This recently-published novel is my 2nd Jackie French novel (also an audiobook), following the excellent The Angel of Waterloo (2021). The two novels This recently-published novel is my 2nd Jackie French novel (also an audiobook), following the excellent The Angel of Waterloo (2021). The two novels have much in common. Like Hen Gilbert in the earlier novel, Agnes Glock is a young woman with extensive battlefield medical experience running a sanctuary for people shunned by mainstream Australian society, in the latter novel these are mostly the scarred and maimed and shell-shocked of the First World War. Hen Gilbert’s father made his fortune with Waterloo teeth, but Agnes� fortune is that of her shell-shocked husband Douglas Mulberry, heir of a brewery fortune. French has a penchant for silly names like Mulberry, but the characters to whom the names belong are by no means silly. Both novels are essentially optimistic, with the oft-repeated caveat that one should fix what can be fixed and not hold oneself responsible for that which cannot be helped. Becoming Mrs Mulberry is a little more fanciful than the earlier novel, with the timely intervention of a deus ex machina “dingo uncle� thwarting an attempt to kidnap Agnes� ward Diane. Jackie French earnestly assures the reader in an afterword that, when she was 7 years old on Bribie Island, she had a “dingo uncle� who watched over her from a distance to keep her safe. French writes melodrama, in much the same sense that George Bernard Shaw calls his plays melodramas. In both novels love finds a way, and matters come to a happy resolution. The mystery of the origin of Diane the dingo-girl is woven into the narrative to add an element of crime mystery genre. Jackie French writes for a popular audience, as did Dickens to whose fiction I suspect she owes a certain debt. It probably won’t help her cred with the givers of book prizes. Her love of the Australian bush is palpable, and her moral judgement is common-sense and humane. I’m a fan....more
The Jack Reacher novels work for me as audiobooks. I think I’d find the short sentences irritatingly mannered on the written page, but in the right deThe Jack Reacher novels work for me as audiobooks. I think I’d find the short sentences irritatingly mannered on the written page, but in the right deep male voice they’re quite engaging. This may be the 3rd Reacher novel I’ve listened to, certainly at least the 2nd. They’re pure escapism.
Blue Moon is written to the same basic formula as the standard Western movie: stranger rides into town (Reacher on a Greyhound bus, not a horse), finds honest folks menaced by bad guys, overcomes overwhelming odds to defeat said bad guys (vermin who may be killed wholesale with no ethical qualms), rides away without waiting to be thanked. We identify with the knight-errant at some level, wishing perhaps to bask a little in his glory or perhaps wishing that one could impose one’s will on difficulties with such elan. Like the Wild West, Reacher’s world is quite lawless. I can see why he appeals so much to those on the far right of US politics: hyper-masculinity, self-reliance, patriotism (Reacher is a graduate of West Point, and thus will always prevail), rough justice meted out with guns and fists, no pesky ethical dilemmas (Reacher executing a captive is OK), and short sentences (congenial for people who find ideas threatening). Just keep in mind that this is fantasy. The real world isn’t like that.
Jack Reacher novels aren’t classy but, like a meal at McDonalds, you do know what to expect....more
Do Simenon crime novels count as “Noir�? Here the key protagonist, Loursat, is far from being “hard-boiled� - marinated in red wine would be closer toDo Simenon crime novels count as “Noir�? Here the key protagonist, Loursat, is far from being “hard-boiled� - marinated in red wine would be closer to the mark. He takes time out from boozing to solve the crime, then goes back to it. Far from being the down-at-heel detective, he’s very well off, having lived on his savings for two decades in his huge house. The only violence in the novel is the shooting murder which constitutes the crime to be solved. What is unusual about the scenario is that the murder happens under Loursat’s roof. The suspect is his young daughter’s lover. She and her set party and play at being gangsters in Loursat’s house, while he lurks in his sound-proof “cabinet� every evening with 3 bottles of red wine, oblivious to them. Unusual certainly, but there’s nothing really menacing about it. Georges Simenon’s crime fiction has, in that respect, more in common with Agatha Christie than Raymond Chandler.
