Matinee Idyll - Books read by Crowded House/Split Enz

On this page: referred to | mentioning | titled

Writers read by Split Enz/Crowded House

Blainey, Geoffrey

The Tyranny Of Distance, 1966.

Left: The Tyranny of Distance - How Distance Shaped Australia's History, Revised Edition, Sun Books, 1983. ISBN 0725100192

Tim had been reading the book when he wrote Six Months In A Leaky Boat (Tim Finn & Split Enz)

Geoffrey Blainey, (b. 1930) was Professor of History at the University of Melbourne and Chancellor of the University of Ballarat. The theme of his book is that distance (from Britain, other parts of the world, within Australia) was the major factor in the direction and scope of Australia's development.

Geoffrey Blainey (Wikipedia)

www.geoffreyblainey.com - timed out, 29th March, 2009.

Carey, Peter

Bliss, 1981.

Neil has said that there are similarities between Locked Out and this book.

Peter Carey (b. 1943) is an Australian novelist and short story writer.
His works include:-

The Fat Man In History (1974) (UK - Exotic Pleasures (1981)) - short stories
War Crimes (1979) - short stories
Bliss (1981)
Illywhacker (1985)
Oscar and Lucinda (1988) (won Booker Prize)
The Tax Inspector (1991)

I'm not sure his books are for the squeamish (like me!). I tried reading Bliss, but gave up because I found it too explicit and I don't enjoy reading 'strong language'. Though I'm told it's not so bad if you persevere. The Tax Inspector is described as sinister and violent - I haven't read it!

Official site

Hesse, Herman

(1877-1962), Swiss

Unterm Rad (1906) which has been translated as Under The Wheel and Beneath The Wheel

The Split Enz song Under The Wheel (Phil Judd, Tim Finn) is on Mental Notes, Oddz And Enz - live, and Enzso.

See Mervyn Peake.

Spoiler: select the following text for an outline of the plot:

Unterm Rad tells the story of Hans Giebenrath who is intellectually gifted, but cannot withstand the pressures of a father who does not understand and a school pushing him too hard. Eventually he leaves the school and becomes an artisan, but loses his way in the real world. He is found drowned - it is left to the reader to decide if it was accidental or intentional.

Hermann Hesse (Wikipedia)

Ishiguro, Kazuo

The Remains Of The Day.

In an interview at the Much Music studio in Toronto, Mark Hart recommended this book, though he didn't say why!

Kazuo Ishiguro (b. 1954, Nagasaki, Japan) has lived in Britain since 1960.
His works include:-

Introduction 7: Stories By New Writers, 1981 (work included in.)
A Pale View Of The Hills (1982)
An Artist Of The Floating World (1986)
The Remains Of The Day (1989) (won Booker Prize)

The Remains Of The Day has been made into a film by Merchant-Ivory, starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson

McEwan, Ian

The Child In Time

In an interview at the Much Music studio in Toronto Neil recommended this book to anyone who had children.

Ian McEwan (b. 1948) Novelist and short story writer.
His works include:-

First Love, Last Rites (1975) (collection of stories)
In Between The Sheets (1978) (collection of stories)
The Cement Garden (1978)
The Comfort Of Strangers (1981)
Rose Blanche (1985) (Children's fiction)
The Child In Time (1987)
The Innocent (1990)
Black Dogs (1992)
The Day Dreamer (1994) (Children's fiction)
Enduring Love (1997)
The Imitation Game (1981) (television play)
Or Shall We Die? (libretto for oratorio by Michael Berkley)
The Ploughman's Lunch (1983) (screenplay)
Sour Sweet (1989) (screenplay)
The Good Son (1993) (screenplay)
Amsterdam (1998)
Atonement (2001)
Saturday (2005)
On Chesil Beach (2007)
For You (2008) (opera)

Official site

Peake, Mervyn

Gormenghast Trilogy
left: the first book, Titus Groan

In Stranger Than Fiction Mike Chunn describes Phil Judd moving into Brian's (Tim Finn) flat in Patteson Avenue, Mission Bay, Auckland in 1972. He brought with him Herman Hesse novels, including Under The Wheel and Meryvn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy Titus Groan, Gormenghast and Titus Alone.

