A Street Cat Named Bob - James Bowen

DB had a huge weekend of extra work so I'd anticipated not spending much time with him, and then he called to ask me very formally if he could take me out to lunch on the Sunday. He wanted to take me to a place we'd seen but not tried, and to cap it off, he said, there's a cool looking bookshop over the road... So, lunch was had - and very nice too - and then we wandered across the road to check out The Blues Point Bookshop. This is an absolute duck of a bookshop - tiny, but crammed with a fabulous collection of books. The shelves include handwritten precis of many of the books, and it's a wonderful mix of all the things you could possibly want in a bookstore. We spent some time there and I came out with a goodly stack of books, including this one:

Now, this is not the kind of book I'd usually pick up. However, DB has this thing about naming everything 'Bob'. It's become one of those running jokes now, and every time we see a business or sign with 'Bob' in the name, it cracks us up. I had to pick the book up off the shelf to show him, and then, of course, I read the blurb and decided it looked like a lovely read, AND something that DB himself would probably read and enjoy at some point so I added it to the pile.

'Heart-warming' is an adjective you can count on finding somewhere in the blurb or snippets of reviews on the covers of animal stories. This one is no exception. However, I have to say, it's one time that I feel it's entirely justified. London based James Bowen is a recovering drug addict in his late twenties who is living in assisted accommodation, is on a drug recovery programme, is largely isolated from his family (his parents are divorced; his father living in the south of London and his mother in Australia), with a tiny group of friends, some of whom are still using, and has only his busking in the Covent Garden precinct to keep the roof over his head and food on the table. He comes home one night to find an adolescent ginger cat parked on his doorstep. He sidesteps the cat for a few days, but when it doesn't go away, he brings it in and feeds it. Realising the cat isn't well, he takes it to a Blue Cross centre to see a vet, who prescribes medications for an infection and parasites that takes up just about the last of James' available cash.

After a couple of weeks, the cat is much better and James attempts to return him to the streets. The cat refuses to leave. James heads off to catch his bus to Covent Garden for his daily busking routine, and the cat follows. Not wanting to see him killed on the busy roads, James takes him along, riding the bus, then setting up to play, where the cat parks himself on the guitar case. The novelty of the ginger cat calmly staying put in the midst of all the hustle and bustle of busy central London attracts more people than James usually has watching and he has a very good day. He gives in far enough to call the cat Bob. Bit by bit, he comes to realise that Bob isn't going anywhere, and neither does he want Bob to leave.

When his busking is curtailed, he moves on and becomes a Big Issue seller. He is still haunted by his demons, and when faced by adversity, realises he's still making some poor decisions. Bob becomes a huge motivating factor, helping James make the big choice to come off methadone, and take the next step to being completely clean.

This is a short and easy read, and James doesn't pull his punches. In a fairly economical style, he paints a picture of his life on the streets addicted to heroin, and touching on some of the petty crime he committed to feed his habit. The realisation that having the responsibility for something other than himself is an epiphany that opens his eyes to the possibility of real change. Along the way, Bob becomes well known. Initially, while James is still busking they have their regulars who pop up and drop money in the guitar case and leave gifts for Bob. Later, selling The Big Issue, the same thing happens, even when they have to move to a different area after trouble from some of the other sellers due to what they see as James' unfair advantage, because of the attention Bob attracts. Bob becomes famous via YouTube videos, something James finds out from a group of Spanish tourists who recognise them selling magazines near the Angel Islington.

Even if you find animal stories a bit cringe-worthy, give this one a go. It's written in a refreshingly breezy style. There's no mawkish sentiment. It's just a very simple, lovely story about a man and his cat making a go of it on the streets of London.

You can see one of the short films about them here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vl2nBSqpsRA

Some great Aussie bookstores

A friend of mine posted this list on Facebook last night - and this time I remember who it was! It's by no means exhaustive, but it is a rather lovely list of bookshops around the company - all of them, except one, in capital cities. I know all three of the Sydney ones, and the Adelaide ones, so roll on some travelling, methinks!

