Tag Archives: A Threefold Cord

A Story for Children

By Posted in A Threefold Cord, Asylum Seekers, Books, Faith, In Detention, Life, Opinion Tagged , , , , , , , 10 Comments

Most evenings I read a chapter from ‘A Threefold Cord’ to my grandchildren in Sydney. I have to wait until they’ve brushed their teeth, then, like apparitions in pyjamas, Ruby and Joel materialise, chattering and excited, on my screen. The book from which we’re reading is the novel I wrote for children in 2013. In the late chapters of the story, three Aussie fourth-graders meet a much younger child named Samara, an orphan, and take her under their wing. Samara has an extraordinary story to tell: she is a boat person, sole survivor of her family who all drowned when their “irregular” vessel foundered off Christmas Island. 

The painful tale that Samara tells of seeing her loved ones slip beneath the waves is taken from events that were life-true facts in 2013. After those drownings the real-life child who lost his entire nuclear family was denied the right to attend the family funeral on the mainland. The Minister for On-Water Matters ruled it out. At the time I felt shame. I decided to exclude that shameful pettiness from my novel. I did not want children readers to think badly of Australia.
After reading of “Samara” to the children this evening, I came across the following: Prime Minister Morrison has issued enforceable physical distancing directives to protect everyone in Australia from infection, transmission and loss of life in the COVID-19 crisis in Australia.1440 people seeking asylum and refugees remain held inside the national immigration places of detention in crowded, communal living conditions, under constant guard and without personal protective equipment or medical oversight into their care.Medical professionals have warned a lethal outbreak is imminent which will endanger the public and place greater strain on health care systems…The former Minister for On-Water matters is now Father of the Nation. I’ve been impressed by his leadership during our present emergency, (I’ve written as much in this medium). He’s been firm, calm, calming. In my simplicity I have difficulty reconciling his religious posture with his previous management of ‘illegal’ asylum seekers. His iron-minded predecessor was likewise a man of conspicuous religiosity. Doesn’t their religion preach love, especially love to the least among us? Their political ministry was bare of love, seemingly at odds with any religious ministry.
A friend of this blog is a Minister in the Anglican Church in this country. He wrote to me today, asking me reflect in these pages on the place of the Almighty in COVID-19. I smiled and I dismissed the idea. Theodicy is a steep slope; on those steeps, I’d just write idiocy. But now Samara calls to me. She calls to all of us, calling in the name of her God, whom she calls God, “Allah.” She calls to us on behalf of the fourteen hundred and forty, ‘the least of us’; she calls for the Father of the Nation to protect the fourteen hundred and forty.
I don’t doubt the Fathers of the Nation have their better angels. In office the Fathers bind their angels’ wings. In private conversation with politicians of the backbench and the frontbench,I’ve heard them sigh and regret not feeling free to act differently. I see these people not as diabolical but as captive. They are captive to their fear of us, the electors, who would punish them for acting not on platform but prompted by love.
It is for the nation as a whole to give the fathers courage, to free their angels, to free the captives, to bring them into their love.

Conversation with Clare

By Posted in A Threefold Cord, Howard in the Media, Life, Medical, Opinion, Running, writing Tagged , , , , , 6 Comments

Every Wednesday 774 ABC Melbourne’s Clare Bowdich puts a question to the world of listeners to her radio program. She asks: ‘How can a person improve this world?’

The question has exercised the minds of good people since we first emerged from our caves.

I gave Clare the best answer I could: ‘Become a starfish flinger.’

You can hear the conversation here (about an hour into the link): http://www.abc.net.au/radio/melbourne/programs/afternoons/afternoons/8880310

Or here:

https://wetransfer.com/downloads/e0957563203072fda91a305971ca6d6120170914013429/5789f7a6216473dd097cc05c2acabc1220170914013429/9a192a

SCOOP INTERVIEW AND BOOK REPORT:

By Posted in A Threefold Cord, Books, Childhood, Family, friendship, Howard's published work, Life, writing Tagged , , , , , Leave a comment

Literary Giants Hail ‘A Threefold Cord’

 

Since the quiet release of ‘A Threefold Cord’ last week, giants of literature and history have joined a lengthening queue to sing choruses in its praise. 

