Zed
I have a personally signed copy that I purchased during a visit to Flag Fen. Now to get around to reading the damn thing.
And get around to reading the damned thing I have so with that all I can say is what a fantastic read.
In chronological order Pryor has presented an excellent general reading of the ever changing British landscape. Easy to read with clear and concise case studies in each and every chapter this is a very good book indeed. From the end of the Ice age through to the modern issues of the building of Motorways and shopping centres Pryor has delved into all areas. From plague to town planning he has shown a Britain of human intervention in just about every part of its landscape. He has backed his prose with fantastic colour plates and illustrations throughout. The footnotes, Further Reading and Research, List of Reference and Glossary are as they should be, the best quality. For what he presented in the preface as a general study Pryor has done a remarkable job on what is a huge subject. What I also liked was the personal opinions he put in to the writing. One can feel his passion for the subject, a newish subject for himself as he readily admits. Chapter 15 Sat Nav Britain: What Future for the Landscape was full of his passionate opinions and agree or disagree I would suggest it is no bad thing at all that Britain has someone of his standing making the issues known.
Prior to reading this book my thoughts of Landscape as a subject tended towards the rural aspects of life, think of a Constable painting for example. I had never really put the term Landscape into how humans made it what it was, be that either rural or urban or from agricultural through to industrial. This book has changed the way I look at my surrounds, what I see on a day to day basis be that going for a morning walk in my local forest or taking my car to the shopping centre. To have such a sudden profound influence on my everyday viewing of my surrounds is no mean feat. This is as influential a book on me personally that I have ever read. The crazy thing is that I am an infrequent visitor to Britain, living in Brisbane Queensland Australia.
During the reading of this I was asked “Might you re-purpose “The Making of the British Landscape” as research for a rural holiday?” This was an excellent question and my response was that with my visits to Britain being only about once every 5 years I had always tried to take in various sites and scenes based on my previous historical reading. That on my next visit I would be looking for a battered old paperback copy to take with me. But what else I thought after could one take. Pryor has, at the end of the book, added a two page chapter called Books to keep in the car boot. What a great resource.
As mentioned not being in Britain it has made me think that there is a need for similar book about my local surrounds. If I could find anything even half as good as this I would be very happy indeed. With that thought I think that it is books like this that makes Britain so attractive to the visitor. There have been a long list of authors who write with great insight and passion about its history and its landscape. I would add anything by Francis Pryor to that long list. Grab this book and his car boot list and let British landscape and its history take you on a great big adventure.
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 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.
Something for everyone it seems.
Another superb read by David Ireland, Australia's most under-appreciated author. Did I say under-appreciated? The appreciation has risen as the now 89 year old has been nominated for the Prime Minister Literary award 2016 for a short run release of a book called World Repair Video Game, his first new release in 20 years. Damn fine stuff I say, now to find a copy! With that nomination unabashed admirers of his, such as I, can only hope that novels such as this are acknowledged by a new readership, one that is willing to be challenged by this wonderful writer.
Ireland previous novel was the Miles Franklin winner A Woman of The Future. For the first time I was disappointed with an Ireland novel, I put that down to the length. He wrote as the women of the future but it became a bit tedious at times. I have now read this, his next novel. I have also read criticism. Why write again as a women some complained. This does not hold with me and I think this is in fact a better novel than A Woman of The Future for being shorter and with that it has allowed Ireland to focus on delivery. And what delivery. Australian literary critic Geordie Williamson called Ireland a great proletarian writer and City of Women is a proletarian novel. Ireland has used his observations of the proletariat to his advantage in delivering the usual oddball sarcasm, irony and his crazy surreal weirdness. I can binge on Ireland all day. He has hit that my reading G Spot.
I would suggest that the critics made a mistake in comparing this to A Woman of The Future. City of Women owes more to the sublime Glass Canoe. Glass Canoe was Ireland observing life in a Sydney pub with an astonishingly astute ear for a yarn. This is no different. Ireland is too good an author to write Glass Canoe part two. So why not have a city of brutal proletarian women running the city and living the usual lives that include all types of passion from love to hatred to any emotion that one feels fit be when sober or drunk. Complaining about government, each other, life and almost none existent men. All this is written in an Australian context. So in observing the sunburnt city Ireland at one point writes that he “.....loves Australia, but sometimes Australians are hard to take”. It shows!
