A funny little script. Works much better as a radio play. I think if you lived during McCarthyism then this would make you laugh throughout. I laughedA funny little script. Works much better as a radio play. I think if you lived during McCarthyism then this would make you laugh throughout. I laughed more for the general gist and some of the more slapstick moments.
"Please state your full name."
"My name is Karl Marx," the witness said meekly, speaking with a German accent.
"Mr. Marx, I hand you a pamphlet written by one Karl Marx. Now you wrote this pamphlet, didn't you, Marx?"
"Oh no."
"You deny that you wrote this pamphlet?"
"I did not write it"
"Now come, Marx. You know that won't get you anywhere here. We know you wrote this. There's no use denying it."
"No, no, I didn't write... I am not a writer."
"You say you're not a writer - but you are Karl Marx?"
"Yes, but I am Karl Marx, the wachmaker."
"Just a moment." The Investigator whispered something to Oates, then turned to the witness. "Mr. Marx, there seems to be some confusion as to whether or not the committee has subpoenaed the right Karl Marx. The witness is excused for the time being. Do not leave the hearing room.
A pretty good introduction to the Highlands. Published in the 80's so Brander didn't get to see the second coming of tourism that the Highlands now exA pretty good introduction to the Highlands. Published in the 80's so Brander didn't get to see the second coming of tourism that the Highlands now experience, I wonder what he would of made of the NC500.
It's a bit biblical at the start as people are begetting other people and the names keep looping through history. It doesn't help that MacDonald means son of Donald but then becomes a clan name so you have countless Donald MacDonalds, and it's just Donalds all the way down. Brander also sets off at quite a clip, tearing through centuries for every couple of pages. But he's done some good research and found some great anecdotes which really fill the Highlands with larger than life characters.
To summarise his points, it would be that the Highlands have contributed more men and women to the British Empire's cause per capita than any other area. Even by the time WWI and WWII roll around, so many of the contributions from Australia, New Zealand, and Canada are actually highlanders by descent. There's so many forces that stripped people from the Highlands including the infamous clearances, where the English and lowlanders just burned the Highlanders out of their homes.
Queen Victoria's love of the Highlands probably explains to a large extent why tartan and few other parts of Highland culture are so pervasive. But as Brander is at pains to point out, the "culture" is not really authentic and it's been warped a lot by those who entered the Highlands much later.
You can tell Brander is alert to the way the filthy lowlanders, the English, and descendants from overseas take zealously to the so-called Highland traditions. This passage on the bagpipes he plucked from Major General David Stewart typifies that caution and rings true.
Playing the bagpipes within doors is a Lowland or English custom. In the Highlands, the piper is always in the open air; and when people wish to dance to his music, it is on the green, if the weather permits; nothing but necessity make them attempt a pipe dance in the house. The bagpipe was a field instrument intended to call the clans to arms and animate them in battle, and was no more intended for the house than a round of six-pounders. A broad-side, from a first rate or a round from a battery, has a sublime and impressive effect, at a proper distance. In the same manner, the sound of the bagpipe, softened by distance, had an indescribable effect on the minds and actions of the Highlanders. But as few would choose to be under the muzzles of the guns of a ship of the line, or of a battery, when in full play, so I have seldom seen a Highlander whose ears were not grated when close to pipes, however much his breast might be warmed and his feelings roused, by the sounds to which he had been accustomed in his youth, when proceeding from the proper distance.
The kilt you know is not really the traditional highland dress, it's a modern adaptation by a lowlander. The traditional highland filleadh mòr is an exceptionally practical piece of clothing. Basically a blanket you wear. Supposedly if you were caught out in the winter you would dip it in a loch wring it out and then create a shell around yourself where it would freeze into an ice cocoon which would protect you from the elements. I loved the passage about the consistent attempts by the British Army to change the dress of the Black Watch, Campbell's Highlanders etc from kilts to trousers, and it being resisted for so long, with one of the main arguments being hygiene.
This bird kept cropping up a lot. Capercailzie (Horse of the forest). I'd never heard of one before.
Towards the end there's a few mentions of Nessie. Initially I thought Brander was just doing his due diligence but by the end I realised he's a true believer. Good on him.
If you want an insight into the minds of the Highlanders here's a funny little passage.
Aeneas Sage, was given the ministry of Lochcarron in 1726. To show their dislike of the Southern interloper, the people assembled every Lord's day, on a plot of ground about twenty yards from the church door for the practice of athletic games.