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jemimaskelley/bookshops-in-australia-to-see-before-you-die?bffb

47 random facts about children's books

This video was posted on Facebook today. It might even have been posted to me by some thoughtful person, but for the life of me, I can't remember who it might have been - apologies phantom poster, if indeed that was the case. Anyhow, it's a slightly frenetic, but most enjoyable round up of bits and pieces about a wide ranging selection of children's and young adult's books. It's well worth sitting through the just over eleven minutes:

http://mentalfloss.com/article/56847/47-charming-facts-about-childrens-books

The Golem and the Djinni - Helene Wecker

OK, some major kicking myself in the pants to get this post done. The book has been sitting looking (glaring) at me for WEEKS...seriously. Bad blogger! This is for the 'book with non- human characters' square on the Book Bingo chart. It's also a book I kept seeing around the place that I meant to get my hands on, but one way or another, hadn't... So, in an airport bookshop with a three hour flight ahead of me, I figured the time had come.

To preface my review, for those who don't know, the two creatures come from legend or myth. A golem is a figure made of clay that is brought to life by magic, and the legends come from the mystic, or Kabbalistic, end of Judaism. The most famous is the Golem of Prague - a legend about a golem created to protect the Jews of Prague in the 1500s. Typically, they have enormous strength, don't require food or sleep, and are bound to their master - usually the person who created them. A djinni (alternatively djin, or djinn - useful Scrabble word, by the way!) is found in Arabic and Muslim mythology, and is an intelligent spirit of lower rank than the angels. Djinni can appear in human or animal form and can possess humans.

The main narrative is set in New York in 1899, a time of enormous migration of Jews from the Pale of Settlement to the New World, to escape increasing anti-semitism and pogroms. On a ship bound for America is Otto Rotfeld. His life is in ruins, at 33, having frittered away the family business within five years of inheriting it. The solution, he thinks, is to leave and start over. He also wants a wife, but as a gangly and unattractive man, he's never had any success with women. So, after purchasing his ticket, he uses the last of his funds to commission Yehudah Schaalman - a man known to dabble in the Kabbalah - to create a female golem for him. After many misgivings, but lured by the challenge of making such a golem, Schaalman creates her. She's packed into a freight crate, together with instructions for bringing her to life - which Schaalman cautions Rotfeld not to do until he's safely landed. However, on the ship, Rotfeld becomes ill, and in his delirium makes his way into the hold, locates the crate, and activates the golem who, when he finally collapses, carries him back up to the deck to the ship's doctor. However, the doctor is unable to save Rotfeld, and the golem is left masterless, with no ticket, fussed over by the crew as the bereaved wife. She realises that with no ticket, and no other papers, she has no way of getting through immigration - so she vanishes over the side of the ship as they enter the harbour and walks - under water - to shore, emerging on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

Fortunately, early on during the days she is fumbling to learn how to conduct herself, she is discovered by old Rabbi Meyer, who, while not initially believing what he sees, realises what she is. He takes her in, names her Chava (life), begins to teach her how to blend in, gets her a job at the local bakery, and becomes her mentor. However, just as she's beginning to feel reasonably confident, the rabbi dies. Now, without master or mentor, she has to find her own way.

Meanwhile, a few neighbourhoods away in the Syrian community, the local tinsmith, Boutros Arbeely is given an old, battered copper flask to mend and polish. He has barely begun the work when a great bolt throws him off his feet, across the room and onto the floor by a table. Gathering himself back up, he is amazed to find a naked man lying on the floor of his shop. Getting up, the man sees Arbeely and lunges at him, and pins him to the floor with a soldering iron - which grows hotter and hotter in his hand - demanding to know where the wizard is... Reeling, Arbeely starts to realise that the man is a djinni, although he never really believed in the myths he'd gown up hearing. The djinni realises Arbeely is just an ordinary man and releases him, demanding to know where he is. It turns out that the djinni has been trapped inside the flask for many centuries by a wizard who outwitted him back in Syria. With no way of freeing himself, due to the iron cuff on his wrist, which also keeps him trapped in human form, the djinni has no option but to accept Arbeely's offer of hospitality and, when the djinni offers to help him with his business, they become partners.

Eventually, the golem and the djinni meet - although it takes quite a bit of reading to get to that point - and a most unlikely friendship grows. Both creatures that need neither food or sleep, therefore with a lot of surplus time on their hands, both stuck in situations not of their choosing, both powerless to change their situations, they come to understand each other well, and despite very different natures, to care for one another and to feel protective of the other's vulnerabilities. It's not an easy relationship. They are very, very different. They frustrate and, at times, alarm each other. Eventually their pasts catch up with them in a most unexpected manner, and that bond is severely tested.

