Written in the third person the reader gets a magnificent child’s eye view of his world that covers, among other things, birds, colours, horse-racing,Written in the third person the reader gets a magnificent child’s eye view of his world that covers, among other things, birds, colours, horse-racing, school, sexual awakening, religion, family life and more. At times so totally lyrical in delivery but then so stream of consciousness. But it just works! Imagine being able to write with such a childlike view of your life but making it relevant to an adult reader. I am in awe. I don’t pretend that this review can do this magnificent book justice.
This is my first Gerald Murnane book but it will not be my last. ...more
The story is about one of the strange quarks of life that makes the least likely figure, in this case Frank Harland, noted as an artist of extraordinaThe story is about one of the strange quarks of life that makes the least likely figure, in this case Frank Harland, noted as an artist of extraordinary talent beyond what he could have been considering his circumstances. Born to a dirt poor widower before the Great War we follow Harland’s outsider life and that of his outsider family as he becomes closely associated with the flawed middle class Vernon’s.
I rapidly got sucked in hard by this brilliant book. Malouf’s writing is a pleasure. Descriptive without being overwrought. He has written such wonderful prose that I found myself rereading his powerful descriptions of Harland’s art as well as the accidental life and fate that he was immersed by. The writing was so good that it could seamlessly convey the changes in narration from the third person to the first, never making me the reader lose track of the intense power of the words written. Their power made it easy to read of a changing Brisbane, and with that Australia in general, from one being a begotten colonial outpost to a nation becoming part of a changing wider world. All this mirrored through the life of the strange but gifted Harland and his family through to, the sometime narrator, Phil Vernon who in his own way was aware of being an observer to that change.
I was recommended this book by Greg. His fantastic review here.
How does a white, late 50’s, Australian come to read a satire on race relations in the USA, an area he has little knowledge about in said subject?
I hHow does a white, late 50’s, Australian come to read a satire on race relations in the USA, an area he has little knowledge about in said subject?
I had recently read the brilliant A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James and was telling “all and sundry” what a superb read it was. I could recall a fair bit of the heady days of Marley and the powerful political fallout in Jamaica back in the late 70’s. I had got Exodus on release so was not in new territory subject wise. The writing and presentation was so powerful as to be mesmerising and I was hooked. But in conversation “all and sundry” began to tell me about this book by Paul Beatty called The Sellout. “All and sundry” finally became the final push to read The Sellout in the shape of a new dad at a suburban one year old’s birthday party, you know the type of event, the mums all go gah gah at the kids and the dads talk about other things while their kids gorge themselves on cake. The “all and sundry” new dad, I am not a new dad by the way, just kept shaking his head about this book The Sellout. He had various ways of saying read it:- “you have to read it” “by the sound of it if you liked that Marley book you have to read this” “if you like satire you have to read this” “sounds like a little bit of humour in that Marley book but this is entirely satirical humour so you have to read it” “I did not understand a lot of the references but I got the gist to the point that you have to read it” and so on and so forth. And so I did.
About 70 pages in, I discovered a few things. As mentioned above I knew little of US race relations and a fair few of the references towards that thorny subject were beyond me. So with that I started afresh and while reading marked each not or little understood reference and referred back to them with an internet search after each chapter. With that all I can say is “what a journey”. The journey has been a slow read as the enormity of my lack of knowledge loomed large. I read each wiki (or other) link as I went on a weird and wonderful journey into both a political, cultural, and most of all, satirical look at the subject at hand. My copy says that one review said the “……longer I stared at the pages…” the smarter I would get. Nice! And with that new intelligence all I can say is what a book, what a hilarious learning curve it all was for this little white boy.
What more can I add? I mean there are more meaningful dissertations on The Sellout than the drivel I am writing but just maybe anyone from a non US background, who is white and sheltered from US race issues can use the links I used to assist them along in this riveting read. And my apologies for missing any. I put in what I did not know, know little about or just did not recall.
There's a natural mystic blowing through these page if you read carefully now you will gauge this could be my first man booker but will not be the lasThere's a natural mystic blowing through these page if you read carefully now you will gauge this could be my first man booker but will not be the last many more will have to read many more will have to try do ask me why...more
Plenty of reviews on Goodreads and I cannot imagine that I would write anything new at all. I read that the philosophical musings of the novel was a sPlenty of reviews on Goodreads and I cannot imagine that I would write anything new at all. I read that the philosophical musings of the novel was a sensation on release but it reads as nothing too out of the ordinary in this day and age. So be it as time can change the outlook. ...more
Hard to write a review of a book I read as an 8/9 year old that was essentailly an awakening for a young boys' life of reading, but I did come across Hard to write a review of a book I read as an 8/9 year old that was essentailly an awakening for a young boys' life of reading, but I did come across this item this morning (2/3/21) while having a coffee.