Take that anecdote and couple it with the ever present blood feuds and you'll certainly think twice about not eating all your neeps and tatties while in the Highlands....more
When K. graduated from university I bought her a ring. It was a lifetime issue denarius of Alexander the Great set in a delicate silver circle that waWhen K. graduated from university I bought her a ring. It was a lifetime issue denarius of Alexander the Great set in a delicate silver circle that was fully reversable and mounted on a small silver ring. I wrote something about how it was her time to conquer the world (something she's out there doing right now).
Many years later K. started attending this event called No Lights No Lycra. You may be familiar with it, but if you're not, it's an event when you turn up to a community hall or similar space and file in with a bunch of strangers, they then turn the lights off and play a DJ set for an hour. Technically you're not supposed to wear lycra but everyone turns up in active wear so they definitely got that part of the name wrong. It's wholesome fun and every week my partner would go with her friends to dance in the dark. These NLNL events took Sydney by storm and they popped up all over the city (I believe they popped up around the world too). One of these NLNL nights she went to was in a church in Newtown. It was a particularly big night, might have been Beyonce night or something. Like every other week, she danced herself to a standstill and then farewelled her friends and caught the bus home to our place. It was only when she was coming to bed and she went to take her rings off that she noticed Alexander was no longer mounted in the delicate setting on her finger. Needless to say we were both distraught with his leave of absence. He had travelled 2300 years to be with her and now he'd left.
At first light the next morning my darling K. got up and charged off to the church to find Alex on her way to work. An hour or so later I got a call from her saying she was standing outside the church but unable to get in, and there was no one around to help. I told her to go to work and I'd figure it out.
A few years earlier I had read Tim Winton's Cloudstreet and Sam Pickles's, Shifty Shadow, the Hairy Hand of God had always stuck with me.
"I only believe in one thing, Les, Sam solemnly uttered. Hairy Hand of God, otherwise known as Lady Luck. Our Lady, if she’s shinin' that lamp on ya, she’ll give you what you want. There’s two other things people say are worth believin in—the Labor Party and God, but they’re a bit on the iffy side for my money. The ALP and the Big Fella, well they always got what I call a tendency to try an give ya what they think ya need. And what a bloke needs most is to get what he wants most. Ya with me?"
Australia is a nation of gamblers (the highest per capita in the world), as a Kiwi it's always been strange to me how much Aussies love the punt. I'm not a gambling man but I'm also not dumb enough to disbelieve in luck. When Alexander went missing I had also just finished a book which I cannot for the life of me remember the title of but it had a part about how with the most delicate of touch you could slightly tilt the wheel of fate in your direction.
For some reason I felt the Hairy Hand on me that morning. There was this immense luck coursing through me as I left the house. I felt like of all days, today was the day I could tilt the wheel of fate my way, just for one fraction of a revolution.
So I caught the bus to Newtown and walked to the church, the one K. had assured me was bolted shut. I put my hand on the little brass handle of the vestibule door and sure enough it turned easily in my hand. The door opened on an empty church hall, with the pews all stored out the back. All that was left was that vaulted ceiling, those honey coloured floorboards, and at the front of the room the DJ's table. Shafts of light beamed in from the western windows, dancing on the dust motes floating in the silent hall. I thought about methodically tracking my way across the floor inch by inch but I could still feel the Hairy Hand on me and so instead I walked slightly to the left but straight up the middle of the hall and when I was about halfway across there was Alexander just sitting there.
That was at least 7 years ago and yet I remember the feeling of the Hairy Hand on me as if it's there right now. Unfortunately, I've never experienced a moment like that since and I'm not sure I ever will again.
Paul Auster's stories bring that feeling back, he's a man who intrinsically understands what Sam Pickles is saying. He's a man who has made a career out of the movements of the Hairy Hand....more
The Bookshop is a very simple novel but with an incredible richness. Fitzgerald has a stunning ability to nail characterisation with a single phrase.
TThe Bookshop is a very simple novel but with an incredible richness. Fitzgerald has a stunning ability to nail characterisation with a single phrase.
The awful fop Milo North His emotions, from lack of exercise, had disappeared almost altogether.
Poor Christine “... and believe me, Mrs. Green, she'll be pegging out her own washing until the day she dies.”
The odisome Theodore Gill "smiles as a toad does, because it has no other expression."
Fitzgerald is also exceptionally funny, if the ending wasn't so sad this novel would be in the pantheon of good comedy writing. There's a bleakness to Fitzgerald's dark humour that reminds me of Remarque, though in a far more pedestrian setting.
