A really compelling book about someone's life, and how it has been falling apart since it began. Awful mothers, suffocating houses, long-suffering husA really compelling book about someone's life, and how it has been falling apart since it began. Awful mothers, suffocating houses, long-suffering husbands, family secrets, this could quite easily have been a very gothic novel. But Mason's clear, straightforward prose makes it instead an examination of what having family and heredity does to people, and what they do to themselves and each other because of it....more
Made me genuinely lol many times. The final chapter, What Happened to the Battler?, which is actually a potted history of Australian federal politics,Made me genuinely lol many times. The final chapter, What Happened to the Battler?, which is actually a potted history of Australian federal politics, should probably replace whatever introduction to the subject that is currently taught in Society & Environment classes in schools. ...more
Quick, entertaining, slightly didactic read. The first segment was a little frustrating because the central conceit was not a secret if you read the bQuick, entertaining, slightly didactic read. The first segment was a little frustrating because the central conceit was not a secret if you read the blurb. But things picked up a lot, action-wise, when the secret gets out and Coleman's scifi interests come a little more forward.
She writes engagingly, and captures the looming horror of a life, an entire world, that will never be the same again, with no hope and no future for its first inhabitants. For that alone it's a success, and that's not the only thing to recommend this. ...more
The subject matter is interesting and I think there was real potential here, but this is not an engaging read. It was very evidently a PhD project traThe subject matter is interesting and I think there was real potential here, but this is not an engaging read. It was very evidently a PhD project transitioned into a mainstream publication and there was a lot more that could have been done to turn this into an actual narrative and not just a dry factual account full of repetition and jargon and kind of confusing data tables.
The problem with PhD theses is that their writers have been mired so deep in academia that their perspective on what non-specialised narrative nonfiction looks like is irrevocably skewed. I'm certain the author considers this a very broad-stroke overview of her topic, but to the layman it is still largely impenetrable. ...more
The amount of endnotes alone makes it obvious that this started life as a PhD, but the research that went into it was fascinating and edifying for me,The amount of endnotes alone makes it obvious that this started life as a PhD, but the research that went into it was fascinating and edifying for me, trying to learn a little more about my new home state.
The similarity with Apartheid South Africa (as seen in Barbara Trapido's Frankie & Stankie) and to the police state of 1970s Yorkshire (so many Red Riding comparisons!) are terrifying, but this is ultimately a story of a state that found its way out of dark days with the help of a giant, expensive funfair, and that made for a satisfying story. ...more
A dysfunctional family story that made for extremely entertaining reading. Lucashenko finds a way to seamlessly blend Aboriginal experiences of land aA dysfunctional family story that made for extremely entertaining reading. Lucashenko finds a way to seamlessly blend Aboriginal experiences of land and nature with the often unpleasant realities of Aboriginal life in white society. The Salters sometimes talk to the animals that live around their house, and sometimes the animals talk back, and it just seems normal.
A fascinating way of demonstrating that modern Aboriginal problems are, not to get too online PhD on you, intersectional. Kerry is bisexual, comes from a history of family violence and alcoholism, and Aboriginal, which means she has a deep distrust of white Australians. She has a lot of competing problems that demand her attention. And yet this isn't a downer book, or a preachy book. It's a story about a woman going home even though she doesn't want to, and all the ways her home dreams up to make her stay. Highly recommended. ...more
There's not quite enough here to make it a truly great chatty memoir, which it could easily have been, but it's a lot of fun and just colourful enoughThere's not quite enough here to make it a truly great chatty memoir, which it could easily have been, but it's a lot of fun and just colourful enough to balance truth with embellishments. ...more
Enjoyable and full of feelings. Reminded me strongly of my favourite teen book Feeling Sorry for Celia by Jaclyn Moriarty. I read that book to death wEnjoyable and full of feelings. Reminded me strongly of my favourite teen book Feeling Sorry for Celia by Jaclyn Moriarty. I read that book to death when I was 12, 13, 14, and there are plenty of similarities here.
Apart from the letter writing and the themes of suicide and best friends, there's a no-nonsense, humour-filled Australianness to them both that made me happy. I felt like I knew these kids (I probably was them, once) and their lives.
I still don't read YA but I enjoyed this plenty. ...more
Helen Garner writes in her introduction that 'Lantana Lane strikes me as a novel written by a happy woman. Its tone is light, lively and benevolent. IHelen Garner writes in her introduction that 'Lantana Lane strikes me as a novel written by a happy woman. Its tone is light, lively and benevolent. Its humour is benign. Its observations of human behaviour, while razor sharp, are affectionately knowing, and informed with an attractive, amused tolerance... It is not a novel of conflict, of character development, of strain and resolution. It is a contemplation of a particular microcosmic isolated little farming community "round the corner from the world". It is a book written with pleasure by a mature artist in calm command of her craft.'
