Zed
It is not often that I feel that I may have lost the point, but I have with this critically acclaimed novel. I was very much caught up with the clever wit and observations of the human experience after about a third of the way through but my mind then began to wander. A pity really as I know that the writings of de Assis have influenced writers such as David Ireland who I adore. Oh well.
This is not A Brief History of the Middle East. It is 13 chapters presenting historical events from the Middle East in chronological order in which the author gives his opinions on the chapter's subject. Opinions such as his are not necessarily uninteresting but should not be part of the generally very good “A Brief History” series that Robinson publishes. I get that the Middle East is a difficult subject but as a primer this is fairly useless to anyone new to the subject.
Bildungsroman is seemingly an attractive genre to me. I have read 4 in recent times and have found them all enjoyable. Maybe the maturity of the authors allows them to recall their youthful memories and write words that allow the bigger world of the past to shine through with nostalgia.
This book, The Mango Tree, is mostly a year in the life of a 16/17 year old Jamie who may be the author Ronald McKie. McKie is another author that has seemed to pass Australia by as I found this 1974 winner of the Miles Franklin Award hard to find and I see few reviews on Goodreads. Unfortunate really as it is a rather good book.
Set in the final year of the Great War in an unnamed central Qld sugar town there is some beautiful writing that gives a sense of the author's youthful awareness of his own wonderment at a grown up world and with that his change from a youngster to an adult. Jamie is raised by a wise Grandmother after the death of parents he never knew. His Grandmother always encourages Jamie who has more than a passing interest in what seems to be a multi-cultural experience be that small Chinese community of the town through to the low-key sectarianism that abounded in Australia until recent times. For a war going on in Europe at the times the German descent community was remarkably integrated in the eyes of a young Jamie. Indigenous culture is covered though that is more spiritual than physical as the absence of any Aboriginal characters in the book is striking.
For me the final chapters were as poignant as I have read. The pandemic is hitting the community hard and Jamie and his family are caught in the attempts to stem the tide of the dreadful deaths of the old and especially the young. Leavings are the final theme.
Recommended to anyone with an interest in Australian Literature.
This is historical narrative history at its finest and though first published in 1966 it has stood the test of time. Generally narrative history is not my style of presentation but it was very hard to fault the author's ability to take this reader along the journey of all the participants. Be they the military, the politicians or the civilians who were all caught up in the final drama that was the fall of Berlin this is a riveting and harrowing history told. Some of the civilian's stories of the sheer terror they suffered in this brutal final battle are heart-rending and to be frank must be read by anyone that has some sympathy to the glory that was never Nazism and the confidence trick it played on the German peoples.
Footnotes are scarce though there is a list of all the individuals that were interviewed and a very good bibliography.
Recommended to anyone with any interest in World War 2.
In the darkness, Private Willy Feldheim grasped his bulky Panzerfaust more firmly. He did not know for certain where he was, but he had heard that this line of foxholes covering the three roads in the Klosterdorf area was about eighteen miles from the front.A little while ago, waiting for the Russian tanks to come up the road, Willy had felt a sense of great adventure. He had thought about what it would be like when he saw the first tank and could finally fire the anti-tank gun for the first time. The three companies holding the crossroads had been told to let the tanks get as close as possible before firing. Willy's instructor had said that a sixty-yard range was about right. He wondered how soon they would come. Crouched in the damp foxhole, Willy thought about the days when he was a bugler. He remembered in particular one brilliant, sunshiny day in 1943 when Hitler spoke in Olympic Stadium and Willy had been among the massed buglers who had sounded the fanfare at the Führer's entrance. He would never forget the leader's words to the assembled Hitler Youth: “You are the guarantee of the future....” And the crowds had yelled “Führer Befiehl! Führer Befiehl!” It had been the most memorable day of Willy's life. On that afternoon he had known beyond doubt that the Reich had the best army, the best weapons, the best generals and, above all, the greatest leader in the world. The dream was gone in the sudden flash that illuminated the night sky. Willy peered out toward the front and now he heard again the low rumbling of the guns he had momentarily forgotten, and he felt the cold. His stomach began to ache and he wanted to cry. Fifteen-year-old Willy Feldheim was badly scared, and all the noble aims and the stirring words could not help him now.
A very informative biography of Toussaint Louverture who was a noted figure in the Haitian slave revolution against French colonialism during the late 1700's to Napoleonic times.
I originally got this book at bookstore closure at least a decade ago and at the time all I knew of Haiti was that it was poverty stricken and was also aware of the dictator papa François Duvalier. Much like the rest of the Caribbean and its history I knew little and in all truth it was only purchased as it was cheap and seemed interesting.
After finishing two key points were raised as to my own history reading. I thought that as someone that is keen on history I have been far too lax in reading of, shall we say, the more obscure nations and peoples of mankind's history. With that I wished I had read up on the Haitian history prior to this reading as I had to keep delving to internet sources to understand early parts of the biography.