As it stands The Bookshop is very much a tragedy. Outside Fitzgerald's own work the book I sense the most similarities to is Kafka's The Trial. Undoubtedly there's more velvet glove than iron fist in The Bookshop. But Florence much like Josef K is chewed up and spat out by the machinations of beareaucracy. Unlike Josef K, the cause for Mrs Green's demise is obvious, yet the process and effects are much the same. Unlike Joseph K, Florence also has allies, which oddly, bar Mr Brundish all come from a non-reading working class background. But with both novels it seems the only reasonable response is to laugh because the other alterantive is existential despair or a fair share of tears.
Which reminds me that I once read about a time when Kafka did a public reading of The Castle and he had the audience in stitches. Dark humour pulls out a more primal laugh than some casual slapstick, and it allows us to examine the fragility of our own mortal coil without wanting to crawl into a ball.
Fitzgerald seems to understand that you can do nothing but laugh when faced with the dark abyss; aptly she summed this book up as "A short book with a sad ending".
And Fitzgerald definitely has a sense of the absurd. There's seemingly a real poltergeist in the story, a character that ultimately is far more lovable than the human detritus that arrays itself against Florence.
Still the reader is left with so many questions.
What leads Mr Brundish AKA Suffolk personified to readily shake off his slumber and ride into battle for our earnest protagonist, ultimately at the cost of his life?
Equally why is Florence Green quite so naive?
Fitzgerald certainly exaggerates, she caricatures, and she subverts cliché. This isn't provincial England, it's provincial England dialled up to 11.
At times the book reminded me of that hilarious English Parish Council meeting from a few years ago with the guy screaming over Zoom "You have no authority here Jackie Weaver" before she booted him from the meeting.
There's layers to this simple tale as well. Just as Mrs Green is being squished by those with power, so is Catherine being squashed into her working class lot in life. Yet despite that depth we know so little of our protagonist. Fitzgerald feels no obligation to answer any of the reader's questions or discuss anything she doesn't want to, as is any writer's perogative. I actually think it makes the novel stronger.
After being whelmed by Offshore, I wasn't holding out huge hopes for this slim morsel. I remember being flummoxed to find out that Offshore had won the Booker prize. Now I'm flummoxed in reverse, to see that The Bookshop was shortlisted in the same year. In my mind it's a superior work to Offshore by quite a margin.
I've also always felt that hidden inside every person on Goodreads is a little flame of hope about one day setting up their own bookshop. Well this is the cautionary tale to extinguish that little flame. The novel finishes with saddest line I've read in I don't know how long.
"As the train drew out of the station she sat with her head bowed in shame, because the town in which she had lived for nearly ten years had not wanted a bookshop."...more
Don't judge a book by it's cover they say. But what's a boy to do when the cover is a picture of his favourite black cockatoos?
Every year in Maroubra Don't judge a book by it's cover they say. But what's a boy to do when the cover is a picture of his favourite black cockatoos?
Every year in Maroubra there are two signs I look for. The first is the arrival of the Black Cockatoos, generally marking the end of summer and the start of autumn. The second is the arrival of the humpback whales, generally marking the beginning of winter.
A few years ago on a late April afternoon I was driving home through my suburb after a light sunshower, I had the window down and that rich earthy smell of petrichor was floating in the air. Suddenly a familiar, piercing cry, halfway between a laugh and a sob cut through the blissful afternoon. Overhead a raucous mob of Black Cockatoos wheeled and soared. Autumn is finally here I thought.
There is a small park and playground out the front of our apartment block and it is a community oasis that draws all the locals from the surrounding buildings. A few weeks after my first sighting of the cockatoos I was talking to a neighbour in the park when the mob flew overhead cartwheeling and crying out. I said to the lady, let's call her Rosemary, the local aboriginal people believe black cockatoos are a portent of rain. She was quite taken by this.
Fast forward a month and I was back in the park talking to a different neighbour when the cockatoos again flew overhead, we talked about how much we loved them and then she turned to me and said "Rosemary was telling me they're an omen of rain." Fast forward another month and again I was in the park with a group of people while the cockatoos were shredding some banksia cones in a tree nearby. Sure enough someone pipes up, "apparently they're an omen of rain". It should be noted that the last 3 interactions were all on sunny days. It seems the black cockatoos have become more of an omen of being told that it's going to rain, than actual rain. But there's something about the cockatoos as an omen of rain that really sticks in the mind. They have such a remarkable cry, and also the most playful behaviour. They revel in life it's as if they're celebrating the coming of the rain. But there's also something deep within us city dwellers that longs for that connection with nature and these vibrant cockatoos seem to cut through the urban jungle and connect us back to the beating heart of nature.