The protagonist Billie Shockley has 2 loves in her lives, one a leopard and one other female, both called Bobbie. Throughout the book each short sharp chapter reads as almost as a diary written to Bobbie though what Bobbie is sometimes hard to tell. So Billie tells Bobbie about the individuals that she meets in her work as a Doc and who is doing whom and what at the Lovers Arms, her local pub. Billie philosophises about her life. “Why do I drink? I suppose it's because it's not abstract, like other ways to oblivion; it's more direct, there's more to do; it's more social, more cheerful. The sadness of losing someone lifts for a few hours.” Oblivion raises its ugly head in this novel.
Billie complains about noise at night in the city of women. Some of the more drunk women fire their rifles in the air to get the noise to cease. Billie writes in a manner the reader relates to. “It was no use complaining to our own police or public servants: they were just as much outside our day-to-day society as their counterparts in any possible enemy territory.” Bureaucratic inaction. Nothing is different even with women in charge.
Billie has a friend Linda who she visits regularly. Linda was born into wealth. She lets Billie know this. Billie rhetorically asks “After all these centuries of the poor not making revolutions against the rich, why do the rich have the poor so much on their mind.” Linda says “Thank god they can find no more reasons why they should be paid for work that can safely be left to mechanical means, no more reasons why they should be parasites on capital. At last they're facing reality. For so long conventional wisdom had it that business was the parasite; but now capital can exist, and grow, without people, and their beginning to appreciate it. Now that to all intents and purposes without manufacturing of our own the people are not needed as consumers, with mining and raw materials resources and primary industry and its exports the consumers are elsewhere, we don't need them.”
Billie tells of Janey the Jailer. Janey is from the US and was in the jail industry. She moved to Australia to retire but never told anyone other than Billie of her life working in a jail. Then one day she got drunk and spilled the beans on her past while at the Lovers Arms. That was it for Janey. As Janey told her story a crowd gathered but then dissipated. Ireland writes brilliantly “Once back at their usual stations around the bar they gave a look or two back in Janeys direction. Then looked away forever. I mean forever. It was if they all pointed the bone at her. No one from these parts of Sydney was going to turn her back on history, which went back to the first days of our little colony. And history of a goodly number of the people at the Lovers Arms went back to the first inhabitants of the colony, brothers and sisters and mothers and uncles of those inhabitants finished their existence on the end of a length of a rope and they weren't about to drink with an executioner. Or a trusty, a warder, or keeper. And only with a few and very trusted police. The ‘tribe' at Lovers Arms pointed the bone at Janey the Jailer by not pointing anything at her, not even their faces and she withered away and died four months later.” Brutal proletarian observation and writing as such!
Maybe a novel for those that like it surreal but for me as good as it gets. I would have thought it would have been a great afternoon to have a chat over a few beers with David Ireland.
For a science duffer like me this was easy to read and I would recommend it. So us westerners have left depleted uranium with a half life of 4.5 billion years all over Iraq and expect them to like us? Ha! I had no idea of the ramifications of depleted uranium, heck the science side of this has passed me by. Stupid me. How could I have not given thought to armour piecing weaponry that leaves radiation traces of a half life of 4.5 billion years. Depending on who one wants to believe all that for either getting rid of weapons of mass destruction and/or getting hold of all that oil. Did I mention a half life of 4.5 billion years? Oh I did? Well according to this there is half a million tons of the stuff still lying around the US alone. Is it/was it worth it? Going to take a lot of convincing for this little black duck.
But lets not worry about that and look at all those nice buildings and monuments and various other man-made items that our species is so proud of. Once we are gone? They all go except maybe Mount Rushmore. That Panama Canal. Did I say that those weapons we have been using in the middle east leave radiation with a half life of 4.5 billion years? Oh yeah I did. Oh well at least a really nice ditch we have dug will fall over after only about 100 years if there is no one around to look after it and not long after no one will ever know of it's existence.
Yeah good book but pity about that last chapter and it's mystical electro magmatic brain wave stuff. I am sure the author meant well.
