#BookshelfSpotlight-‘The Beat Of The Pendulum’ by Catherine Chidgey

About the book…

Every day for a year, Catherine Chidgey recorded the words and language she came across during her day-to-day life – phone calls, television commercials, emails, radio shows, conversations with her family, street signs and satnav instructions. From these seemingly random snippets, she creates a fascinating portrait of modern life, focusing on the things that most people filter out.

Chidgey listens in as her daughter, born through surrogacy, begins to speak and develop a personality, and her mother slips into dementia. With her husband, she debates the pros and cons of moving to a new town. With her publisher, she discusses the novel she is writing. While, all around, the world is bombarding her with information.

In The Beat of the Pendulum, Chidgey approaches the idea of the novel from an experimental new direction. It is bold, exciting, funny, moving and utterly compelling

Published in paperback by Lightning Books,‘The Beat Of The Pendulum’ by Catherine Chidgey is an immersive, engaging experience.

*There is a 30% discount on all Eye Lightning books purchsed in August using the code RACHELREADIT at the checkout*

It’s not, I found, an easy read as it’s all stream of consciousness with a lack of rhythm that feels as though you are living inside someone’s head. There is little definition in the text, no speech marks, so it’s not a book which is laid at your feet to read, it is a book where you have to work at, pick away at ,almost like tuning a radio in and listening to snippets of conversations, and thoughts, which slowly reveal the characters of the people you are reading about.

”I googled a lost love’s name and found his obituary”

Each month is given a chapter, and each day a number so you work, sequentially, through the year in the life of Catherine Chidgey. There are laundry instructions, tv listings, diary entries, overheard conversations, one sided conversations with her baby daughter which you unpick and unravel ,creating your own perceptions of people as they appear-for example you have the contrast between the way she talks to her baby daughter and the way she talks to her mother who has dementia and you start to realise who is who from the tone of her voice. It makes the experience of reading it very intimate,it’s not the type of book that you pick up and read beginning to end-for me it was more a slow,steady progress through it which, I feel, reflects the cadence and the title of the book.

”We don’t think in words,we think in pictures.Your blue sky is not mine.You say beach and I’m thinking of Miunt Maungani and you’re thinking of the black sand at Taranaki”

It’s fiction but it’s not.It’s a truth but also a kind of manufactured truth and there is the constant sense , for me anyway, almost of a ticking clock in the background. I don’t know why but the diary nature makes me feel like a grandfather clock was in the background the whole time I was reading the book,the metronome noise of the pendulum like a heartbeat, counting down the hours and the days with a regular, monotonous insistence which vividly contrasts with the changing narrative of each day.

“I’m sick of reading about stunning first novels by stunning debut novelists. They can all piss off. What about bitter disillusioned mid-career novelists?”

The diary-esque nature of the novel was underplayed,rather just a marking off of days with a number, for example, 17th January is all about a conversation between two people whilst watching a film. I don’t know if it’s day or night until she says ‘Okay I think it’s bedtime.Where’s my sweet? Where’s my sweet little strawberry?Give Mum a kiss.’

 It almost felt more epistolary in nature, if that makes sense, but with the headings removed to make a single, flowing,stunning narrative from start to finish-

27

I still don’t know what I’m meant to be doing.

28

On an exhale, release the heart.

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Work-Integrated Learning Seminars.The Curriculum Enhancement Programme’s (CEP)Curriculum Design Framework addresses increasing employer demand for ‘work-ready graduates’ by incorporating industry and community engagement into curricula .To assist in developing a sound strategy.

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We often wonder if the earth beneath our feet could swallow us up.

It is brave, edgy, fearless and bold and unlike any book which I have ever read. It took time and work to ‘get into’ it and for the first time in a long while,I found myself reading around the book, reading interviews and reviews to get a sense of clarity, to try and be able to write down how it made me feel(still not entirely sure that I have done this adequately enough).

If you are looking for something new, something bold, something to shake your soul, then this is the book for you.

About the author..

Catherine Chidgey was born in Auckland, New Zealand. Her debut novel,‘In A Fishbone Church’, won Best First Book at the New Zealand Book Awards as well as a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize.

Her next novel, ‘Golden Deeds’, was named a Best Book of the Year in the Los Angeles Times and a Notable Book of the Year in the New York Times. Her novel ‘The Transformation’ also won widespread acclaim, and her most recent, ‘The Wish Child’, won the New Zealand Book Awards fiction prize, the country’s biggest literary award. In 2003 she was named best New Zealand novelist under forty.

She has degrees in German literature, psychology and creative writing, and is a member of the Academy of New Zealand Literature. She teaches creative writing at the University of Waikato, and lives near Hamilton with her husband and daughter

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             @CathChidgey