A roman-à-clef based on the author George Johnston’s life, narrator David Meredith tells his story from his yOne 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.
I had the pleasure of a visit to Saint-Malo in 2011. I was on a mission to see the Bayeux Tapestry and was discussing with my sister that my wife and I had the pleasure of a visit to Saint-Malo in 2011. I was on a mission to see the Bayeux Tapestry and was discussing with my sister that my wife and I planned a visit to not only the famous embroidery but also the D-Day beaches and Mont Saint-Michel. My sister suggested Saint-Malo for a couple of nights and to say that it was a pleasant stay would be an understatement. We had fine sunny days, warm weather and food to delight. I got myself the ubiquitous Breton pullover, we visited the nearby seaside town of Dinard and went and explored the nearby town of Dinan. The Emerald Coast was truly emerald as we left. When there I found it unimaginable that in the lifetime of many that this fantastic part of France was the centre of some of the fiercest fighting in WW2 and that 80% of Saint-Malo was destroyed.
With that I picked All the Light We Cannot See up at an independent book and coffee shop I occasionally drop into that tends to specialise on local Brisbane authors. This was not the normal book they held so when I asked why I was told that they thought is so good that had carried a few copies. I read the 1st few pages and there was Saint-Malo standing out at me. "The memories" I thought. With that I grabbed a copy.
To say I have enjoyed this fantastic read would be an understatement. A beautifully told bitter sweet tale that had me turning pages late into the evening. I am sure that this will stand the test of time. I have no doubt that way into the future people will be picking this up and being enthralled.
Wow! Can I start with a Wow!? Can I add another Wow!?
Do I need to bother to use superlatives as to how good I thought this book was?
And what can I Wow! Can I start with a Wow!? Can I add another Wow!?
Do I need to bother to use superlatives as to how good I thought this book was?
And what can I add to the gushing reviews that has not been said before?
Not much so I had better make this short then hadn’t I.
The last pages of this book are philosophical and tie up the ideas that permeate this melange of six stories that cover the very gamut of mankind’s nature from the past and into the future.
A friend gave me a copy of David Ireland’s The Flesheaters. A new author for me and he had an immediate effect, one that readers like, that “get you tA friend gave me a copy of David Ireland’s The Flesheaters. A new author for me and he had an immediate effect, one that readers like, that “get you thinking” kind of effect. “Merry Lands” was the 1st heading and some bloke is talking to a dog, trying to get the dog to understand his name. Is it an asylum? I was just not sure.
Later “I make a living from poverty” says the bloke with the dog. And so we go headlong into the world of the unemployed and destitute, the mad, the insane and the outsider. I can honestly say that I do not relate to their world but it is the written world that they are part of and I find that world strangely enthralling. I read on and I came out the end thinking that the book may have been, in fact, about those suffering depression. Who knows? Who knew? Not I. But I liked it a hell of a lot even if I may not have understood it. The author delivered prose that sucked me in.
This was enough for me to delve further and with that I got an old and battered copy of this book, The Unknown Industrial Prisoner. Again there was an immediate effect. I found that I related to every character in the book as recognisable from my now 40 years of working life. I had worked with them all in one way or another. So with that recognition was I just another one of the many Unknown Industrial Prisoners? I think that after reading this book the answer might be yes. The author tells the following. “Several drops of moisture fell on his upturned face as he took of his hat and looked with pride upward at the mighty structures. Rain? Probably a small leak not worth mentioning. He didn’t see Far Away Places, two hundred feet above buttoning his fly. He had taken to peeing from above rather than have the Glass Canoe on his back.” My story from a distant past….. “The Backroom Boys decided that it was better to pee in an empty flagon than bother traipsing down to the other end of the building when nature called. Get one of the 1st year apprentice’s to empty the contents at day’s end the tradesman’s had previously decided. The Cop pulled up on his motorbike in the courtyard 3 levels below, as was usual each Thursday morning. Police Gazette galley proofs beckoned. Surfie was busy doing what all Backroom Prisoners did, glue bits of paper together. Surfie was bored. He looked down just in time to see The Cop pull up and begin to alight from his bike. Surfie then proceeded to tip the contents of the flagon over The Cop who looked up in time to feel several drops of moisture hit him from above and to just glimpse a disappearing head. The Cop hastened up the stairs to The Backroom, opened the door and asked with great annoyance as to who had poured the water over him. The Backroom Boys were heads down and bums up gluing bits of paper together. The Overseer looked up and said “don’t worry about it mate ya just lucky no one pissed on ya.” Later the author tells of an Italian who gets one of his fellow Industrial Prisoner to break his arm so that he can claim workers compo and look after his ailing wife. I recall the story doing the rounds when I was an apprentice of a bloke “dropping” a large letterpress forme on his knees, his wife also needing care. He pleaded for compo and got it. His wife got care.
