Two days in bed with Patrick White

I've been quiet for a while firstly because of unexpected busy-ness, then being a bit ill and then YESTERDAY

Oh my, YESTERDAY!!

I was so stressed by the effort of getting on a train after the line that had been closed (because someone had been killed*) along with everyone else who had obviously been waiting for an extremely long time so were incredibly pushy, smelly and shirty that I had to turn around and go home again.

Absurb. I'm wondering if Cityrail will pay the resulting medical bill or if it's my fault for not realising in advance that it would have been quicker to walk. Or more sensible not to go at all.

Anyway, last night I managed to see the second part of the ABC's First Tuesday Book Club. They were talking about Patrick White's The Solid Mandala which I read a long time ago and remember liking very much - unlike every other book of his I've read. Half the panel loathed the book with the sort of passion I can only respect. In fact, word for word, it's how I feel about DH Lawrence (who was probably one of White's models) "all these words and 50 pages about a walk but we can't work out what happened!" - I read Women in Love at uni and found it so obscure I didn't notice two characters got it on until the tutor raised the subject.

But Jackie Weaver (!!) was such a fan, it was truly delightful. She'd read the book three times (and was still a bit unclear about the plot but loved the ambiguity). She confessed to having had a standup fight with Frank Hardy about the virtues of White - I would have loved to have been there.

Then she talked regretfully about how people don't read White any more because gone is the era when you could take a book to bed for a couple of days. Everyone else claimed this was outside of their experience. No it's not Jackie! I'd do it all the time if I didn't have to go to work five days a week.

* By a train. A mere station away. What a horrible way to die.