You know what I was saying about writers reading?

You know how I was saying writers should read?

Writers should not read Ian McEwan. At least not if they're me.

Just thought I should provide that small caveat to my wholesome advice. As Nick Hornby says, if you don't like a book, do yourself and everyone else a favour and stop reading it, because there is no "right" or "wrong" when reading. You're always right. It's the pure selfish joy of reading. You get to put the book down.

By the way, for the record: the book is Saturday, and what I don't like is long, slow description of a man stumbling numbling through a right wing perspective he just feels wash over him like instinct. McEwan is smarter than that and should stop pretending he's not actually representing a more considered perspective. I didn't like this when Flannagan did it with the terrorist book and I don't like it when Helen Garner does it. Smart writers making their characters stupid and innocent thereby depriving them of the eloquence to defend the perspective they are invented to represent. It seems to be to be weak or dishonest. I think I'll go back to the young adult fiction. Immediately.

They say if you write, you should also read. Trouble is, you're always writing so you've got no time to read, right?

Right.

Well I've found something called readernaut.com, which you need to be "invited" to join because it's in the early stages but it's a good way of realising, yet again, how little I've read and how large the holes are that need fixing in my lopsided but enthusiastic reading history. It's also a great way to look at what you liked and be reminded about what you don't like.

I like plays. I love reading them. Actually, and I know this is counterproductive for someone working in theatre, but I don't so much love watching them, unless they're excellent.

Speaking of which, here's a tip. If you're sick of going to mainstream theatre and seeing a sea of grey-haired dentists snoozing gently and wishing David Williamson was still writing, get ye to Avast I and Avast II, at the Malthouse of all places.

These guys rocked my very surprised and delighted socks a few years ago when they did Avast II at Smith Street (they're doing the sequel, Avast I alongside it now. Of course they are).

This is the theatre show I tell people about. I literally felt different as I came away from the theatre. There were dudes in washing machines putting ochre into their pants while arguing about blind adopted brothers, there was opera, there was monologue and dialogue, and there was, on the night I went, a guy reading all the Nobel Prize acceptance speeches in a row (he didn't get very far, but he had them in his hand and hell, the guy could bellow).

Anyway. That's all you need to know. Be prepared to be surprised out of yourself. Oh, and in case it makes any difference: I don't know these people. I know one of them, distantly, from years ago. He used to wear gloves. I called him Gloveboy. That's the extent of things, bias-wise.

Also, you may have noticed, you still can't comment on these posts. We're working on it. By which I mean, someone smarter than I am has a solution that involves something I don't understand, which hasn't happened yet. Comments through the CONTACT US page will reach us.

I have decided that unless I am directed towards any evidence to the contrary, I do not enjoy contemporary fiction and am going to STOP READING IT, with the exception of young adult fiction, which is usually excellent by the way and I think everyone should get a copy of anything by Meg Rosoff, Ruth Park or Doug Macleod. 

Grown-up fiction (as opposed to adult fiction, which may well be more exciting) seems at the moment to be about metaphors and nicely written descriptions of people having dull or mildly depressing times in domestic settings leading towards inevitable endings which are supposed to be a "reflection of today's ____  society".

You may insert one of the following in place of the gap:

- alienated

- post 911

- cafe latte

- media obsessed

- interconnected

- anonymous

You may at no point insert the following words in place of the gap, lest the fiction book not be awarded a prize described by the newspapers who fund it as "important":

- hilarious

- actual

By way of testing my theory that it is the novel as a form that I dislike, rather than the particular novel I am reading at the time, I have recently read some novels by excellent writers (Tim Winton, Anne Enright, John Banville) and I have come to the conclusion that, for the moment at least, while novels describing mild feelings of detachment are fashionable, the novel is a very boring and worthy structure and I much prefer:

- short stories

- autobiographies

- articles in The New Yorker that I never manage to finish

-  funny emails (from Scottish Phil, for instance, who sends me emails that I print out and read small sections of to people for days). Tim Bain is also an excellent long-distance emailer and should be highly commended in this category.

I know it is immature of me to want something to happen in my novels. I studied literature enough to know that some writers (ee cummings anyone?) think even capital letters are conformist and hierarchical. And I support them, I do, but for the time being, my tastes remain conservative in the sense that I would quite like to be interested in what happens on the next page of whatever it is I am reading. I know closure is unfashionable but trust me, it's not closure I want, it's a POINT. Looking at the booker prize list, I see the most hated book and I grin widely. Vernon God Little. The only fiction book I've liked for what we in the Young Adult Fiction world call "yonks".

Any recommendations of books that will revive my interest in the novel, or in fiction generally, are welcome and I will not pre-judge. I will even try not to post judge. I went to the MTC last night and I haven't even sworn since.

Have you ever noticed that when you're wearing headphones or listening to music in the car, not only do you walk/jiggle/tap to the beat of the music you're listening to, but so does everyone else?

I swear there were two people arguing in a traffic jam today with hand gestures choreographed to very spooky effect to accompany Bright Eyes' Christmas album. It was like watching my own short film on punt road. Performance art has its place.

In other news I have finished watching degrassi and press gang and now i'm reading young adult fiction. It's bloody great. I don't know why I ever moved on.

I'm currently reading Doug McLeod's very, very funny books that make me laugh out loud (and wonder how on earth we got him to agree to work with us), but prior to that I was reading Sonia Hartnett, Meg Rossof, and a book of short stories that came pretty close to giving me nightmares. Kids' books are awesome and I doubt I will ever go back.

