Leviathan: The unauthorised biography of Sydney (John Birmingham)

Sydney, with its Opera House, Harbour Bridge, climate and lifestyle is reputed to be a really nice place to live. I think it’s pretty good, myself. Birmingham writes the story of the seamy underside of the city from the arrival of the First Fleet to the Wood enquiry into police corruption. I’m not a rose-coloured glasses wearing naïf, but this story is shocking in the depth and degree of criminality and money- and power-grubbing that is part of Sydney’s history. It’s almost as though there’s a historical tradition of amoral self-advancement here. I know that human greed is pretty much universal, and there’s no reason to think that Sydney is unique in its underworld. Tammany Hall can be found pretty much anywhere.

So, right from Year Dot, the various groups that formed the elite of Sydney have been wangling things to best suit their interests – gaining money and power – and essentially not even bothering to flip the bird at the interests of the rest of the population, and the city in general. Naturally, when a bunch of people starts screwing another bunch of people, that other bunch of people starts getting a little grumpy, and there is conflict.

I dare say Birmingham has done yeoman's work in researching his book. It's long, full of detail, and in a book this size, most importantly readable. The only real quibble I have with the book is that it is inconsistent in style - it wobbles between a historical recitation of events and a more interpretive approach. Birmingham writes that his inspiration is "New Journalism" - a style in which writers strive to bring the readers into the story more than just relating a series of facts. The only problem is that the style can come off reading like a clichéd detective novel, given the subject. I suppose it's a writerly approach to a project, and Birmingham has the bona fides to go for it - he's written for a bunch of different pop cultural magazines and done some pretty hard core journalism - but... I half expected Sam Spade to wander around a Sydney street corner.

As for the content of the book, I'm astounded that with all the shenanigans and selfishness that Birmingham details over Sydney's history that it even resembles a decent place to live. I rather thought that I'd find myself getting shafted so some enterprising hood could develop a monopoly in some lucrative endeavour. However, my short experience of Sydney is that it's not as bad as Leviathan makes it out to be - perhaps things have improved over the last 200 years.

Of course, perhaps it's simply accepted that some powerful interests get to screw everyone else over. Recently, a state government portfolio was amended to afford the minister veto rights over environmental and other potential interferences to development projects worth over $50 million. That's state, not local though. I really think that the instinct to corruption is inherent in greedy little humans, and that it's not unique to a city or a time.

What this book seems to do then, is highlight the evil that lurked within the hearts of some Sydneysiders. Its focus precludes it from presenting the rosy side of the coin - all the nice things that Sydneysiders do for each other, which make for a pretty dire picture indeed.

Australia in a nutshell: A narrative history (Frank G. Clarke)

In a nutshell indeed. 386 pages from 60 or 70 thousand years ago right up to “Honest John” Howard’s government. Clarke’s book is a greatly appreciated resource – I wish that I could remember more of it! There is not a wasted word in the book, and the usually silly, occasionally idiotic antics of governments over the years are fairly evenly treated in terms of political bias.

The focus is on the government and economy of the colony turned nation, which means that the book doesn’t share the same degree of minute detail as the biography of Sydney – of course, it deals with a wider area in fewer (and smaller) pages. There are references to all the regions of Australia, although I suppose it’s a historical artefact that NSW gets a little more of the attention. The Northern Territory barely rates a mention, except for Darwin getting bombed in WWII.

Thankfully, this history overview is well written, and the story flows fairly logically – it’s hard to screw up a chronological approach – but the logic between themes is fairly well presented.

Sydney: Biography of a city (Lucy Hughes Turnbull)

Sydney is a great place. Turnbull’s history takes an almost street by street look at the history and development of the city, from the First Fleet’s arrival in 1788 to the end of the twentieth century. There’s good and bad to this approach.

