The Magic Pudding

Author: Norman Lindsay

At last! I completed the 2010 Global Reading Challenge in the nick of time. and after searching high and low, I had to resort to an eBook on Project Gutenberg for my Australasian material. What I found was this delightful children's tale first published in 1918.

The story revolves around Bunyip Bluegum, a koala bear who decides to travel the world as a Gentleman of Leisure. Since all he took with him was a walking stick, by lunchtime he was feeling rather peckish and sorry for himself until he chanced upon Bill Barnacle and Sam Sawnoff having lunch. It turned out that their lunch was a steak-n-kidney pudding that, no matter how much of it you ate, always became whole again. With thin arms and legs and a basin for a hat, the pudding was a rude fellow who insisted on being eaten, and so Bunyip was invited to share the meal.

Afterwards the trio travelled together, when they were met by a couple of Pudding Thieves, a Possum and a Wombat. Bunyip kept the pudding from running away by sitting on it, while the Pudding Owners fought off the thieves. Having helped them save the pudding, Bunyip was invited to become a member of the Noble Society of Pudding Owners.

As the Pudding Owners continued on their travels, they were accosted several times by the Thieves, either in disguise or by some other form of trickery. They were also joined by an market gardener - a dog named Benjimen, from whom the Thieves stole a bag that they used to trick the Pudding Owners.

When they finally reached the town of Tooraloo, again they got into a fight with the Pudding Thieves (who were wearing top-hats and coat-tails), hence attracting the attention of the Mayor and the Constable. In an attempt to restore some order to the town, the Mayor declared to the Constable,

"It's very clear that somebody has to be arrested," said the Mayor. "I can't be put to the trouble of wearing my robes of office in public without somebody having to pay for it. I don't care whether you arrest the top-hat batterers, or the battered top-hatterers; all I say is, do your duty, whatever happens—

"So somebody, no matter who,
You must arrest or rue it;
As I'm the Mayor of Tooraloo,
And you've the painful job to do,
I call on you to do it."

upon which the Constable decided to arrest the pudding. They were all then marched off to court for a trial, only to find the Judge and the court Usher indulging in some port and playing cards. The Judge decides to have the pudding for lunch, so Bunyip suggested they try the case themselves, with Bill as prosecutor.

During the proceedings, Bunyip declared that the pudding had been poisoned, therefore astounding the Judge who had already taken seven slices.

"If," said the Usher, in a quavering voice—

"If you take a poisoned Puddin'
And that poisoned Puddin' chew,
The sensations that you suffer
I should rather say were due
To the poison in the Puddin'
In the act of Poisoning You.
And I think the fact suffices
Through this dreadfulest of crimes,
As you've eaten seven slices
You've been poisoned seven times."

"It was your idea having it up on the bench," said the Judge, angrily, to the Usher. "Now,

"If what you say is true,
That idea you'll sadly rue,
The poison I have eaten is entirely due to you.
It's by taking your advice
That I've had my seventh slice,
So I'll tell you what I'll do
You unmitigated Jew,
As a trifling satisfaction,
Why, I'll beat you black and blue,"

and with that he hit the Usher a smart crack on the head with a port bottle.

A commotion began, and in the midst of that melee our Bunyip, his friends and the pudding got away. Finally, as they were pretty close up to the end of the book, they decide to stop wandering and live in a tree house in Benjimen's garden.

This was a lovely, lighthearted book to read, interspersed with songs and rhymes, served in four slices instead of chapters. I can't help thinking, though, that you could look at it from a satirical point of view (especially the events in the town of Tooraloo) and wonder whether it is a reflection of greed and corruption in the administration and judiciary of a government.

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders

Author: Daniyal Mueenuddin

Originally I had intended to read a book by Orhan Pamuk, until my sister pointed out that Turkey is a European country (silly me, the term Asia Minor may have misled me). So we spent an evening at MPH looking for books from the South Asian subcontinent to make up the fifth entry for this Challenge. Books by Chinese and Indian authors I have already read, so this piece of work from Pakistan was something of a discovery.

This book is actually an anthology of 8 tales, interlinked in that they all revolve around the being and belongings of K.K. Harouni, an ancestral landowner from Punjab. However, he is the main character in only one story (the titular In Other Rooms, Other Wonders), where he falls for a servant girl and makes her his mistress. In other stories, he is part of the background - the benevolent employer of an army of servants, the rich uncle of a Western-educated nephew whose name is dropped into the conversation.