Of course the last line of this book is.
The valley is still in drought and the flight of the black cockatoo is said to be a harbinger of rain.
"I always liked Hannibal best of all the classical figures in the military history of the Roman Empire, because he comes down to us only in the writte
"I always liked Hannibal best of all the classical figures in the military history of the Roman Empire, because he comes down to us only in the written memoirs of his enemies. And if they thought he was such a good leader, he must have been a hell of a leader"
President, Dwight D. Eisenhower
This biography of the Great Carthaginian general is both Exhaustive and Exhausting. While it covers battles like Cannae in considerable depth, it also covers everything down to the buckles on Hannibal's sandals in excruciating detail. Ok that last comment is an exaggeration because as old Dwight identified what we know of Hannibal comes only from the Romans, and they didn't comment on his footwear. Despite his whole life story being written by his arch nemesis the man we see is still one of the greatest generals ever to command a force.
Hannibal is the architect and victor of the greatest battle ever fought. A battle so famous that the ghosts of Cannae stalk the battlefield even today. Generals millennia hence continue to try to emulate it. Famously in WWI, the German command raced to get around the French and recreate that vaunted double envelopment. And while some armies have recreated, none have ever done it so perfectly or against such horrible odds. As Dodge says.
"He alone of all the leaders of history fought against a power and against armies which were unequivocally his superiors in intelligence, breadth, discipline, military training - in every quality except only his individual genius."
Dodge does take his sweet time doing some scene setting. We get a good 80 pages merely on the make-up and methods of the Roman army. Not Hannibal's army but that of his opposition. Dodge gives us a small overview of the Carthaginian forces and in fairness to him pretty much all we know about them we know from the Romans. Even still, the subject of this biography doesn't really make an appearance until about 150 pages in. A pretty big run-up. It's also important to note that this biography is the second of 12 books on the great generals of history. It sits between the first volume on Alexander the Great and the third volume on Julius Caesar. There's considerable comparisons made with the other two great leaders and outside those two, Napoleon and Frederick come in for the most positive comparisons. When talking of Hannibal's bad luck Dodge compares it to Alexander's seemingly endless supply of it.
"If Alexander was born under a lucky star, so, assuredly, was Hannibal born under a luckless one. It seems as if Fortune delighted to betray him and to thwart his best-laid plans. While fortune is largely of man's own making, it cannot be admitted that there is not in war, as there is in all human events, such an element as simple luck."
There were a few little peccadilloes I picked up on. You could be fooled by Dodge for thinking that all war is fought solely for booty. I mean booty in the sense of plunder, not that other type of booty. The word booty is used nearly every other page once the campaigning starts. It's almost like Hannibal is some pirate on the seven seas constantly making off with his booty, and stealing the Roman's booty, and shaking his little booty (yes that kind of booty).
Another word which peppers this text is Debouching. There's just an enormous amount of debouching going on. That is emerging from a confined space into a wide open area. Troops seem to be constantly debouching.
In another seriously tedious section, Dodge spends about 20 pages labouring away to identify beyond all reasonable doubt exactly which pass over the Alps Hannibal took. While his dedication to historical accuracy is commendable, it's also extremely boring. There'd be less effort in actually taking a troop of elephants over the Alps yourself than battling through Dodge's case for the passage over the Little St. Bernard pass. Dodge also has a tendency to state and re-state, to explicate and explain, to define and redefine, to essentially debouch his theories into the wide open space of your mind.
Hannibal it should be noted was what would be called a nepo baby in today's world. His father Hamilcar Barca (last name means lightning) was an incredibly successful general that essentially conquered the Iberian peninsula and turned Carthage into a true superpower. Here the comparison with Alexander is the most natural as he too inherited so much from his father Phillip and like Hannibal took it to heights their fathers only dreamed of.
On top of the brilliant mind and Stirling education Hannibal received from his father he also kindled this seemingly deep hatred of Rome. It's never quite clear how hot those flames were but Dodge certainly believes vengeance was deep in the heart of Hannibal.
Rome had absolute material preponderance. All Hannibal had to oppose this was his burning genius. And in his greatest successes he never forgot this limitation to his power; nor did his divine fury ever mislead him.
One of Hannibal's most famous quotes is:
"I have come not to make war on the Italians, but to aid the Italians against Rome."
Dodge consistently shows how cautious and well-tempered Hannibal is and I find it hard to believe his genius was driven by some dark pit of fury against Rome. I would say, rather that he deemed his actions necessary to protect the future of Carthage.