I'd say more, but that's exactly how I felt about this novel and much more eloquent....more
An interesting detailing of the history of the Australian electoral system, written by a non-historian.
She has all the facts in a logical order, but An interesting detailing of the history of the Australian electoral system, written by a non-historian.
She has all the facts in a logical order, but the lack of historical nous has led her to be less opportunistic about pulling the stories out of the facts and pacing her narrative for an interested audience.
I mean, obviously this is something of a dry story, but there were certainly opportunities to bring a little more warmth and personality to some of the characters, particularly around the partisan politics that went on during the pre-compulsory ‘tinkering’ phase. A Professor of Politics necessarily exercises caution in those areas, I expect.
The chapter on the deliberate disenfranchisement of Aboriginal people was a real standout, however. She clearly spent a lot of time digging into the whys and wherefores, and it showed in the more passionate style of writing that the outcome was one she had worked hard to achieve.
History written by non-historians can go two ways, bright and populist or careful and dry. This definitely errs a bit on the careful side, but the author’s obvious dedication to politics and the electoral system pull it through for those interested enough to pick it up in the first place....more
I was skeptical going into this book that it would be a kind of cultural cringe experiment, but I’m so glad to be wrong.
A hilarious and skewering looI was skeptical going into this book that it would be a kind of cultural cringe experiment, but I’m so glad to be wrong.
A hilarious and skewering look at not just the past but our own perceptions of it, with a tone of genuine affection that is very hard to achieve.
At 32 I’m most definitely a millennial, though my own interest and career in history made me much less incredulous than Glover’s astonished colleagues about “what life was like”. But the thing is, it wasn’t just my historical understanding that had me nodding sagely: it was my childhood. The lifestyle he describes as belonging to the 60s and 70s is the lifestyle I recognise from my parents, their parents, their friends and colleagues and siblings, and all the people of those generations who I come In contact with daily. So much of what he describes had a direct impact on my youth.
Apart from a very small amount of non-funny dad jokes - another signifier of just exactly when and where we’re talking about - this audiobook had me cackling out loud in my car and at the gym. Glover reads it himself and his obvious experience in a recording booth gives the narration a flavour all its own, like your favourite uncle telling you wide-eyed stories of “what things were like back then”.
This started strong, but the plot focused too much on Claudia’s life, instincts and skills in a similar way to Eve Zaremba’s Beyond Hope. At a certainThis started strong, but the plot focused too much on Claudia’s life, instincts and skills in a similar way to Eve Zaremba’s Beyond Hope. At a certain point even the best detectives make mistakes, bad calls, poor choices, but Claudia beavers steadily away at her Chinese puzzle with remarkably little emphasis on actually solving it and lots on just satisfying her own curiosity, which she does admirably.
A decent entry into the feminist detective genre with some great atmospheric Sydney settings, but nothing explosive. ...more
Totally fascinating and vastly, enjoyably accessible. I don't know what I was expecting but it wasn't a survey of the diaries of early explorers and sTotally fascinating and vastly, enjoyably accessible. I don't know what I was expecting but it wasn't a survey of the diaries of early explorers and settlers of Australia, the unvarnished accounts of first contact, their descriptions of Aboriginal life, culture, technology, agriculture, and living conditions.
Why didn't I expect that? It's so blindingly obvious now that Pascoe's done it. And those settlers and explorers were often quite elaborate in their descriptions of their new encounters, even as they were interpreting behaviour as lazy, indolent, uncivilised.
It's made me realise how much information there might be out there that really hasn't been tapped yet: in my own work I have drawn frequently on easily-available newspaper accounts of a very early Western Australian settler's experiences with Aboriginal groups in the Perth area (Robert Menli Lyon's 1833 'A Glance at the Manners and Language of the Aboriginal Inhabitants of Western Australia, with a short vocabulary' in four parts) but only now is it occurring to me that there must be plenty more where that came from, in places I can easily access.
The obvious question is, why have so few people focused on this? But I think we probably all know the answer. Pascoe tackles it in this book: academics who were ostracised for their insistence that Aboriginal groups farmed, formed landscapes, herded animals, stored grain, built dams and fish traps, and lived in permanent houses with sewn clothes.
It hurts us as a (white) nation to accept that not only did we steal land from its inhabitants, but those inhabitants were much more 'civilised' than we have always been led to believe. We get angry at our educational institutions, from the earliest books to the universities that ignored research, and it hurts our own pride to think we've been so easily and consummately lied to. It's easier to go on thinking that civilisation is a single-track trajectory and that our predecessors were right, if somewhat ruthless, to go about things as they did.
Australians have become used to being low-key ashamed and rueful, but apparently being outright wrong is a far more bitter pill to swallow....more
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