What do you think?
Rate this book
The Beat of the Pendulum
From the author of the acclaimed The Wish Child comes something unexpected and fearless: a found novel. The Beat of the Pendulum is the result of one year in which Chidgey drew upon the language she encountered on a daily basis, such as news stories, radio broadcasts, emails, social media, street signs, TV, and many conversations. As Chidgey filters and shapes the linguistic chaos of her recordings, different characters emerge – her family, including her young daughter, and her husband, mother and sister, her friends, and an extended family formed through surrogacy and donation.
In her chronicling of moments of loveliness, strangeness, comedy and poetry and sorrow, Chidgey plays with the nature of time and its passing. The Beat of the Pendulum is also an exploration of human memory – how we acquire it, and how we lose it. This bravely experimental and immersive work draws us into the detail, reverberation and transience of a year in a life.
In her chronicling of moments of loveliness, strangeness, comedy and poetry and sorrow, Chidgey plays with the nature of time and its passing. The Beat of the Pendulum is also an exploration of human memory – how we acquire it, and how we lose it. This bravely experimental and immersive work draws us into the detail, reverberation and transience of a year in a life.
- GenresNovels21st Century
Paperback
First published November 1, 2017
7 people are currently reading
216 people want to read
About the author
Catherine Chidgey
17 books657 followersCatherine Chidgey is a novelist and short story writer whose work has been published to international acclaim. In a Fishbone Church won Best First Book at the New Zealand Book Awards and at the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in her region. In the UK it won the Betty Trask Award and was longlisted for the Orange Prize. Golden Deeds was Time Out’s book of the year, a Notable Book of the Year in The New York Times and a Best Book in the LA Times. She has won the Prize in Modern Letters, the Katherine Mansfield Award, the Katherine Mansfield Fellowship, the Janet Frame Fiction Prize, and the Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize for The Wish Child. Remote Sympathy was shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award and the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction, and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. The Axeman's Carnival won the Acorn at the New Zealand Book Awards - the country's biggest literary prize.
Raised in Wellington, New Zealand, Chidgey was educated at Victoria University and in Berlin, where she held a DAAD scholarship for post-graduate study in German literature. She lives in Cambridge and is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Waikato.
Raised in Wellington, New Zealand, Chidgey was educated at Victoria University and in Berlin, where she held a DAAD scholarship for post-graduate study in German literature. She lives in Cambridge and is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Waikato.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
January 25, 2019
I think the craft of it lies in that editing process, looking at it with an analytical eye and seeing how you can rearrange the raw material to come up with something original.
In À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs, the 2nd volume of À la recherche du temps perdu, Proust spoke of les battements de l'aguille, a phrase translated by C.K. Moncrieff as the beat of the pendulum:
As she herself explains in two interviews, first from https://i.stuff.co.nz/life-style/life...
The entry for January 1 begins:
I think your door is open.
People sometimes hear something but they don’t hear it correctly. How’s wee darling? Did she see the New Year in?
No no no, gentle gentle gentle with the pearls.
Is he playing hard to get? You won’t catch him. He’s stupid but he’s not that stupid. Shall we put you in the chair?
She looks at everything. I don’t know how she looks so long without blinking.
She’ll knock that off there. That’s not going to stay there. Try the other hand.
Some babies at that age really can’t eat. They can still just only have bottles. You’re a show-off aren’t you? Yes, you’re a big show-off. She’s keeping her eye on you, isn’t she? That shortbread was lovely. Did you make it? Oh. Well it just tasted like homemade. When you can buy things as nice as that—I presume you bought it—it’s hardly worth turning your oven on, is it?
So were there lots of admirers talking about the baby paraded at lunch the other day?
Oh yes—how old is she, what’s her name? Yes, they thought she was beautiful. They all like to see something like that, because you know . . .
That was a nice guy at your table, with Gwen. He said she’s got more hair than he does.
