Zed

“A season, a season, year on year, no rest in flowering, fruiting, dangerous world.”

“From footprints that cross and recross, from curlicued vines on a trellis-stave, through lens-droplets and in the opacity of milk I read my story.”

“I dream a big plane, a bomber perhaps, that turns and returns low over the gridlocked panic of a city at war, cumbersome and deliberate as a blowfly. It's so close I can see the dents in its silver underbelly. I dreamed ruined boys, so far removed from manhood that they fixate on cruelty, as if the pain and fear they cause or merely witness could give them power. Nightly, my mind catalogues my fears as strife gathers its grievous attendants and soldiers take to the street. Of course this is my own internal landscape too. How to be with it.”


Rogue Intensities is a diary entry for each month over five years. Diarist/poet Angela Rockel lives on a farm in Tasmania and has a curious and philosophical mind. Each entry is a seamless blend of her observations on farm life, nature, ecology, history, mythology and even her family history.
“Rogue intensities roam the streets of the ordinary” said Kathleen Stewart in her book, Ordinary Affects. Angela took this statement and wrote with intensity about her own thoughtful roguish roamings. “I am taken all in deep.” she wrote. Indeed.

Such a book of strange beauty, highly recommended.

I go for a walk on a regular basis in an attempt to live forever.

While doing so I listen to Backlisted Podcast.

It is kind of therapeutic, funny and many other things besides.

What that does?

It makes me need to have eternities to read everything they discuss, and so much more.

Backlisted blokes John and Andy had a dear friend pass away.

They recited his favourite short story.

I teared up while listening and walking home.

Timing.

Place.

Lawrence Summers, the former president of Harvard University argued that liberal arts did not need to include the study of foreign language. He basically argued that English was a universal language and along with machine translations it meant that citizens of the USA had no need to learn other languages other than English. This reminded me of a question that I read on the internet where an American had asked why the British spoke English when it was an American language and Britain was part of Europe. Why indeed LOL and I wonder how the good Mr Summers would have answered that question.

Though now nearly 9 years old I have found these essays by Linda Jaivin, Australian author, translator, essayist, novelist and specialist writer on China very informative and still relevant. Ultimately, this is a defence of the humanities via translation and gives very good reasons why they are as relevant to the future as they were in the past.

Some of my GR friends have written some fine reviews of this Quarterly Essay and I recommend them to anyone that reads this one.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/942381330

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/771656762

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/820846778

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/970579061

Having been a bookbinder apprentice a long time ago I would have liked to think that I might have had an affinity of some kind with this fantasy, it was nice to read of a few tools and terms from my past, it had a fairly good plot and the idea that us binders could assist in letting others not have to remember their troubles by just binding them away seemed a great idea.

The reality is that this is not that well written for this reviewer and far too long to the point of being laborious to read. There was one binding after about 200 pages, and that was hardly riveting. There are two major characters in what is basically a gay romance turned into a fantasy novel. Split into three parts, the first part told in the first person by protagonist one, the second a third person narrative and the final as a first person by protagonist two, I was very disappointed that the writing never gave me the feeling that the three parts were anything other than the same person. As to sentence structure, it was very weak. “I'm too cold to care. I huddle in the corner while he leads the horses to the stalls. He cracks the ice in the bucket. My brain has frozen. I can't even think.” and on and on it seemed. It felt that I was reading a high school student with a great idea, but without the experience to put the sentences into anything other than a few short words. I was not expecting this to be literary genius by any stretch and expected nothing more than entertainment, but it just felt all too YA for my tastes.

Sadly, it hardly touches the wonder that was Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell if the author was aiming for a Dickens style fantasy. Not for me, I suppose.

Who is that girl with a very young Leonard Cohen?

Charmain Clift the wife of George Johnston, the author of the outstanding My Brother Jack (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1684579932) who is also the author of this sequel Clean Straw For Nothing.

Johnson writes that this is a work of fiction, “a free rendering of the truth”. That begs the question as to why his wife, a talented writer in her own right, took an overdose of barbiturates on the eve of the publication of this novel by her husband.

Her wiki quotes her as saying
‘I do believe that novelists must be free to write what they like, in any way they liked to write it (and after all who but myself had urged and nagged him into it?), but the stuff of which Clean Straw for Nothing is made is largely experience in which I, too, have shared and ... have felt differently because I am a different person ...'

Clean Straw For Nothing is the second novel of a trilogy that tells the story of David Meredith (Johnston) and his wife Cressida (Clift) from the time they became a couple after WW2 through to an ill Meredith (Johnston) lying in a Sydney Hospital bed in the late 60's after a return to Australia after many years' absence.

Meredith was a journalist of some repute who really wished to be an author of more repute. This at times very sad story tells of that attempt and with that the consequences to him and his wife's complex relationship, not only with each other but those that they come into contact with. Theirs is a story of displaced bewilderment, imposter syndrome and living outside the norms of respectable society, “jumping off the bus” as one protagonist acidly complained.

Meredith wanted to depart Australia desperately and with that had the support of Cressida who was a wanderer herself. They had witnessed the racism of Anglo Australians towards European refugees with much disgust, having witnessed war first hand. There was a feeling of not fitting into a staunchly conservative society that resented anyone different, for them there was a sense of displacement that they recognised in themselves. With that, they moved to London with children in tow. Working in London did not remove that sense of displacement, so they moved to a Greek Island. They were looked on by the locals with some bemusement, but this idyll was attractive to wandering expatriate kinds from all over the planet.

