Table of Everything

Kirkus Reviews

Young creative writers and fans of the unconventional will be amused, entertained...by these quirky vignettes.

Publishers Weekly

Australian writer White's collection of prose poems and short stories features 17 narrators with different interests, occupations and preoccupations. Their voices, nearly indistinguishable, express a scientific approach to living, a poetic sensibility and a strong philosophical bent. The author carries to an almost absurd extreme the narrators' musings and actions. Most of the selections begin with the implied question, "What if?" What if street sounds were recorded as a concerto, wishes grew into paper mountains in the back yard, or cats could speak poetry? Answers are rarely clear cut, but the process of imagining the results provide whimsical comedy. For instance, the woman in "Method of Living" wonders if it is more effective to work in a chaotic or organized environment. Starting her days "with a perfect arrangement" makes her feel like "a snake inside a bamboo pole," but the disorganized method has "even more dispiriting results." In "Very Slow Train," the characters' goal is to build a train "the exact opposite of the one that ran between Melbourne and Sydney." After purchasing an antique wooden train and laboring many hours renovating its cars, the designers believe that they will please the fancy of every imaginable passenger. The only problem: the train can only travel at a snail's pace. Traditionalists may balk at the author's open endings and sketchy characterizations, but those who favor the journey over reaching a destination will be carried far by this book's meditations. Ages 13-up. (Dec.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

VOYA

Australian White creates quirky, compelling, just a bit off-kilter short stories with a strong narrative voice that grabs the reader. She introduces the collection with "Picture a table covered with all that matters to you.... This is where you make sense of things.... Each element in your world has a definite life and voice.... This is the Table of Everything." White's finely honed sense of the absurd is evident in Sunrise Conversation. A mere two pages long, it meanders from getting up at 4:30a.m. to see the sunrise to burying everything in the backyard and sailing around to world to find the sunrise until "Oh, no, I'm working tomorrow!" ends the saga. In Method of Living, a sense of order influenced by a picture in an old gardening book leads to a life that spirals into disorganization. An organized life, improving one's memory, the improvisational music played by an orchestra of street traffic—all seemingly mundane subjects—are treated with twists and turns that challenge the imagination. White has studied painting, beekeeping, and plant science in addition to writing, and each discipline claims a territory here. The seventeen stories are full of little pen-and-ink sketches that add depth to the words on the page, with full-page drawings scattered throughout. First-person narration gives brief glimpses into the intriguing lives of idiosyncratic characters. Participating in these one-sided conversations, readers will find themselves nodding, agreeing here, questioning there, and seeking the universal truths hidden among the words and pictures. These stories would be useful for sparking discussion before a creative writing assignment. Illus. VOYA CODES: 3Q 4P J S (Readable withoutserious defects; Broad general YA appeal; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12). 2001 (orig. 2000), Allen & Unwin, 132p,
— Roxy Ekstrom

Kirkus Reviews

In a hard-to-categorize debut, Australian White lets her imagination run free with 17 short first-person... well, pieces, for lack of a more specific term: one introduces a friend who adds a wing to her house for her pencil collection; another pictures memory as a labyrinthine archive run by scurrying sugar ants; in another, she presents the sounds on her street as a "Concerto For Autumn" ("Section two is punctuated by sudden door slams-house and car..."), then describes the "concerto's" CD cover. Here, an open-hearted couple restores a "Very Slow Train" to service, with mixed success; there, the narrator hears a cat reciting Andrew Marvell ("Poetry Ambush"), or explores the "Topography of Wishes" in the mountain of discarded intentions that fills her back yard. Smudgy black-and-white paintings and smaller ink sketches add a casual air to the collection. Young creative writers and fans of the unconventional will be amused, entertained-and maybe even inspired by-these quirky vignettes. (Short stories. YA)