What I liked about this bio was the even handedness of author Madison Smart Bells discussion of the life of Toussaint Louverture in that he made no attempt to sugar coat him nor turn him into a martyr for the cause of the downfall of the brutal slave regime that was French colonialism.
Louverture was a wealthy man prior to the revolt and also a French general. His religious beliefs, a mix of Catholicism and Vodou, as is much of Haiti today, made for a somewhat humane individual for those times. He seemingly fought, or at least conspired, with the French, English and Spanish in a quest to end slavery in Haiti. The invasion and attempted suppression of the revolt by invading Napoleonic forces and the subsequent actions of Louverture has lead him, according to Bell, to be both revered and despised and at times left out of the narrative of some commenters as to events. Bell implies that this is not fair as it took his capture and final imprisonment in mainland France to put him out of the fight for the freedom of the slaves. Bonaparte had later written of his regret in hindsight that Louverture being removed lead to an appalling bloodbath that lead to final French loss of the colony.
Useful footnotes and bibliography made this a fine read and interesting read. The author is also very readable in presentation.
Recommended to anyone that has read Haitian history.
This novel by noted Jamaican author Marlon James, The Book of Night Women, was going to be a hard act to follow for me considering that I thought that his next, A Brief History of Seven Killings, was a modern classic. Yes I have read these out of publishing order but it has made no difference. This too can be considered the same, a modern classic.
The Book of Night Women is gripping! It is written in patois/slave dialect and that may take some getting used to by causal readers but for those that are up for the challenge it is an education of both the history and the spiritual times of slave era Jamaica and with that the never ending question of man's inhumanity to his fellow man. Let's take that one step further, James, a male author may have also given us a feminist tale of female inhumanity to their fellow man. And it could be argued that all this was justified such is the powerful story he has presented. This is a violent book in both action and language but also strangely beautiful at times.
Highly recommended.
Queensland author Thea Astley's The Well Dressed Explorer has been an interesting read after coming off a well-respected French classic. As I wrote in my review of that “The premise consisted of a lot I would like” but in the end I found the writing so ponderous that it distracted from the story. Thea's novel, on the other hand, consisted of a premise that if explained to me with little to no knowledge of the ability of the writer I would have dismissed out of hand as just a mere melodrama.
In truth it is much more than that, it is a very good and worthy winner of the 1962 Miles Franklin award that tells the life story of one George Brewster who from the beginning to the very end of his trite life has little to offer other than his hackneyed turns of phrase, vapid observations and his pettiness and self-pity. In his life he surrounded himself with those that fell into this banal world with utter ease, be that his priest, his wife, the many women folk met along the way and even his work colleagues.
As with the previous novels I have read by Thea I can do nothing more than praise her extraordinary ability to write a turn of phrase that has one cringing for the protagonists who come under the cutting satire of her acidic pen. Her observational skills of, I presume, her own middle class world was remarkably good. In truth the dull lives of a comfortable Australia consisting of the faux who spoke a pretentious language that was not part of the vernacular of the vast majority of the people of those times is bitterly exposed and it takes a very good writer to make the uninspiring individual seem a little bit colourful. With that it is hard to imagine a book such as this getting much traction nowadays and I suspect that Thea Astley will be little read into the future. With that this is recommended to those with an interest in Australian Literature from the past. They should enjoy it.
The premise consisted of a lot I would like. The printing industry for one, an industry I have been working in for the entire 45 years of my working life. And the literary arts, us Goodreads people love that or we would not be here. That issue of the urbane life of the major city over the provincial snobbery of the small town. Everywhere in all times has this been a divide. And the sheer greed of individuals over the dreamers who trust others no matter what, we all like that in a story don't we? Yep! A heady mix that was guaranteed to be a successful read for me I would have thought.
But nope! It all became a chore, and a long one at that. Nothing wrong with a long novel but when several paragraphs ramble on when the same point could be made with one then I admit to losing interest. Is there anything wrong with the story and the writing? No but is just draaaaaaaaaged.
Goodreads friend Carl tells me that Henry James said something along the lines of one keeping ploughing onward, certainly this sentence will end? you realize you'd rather be shot in the leg, but the word ‘classic' calls, like duty, you saddle up, and head out one more time... Hee hee!
Readers block
Things change. I once read 95% fact. Several years back though I slowly swung to a 50/50 mix of fact and fiction. I read some very fine fiction and was enthralled by it. I wanted more.
But what happens when the last couple of fictions have not lived up to expectations? One heads back to tried and trusted fact. But what happens when you are really really enjoying that and (stupidly) begin a highly rated classic but find that half way through you regret stopping reading the book you were enjoying and starting this classic? You do something really unusual (and stupid) and read a cheap graphic guide about literary criticism in the hope you get your mojo back as to reading the classic.