Dodge does show incredible caution in taking anything Livy says as fact. His historiographical nous is based in his own involvement in the American Civil War. Thus when calling into disrepute some of Livy's comments we get.
"But during the past thirty years, we Americans have seen so many utterly unreliable statements with regard to our civil war put before the public in good faith by well-equipped witnesses of the event, that it appears wise to distrust the statements of one of Hannibal's worst enemies, unless we find them well vouched for by the attendant circumstances."
The final chapter of the book is a short aside about the Phalanx vs the Legion, an issue which seems to burn like some unholy fire in Dodge's mind. While the debate remains unsolved as Dodge tells us so many times "the best phalanx never fought against the best legion", he still wants to explore every dead end. The most interesting part of this discussion is how the Roman army degenerated from it's peak during the Republic when essentially it went from citizens with skin in the game to professional soldiers. The best quote about peak Republican Roman army is:
For the Roman actual war was but a bloody repetition of his daily drill, as his daily drill was but a bloodless campaign.
But then that bad guy capitalism takes over. Imagine telling a legionnaire he was part of the proletariat.
"We shall see, in the succeeding century, when the material of the legion degenerated from the citizen whose service was a privilege rather than a burden, to the proletariat who enlisted as a means of a better livelihood, and the individuality of the soldier could no longer be depended on, that the mobility of the legion disappeared. The men were no more to be relied upon unless held close in hand by the general commanding, and unless they were massed for mutual support. The intervals between maniples became dangerous; they were gradually decreased and finally given up; the legion reverted to a body resembling the old Dorian phalanx from which it had sprung. The period of its elastic structure was coincident with the service privilege of the Roman citizen. So long as the terms citizen and soldier were equivalents, so long lasted the best period of the legion. The great victories it later won, the splendid work of which it was capable, were no longer due to the rank and file, to the Roman burgess, that perfect type of the citizen-soldier, but distinctly to the skill of the leader, to the talent of such men as Marius, Sulla, Pompey, to the genius of Caesar."
There is a huge amount on Rome in this book, arguably more than on Hannibal, again the sources dictate that outcome. The last chapter also serves as testament to Hannibal's greatest legacy; his role as the most important of Rome's teachers. It was Hannibal who schooled the Romans in the art of war. Without him, I might not be writing this review using this alphabet, nor would our years be broken into Roman months, or would we live in societies governed by senates and the rule of law as it is. Hannibal was the indomitable force who taught Rome the art of war and thus allowed her to create an empire spanning centuries. His name remained the bogey man of children at play in Rome and Hannibal at the Gates was the cliché used for Rome's greatest crises. Such a force was he that Cato uttered the immortal Carthago delenda est. And Carthage was destroyed, from its rubble, other civilisations emerged, notably the cathedral in Pisa is made from Carthaginian stone.
Dodge is scathing of Carthage's refusal to truly support Hannibal when he was quite obviously their greatest chance of avoiding their doom. 15 years he spent on the Italian peninsula never losing a battle. The Romans largely adopted a similar strategy to the one Trump identified against Covid. Just as Trump said if we conduct less tests we'll have less positive results, the Romans decided that if they didn't fight Hannibal they couldn't lose to him. The Fabian strategy would be replicated by the Russians against Napoleon, by Washington against the British and countless other times through history. For 15 long years Hannibal lived as the scourge of Rome, in their heartland, never fully victorious and never defeated. 15 years of limbo. Of hope. As Dodge says, at the end;
"The Romans had little to fear from Hannibal's army. This had been so weakened that it had aught left but the strong will of its commander. The body was hectic, wasted, exhausted by long marches, desperate fighting and constant privation; but as the heart of the man will surmount the weakness of the body, - as you may read in the flashing eye the unaltered devotion to the cause, the unflagging courage and the unchanged ability to do great deeds, so was Hannibal the soul and impulse of this army. "
Reading this biography I was reminded of Churchill's tribute to the RAF in the Battle of Britain.
'Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few'
.