But the life of a writer can be burdensome if there is a lack of success, things can get difficult on the financial front and as to their own domesticity, Meredith an older husband and his beautiful young wife drank and partied too much, the consequences of that are a challenge. With illness eventually having an effect, after many years it is time to go home, the question of course is where is home?

Johnson has written a novel that joins its predecessor as very thematic; this one looks at the life of the outsiders who belonged neither in their homeland nor in the places that they escaped to. They were before their time in terms of dropping out, the fifties for goodness's sake? They had experiences that few of their contemporaries had hitherto experienced, but it all came at a great cost psychologically and was destructive for them both, and in real life, their children.

As author Polly Sampson wrote, Cohen “... was inspired by married writers George Johnston and Charmian Clift when he visited the Greek island of Hydra in 1960. But their golden age came at a price” Indeed.


Highly recommended to anyone that has read My Brother Jack and to anyone that has an interest of Hydra's “fabled colony”.

Firstly this is like nothing I have ever read.

Secondly I knew of the subject William Gould prior to this read.

Thirdly I have actually seen Gould's art in various galleries, recently in the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.

Fourthly it is not in my opinion a historical fiction as some may think but a bizarre magical realism journey that is phantasmagorical.

Fifthly it has some serious meaning of life questions raised.

Sixthly it has a lot of outright humourism's.

Seventhly it portrays man's inhumanity to man.

Eighthly it can have one researching who are real figures from history and who are not.

Ninthly it makes me think that for a small island, Tasmania sure packs a punch in terms of literature produced at a high level.

Tenthly it makes me want to read Richard Flannigan's entire oeuvre.

Eleventhly it makes me know I want to revisit Tasmania.

Twelfthly it is highly recommended to those that think we are all fish.

The title is a Zen koan philosophical question based on what.........? It is over a week since I have finished and I am still thinking about this at times very sad tale and the title that goes with it. Read up on what that question means and read the premise of the book as I am not that capable of explaining in a particularly articulate manner.

With that mea culpa on my inability to write deeper thoughts, I can communicate to anyone that peruses my occasional scribblings that I have found this is an exceptional read indeed. It should/could be very rewarding in allowing some of the citizens in this continental landmass that is the nation of Australia to maybe have more understanding of the plight of the refugee as to reasons to leave the brutality of a past life and with that how they deal with that past, this present and their future. I suspect that many hardly care, in fact, have any ability to care, but hey! How much more arrogant can I be with a statement like that. The sound of one hand clapping? Vacuous statements on my part? Others can be the judge.

Read other reviews for want of better depth.

For me, I can do no other than highly recommend.

Following the lives of the recusant Vaux family from 1570s through to the Gunpowder Plot and a little beyond, author Jessie Childs has given this reader an in depth look at how aristocratic families dealt with their deep Catholic faith during Elizabethan and Stuart times.

In February 1570, Pope Pius V declared Elizabeth excommunicated in what can only be described as a turning point in the history of Europe and beyond. Protestant backlash was almost immediate and with that such families as the Vaux's trod a very fine line to stay out of the firing line of the recriminations that followed. Many aristocratic English Catholics were willing to compromise their faith but those that did not paid for it with a loss of privileges, be that pecuniary or with their lives. The Vaux family eventually lost its hereditary rights to a seat in the House of Lords.

This is a very well researched history; it has copious endnotes and an excellent bibliography, one that anyone looking for further reading on the subject could not ignore. Childs writes at a good pace, one that is fairly easy to read, though I thought a few of the passages quoted from other sources may have been cut back a little, a minor quibble though.

I would probably only recommend this to anyone that has had deeper reading into the religious issues of the time as this is no beginner's book by any stretch. For example, a deeper knowledge of the Gunpowder Plot is a must in my opinion.

Controversial Art!



This painting is called “Mr Joshua Smith” and was the cause of a famous court case in 1944. The Archibald Prize is an Australian portraiture art prize for painting, and “Mr Joshua Smith” by William Dobell was the award winner in 1943. Two members of the Royal Art Society, a society that author of this monograph James Gleeson called “reactionary”, had taken action in the NSW Supreme Court that it was not a true portrait under the terms and conditions of the award. The judge rightfully threw the case out.

Initially published in 1964, with this copy I have just finished reading being updated and published in 1969, a year prior to the painter's death, this was at the time one of only 2 monographs on Dobell. Dobell's work back in the late 1960's was “eagerly sought after” more so than “any of his contemporaries,” according to Gleeson. I doubt him not, as “The Dead Landlord' was sold for a cool million bucks as recently as 2019. See this item here.

https://www.aasd.com.au/index.cfm/news/819-dobells-resurrected-dead-landlord-gives-rise-to-the-years-best-r/


I have had the pleasure of seeing Dobell's “The Cypriot” in the flesh at the Queensland art gallery, see this link https://learning.qagoma.qld.gov.au/artworks/the-cypriot/


I have to say that on first viewing it was certainly striking and could imagine this selling for 7 figures with consummate ease if it was ever to come onto the open market.



Dobell was initially a draughtsman who came to the attention of the art world when he won a scholarship worth 500 pounds in 1929 and with that spent several years in London studying at the Slade School and taking lesson under various noted teachers of the time. The nice part of this book is to actually see the development of his style from those early days through to the last years of his life in the late 60's. We are presented with 133 illustrations, with only 26 in colour. I have had to keep looking up on the www to see them in all their coloured glory to get the depth and at times brilliance of some of his art.

