#AWW2019 Helen Garner

• Author:  Helen Garner
  
• Title: Everywhere I Look
  
• Published: 2016
  
• Genre: essays
• Rating: A+++++
• Trivia: 2017 Indie Book Awards WINNER non-fiction
• Trivia: 2018 longlist Kibble Literary Award for an established author
• Trivia: 2017 shortlist NSW Premier’s Literary Award
  
• List of Challenges 2019
• Monthly plan
• #AWW2019
• @AusWomenWriter

 

Introduction:

1. I immediately felt an connection with Helen Garner when
2. reading this book.
3. The years are creeping up on both of us and she describes
4. moments I have gone through.

 

My Notes:

Moving…

1. 6 shoeboxes of old photographs
2. that failed to make the cut for the album.
3. and having to endure how young we looked
4. I threw out all the photo’s and negatives
5. ….just like Helen did!

 

Cleaning out closets…

1. Storage room, drawers….just like Helen said
2. “once you start you have to keep going til it’s done”.
3. In July it took me 9 days to clean out my house from top to bottom.
4. I hesitated when I had to throw
5. out my favorite sweatshirt.
6. It was 10 yrs old, fraying at the cuffs.
7. It had to go but I still think about it!

 

House…

1. A house can be domineering,
2. ….you have to get into the driver’s seat.
3. Bed…is mother
4. ...and bed is the center of our personal universe.
5. It is the safe point from which we let
6. …ourselves down in to the shadows of sleep.
7. In August I finally decided to get a new bed…after 40 years!
8. It is deluxe and I feel the arms of mother embracing me every time
9. I go to sleep.

 

Dear Mrs. Dunkley…

1. We all have a teacher that was unforgettable
2. Who was yours?

 

Part Three: Dreams of Her Real Self

1. So impressive thoughts about Helen Garner’s
2. grandchildren, daughter, mother, father….

 

Authors I met in the book:

Elizabeth Jolley -Novels

1. Palomino (1980)
2. The Newspaper of Claremont Street (1981)
3. Miss Peabody’s Inheritance (1983)
4. Mr Scobie’s Riddle (1983)
5. Milk and Honey (1984)
6. Foxybaby (1985)
7. The Well (1986)
8. The Sugar Mother (1988)
9. My Father’s Moon (1989)
10. Cabin Fever (1990)
11. The Georges’ Wife (1993)
12. The Orchard Thieves (1995) 
13. Famous last line in this book:
14. ‘The difference between a good haircut and a bad haircut is a week.’
15. Lovesong (1997)
16. An Accommodating Spouse (1999)
17. An Innocent Gentleman (2001)

 

Janet Malcom (1934) 

1. American writer,  journalist, staff writer The New Yorker
2. Is the writer who influenced and taught
3. Helen Garner more than any other!
4. According to Garner, Janet Maclom draws on
5. deep learning yet plain in its address.
6. That is a perfect description of Garner’s writing as well!

 

Other writers:

1. Jacob Rosenburg “Sunset West”
2. Alex Miller – “Coal Creek”
3. Raimond Gaita
4. “Romulus, My Father” (Australian philosopher)
   It tells the story of Romulus, his beautiful wife, Christina, and their struggle in the face of great adversity to bring up their son, Raimond. It is a story of impossible love that ultimately celebrates the unbreakable bond between father and son.
   Best Film Australian Film Industry 2007
   ORDERED THE MOVIE !!

 

Conclusion:

1. This was a book I did not want to end.
2. Garner’s insights about Russel Crowe’s filmography
3. and an Australian Ballet company were mesmerizing.
4. But my favorite essay was ‘The Insults of Age”.
5. This will be recognizable for every 60+’er!
6. Helen Garner’s writing is clean and crisp
7. ..nothing is slick or shallow.
8. It is “reading caviar” !