Yes he’s lovely. He’s got an artificial leg. He had his leg removed about three years ago. He’s good fun. Gwen’s quite a quiet lady. Les and I have lots of jokes and she joins in, you know. I have a feeling she didn’t have a happy marriage. She’s never quite said, but I think he went to the pub and football and left her alone quite a lot. We have a good table, Les and Gwen and me. There used to be another guy there, but I don’t know whether he’s died or gone upstairs or what’s happened to him but he’s not there, and nobody seems to know. And we’ve now got a lady there who doesn’t even get a joke.
She hasn’t done anything interesting for the last thirty-six hours or so.
Nana’s having a cup of tea. Stop laughing at Nana and eat your carrot. Tea’s so different just made in a cup, compared to sixty cups in a teapot.
This example of recorded conversation throws the reader into the cacaphony of Chidgey family life, with no immediate markers as to who is speaking and about what. Gradually as January progresses, one unentangles from the above two of the key threads that run through the novel, and indeed also motivated the novel (as per the quote above):
- Catherine's elderly mother, Pat, who is in a retirement home (where this scene takes place), and suffering from the onset of dementia which worsens albeit gradually as the year progresses; and
- Catherine's first child, baby Alice, around 6 months when the novel opens, and the trials of being a new parent (I loved the scene each time the clocks changed, as Catherine and her husband struggle to adjust the feeding and sleeping routine). Alice, we also later discover was born from a surrogate mother Leila, from the sperm of Catherine's huband Alan, with two daughters of her own. Later in the year Alan donated sperm to help another couple conceive a child. The etiquette of the nomenclature between Alice and her biological half-siblings (half-sisters?, cousins? sperm sisters?) is a recurring topic, albeit one dealt with, at least in the novel as recorded, very openly and calmly, above all lovingly.
Other narrative threads running through the novel include Chidgey's interest in quirky antique jewellery, her bookclub (one memorable discussion of Ian McEwan's Nutshell in particular), the family plan (never realised) to perhaps move away from the quiet town of Ngāruawāhia, just north of Hamilton, her husband's career as a daguerreotypist, and her career as both an author (she and a fellow author friend agonise together over reviews) and as a creative writing teacher. A typical piece of recovered collage - presumably advert and thought - reads:
Do you have a novel inside of you? Stop reading this. Start writing. James Patterson Writing Masterclass. Author of nineteen consecutive bestsellers reveals his tricks of the trade. I have started but I have no clue where to go from here. I even have a second book in mind for my character. I picture myself in front of a fireplace in a mountain cabin writing an insightful novel. My whole life is an interesting novel. I just lack the focus to write it all down.
The babble of voices in the first entry is in a way atypical. Many days are simple one line entries, often humourous:
May 14: Tell us what you’re doing for Privacy Week. (presumably heard on the radio or similar - sources are never given).
Others are more monologues from Catherine or another character (not necessarily human - her satnav has a starring role, as does ebay buyer feedback).
This is also a novel that is self aware - her friends and family are aware of her project, and Catherine the author often records her own thoughts on the writing process from diary entries or notes she has made. 6th February reads
Maybe I should include some lines of me whinging about Creative New Zealand’s funding application process, and then include that section as my writing sample in my application to Creative New Zealand for funding to write the book.
On another day she ponders making the chapters representing each month shorter, to signify the passing of time only to decide that is too much like the fucking Luminaries.
And that does also mean that what we get is a filtered account of a relatively undramatic middle-class life. A cervical smear is described in graphical detail (actually, in self-aware fashion, Catherine comments in the following days entry, what she left out in the previous day), and the gradual mental deterioration of her mother, including episodes of anger on both sides, is documented, but there is, say, no sex, marital strife beyond the odd friendly gripe, and if there were any major issues associated with the tangled skeins of surrogacy, they aren't on show here. But to be clear, that isn't a criticism, indeed the 'curated life' is a key part of Chidgey's project. From the Stuff interview previously referenced:
However, overall this is a worthwhile and fascinating experiment, thought provoking in the form and, the odd entry aside (and given the lack of a plot they can be skim-read) aside, very readable, albeit perhaps best consumed in doses.