I can hardly complain about this book, it is a battered copy I picked up at a school fair for a dollar. It was originally in the library of the Brisbane Girls Grammar and has the school's stamp on various pages, it still has the library card pasted in the back and has pencil and pen marks occasionally marking passages. One very nice female nude has had a pen draw in pubic hair. Kids!

As much as I have enjoyed this read it is a bit dated, the language is a little archaic at times, and the author is a little hypocritical in his defence of Dobell but then in his criticism of other artists. After what his good friend Dobell went through in a court case it seems odd to me to call Cezanne, Van Gough and Gauguin excessive and even that of “cranks” and in the case of Picasso and Matisse “charlatans” when calling an art society reactionary because they thought a painting was a caricature as opposed to a portrait.

Be that as it may, I think this is a useful read to anyone that admires the art of Dobell and is recommended to them.

My wife and I had the pleasure of making a visit to The Art Gallery of South Australia during a memorable vacation in the wonderful city of Adelaide a few years back. There was an exhibition of an artist I had never heard of by the name of Clarice Beckett. We duly paid our money and both of us were blown away with her wonderful and truly underappreciated art.

For anyone that heads to Adelaide, I am unable to recommend The Art Gallery of South Australia enough. We had initially meant to spend just a couple of hours there, but the quality of the art was so high that time was stretched with no regrets. As to Clarice Beckett's art, wow! In the flesh they are amazing. I want to own a Clarice Beckett, but the likes of Russell Crowe, among others, are nowadays the owners.

I had purchased art from an English artist who was living in Brisbane at the time by the name of Jonny Arnold. He is worth the while of anyone that likes his style, a style I have a lot of time for. I was telling him about Clarice Beckett and he and his equally talented artist partner Cherie Strong had a copy of this magnificent book. They generously gave me their copy as they were moving to England and had too much to pack. I have finally got around to reading, and to say I have enjoyed this would be an understatement.

Misty Moderns: Australian Tonalists 1915 – 1950 was produced on behalf of The Art Gallery of South Australia for an exhibition of Tonalist artists held in 2008 with this book produced by exhibition curator Tracey Lock-Weir. I did not see this exhibition, regretfully, but if it was of the quality of this publication that regret is high.

To quote Wiki “Tonalism was an artistic style that emerged in the 1880s when American artists began to paint landscape forms with an overall tone of colored atmosphere or mist.”
“ Australian Tonalism emerged as an art movement in Melbourne during the 1910s.” and that is what this book and the exhibition it was produced for was about. Australian Tonalism was begun as a school by Max Meldrum and at the time had limited influence as most Australian art was in the direction of Modernism. Meldrum was also rather vocal in his dismissal of Modernism and hence had few friends in the art world. As a movement Tonalism all but disappeared a little after the 2nd world war only to be revived, rightfully so, after a new wave of younger artists and critics rediscovered the works of some of its prominent painters.

Misty Moderns in my opinion is a must-have for anyone that takes delight in this style of Australian art. The colour plates are absolutely magnificent, the text very readable in explaining the history of the movement, and there is a select biography that has me salivating.

The following are all by Clarice Beckett.

Across The Yarra




Wet Night Brighton.


Motor Lights.





Highly recommended to anyone with an interest in Australian Tonalists.

I first heard of Katherine Mansfield after an afternoon tour bus took me to her house in Wellington New Zealand. Pressed for time and wanting to see the sites a few of us took up the chance of seeing this damn fine city and part of the tour was her house. Being the reading type I got this famous title and now after many a year have finally read it.

First I have enjoyed it though it took me to read an explainer after the first story that had left me wondering what I was missing, Modernism apparently. Once I got the gist of what was trying to be achieved, I enjoyed these short stories a lot more than I might have.

The style seemed all very much a comment on the bourgeois middle class of the times, with a couple of exceptions. Also, very colonial, but then Katherine Mansfield was of that class.

I suspect that this is not really my style of literature, glad to have read and enjoyed it but now know why I did not enjoy Virginia Woolf when I read her in my youth. I further suspect that I would not have enjoyed this if I was made to read it in high school.

One of the best novels I have ever read.

A roman-à-clef based on the author George Johnston's life, narrator David Meredith tells his story from his youngest memories of his father coming home from the Great War through to the end of the Second World War when David had become a war correspondence journalist of some repute.

Hugely thematic in delivery covering various issues such as domestic violence be that physical or psychological, family relationships through to the cultural changes that had occurred between the wars. Johnston's character descriptions are superb and left this reader with an absolute image of the physical and temperaments of all dramatis personae who came into contact with David Meredith no matter how small or large they loomed in his life.

As a thematic work the major theme in my opinion was guilt. David Meredith gave thought to his and his only brothers vastly different attitudes and approaches to their lives with David's guilt looming large. The brothers vastly different approach to their lives and their consideration as to others had this reader trying to understand and consider from beginning to end my own thought process as to relationships we have with one and all on our life journey. There is no doubt in my mind that George Johnston was a very complex individual, one who was looking for something that he may never have found. I later read about his life and he was indeed just that, complex. Are we as individuals as complex? Do we have the talent to put into coherent thought and words a life not spent as we thought it could have or should be? Do the vast majority of us really care?

Having won the prestigious Miles Franklin Award, My Brother Jack had always been on my radar. Once begun, I could not put it down and read late into the evening. Terms such as classic may be thrown around far too much in the literary world but this is a superlative that My Brother Jack deserves. As to winners of Australia's highest literary award this is as good as a winner as I have read so far. Deserving of all the praise that it received on publication and any more that has come its way over 50 years since.