It’s spring and I’ve been miserable with hay-fever. With the anti-histamines I struggle to stay awake long enough to read a chapter at a single sitting, so what should have been an easy read has been a bit of a slog. It has been especially difficult to connect characters with their names and backstories. However, in my lucid spells I did get some enjoyment from this.
Simenon’s portrayal of a kind of grimy underworld of poverty and borderline criminality is one dimension in which his world may be distinguished from that of Agatha Christie. Lowly and lonely nobodies are presented with a certain sympathy, while persons of social importance tend to be lampooned. Loursat’s misanthropy facilitates this socially inverted perspective. It strikes me that the mystery of “who done it?� seems to be of rather secondary importance. Character is the thing. In this novel the resolution of the crime comes down to a tip-off, Loursat’s intuitive feel for character, and some deft cross-examination in court - probably closer to the way crimes are generally solved in the real world than the brilliance of detectives such as Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot.
Anyway, when I was sufficiently awake to take much of it in, this kept me entertained. On the assumption that had I been more alert I would have enjoyed it more, I’ll venture that this is probably quite an enjoyable book....more
**spoiler alert** [I can’t find a French Germinal that’s not part of an omnibus, or a commentary, or whatever, so I’m tacking this onto the Penguin ed**spoiler alert** [I can’t find a French Germinal that’s not part of an omnibus, or a commentary, or whatever, so I’m tacking this onto the Penguin ed.] I’ve looked at this many times and thought, nope - too hard! Well I recently decided I wasn’t scared of it anymore, so I’ve read it at last and I was enthralled by it. I did find my big Collins-Robert dictionary somewhat wanting for mining jargon, but what I couldn’t guess from context was little enough, and I don’t think I missed too much. The story is simple enough. Richard Llewellyn’s 1939 novel, How Green was my Valley is maybe in the same vein, but it’s some 50 years since I read that so I won’t swear to it. Etienne is jobless and hungry, he is fortunate to get a job at a mine (Voreux), goes to live with a mining family (famille Maheu), he’s a good sober and industrious worker but takes a passionate interest in socialist ideas, the company turns the screws on working conditions and he leads a strike, miners hold out till they’re on the brink of starvation, there is rioting, miners are shot by soldiers, strike collapses without a tangible result, miners bitterly resent Etienne, an anarchist sabotages the mine resulting in flooding, lives are lost, close to starvation Etienne is rescued at last, when he recovers his health he leaves for Paris to do politics. The suffering and deaths among the miners, male and female, and their children is relentless and confronting. The love story of Etienne and Catherine is tragic (her dogged victimhood to a violent partner, with or without her love for Etienne, is maddening but, who knows, possibly true to form for her time and class), and her eventual fate is just a little bit trite, to my way of thinking - but that’s a minor blemish. It’s not so much a socialist polemic, because socialism and all sorts of -isms are represented more as beautiful dreams than as roadmaps to a better future. The real strength of the book, I think, is its realism, and the sheer immersive experience of the mining life that Zola presents. It would have been easier perhaps to have engaged the sympathy of readers had Zola cleaned up mining society a bit, made it more presentable. Instead he gives us the warts and all, and there are plenty, but the dividend is that the novel is all the more authentic. Victims can be deplorable people, and vice-versa. The rioters behave badly, but one can’t seriously argue that there isn’t ample provocation. I like the fact that Zola’s presentation of soldiers is generally sympathetic - they’re mostly working class lads with an unpleasant job to do. He even spares the anarchist from serious (or any) blame. Given the enormity of the suffering inflicted on the miners, its hard to be categorical about good and evil where they are concerned. One need not be the devil to do a wicked act. Recent events in Gaza are a good analogue. If you tie an animal up and torment