Didn't work and I am none the wiser as to literary criticism in general. “Sigh”
I have had the pleasure of reading author Rohan Wilson's first two novels in quick succession and am glad I have. The first, The Roving Party, was a very good historical fiction based on actual events that portrayed the brutality Van Diemans Land during that colony's Black Wars. Such was its impact I started this one immediately.
To Name Those Lost brings back the boy from The Roving Party, Thomas Toosey, as a now old man looking for redemption after a brutal life. We follow his quest in his search for his lost son. There is a strong cast of characters that come onto the story, each with a big part to play in Toosey's search.
Rohan Wilson has again somehow written bleak but beautiful prose in what is a more narrative driven approach than his debut novel. I would suggest that those that also like a defined story may find this novel more to their liking than the debut that gave the reader more to think about in thematic terms.
That is not meant to be criticism of this book. There are certainly themes such as (the above mentioned) redemptive qualities, love for family and the worth of revenge. And like his previous novel man's inhumanity to his fellow man looms large. As with a well written historical novel the reader must learn from the events. I knew nothing of the Launceston Railway Riots 1874 that play a big part in the telling of this tale. Oh for a time machine!
http://launcestonhistory.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/142Feb20141.pdf
Recommended to those that enjoy very good historical novels and to those that have been to sleepy Launceston and had no idea of its historical past.
Author Rohan Wilson has written an impressive historical novel that has left me considering it as good a debut that I have ever read.
The main character is a Vandemonian born indigenous man called Black Bill. Bill is beholden to John Batman to assist in the hunting down of plangermaireener clansmen and women as part of the Black Wars that were part of the sad history of Van Diemen's Land. Along with a crew of convicts looking for their pass's to freedom and Aboriginal trackers from the mainland Wilson writes a tale of both brutality and beauty about this Roving Party intent on genocide and the rewards that would go with the capture of some of the clans people.
The book is many themed. Man's inhumanity to his fellow man looms large. Also covered is the deep spiritual aspect of knowing the value of the land that one is part of be that as an individual or through a clan. Black Bill for example never says what is on his mind in being part of the Roving Party with its murderous intents but as the reader I always got the impression he was torn between the old world and the new. The brutality of some of the events is written in such a way as to leave nothing to the imagination. This is countered with beautiful descriptions of the starkness of the country side and the extremely inclement weather that the protagonist's encounter on their journey. The seamlessness of the telling of the story and the description of the land was fantastic.
I was immersed from page one to the very end and recommend The Roving Party to anyone with any interest in the subject of Van Diemen's Land be that fact or fiction.
I am not sure what I have just read. This is a very strange little novel, plotless, but with writing that is astonishingly clever and at times very witty. Somewhere in Australia is a place called The Plains with descriptions written that gave this reader a sense of wide open spaces, the colours of sunlight and sprawling meticulously well-kept homesteads inhabited by wealthy patriarchal lovers of the arts who live for philanthropy.
Recommended to the esoteric and philosophically minded.
It has been a while since I read an in-depth history of the so called 100 Year war. With this book I picked a rather good one, a specific history of the 30 year period that the English throne had land under its control. Author Juliet Barker has got away with something I am normally not keen on and that is in-depth opinion of the events. I tend to prefer my own thoughts based on the event narrative presented. But she has given me food for thought. No bad thing I suppose.
For me the English claim on the French throne became spurious as I read more on the subject. When a teen living in England my school history lessons were of the glory of Agincourt et al but as I got older and read deeper it was just another historical pursuit of power over others, others being the people and the wealth that goes with ownership of foreign lands. Henry V's grandfather married a Frenchwomen and from there cadet branches fought inane wars over the house of Capet's fall. Seriously? Very seriously did Henry V and his kingdom take that claim. The cost was enormous in lives, wealth and prestige. The final fall of the English kingdom in France in fact caused massive upheaval in England itself and the deaths of some folk in very high places. In the end England held only Calais and then because its financial importance to the mercantile class was more important than that of “the wider English economy” to quote the author.
In my school history lessons we were also taught about the greatness of Joan of Arc. Barker's chapters on Joan make her out to be a useful fool and tool. I suppose an English writer on the 100 year war would say that but to be fair Barker is not backwards in coming forward criticising the English when required. Hence my feelings that this tome has a bit of balance in its opinion and analysis. Be that as it may it would make interesting reading to get a French perspective.
Barker also gives detail as to the cost of these adventures, how much money was raised for each campaign by taxation to actually pay for the wars and also the massive loans from wealthy clergy and aristocracy. Some serious wealth was wasted and with that the lives of many peasants lost fighting for those spurious monarchical claims. The army was in essence hired via contracts, generally for a year. When funds ran out they tended to go home. Those that couldn't? They lived off the land in a foreign country and made havoc. With a bunch of thieving drunken foreigners rampaging around the country side and creating mayhem the locals were never going to do anything than support their own in their quest to take back what was in fact their own. The shock of the English authorities on this matter was surprising to me to say the least.