Highly recommended!

What was it Winston Churchill who said those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it? In the case of modern pop music it may as well be a case of those that play pop music are doomed to repeat it. That is if one agrees with Simon Reynolds mainly polemical 420 pages on what he calls Retromania.

What is Retromania? First we have to get out of the way that Retromania is not the same as nostalgia. Nostalgia is in a nutshell memories of time and place. Hence hear a piece of music from the past and a time or place is brought into the imagination. Retromania on the other hand is the fact that modern music relies on the past. He writes that this is not really a new thing as such but there is a modern tendency to rapidly relive the past via retro use of music with in a very short period of time. He goes back as far as The Beatles who morphed into what they were when as a new band starting out their main playing style was Rock n Roll from a few brief years prior and all morphed into what they became. Being a long book this is on my part a simplistic take with the author going into great depth of detail.

It might be worthwhile to point out that this book was released in 2010 so at the time of me reading and then writing this review a decade has passed. In my opinion not much has changed, so I think the author is very much onto something. Music seems to me at least to have reached a point that there is next to no “brand-new sounds” that I know of. I am a music devotee of the highest order. I am looking to always find new artist to thrill me and I find many. The age of streaming services have been a godsend for me. Interestingly, when the author touched on these services he was convincing in his suggestions that the vast majority of a younger generation who had not lived the past thought that what they may have been listening to was a brand-new sound when it was Retromania on the part of the artist. And many an artist he interviewed admitted as such. “new old music” as he called it is just that, new old music.

When finishing this book I thought of a few of my none-scientific anecdotes that make retromania a truism for me.

A work colleague of the same vintage as me about 10 years back said he didn't like modern music. What do you mean as modern music, I asked. Rap he said, they don't make good stuff like ELO any more he said. Rap was hardly modern at that time and as this book convinced me that ELO were the epitome of Retromania even in their own time.

My manager, also the same vintage as me, has admitted his musical life ended with his youth. AC/DC and Fleetwood Mac, Neil Young are all there are and nothing other counts. Who are you playing he asked, King Gizzard and the Wizard Lizard I replied. He then went into hysterical laughter and stormed back into the outer office and uproariously laughed about the name to one and all and then got the shock of his life when the much younger brigade said yes they had head of them and liked them rather a lot. Stupid name he mumbled to himself without realising that the name is a nod to The Doors Jim Morrison and King Gizzard are at times a victim of Retromania as their sometimes Psychedelia is really another retro nod to a past style.

Just recently when walking in a nearby park one afternoon I came across a lass in her 30 playing a Harp in the warm winter sunshine that is Brisbane. We got chatting and she gave me a lovely impromptu song or three. US harpist Joanne Newsome was discussed. When I first heard Newsome a decade back she did seem like a brand-new sound to me, but in reality she based a lot of her music on past folk styles. Be that as it may, I told my harpist about this book, and she recommended Bjork's fairly recent Vulnicura as very much a “brand-new sound”. I have since given it a listen a few times and as much as it is a fine album, it is really retro if the truth be told. Strings are aplenty in the Trip Hop style and also ambient electronica. Maybe my park harpist had not really listened to too much trip hop?

I watched a game of Australian Football on TV and after the game a player was presented a sound system for best on field. The presenter, a player from a past age said you can now play Pat Benatar in one room and Cat Stevens in another. The young player said I don't even know who they are. Yes old man who are these has beens? I laughed.

And that comes to my final comment. As much as a music tragic such as myself can listen to music from the dawns of time to whatever is the latest release, the fact of the matter is that what we all once liked (and still do) becomes redundant. All there is is retro and even then it is nothing but a mania.

Highly recommended to the poor old music lover who is always looking for that brand-new sound.

“On 23 March 1948, Robert Close was sat on a wooden bench in the Victorian Criminal Court and listened to his novel being read aloud. Copies had been distributed to the Jury and the Crown Prosecutor, Leo Little KC, stood in the middle of the room and read Love Me Sailor to the court from beginning to end. Close and his publisher Ted Harris of Georgian House, had been charged with a criminal offense: ‘that they did, on or about the 16th of February 1945 publish said book, being one containing obscene matter'. “

When reading this chapter, called Literature in Handcuffs, I was struck by the dates. At this point the world had witnessed the deaths of maybe 60 million a short few years previously, a genuinely obscene waste of lives, so what do we have here in Australia at this time? A high profile criminal case based on a book being supposedly obscene. Now with a title like that one would think it was maybe about homosexuality that being one of the obsessions of the censors at the time in their never ending attempt to keep the country white and orthodox? The answer is no. It was a book about an English lady who ends up on a merchant ship and is such an attractive lady that the very fabric of the ship's all male crew is sent into a spiral of sexual psychosis that affects the mental wellbeing of the crew and the lady.

“The prosecutions' main objection to Love Me Sailor was, as Close anticipated, its sailors language – most intensely the word ‘rutting' as too obvious a substitute for the fucking”

In 1948 the Australian public was shielded from the F word but had no issue with racist language in its literature, I've read this myself, nor vile political policy such as the White Australia Policy nor its treatment of the indigenous population that was treated under law as flora and fauna and had its children stolen en masse. Close served 10 days in jail and departed Australia on release, not to return for 25 years.

