman, an important friend of Karl, he figures. He decides to travel after his father to Jakarta and ask this woman for help. 

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'Map of the invisible world' is beautiful novel that weaves historically important events in the young Indonesian Republic and a personal story of two lost brothers together.  Tash Aw manages to include in the book: A meeting with Sukarno; keen insights into the political interests of the US in Indonesia; the feeling of the Indonesians during these times. You come so close to the streets of Jakarta that you can almost smell it.

This is a beautiful book and, like Light Boxes and American Rust, it is one of the best books I have read in 2010.  The only criticism I have is that, while the story-line about Johan is written well, it is never properly followed through and the novel would have stood just as well without Johan's story on the other side of the Malacca Strait. 

Let me know what you think of it.

Joran C.A. Monteiro © 2010

REVIEW: American Rust - Philipp Meyer (2009)

(www.randomhouse.com and
 philippmeyer.net)

Set in the impoverished coal country of contemporary Pennsylvania, ‘American Rust’, Philipp Meyer's debut novel, is the story of Isaac English and Billy Poe whose lives spiral out of control when they get caught up in a murder. Friendship and self-preservation become juxtaposed as both young men need to come to terms with the end of their adolescence. 

As with Steinbeck’s ‘The Grapes of Wrath’. ‘American Rust’ is set in a period of economic depression. Like the Oklahoma ‘refugees’ in ‘The Grapes of Wrath’, the inhabitants of this Pennsylvania valley, the heart of the American steel industry, were never rich, but also they were never poor. But now steel has moved overseas and the new Great Depression has pulled the rug out from under the American Dream and the landscape is left with rusting and rotting factories and people, normal hard-working folks, are left without the power to make ends meet. Poverty, boredom, idleness - and crime set in, transforming Bud Harris’, the town's sheriff, once quiet easy-to-police community into one with big-city-problems. 

It is against this background that Meyer with a beautiful lyrical voice paints his story that pulls you in from the beginning and doesn’t let you go till the final page. The story centres on unconditional love between friends, between family. Love against odds. Unrequited love. The deep friendship between Isaac and Billy; The complicated relationship of Billy’s mother, Grace, with the town’s sheriff Bud Harris; The loss of Isaac’s mother, the illness of his father, the absence of his sister. All these relationships form the backbone of this story. And while, hopefully, most of us will never be as near to a murder tragedy as Isaac and Billy are, we can all relate to their humanity and its dilemmas. 

This is the best recent novel I have read in 2010. If you like Cormac McCarthy, John Steinbeck, Jack Kerouac, William Faulkner; if you like films like the Deer Hunter (set in the same area) and Deliverance - You need to read this novel.

Let me know what you think of it.

Joran C.A. Monteiro © 2010

Review: 'Light Boxes' by Shane Jones (2009)

(www.penguin.com)

Light Boxes is a mesmerizing parable about a village fighting the continuing onslaught of an everlasting winter instigated by February.  The story centers on the family of Thaddeus, whose young daughter Bianca is taken, early in the book, by February. Thaddeus leads the resistance against February, helped by a cast of original yet recognizable characters.  Bianca, in the mean time, witnesses the innocent ignorance and confused anger of February.                                                                                                                                    

Jones weaves you into a paralel universe that perhaps is not so different from ours. The book is written in a sparse style bordering on the poetic. Jones also plays with the visual presentation of the page, emphasizing emotion with font size and isolation of words.

This book will help you Northern Hemispherians through winter and us Southern Hemispherians should read it so we appreciate summer even more.  The book was originally self-published with a print of only 500 copies but has now been picked up by Penguin, selling thousands. In the top 5 of the best books I've read in 2010.

Let me know what you think of it.

Joran C.A. Monteiro © 2010

Short Story published in Blue Crow Magazine #2

Hi All,


A short story I wrote, 'On the Seventh Day He Woke', the first short story I ever wrote featuring Sam H. Bound, has been published in Blue Crow Magazine #2. 


The magazine is 'print on demand' and can be ordered from the website here. A printed copy of the magazine is US$15 + postage, or US$5 in E-book format. With the way the US$ is going that really isn't that much for a 300 page book chockfull of short stories, drawings, pictures, reviews, and more short stories.


You can find Blue Crow Magazine on Facebook here and don't forget you can find Blues Fiction there too!


Thank you all for your support.
Onward Ever!


Joran

REVIEW: 'Growth of the Soil' by Knut Hamsun, 1917

Hamsun won the Nobel Prize for Literature for this book in 1920 and one can see why. With an astounding sparseness of language Hamsun manages to tell the story of the birth of a district in northern Norway, starting with the arrival of the first settler. If you thought you would never be able to relate to early 20th century farmers in remote Norway, think again. You will know these characters, and love them for all their humanity. Hamsun influenced Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Fante, Bukowski and countless others with this book. You should read it too.

Joran C.A. Monteiro

Short story published on Queen Vic Knives

Hi All,

A short story I wrote, 'No-one ever heard the shot', has been published on Queen Vic Knives.

Check it here. Make sure to also check the other posts on this Melbourne online lit. mag! Some choice poetry and fiction to be enjoyed!

And remember to share this with others!

Onward ever,

Joran