You could say of Hannibal that "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to just one man."...more
An impressive piece of creative scholarship. It's fascinating learning of these lesser known (at least in Australia) French explorers and imagining whAn impressive piece of creative scholarship. It's fascinating learning of these lesser known (at least in Australia) French explorers and imagining what could have been if the French had colonised Australia instead of the British. The explorers themselves think the English treatment of Indigenous Australians and of the land, fauna, and flora is ignorant and abhorrent. Clode definitely steers the reader into believing the French could have been more benevolent. Equally, she leads us to believe that before Napoleon the French weren't really that interested in colonising anyway, they were too caught up in science and exploration; charting areas unseen, and documenting animals and plants they could never have conceived of. Laying order onto the unknown seems to have been their great quest. Men of talent would lead expeditions and make their fame and fortune by bringing home great biological collections. Josephine Bonaparte had an Australian section in her garden; kangaroos, emus, and wombats on her lawn. It is interesting to note however that later in the piece most of the visitors to Port Jackson (Sydney) are stunned firstly by it's beauty and secondly by the way the English have managed to establish an orderly city with clean streets and handsome buildings. Here's none other than Charlie D talking about that very topic.
"Here, in less promising country, scores of years had done many times more than an equal number of centuries have effected in South America. My first feeling was to congratulate myself that I was born an Englishman....
The streets are regular, broad, clean, and kept in excellent order; the houses are of good size, and the shops well furnished. It may be faithfully compared to the large suburbs which stretch out from London and a few other great towns in England."
- Charles Darwin
In the early years the French definitely considered the English desire to colonise and send their criminals to the other side of the world as wrong. Nicholas Baudin seems bemused that a ragtag band of English sailors chased him down to Van Dieman's land to claim it for the English crown just days after they've been partying together in Port Jackson (Sydney). Especially when there's no chance the English could actually live there anyway and he's only interested in surveying, documenting and looking for La Perouse.
The loss of La Perouse hangs heavy over this book and I find it odd that Clode didn't give La Perouse a voice. She told his voyage from the perspective of Louis XVI who famously asked just before they lopped his head off, "Any news of La Perouse." The loss of La Perouse echoing the loss of his regency. She also discusses how much hope and fanfare there was around La Perouse's voyage and the despair when he never returned. There's certainly a lengthy shadow hanging over the explorers and savants post La Perouse. Yet they still discover marvel after marvel and their feats of navigation are stunning.
It's interesting to see how changes in France change how the expeditions are formed and how they are conducted. Equally the conflict between naval officers obsessed with charting and plotting terrain, and the savants who are interested only in meticulously documenting all of God's creatures great and small. There's also a fascinating development with the rise of Napoleon where the previously ascendant aristocratic officers start to lose their sway.
Nothing captures the hope and community of science better than Joseph Banks fighting tooth and claw to have Labillardiere's collection returned to him by the English while France and England are engaged in combat on no less than three fronts. Causa scientiarum causa populorum indeed.
Clode has tried the deeply empathic act of writing with each person's voice. The character's actions are pulled from the source material and the rhythm and cadence of their voices are inspired by the numerous letters that dot the book. The version I have is a stunning copy with colour illustrations that boggle the mind with their accuracy given they were drawn and painted hundreds of years ago.
Unfortunately Clode's strength is her historical skills, not her prose. If this was written in collaboration with Ursula Le Guin it would be a classic. The links between stories aren't particularly strong and the writing isn't very compelling. In fact it reads much like the dry scientific treatise these countless French pioneers wrote. The history is fascinating enough to keep you reading but the prose is dry like Weet-Bix. The letters are also quite hard to read as Clode chose to publish them in the sort of cursive font that should never be seen on the printed page.
Definitely a history worth discovering and Clode's scholarship is unimpeachable but not the scintillating prose that would have put this in the Pantheon of the great works of Australian history....more
Moorhouse is clearly an accomplished writer and this book is easy and enjoyable to read. It's lighter than some of the other Sydney histories I've reaMoorhouse is clearly an accomplished writer and this book is easy and enjoyable to read. It's lighter than some of the other Sydney histories I've read and Moorhouse doesn't really get his hands dirty. There's the usual plethora of interesting anecdotes and facts, did you know Charles Kingsford Smith was the first person saved by Australian Surf Lifesavers when they were first created in Bondi? Moorhouse has probably done a better job of picking at the power dynamics in the city's history than some of the other Sydney biographies I've read.
The book does feel a little bit like a book for tourists written by a tourist. There's no real sense of what it's like to live in the city, and certainly not in the modern day (it was published 25 years ago so slight forgiveness there). Moorhouse does touch on Sydney's obsession with sport but doesn't really explore Sydney as a city of the body.
The geographical areas discussed are the tourist areas, which is basically the harbour and its surrounds. Western Sydney beyond Parramatta does not exist according to Moorhouse. And Parramatta really only exists in Moorhouse's mind because the Governor's house is there and because it's the terminus of the Greatest Working Harbour In The World.
Moorhouse really loves the harbour, and why wouldn't he? It's pretty much the 8th wonder of the world.