Recommended - and a possible contender for the 2020 Republic of Consciousness Prize.
In À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs, the 2nd volume of À la recherche du temps perdu, Proust spoke of les battements de l'aguille, a phrase translated by C.K. Moncrieff as the beat of the pendulum:
In theory one is aware that the earth revolves, but in practice one does not perceive it, the ground upon which one treads seems not to move, and one can live undistubed. So is it with Time in one's life. And to make its flight perceptible novelists are obliged, by wildly accelerating the beat of the pendulum, to transport the reader in a couple of minutes over ten, twenty or even thirty years. At the top of one page we have left a lover full of hope; at the foot of the next we meet him again, a bowed old man of eighty, painfully dragging himself on his daily walk about the courtyard of an almshouse, scarcely replying to what is said to him, oblivious of the past.Catherine Chidgey's 2017 novel The Beat of The Pendulum, published in the UK in 2019 by Lightning Books, takes its title from that passage. It is an experimental text, a discovered novel, a first person auto-fictional work to set alongside the work of authors such as Knausgaard, and almost Oulipan in its constrained construction.
As she herself explains in two interviews, first from https://i.stuff.co.nz/life-style/life...
I just had the feeling I wanted to try an experiment where, for each day, I would try and salvage something from that rush of time, to hold on to a fragment of that day, before it raced by and was lost forever. That's why I decided on the format of creating an entry for every day of the year.and (from https://www.pantograph-punch.com/post...) explaining the rules she set herself:
Last year seemed the perfect period to cover in the book; my daughter was turning one, and was just beginning to use language and acquire memories, while my mother was turning eighty-five and beginning to lose those faculties due to dementia – and I stood in between the two of them.The resulting 500 page novel, split into chapter for each month and subsections for each day (366 as 2016 was a leap year) is fascinating and highly worthwhile, even if it doesn't necessarily make for an entirely satisfactory reading experience at times.
For every day of 2016 I had to produce a piece of writing drawn from something I encountered that day. My raw material was newspaper articles, Facebook posts, emails, radio broadcasts, books I was reading, street signs, notes I came across that I don’t remember writing to myself – terrible ideas for short stories, for instance. I also drew on conversations – ones overheard, or ones recorded with my friends, family, students, osteopath… Every day I transcribed this material, then crafted it into the entry for that day. The rules were that I could take out any words I wanted, and I could repeat words, and shift them around however I liked, but I couldn’t add anything. Sometimes the final piece of writing is quite close to the original source – some of the conversations with my mother, for instance – and sometimes it’s unrecognisable, and closer to prose poetry. Sometimes the character called Catherine Chidgey is basically myself, and other times she’s fiction.
The entry for January 1 begins:
I think your door is open.
People sometimes hear something but they don’t hear it correctly. How’s wee darling? Did she see the New Year in?
No no no, gentle gentle gentle with the pearls.
Is he playing hard to get? You won’t catch him. He’s stupid but he’s not that stupid. Shall we put you in the chair?
She looks at everything. I don’t know how she looks so long without blinking.
She’ll knock that off there. That’s not going to stay there. Try the other hand.
Some babies at that age really can’t eat. They can still just only have bottles. You’re a show-off aren’t you? Yes, you’re a big show-off. She’s keeping her eye on you, isn’t she? That shortbread was lovely. Did you make it? Oh. Well it just tasted like homemade. When you can buy things as nice as that—I presume you bought it—it’s hardly worth turning your oven on, is it?
So were there lots of admirers talking about the baby paraded at lunch the other day?
Oh yes—how old is she, what’s her name? Yes, they thought she was beautiful. They all like to see something like that, because you know . . .
That was a nice guy at your table, with Gwen. He said she’s got more hair than he does.