Leading the push is Leo Tolstoy who confided to your reporter: ‘I wish I’d written it instead of ‘’War and Peace.’’ Another writer remarked: ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a child in possession of a love of stories will much enjoy this book.’
The author penned the novel in 2013 at the age of sixty-seven years. For that somewhat flimsy reason he decided the work would consist of precisely 67 chapters. When he told his daughter-and-publicist the title was, ‘A Threefold Cord’, she replied: ‘That’s got to be a working title Dad.’ ‘No, that’s the title, darling.’ ‘No kid will buy a book with that title,’ was her crisp retort. For the pleasure of defying his firstborn the author determined the title would stay. 
From its inception the author of ‘A Threefold Cord’ has always spoken of it very highly. ‘It’s a cracker of a story’, he told your reporter. 

Intended for shared reading between a parent and an adult of eight years and above, the novel has been trialled in readings to primary school classes across Victoria. 

‘Listening to early chapters, children laughed. Upon meeting the enigmatic and sinister Dr Vandersluys they gasped. Upon hearing the testimony of Samara, sole survivor of a refugee family whose boat sank off Christmas Island, children were moved to tears. That wasn’t entirely unexpected,’ said the author. But when teachers wept I was surprised.’

I wondered whether the book was too sad for children? ‘No, not for children, but it might be too sad for grownups. Children like it because the three friends who make up the Threefold Cord are so brave, and loyal and clever and inspiring. And FUNNY.’
But Doctor Vandersluys, I wondered, ‘Is he a he or a she?’
‘I ask the same question’, said the author. ‘I hope to find out in the sequel.’
‘THE SEQUEL! Will there be a sequel?’
‘Yes, I’ve already written the first twenty-three of seventy-one chapters’, replied the 71-year old author.

As an e-book A Threefold Cord is available from:

ITUNES:

https://itunes.apple.com/au/book/a-threefold-cord/id1237456156  
AMAZON:

KOBO:

https://m.indigo.ca/product/books/a-threefold-cord/9781925281415

ADVANCE COPIES OF THE PRINT EDITION OF  A Threefold Cord ARE AVAILABLE HERE NOW 

https://www.hybridpublishers.com.au/product/a-threefold-cord/
AUTOGRAPHED COPIES MAY BE OBTAINED DIRECTLY FROM THE AUTHOR

Nyngan on the Bogan

By Posted in A Threefold Cord, Life, Travel Tagged , , , , , , 2 Comments

 
 The term bogan (/ˈboʊɡən/[1]) is a derogatory Australian and New Zealand slang word used to describe a person whose speech, clothing, attitude and behaviour exemplify values and behaviour considered unrefined or unsophisticated. Depending on the context, the term can be pejorative or self-deprecating.[2]
  – Wikipedia
 
 
I never dreamed the river would give its name to the shire. I knew only that Nyngan was built on the eastern bank of the Bogan. A friend who knows his outback towns said, ‘You’ll like Nyngan. Nyngan’s doing well.’ My friend was right. I do like Nyngan. And I like the river. But I never imagined ‘Bogan Shire.’ You drive along the main street through the shopping centre, and you come to a small rise. At its top a sign reads: GIVE WAY TO HORSES IF ON BRIDGE. And there, stretching away to your left and your right are the tranquil waters of the river. Quiet flows the Bogan; you might say it’s a river with decorum.
 
 
 
It was not always thus. In April 1990 unusually heavy rains fell in the catchment areas upstream. The Bogan rose and threatened the town’s modest levee banks. The local populace built a frenzied barrier of sandbags but the levee was breached and the town was flooded. The townspeople had to be airlifted out. The airfield being under water the only effective aircraft were helicopters. Everyone was helicoptered out, some on army choppers, on others owned by private individuals, and aboard yet others belonging to TV stations. The populace of an entire town was hoisted away into the air. One of the military choppers, a veteran of the Vietnam conflict, returned and stayed. It stands just off the main road as a reminder. Meanwhile the levee bank is now a full two metres higher than the 1990 level.
 
 
 
You must not think there’s been no news in Nyngan since 1990. On the contrary, the town supports a number of newspapers; just how many is hard to work out. I paid my one dollar and eighty cents for The Nyngan Observer and read it from cover to … well no, not to the opposite cover, because on the way I found a second newspaper, The Daily Liberal. And I was ploughing through the Liberal when I found myself engrossed in the pages of The Western. And all three papers, locked in amorous embrace, are chockers with news. Through The Observer I learned that students from the tiny school in Hermidale starred at the Dubbo Eisteddfod. (I’ve never previously had to actually write ‘eisteddfod’. Once you’ve written it down, you scratch your head. The written word looks too short. The word feels longer. But there it is. Life in Nyngan is like that – a thrill a minute.)
 