The parallel of working as an apprentice in a large printing company back in the mid 1970’s and David Irelands multinational corporation oil refinery is at times startling. Industrial Prisoners of all ilk, for that matter all nations, may have very similar stories as I related above. The book itself consists of writing that is gritty, harsh, writing that has a close to the bone brutality and is also very masculine in style. It can also be very humorous. I laughed out loud several times. But we also get the softer philosophical views by some Industrial Prisoners and at times this can come as a surprise. As the reader I was battered by cynical, sarcastic, finger nails on a blackboard satire and irony page after page. Then out of nowhere would come beautiful prose that had an almost spiritual quality. Yes, a quality that was rare but there nonetheless. And that, for me, gives a very surprising and attractive dimension to this superb novel. After all the observations of the gritty blue collar shenanigans I also think that there are recurring themes running throughout the book. Globalisation, Industrial Relations and also Work Place Health and Safety. After reading the last few pages a couple of times I might add there was also, I think, a theme of Belonging.
With the economy seemingly getting tighter the Prisoners are less inclined to have choice as to where to find other work if they really wish to leave the Prison. Shifts get longer, accidents happen. Prisoners claim compensation due to these “accidents happening” but the Prisoners never blame the longer working hours. With this the themes resonate.
Globalisation. I would suggest that with the decline in Australian manufacturing industries, at this present time of writing, there is relevance in this book for today’s world. In fact this book could be written for the beginnings of the industrial age. A work house with indentured labour is not that far back in time. I was an indentured apprentice as late as the 1970’s for example. Though we no longer have indentured manufacturing workers in countries such as Australia, manufacturing workers are seemingly under an increasing threat from globalisation, globalisation that is supported by multinational corporations. This tends to leave Prisoners thinking that their futures are in a state of limbo. In Australia we see the present closure of the auto manufacturing industries in Adelaide. Unemployment is already high and as I write another batch of the seemingly weekly redundancies are announced in that city. This is the effect of Globalisation as the Prisoners now compete with cheap 3rd world wages and/or technological changes.
Industrial Relations. The Prisoners belong to a Union but it matters not. The Union sign off changes to their conditions in agreement with the multinational corporation at the Prisoners expense. The Prisoners become more inclined to slack, to sabotage, to not give a care about anyone else, bar themselves. They become their ineffective Union and even their predatory employer. This may resonates for today’s times for some. My generation had a sense of loyalty to a local employer and that employer had a similar sense back towards their employees. Nowadays one seems a mere number, Prisoners expect to have many multiple jobs in their working lives. In Japan was it Salarymen who spent a life working for the same company? Maybe we never went to that extreme in Australia and other western countries but it came close. Loyalty is now thrown out the door just as the multinational corporation throws Industrial Relations out the door and in collusion with the very organisation that should be there for the prisoners.
Work Place Health and Safety. A constant theme. The Prisoners notice that the corporation ignores their safety. There are industrial accidents and even deaths. It reaches a point of cynicism by all Prisoners. The results are a mix of sabotage and finally the cataclysmic. Even today, in the day and age of authorities supposedly caring about occupational health and safety, in the not too distant past Iron Bar stood in the federal parliament of Australia and berated the country to stop vilifying a great Australian Multinational Corporation that had to head off shore so as to not pay the victims of their asbestos poisoning. What a great name, Iron Bar. It could have come straight from a novel called The Unknown Industrial Prisoner. His plea could have come from a novel called The Unknown Industrial Prisoner.
Belonging. I am unable to explain this. Reading the final chapter and then rereading it, I began to think that I may have been missing the theme that the Prisoners themselves “belonged”. They were part of their surroundings, the land, the industrial complex, the very surroundings they found themselves in. Maybe that’s the point of the book. Their acceptance of their place. The way they are part of the landscape. I may not be articulate enough to explain this feeling.
So who is the audience for this book? I suspect that the Phone Hackers print media would claim it would be one for the Chardonnay Sipping Inner City Academic Elites. They may be right. I suspect that the Chardonnay Sipping Inner City Academic Elites will discuss it’s resonance with the masses on the Dehumanisation of the Working Class Man by the Plutocracy who sit in their ivory towers conducting the lives of the faceless Prisoners below. They may be right as well. I also suspect that this being a very masculine book it will have less appeal for the female reader. I may be wrong and hope I am. In the end though I think it will appeal to those that want to be challenged about how industrialism could viewed in the age of Globalisation. Yes this was written in a past that may not have used the word Globalisation in the modern sense but there does seem something prescient by the past that the book has portrayed.