First the good: It is really comprehensive, and as a new resident of the city, I can appreciate more how come things are they way they are. I also really liked how connections are made between the past and the present – like when some one’s ancestor started a restaurant, and the third generation is now running the shop, and it’s still a great restaurant. Fully 500 pages of minute detail help bring the past to life.

Next, the not so good. I suppose it is a challenge to put together 200 years of history of a city into a comprehensive story, but not to let it stretch to thousands of pages. Unfortunately, in accomplishing a 500 page comprehensive history, readability was sacrificed such that it reads like research notes with capitals at the start and periods at the end of the point form scrawls. Continuity between paragraphs is often missing – a paragraph will end with someone being hung, and the next paragraph starts with quarrying sandstone for a town hall. No, that’s not an exact quote, but it may as well be. The staccato beat of the sentences within paragraphs was hard to get through to, particularly as the continuity issues surface in this context as well.

There are thousands of interesting tidbits in the book, and it has value for those tidbits and bringing together all the stories of the people and places of Sydney’s past. Unfortunately, it reads like a laundry list of tidbits.

Finally, the story occasionally shifts from simple declarative chronology to editorial – particularly surrounding the architecture of the 1960s and 1970s building frenzy. It seems strangely out of place in the midst of a litany of events to see the authors undisguised opinions on architecture and civil planning pop up.

Long time no update!

It’s not that I haven’t been reading since the last update; I’ve just been a little busy what with moving and all; plus I haven’t had really consistent Internet access. Since this blog thing wasn’t at the top of my priority list lately, it slipped.

Before I left Canada, I read three books that I haven’t put up, and of course I’ve forgotten the titles and authors of two of them.

The last book was Robert Ludlum’s The Sigma Protocol. The typical Ludlum plot convolutions made it interesting enough, but for some reason the book wasn’t as gripping as some of his other, earlier books. Maybe he’s getting tired of writing, or after writing so many books he can’t help recycling. Anyway, it was a nice quick read that didn’t take too much thought to get through.

Before that were two books on the history of the First Nations in Canada. One was written by a land claims lawyer in BC, and it was a good read. I don’t think he was Native himself, but he demonstrated a real sensitivity to the history and issues in his story. If I recall correctly, he wrote his book in response to having, again and again, to give history lessons in court where he was called as an expert witness. I think the main point of the book was that the white man should kick himself every time the First Nations are conceived of as being a singular, homogenous nation across North America. In reality, there were lots of different groups, and groups within groups, and each group adapted to the environment where it predominantly lived.

The second book was much more painful to read. It was an edited volume, that is, different people wrote the different chapters. The volume concentrated on the history of Ontario First Nations, and had the potential to be interesting. The history is interesting (to me, anyway). The book was not. I found it to be more of a digest of the archaeological record than a history. The number of times the authors stopped short in a description or analysis claiming that “There is no archaeological record known to us” was immensely frustrating. The book is presented as a history – there’s more to the history than what a small number of white men have been able to surmise from pottery fragments. I recognise the rigour of the scientific method that they are applying to their archaeology and analysis, but couldn’t there be some correlation between the data and the oral history? The book really made First Nations history feel like some sort of dead or petrified artefact that gets looked really really closely so that someone can with great authority proclaim that it really was there, but we don’t know anything about it.

Canada My Canada

Dayum, I liked Laurier LaPierre's 1992 book. Even though the English/French Canada thing has kind of lost its novelty for me, LaPierre got me to thinking that maybe I shouldn't be bored with it.

His basic premise, at least, such that I can figure out, is that the English/French thing is an oversimplification. Amen! There's a lot more going on than just Quebec and the ROC. His method is to identify about 15 major, formative moments in Canadian history - and props to LaPierre, he goes back to the Native peoples first showing up 15-40 000 years ago.

LaPierre's history is one that highlights the advantages of cooperation, getting along, respect, and all those good things that Canadians are supposed to be good at (but often stuff up really well.) I like that. He also finishes the book on a particularly hopeful note - he wrote the book after working in the round of consultations with citizens in 1991.