 
The editorial in the Daily Liberal pulls no punches. Beneath a photograph of the (Liberal) premier and a headline: PREMIER STANDS UP TO POLITICAL CORRUPTION, the editor boldly asks: Do ‘you think the convicted criminal and former NSW government minister Eddie Obeid should receive a generous parliamentary pension on the taxpayer’s dime?’ On the facing page Senator Derryn Hinch has no time for pedophiles. I mean he does not award them the right to privacy. The headline reads: RENEWED PUSH TO KNOW WHERE SEX OFFENDERS LIVE. The following pages are drenched with culture. Photo after photo of little girls in tutus, all younger than six, participating in the Dubbo Eisteddfod. The pictures were taken by the wonderfully named Orlander Ruming. They show innocence in sequins and scarlet lipstick. (I hope Derryn’s bad people live far, far away. And they don’t take the Liberal.) The Liberal believes in small business. On page 16 three female businesswomen, Haley, Jacqueline and Georgia are listed under ‘Adult Services’. So adult in fact that one of the three is described as ‘mature.’
 
 

Nyngan Observer


 
Encouraging fact: FIGURES FOR SEX ASSAULT REDUCE. Incidents of malicious damage, fraud and sexual assault have all fallen dramatically in the Bogan Shire (Nyngan Observer). It was only this weekend that ‘The Australian’ smacked its lips, announcing the RISE in crime in Victoria. Wouldn’t you know it – those soft-on-crime socialists? Back at The Liberal we read how Dubbo is a mecca for dole bludgers, ‘ranking eighth for people who fail to attend job interviews, miss appointments and turn down employment offers.’ That’s Dubbo, two hours drive to the east. Dubbo, Bogan City.
 
 
 
But back to the Bogan. The Bogan arises near Parkes from whence it flows 617 kilometres downhill into the Little Bogan River to form the Darling River, near Bourke. The term Bogan is Aboriginal. It refers to ‘the birthplace of a notable person, a headman of a local tribe.’ The local tribe happens to be the Wiradjuri. I’m a Wiradjuri boy; that is I hail from Leeton, which is a long, long way downstream of the Bogan, but it’s still Wiradjuri country. We – Nyngan, the Bogan and I – happen to be in the centre of New South Wales, a state larger than most countries in Europe. From the bridge over the Bogan the road stretches far west to Broken Hill. That’s the Barrier Highway. To the north lies Bourke. I have to confess to a boyish feeling of excitement. Here in Nyngan, in Bogan Shire, I’m surrounded by places and streams of legend: I’m front of Bourke, upstream from the Darling, staring at Broken Hill. Only an hour or two from Parkes (Parkes! You know Parkes? The Dish? Never mind…)
 
 
 
I find myself here in Nyngan, on the Bogan and I find myself happy.
 
 
CULTURAL FOOTNOTES:
 
1. Fifty kilometres south of Nyngan you’ll find a sculpture of Thurman The Dog. I have been unable to learn more than the name and the location. If you find out please let me know.
2. This Tuesday June 20 a visiting author will read from ’A Threefold Cord’, the exciting, hilarious, suspenseful, uplifting and all-around good novel by Howard Goldenberg. Howard will read to the grades four, five and six of the Nyngan Public School. Don’t miss it!

Invitation to a Preview of my Next Book 

By Posted in Books, Childhood, Howard's published work, Life, Literature, writing Tagged , , , , , Leave a comment

I INVITE THE ENTIRE WORLD TO 
THE WORLD PREMIERE
OF 
 A THREEFOLD CORD 
THE LONG-AWAITED NOVEL BY HOWARD GOLDENBERG FOR CHILDREN OF 8-12 YEARS

AND THEIR PARENTS 

AND THEIR GRANDPARENTS 

AND THEIR CHILDREN

AND ANYONE WHO HAS EVER BEEN 8-12 YEARS OLD 

AND ANYONE WHO HAS LOVED A PERSON 8-12 YEARS OLD

AND ANYONE WHO LOVES A TERRIFYING, EXCITING, HILARIOUS, RUDE, OR INSPIRING STORY
COME TO LIMMUD OZ AT 5.30PM AT MONASH CAULFIELD, TOMORROW, 27 JUNE, 2017
CHILDREN WHO ACCOMPANY A PAYING ADULT ARE ADMITTED FREE OF CHARGE

while the adult is ripped off to the tune of 30-40 bucks  
http://sched.co/77uX
Limmud Oz Melbourne #books #literaryevent #authorreading 