Yes he’s lovely. He’s got an artificial leg. He had his leg removed about three years ago. He’s good fun. Gwen’s quite a quiet lady. Les and I have lots of jokes and she joins in, you know. I have a feeling she didn’t have a happy marriage. She’s never quite said, but I think he went to the pub and football and left her alone quite a lot. We have a good table, Les and Gwen and me. There used to be another guy there, but I don’t know whether he’s died or gone upstairs or what’s happened to him but he’s not there, and nobody seems to know. And we’ve now got a lady there who doesn’t even get a joke.
She hasn’t done anything interesting for the last thirty-six hours or so.
Nana’s having a cup of tea. Stop laughing at Nana and eat your carrot. Tea’s so different just made in a cup, compared to sixty cups in a teapot.
This example of recorded conversation throws the reader into the cacaphony of Chidgey family life, with no immediate markers as to who is speaking and about what. Gradually as January progresses, one unentangles from the above two of the key threads that run through the novel, and indeed also motivated the novel (as per the quote above):
- Catherine's elderly mother, Pat, who is in a retirement home (where this scene takes place), and suffering from the onset of dementia which worsens albeit gradually as the year progresses; and
- Catherine's first child, baby Alice, around 6 months when the novel opens, and the trials of being a new parent (I loved the scene each time the clocks changed, as Catherine and her husband struggle to adjust the feeding and sleeping routine). Alice, we also later discover was born from a surrogate mother Leila, from the sperm of Catherine's huband Alan, with two daughters of her own. Later in the year Alan donated sperm to help another couple conceive a child. The etiquette of the nomenclature between Alice and her biological half-siblings (half-sisters?, cousins? sperm sisters?) is a recurring topic, albeit one dealt with, at least in the novel as recorded, very openly and calmly, above all lovingly.
Other narrative threads running through the novel include Chidgey's interest in quirky antique jewellery, her bookclub (one memorable discussion of Ian McEwan's Nutshell in particular), the family plan (never realised) to perhaps move away from the quiet town of Ngāruawāhia, just north of Hamilton, her husband's career as a daguerreotypist, and her career as both an author (she and a fellow author friend agonise together over reviews) and as a creative writing teacher. A typical piece of recovered collage - presumably advert and thought - reads:
Do you have a novel inside of you? Stop reading this. Start writing. James Patterson Writing Masterclass. Author of nineteen consecutive bestsellers reveals his tricks of the trade. I have started but I have no clue where to go from here. I even have a second book in mind for my character. I picture myself in front of a fireplace in a mountain cabin writing an insightful novel. My whole life is an interesting novel. I just lack the focus to write it all down.
The babble of voices in the first entry is in a way atypical. Many days are simple one line entries, often humourous:
May 14: Tell us what you’re doing for Privacy Week. (presumably heard on the radio or similar - sources are never given).
Others are more monologues from Catherine or another character (not necessarily human - her satnav has a starring role, as does ebay buyer feedback).
This is also a novel that is self aware - her friends and family are aware of her project, and Catherine the author often records her own thoughts on the writing process from diary entries or notes she has made. 6th February reads
Maybe I should include some lines of me whinging about Creative New Zealand’s funding application process, and then include that section as my writing sample in my application to Creative New Zealand for funding to write the book.
On another day she ponders making the chapters representing each month shorter, to signify the passing of time only to decide that is too much like the fucking Luminaries.