This is a wonderful read. It kept me going on the plane, and during down times while we were in New Zealand recently. I found myself resenting having to put it down. It moves at a good pace, the contemporary narrative interspersed with the story of the djinni's past, a device that makes sense of the collision of their separate journeys when the story reaches its ultimate crisis. As a debut novel, it's a tour de force. The historical detail in the portrayal of New York's immigrant communities in the late 19th century is meticulously researched. While I am not familiar with the tenor of a Syrian community, the flavour of the Jewish community is portrayed with great authenticity. The blend of human and mythical stories is balanced and believable.

You'll enjoy this book if you have a taste for fantasy that is well grounded in the human experience. You'll also like it if you enjoy myths and legends. I picked my copy up in one of the bookshops in the Sydney International Airport for under $20, so it's also not something you'll have to try hard to justify!

Poetry for Mother's Day

It's Mother's Day in Australia today. When I was growing up, it wasn't the big commercially oriented day of hype it's morphed into these days. My mother wasn't even remotely interested in fancy presents. I found a huge collection of handmade cards she'd saved from when we were little in  amongst her things after she died. And on the day, some flowers picked from the garden and a box of those thin Red Tulip after dinner mints were more than enough in the way of special treats for her.

Mum loved poetry. As the years go by and we reach Mother's Day each May, the month before she died, I find myself deep in her collection of poetry books that I inherited. I wrote about this back in June 2012 on her yahrzeit (the yearly anniversary of a death) - you can read that post here. Today, finding myself back in the bookcase amongst the poetry books, it was her own poetry I was hunting... She was published, just once, in an anthology she co-edited in 2000. She made me go to the launch to read her poem - she refused to do it herself, although, that's what all the others did. She was never one to look for a spotlight. Having talked with her on a number of occasions about the genesis of this poem, it was fascinating to hear all the interpretations that came at me in the discussion following my reading. They were, by the way, ALL wrong! Although, that's one of the beauties of poetry - we are free to make whatever interpretation we like for ourselves of a poem, as well as possibly seeking out what drove the poet to write it in the first place. In keeping with Mum's own reticence about it (she was a very private person), I'll offer up the poem here, but not what inspired it - and you can take from it what you will...

That Day

Time tunnelled that day
   twisted, turned -
                      this way
                      - and that.

Feeling flustered that day
   feathered, flew -
                       this way
                       - and that.

Touch trembled that day
   trespassed, triggered -
                       this way
                       - and that.

O how we hovered that day
   hollered, hungered,
          threw hats to the wind
            and caution, too -
                        this way
                        - and that.

Love lingered
   languished, left -
                        couldn't stay
                                    - that day.

Judith Finch 1934-2003

Happy Mother's Day to all the mums out there, and my thoughts are with those who are missing their mums.

Rashi's Daughters: Joheved - Maggie Anton

Book two in the book bingo challenge: Rashi's Daughters - Joheved, by Maggie Anton, for the first book by a favourite author category. My copy of this book is SO dog-eared! I guess that more than qualifies it as a favourite, given it got that way from frequent re-reading.

Rashi (1040-1105) - a Hebrew acronym for Rabbi Shlomo ha Yitzhaki - is one of the greatest of the Jewish sages. The first Hebrew book to be printed was his Bible commentary, and his commentaries occupy  the inside column of ever page of the Talmud, surrounded by later commentaries by his disciples and grandsons. He lived in France in the middle ages and founded a yeshiva in the city of Troyes when he came home from studying in Germany after his mother was no longer capable of running the family vineyard alone. At that time, the tradition - as is still the case in the Orthodox Jewish world - was that only boys studied Talmud - Jewish Law. However, Rashi had no sons, just three daughters, Joheved, Miriam, and Rachel. Against their mother's wishes, in response to their interest and his need to teach prior to establishing his yeshiva, he began to teach his daughters. There is also the suggestion that all three girls wore tefillin (phylacteries) when they prayed, also traditionally only worn by men.