Author Nicole Moore has done some very good and deep research into banned books in Australia.
Moore has presented a history of what is a complicated beast of customs control through to state and federal laws and regulations that was only really overcome with the advent of progressive change via conservative minister for Customs Don Chipp in the 1960's and with the change to a Labor government in the early 70's who stopped Customs from having any input at all on the banning of books. This still did not stop some states banning books, Queensland a stand out with American Psycho not for the eyes of the likes of me until recent times, but nationally there was definitely a more relaxed attitude as to what adults could read.

There is an excellent bibliography and the endnotes are extensive. I have found this a very easy to read history and spent my time searching out little known titles that were on the end of the censors ban that today would hardly make a stir. As to the more famous banned books the list is rather startling at times. A Brave New World through to Keep the Aspidistra Flying are among many. The quantity of works discussing sex education, birth control for example, was enormous. The title comes from Moore's research in the national archives where she found about 12,000 titles all wrapped up and stored in 793 boxes. I would imagine some of these just might be worth a little to collectors of rarities.

Highly recommended to anyone with an interest in censorship.

Dominic Lieven has produced a very deep analysis of the actions and opinions of the (so called) elites in Tsarist Russia in the decades leading up to and including The Great War. Lieven interspersing of his opinions also makes fascinating reading.

I base the following opinion on my own recent research into general Russian history, along with Lieven's analysis and opinions in Towards The Flame. Lieven's commentary on the opinion makers in Russian newspapers of the day, of the thoughts of the aristocratic classes and the actions of the various governments under Tsar Nicolaus I, what has stood out to me can be defined by Tsar Nicolaus II's doctrine, that of Autocracy, Nationality and Orthodoxy.

Lieven uses different terminology than that of Autocracy, Nationality and Orthodoxy. Security, Interest and Identity is his maxim. In my opinion, both are one and the same thing. They are intertwined and still are the values today, seemingly. The Russian people will accept autocracy on the condition it is stable, that the majority of people are generally safe and fed, but if not? The autocracy changes hands. Interest/ Nationality added to Orthodoxy/Identity are a heady mix that has seems very ingrained in Russian DNA, DNA that sees non Slavs as possible enemies to the point of paranoia, with the people themselves seeing their leader as a bulwark against those not of their identity. In a recent review on another Russian history book I received a very good comment by a GR friend who stated “Russian society more bends toward community values like Asian societies than Western individualism. Family ties are very important to Russians. Traditions go deep into history when two-three generations of peasants lived under one roof. In the Western world, you choose a president as one of yours. In Russia, the tsar or ruler was always somebody above ordinary people; a fatherly figure, and fathers, like in many patriarchal societies, have always extracted great power over family, they could grant privileges or punish without mercy. Tsars were called Tsar-Father. The more strict ‘father,' the more people believe in his power.” Therefore, Autocracy, Nationality and Orthodoxy is a top to bottom doctrine.

From all strata of Russian society Lieven gives a compelling discussion on Autocracy, Nationality and Orthodoxy / Security, Interest and Identity, being the essence of Russia. Even when he reaches the breakdown of Aristocratic control late into The Great War, this ingrained doctrine replaced the vacuum, examples being the Communist Revolution. Later regimes such as that of Stalin and even as of now, Putin can be considered to be filling the vacuum.

This may seem a long way from the mention in the subheading of Empire, but from the early days of the Rus the growth of the Empire came from the autocracy of the rulers/Tsars and even after their demise just about all leaders since the end of the civil wars of the 1920s. The need to protect the people from outside influence against non-Slav nationalities and non-Orthodox Christianity has played heavily in Russian history. What Towards The Flame discusses is that as multi-ethnic empires of Europe became dysfunctional, Nationalism took root. In terms of a catalyst that started The Great War, due to Russian instincts towards Nationality and Orthodoxy / Interest and Identity there could be no other outcome than defence of Serbia, a bastion of Serb Orthodoxy, at the start of the Great War. Naturally, fear of other events such as the rise of Germany was very much in the mind of the elites. Add to that the fact that the home of Slavic Orthodox Christianity, Constantinople, was held by the Ottoman Empire and that empire also controlled the Straits of Bosphorus led to much angst. Lieven makes the point that we can hardly accuse Russia of those times of being particularly expansionist in terms of the straits, they were more than aware of historical colonial expansion by Europe and beyond and were very aware of then “imperial” control that assisted various ”empires” trade such as the Suez Canal under the British and the Panama under the US. There was a belief in “balance of power” and hardly an unusual trait viz a viz great powers.

There is obviously a lot more to this book than my thoughts mooted above. It is very deeply researched, with a useful set of maps, the many pictures in the general text finely placed, has outstanding footnotes that make the lack of a bibliography a nothing for any reader to concern themselves with. This is not an easy read in terms of narrative. The names and events, along with the various debates, are dense and very easy to get lost in. I found I had to reread various passages.
Lieven is also very gentle in his criticism of Tsar Nicolaus II, but even he had to admit to his shortcomings late into the book as the situation got out of control.

The Balkans and Ukraine are a presence. The Afterword makes interesting reading and shows how fast a history such as this can make a point that seems relevant at the time but could soon become redundant, and I quote the following; “Unlike Nicolaus II Vladimir Putin does not rule over a vast multinational empire inhabited by semi-literate peasants. Ukraine was, is, and always will be important to Russia, but extrapolating from 1914 and imagining that Russia will once again be a great empire if it reabsorbs the east Ukraine rust belt is moonshine. Ukraine is no longer at the heart of European geopolitics, and Europe is no longer at the centre of the world” I am not sure that I think that the Russian people from top-down think this as present circumstances indicate Autocracy, Nationality and Orthodoxy is very much to the forefront even if subconsciously. Leading up to The Great War the Austro-Hungarian Empire was in the fore when it came to Ukrainian nationalism, the Russians were aware of that then, and they see NATO/EU as just another replacement of a previous rival empire.