it, it’s likely to turn nasty. Hamas is just the nastiness that emerges, mixed up with some nasty ideology. Now Israel’s military is winning hearts and minds throughout the region by killing “terrorists� (children as well as adults) in their hundreds with bombs and artillery every day. Man’s inhumanity to man is one of the few constants we can really depend on down the course of the centuries....more
I found this at the Lifeline Book Fair. I’ve long meant to renew my acquaintance with Orwell, and this seemed as good a way as any. It’s not the firstI found this at the Lifeline Book Fair. I’ve long meant to renew my acquaintance with Orwell, and this seemed as good a way as any. It’s not the first time I’ve read it. That was some 40 years ago, and it’s remarkable how much of it has stayed with me in memory. As biographies go, it’s exemplary. For a man who stated in his will that no biography should be written (perhaps I should do the same!), Orwell has been very well served indeed by his biographer....more
Anne Applebaum goes to a lot of parties. And knows a lot of important people, some of them famous. I like this book for the clarity with which it explAnne Applebaum goes to a lot of parties. And knows a lot of important people, some of them famous. I like this book for the clarity with which it explains the incentives that draw many gifted (and not so gifted) people into cooperating with populist and illiberal forces. It would be just too easy to vilify such people as whores. No, they’re rational people who, feeling that the world hasn’t given them their due, have made a rational choice to buy into whatever lies are necessary for acceptance into circles where the only criterion for advancement is unswerving loyalty to this week’s party line. Populism is a thing of the left and the right, but seldom the centre because mainstream issues don’t offer the same scope for political traction. Populism is opportunistic. And it’s anti-meritocratic, like a guild for mediocrities. Australia’s Craig Kelly had no future in the Liberal Party, but as an outspoken anti-vaxer willing to take on board whatever self-serving ideology millionaire miner Clive Palmer required, he was recruited to lead the United Australia Party. Applebaum’s specialty is the right, of which she is something of a long-term insider. She states something I’ve often thought, but have never said quite so well: “the new right is more Bolshevik than Burkean: these are men and women who want to overthrow, bypass, or undermine existing institutions, to destroy what exists.� (p.20). Which is what I mean to say when I frequently remark that many who call themselves ‘conservatives� are more ‘radical� (meaning tearing things out by the roots) than the progressives. She cares very much about Poland, and makes it very clear that Law and Justice (PiS) has stacked the Polish press, civil service, and judiciary with PiS whores (she calls them ‘clercs�) who will be very difficult to remove and will fight a new government with every means at their disposal. This book appeared in 2020. It’s now 2023, and since the election PiS has no credible means of forming the next government. We will see what difficulties Donald Tusk and his coalition of anti-PiS parties will have with the ‘clercs�. Restoring democracy in Poland has a long way to go....more
I’m a little ashamed not to have read this sooner. It’s over 40 years old! My general lack of interest in Australian history is pretty reprehensible, I’m a little ashamed not to have read this sooner. It’s over 40 years old! My general lack of interest in Australian history is pretty reprehensible, and I’m probably too old to be cured of that. However, in my defence, I will say that the narrative of (mostly) Anglo-Saxon pioneering and economic development that was served up as Australian history when I was in school (I left over a decade before this was published) was the sort of dull stuff only a patriot could love, and with my youthful loyalties divided between Britain and Australia I was never that. The Aboriginal perspective of contact with Europeans was neglected by Australian historians for 19 decades from the arrival of the First Fleet. Had I been paying attention, I’d have been aware that something really exciting had happened in Australian history at last. I’m glad I’ve read it now. It’s a terrific book, and a point of departure for a whole lot more really worthwhile research I’m sure.
