"Great Australian Mysteries" by John Pinkney

Insomnia attack in some ungodly early morning hours and I couldn't bother reading e-book (as much as I enjoyed Sherlock Holmes) so I took "real book" which was easy to hold in my hands and flick trough: it was something I found in ship's library, one of those paperback editions people leave behind and constantly exchange. This particular book came all the way from Australia apparently, it was obviously an Australian passenger who brought it with him and left behind - since I am actually not familiar much with either history or present of Australia, this was all new for me so I decided to check it out.

It turned out really interesting, curious read.
This is a collection of short, almost journalist-like articles about all sorts of mysteries, unsolved crime cases, strange natural phenomena and disappearances that happened in the last two hundred years down under. Needless to say, I have never heard of them so I found it very interesting and couldn't put it down. Stories were engaging, writing style enthusiastic and easy to follow, chapters just flew and I found myself deeply involved in mysterious murders, stories about strange creatures hiding in bushes, mistaken identities, people hanged for murders they probably never committed, natural phenomena called "Min-Min lights" (strange lights that follow people, almost like intelligent beings), cases of famous people disappearances (Juanita Nielsen, Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt, young pilot Frederik Valentich) and most chilling of all - the case of Beaumont children who went to play on the beach and never came home. Now, this is something that all Australians know, but I am not Australian and this is all new to me - I felt goosebumps of terror as I read this particular story and my insomnia actually intensified - now I was wide awake, because I got so involved and upset about the whole horror of idea that these little kids might have been kidnapped and murdered. This is something that happened in 1966 and it was a big deal, because media attention and search resulted in change of attitude towards supervision of kids - from than on, people were much more aware of the "keeping an eye" on little ones. I read it all with greatest curiosity, than re-read it again during next few days when I was wide awake and my brain worked properly, even did some Internet research about this particular case because it bothered me so much. In fact, the whole book was quite mind-boggling because there was so much of unexplained, mysterious and interesting in there - the UFO chapter towards the end was almost like afterthought, because all the other cases were much more interesting. We don't need aliens to harm each other, it seems that humans are far bigger danger to each other and everyone else than any out of space creature. I might even keep the book (although I should probably return it in library for someone else to enjoy) because it turned out to be so interesting.

Ålesund, Norway

It is true that I take my travels for granted, because after all, they are part of my work and it is not really my choice to wake up every morning in different country, it just happens.
Same probably for a train conductor, who is too focused on work to actually pay attention on places outside. Also, don't forget, dear reader that I am here to work and have far less free time than passengers who can go outside whenever they want. I usually have all sorts of extra work, drills, meetings and whatnot. It actually happens quite often that I am not exactly sure where I am and sometimes I mix up all these cities, even countries - to my biggest embarrassment, recently I found myself recommending a visit to church in Oslo, when in fact it turned out I was actually thinking about Helsinki (which is completely another country). Oh well. No wonder, since there are so many places I visit every day that sometimes it all becomes one big blur and when I glance outside from the ship window, sometimes i don't recognise the view.

However, there is one really beautiful spot that i want to mention here and that is little city in Norway called Ålesund.

It is absolutely unexpectedly pretty spot, the city architecture is so beautiful and intensely pleasant to eye that it took me some time before I discovered what actually makes it so uniquely pretty - where other cities are usually more or less combinations of different centuries merged next to each other, the architecture of Ålesund is simply breath-taking Art Noveau all over the place. Each house compliments the other, nothing sticks out and everything looks superbly matched - and why is it so, what is the secret of Ålesund? It turned out the whole town burned to the ground a hundred years ago and everything was rebuild between 1904 and 1910, with help of Norway's best designers and architects - that is why all these houses looks so pretty and complimenting each other - it is basically a new city, build around the same time and no wonder it all looks so nice. Than again, we also have completely new area of my hometown Zagreb and although it was built at the same time, results are ugly, modern skyscraper buildings (so called "New Zagreb") that nobody in their right mind could call beautiful. So I congratulate to beautiful Ålesund and its creators, because they didn't just build whatever but designed beauty on every corner and its a really unexpected delight to walk in town and suddenly stop in tracks, just admiring the view. It might be one of the prettiest cities I have ever seen.