A Christmas Story

By Posted in Asylum Seekers, Books, Childhood, Life Tagged , , , , , , , 8 Comments

Every December for a few years now a friend has written to me and to everyone she knows requesting donations so she can purchase gifts at Christmas for people who have found asylum in our country. I send my small donation, very aware of its smallness. Presently my friend sends me – and all her circle of donor people – a photo of the gifts our donations have amassed. I am duly amazed: for in total they are not small.My friend was raised in a home where the ambient Evangelical Christianity weighed heavily. In time and in pain my friend left the family code behind. And so it is that my lapsed Evangelical friend and her many friends – including this unlapsed Jewish friend – send Christmas presents to a bunch of Muslim refuge seekers.

Christmas was never a part of my upbringing. When as a child , inevitably I learned the story of the nativity, I was moved. “No room at the inn” stayed in my mind as the saddest phrase, as a reproach. The inn in which I live is a Four Star establishment called Australia. There is room at this inn, lots of room.

In this state of mind I post the following children’s story. It feels appropriate to the season of goodwill. This is excerpted from a forthcoming book* provisionally titled ‘A Threefold Cord’, to be published on-line in 2016 by Hybrid Publishers. I have read the book and I like it. I commend it to your children: it is ideal for shared reading between an adult and a child aged from eight to twelve years.

This story begins with a five year old girl named Samara mustering her courage and her crumbs of English to tell her story to her Aussie friends, Jennifer, Nystagmus and Snoth:
“This story, my story. Today I say story. I English say.”
Samara spoke eagerly, her face serious and excited at the same time.
Her friends of the Threefold Cord were surprised to hear shy little Samara speaking like this. They listened without interrupting.
Samara stood up and screwed her eyes closed for a moment. She wanted to be brave and she needed to think hard, to search for every English word.
After a moment she started: “Mans with guns come our village. We family very frighten. Soldiers shoot many shootings. Father’s brother run outside house. He praying. Soldiers shoot guns. They angry because I girl, I going school. They think big mistake, they think Father brother is my father. They shoot father brother. He fall down, he not move, he many blood. Soldiers laughing, go away. Father hold his brother, he say Ahmed! Ahmed! He say Ahmed, soldiers shooting wrong man. Must shoot me, not brother.
Ahmed not answer. Father crying, his face on his brother face. Mother crying, my brother crying, Samara crying. Soldiers send bombings onto house. House is breaking. Is very noise, is very frighten.
Then Father hiding us under house. When is dark outside, Father bring donkey. He putting Mother, brother, Samara on donkey. Father walking. We riding, Father walking all night. We come far village, we hiding, we sleeping in day at Aunty house. And in night we riding, walking, we hiding when hear soldiers in night. Always we hearing shootings, bombings, we very quiet, Father giving donkey eating so donkey mouth have food, donkey not speak soldiers.”
Samara paused and blinked. The friends saw drops of water at the corners of Samara’s eyes. The child took a deep breath and spoke again. “I tell about more bad mans. Not gun mans, truck mans. Man say Father, you give money, I take you in truck. Father give man many money, man put family in truck in night. We say goodbye donkey. Brother cry, he loving donkey.
Truck go. Truck stop. Truck man say truck broken, not go now. Father pay money, truck man take money. He say, Truck not work. You walking. Sorry for truck.
We walking, walking, no donkey, no truck.
We come new country, no soldiers shooting. We come big, big water, shiny water like silver. Man say father, You come boat. I taking you family America. You pay money. Is also bad mans. He take all father money, none left now, we get in boat, fast fast, much peoples comes in little boat, such much peoples, boat very crowd. Is dark.
Boat start to move. I am excite and I am too fright. All peoples in boat very fright because big wind and big black cold water. Water come in boat, all peoples scream, cry, cry, scream.
Mother hold Samara and brother, Father hold too, boat is jump, jump, fall, fall, water is in boat, we very fright.
I praying, mother is pray, brother, father – all pray to Allah:please save us, save us please.
Boat stop, water push boat on side, push boat on other side, peoples falling on floor, fall on peoples. Mother, father holding tight children,
Big big water come and boat fall over, all peoples fall out, we all in water, wind is loud. We call Father! Mother! – no-one not hearing. I not hear voice, I looking, is everything black.
I not swimming, we family is not know swim, in our country is desert, is mountain, not is big water.
I look father…”
Samara stopped again and blinked. She blinked again, and a third time. She breathed deeply, opened her mouth, closed it. Finally she produced a small voice: “I look brother, not see.
I look mother, not see.
Father say Samara, you get up on top this wood, you hold tight. Father is lift me, I am hold tight, father head under water. He come up, he not close now, he under water.
I not… I not see him again more. I not see no-ones. I hold wood, I crying, I cold, I not family. Family is gone.
I pray Allah, I praying Allah, you bring back Samara family. If family not live, I not live. Allah, You take Samara paradise. I not family, I not want live.
But all time I holding wood like father saying me.”
The child shivered as if she felt again the cold water. She said: “Soon I say end of Samara Story. Big ship come with big light. I see water, water, empty, all empty. Not peoples, only many water. Man taking me in big ship, coming Australia. Man is good man, Australia man. But Samara alone, I no-one have. I in Christmas Island, I in Australia, Samara sad, sad all days.
Red Cross say they try find family. Maybe in one country, not Australia country.
Then one day you friends come Refugee place.” A small smile as Samara looked from Jennifer to Nystagmus to Snoth. She touched the face of all three.”You tell me many story, you teach me speak English. Samara not alone now.”
 