If I have a criticism it is that Lieven tends to use the “it was not inevitable” opinion on events that do in fact happen, the fall into chaos in Ukraine at the end of the Great War, for example. I tend to not like saying that a historical event was “not inevitable” when in fact it actually happened.

Recommended to only those with a genuine interest in the subject.

My lifetime knowledge of Russian history had been limited to World War Two and that was about that! It was by sheer accident that I began to listen to an excellent podcast on its revolutionary history, and with that the appetite was certainly whetted for more. So dive I did into online resources with a vengeance, and then Russia invaded Ukraine. Timing!

I thought I had better read this “A Brief History” that had been on the shelf for a while. I have found Robinson's “A Brief History” series to usually be very good primers. This one is no different. Covering the events in chronological order with a few personal anecdotes from the children of the revolution thrown in for good measure, author Roy Bainton has produced a breezily written and useful primer for the absolute beginner. There is an illustrations section, a preface explaining the Julian and Gregorian calendars, a couple of perfunctory maps and his introduction makes interesting reading. The appendices are very useful with a chronology of events and an A to Z of political parties, prominent figures and organisations.

Considering this book was published in 2005 and the present circumstances that Russian finds itself in with the war in Ukraine, I was interested in a paragraph that the author wrote near the end of the historical narrative and will quote verbatim.

“Common workman. Dark people. In Russia and around the world, they still exist. They labour for long hours making trainers and sportswear in the sweat shops of the Far East. They work beneath the earth as children in the mines of South America. They beg in the streets and railway stations of India. Closer to the epicentre of the revolution what was once the ‘proletariat', visibly at least, has ceased to exist. We're the ones with the tattoos, the mobile phones, the credit cards, laptops, iPads and wide screen TV's.
What on earth Lenin and Trotsky would have made of us is anyone's guess”
Quite.

I will make one comment; from what I have listened to and read over the last couple of months as I have immersed myself in the Russian Revolutionary history there may be no bigger fool in modern history that Tsar Nicholas II, What he failed to see, understand etc etc and with that what his sheer blindness eventually foisted on the Russian people via the gangster that was Stalin deserves nothing but contempt.


Recommended to the beginner only.

I am an unabashed Peter Pinney fan but this one is easily his weakest so far. I had read that this was based on real life events he was involved in, smuggling out of Panama, so there is an element of biography. Be that as it may, I found it at times all a little unbelievable.

Recommended for the Pinney completest.

“The simple interpretations imposed on eighteenth century France by historians writing under the influence of later social and political ideologies may have to be abandoned, but the history that is beginning to emerge from more detailed studies, if it is more complex, is still coherent.”

I did not read the back cover blurb initially, but after finishing I see that the all knowledgeable Professor of French History, Alfred Cobban, had written the above as some challenge to the great unwashed.

In my not so humble opinion this is self-serving clap trap considering the arrogance of the opinions served up chapter after chapter with the use of the words “obvious” and “obviously” to make a point as if the good professor is the only interpreter of events. But then at one point when it suits, the reader is told “Whether anything that any eighteenth-century government could have done to have remedied the poverty of the rural masses in France is more than doubtful.” Hang about Professor, within the next few pages we are talking about mass uprising with heads rolling and the elites running the country as a god given right, having no idea as to the great unwashed not particularly enjoying their lot in life for various reasons and that included lack of bread. How this is not “obvious” is beyond this reviewer.

Little comments such as this come aplenty. In discussing the extravagant spending on the arts and palaces of Louis XIV we are told in what seems to be defence of him that “the expense of even a small war was greater than that of the biggest palace.” The search engine of choice is my friend at this moment and with that I read that “Actual building costs for Versailles are debated by modern historians, because currency values are uncertain. However, Versailles' price tag ranges anywhere from two billion dollars (in 1994 USD) all the way up to a maximum cost of $299,520,000,000!” Having been to Versailles a couple of times I will take the latter price any day of the week, and considering that profligacy of the French Monarch and his nation's financial ineptitude as discussed in this book, I suspect that figure is closer to the truth.

As to the historians having literary pretences, I at one point read “.... and to find in Figaro the spirit of the Revolution is to see in the first breezes of autumn, shaking the petals of the roses one by one, the gales of winter.” Oh my goodness! What waffle. Want some more? “For the Assembly itself, filled with worthy and high-minded characters amongst whom he was as out of place as Gulliver among the Lilliputians, he had the utmost contempt.”

The good professor is disdainful of just about everyone. Those that questioned Marie Antoinette involvement or lack thereof in the Diamond Ring affair are described “the scum of society” He has particular disdain for the Sans-culotte who he may have well as described as, to use modern parlance, a brain-dead mob who knew nothing as to what they were doing and the scum of society.
I found his writing very limited in discussing the Sans-culotte.

His attempt to describe Danton was an utter jumble. “He probably took bribes to betray the Revolution and his country, yet there is no evidence that he betrayed them” In one sentence Danton is described as “lazy” but in the next “tireless”.

Only surnames are used and there is a tendency to occasionally throw in an obscure individual that had no mention in the index. There are few assessments of character that would have assisted the reader, and some terms such as Brissotins instead of Girondins had me confused at first.