And that does also mean that what we get is a filtered account of a relatively undramatic middle-class life. A cervical smear is described in graphical detail (actually, in self-aware fashion, Catherine comments in the following days entry, what she left out in the previous day), and the gradual mental deterioration of her mother, including episodes of anger on both sides, is documented, but there is, say, no sex, marital strife beyond the odd friendly gripe, and if there were any major issues associated with the tangled skeins of surrogacy, they aren't on show here. But to be clear, that isn't a criticism, indeed the 'curated life' is a key part of Chidgey's project. From the Stuff interview previously referenced:
Part of it was examining the way we document our lives in the 21st century, and to poke fun at that notion of the curated life and the life lived on Facebook or the life lived online. I find the way we live our lives in public endlessly intriguing and also horrifying, so I love playing with that.I mentioned at outset that the novel doesn't always make for a satisfactory reading experience, and I should address that point. Alongside the one line entries are plenty of much longer ones, particularly family conversations. The ones with her mother can be repetetive but this effectively conveys the impact of dementia (the entry for December 31 includes the line Very repetitive. Very repetitive. The repetitiveness is exhausting.) Her mother moving room in the retirement home, actually at her original request, becomes a drama played out over several weeks as she has to be continually be reminded, often within the same conversation, why it is being done, and that it isn't because she is being punished, the nurse wants her room for one of her relatives or to save money for Catherine, as she at various times suspects. But other conversations involving extended reminscenes about family members and friends from decades ago are rather hard to follow, therefore rather tedious to read, and didn't seem to add so much to the form, albeit it must be admitted they are entirely realistic. At times, I found this a novel best read in small doses - the monthly chapters of c.40 pages each providing a convenient break and while Knausgaard is at times also (again deliberately) tedious, this book didn't have quite the addictive rush of his prose.
However, overall this is a worthwhile and fascinating experiment, thought provoking in the form and, the odd entry aside (and given the lack of a plot they can be skim-read) aside, very readable, albeit perhaps best consumed in doses.
Recommended - and a possible contender for the 2020 Republic of Consciousness Prize.
January 1, 2019
I can guarantee you won't have read a book like this before! What a way to start the new year with a whole new reading experience and one that I found to be a wholly unique, quirky, emotional, funny and a very touching read!
The author has been extremely clever with her approach to this book - it's life! Her life! But told in the random way that life seems to attack us all nowadays - the constant bombardment of information from a variety of sources - be that people around you, the news, things you read, stuff you hear, things you think - and she has catalogued it monthly to give you an insight into how life evolves for us all.
It did take me a while to get my head around the style of storytelling as it is extremely choppy and random. It won't be for everyone! But when you look at the world of social media and 24/7/365 TV coverage we all experience nowadays it is extremely normal to never seemingly have a 'quiet' moment. There is always something happening and her approach to this book was to include everything around her. Often it is completely insignificant and throwaway, and other times it is completely touching especially when she is discussing events happening to her family and career. Dealing with her mothers' dementia really struck a chord with me having had family members go through the same, and the weird conversations that emerge and the amount of time you have to go over the same thing. But then you get that up against the completely random subjects of things seen on TV shows, poo, parenting, instructions in manuals, funny recollections of times gone by..oh and the Vengaboys!! It's a weird thing to have stuck with me but I now can't stop singing the Vengabus song because of this book!
I liken this style of storytelling to if you were flicking through the numerous TV channels and spent about 10 seconds on each, how weird and nonsensical it would all seem, or if you were overhearing conversations while out and about. You just get a snippet of what is important to that person at that time, and this is what this book brings you over a year of noting down all that is heard and experienced, thought and witnessed.
My overriding thought from reading this is that in amongst the chaos of the world around us, there is life happening to us! Considering the simplicity of this story it has been an extremely touching and thought provoking read and one I can highly recommend to you all if you're looking for something just that little bit different to start your new year off with.
The author has been extremely clever with her approach to this book - it's life! Her life! But told in the random way that life seems to attack us all nowadays - the constant bombardment of information from a variety of sources - be that people around you, the news, things you read, stuff you hear, things you think - and she has catalogued it monthly to give you an insight into how life evolves for us all.
It did take me a while to get my head around the style of storytelling as it is extremely choppy and random. It won't be for everyone! But when you look at the world of social media and 24/7/365 TV coverage we all experience nowadays it is extremely normal to never seemingly have a 'quiet' moment. There is always something happening and her approach to this book was to include everything around her. Often it is completely insignificant and throwaway, and other times it is completely touching especially when she is discussing events happening to her family and career. Dealing with her mothers' dementia really struck a chord with me having had family members go through the same, and the weird conversations that emerge and the amount of time you have to go over the same thing. But then you get that up against the completely random subjects of things seen on TV shows, poo, parenting, instructions in manuals, funny recollections of times gone by..oh and the Vengaboys!! It's a weird thing to have stuck with me but I now can't stop singing the Vengabus song because of this book!
