Sunday Age (Melbourne, Australia)

March 10, 2002 Sunday
Late Edition

Cover Notes

BYLINE: Michelle Griffin & Lucy Sussex

SECTION: AGENDA; Books; Pg. 11

LENGTH: 1169 words

Teenage

Fifteen Love, Robert Corbet, Allen & Unwin, $16.95

Fifteen Love is a gently comic two-hander for teenagers, involving Will, a shy boy new to school and Mia, smart and likeable but not extroverted. Will somehow overcomes his shyness, a little too easily perhaps, but he hasn't gone unnoticed by Mia either, and the game gets underway. Author Corbet cleverly presents their nervous courtship from two points of view. For teenagers trying to get to grips with the other tribe, it's an appropriate model of how life feels. Subplots involving their families push Fifteen Love towards soap opera, but ward off teenage solipsism, without overwhelming the whole affair. The result is a slice of teenage life with a positive spin on first love for potentially angst-ridden teenagers. -- MS

Science

The Times Space: A Photographic Guide to the Universe, Ian Ridpath, Times Books, $29.95

THE Times Space is a glorious picture-book of the known universe. It collects the best available astronomic photographs, taken from the Voyager probes and the Hubble telescope. Author Ridpath is an enthusiast, finding comets "elegant" - although text is definitely secondary to image here. This armchair space voyage begins with the solar system and ends in the far reaches of the universe. We feast our eyes on the wonders of sulphur-yellow Venus and red Mars, quasars and nebulae. To bring us down to earth (literally) Ridpath includes images of the Antarctic ozone hole and of the energy waste from light pollution. The latter is also a map of inequality, with the First World brightly lit, the Third World dark. -- LS

Religion

The Intimate Merton - His life from his journals, Lion Book, $24.95

When the Trappist monk and writer Thomas Merton died in 1968 from accidental electrocution, the West lost a powerful voice of spirituality and reason. Merton died in Bangkok, where he had gone to extend his understanding of Buddhism. This anthology selects from the seven volumes of his journals published in his lifetime, though he also wrote poetry, bestselling novels and essays. His range of interests is extraordinary; his monasticism is worldly and wise. Even in the grip of wonder, where the writing is quite Whitmanesque, Merton eschews what he calls "clerical fascism"; he was a pluralist, one whose tolerance American Christianity could well do with a little more of these days. -- MS

Pick of the Week

There are Doors, Gene Wolfe, Tor, $28

GENE Wolfe is among the most elegant of science fiction authors, even at the multi-volume length that is now almost a generic requirement. He is, though, preferable in shorter form, such as this novel. There are Doors, like his earlier Peace, has little of science fiction or the fantastic about it. The narrative may involve alternate dimensions, but they are depicted with a pronounced sense of urban realism. An ordinary enough man meets a woman who is extraordinary, a goddess from a parallel universe. She leaves him, he follows - into worlds like his own but subtly, weirdly, different. The result is a quiet tale of love and desperation. There are Doors is Kafkaesque, stark and perfectly realised. -- LS