Lastly my opinion is that the character to come out triumphant from this book was the French king Charles VII. He had to put up with an insane father who sold his rights out to Henry V, his realpolitik acumen was superb in bringing the Duke of Burgundy back into the fold and with that turning his military into a professional army made him victorious in the end. Oh and yes and lifting not a finger to assist Joan of Arc was a propaganda triumph that should be noted in history.
If one reads this book they will get a two very good plate sections, a couple of useful maps and family trees. The end-notes are OK without being great, the bibliography is very good and there is a good chronology of events.
Recommended to anyone with an interest in the subject.
David Mitchell quotes one famous rock musician saying that “writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” I had read this quote before and that there was some debate as to who said it.
Whoever said it may have had a point depending on one's view on the topic of writing about music. Writing about any of the arts in general is fraught with danger. Aesthetic values are a very individual pursuit, as is reading and then reviewing a book on Goodreads. I was telling some work colleagues who are immersed in film and TV culture about a novel I recently finished and explained the length; rather long, the prose; deeply thought provoking; and the final outcome; a youthful pursuit of the arts and spirituality. “That author wrote all that for just that?” blurted out one colleague. Yeah, the author did write all “that for just that” and I personally loved that. Maybe it was dancing to architecture. So can this be applied to Utopia Avenue? Mitchell admits it as such by his use of that metaphor and if he is nothing else he is at least honest about that. His long tome is just a generic rock and roll band story and for vast parts of the story is mere dancing to architecture.
I have written elsewhere that I received advice that it was a good idea to read Mitchell's works in order, just start at the very beginning. That was the best advice ever given to me about a specific writer's oeuvre. Yes, many will love this as a stand-alone book, I understand that, but I suspect that plenty will need to do a bit of research because the usual Mitchell jigsaw puzzle pieces that are references to his past writings are littered throughout this reading journey. First time Mitchell readers will not understand some rather subtle nods and winks, Chetwynd Mews anybody? One major character, Jasper De Zoet, is an obvious jigsaw puzzle piece. So what makes this rock and roll story mostly generic is tempered with what Mitchell's admirers have come to know and love, his great big uber novel pretensions. I like his uber novel pretensions but then I like some rather pretentious music and will willingly dance to that kind of architecture.
Did I like this novel? Yes I did but I don't think it is anywhere near his others novels for inventiveness alone. For me it is just another rock and roll story with the originality, and at its best, the uber novel pretences. These will be obvious to long time readers of Mitchell. I now hope that David Mitchell writes that operatic novel I am sure he once said he was interested in writing. I think I would find that much more interesting than the rock music of the 60's. I find nothing particularly interesting about an LSD riven rock star singing in the corner of a party somewhere “have you got it yet?” even if it is a nod and a wink to some (admittedly) very good research on the era. I prefer the puzzle pieces of the fantasy rock star guitar player Jasper De Zoet much more to be honest. I just might be in a minority on this matter I suspect.
I recommend this to those that want a very readable novel about the late 60's music scene.
I recommend to those that like to research those obscure references to music history.
I also recommend it to those that know their music history.
I recommend it to those that like the uber novel concept.
I recommend it to those that like to dance to all things architectural.
I am, therefore I will.
As the baby was born on a butchers slab his mother sang religion. He was the leader, she the led. The baby, unless there are exceptional circumstances, is the great dictator in all households. The baby's aunt Ursala said that when the baby arrived in the house ‘A lord of atmosphere had taken up residence'.... Aunt Mira asked “ ‘Who's a bornless child then? Here's a fine kettle of kitsch. What'll he be when he grows up? A gifted bus driver with a stern view of things?' A few Sherries shut her up.” Author David Ireland is an observer of the human condition.
The writer can get the reader hooked by words. The word “God” is one such hook. That one word plays a part in the life of the baby, Davis Blood. From the beginning he is imbued with his mother's songs of religion, Aunt Ursula through her thoughtful dialog with her gifted young nephew and Aunt Mira with wordplay that challenges him. He listened to them all. This young boy was listening from the time he was a babe through to his endeavour to discover his inner self at the ripe old age of 16.
If one is looking to read a Bildungsroman along the lines of the customary life of a young man then they will be disappointed. Ireland writes of this boy as a sponge of all that is around him. Sport and girls? Yes a little but so tiny as to be almost missed. Learning is beyond important in this Bildungsroman. The reader looking for the predictable should read no further. This is a deep look at the boy as an individual struggling with what makes him what he is and what he intends to be. He is learning from all sources be that physical, scholastic or spiritual. This is a pursuit, a pursuit of a hopeful future.
Hope is the key to what is Ireland's most optimistic of novels. There is a strange uplifting demand of the reader to get inside the boys thoughts and be part of the world around him. From birth to his 16th birthday he is no ordinary child, he is listening and learning. He is both objective and subjective with his thoughts, be that his need for his individuality or his requirements for spirituality. The words of this book demand that the reader take that journey. Read and ponder.
