A novel finished, thoughts undone

I finished reading Come Inside a few days ago and I'm still processing it, struggling with it. Not in a bad way. It has been a long time since I read something that affected me that way. There are not many books that I've read in my life that I re-read to satisfy the urge to try and work out 'what happened' even though not much will be changed. This will be one.

It not a novel to read literally. It is read more on a sensory level (or that is the way I experienced it). This is clear from the structure when the reader opens it - the shifts of point of view and combination of bits. The only other novel I have read with a similar structure is Tim O'Brien's In the Lake of the Woods. O'Brien's novel is made up of fragments, also including (what look like authentic) primary sources, eyewitness accounts, different points of view and bits of narrative from various sources.

I didn't engage with O'Brien's characters in the way that I came to care very much about the women in Come Inside. I'm still trying to connect with them a bit more - the old thing of trying to make everything into a story.

The sense of place and time - particularly the Shipwreck Coast of Victoria in the 19th century - is pervasive. And the finer details of the voyeuristic ways that the locals responded to what was washed up on the shore is dealt with here in a way that is neglected in mainstream historical accounts.

The novel gives a real sense of the sensation that shipwrecks, such as the Loch Ard, caused in local communities. Then, as now, the best and worst of human nature was on show, although it is ironic that it took a work of fiction to show this with such authenticity.

Reading the novel also gave me the urge to re-read Jack Loney's book on the disaster or Don Charlwood's engaging stories of the Shipwreck Coast. Both are mentioned in a bibliography at the back of the novel.

So much for that

'So much for that,' said Sock. 'Another week nearly gone and I'm still staring down the Moggies. I'm still a half calf not yet down to the ankle. I wouldn't mind, but it's been this way since February. And, unless you find an amputee, I need a twin.'

'C'mon,' says Flourish. I could almost see it point its fingers to its forehead. Thankfully it does not have one. I knew I shouldn't have worked on it while I was thinking about tennis. 'C'mon. Only two more rows to go.'

Yeah, Flourish, but those rows are 240 stitches each. And you've had a good run for a veggie project. You're supposed to be a support act you know, not the diva.

'Ugh! No need for clipped language, Flourish. And you may look a bit Victorian Gothic, but you don't know Gothic like I do,' says Come Inside. 'Come on , come inside. You know you want to. I've hooked you with my ghostly opening chapters and I know that you want to know more.'

'Forget them! Where's our dinner and when are you going to get another job?' the Moggies demand. 'We need to keep eating if you want to get any sleep, you know.'

A book, a flourish and turning a heel - this week's projects

Part of the reason for my bags of UFOs (Unfinished Objects) has to do my need for a complete absence of distractions once I pass the 'veggie knitting' stage of a project.

So I've started a project that, to tide me over until I find a quiet, cat-free hour and good natural light to turn the heel of a sock that I want to finish. (Uh-oh!)

It's a crochet scarf with a splendid name - 'Flourish'. A great word that has the lush sound of the sensation that it is describing, so who could resist a pattern with that name?

But Flourish and Sock will be competing with an intriguing novel that I purchased last week - and my ongoing search for a career change.

Come Inside is the first novel of Glenys Osborne and is the product of ten year's work. Now that's inspiring. While she was working on the novel, Glenys found time to write award winning short stories. Two of them, 'The feeder', 2007 and 'A house was built around you while you slept', 2008 won second prize in The Age short story competition.

After receiving baffled looks when I asked for it in bookshops, I ordered a copy. Then I saw that Readings have it in stock. Next time I'll go there first.