"The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (1892) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

I didn't really enjoy May Sinclair's Brontë biography at all - in fact, I started to think that it belongs to rusty, dusty pile of moth-eaten books that were once fashion but time had covered them with dust and that is all to it. However, there are some classics amongst old books and this is one of them.

For some time now, I am entertaining the idea of doing some more research on "crime & mystery" genre (mostly because I am intrigued with the fact that Agatha Christie had several contemporaries who were equally successful but are almost completely forgotten now) and no matter what I read and where I look, every roads leads to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who seems to have been true giant, originator of the whole genre. Sure, nobody is ever truly original and everybody is influenced by something or the other, but whoever were Doyle's literary ancestors, the short detective story found a peak with him and ever since authors bowed to his shrine.

This is a collection of twelve short stories published in magazine around 1891/1892 (later printed as a collection) and boy, are they good.

Sure, at this point we are so used to crime stories that plots are hardly surprising to us the way they used to be new to than-contemporary readers - we can practically "smell" the bad guy immediately, but this doesn't mean Doyle is old fashioned, it just points how much he was imitated forever since. If plots are a bit simple today, I still admire and enjoy Doyle's writing style very much, he is an elegant writer with a noble turn of phrasing and Sherlock Holmes (with all his oddities) is simply unforgettable. By the way, it sounds a bit strange now, all those allusions to his use of Morphine and Cocaine (and almost nonchalantly so, like smoking a pipe) but both of those were completely legal at the time of writing.
Its just one of funny little points where our new " enlightened" society actually limps behind our predecessors - we love to think that we are far more educated, safer and cleaner than people who lived before us and it might be so in many different cases, however when these short stories were published, it was absolutely unusual for main literary character to enjoy Cocaine and to even profit from its influence (is this how Sherlock Holmes got such brilliant observations?) - these days I can't even drink too much coffee without getting all hyperactive so I definitely wouldn't follow Holmes there, but its just funny little point.

"At home" by Bill Bryson

This was an unexpected gift, from a working colleague - a perfect book for little trivia lover like me.

Bill Bryson I know from one book ("A Short History of Nearly Everything") that filled my head with all sorts of funny stories, this one is even funnier and perhaps more mind-boggling.
Bryon uses the old British countryside house he lives in as a starting point of a eccentric tour trough history of our living habits, culture and discoveries. Starting from the Hall, than kitchen, scullery, larder, drawing room (I never knew, it has nothing to do with drawing but it comes from "withdrawing"), dining room, cellar and so on - along the way he weaves countless anecdotes about our history, inventors, famous and obscure people, the way new technical gadgets found a way into our everyday use and such. Occasionally Bryson gets so far from the subject that I had to stop and ask myself how did we ever get here, but most of the time he has such a infectious good time and is such a wonderfully good natured storyteller that I wallowed in this book with greatest pleasure and probably need to re-visit it all again at certain point, because I read it simply too fast to remember everything. Just a wonderfully entertaining, crazy book, real page turner for me.

"Planet Earth" - BBC documentary

If I plow slowly and not very enthusiastically trough May Sinclair's book, there is something else that I really enjoy - BBC's TV documentary "Planet Earth" that was literally the only thing I wanted to watch in the late evenings after my work shifts would finish. I had hardly watched anything from my huge movie collection ever since I arrived on this current ship three months ago, because I simply was not in the mood + books were my main pleasure. It could have been said that I almost rediscovered pleasure of reading recently, since every night I would set comfortably to read some more and I was doing pretty good so far. My colleagues usually spend their time off in a crew bar, but this has ceased to sound inviting for me already years ago, I have my own solitary hobbies.

