Sara, Tracy, Michelle, Eva, and Amy have all generously sent us stories to add to Hayden’s bookshelf. While at the moment we read to him whatever we happen to be reading (thus many Norwegian grant applications courtesy of Adrian), I am looking forward to moving from picture books to his first printed words. We will be sharing our Australian culture with Diary of a Wombat, Can You Cuddle Like a Koala?, Edward the Emu, and Possom Magic, and we hope to have babysitters who can read to him titles such as Le nouvel ami de Pan-Pan and Een Gat in Mijn Emmer.

Our Brussels Book Club often features books based in the home countries of some of the members. Earlier this year, I hosted the club, served sushi and cupcakes, and chaired the discussion of The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas.

The Slap is a novel set in Australian suburbia, told from many perspectives, including that of an immigrant grandfather, a beautiful heterosexual man, an adolescent gay boy, and a childfree female writer. I found the language quite shocking, ranging from extreme cursing including the c-word as well as the racist terms such as “wog” and “lebo”. Also, from the detailed descriptions of the physical appearances of the characters, the author gave the impression that every single inhabitant of Melbourne is stunningly beautiful.

During book club we debated the main theme of the novel – was it about class or was it about immigration? The book features a contrast between the “nouvelle riche” of the first-generation Australians like Harry and the aspirations of the poor “true” Australian battlers who have fallen on hard times like Rosie. There is also tension between the parents who immigrated and their children, often seen as having an easy life without having truly earned it (“These kids, they’re unbelievable. It’s like the world owes them everything. They’ve been spoilt by their parents and by their teachers and by the f**king media to believe that they have all these rights but no responsibilities so they have no decency, no moral values whatsoever”).

There were many strong contenders for the most-hated character of the book. Was it grandfather Manolis (“Manolis doubted that there had been a day in his forties and most of his fifties that did not pass without him regretting ever marrying, without him cursing the terrible burden of having a wife and family”)? Gary, Rosie’s alcoholic husband? Harry, an angry Greek-Australian with a successful business and a mistress on the side? One of the members pointed out that while Harry constantly had very aggressive and violent thoughts, he worked hard to control these and curb his behaviour. How do we judge a man – by his thoughts or by his actions?

Most of us felt that that the author worked a little too hard to make all the characters unlikeable. Even Aishia, the ‘perfect’ wife, mother and career-woman admitted “she couldn’t leave [her husband] because her love was bound up with his beauty. She loved being next to him, adored being the most attractive couple in the room, couldn’t let that go.” However, we found some hope in the narrative of the two teenagers Connie and Richie, their friendship and hopes for the future.

I did not enjoy reading this book, and would have abandoned it early on if I could. I did not relish following the characters in the book, and felt like it was a biased and narrow exploration of Australian culture.

I went to see Harry Potter et les Reliques de la Mort today with Laura. Interestingly, Google Translate will not translate “les reliques de la mort” as “the relics of death” anymore, but will now instead give the meaning “the Deathly Hallows”. I guess they’re assuming that these days it’s far more likely that the subject of interest is wizardry rather than religion.

I think that this was one of my favourite Harry Potter movies. The director, David Yates, managed to achieve a remarkable balance of suspense and humour, with the magic itself fading to the background. A lot of the film occurred away from all the gizmos and gadgets of the wizard world, and simply focused on the friendship and determination of Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

Harry: You’re brilliant, Hermione. Truly.
Hermione: Actually, I’m just highly logical which allows me to look past extraneous detail and perceive clearly that which others overlook.

Most of the time they made intelligent decisions that capitalised on their individual strengths, and displayed true compassion and bravery. Plus, it was fun to see how these three corageous wizards have grown up since we first met them many years ago. Now we just have to wait another eight months to see how this all ends.

There is a large blind community in Brussels. The Braille League have their offices just down the road, and I often see blind commuters on the metro. Each station has posts with the directions written in braille, and the newer carriages announce each stop verbally before arrival.

A few months back we went to the Only 4 Senses Restaurant. The food was served by blind waiters and we sat in complete blackness in a basement near the Grand Place. We were taught to place our fingers inside our water glass to tell when it was full, and the chef asked us to guess what we were eating by taste alone. I had a casserole, which was relatively easy to manage, but poor Adrian found that cutting and scooping a vegetarian lasagna was a little more challenging. Our guide would ask us if we had finished eating or if we wanted some more to drink, because he had no other way to tell. He would constantly use our names so that we knew who he was talking to. We spoke to our waiter about his life in Brussels, and then after the dinner we met his guide dog.

I have also just finished reading Star Gazing by Linda Gillard, recommended to me by the robots at Amazon. It is a fascinating Scottish story, told from the perspective of 40 year old woman called Marianne, who has been blind from birth. Marianne describes her world with no visual clues, and gives great insight into the daily life and loves without vision. Dropping ones keys, for example, can be a potentially tragic event.

There is a great theme of music within the novel, and her sighted friends often use orchestral analogies to explain the world to Marianne. One of them takes her star-gazing, and explains the constellation Boötes:

‘If you look east one of the brightest starts you’ll see is Arcterus. It has a yellow orange glow… they’d sound like… flutes. No piccolos. Shrill. Arcturus looks warmer. A cello maybe… on second thoughts make that a viola’.

I was unfamiliar with most of the references to opera composers and classical music pieces. Much in the way that Marianne understood the images through her familiarity with music, I felt as if I gained an understanding of the music through my visualisation of the images. It would have been lovely to create a playlist of the main songs from the novel, and play these in the background as I immersed myself into the story.

Hopefully, I will never know what it is like to be blind, but through these small experiences I hope that I have gained a little more understanding of what it would be like to live without vision.