It is an unsettling thing reading an erotic book penned by someone you consider a friend, but that’s the position I found myself in when assigned Krissy Kneen’s Triptych for book club (alongside Delta of Venus, in an erotic pairing for the February meeting that we have all come to affectionately refer to as “Sex Club”.) I’ll admit that I was apprehensive; despite great respect and admiration for Krissy and a desire to support her by reading her work, I had heard that Triptych featured a story centring around bestiality, and that’s something I doubted that I was capable of dealing with. I think we all are pretty good at knowing our own limits when it comes to the erotic, and while I was open to the idea of stretching my own boundaries when it came to other content and under no circumstances consider myself a repressed prude, I wasn’t sure I could be – that – open.
I read Delta of Venus first and quickly learned that erotic fiction is not really my cup of tea. It’s not that I didn’t find Delta of Venus beautifully written and highly literary (and incredibly sexy!) – it’s just that I struggled to enjoy it on the level I like to enjoy books – i.e, narrative, engagement. I found that I couldn’t enjoy Delta of Venus on a train, snuggled up on the couch in the family room, at a coffee shop. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it at all, but the nature of the reading (i.e. for book club, with a time frame) made me want to consume the book in these ways, and I couldn’t. I am yet to finish; life’s too short to struggle through a book you’re not enjoying as you’d hoped, and I gave the book to my friend Maddy – also in book club – to have a crack at, and with great curiosity (and some nerves) I picked up Triptych.
Well.
I didn’t just consume but completely devoured Triptych in only a few sittings. After feeling so deprived for story and readability, it was a breath of fresh air as I found myself engaging with the characters of the three stories and fascinated with their choices. They had history, they had jobs and lives. Far from the interchangeable (in my humble opinion) characters in Delta of Venus, these women had voices and flaws – and distinguishable, understandable kinks. I’d like to say that I truly challenged myself but in all honesty I did skim-read the parts that made me uncomfortable in the second story (…which was most of it…) but got enough out of the first and third to make up for it. I could read an entire book about Susanna (the protagonist of the first story), and the affair in the third story was captivating, and – dare I say it – totally hot.
If you’re participating in the Australian Women Writers 2012 Challenge and are looking for a great read, I will recommend Triptych – not only is it immensely readable (all my friends from book club have read it in a day or two, and if you’re interested in doing the challenge but are a slow reader or find it hard to pick up a book, this might be a selling point) but it’s also highly impressionable and a great conversation starter. Also, I think knowing yourself and your own desires and limitations is a really important thing, and might I suggest that reading this book is a good place to start if you need assistance in that department?
Now that I’ve mentioned it: the Australian Women Writers 2012 Challenge (read more here) is basically an endeavour to get more people reading and reviewing books by Australian women. When I first heard about the challenge I was apprehensive for some reason – I thought the challenge would be, well, challenging, and I’d commit, and then fail, and then have to climb into a bowl of pasta and eat my self-esteem back. You know how it goes. Instead the terms were more than manageable – the challenge levels consist of Stella (read at least 3, review at least 2) Miles (read 6, review 3+) and Franklin (read 10, review 4+). Well, I thought, regardless of the challenge, I’d probably do that anyway just as a matter of course! I read quite a lot of books by Australian women last year without even thinking about it, so I’m not sure I’m the target audience for this sort of challenge but in the name of awareness I happily signed up, and my suspicions proved correct: it’s the tail end of January, I’ve devoured two novels by Australian women already (the other is Cargo, by Jessica Au, review will follow soon hopefully) and I’m one book away from the Stella-level reading target.
Really, reading three books by Australian women is highly do-able, for absolutely any type of reader – even if you wouldn’t normally read the books already. (Ask yourself why not, then get reading! You’re the target audience for this challenge.) For some people – a lot of readers I know involved in the industry, predominately female – this challenge is a bit of a non-issue, in that we already consume this literature as a matter of course, without even thinking about authorship. But if you find yourself struggling to remember an Australian woman author in your 2011 reading list, then please consider the challenge. Regardless, the whole point is discussion – if you’re reading the books anyway, why not review or discuss them in some capacity? Get going, folk! I believe in you!
I ran into that same line with an urban fantasy series that I just loved, so, like you, I’ve been a bit hesitant about picking this up even though it comes very highly recommended. So thanks for your honesty about skim reading and highlighting that the second story is the one to watch – forewarned is forearmed, and I feel confident enough to pick it up!
(I found you via the AWW, by the way
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This was good to read! I haven’t read much contemporary Australian literature, period, so I have barely a clue where to start regardless of gender. But in my past 6-months of plundering the “classics” – yeah, most of them have turned out to be male. So reading more novels by female authors is near the top of my mental check-list when looking for new reads.
Anyway, I’ve read bits about Kneen and seen Triptych around the place/referenced a few times, so it was good to finally have a little more understanding.