Most of Ireland's previous novels had the inner city ramparts as a constant. The closed walls of Puroil, Merry Lands and The Southern Cross Hotel were inner city and tribal. This is different; rural with descriptions of an almost homely paradise surrounded by nature. Did his readership want that? Maybe not. He failed to have another book published for nearly 10 year. His readership had passed him by. They had found new literary fashions. So be it.
This is a long read and not for the fainthearted. It will not be for everyone so I do not recommend it. But then who cares, I loved it.
If all David Ireland's novels were one big novel, what a great big novel that would be.
Kenneth Harrison went to war to fight Germans and instead fought the Japanese in Malaya. He was also a POW in Singapore, Malaya, Thailand and Japan. As with most of his generation who fought, they witnessed events that young men and women should not; death and destruction, cruelty beyond compare and bravery that defied belief. Many have written their eyewitness accounts but few have been able to write with such humility, humanity and forgiveness of their enemy.
Harrison's story is one that must be unique. He fought in 2 battles at Gemas and Muar on the Malay Peninsula. After capture he worked as slave labour on the infamous Hellfire Pass on the Burma Thailand Railway as well as being used for slave labour at the Nagasaki shipyards and coal mining at Nakarma. After the bombing of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki and with the Japanese surrender he was one of the first four non-Japanese to enter Hiroshima. He wrote on that experience “......we felt no sense of either history or triumph. Our brother Man went by crippled and burned, and we knew only shame and guilt.” He and his companions stayed for less than a day such was the experience that shocked them. He was embarked back to his home in Melbourne Australia via Nagasaki and describes the impact of it's bombing with great sadness.
His reflections took him deep into himself; how he felt about the Japanese in both terms of their cruelty and his feeling of “privilege” as to fighting against such brave soldier's. Their cultural differences were amazing to him, a mixture of admiration and loathing. He wrote of the eventual strained relationships with many who had lost relatives, they did not understand his attitude. He wrote of the dead comrades that he liked and admired; “My story is their story. We shared all the same hopes and fears. We starved together; we exulted together; and only in the final adventure of all did our paths turn slowly away. They are long dead now in far off lands and I wish them well. Sleep, my comrades, and soft winds bring peace.”
I have found this a truly thought provoking book just for the sheer humanity that Kenneth Harrison presented his wartime experience. On a personal level I feel that I am unable to do this book review justice.
Music responseMusic that triggers some kind of responseI have what you want, I have what you need
So sang the Chemical Brothers with what was the entire vocal and lyric content of their song Music: Response. With those three lines sang over and over again to a heavy dance laden beat they make a good soundtrack for the content of this good read on music and the brain. Author Oliver Sacks, I suspect, would not have known who The Chemical Brothers were but I think he would have understood the meaning considering the depth of subject.
Music has played a huge part of my life. Not as a player, very poor 3 chord thrash as a youth was about it, but as a huge consumer. My parents had a diverse mix of classical and jazz for me to devour as a young boy. My mum's sister was a Beatles fan and my dad's brother was a musician of some ability who played Sax and Clarinet and even made it onto TV talent shows. My first recording purchased with my own pocket money was a 7” single, Coz I Luv You by Slade. I must have been 11 or 12. It has been a long journey to now paying via download my latest purchase (Sarah Mary Chadwick) such is the way we now procure music. As I say to anyone that asks, over the years my tastes have been truly eclectic, I listen to all genres and all artists, Abba to Zorn one might say.
When I purchased this book back on 24/2/2009 (the receipt was found tucked into the back page on finishing) I was ready to devour it. The trouble was I read Sacks' more famous “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” first, a book I also had at that time. I did not enjoy Hat at all! It was dense in terminology, lacking in focus and with uninspiring writing did little to hold my attention. Hence this read was placed way back of the reading pack. So now started and finished I have to say that I have enjoyed this a little bit more than I expected to. The writing can still be a little uninspiring though the focus is obvious, a focus that is no bad thing for the likes of me.
Sacks' covers a lot of territory. Why we may like, dislike or even be indifferent to music. Amnesia and Dementia and why those that suffer may have an affinity with music. Why at some gigs/concerts some musicians spend an inordinate amount of time tuning their instruments between just about every song. There are many interesting anecdotes. Clive Wearing suffered herpes encephalitis of the brain causing amnesia. Clive has been the subject of a documentary called “The Man With the Seven Second Memory”. I recommend looking at a youtube of Clive who has as little as 30 seconds memory at best, can hardly recall the subject of a sentence in discussion but then can still play the piano at a remarkable ability. Sacks thought that Clive had semantic memory as apposed in the absence of explicit and episodic memory but was not that sure. William's Syndrome was another. I had to admit that I had never heard of this affliction but Sacks discussion and explanation was first rate.