As a fairly long-time (ie. 2 decades, more or less) observer of Israel, I cannot but draw parallels with the situation in Palestine. Many liberal-minded Australians have become sensitised to the great harm done to Aborigines by European colonisation; they’re fully on-board with Reconciliation, the Apology, and voted ‘Yes� in the recent Voice Referendum, but are also staunch supporters of Israel. Only connect! Zionism is a settler-colonial project too, and whatever Europeans may have done to indigenous Australians, Israel’s treatment of the people of Palestine is every bit as reprehensible, with the difference that the massacres and dispossession are contemporary events. One cannot but be a little cynical about liberals� eagerness to apologise and seek reconciliation only when there can be no going back and penitence is cheap. I’m sure many Israelis would see it that way. It’s very tactless of foreigners to be so harshly critical of Israel when, unlike many of their critics, Israel hasn’t yet had time to finish the job properly. One can understand the sense of urgency. Like surgery before anaesthetics, morally indefensible programmes must be carried out expeditiously....more
It’s Guy de Maupassant, so of course it’s good, but it’s unlike any de Maupassant I’ve read before. It’s about aging, and it’s agony.
Given that OlivieIt’s Guy de Maupassant, so of course it’s good, but it’s unlike any de Maupassant I’ve read before. It’s about aging, and it’s agony.
Given that Olivier Bertin is 10 years younger than I and his mistress Any (short for Annette, I think), Countess Guilleroy, maybe 25-30 years younger, I can’t say that I have much sympathy for them. However, de Maupassant has a very deft touch with their inner torments. Quite clinical. Bertin, at the age of about 60, has the misfortune (or bad judgement) to fall helplessly in love with Any’s teenage daughter, who is a dead ringer for the Any that be remembers from the days of the first flush of their love. He suffers torments because he can never have her, and Any suffers torments because she is losing her hold over him. It ends tragically, but if you’re getting a bit weary of meticulously dissected misery, not soon enough.
De Maupassant is a perceptive observer of the manners and mores of la Belle Époque. This is about wealthy bourgeoise and aristocratic society, far from the Norman peasant life that he writes about so well in the short stories; it’s a richly textured portrait of a privileged society. I liked Bel-Ami better, but matching that would be a tall order. ...more
Food and travel writing are not my thing, as a general rule, but I was drawn to this book after listening to a radio-interview with the author. Anya vFood and travel writing are not my thing, as a general rule, but I was drawn to this book after listening to a radio-interview with the author. Anya von Bremzen struck me as a very sophisticated commentator on identity, culture and history, and I was not at all disappointed with the book (which, incidentally, contains not one recipe). Researching it, she visited Paris, Naples, Seville, Oaxaca, Istambul, and Tokyo, and started conversations with a galaxy of food practitioners and commentators of the countries she visited. National dishes are something of a social or even political construct - an element of whatever national mythology the nation, or the regime of the day, wishes to project to the world. The ownership of several national dishes (eg. hummous, borsch) are very much disputed; ingredients and recipes of some may be so varied that one might be sceptical to hear different examples called by the same name. Von Bremzen’s appreciation of the cultures of the places she visits is impressive. I know enough of French and Italian history and culture to see that she is absolutely on point with those. I wondered while I was reading whether my level of interest would rapidly subside as she took me to cultures of which I know a lot less, but that’s not what happened. Her writing is lucid, so she was an ideal Vergil to my Dante in strange places. Three of the cities she visits are national capitals, but Naples, Seville, and Oaxaca are more remarkable for poverty and social backwardness than power. Such places produce ‘popular� dishes that, long treated with disdain by a class-conscious elite, may one day emerge, under different social and political circumstances, as the authentic food of the nation. As a long-term part-time resident of Istambul, and a child refugee from the USSR, her grief and dismay at the general decline of democracy and culture in Russia and Türkiye are personal. Borsch exemplifies Russia’s attempt to deny the existence of a separate Ukrainian national culture. The populist-islamist regime of Tayyip Recep Erdogan’s Türkiye continues a long tradition of harassing and suppressing minorities (Armenians, Greeks, Jews, Kurds, et al.), leading gradually but inevitably to the impoverishment of national culture. I thought von Bremzen’s insider view of cultural change in Türkiye particularly illuminating. ...more
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