"Planet Earth" starts with a bang - beautifully filmed on various locations around the world, completely lacking any footage of people (so far) it has been solely focused on wildlife and isolated corners of the Earth, where only rare creatures live. Polar bears, penguins and such - I giggled with pleasure watching them taking care of their babies and sadly understand feeding chain that demands occasionally someone has to be killed and eaten to continue life. Every group or family occasionally loses someone sooner or later, because other group or family needs to feed as well. There are quite a few brutal scenes of animals hunting, catching and eating their victims, but what disturbed and saddened me the most are scenes where animals accept their fate - as polar bear who simply lies down to die, too exhausted, hungry and wounded to continue with his solitary life. Poor bear. Or little penguins left orphaned and than crushed to death amongst childless penguin ladies who try to get him (in almost rugby huddle, they all jump on top of baby and kill him accidentally). These are unfortunately some of the scenes that I simply have to accept, other scenes are breath-taking, as footage has been filmed above some rare and exceptional landscapes in the wilderness (waterfalls, volcanoes, mountains and caves out of this world). I remember watching this kind of TV documentaries as a child and cruelty in wildlife bothered me deeply, it bothers me still and I wish cameramen did something to help, but apparently they are here just to film the situation from a distance. Perhaps this is how Martians see us, just observing from the distance.

"The Three Brontës" by May Sinclair (1912)

At the moment I am slowly plowing trough one of those old, out-of-print books from beginning of the last century, that are easy available on Internet now as publishing rights have expired so they belonged to public domain. There is quite a lot of these titles around and amongst certificated classics like Shakespeare, Cervantes and Jane Austen, there are also some forgotten gems that for whatever reason appealed to me, so I eagerly added them on to my virtual library - one of these titles was 1912. biography of Brontë sisters, written by certain May Sinclair.

To be honest, I was curious to read about Brontë sisters because I know nothing about their lives besides some vague ideas about family growing up in the desolate, windy moors, writing under pseudonyms and dying young. Why exactly they died, what was their problem and what kind of life they led, I asked myself and this May Sinclair person. Alas, dear reader, May Sinclair (according to her photo, elegant, quite beautiful and dignified Edith Wharton-like figure) belongs to her time, which means she is here to correct all the previous Brontë biographers who had bad manners to turn the stones and gossip about family secrets - stern as some school master, firm in her belief that literary geniuses should be celebrated and not dragged trough mundane mud, Sinclair trashes quite a few names who preceded her at Brontë biography and frequently cites Elizabeth Gaskell's 1857. biography of Charlotte Brontë as the worst offender, since that particular book went beyond what Sinclair perceived as polite. Obviously, quite a few things changed with time because nowadays biographies are almost exclusively written as tell-all, no secrets laundry lists full of amateur psychoanalysis and guesswork who slept with whom. Not that I particularly wanted to find about about Brontë dirty laundry, but Sinclair sounds as a simply old prude who constantly waves her flag and fights to portrait sisters as martyrs of doom, gloom and loneliness. She is so determined to present them as spotless, immaculate poor governesses that women described here sound almost boring - contrary to the passion and heat I remember from their novels, Sinclair protects them from each raindrop and gust of wind until they almost disappear from the picture, just as their brother once re-painted himself out of the family portrait.

I have seen that famous portrait live, in London's National Portrait Gallery - not particularly successful picture, in fact quite amateurish but absolutely fascinating as the first hand account of sister's likeness. This is the closest we can ever get to find out what they looked like. May Sinclair, for all her efforts, is way too one-sided and adamant about her worshipping to really write their biography - everybody else is guilty, except Brontës. Sure, I do understand that sisters did not had it easy in society where restrictions of all sorts kept them under the check, impoverished, unmarried and without any prospects for better life except constant drudgery of working as governesses (while brother stayed at home, he was considered family genius and did not have to bother with work). But I don't except Sinclair's cult worshipping and in fact, very soon might even have a peek at Elizabeth Gaskell's book just to see what the fuss was all about. May Sinclair was a writer from another era and her perspective and outlook at the world are old-fashioned today, what she considered scandalous would not even raise an eyebrow today.