I have only recently delved into modern French history with several podcasts, a brief history and plenty of internet resources, so I came into this very much looking forward. I have all three volumes, but after this first one am very hesitant to read any more. I know I have a preference that tells me the facts of events as opposed to the author's opinion and am aware that as a lay reader I have to expect this, but this one was a bit too opinionated. First released in 1957 this is no popular history written for the curious beginner or for that matter anyone outside the academic world and then even I wonder as to that. I found it all arrogant and turgid. For what has been an exciting adventure into one of the most definitive times in world history, I am in awe that this volume could be so dense and dull. I think this will be a very hard to read for anyone other than those that have a deep understanding of modern French history.

With that, I recommend this to only those that are very well immersed in this period of French history, and then only for Cobban's interpretations.

Within hours of the attack on Pearl Harbour, airbases throughout the Philippines were attacked with great loss to the US forces. The US forces were severely undermanned and under armed and easy prey for the Japanese. The US government decided to do what they could do “regardless of the cost or risk” and with that came what the US War Dept produced a plan called X. The objective was 60 day supply of all items including ammunition to both Australia and the Philippines. The idea being that Brisbane was the main port with use of Darwin via whatever conditions would allow, including blockade runners. The author described it as a “grandiose plan”. He was correct. His narration follows various small scale attempts to assist the beleaguered with what was in reality a logistical nightmare considering the distances to be covered and the complete loss of aircraft. Plan X hardly got going.

Author Robert L. Underbrink based his research on official documents and published works at his disposal at the time, and interviews with participant's available. Told in chronological order, there are sources given for each chapter, though no footnotes. Useful maps are supplied.

This was a very easy read with a populist style that mixed the logistical issues with a humane telling about the individuals involved, the vast majority of those people bravely attempting missions that led to little reward considering the overwhelming superiority that the Japanese had over the US and its allies at the time. The little things were bought to the attention, as an example the US government and some of its military leaders having no idea of the tyranny of distance in Australia, as if Darwin was just up the road from Brisbane, the nurse kissing a general goodbye as she left Corregidor.

The final sentence of the book tells it all with the author writing “In terms of actual assistance to Bataan and Corregidor, the efforts of the blockade runners were to no avail. Yet, national honour demanded that the effort be made, and the men and ships and the aircraft involved in this desperate venture deserved far more recognition paid to them”

Yes, they do deserve more recognition. We tend to read the Macro histories instead of the micro, and that can be a loss to those that like history.

Recommended to those that want an easy-to-read book on a little known and underappreciated WW2 event.

I will be writing a review once I have read all three.

To quote a GR friend's review that I recently read he described a book as “.....an unusual choice for me but I was really impressed with it.” Indeed, I felt the same about this strange novel, Little by Edward Carey. It is certainly a pleasant surprise for this reader and is another gift from the magnificent neighbour libraries (Free Little Library) that I continually wander past each week. I may not have ever thought to read this once upon a time. An unusual choice.

I had recently listened to a podcast on the French Revolution, something I knew little about, and found myself fascinated. I must read more, I mused. When going for a walk a while back and checking a neighbourhood library to see what gems I could maybe find, this was of interest. Odd line drawings on the front cover of body parts, a quote by Margaret Atwood making praise about it being narrated by Madame Tussaud and one quote saying it was “unique”. A quick flick through and there is more drawing and I can see there is made mention of revolutionary France, voilà! Possibly read when I eat my lunch at work, I thought. What worse than to peruse a chapter or two and return it if it went nowhere? Return it I will, but with hope that the next person that picks this up will enjoy it as much as I did.

This is an imagined autobiography of Maria Grosholtz. Maria tells her story from birth until her move to London later in life. From her being orphaned as a child and with that beholden to a wax artist by the name of Curtius (who treated her well without him actually realising it), through to both of them moving to Paris, their trials and tribulations of living in poverty and onto early success then downfall later during The Reign of Terror on Paris 1793/94 makes a story well told. Author Edward Carey has supplied finely placed drawings throughout that add something different to his very readable writings as Maria in the first person. In this reviewer's opinion this is a very clever novel as not once did I feel anything other than it being a female telling her story. Also, impressive was the ability of the author to weave historical figures in and out of the story, that had me running to see if they actually existed or not. As an example, check out Louis-Sébastien Mercier and his bestselling novel of the times as read by Louis XVI that was named according to wiki..........
“L'An 2440, rêve s'il en fut jamais (literally, in English, The Year 2440: A Dream If Ever There Was One; but the title has been rendered into English as Memoirs of the Year Two Thousand Five Hundred or Memoirs of the Year 2500, and also as Astraea's Return, or The Halcyon Days of France in the Year 2440: A Dream)”

There are many more historical figures of those times that appear in this well told tale, but then there are others who are figments of the imagination. A fine blend of the fact of the time and the imagination of an author is this novel.

Recommended to anyone that likes their novels imaginative.

Author Mort Rosenblum, journalist for various media outlets, had to move from his idyllic lodgings in Paris near the River Seine. Along with his partner Jeannette they purchased a houseboat and in the early 1990's made it their home.

Rosenblum has written a slow and meandering travelogue that is a combination of a few historical and geological anecdotes along with the life he sees along the Seine. This might be a love affair but he does not paint the Seine as some blissful paradise, in fact the life of the disappearing Bargees and their bitterness to change and outsiders looms very large in the telling. There is coverage of floods and the ever infamous Parisian sewerage system that in the times of heavy rains wreaks havoc with the wellbeing of the Seine. Le Havre at the mouth he describes as the “....ugliest city in France, possibly the world.”