I began to get the mid 1990’s tune Political Prisoner by Insurge going through my head whenever I put this book down after reading. The song lyrics have a certain brutality that resonate with being an Unknown Industrial Prisoner. “This song is for all the political prisoners, both here and around the world, for the people incarcerated for fraud, stealing, and larceny, and all other crimes involving property, for it's nothing but the state protecting the rich from the poor, ever since we lost our common ground, that's what the law's been for…….I see no criminals, I see before me political prisoners.” A brutal protest song for a brutal protest book? Yeah!...more
Superb read. Placing this book into historical context, written and published in 1940/41 this must have been seen to close for comfort for those that Superb read. Placing this book into historical context, written and published in 1940/41 this must have been seen to close for comfort for those that gave total support to Stalinism. Pre-dating Orwell's 1984 there is a constant sense of the world weary in the character of Rubashov as he comes to grips with his imminent demise. Easily standing the test of time this novel is a must read for those that have an interest in the show trials that racked the USSR in the 1930's. ...more
Life and Fate. The perfect title for an astonishingly good book.
I am going to call Life and Fate a masterpiece. Yes it is as good as the reviews I haLife and Fate. The perfect title for an astonishingly good book.
I am going to call Life and Fate a masterpiece. Yes it is as good as the reviews I have just read say it is. On a personal level it is a long time since I have had an emotional involvement with the characters of a novel. Les Misérables maybe? Though a large cast the life and fate of the protagonists at the time of the battle for Stalingrad made powerful and compelling reading.
My copy is the Vintage edition 2006. It has an introduction by Linda Carter who writes she read the book in 3 weeks and took 3 weeks to “recover from the experience.” She had also “urged all my friends to read it.” She is of the opinion that the novel should be as famous as Doctor Zhivago and The Gulag Archipelago. I have never read these books but based on what I think of Life and Fate these must be truly remarkable books with such high praise. She also includes a historical background that is followed by a one page explanation of the translation by Robert Chandler. We also have a page that lists a few books on Stalin’s Russia and Grossman himself. There is also a List of Chief Characters at the back of the book to aid the reader who may not be used to the complicated Russian names. I found this a great resource and referred to it constantly. As time went on the names became familiar.
The story itself revolves around the Shaposhnikova family and those that come into contact with them in one way or another. Dare I say it without seeming trite but almost a six degrees of separation story? This lead to the reader following the lives of everyone within that circle from those that fought and died to those that had issues with the state politics of the time. With that we became involved in an emotional rollercoaster be that the death of a son through to the agony of being untrue to one’s self belief. All this told with emotionally charged prose by Grossman that left me as the reader spellbound. Some chapters were so astonishingly emotionally charged I was putting the book down to take stock. The mother whose son had been killed was sad beyond belief but the final thoughts of those going to their deaths in the gas chamber in chapter 48 part two will live with me forever.
I walked into bar a week back and was served a beer by a 20 something girl with a strong accent. What part of the world are you from I asked. Spain shI walked into bar a week back and was served a beer by a 20 something girl with a strong accent. What part of the world are you from I asked. Spain she said. After a bit of small talk about her backpacking etc I mentioned I was nearing the end of Don Quixote. Why would you read that she asked? Forced to read it at school and hated it. Interestingly I had had the same conversation a while back with a friend of mine who had been made to read it at school and had bad memories. I know I too would have hated it back in the day. So now into my fast approaching old age I can honestly say Don Quixote has been a long but enjoyable adventure and I understand its place in literary history but yeah, glad I did not read it at school. Reckon I would have detested it.
But what do I write after 400 years of everyone else writing about it? I suppose I could put it into a modern context.
Don Quixote suffers from a delusional form of mental illness, lives in the past. Old white males of my generation in western society seriously suffer from a form of this by pining for their youth. His attacking windmills, as one example, was a form of mad slapstick that I read took the Spanish speaking world by storm. Think the same with say Charlie Chaplin at the turn of last century. Recently in South Australia windmills were blamed for the entire power blackout of the state. Maybe they needed to call their massive storm Don Quixote.
There is a hint of sexual liberalism that back when written would have been the equivalent of say the 60's cultural revolution. An aghast older generation and a younger reader know that sex sells. The tale of Anselmo, Lothario and Camilla would have been a sensation I would have thought, a wife swapping tale for the times. It has certain Soap Opera connotations that parallel modern life, everything from Dallas through to Neighbours. Did I say wife swapping? Forget that, this is the journey into the world of asking your best mate to shag your wife.
A few others? The Captive tells another tale that would have taken in the religious tensions of the time and are not far from being, again, a parallel for our times. Love conquering all with an enthralling adventure of religious intolerance. But then we go to the other extreme of a journey into sado-masochism by a couple of wealthy aristocrats mistreating the mentally ill for their own personal kicks. This gets lots of columns in the tabloids nowadays. I even read an item by an economist talking monetary theory within this book.
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 lThe 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!...more
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