 
* the author of ‘A Threefold Cord’ is Howard Goldenberg

Two Writers Wrote My Novel

By Posted in Books, Carrots and Jaffas, Childhood, Family, Howard's published work, Life Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

One of the two, a good bloke, would get up too early in the morning, charge himself with caffeine, and – sparking with imagination and creative drive – write passages of prose that really excited me. I liked that bloke. The second, born on the same day as the first, was much older. A sour individual, crepuscular and nocturnal in habit, he’d cast a jaundiced eye over the other bloke’s matutinal erections and scorn them into impotence. He’s scratch out every virtuoso phrase, he’d cut through digression and elaboration. Mean as catshit, he believed less was more, and least was most. I found him unpleasantly convincing. I hated the bastard.

Both antagonists worked on Carrots and Jaffas from start to finish. They managed to draw out a six-month project to four and a half years. By the time the book was printed I was nearing sixty-eight and I resolved I was done with the novel: how many more fifty-four month projects did I have left? Bugger the novel, I decided. I’d read them still, I just wouldn’t write any more.

Three months later I had finished my second novel. Titled “A Threefold Cord”, it is a novel for shared reading between an adult and a child of eight to twelve. And it is a cracker. The book comprises sixty-seven chapters of action, suspense, hilarity, and the unremitting contest between good and evil. In addition there is sufficient reference to bodily functions to delight and liberate a well brought up child.

As the book raced towards Chapter Sixty I informed my oldest grandson I would end it after the sixty-seventh. “Why, Saba?”
“Because I am sixty-seven.”
“But what if it’s not finished?”
“Doesn’t matter. I’ll just stop.”
“But you can’t!”
“Yes I can. I’m the boss of this book.”
“But…” The notion of such a summary ending outraged him.
I relented: “I might just start a second book where this one finishes…”
Grandson’s 10-year old face blazed with a happy prospect: “Wow! A series!”
Where were the antagonists of “Carrots and Jaffas” during the writing of “Cord”? I sacked them. I simply wrote for my five oldest grandchildren, aged eight to ten years. No virtuoso passages, no miserly pinching, “Cord” was a conversation with five kids who knew my voice, five kids whose tastes I knew: tastes I had helped to create.
My older daughter, a combined Regan and Goneril in her criticism towards my writerly Lear, assures me no child will tolerate a book with such a title as dull as “A Threefold Cord”.

I know she is wrong. Grade Four at a primary school near Shepparton served as unwitting testers when their teacher resolved to read aloud a daily chapter. Ordinarily, she informs me, the wrigglers would wriggle, the whisperers would whisper and the autists would be up and away. But when she read a Threefold Cord all sat, transfixed. The teacher got through five chapters on the first day.
Since then the children and grandchildren of selected Australian literary figures have read Cord and approved it mightily. From time to time over coming weeks I’ll post the odd sample chapter and you’ll see I am right: “A Threefold Cord” is, as I remarked earlier, a cracker.