In the end though, this will be my 2nd and last book by Sacks. As much as I have enjoyed this one I know it was the subject matter that was attractive. When getting into his own field of Neurology in explanation of his thoughts on the subject of music and the brain his writing was a little too dense for me. I understand that the subject matter needs certain scientific explanation but as a lay reader I did need to reread sentences a couple of times and internet search medical terms. The bibliography would be useful to the specialist in the field but not so much the layman such as I. Footnoted galore but then some of them are half a page long and as interesting as they can be at times it seemed more like he had footnoted an event he was keen to include in the narrative but knew not how. I do recommend this very interesting book though. If one is curious as to why music and the brain can work together in mysterious ways this will be more than useful.
My Personal Musical Extras.
As I wrote this review I was on forced leave due to the company I work for having its income collapse due to Corvid -19. Time will tell if I return. I hope I do as I enjoy my work. I have my own small office and have a 30 year old battered boom box in the corner to play CD's on as background. Yes I could go digital but the monstrosity still works and I have so many CD's from the old day. I packed up about 100 as I left work and then reflected on them, a mix of Classical from Beethoven and Mussorgsky to modern composers such as Glass and Nyman. Jazz was covered too with The Atlantic Years by John Coltrane through to a crazy set of compilation CD's that I got in the 90's for jazz in all its subvarieties. When I was in the mood for a certain genre I was covered. The very good Underworld got a serious play in the last week as they seemed perfect for the times, repetitious experimental beats that hit the mark while our office staff discussed our futures.
I work for a printing company and we have a few old Heidelberg cylinders. Whenever I had to go to the production factory they were clunking away in a never ending rhythm that had my brain singing along to whatever suited its 4/4 time. “I need it I don't want it I need it I don't want it I need it I don't want it I need it I don't want it I need it I don't want it I need it I don't want it” was the sound it sang to me on my last visit, a cadence for Mortiis black metal ambient tune called This Absolution. It seemed just right considering the circumstances.
Each evening after work I had always gone for a 30 minute walk. Headphones on, the music of choice had always had an atmospheric bent, Dead Can Dance, This Mortal Coil are just a couple of examples. Now with lockdown there are few reasons to leave the house though excuse is engaging alone for physical exercise. I now get out in the morning and walk for a couple of hours in a local forest. I have found that I do not want to listen to music. That is a strange feeling. I have realised that I needed the sound of the forest, the birds singing and the crunch of the path under my feet. No music seems to suit the present circumstances. This may be the first time in my life that I have felt like this.
‘But you have read Madame Bovary?'
(I'd heard of the book.) ‘No.'
‘Not even,' she looked ratty now, ‘Hermann Hesse?'
‘No.' Unwisely I tried to dampen Madame Crommelynck's disgust. ‘I only really did English literature at school...'
‘“English”? Australia was part of the English Empire, England is European! No French? No German? You are Australian, you illiterate monkey of puberty! Thomas Mann, Rilke, Gogol! Proust, Bulgakov, Victor Hugo! This should be your culture, your inheritance, your skeleton! You are ignorant even of Kafka?'
I flinched. ‘I've heard of him. I've even discussed him on Goodreads'
“Goodreads?” she shrieked ‘This?' She held up Le Grand Meaulnes.
‘Yes, I've just finished it.'
‘Is one of my bibles. I read it every year. So!' She frisbeed her copy at me, hard. It hurt. ‘Alain-Fournier is your first true master. He is nostalgic and tragic and enchantible and he aches and you would have ached too and, best of everything, he is true.'
As I opened it up a cloud of foreign words blew out. Il arriva chez nous un dimanche de novembre 189...
‘Your copy. It's in French!'
‘Translations are incourteous between Europeans.' She detected the guilt in my silence. ‘Oho? Australian schoolboys in the less than enlightened 1970s never read a book in a foreign language?'
‘We never had French at school...' (Madame Crommelynck made me go on.) ‘...but we had Citizenship Education.' I said brightly.
‘Pfffffffffffft! Citizenship Education? What is that? When I was thirteen I spoke French and Dutch fluently! I could converse in German, in English, in Italian! Ackkk, for your schoolmasters, for your minister of education, execution is too good! Is not even arrogance! It is a baby who is too primitive to know its nappy is stinking and bursting! You Australians, Queenslanders especially, you deserve the government of Monster Joh Bjelke Peterson! I curse you with twenty years of Bjelke Peterson! Maybe then you comprehend, speaking one language only is prison! You have a French dictionary and a grammar, anyhow?'
‘No but I have read and now finished Le Grand Meaulnes as translated into English by Frank Davidson' ‘And you like?' Madame Crommelynck asked. ‘Kinda' I said.
“”Kinda, kinda'” Madame Crommelynck sneered. ‘Is that this strine that you antipodean halfwits speak? What do you mean Kinda?' ‘It all seemed kinda clunky in parts of the translation' I replied and caught the outrage in Madame Crommelynck eyes. ‘And the story was just a little too sweet and cloying, saccharine one might say. For my tastes anyway but I do understa...'