Most of the stories are about clandestine relationships - there were a couple that seemed to have the same plot, of a lowly woman having an affair with someone above her station, hoping it would give her a better life but, sadly, dismissed at the end. The rich don't seem to have it any better - the glitz and decadence doing little to give them true everlasting happiness. If there was any moral sermonising to be attached to these stories, the message would be to lead a chaste and honourable life - affairs will get you nowhere. The only story where the protagonist emerged somewhat victorious is Nawabdin Electrician - but then he only ever cheated the utilities company.

By The River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Author: Paulo Coelho

The story is about Pilar who is reconciled with her childhood sweetheart after 10 years. During that period he has travelled and rediscovered religion, and when they meet again he is spreading a message on the feminine face of God.

He invites her to travel with him to France, where he confesses to love her. Despite her earlier resolve, Pilar finds herself reciprocating his feelings, and rediscovers her faith. She also discovers that he has a gift of curing the sick with his hands and is determined to spend the rest of her life as his companion in spreading his gift and the message of the Goddess. He, on the other hand, thinks that Pilar would rather have a normal life with a normal job, and so gives up his gift. It is this that brings Pilar to sit and weep by the river Piedra.

This book is touted as a story about love and the miracle of love. I think it is more about communication, or the different expectations of love and the result of not properly communicating that expectation. Pilar is willing to change her life to fulfill her lover's dreams and help him realise his potential. He (we never know his name), on the other hand, is willing to give up his ambition so that Pilar can continue with her everyday life, as he thinks all she wants in life is to settle down. He does not understand why she is upset rather than feel flattered by his sacrifice.

But isn't Pilar behaving in a truly womanly way? What female doesn't want to be the woman behind the successful man? The ambition and potential is what she loves most about him - reminding me of Renee Zellweger's lines in Jerry Maguire: "I love him for the man he wants to be and the man he almost is."

There was another idea I found more interesting in the book, where a priest relates an experiment in which a group of monkeys are taught to wash their bananas before eating them. The scientist conducting the experiment found out that other groups of monkeys began to do the same thing without ever coming into contact with the first group. The priest describes this as the world having a soul - when a certain number of the species knows something, the whole species will know it too. Malcolm Gladwell would call this The Tipping Point.

Disgrace

Author: J. M Coetzee

"For a man his age, fifty-two, divorced, he has, to his mind, solved the problem of sex rather well." Thus we are introduced to David Lurie, a Communications professor at a technical university in Cape Town. And throughout the book, although it is written in the third person, it is very much written from Lurie’s perspective.

We first get to know Lurie from his scheduled visits to a prostitute named Soraya, who he stops meeting after he sees her with her children. He then seduces his student, Melanie, whose father lodges a sexual harassment complaint to the university, forcing Lurie to resign and retreat to his daughter Lucy’s farm, where she grows flowers and cares for dogs. He suspects her of being a lesbian and not too pleased with her lack of care for her appearance.

In an attempt to rekindle his relationship with Lucy, he gets to know her neighbours, including Petrus, who helps out at the farm. Another neighbour is a lady, Bev Shaw who runs an animal clinic. He finds her unattractive but has an affair with her.

One day three black strangers show up at the farm, asking to make a telephone call. Lurie is locked inside a bathroom and put on fire while his daughter is gang-raped. Later Lurie discovers that one of the rapists is related to Petrus, who was away when the attack happened. He thinks Petrus intentionally allowed the hoodlums to attack Lucy as a way of asserting his growing authority in the area. Lurie urges his daughter to leave the country, but she stubbornly refuses, and when she discovers she is pregnant, decides to keep the baby. Although unhappy about this, Lurie comes to accept her decision and eventually reconciles with her.

Throughout most of the book Lurie comes across as an arrogant intellectual who thinks he is too good for the modern world and can do no wrong, a remnant of the colonial times. He is condescending even when admitting his guilt to the academic committee, claiming to be a servant of Eros acting upon his rights of desire. His relationships with women are merely a means to satisfy his need for sex. The only situation in which he truly cares for someone was also the only time he could not act upon it, which was the attack on Lucy. This event, and those that follow, makes him realise that he is losing his place in the world, that he is no longer a mover and shaker in the world.

In the end Lurie accepts his fate, his fall from grace. As he carries a dog he has grown attached to into Bev’s clinic to be put to sleep, he tells her that, “Yes, I am giving him up.”