I liken this style of storytelling to if you were flicking through the numerous TV channels and spent about 10 seconds on each, how weird and nonsensical it would all seem, or if you were overhearing conversations while out and about. You just get a snippet of what is important to that person at that time, and this is what this book brings you over a year of noting down all that is heard and experienced, thought and witnessed.
My overriding thought from reading this is that in amongst the chaos of the world around us, there is life happening to us! Considering the simplicity of this story it has been an extremely touching and thought provoking read and one I can highly recommend to you all if you're looking for something just that little bit different to start your new year off with.
February 10, 2018
As promised, this is a follow-up review to my first thoughts about Catherine Chidgey’s The Beat of the Pendulum. which is longlisted for the 2018 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. This ‘found novel’ is a remarkable experiment in fiction, drawing on – or purporting to be – the language that was all around the author. In twelve chapters named for the months of the year, a life is laid bare through language that is both impersonal (TV, radio, social media, email, SatNav) and intensely personal – her conversations with friends and family, apparently recorded on her iPhone.
The first chapters of the book are engaging because of the challenge of interpreting a cacophony of words. There are no markers to guide the reader as to context and many of the slabs of text comprise, as life does, multiple voices. On the very first page, Catherine, who we are led to believe is the author herself, is talking to her mother and to her baby at the same time, and her mother is talking to Catherine and to the baby. But it gets more complicated when there are not only more people talking at the same time but also references to media, which sometimes bleeds into the conversations and is responded to, but is sometimes just background noise. I was fascinated by these early chapters, and also very impressed by the skill with which they had been constructed.
But as the book progressed and I became familiar with the ‘characters’ I also became intrigued by other issues, the most obvious of which is privacy. Every author draws on life experience to construct fiction, but The Beat of the Pendulum explicitly uses the people in Chidgey’s life as material for the book, presumably with their permission (but maybe not always). One of the aspects I wondered about was how this impacted on the conversations she had. Surely there were times when she was asked (or told) to stop recording, or chose herself to stop it, but just as we all modify our communications in the presence of outsiders of one sort or another (e.g. neighbours in the garden next door) surely those who were conscious of that iPhone felt constrained at times? What does it do to a marital relationship?
*chuckle* It’s not hard to imagine Chidgey’s friends, family, students, colleagues, acquaintances and hapless individuals who encountered her during this year, scrambling through the book to find themselves within its pages. But the detached reader such as myself realises early on that these 494 pages are not only – of necessity – only part of a life, snippets extracted from a morass of language over 365 days – but they are also filtered. There is some discretion impacting on the author’s choices.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/02/01/t... and https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/02/10/t...
It should be a contender for the Goldsmith’s Prize!
The first chapters of the book are engaging because of the challenge of interpreting a cacophony of words. There are no markers to guide the reader as to context and many of the slabs of text comprise, as life does, multiple voices. On the very first page, Catherine, who we are led to believe is the author herself, is talking to her mother and to her baby at the same time, and her mother is talking to Catherine and to the baby. But it gets more complicated when there are not only more people talking at the same time but also references to media, which sometimes bleeds into the conversations and is responded to, but is sometimes just background noise. I was fascinated by these early chapters, and also very impressed by the skill with which they had been constructed.
But as the book progressed and I became familiar with the ‘characters’ I also became intrigued by other issues, the most obvious of which is privacy. Every author draws on life experience to construct fiction, but The Beat of the Pendulum explicitly uses the people in Chidgey’s life as material for the book, presumably with their permission (but maybe not always). One of the aspects I wondered about was how this impacted on the conversations she had. Surely there were times when she was asked (or told) to stop recording, or chose herself to stop it, but just as we all modify our communications in the presence of outsiders of one sort or another (e.g. neighbours in the garden next door) surely those who were conscious of that iPhone felt constrained at times? What does it do to a marital relationship?