Meanwhile, wouldn't a quiet break over Christmas be lovely?

Yeah, right.

There's a certain trend I'm not enjoying at the moment, when it comes to writing. I'm not enjoying the fashionable films or books we're supposed to find "important" because they're about people who fail to communicate.

During the Melbourne International Film Festival, maybe two thirds of the films I saw were about husbands failing to communicate with wives, parents failing to communicate with children, murderers throttling people because of secrets unuttered.

Then I decided maybe the problem was that this trend is permeating film. I bought a few books. I read "The Memory Keeper's Daughter" and "We Need To Talk About Kevin", the first of which is about a family whose lack of truthful communication makes them numb and angry strangers, and the second of which is about a family whose lack of truthful communication makes them numb and angry strangers.

Reading each book, watching every film, I was always hanging out for the ending. There has to be a pay-off, I thought. There has to be a reason for all this repressed miscommunication being rammed down our throats. Surely the interesting thing isn't the lack of communication itself? Surely there's more to this writing than "people shouldn't keep secrets" or "people don't talk to each other anymore in this soulless society" or some similar indictment on the contemporary world?

But apparently emotionally stunted repression with predictably dichotomous results is so hot right now.

I'm bored by it. Bring on the talking. Bring on Aaron Sorkin's novel-writing career. Dickens Does Post 9/11. Somebody SAY SOMETHING, for crying out loud.

Yesterday, I was struck? Became stricken? Was struckerated? Let me try that again: I have been struck down with a cold/flu/hideous head cold type of arrangement. About three years ago, I used to get sick all the time. Back in those days, being sick was depressing. It was oppressive and personal - largely because it was ongoing and I was supposed to be getting work done.

Nowadays, (providing I'm not too sick) it's kind of an enforced break. I'm the only person I disappoint (tonight I am missing the wonderful Shane Koyczan at the Malthouse) and I'm costing MYSELF money, rather than other people, so I don't feel quite so guilty or resentful, and I don't feel obliged to do... well... anything.

As a result, check out my achievements over the past two days:

1. Finished reading a novel that has been driving me completely insane (We Need To Talk About Kevin). I'm one of those people who watches a thriller where everyone is cruel and vile and it gets to the end and I say to the person sitting next to me, "So WHAT? What the hell am I supposed to do with that?" This is a little bit how I feel when I read a book about people who can't communicate and who end up being vile to each other for no reason with violent consequences. It was interesting that it was a woman writing about not liking her son who turned out to be involved in a school massacre but it seemed contrived to me, and deliberately directionless. Anyway. That's what I thought. So I finished it. And then I went outside.

2. Went for a walk to the park and lay about on the grass with the sun on my sick face.

3. Looked at everyone else in the park, lying on the grass, and wondered who they all were. Where did they come from? Are they all sick, too? Are they chucking sickies and they're not really sick? Are they internet people or shift workers or consultants? One of them, as I stumbled dumbly past, called the other one "a bit slack", so possibly the herald sun should get down there, pronto.

4. Started a book of short stories by Miranda July. Oh Miranda, you're so clever.

*Adds to list of literary crushes*

5. Dawdled on facebook. Check this out (thanks to Josh):

... makes me think I fall a little too heavily on the "got language and opposable thumbs" side and a little too scantily on the "got short term memory" side. What was I saying etc etc.

6. And half cleaned my bedroom. Some days when I'm WELL don't go as productively as these two. Yay for the flu. Now, bugger off please flu. I can't afford this.

I often wonder what the tax department must think of me. Over the past two weeks, I have purchased the following tax deductable work-related items:

1 Book about literary women, which I've already read but some bastard borrowed it and never gave it back and it's a cracker. Ten bucks on the Readings bargain table, it's extremely well written by someone who used to write for The New Yorker and I can't remember what it's called but I recommend it if you want to know about Ayn Rand or Gertrude Stein in a way that makes you feel like you went to school with them.

1 CD of Maya Angelou reading I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings (cos she speaks good).

1 Dawson's Creek DVD (for listening to the infernal but sometimes funny dialogue and attempting not to shout through everything Katie Holmes says).

1 Degrassi Junior High DVD (for listening to the dialogue, checking how clunky the "themes" are, and revisiting my early crush on Joey Jeremiah).

1 Flight of the Navigator DVD (oh my childhood self wriggles with delight).

1 Full pass to the Melbourne International Film Festival, including tickets to a documentary about the American health system and a female revenge fantasy comedy horror.

1 uni-ball fine liner (green).

1 ticket to "Knocked Up" (shut up, I needed a break from the highbrow intellectualism not reflected anywhere in this list).

1 ticket to "Blades of Glory" (again, it was a weekend break - what are you, the thought police?).

And some costs brought about by an upcoming trip for the law talking job.

So, a Will Ferrell film and the Romanian goat herding documentaries of MIFF... together at last. My kind of universe.

In other news: I finished my book, Vernon God Little, which of course everyone else in the known universe has already read. Guess what, world? I liked it, too! Really well written, funny as hell, smart and thought-wrangling. I do like a thought wrangle.

He's won the booker prize and now he's been praised by me. DPC Pierre must be pinching himself.

Having checked out the wikipedia page on the book, I am even more proud of finishing it on account of the fact that 35% of all Britons polled who read it did not finish it. Slackers.

Oh, the other thing I claimed on tax: expensive internet. Better go and use it to do some actual work.