Geordie Williamson says of David Ireland “He has fallen out of fashion and fashion is king in contemporary publishing. His subject matter is not simpatico with today's currents. Now, if he was gay and took drugs instead of being straight and drinking beer, he'd be Christos Tsiolkas [author of The Slap] and a best-seller. Back in the day, though, Tsiolkas wouldn't have got a look in, so there you go.” Susan Lever detects a wider malaise: “Australian literary publishing is in a parlous state. I know several other Miles Franklin winners who have found it difficult to get published in the past five to 10 years. Publishers don't have any incentive to publish novels of ideas because they know they won't sell.”This short novel by David Ireland is beyond literacy critics bemoaning his demise as an author. This book has hardly been talked about period. This, his 4th novel, was published prior to his brilliant Miles Franklin winner The Glass Canoe and a couple of book after the Australian literary classic The Unknown Industrial Prisoner. Let's cut to the chase. I have immersed myself in Irelands work over the last couple of years and other than one specific book that left me cold I have been enthralled. He is a brilliant writer. Geordie Williamson, quoted above, also called him a great proletarian writer. Burn, being ignored, should have made me wary I suppose. Not that good? Falls short? Hah! This is a brilliant novel and as far as I can see it is the subject matter that has led to the sad ignoring of this confronting tale. Gunner McAllister lives on the fringe, he lives in a humpy with his family. And when I say fringe I don't just mean in his shanty I mean as part of white society in small town Australia. Ireland describes Gunner, his family and their hovel. It makes brutal reading. There's a long silence. Early tourists passing at a hundred and ten down the south road slow resentfully to eighty at the sixty sign and speed up the other side of Myoora.Lovey day, the women says. What was that?Where?In the trees?Didn't see anything.Like huts.Maybe it was huts.Oh. They're gone. Wish you didn't go so fast.You want a decent motel tonight don't you?Well, yes. But they looked so romantic, those huts in the trees. Sort of peaceful.You'd curl up and die without air-conditioning sweet heart. Gunner recalls his past. Often. He lives his past. Gunner fought in Bouganville in the 2nd world war, a half caste aboriginal and he was a great shot. Without an hour passing Gunner reminisced. Mayhem could be happening around him, his sons fighting, his daughter getting drunk, his wife dreaming out loud for a life of something other but he does not hear them once he is back in the realms of the best days of his life. Shelling was the end. After the first burst you soon developed a fear of the open ground. Wherever you went you looked for cover. When the tree bursts came, shells that exploded tree height, you'd dive for the nearest hole. Last man in the hole one afternoon in the sunset shelling time and I swear when I looked up I could see ninety percent of the heavens. Out on patrol you had three forward scouts strung out so they couldn't pick y'all off together. Then the section head and the Bren. Then the rest. The nips used to go for the forward scouts. I got my first nip on one of these patrols. Shot him out of a tree. He was still firing.That's when the rifle got me. The beauty of it going off. And the speed of the bullet and the miracle of making something happen because you squeezed a bit of trigger. When it came over me it was like I was the whole of my race, feeling the weight of the last two hundred years lift. The two hundred years we spent stunned. With the slaughter, the poisoned meat, the poisoned waterholes, the sport of hunting when you've got a rifle sighted on someone that hasn't got a rifle sighted on you. It didn't matter who it was. The four of our blokes I got at night. I had nothing against them. They made a noise in the dark, that's all. They expected it. The others never said a word about it; I know they were waiting for me to make a noise and let me have it but I never did. They just got me moved up to forward scout. Gunners boy Gordon comes back after being away at the big smoke. Presents for all. Gunner gets smokes. He likes a drink as well. Gunner takes whatever is on offer. He gets a war pension and as they took his country away he is not going to work either. I risked my life for this country he says. And he got some shrapnel in the head. Released in 1974 this book has passed the test of time. It should be still relevant in today's day and age and should be a challenge readers of Australian literature. How I am the only individual that has read this book in Goodreads is a mystery but then the author has “fallen out of fashion” How convenient.Review of and discussion on this book and the play it morphed from [b:Image in the Clay 5121367 Image in the Clay David Ireland https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png 5188157]
Being a native (slow one?) of Brisbane, the main setting for this Miles Franklin winner, I found my self intrigued. The story itself is a very well written tale of a dysfunctional family and the consequences of that dysfunction. The parents Bernard, Iris and their son Keith were characterised beautifully by the author from the very start. This led me, the reader, to know them intimately and understand why they were what they were. The same could be said for every other protagonist that appeared. A sad spinster hating her past, a questioning priest feeling lost with his beliefs, authoritarian Monsignor and Mother Superior who lorded it over their flock made up further memorable characters. My favourite was Chookie, a young man from the decidedly lower end of the socio economic scale who pushed my memory to remind me of a character who I went to school with. He spoke the same, was the same red-headed complexion and was the epitome of what we school mates thought of as a bit of a larrikin.