*chuckle* It’s not hard to imagine Chidgey’s friends, family, students, colleagues, acquaintances and hapless individuals who encountered her during this year, scrambling through the book to find themselves within its pages. But the detached reader such as myself realises early on that these 494 pages are not only – of necessity – only part of a life, snippets extracted from a morass of language over 365 days – but they are also filtered. There is some discretion impacting on the author’s choices.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/02/01/t... and https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/02/10/t...
It should be a contender for the Goldsmith’s Prize!
December 28, 2018
“We’re not bold enough about telling the truth. We mask it and muffle it.”
The Beat of the Pendulum, by Catherine Chidgey, is a depiction of one year in the author’s life created using fragments of conversation. Each day has an entry. Some of these are a few words long while others go on for pages. The conversations are with key figures, mainly family members. They cover the mundane minutiae of life including: looking after a baby; visiting elderly relatives whose minds are slipping; medical consultations; discussions with husband. As a writer the author has thoughts on her peers and on critics. The conversations transcribed have been recorded and are presented in a manner that appears unadorned. It is a brave approach as the portrayal may be real but is not flattering – which may be the point of the exercise.
“I had the idea that I could run very expensive, very exclusive creative writing workshops for wealthy tourists. But I’d have to look at a lot of shit writing.”
Chidgey teaches creative writing at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. Her views on her students are at times searing.
With a new novel due to be published she is concerned about its reception. There is resentment that her work is not appreciated as she believes it deserves. At the same time she is highly critical of books she reads, damning one with the faint praise: “onerous”, “not horrendous”.
“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?”
She is suspicious of anyone appearing to offer friendship then mentioning their own literary aspirations.
When her new book is released she instructs her husband to post about how proud he is of his talented wife on his Facebook timeline. She also adds a mention of the novel to her mother’s Christmas letter. Such self promotion is not a surprise but the manner in which it is done adds to her feelings of resentment at how her work is received.
Interactions with her elderly mother, who lives in a care home and is growing ever more forgetful, are more nuanced. Whilst recognising the repetitiveness and frustrations of these conversations – as will anyone with elderly relatives – they were lengthy. The whole book felt lengthy.
Family and friends get together and catch up on news of people known to an inner circle. Photographs are poured over in attempts to work out who is who and reminisce. Strangers to the group would be unable to follow the conversation and, as a reader, there is a need to care enough to concentrate. There are nuggets but also much repetition.
“I’m not missing Mum as such – I’m missing a memory.”
There are numerous entries on Chidgey’s health issues which she seems to think about a great deal. She also concerns herself with cleanliness, describing her daughter’s library books as “filthy”.
The author muses on her looks, especially her eyebrows when her photograph is to be taken. There are mentions of past acquaintances and a hope that they only see her more flattering images. Little interest or care is shown about what they may have achieved.
“I googled a lost loves’s name and found his obituary”
Chidgey is often on the lookout for ideas for a next book. Some of these would be funny if there were not an underlying cruelty.
“Book of unused acceptance speeches. I would contact celebrities and invite them to contribute.”
She shares her thoughts on literary events and interviews.
“You always say brilliant things.
No I don’t.
You do.
It makes me feel sick. I’ve said everything in the book, so just fuck off and read it.”
“I’m having to tell a story about the telling of the story, because telling the story isn’t enough these days.”
Many of the conversations are notably lacking in PC editing. Such honesty can be caustic.
Described as creative non fiction, this is a book that may appeal more to other authors. As a reader it made me question how authors truly regard us.
At close to five hundred pages of recorded conversations this was a challenge to finish. In writing this review I do not expect my opinion to be welcomed.
The Beat of the Pendulum, by Catherine Chidgey, is a depiction of one year in the author’s life created using fragments of conversation. Each day has an entry. Some of these are a few words long while others go on for pages. The conversations are with key figures, mainly family members. They cover the mundane minutiae of life including: looking after a baby; visiting elderly relatives whose minds are slipping; medical consultations; discussions with husband. As a writer the author has thoughts on her peers and on critics. The conversations transcribed have been recorded and are presented in a manner that appears unadorned. It is a brave approach as the portrayal may be real but is not flattering – which may be the point of the exercise.