‘sweet, cloying, saccharine?' roared the good Madame “out of my sight now and read....and read... read that David Mitchell....... Onzin!”
As I slunk away feeling a great sense of guilt that I could only give a French classic 3 stars I heard an exasperated ‘Ackkk' deep in the throat of Madame Crommelynck.
Do Furniture and wallpaper have life? Are they in permanent chaos? Are they subject to the workings of systems and so with that are as entropic as all other systems? Do Demiurges treat tailors dummies no different than empty rooms? Can a man turn into the rubber tube of an enema?
In dementia can wise questions come. Tailors Dummy is a work of genius.
So is Birds. Cinnamon Shops and The Comet come so close.
But I don't feel much different than I did about Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass. I wrote that that was “ ....a heady mix of the metaphor with childlike fantasy and delirious dreaming that seemingly mixes the authors life memories/observations that cover his childhood through to the fear of old age and all the trials and tribulations in between.” And for me so is this, the more famous of the authors only two surviving books. All very weird and metaphorical that reaches amazing heights and then has me going Huh? What happened there?
Not my style of history. I would have preferred this to be a touch more academic than the Popular/Populist delivery that this book is. Author Paul Ham has let his disgust and anger at just about everybody involved, other than the Australian soldiers, get in the way of the narrative to the point that it made the book far too long.
An example of this was the ridiculous populist overkill such as the first two pages of Chapter 34 “Australian Viet Cong” when he listed a plethora of persons and cultural events over 2 very long pages and then wrote that this was a “Tumble of people, pop and paraphernalia providing the stuffing of the social revolution in Australia in the 1960's; these were some of the voices, sounds and influences that heralded the over throw of the established order”. He then writes “In retrospect, the decade seems rather to have left a faint indent on time's shifting sands, blown on the wind like other youthful fads and ideals, the pale faced prelude to a long, adult hangover of dazed disillusionment.”
The actual narrative of events was constantly scattered with strange thought bubbles such as the above, use of slang and vernacular, historical inaccuracies, and intermittent use of endnotes. One thought bubble that caught my attention was that the author was not keen on elections being held after the French left and glad that they were not as the wrong side might have won. The occasional use of slang such as “daft” “Sheila” “yanks” to name a few. The constant analogies and vernacular used in the body of the narrative seemed out of place for me for what was a serious subject. A couple of noteworthy mistakes also come to mind. Gough Whitlam is quoted a few times and endnoted in Hansard but one controversial comment Ham has cited has no date against the Hansard extract. All other Hansard extracts do. Black American soldiers refused entry to Australia during World War II due to the White Australia Policy he states at one point. I can find no reference to the truth of this anywhere. The author writes that Nixon was impeached. Was he? I thought he resigned before impeachment could occur.
As usual there is a lot to learn from books such as this so I do recommend it to anyone that has an interest in the subject. I am just not keen on populist history.
I read this as it was short and I needed a break from a rather difficult history book. It was an interesting read to say the least. I came to the end and thought that it was maybe an analogy for purgatory or something to do with being in a state of dying. Then I read the wiki and a few reviews and can only say “What would I know?” Not much.
I had read 2 reviews on Goodreads that had initially attracted me to this book.
Glen gave me a magnificent overview that had me very interested.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2889171595?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1
Black Oxford had his usual high quality analysis that on rereading after I had finished my read took me to areas that I would never have thought.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/693641644?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1
So with me eventually diving into and now finishing this popular piece of modern Sci-Fi I have to say that I join the praise. It has actually had me thinking that it has covered apartheid. The demands of the authorities to all that they be apart, not especially via race or religion but via their city, is a concept that was fascinating to me. Could mankind actually force peoples to be so apart but be so close in proximity without any acknowledgment? And all that in what is really a detective novel? Sounds simple but it is an amazingly interesting and complicated mix.
I have little more to add other than I have just had a look at the trailer for the TV series and will not bother. It is not how I envisioned either the city nor the city and I do not want my imagination tarnished.
Recommended to anyone that wants their fantasy to be believable.
A bloodthirsty novel to say the least. The narrative was more complicated than I was prepared for and it was also anthropological in many of the detail. Race relations mixed with human relationships made a rather heady mix in this tale of Jakara, an Australian boy in his late 20's who had been shipwrecked as a child in the Torres Strait. He had been claimed by an islander as the spirit of a relative returned from the dead, therefore survived the usual death meted out to any unlucky enough to be shipwrecked in the islands in a time long gone. In a nutshell, the story consists of Jakara's survival by involvement in the culture of the islands and his plans to attempt to escape from a world alien to him. This was not really like anything I had read before, so that probably assisted in what was an enjoyable read.