My intrigue in itself was the use of language among the middle class families that played large part of the story. Did Brisbaneites of this social standing talk in this manner in the very early 60's? The language of the book for long periods is hardly strine. Brisbane was very much a big country town and stayed that way until well into the early 80's. The liberalism and education of the family groups that frequented this book seems to me to be, at the very least, the early stirrings of a change from the insularity that was then to what Brisbane is today, a cosmopolitan city of 2 million people that is not that far removed in attitude from anywhere else on the planet.
And that is why I suspect this was a winner of the Miles Franklin at the time. It covered themes that may not have been considered “normal” in Brisbane. A place behind the times. Even Bernard, with his middle class chat and liberal attitude towards his wife's peccadilloes was a music teacher assessing Bach. No Beatles for this middle class patriarch.
Very much recommended to those with an interest in Australian Literature.
For me, as a reader of WW2 history for over 40 years, the figure of Heinrich Himmler looms large. At one point the 2nd most powerful individual in the 3rd Reich. A veritable minister for everything. But oddly one of those characters who I had never really read about in too much depth. So with Peter Padfield's 1990 biography I had high hopes of learning as to what made this sinister individual tick. I have, unfortunately, finished this lengthy book feeling let down by what I can only describe as a lost opportunity.
He quotes from Himmler's diary and with that builds a “psychological profile” quoting everyone from Hugh Trevor-Roper to Buddhist thought to build his (obvious) disdain for Himmler's mental state. This was not what I was expecting but I found it initially extremely interesting. Added in between all this “psychological profiling” was a short history of various other terrors perpetrated in the name of ideology. Witch hunts in Bavaria 400 odd years previously through to the Spanish Inquisition and how they equated to “public demands” (my words) to “find a scapegoat for social frustration” (Padfield's words). Padfield quotes Trevor-Roper and Henry Kaman in that the “community itself” “impose” on tyrants” their general social beliefs and the tyrants are able to act accordingly. The problem was that the author did not stop there. Chapter after chapter he referred to Himmler's thought process to events by subjective psychological opinion that became far too intrusive to the story that should have been told.
I will also ask as to who this book is aimed at in terms of readership. As a lay reader of the rise of the Nazis to power and with that WW2 history I would suggest that a book on this subject would have been aimed at those that were aware of general historical events. The author wrote almost with a dual purpose that went either into very detailed discussion of events or was quick to give a short overview of others. If an individual had read little on the Nazis and WW2 this is the last book I would recommend if they were looking to read about the life of Himmler. As someone who had read extensively on the Nazis and WW2 I became very frustrated at times at the length of information I was already aware of with not a mention of the subject at hand, Himmler.
That leads to another criticism, why have a biography about an individual and then write large tracts about events he seemed to have little or no involvement in. The Night of the Long Knives is a prime example. Plenty of detail about the event but hardly a mention of Himmler. This leads me to consider that the book lacks focus. Going off the subject at hand and nonsensical sentences to the subject at hand abound. A glaring example is Chapter 14. The discussion is in relation to Himmler discussing with his staff etc. that the allies breaking up under the strain of their supposed “unnatural” alliance and the eastern borders of the Reich being pushed back to the Urals. The author writes..........
“Consequently it is possible, even probable that when he spoke of pushing out the eastern borders to the Urals, and of the great German future which he saw beyond the hard present, he believed it. Equally, much of the time, and in the small wee hours of the night he must have known it was all a chimera. In early September, as the Red army occupied the Rumanian oil fields and invaded Bulgaria, and Finland dropped out of the war against Russia, he took to his bed with stomach cramps, that sure indicator of his psychic health. Kersten found him in agony with the Koran lying by his bedside. ‘I can't bear the pain any longer,' Himmler told him.”