“I had the idea that I could run very expensive, very exclusive creative writing workshops for wealthy tourists. But I’d have to look at a lot of shit writing.”
Chidgey teaches creative writing at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. Her views on her students are at times searing.
With a new novel due to be published she is concerned about its reception. There is resentment that her work is not appreciated as she believes it deserves. At the same time she is highly critical of books she reads, damning one with the faint praise: “onerous”, “not horrendous”.
“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?”
She is suspicious of anyone appearing to offer friendship then mentioning their own literary aspirations.
When her new book is released she instructs her husband to post about how proud he is of his talented wife on his Facebook timeline. She also adds a mention of the novel to her mother’s Christmas letter. Such self promotion is not a surprise but the manner in which it is done adds to her feelings of resentment at how her work is received.
Interactions with her elderly mother, who lives in a care home and is growing ever more forgetful, are more nuanced. Whilst recognising the repetitiveness and frustrations of these conversations – as will anyone with elderly relatives – they were lengthy. The whole book felt lengthy.
Family and friends get together and catch up on news of people known to an inner circle. Photographs are poured over in attempts to work out who is who and reminisce. Strangers to the group would be unable to follow the conversation and, as a reader, there is a need to care enough to concentrate. There are nuggets but also much repetition.
“I’m not missing Mum as such – I’m missing a memory.”
There are numerous entries on Chidgey’s health issues which she seems to think about a great deal. She also concerns herself with cleanliness, describing her daughter’s library books as “filthy”.
The author muses on her looks, especially her eyebrows when her photograph is to be taken. There are mentions of past acquaintances and a hope that they only see her more flattering images. Little interest or care is shown about what they may have achieved.
“I googled a lost loves’s name and found his obituary”
Chidgey is often on the lookout for ideas for a next book. Some of these would be funny if there were not an underlying cruelty.
“Book of unused acceptance speeches. I would contact celebrities and invite them to contribute.”
She shares her thoughts on literary events and interviews.
“You always say brilliant things.
No I don’t.
You do.
It makes me feel sick. I’ve said everything in the book, so just fuck off and read it.”
“I’m having to tell a story about the telling of the story, because telling the story isn’t enough these days.”
Many of the conversations are notably lacking in PC editing. Such honesty can be caustic.
Described as creative non fiction, this is a book that may appeal more to other authors. As a reader it made me question how authors truly regard us.
At close to five hundred pages of recorded conversations this was a challenge to finish. In writing this review I do not expect my opinion to be welcomed.
February 13, 2018
Bewildering at first, but once you get the point it’s very startling, like reality TV or verbatim theatre in novel form: very 21st century and meta. I wasn’t sure I was enjoying living someone’s life by proxy but then it drew me in, and I found I was really liking the author’s voice and often laughing out loud. By the end I was hooked.
August 14, 2019
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.
29
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.
30
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.
''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.
29
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.
30
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.
April 5, 2018
HIghly complex and quite difficult to follow, but very interesting just the same. Worth a go.
January 18, 2020
I mean what was the point? I feel sometimes she was even using reverse psychology to get a good review. I mean if maybe I'd read her other books I may understand this vanity book. In defense I'm rather harsh on NZ authors (tall poppy syndrome I suppose) and always expect more. Still I could see the potential for 365 writing exercises ...if that was her aim? 😅
July 18, 2021
I quite liked the idea of this "found"book, but after a hundred pages I decided it was just too much hard work to find the thread through the story. I might give it another go sometime as now (a week or so later) I feel a bit more intrigued.
November 14, 2018
Interestingly written but I struggled to finish and did not get the point
Read
December 27, 2019Loved the concept (and Catherine Chidgey’s other books) - sadly I just couldn’t finish this one
Read
January 4, 2023apologies for being one of them lazy creative writing students Catherine! I’ll be better
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews