Wordsville

Charlotte Wood is the editor of Brothers & Sisters, a collection of short stories and non-fiction about siblings by 12 of Australia’s finest writers. She is also the author of novels The Children, The Submerged Cathedral and Pieces of a Girl. Her books have been short listed for several prizes including the Australian Book Industry Awards, the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. She lives in Sydney with her husband and is working on her fourth novel. 

Who taught you to read and how old were you?

I guess my parents and older sister helped along with my kindergarten teacher; I think I was five. I remember the moment of learning to read incredibly vividly. I was kneeling on the living room floor about three feet from the heater and a foot from the kitchen door, wearing woollen stockings and a little pleated skirt, staring and staring at the book on the floor in front of me. What I remember most was the desperate will to read, to understand.

And when I finally made it out, the word was ‘the’. It was one of the most powerful moments of my life — it was like staring at one of those Magic Eye pictures with the hidden image, and then suddenly seeing it. I recognised right away the sheer magnitude of the moment, and I knew in my little five year old heart that my world had changed forever, and that this was it — this moment of comprehension, after all the waiting and straining, was now finally opening the world to me. I still get shivers thinking about it.

Which books did you love as a child?

I loved the usual suspects: The Famous Five, The Secret Seven, but when I was quite small my father read The Magic Pudding to me every night for what seemed like forever. Adored it. Then when I could read more by myself, I was a huge fan of the Mary Plain books that nobody seems to have heard of. Mary was a precocious and quite badly behaved bear who lived in the Bear Pits in Berne, Switzerland, and had a kind of (platonic!) sugar daddy who came and took her out for trips and adventures.  The Mary Plain books were written by Gwynedd Rae and illustrated by Irene Williamson. Later, Nancy Drew was my heroine; so cool, with her flaming Titian hair and her sports car …

Which five authors (living or dead) would you like to have dinner with?

Patrick White, Richard Ford, Alice Munro, William Maxwell and Dorothy Porter. I suspect Alice and William would be in the kitchen while Patrick has the sulks and Richard and Dorothy flirt like crazy …

Name the last two books you have read and rate them out of 5 (5 is the best).

Latecomers by Anita Brookner 4/5

I’m a latecomer to Brookner so this was an apt beginning. A moving 50-year portrait of the friendship between Hartmann and Fibich, two Jewish Londoners who meet at a boys’ home after escaping Nazi Germany as children.  Some readers are frustrated by its interiority, but to me it’s a perfect example of how and why a novel is not a film. A redemptive portrait of two very different men and their attempts to transcend tragedy.

A Gate at the Stairs byLorrie Moore 2/5

I am a big fan of Lorrie Moore’s short stories, especially her collection Birds of America, so was quite thrilled at news of her new novel. Sad to say it hasn’t lived up to expectation; Moore just can’t resist the classy gag and wordplay at every opportunity, which gets tiresome, despite the fantastic premise and some beautiful pure moments of sincerity.

Where is your favourite place to read?

On the couch, with a glass of wine (at night, obviously … a cup of tea at other times!)

You are being sent to a remote island for who knows how long – which three books are you going to take with you?

Hmm, might have to get an e-reader. Impossible to say, but William Maxwell would be there, and Patrick White.

How do you organise your personal library at home?

In sections for fiction, non-fiction, anthologies/poetry, writing books; and then (loosely) alphabetically within sections.

Print or e-book?

Print, forever. And paperback rather than hardback. But I am intrigued by e-readers and may have to check one out soon …

Charlotte Wood blogs about cooking and food in literature at www.howtoshuckanoyster.com and has a website at www.charlottewood.com.au

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