One rather clever Frenchman stated that the secrets were no longer going to be secret after this book was published and at the time of reading that statement I thought he had a point. But not much really enthralled this reader to want to dive into this so called hidden world such was the dawdling pace of the prose. Good for a holiday read maybe but I was hardly inspired to get of my behind and head off to go see these so called secrets, and this from someone who has made visit to France a couple of times and has vowed to return such was its impact.

Be that as it may this read had its charms and a fair bit of wit at times so recommended to anyone that may have an interest in the famous river.

This “....account is a warning to any country that would talk itself into a foolish war” it says on the back of my copy of this fascinating and frustrating read on the folly of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. That comment by The Seattle Times has a point. I am still always surprised at how easy the powers that be, no matter their political persuasion, make astonishingly poor calls on going to war.

Author Eri Hotta fleetingly covers the Meiji Reformation with more depth added to the latter years of the 1930s and into 1941, up to the last meeting of the Japanese ambassador with the US secretary just after the surprise attack.

So why did Japan make this decision to attack Pearl Harbour when everything pointed to it being an unmitigated disaster? The author states it was a gamble as they knew they could not win, the Japanese people had had enough of perceived cultural torment by the west she adds further and also covers several other events such as the war in China and the invasion of French Indochina. It was all an inexplicable mix that sent the Japanese nation into a destructive war based on..............all of those things and others!

Prince Konoe Fumimaro, many times Prime Minister in his career, came in for much criticism but really just about all the players could have been lumped into the same box of foolishness and that includes the emperor who at a crucial meeting of the Imperial Council reads a poem that fooled both the pro and antiwar factions into thinking he was with them all the way! Add the lack of ability by the top echelon to articulate their thoughts profoundly, this all had a ruinous effect as the pro war party gained an upper hand even though they themselves knew there was no hope of winning a long term war against the US. I have read WW2 history all my life but have to admit that the reasoning of Japan diving into an abyss of its own making has always left me bemused. Even with a 300-page in-depth history such as this, I can hardly put a finger on the reasons this all happened, and feel none the wiser as to why they took the course they did. Knowing their own logistical deficiencies and the industrial might of the USA they lived a slight dream that the US might, just might want negotiated peace. This is not a gamble, it is idiocy.


The author to all intents and purposes has researched her subject very well, but there is no bibliography and what seem to me at least to be at best perfunctory end notes. There is a Major Character list and a Selected Events in Japanese History Prior to April 1941 that are useful, but it was very easy to get lost in the huge amount of players in the narrative. Nonetheless, anyone wishing to read up on the many possibilities that lead to maybe one of the stupidest military actions in modern history will learn something.

Recommended to those interested in an in depth study of the (so called) Japanese elites gambling the very future and lives of their peoples on a venture that was no chance of succeeding.

Cecil Jenkins has written an easy-to-read short history that will be of great use to those that have little to no knowledge of modern France. I would also suggest it is a good refresher for anyone looking to reread after a long absence from reading any French history. As usual with these “A Brief History” series we get things short, sharp but concise. The history is presented in chronological order, we are presented with two maps but there are no illustrations. A time line of events would have been handy. The end notes and bibliography are competent. The title A Brief History of France People, History and Culture is relevant as both its peoples and their cultural impact are well covered.

This history was published in 2011 so is fairly recent and thus useful to those looking for anything fairly topical. I had recently listened to a podcast on revolutionary France hence my need to read a brief history. One criticism I would make is that it has not given enough pages to pre Sun King era France. The text proper is 309 pages and pre Sun King ends at page 64. The final two chapters also make France's more recent history after de Gaul feel positively tame compared to its very turbulent past.

Be that as it may, the seemingly recent idyllic times have to be better than the turbulent but very interesting history that is France in the past.

Recommended to anyone that needs to read a useful overview of this iconic nation. Vive la France.

Being the cheapskate that I am, I picked this up for nix! Well, almost. I swapped it for something in the many neighbourhood libraries I wander past in my daily walks that I do in my never-ending attempt to live for ever and become a god.
(Is Meili the god of walking? Walking is after all a form of travel. Is walking my Ambrosia?)

So this sat on my TBR shelf for what seemed an eternity (Aion is the god of eternity and also an album by the wonderful for all eternity band Dead Can Dance)

Until a young lass told me about a TV series called by the same name that she had watched an episode or two of.
(The modern god for all things media is in fact Media in American Gods, but in Australia the modern media god is in fact a US citizen called Rupert Murdoch who seems to be an immortal of some kind or other)

The young lass I made loan to was very keen on what she had been reading as she gave me periodical updates but made a complete stop at Chapter Eleven as she was off to get married.
(Parvati came to mind)

Brightly, I said I would read it and then hand it back to her after I had finished and she had come back from her honeymoon.
(May Anjea have been, or be kind to the delightful young lass)

Well, here I am writing a review of this rather good book.
(Is there a god of book reviewers? Troth maybe?)

And I enjoyed this.
(By Hedone I enjoyed it a hel of a lot and was that syncretic?)

There are now 826,000 plus ratings and 41,000 plus reviews on this here Goodreads so there is not much I can say about it.
(Seshat would be proud of those numbers.)

So I add nothing other than just don't take it all too seriously, as it is fantasy after all.
(Roger Zelazny is the American god of fantasy, Neil Gaimen has to agree)

Recommended to those of us that worship Anulap