The chapter ends with that comment about pain and the Koran lying beside him. In discussion on this book I was informed that Himmler had actually been discussing at this point in time the recruitment of Bosnian Muslims so therefore he was possibly familiarising himself with their beliefs. I referred to the index and it has under Himmler a subheading attitudes: religious: and includes this page. Hardly. It now looks like a throwaway line. Himmler also had ulcers hence the pain. The discussion of Bosnian recruitment to the SS had been discussed in an earlier chapter and never does the author discuss an ulcer.
The writing style can also be pretentious. After Himmler has taken cyanide the author writes “Did images of Bavaria flood the timeless moment as the poison stunned his nerve centre...Das Braunek dort so freundlich schaut, zum Geirgerstein als seine Brut...‘What a miserable creature is man... The heart is turbulent until it rests in the ground”.
The ironic thing about all my own personal observations of this lengthy book is that for long periods I enjoyed the information offered. If toned back the psychological analysis would not have bothered me, cut out superfluous information and focus the book on the subject and there was a wonderful read in this.
So what did I learn about Himmler that I did not know? I know that I need to read up on Karl Wolff, SS-Obergruppenführer in the Waffen-SS and Himmler's right hand man for long periods and a man who denied knowledge of a hell of a lot after the war. This individual was seemingly stuck like glue to Himmler for long periods and received some brutal criticism from the author. In fact I found myself constantly referring to internet to find out more about this paradox of a man.
Himmler himself I can only describe as the most boring megalomaniac mass killer I have read about. He was good to his wife and mistress and his children. He was polite and chivalrous to women in general and had a very romantic view of the fairer sex. He was well read and even had copies of banned books. Even at the bitter end he was polite and genial to all he spoke to and never forgetting to give presents at Birthday and Xmas etc. He was a workaholic and took on any tasks to come his way. He was ordered by Hitler, for example, to take over as commander-in-chief of Army Group Upper Rhine, a position he knew himself he was hardly equipped for but did as he was loyal to the point of stupidity to “his Fuehrer”.
In the end though he was a Nazi and Hitlerite of the highest order and nothing can ever save this man from history's condemnation as this book makes utterly clear. His racial views the author quotes extensively. These are frankly tedious to put it mildly. The racial theories of National Socialism are beyond the pale and to have had to sit through some of this stuff would have made me personally want to drink poison than be subjected to long winded, up to 8 hours at one conference, discussions on Nazi racial theory. Apparently the SS and Hitler Youth, among others, lapped it up. His building of the SS into a killing machine is described in detail, as are the methods in the concentration camps be that the murder of not only Jews but also the medical experiments among a few examples the book covers. No matter how often I have read on this appalling subject I am never ceased to be amazed by man's inhumanity man.
Himmler was a cowardly sycophant who followed Hitler without question. He was responsible for crimes against humanity through his unwavering beliefs in a moribund ideology. He had not one redeeming feature.
For anyone interested in the life and times of New Zealand's wonderful Dunedin Sound and with that the independent record label Flying Nun, this autobiography by founder Roger Shepherd is essential reading.
As a fan in love of the music he was listening to live, Shepherd went out and did what the majority could only dream of and started a record label to record what he wanted to hear. With that he gave the world some of the finest DIY recordings in contemporary music.
In love with this book.
A book of short stories by the wonderfully descriptive Keith Roberts. If I had to nail Roberts it would be that as a writer he is very easy to enjoy, for when at his best, see Pavane, he is very poetical and descriptive. He is not though a great story teller as such. Be that as it may this is a very worthy read at times.
Weihnachtsabend. (1972). An alternative history in that the UK made peace with Nazi Germany with a senior civil servant and a love interest along with a manhunt being of chief concern. Not a bad story.
The White Boat (1966). This is a fantastic piece of writing. The White Boat is in the superb Pavane and it is found here as a short story. I read it through again and came out the other end knowing that it deserved a third read and so have. I love the descriptive beauty of the prose, the way it drags me in and has me hanging off every word. It is a tale of hope and fear and even fulfilling your dreams. It has qualities of redemption. It is about not understanding a changing world. The most gorgeous 22 page story I have ever read.
The Passing of the Dragons (1972). The exploitation of an alien species leads to their demise. Not a bad tale and again Roberts descriptive writing makes a fairly shallow story come to life.