Also in Stranger Than Fiction are Phil Judd's original hand written lyrics for Titus, along with a sketch, which has similarities with Mervyn Peake's drawings for Titus Groan.

p52 Stranger Than Fiction "A spoken piece, culled from the flyleaf of a Mervyn Peake novel..."

"Stranger than fiction
Larger than life
Full of shades and echoes"
(Stranger Than Fiction)

(The usual source for the phrase "Stranger than fiction" is Lord Byron's Don Juan:-

" 'T is strange - but true; for truth is always strange;
Stranger than fiction;"
{Canto XIV,ci} )

Mervyn Peake (1911-68) was a novelist, dramatist, poet and painter. He was born in Kuling, China and his family returned to England in 1923 where he trained as an artist. A visit to Belsen at the end of the Second World War, with the journalist Tom Pocock, which Peake captured in poetry and sketches, haunted his later work.

The poet, Dylan Thomas was a family friend. He would borrow clothes from Peake! Shirts would be found missing after his visits...
His works include:-

Titus Groan (1946)
Gormenghast (1950)
Titus Alone (1959)
The Glassblowers (1950) (poetry)
The Rhyme Of The Flying Bomb (1962) (a ballad of the blitz)
A Book Of Nonsense (1971)

Book illustrations:-

Hunting Of The Snark
The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner
Alice's Adventures In Wonderland
Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde
Treasure Island
The Swiss Family Robinson
Prayers And Graces

A quote from an exhibition of Mervyn Peake's drawings at Ty Llen, Swansea, South Wales, Feb/March 1997:-

"As the earth was thrown from the sun, so from the earth the artist must fling out into space, complete from pole to pole, his own world which, whatsoever form it takes, is the colour of the globe it flew from, as the world is coloured by the sun".........Mervyn Peake, 1949

Mervyn Peake pages:-

Mervyn Peake - site maintained by his son Sebastian Peake.

Mervyn Peake - life and works.

BBC's production of Gormenghast.

Scott, Dick

Ask That Mountain, Reed/Southern Cross, 1975. ISBN: 079000190X

"In the late 1980s, Tim's older sister Carolyn gave him Dick Scott's book Ask That Mountain, which she had just read, and told him to write a song about it. Not one to disobey a directive from a sibling, Tim came through with the song 'Parihaka'."
Parihaka CD - A legacy in words and music (Morrison Music Trust) -
Track 21:- Parihaka - Tim Finn & Herbs

Dick Scott (New Zealand Book Council)

Tan, Amy

The Kitchen God's Wife

Paul Hester recommended this book in a fan club newsletter (#34, January 1994) '...be kind to your mothers (READ "THE KITCHEN GOD'S WIFE...BY AMY TAN")...'

Amy Tan (b. 1952, Oakland California) was born two and a half years after her parents emigrated from China.
Her works include:-

The Joy Luck Club (1989) (made into a film)
The Kitchen God's Wife (1991)
The Hundred Secret Senses (1996)
The Bonesetter's Daughter (2001)
Saving Fish from Drowning (2005)

Official site

Amy Tan (Wikipedia)

Books mentioning Crowded House

Banks, Iain

In Complicity, p134 in the paperback edition, is the line:-

"Nirvana, Michelle Shocked, Crowded House and Carter USM provided the soundtrack" as the main character is driving to the Isle of Skye.

I've looked through this book, but as with Bliss, the strong language and explicit descriptions aren't to my taste.

Official site

Books with Crowded House in the title

Bradley, Tom, Crowded House, Angus and Robertson, 1995., First published in Australia in 1995.

This is a children's book I discovered when I entered "Crowded House" in the library catalogue! Having children of the right age to read it, I borrowed it, but there aren't any obvious references to the band.

Lewis, David, The Crowded House, illustrated by Alan Parry, Scripture Union, 1977, ISBN 0854215131
Other books by David Lewis, and illustrated by Alan Parry, all Bible stories, include: The Cheat's House, The Country House, The Guest House, The Leader's House, The Rich House, The Secret House, The Sick House and The Hungry Crowd (about the feeding of the five thousand).

Note: unlikely to be the same David Lewis who writes about Polynesian navigation eg in Shapes On The Wind.

Ripley, Katharine Ball, Crowded House, Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1936.
Reviewed in The New York Times, August, 1936.

Page compiled by carolyn
Last updated 29th March, 2009.