Every single book I've read about Sydney has absolutely lambasted the Cahill Expressway and the unnamed ghouls who decided it would be a good idea to deface Sydney's most important cultural site with it. But just for a change I'd love to see someone sing the Cahill's praises. It's par for the course to have a little jab at the Cahill and it feels like each Sydney biographer just cribs their notes on it from all those before them. I know, I know, it's got to go.
I enjoyed this a lot. A great introduction to Sydney but not quite the definitive biography of Australia's first city....more
For the longest time I've been frustrated by Australians trying to import American political issues and turn them into points of contention here. I'veFor the longest time I've been frustrated by Australians trying to import American political issues and turn them into points of contention here. I've never understood Australia's Americophilia. Jeff Sparrow does a good job of showing how and why these problems are imported and how Australia is often the tip of the American dog's wagging tail.
It's some wild and treacherous terrain that Sparrow chooses to navigate but he does it like a seasoned mountaineer. Flashes of deep insight and brilliance are padded out with some pretty stock standard historical telling of various culture war events over the past decade. Unfortunately, the back end of the book starts to lose its way, it's almost as if Sparrow could see the end approaching and wanted to make sure he addressed every little warning.
The early parts on the emergence of anti-PC crusaders is truly fascinating and has repercussions for current political and even mundane discourse. Sparrow explains Politically Correct speech as a straw man created by the right to convince the masses they would lose their Freedom of Speech. He does quite a convincing job of it and I have to admit to examining my own life and my occasional derision of political correctness. In saying that I think Sparrow can be guilty of dismissing the arguments on the right using the same high horse methods he accuses the left of using. The dismissal of their case wholesale and in many ways the undermining of the right's intelligence doesn't help to close a gap and create a proper discourse between both sides of the political spectrum.
Sparrow also has a slightly annoying habit, which is to start an argument and then jump the fence midway through and make you feel stupid for believing his original points. He does this quite frequently and occasionally he even jumps back over the fence or finds a nice perch on top of it casting aspersions on both sides.
It should be pointed out that this book will really only appeal to Australians, and arguably only Australians with an interest in both Australian politics and American politics.
The prevailing message of the book seems to be a push to return to direct politics. The power of the unions in Australia in the mid 20th century were impressive but I can't really see that returning. I'm not really sure he gives us an adequate solution. So instead we'll just all be out here fighting the good fight against the Murdoch media alone. Constant Vigilance!...more
It's been a long time coming. It's taken me a year and half to finally track down a copy of this book. In that time I'd done a lot of research and so It's been a long time coming. It's taken me a year and half to finally track down a copy of this book. In that time I'd done a lot of research and so while none of the information was particularly new it was still fascinating.
Druett has done the studious work of reading every journal and diary from all members of the Endeavour and the Dolphin (visited Tahiti before Cook's ship). She's also combed through the archives for any other first hand sources and impressions of these constant moments of first contact. It's truly fascinating stuff. Tupaia is absolutely transfixing, he's essentially a more impressive Queequeg from Moby Dick. The difference being Tupaia was a high priest and thus a deep repository of his culture's history, he also had amazing negotiation skills, was possibly one of the greatest navigators the Pacific has ever seen, and was actually real.
The deepest shame of the book is that Druett is constantly forced to imagine and postulate what Tupaia was thinking at every stage. The only records we have from his hands are the few drawings he did along the journey. Both Cook and Banks are reluctant to accept and at times entirely dismissive of Tupaia's crucial role in their expedition. He was instrumental in the navigation of the Pacific but moreso in negotiating with the various indigenous people they encountered. There is no doubt in this reader's mind that Cook would have been lucky to make it out of Aotearoa with all of his crew and possibly even his own life if not for Tupaia's involvement. It's incredible to see Tupaia speaking with the Maori and being honoured by them. He holds them enraptured when he reintroduces them to many of their lost stories and legends. Imagine how incredible it would have been for both sides of those interactions to meet a branch of your family tree that split off half a millennium ago.