The Trustie Tree (1973). A crash victim on another world is taken by boat via canal system by an indgenious man. Descriptive prose of the man's delirium is the main reason to enjoy this tale.
The Lake of Tuonela (1973). The same planet many years later and a well meaning human takes along a local indigenous guide to assist him in taking a boat along long lost canal waterways. I enjoyed this tale. Again beautiful prose. What I found interesting was the modern take on Manifest Destiny.
The Grain Kings (1972). Very dated. Giant city like grain harvesters from the USA and the USSR charge across the Alaskan plains feeding the world. Cold war feel that seemed a touch irrelevant. Truly average love scene as well.
I Lose Medea (1972). I enjoyed this odd short story about a man who took his girlfriend camping and they had to put up with ghosts and things that go bump in the night. Well kind of. Roberts descriptive prose just dragged me along but I have to admit I have no idea what it is about. But I enjoyed it and that is what counts.
It is hard not to enjoy the popular history and travels that Simon Winchester writes. At his best he is a page turner. Pacific at its best is that. It was also not what I expected as I grabbed my copy a few days prior to heading to the tropical beaches of Fiji with the thought that I was reading an entire history of the ocean itself. That will teach me to not read up on what I am about to read.
In the end we have a book that consists of almost essay like vignettes of various events that have happened in the Pacific since the 1950's with the majority of them seemingly in the major countries that surround the Ocean itself. Most are very interesting in themselves and for someone who has lived a few and in close proximity they brought back memories. But one can learn things. The destruction of The Queen Elizabeth for example. More news of the day at the time but I did find its sad history and demise an interesting read all these years later. The Whitlam dismissal was also one that had the memory banks ticking over to my youth. A couple of chapters that covered the natural world left me reading long into the night.
Yep! a nice read all-round.
Ouch! I have read 4 other novels by the author and have loved them. Two had won the Miles Franklin award and in my opinion are classics of Australian literature. A Woman of the Future also won the Miles Franklin so with that my expectations were high. But........ I found this astonishingly tedious at times. As usual there is the challenging thought provoking prose, the usual dark and satirical humour and the comments on society that make the author so attractive when at his best. The satirical use of those of us that are the Frees and those of us that are the Servers is a brilliant concept that differentiates societies classes. But it is the long winded pointlessness of long tracts of the book that kills the idea off for me. The second half of the book goes a touch over board on the act of sex as well. This book was released in 1980 and may have had impact back then but today less so. This was not meant to be a prudish comment. It is just that in todays day and age the shock value is less than it once was. I wonder if this book would even get shortlisted for an award such as the Miles Franklin nowadays and may have been “of it's time”. Oh well cant win them all and will not stop me digging into the rest of the authors oeuvre.
The author writes on page 424 of my copy “The coffin was later used as a horse trough, and the bones of Richard III scattered.” Well that turned out to be a bit of bad luck in terms of writing the subjective as historical fact.
Like all these historical overviews one always learns something new. I had never heard of the Gough Map for example. But that hardly makes up for a poorish book. I am disappointed as this should have been a very useful historical overview of England from the dawns of time up to the beginning of the Tudor dynasty, one that could be recommended to the newcomer, maybe the high school reader looking for something to bolster their knowledge. Sadly for me there was far to much speculation and with that unsubstantiated comment. No footnotes. If one is to speculate and make comment back it up with footnotes. The bibliography is interesting enough, though it seems to me the author has used too many sources that are a bit too far into the past considering the plethora of specialist historians at present churning out tomes about specifics.
I will read out the entire serious and hope they improve.
I have read 4 of David Irelands books in the last year and am an unabashed admirer. I recall writing in my review of his The Unknown Industrial Prisoner that I related to a few of the characters in the book from working experiences in factories etc. In the same way I can relate to many of the character's from the Glass Canoe. I have worked with these blokes, I have had the occasional beer with a few of them.