There were precedents for these three girls to both study Talmud and wear tefillin. It is said that Michal, daughter of King Solomon, wore them. There are also previous female scholars, one of the most well known being Beruriah - who lived in the second century CE - daughter of Rabbi Chananiah ben Teradion, one of the Ten Martyrs killed by the Romans to prevent the teaching of Torah. Rashi's own commentaries also lend support to the idea that his daughters were both scholars and possibly wore tefillin. He was, at heart, a pragmatist. One of the responsibilities of Talmud scholars is to interpret both Torah and Talmud - the ongoing discussion on Torah - to make rulings on how things should and shouldn't be done in contemporary times. Rashi's time, Medieval France, was a time of prosperity for Jews, particularly Jewish merchants, who travelled far and wide, and congregated at the great fairs twice a year to trade. Relations between Jews and Christians were cordial, but cautious. Troyes, in the Champagne district, was a busy centre of trade, which saw travellers and traders of all nations, with varying customs intersecting and interacting. Rigid interpretations of the laws could have alienated relationships at best, and at worst, caused deep schisms. Rashi's commentaries indicated that he was a man who thought carefully and broadly about various aspects of any given laws and sought to come to positions that would best serve his community in the long term.

There is nowhere in Torah that states that women are forbidden to study, or to wear tefillin (a time bound mitzvah). Discussions in the Talmud move around the issue, with different commentators all offering differing views. Where they agree is that when it comes to time bound miztvot - i.e. those that must be done at certain times, like morning prayers (when tefillin are worn) - it may be difficult for women, especially once they have responsibilities for a household and children, which may prevent her from meeting the time bound requirements. Therefore, women are exempt from having to honour those mitzvot, while men are required to. That has come to be interpreted by Orthodox rabbis to mean that women don't, and shouldn't, observe these mitzvot. There is, in fact, an argument that comes up in this first volume of Anton's three part series (one book for each of Rashi's daughters) that suggests that the more educated women are in Torah and the Law, the better they will be able to observe them and pass them on to their children, so why not allow them to study the same as the boys.

Anton has fictionalised the history of Rashi, his family, students and descendents, filling in the gaps left in the commentaries, histories and documentation. Careful research has resulted in an incredibly rich book that gives a wonderful insight into the lives of Jewish women in Medieval France. Joheved is portrayed as a bright, conscientious girl, who has been taught by her grandmother, Leah, to manage the finances of the family vineyard, in addition to creating a good vintage. She is proficient at spinning - remembering that this is before spinning wheels, so girls and women habitually carried a drop spindle and spun at any odd moments throughout the day in order to create enough yarn to weave into cloth for family garments and household linens. In this time of arranged marriages, she begs her father to find a scholar for her to marry, someone who will appreciate her knowledge and not prevent her from continuing to study. Her wish is fulfilled with her marriage to Meir ben Samuel, younger son of a Jewish lord and sheep farmer, who was once a study partner of Rashi himself in Germany. They go on to have six children, including four boys, all of whom are scholars, and some of whom became revered in their own right for their scholarship.

Anton has, quite rightly, been lauded for her Talmudic scholarship, which is hugely evident in these books. If you've ever wanted to dip your toe into Talmud study, but have been scared to try, Joheved will give you a taste, as there are Talmudic discussions and arguments sprinkled liberally throughout the narrative. It's one reason I keep going back and re-reading this book and the other two - Anton's scholarship is formidable. I love a good story too, so writing these as historical fiction opens them up to a much wider readership than, perhaps, a pure history might have. It has also enabled Anton to fill in the gaps and unknowns in the history of Rashi's daughters as much has been lost through lack of documentation, as is the case for so much of women's history.

The books are available online and in selected bookstores - but don't try and find them in mainstream chains, because they won't be there! I got mine at Gold's Judaica in Bondi. They're a bit addictive. I can't read Joheved without wanting to keep going and read the other two (I'm halfway through Miriam now...). Anton has already published the first of a new trilogy Rav Hisda's Daughter - Apprentice, and the second in that series, Enchantress, is due out later this year. They're set in Babylon after the expulsion of the Jews from the Holy Land by the Romans after the destruction of the second Temple in 70CE. Again, another scholar...lovely stuff.

Peanuts rule!

I love Charles Schulz's Peanuts. They were in the Sunday papers when I was growing up. you could buy books of them. There was a movie. And, somewhere - in storage I think... - is a book for my tiny book series that's just Lucy. So, when someone posted this on Facebook the other day, I had to share it. It cracked me up!!

Might be a little while til my next Bingo post - I put my hand on the place the Mary Wesley novel should have been and it wasn't there. Some gremlin has moved it... You know that feeling when you're planning to read a particular book and you can't get your hands on it? I stood in front of the bookcases last night feeling SO frustrated. My mind was all set for that book. None of the others looked appealing. I got over it - it's not like I lack choice with four six foot bookcases full of fiction, adult and child... But the one I chose was a heftier read than the Wesley novel. So, bear with me...I'll get to the next post asap!