John Aivide Lindqvist- Handling The Undead

There's quite the buzz, in genre circles at least, around John Aivide Linqvist. His first novel, Let The Right One In, an unconventional vampire tale set, like this book in his native Sweden, became a successful film. Arguably, the reason both the novel and the subsequent film adaptation work so well is their disavowal of Hollywood stereotype. Happily for the morons amongst us there's an English language, Hollywood remake set for a 2010 release. No doubt it will savage the source material, much in the same manner the recent, nasty film version of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend did. For those who haven't seen that particular gem, rabid zombie/vampires don't make me squirm anywhere near as much as the manipulative placing of a pet (in this case a German Shepherd) in mortal peril...

Handling The Undead finds us once again confronting the intrusion of the supernatural into the everyday world of suburban Stockholm. The population are near breaking point as an inexplicable electrical fault surges to a climax along with the paralysing headaches experienced by everyone in the greater Stockholm region. Just when it seems that no one can take any more, the pain disappear and everything returns to normal. Well, almost to normal because anyone recently deceased, whether in a morgue or cemetery, decides to get up again...

The plot follows the travails of a group of characters forced to confront the living dead- or the "Reliving" as they are euphemistically christened. The author uses this unlikely premise- for which the most vague and perfunctory of explanations is eventually offered- to explore the bonds of love, the power the state can exert and religious hysteria, among other things. One can't help but think, however, that any clarification of the central mystery comes at the detriment of the novel over all.

Only referred to as "zombies" in a handful of instances, the Reliving, although genuinely disturbing, remain, for much of the novel, an almost benign presence. The tension is gradually ratcheted up and their true nature is only revealed in the last third of the book. It probably says much about my own foibles that the substantial psychic element of the story (it is discovered that those who spend any time in the company of the Reliving can read each others minds) rubbed me the wrong way. It seems I'm far more able to accept the prospect of our loved ones returning from the grave than I am psychic abilities... Or maybe it's just the mixing of the two that I found awkward.

Handling The Undead (surely it was a missed opportunity to not call the book Handling The Reliving?) is a diverting enough way to spend your time but, ultimately, it isn't as satisfying a read as Let The Right One In. I bet the movie will be great though...

Christos Tsiolkas- The Slap

The Slap feels very much the novel of the moment- particularly if the waiting list at my local library is any indication. This years winner of The Commonwealth Writers Prize and one of the runners up (to Tim Winton's masterful Breath) in the Miles Franklin. Unlike that taut, razor sharp work, however, The Slap sprawls in many directions.

The narrative is peopled with a cast of characters more ethnically diverse than those encountered on an average visit to Preston Markets which is, one suspects, the point- the novel being set in Melbourne's inner north. Thankfully, my weekly, multicultural shop at the markets doesn't come with the weighty dose of inter-racial tension on display in this book.

The Slap is broken into eight chapters, each written from the point of view of a different character, and deals with the aftermath of a backyard barbecue gone wrong. A man slaps a child not his own. The child, admittedly, is a monster, apparently ineptly parented and out of control. The story cleverly has your allegiances shifting back and forth on this pivotal issue. Did the child deserve to be slapped? Should a child ever be struck? Will I ever be able to afford an enormous TV and a house in Northcote?

The Slap is certainly compelling and it took me a while to work out exactly why that was. Eventually I realised that it reads like the script of a racy TV soap- that's what keeps you turning the pages. This is perhaps a good thing because the majority of the characters are so unsympathetic and unlikable that I don't think I'd want to spend time with any of them, outside the pages of a novel. In terms of the prose on display, the Tim Winton book is a useful frame of reference. Breath is elegant and spare where The Slap is at times messy and ragged. It's structure does successfully convey the eight distict voices with great conviction but, paradoxically, some of the best writing is found in the passages that wander off-message. Despite this, it would, however, have been a tighter narrative had it restricted itself to the repercussions of the titular incident, rather than some of the unrelated minutia of the characters lives.

It's a page turner and left me thinking about the issues raised long after finishing but The Slap also left me vaguely unsatisfied- a bit like a High Street Kebab...

Album of the week:

The Phantom Band- "Checkmate Savage."

Checkmate Savage saw the light of day in the UK last November but has only recently secured a local release. The Glaswegian six piece have managed to concoct the most beguiling debut I've heard in a long time. I've been listening to it for a few weeks now and, as the play-count on my ipod testifies, I've given it quite a work out. Sinuous, ringing guitar lines, forceful, sometimes almost tribal, percussion and ominous, vaguely threatening lyrics (sample: "Something nameless/A creeping unrest...") make for an atmospheric and consistently entertaining listen. The music takes in elements of pop, prog, folk, funk and even techno. Obvious highlights among it's nine tracks include Burial Sounds (the source of the quoted lyric) and the singles, The Howling and Folksong Oblivion. The only slightly pedestrian moment comes with track four, the instrumental Crocodile- although it does provide breathing space at that point in proceedings. Hell, even the sleeve art is a trip. Highly recommended.

Painting Ramblings No.1 (An ongoing series...) or Why I Hate Video Art.

I'm not what you would describe a virtuosic painter. Don't misunderstand me, I think I'm a good technician (and getting better all the time) but I'm never going to be one of the Greats. I'm okay with that. Some of the painters I most admire (Smart, Hopper, Amor, for example) aren't the best technical painters either. My approach, while not completely workman-like, is all about getting the job done. The best way I am able and to the best of my ability at any given time. And, despite what the "how-to" manuals might tell you, producing a painting is not a linear process- there are innumerable branching paths along the way and taking any one of them influences the result.

When you get right down to it, what I am aiming for every time I start a painting is the perfect marriage of the plastic elements of painting (the gooey coloured mud that I shift about with a fuzzy stick on fabric) and the concept. No, that's not quite right. That makes the whole thing sound very cut and dried. Just as the actual act of painting can take an infinite variety of forms, this "concept", the idea of the painting, can also be a very nebulous thing. Sometimes it can even be spread across a whole body of work, each painting building on the another or showing different facets of what a painter is trying to say. And while there is certainly such a thing as visual literacy and visual language (one tries not to mumble) if this concept could be articulated in words, there would be no need to pick up a brush in the first place, of course.

So- Idea and Execution. A good painting (and this really applies to any work of art) shouldn't favour one at the expense of the other. The most virtuosic, technical display of painting without the underpinning of some intellectual rigour rarely rises above the level of decoration. While the most laudable or interesting conceptual pretext won't succeed without good technique.

This is why it surprised me to hear comments made by Victoria Lynn, the curator of the current exhibition of video art at The Art Gallery of New South Wales (Double Take:Anne Landa Award for Video and New Media). Not once but twice, in an interview with the ABC's Sunday Arts programme, she declared that the viewer should look past the medium and concentrate on the ideas. I wonder if this is because the medium is so often ugly and half-arsed? Not to mention down right dull. I've seen the odd piece that I don't too much mind- the Bill Viola installation at NGV International, for instance is quite engaging. At least for the first ten minutes- my, it does go on, though, doesn't it? Viola at least has high technical and production values. Many video artists seem to think that if they stick any old crap on a loop that we'll all be falling about ourselves, amazed at their genius...

What I'm getting at is that the medium can never be divorced from the message. I may not be a great painter but I'm always conscious of trying to be a good one. My technical ability, my eloquence with my chosen medium, is what lets me communicate my intention. And while there is a certain suspension of disbelief required of the viewer (they are looking at representations of objects, not the objects themselves, after-all) ultimately, I sure as hell don't want anyone to forget that they are, in-fact, looking at a painting.