The life that David Ireland wrote about is not as present in Australian cities such as Sydney anymore. Certainly not in Brisbane where I live. In the 1970's though, pubs and their people, Tribes is the label Ireland uses, were common. Plenty of blokes had a regular where they became a tribal fixture, part of the pubs furniture, a subculture. This book is written about that subculture in a Sydney suburban pub called the Southern Cross. It was written at a time that this subculture was being forced to change and also to move. The book in fact highlights that change in some subtle ways that highlight the wonderful observations of the author. As an example the narrator, Meat Man, uses a mixture of Imperial and Metric measurements when telling his tales. All drinking is Imperial. Schooner glasses are 15 ounces. Pot glass consisted of 10 ounces of beer. We even get blokes drinking 5 ounce beers. This is the old lifestyle of the tribe. Drinking for a past they know. But when Meat Man goes to work on the golf course all is metric. He even at times talks metric when driving his car.
For me personally this has been a look into a past world I only caught a glimpse of in my youth. A male mono cultural world, a world that back then was collapsing even if I did not notice that change. Over time this world has almost certainly disappeared in the capital cities of Australia's states. Those that remember are now old and I suspect unhappy with the present multicultural Australia. The pub they knew is “trendy” and serves “craft” beers. They are even family friendly and are almost like restaurants.
Ireland's book could now, many years after writing, be considered a historical recognition of that subculture and that in my opinion is very important. Yes it is alcoholic, misogynist and violent with some characters being racist. But all this existed and I for one am glad that Ireland brings life to that world through this superb novel.
Frustratingly poor. There is nothing wrong with oral history being used to give a history on a specific battle etc. This is a book on a “specific” battle and with that an author has to make sure that he has backed his narrative and quotes with a source. Why not at least tell the reader via footnotes as to the source of the comment. A two page Acknowledgments and one page bibliography is just not good enough considering the many comments that where used to justify the narrative.
I reached rock bottom when on page 114 as the author writes that in total 23 doctors and 827 corpsman lost their lives on Iwo Jima. In appendix 8 “Casualties”, the total deaths quoted are USMC 5885 and US Navy 881. He then writes the following “These figures include 195 medical corpsman, 49 Seabees, and 2 doctors and/or dentists killed; 2,648 marines suffered combat fatigue”
I am either missing something in translation or this an utter cock up in contradicting ones own quoted figures.
At this point I stopped looking at the acknowledgments, bibliography and the appendix. They hardly mattered. I have read the book out and am happy to have read the story of this appallingly brutal battle that was the taking of Iwo Jima in WW2 on behalf of the allies. Yes, it was an interesting book. It was presented in a chronological order and the appendix was very worth while (considering the contradiction I have highlighted above).
I would also not tell anyone with an interest in the battle of Iwo Jima not to read this book. I am a hard task master on sources etc. but with that in mind I urge caution. Enjoy the book for what it is but it may not stand up to scrutiny.
I can find my way around a darts board rather well and have never had a problem with watching the runs tick over while watching the cricket. Other than that maths just is not my strong point. But when a complete maths fool such as myself enjoys a book like this then there has to be something going for it. Infinity? Of course, how could there not be. Read and enjoy!
The first Winton book I have read and I have come out of it massively impressed.
We are told the bitter tale of a man called Scully and his daughter Billie. Scully is desperately in love with his wife who, seemingly out of the blue, deserts him. With that event we eventually learn Scully and his wife are different. Scully is not that attractive. Hard worker that he is, Scully, is basically rustic. Unbeknownst to himself he is not part of the intellectual expatriate art set his wife is attracted to and seemingly part of. With that we get a portrait of a man out of his depth as he chases his heart and loses his mind. All this with a wise beyond her years daughter Billie in tow. Six year old Billie is seemingly unable to tell her father what happened when the mother put her on a plane and sent her to oblivion. But she has a love for her father that allows her to be dragged into his mental carnage and take him to the bitter ending that was always the only end.
The brilliance of this book is the way that the author has articulated how the mind of Scully broke down as he realised he was betrayed by what he held dear, that those he trusted where never trustworthy. The growing realisation that life can be bitter.
And The Riders? As the reader I was drawn to these ghostly characters that appear at the start and the end of Scully's journey. To me they were a metaphor for the chasers that never finds the answer.
Superb read for me personally.
