Emily Paull

As I write this, I am trying to think back to Wednesday night when I stayed up past midnight finishing this book. I remember that it was unusually warm considering that the day had been so rainy, and I remember that my bed and its usual mountain of pillows was very comfortable. I remember turning page after page of this book and being fascinated by the things I recognised from my own life in the story. Because, you see, Simone Lazaroo, author of Sustenance, teaches at my university, and her daughter is my age. I went to school with her daughter. And the Perth in this book was my Perth, so that was pretty amazing. I have to keep this Thoughts On (the third last) short and sweet because I only have two weeks left of uni until the nuclear apocalypse also known as the day all my assignments are due happens. I have been writing a plan for a History essay all day and its longer than the actual essay is supposed to be, so that's a bit annoying. Plus it's all quotes. You know h...

What if your life is an illusion? What if your life is a myth? What if your entire life has been predestined for you, written in letters that look like clothing on a washing line by an aging gypsy magician who dies not once but twice? What would you do then? Aureliano Buendia never has to contemplate the answer to this. He doesn't have time. The manuscript, which after 100 years can finally be read, tells of his imminent destruction; seconds later, the village of Macondo is wiped from the memory of the Earth by apocalyptic winds. This may be one of the most important books I have ever read. It raises several issues which I will briefly outline. 1) History. I'm not only a student of English Literature, I'm also a History student. It makes for an interesting point of contrast, when I realise under the influence of discourses like New Historicism and Post Modernism, that OFFICIAL HISTORIES do not exist. And just like a novel, history can be interpreted in a multitude ...

I don't think that it's for no reason that there is an essay question option for my class that claims the characters are less important than the technology they use. Had the manuscript been rejected by the publishers, the rejection letter might have read something like this. Dear Mr. Clancy, It is my regretful duty to inform you that we will not be optioning the publication of your manuscript "The Hunt for Red October." As you know, we only take on a small number of new options per year, and your work narrowly missed the cut.* Your writing shows great determination and commitment, but is not what we are looking for at the current time. We wish you the best of luck in your future endeavours. Sincerely, Joachim Bennett** Big False Publishing Company, Elimy's Desk, Australia P.S. You might consider sending your submission to the United States Navy, as many of your passages read EXACTLY like a technical manual. If fiction is definitely the course that you would l...

Don't ask me why, but when I bought this book ($10 at the guild second hand bookshop), suffice to say I was less than enamoured with it. For some reason, I looked at it and it seemed thick ; the other thing that struck me was that it seemed like a depressing French book. Is that just me being culturally ignorant about the name Andre? Perhaps. More than perhaps. I kept thinking about it along the same vein as the book Perfume. How stupid I was. The Rights of Desire is a charming, deep novel set in South Africa, around the time of Mandela's long walk to freedom. I think the historical setting tells you a lot about the tone of the book; the weight of history hangs low throughout the lives of the protagonists, and the sadness and futility of the way they live their lives immediately puts me on their side even though the things that they have done, and continue to do I sometimes find reprehensible. Although by the final section I found that I could predict what was going t...