When I heard about this book, I knew I needed to read it - Love and Other Catastrophes was such a touchstone for me (I mean it - there's no single other film/book/etc that comes even close to it in terms of direct and dramatic effect on the way my university experience turned out), and here was one of its stars writing a memoir about her own Melbourne Uni days.
So I bought it (from Readings, naturally) yesterday and finished it in the evening in a couple of hours - it's a breezy read, constantly interesting (though possibly one needs to be a fellow Melb Uni-ite to feel that way - Baillieu library, Barry Taylor and the Philosophy department and syllabus generally, Peter McPhee, Carlton, Fitzroy, Royal Parade, MacRob (Garner's high school), all familiar and in some cases downright totemic figures from my own uni experience, and all prominent in these accounts). It's not really about anything in particular, but I suppose that that's the nature of memoirs, and I enjoyed reading it a lot. It will make me happy to know that the book is sitting somewhere on my shelves.
(In the back of my mind in re the enthusiasm to read The Student Chronicles is the fact that I've been writing one of the university chapters (there will be two, I think) of API lately, and given that Love and Other Catastrophes and its depiction of uni life (via, though I didn't know it at the time, Melbourne Uni itself) was so formative and influential on my time at university, it seemed an apt (tangential) revisitation.)
Anyway, partly inspired by the reading, when I found myself with a couple of hours free before needing to be in the city today, I thought I'd set up on South Lawn and try to get some writing done; the sun was out at that stage, and the day was showing every signs of at least intimating the summer feel that I'm seeking for the chapter. Sadly, however, no sooner had I arrived and ducked quickly into the Baillieu (partly for old times' sake, and partly to use the bathroom) than did the skies darken and the rain start, putting paid to that idea (to add to my sense of discombobulation, there seemed to be some kind of anime convention going on, as evidenced by the many anime-dressed people wandering around in cheerful if windswept - well, that latter's entirely apt - little groups). Well, summer will come when it does, and in the meantime the rain is to be welcomed, I guess.
So I was catching up with Kim over lunch, and we did that, then checked out the Blackman "Alice" exhibition (more on that later), and after that went back to her new place (in Bentleigh) for dinner with Bruno and another friend of theirs, Philip. And driving home afterwards (about an hour ago as I write this - 10.15pm, ie driving at 9ish), coming up the Nepean and then St Kilda Road, I was struck by the loveliness of the long, tree-lined, brightly yet hazily lit boulevard and felt glad anew that I've decided to make API a Melbourne novel. It will be a Melbourne novel, and it will glimmer, damnit!