This book by David Ireland was certainly a remarkable debut. We are presented with a stream of conscience delivery about, ultimately, what a silly thing it is to live. Told through the eyes of a 16 and three quarter boy, Ireland has stated that the novel “is about freedom. The boy is an analogue of the writer as artist”. The boy seems to me to be an analogue of the themes covered in Irelands next two novel The Unknown Industrial Prisoner and The Flesheaters. The industrial captivity of the working man, violence as a tool of that industrial captivity and the edges of madness and depression that we all could fall into. Ireland is a very challenging author. He makes you, as the reader, uncomfortable. He attacks your comfortable life. He is an observer of those edges of life that most of us steer purposely away from. He has an ability to impart into our mind our fears of those on the periphery with prose that can be both harsh and gentle. We are challenged by violent brutality followed in no time at all by the description of temperate love.
Three Miles Franklin awards but Ireland is sadly not on the radar of the modern reader of Australian literature and I have to ask why.
One of the better Australian Rules Football tomes I have read. Flanagan is a fine journalist / writer but then it is in the blood as he is the brother of Richard Flanagan, a winner of the Man Booker.
This is a 3 part book with an essay tacked on the end.
The first part 1970 tells of the famous Grand Final of that year between Carlton and Collingwood. Excellent read.
The second part is his book called Southern Sky, Western Oval and is about a year he spent following the battling Footscray team in season 1993. Not bad but the editing was disastrous and distracted the flow at times. One instead of won????? Lots of errors such as that.
The final part was called The Game in a Time of War. This was a collection of essays and newspaper items he had written while Australia was involved in the Iraq war. Beginning with September 11 and taking the essays through to March 2003, I found this part of the book to be at times outstanding.
The final few pages cover the life of Tom Wills in what is a personal view of this enigmatic individual, a pioneer of the game. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Wills
This book well worth the time of Australian Rules Football lovers and may be of interest to those who like to read about sports in terms of cultural impact on a nation.
I am an admirer of the music of Ed Kuepper. From his early days in seminal punk rock band The Saints, followed by the amazingly underappreciated Laughing Clowns, through to film score and solo recordings, I seem to have been along for the musical ride, be that live or via studio recordings. He recently released his 50th album Lost Cities. This release was the first new material for 8 years and for me personally it was worth the wait. The opening track is called Pavane, a word I did not know. I initially just thought it a lovely dreamy atmospheric song based on a dance as per a wiki search. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavane No I was wrong! Ed Kuepper played a live gig that I attended recently and I was surprised to hear him tell his audience that the song was about a very “poetical” book he had read called Pavane by Keith Roberts. Well that blew away what I had thought the song was about. With that I had to read this book.
To give Ed Kuepper his due his use of the word “Poetical” was a good choice. I have now finished the book and have to admit that there is certain descriptive feel about Keith Roberts writing and poetical is certainly a very fair description, lyrical would also be a good descriptive I might add. For a novel that is alternate history supposedly in the Sci Fi genre I have come out the end of the book feeling that the writing itself is beyond the sci fi fantasy pulp that is the vast majority of that genre.
The book itself gets its title, in my opinion, from a beautiful philosophical conversation in the final chapter, or Measure as the author calls them, between two of the characters. “It's like a . . . dance somehow, a minuet or a Pavane, somewhat stately somewhat pointless, with all its steps set out.” So I suppose that we are reading an alternative history that is “somewhat stately”, yes it is, and “somewhat pointless” and indeed that it is, it never happened.
The six Measures themselves are captivating. There is a loose thread that (eventually) joins them together in the excellent final Measure, Corfes Gate. These alternate England Measures covers all social classes, peasant through to aristocracy. There is a feudal system that supports the suppression of technology, an England as a poor nation with class suppression from an authoritarian Catholic Church. The author also delves into the pagan past of what once was. The superstitions of the rural peoples is there in the background with some beautifully written prose about the Old Ones. All a delight to read.
Most of the events take place in Dorset. Having had the pleasure of a visit to Dorset I was heading to the maps to check out the places mentioned. Lulworth Cove is a fond memory, as was a night in Lyme. No Regis tacked on in this alternate history. Dorset is a truly beautiful part of the world and at times the author gave the county a certain poetical atmosphere that was a delight to read. The author also used Romanised place names at times and had me looking up the modern equivalent.
This is a fine read, very good indeed but for one flaw. The final part of the book is a Coda that to me just feels tacked on for the sake of it. It lacks the spirit of the Measures and almost killed my own personal thoughts as to what the future of this alternate England was. Almost but not quite. I will reread this book one day. Thanks Ed Kuepper for bringing this to my attention.