"Narcissus and Goldmund" by Herman Hesse

E-books are fine, I suppose and practical for traveling but I have never thought about books as something practical, for me this is "the stuff that dreams are made from" and although I have around 300+ e-books in my virtual library at the moment, I would always prefer real, paper books, no matter how small and tiny paperbacks they might be. In fact, some of my all-time favourites were little paperback prints that suddenly reveal themselves as unexpected treasure (Willa Cather comes to my mind) - I had a peek at ship's library and amongst books that passengers left behind, found Herman Hesse's paperback edition, small enough to carry back to my windowless cabin and even to take home, since its really nobody's book. It has found a home now.

Herman Hesse - I was familiar with him from my adolescence, though only vaguely remember much, as our memories are just impressions anyway. I guess "Siddartha" is what I remember the most, my impression today was that this would be something dry, philosophical and probably difficult. I couldn't be more wrong! Or perhaps I have changed much since days of my high school. In any case, Hesse grabbed me immediately from the very first page - there was absolutely nothing difficult or too complicated about this novel, which I enjoyed immensely each night after the work - I got so carried away with the story and Hesse's writing that I wept from excitement as I read certain chapters. It moved me deeply and now I wonder what was I thinking earlier, when I assumed Hesse would probably be something too dry and unappealing. I can't even imagine what kind of person I was decades ago, probably was looking for fast-moving stories and page-turners, but now in my mid-40es I found this to be page turner: a little bit of philosophy, a little bit of psychology, a lot of beautiful style and insight about human thought. I just couldn't get enough of this novel and it excited me profoundly, mirroring some of my thoughts in process.

It is about friendship between two very dissimilar men - a priest, calm and well protected behind monastery walls and adventurer/artist with fire inside of him, both connected with philosophical view of the world and very strong bond that could be best described as passionate platonic love. They appear dissimilar at first but they are both deeply spiritual and destined never to truly stay away from each other. It is pointless to even try to describe such a beautiful, artful novel here in just a few lines - I love it deeply, it had moved me profoundly and made my head buzzing (& re-thinking about my own life). This is a true literary masterpiece and I am glad I had re-visit it again at this point of my life.

"Zealot" by Reza Aslan

One thing leads to another - it seemed just appropriate that after reading Ian Wilson's CSI-like investigation, I would eventually turn to current best-seller by Reza Aslan, that has been widely read and translated even in my own Croatia. This is a story about (possible) historical figure of man we all know as Jesus Christ, but told from a completely different perspective - where Ian Wilson goes on about Mel Gibson's movie and Shroud of Turin (neither of whom I would take seriously), Aslan digs deep into historical research about social and political background of Middle East territories occupied by Roman Empire and explains circumstances where population was ripe for arrival of Messiah who would free them from Romans and corrupted priestly elite. Needless to say, its a gripping read because it sheds light on long-forgotten life and what went on before New Testament was written.

This is not the first time I had encountered story like this - there was a huge 1960s best-seller written by Hugh J. Schonfield ("Passover plot") that covered very much the same territory and Reza Aslan simply upgrades it for a new millennium, skillfully I must say - his story is very interesting and would probably appeal to atheists, since it does not follows dogma but ponders on background of historical person we call Jesus and what were his motives & goals. Contrary to what was later accepted as written in stone, Aslan believes Jesus was a follower of another travelling prophet (John the Baptist) whose role was later completely & purposely overshadowed by Catholic church, he was also very probably an ascetic and charismatic prophet-leader known as a healer, who took on against both Romans and corrupted Jewish priests, which at the end cost him life. Aslan waves a very interesting story, where in aftermath of Jesus's death the whole myth went completely out of control and eventually went on to became re-constructed as a new religion based on (probably) completely misunderstood messages that actual historical prophet would not recognise himself. It is a mind-boggling sorry, no matter how one looks at it.