The book does tend to get a wee bit dusty and bogged down in detail. Druett even tracked down the name of every Maori killed by members on the Endeavour in New Zealand. This is both the book's blessing and it's curse. While at times reading this can feel like swimming in the warm and relaxing tropical waters of Tahiti, other times you feel like you're swimming through a barrel of molasses. Those not local to the Pacific or without external knowledge of the region may also find it tiresome. But you can't fault the scholarship, it's a stunning piece of work. Druett captures shipboard life and life among the indigenous communities so well, you can really understand how different they were to each other and to the lives we live now. She also captures the incredible drama of true first contact. At times I thought she overreached ascribing certain feelings and emotions to people but it certainly helped ease the story along. I really think every person living in the Pacific should be taught this story at school. I'm also quite surprised no one has written a fictionalised account of Tupaia's journey yet. Something to look forward to....more
This hits. Plenty of people complain that as a war novel there's not enough war. They're wrong. It's true that we don't get war scenes until 2/3's of This hits. Plenty of people complain that as a war novel there's not enough war. They're wrong. It's true that we don't get war scenes until 2/3's of the way through but that's Malouf's power and skill in play.
It's only by tying Jim to the land that we can feel the immense loss of his life at the end. The loss of knowledge and understanding of a place rips out the the guts of its significance. It's a single life lost but the cost is so high. Malouf also writes beautifully about the horrors of war. Jim's three most pertinent observations about the war are stunning in their poetic mundanity.
Often, as Jim later discovered, you entered the war through an ordinary looking gap in a hedge. One minute you were in a ploughed field, with snowy troughs between ridges that marked old furrows and peasants off at the edge of it digging turnips or winter greens, and the next you were through the hedge and on duckboards, and although you could look back and still see the farmers at work, or sullenly watching as the soldiers passed over their land and went slowly below ground, there was all the difference in the world between your state and theirs. They were in a field and very nearly at home. You were in the trench system that led to the war.
He had begun to feel immeasurably old. Almost everyone he had known well in the company was gone now and had been twice replaced. The replacements came up in new uniforms, very nice, very sweet, very clean, and looked like play soldiers, utterly unreal, till they too took on the colour of the earth or sank below it. It was like living through whole generations. Even the names they had given to positions they had held a month before had been changed by the time they came back, as they changed some names and inherited others form the men who went before. In rapid succession, generation after generation, they passed over the landscape. Marwood Copse one place was called, where not a stick remained of what might, months or centuries back, have been a densely-populated wood. When they entered the lines up at Ploegsteert and found the various trenches called Piccadilly, Hyde Park Corner, the Strand, it was to Jim, who had never seen London, as if this maze of muddy ditches was all that remained of a great city. Time, even in the dimension of his own life, had lost all meaning for him.
It would go on forever. The war, or something like it with a different name, would go on growing out from here till the whole earth was involved; the immense and murderous machine that was in operation up ahead would require more and more men to work it, more and more blood to keep it running; it was no longer in control. The cattletrucks would keep on right across the century, and when there were no more young men to fill them they would be filled with the old, and with women and children. They had fallen, he and his contemporaries, into a dark pocket of time from which there was no escape.
The symmetry of Jim and the migrating birds from Europe is heart breaking. Every year they come from afar and then return to the unknown North. Jim wonders what the other half of the bird's lives are like. Ultimately he will find the answer but at the cost of his own life. The birds take up the perilous journey to live, Jim will take it up to die. I assume the title of the story comes from the children's nursery rhyme Fly Away Peter, Fly Away Paul. Even the title stings because we know what the omission of the come back means.
Two little dicky birds sitting on a wall One named Peter, one named Paul Fly away, Peter, fly away, Paul Come back, Peter, come back, Paul
Malouf also nails the mania from young men eager to sign up at the beginning of the war and the women encouraging them to do so. He perfectly sums up the more circumspect volunteers who sign up for the fear of missing out on the great event of their generation and not being able to understand it unless they are there. This is intensely felt by Jim who has a bodily understanding of everything, he is not a man of learning even though he is a man of wisdom. Jim's way of knowing is held in stark contrast to the owner of the land that Jim is warden of, Ashley. Ashley also recognises the significance of the land but doesn't understand it in the same way Jim does. He does however acknowledge Jim's importance in providing meaning to the land and thus employs him as a warden. Ashley also goes to give his life in The Great War but as an officer, due to his position in a higher class. Their fortunes in war are ultimately the same which shows death's indifference to class and character. Jim also wrestles with the approval of his father despite his strong dislike of the man. It's cruel that the only respect he gets from his father is on signing up to the war but even that feels hollow.
Jim's friend Imogen's final observation sums up his existence with it's nihilistic turn of phrase.
"That is what life meant, a unique presence, and it was essential in every creature. To set anything above it, birth, position, talent even, was to deny to all but a few among the infinite millions what was common and real, and what was also in the end, most moving. A life wasn't for anything. It simply was."
Jim chooses to leave his Eden to seek answers and to find meaning, he gets both, but at the ultimate price....more
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