With that I found an interesting link to an item called “A Novel Approach to Tradition: Torres Strait Islanders and Ion Idriess” by Maureen Fuary of Anthropology and Archaeology, James Cook University. Fuary says “....this novel is a sensual rendering of a Torres Strait past, and at this level it operates as a mnemonic device for Yam Island people, triggering memories and the imagination through the senses. This Torres Strait Islander detour by way of a past via a story, can be understood as a means by which Yam Island people continue to actively produce powerful images of themselves, for both themselves and for others.” She quotes Idriess at one point claiming that “This story is in all essential historical fact” and that a Rev. W. H. MacFarlane had “put me in personal touch with the Island historians.” I suppose that this novel could be seen as a historical narrative of a people's history. I would have thought a rarity for such a novel.
https://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/5214/1/A_Novel_Approach_to_Tradition_-Fuary.pdf
Written in 1933 this is recommended to those that have an interest in the Torres Strait Islands and its history (or just enjoy a good bloody thirsty yarn.)
This once was a Banned book!
I read Power Without Glory by Frank Hardy in my younger days and thought it a superb read. It was highly controversial on release as it portrayed the main character in the book, John West, as a composite of Melbourne identity John Wren. At least that was what some in the Wren family thought so for his trouble Hardy was tried for criminal liability in 1951 in what was a huge cause célèbre at the time. Power Without Glory was a book about corruption and greed. I recall when I read it in my late teens in the 1970's it still resonated nearly 30 years on from its original release date.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Without_Glory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wren
Little did I know that another Australian author, Dal Stivens, had released in 1951, this novel that is also about corruption and greed; power without glory. This was about the same time as Hardy's trial and was Stiven's first novel. A few years back it was rereleased through Allen & Unwin's House of Books. Allen & Unwin (mischievously?) call this a “Memoir” on the back cover. Of whom I asked myself and to find out I had to do some research.
Interestingly the wiki on the book links to the very good National Library of Australia Trove site that is a fantastic online resource that links one to “books, images, historic newspapers, maps, music, archives and more”
https://trove.nla.gov.au/
The link below contains a newspaper report that the then Australian Federal Minister had released the book for sale in Australia after it was held up by customs as it may have borne “a close resemblance to the career to that of a Sydney promoter.”
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/23089403
I found another link that mentioned that Jimmy Brocket may have “bore a resemblance” to Hugh D McIntosh.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/23086511?searchTerm=Jimmy%20Brockett&searchLimits=l-availability=y
McIntosh wiki below.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_D.McIntosh. Another link talks of both McIntosh and John Norton. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/189925844?searchTerm=Jimmy%20Brockett&searchLimits=l-availability=yhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Norton(journalist)
The times they have changed.
One of the more interesting links through trove is the following that actually called for the books ban to have not been lifted. Read this and laugh. By today's standards this book is fairly tame so pity the poor reader back then.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/52846315?searchTerm=Jimmy%20Brockett&searchLimits=l-availability=y
Jimmy Brocket is a very good read so why has it not retained the familiarity of Hardy's more renowned Power Without Glory?
Jimmy Brockett, the books eponymous character was from working class roots in Glebe in Sydney and through graft and corruption made his way to become a Sydney identity of some standing. He started in the wrestling and boxing game in 1905 and by the end of the book had reached enormous wealth by not letting anyone stand in his way. Jimmy Brockett told his story in the first person but repeatedly talked of himself in the third person, a presentation that I enjoyed. It allowed the reader to understand that he was a character of great ego, devilish charm and cunning and an individual to not make an enemy of. When later reading about both Hugh D McIntosh and John Norton it was hard not to understand how they achieved what they did in both business and politics if the character of Jimmy Brockett was based as a composite of these two individuals.
So why did Jimmy Brockett disappear off the radar in term so being part of the cannon of Australian Literature considering its history and the subject matter? Hardy's Power Without Glory made huge waves at the time with its criminal liability case and was maybe an easier read to a public whom was not probably keen on Jimmy Brockett's more racy style of delivery? I am unable to recall any rawness about Power Without Glory but there was with Jimmy Brockett. He had no issue sleeping around and boasting about it. He was loud and brash and that is a style of character that may not have been palatable to the readers of the day. John West may have been conniving but kept it to the background. Jimmy Brockett did not even attempt anything.
Jimmy Brockett used many colloquialisms of his day that may have embarrassed a readership many years later? Many had me scurrying to the dictionary to find out what they actually meant. It was interesting to see that they were once common but had fallen into disuse with time. For many examples see this link.
https://greensdictofslang.com/search/quotation?biblid=4265
Jimmy Brockett had several automobiles and was never shy in mentioning that he was one of the first in Sydney to have one. He had two in particular that caught my attention, a De Dion and a Russell. I have to admit that I had to research these two makers as I had not heard of them before. Live and learn.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Dion-Bouton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Motor_Car_Company
Recommended to those that have an interest in Australian political literature.