Finally, I've got to admire his stand of being a proud Canadien (his term for "French-Canadians) and being a Canadian. You can have it both ways: be yourself, in Canada.

I would suggest anyone aspiring to public office read this book. Three cheers, Laurier.

Rogue Star

I finished Michael Flynn's book, and thought to myself, do I really want to read the books that come before and after it?

Sure, why not.

This is a tale in the not-too-distant future, which is a time-frame that can be hard to take on, because sometimes the predictions an author has to make look really silly just five years later in the context of the real world. Flynn does alright in this regard. It's all general and believable enough to suspend one's disbelief.

Summary: A space station is being built, there's a months-long manned space expedition to some asteroid, there's some competing commercial/political interests. The characters are a little clichéd, what with the stalwart Dominican rigger who's great at his job and follows an honesty as best policy approach, there's the other good ol' boys working on the space station, there's the range of lunacy within the 'save the world' group, there's the power brokers...

Flynn manages to bring in, besides visions of the near future, a sense of the magnitude of space projects, and the international cooperation (and rivalry) involved. The people in the book, and especially the main characters, are well developed - suprisingly so, to me, for a book of this genre.

I'd say it's pretty readable.

Go Figure

This is a translated book by Rejean Ducharme, where a fellow and his wife have lost their baby when something went wrong (I read this a while before I wrote this entry after was prompted by a library receipt in the car).

Basically, he encourages her to traipse off with a mutual friend (of sorts...) while he fixes up a cottage over the course of a summer.

This is one of those books that is by turns impressive and irritating. The main character seems to love his wive deeply, and she returns that love, but they only seem capable of hurting one another.
It's a long, arduous story of emotions and psychological well-being (they're not nuts, just ... well, a bit like angsty teenagers). It's curiously easy to forget that the latest cause for their strife is a miscarriage - especially in the context of what we learn as the book progresses (that they're both neurotic to begin with).

Aside from the story, which isn't bad, I absolutely loved how, even through the translation, phonetics, mnemonics, and homonyms snuck in all over the place, making the text really writerly (Thanks, Barthes), and a whole lot of fun to read while the plot was depressing.

The Elder Gods

Yay! A new book by David and Leigh Eddings!

I am amazed how these two can take a theme (Gods and people interacting to save the world from a really tough, malevolent creature) and make it nice, new, shiny and fresh all over again.

And it's a series too!

The gods seem to work in shifts - one batch of four does their thing whilst the other batch of four nap for a couple of gazillion years. As the story unfolds, it's coming up on shift change, and the Vlagh (that big, scary malevolent critter) is getting ready to bring it on. The gods start gathering up their resources (people of different races, who thankfully agree to get along with one another so long as there's plenty of gold) and they get ready to bring it on.

One of the things I like about the Eddings' books is the wise-ass dialogue. I remember one episode in... I'll say the Belgariad, but I might be wrong, where a bad guy is tossed of a really high tower. A wizard/leader of the group asks where so-and-so got to, and the character to tossed the bad guy says something to the effect of "He's learning how to fly." The wizard then asks how the new apprentice of flight is doing, as a couple of muffled thumps reach their ears. The response? "Does bouncing count?"

Ah. That was delicious.

Blood Diamonds

I absconded into the realm of fluff for a while. Jon Land's novel is a fairly typical thriller - good guys, bad guys, secret weapons, and agents of good and evil who've attained some sort of super-human ability in their work of deduction, deception and combat.

The part I liked about this book was its relevance. "Blood Diamonds" are diamonds mined in Africa (typically) whose sale is used by governments and warlords alike to prosecute entirely self-defeating wars (as well as to enrich themselves) at the pathetic expense of the poor, dispossessed, hungry people in those countries, who would really, I think, have some livestock, arable land and a clean stream rather than being blown up, shot, and otherwise beaten upon.

I'm glad that this book was written, if only for the fact that it addresses real-life crap (slightly exaggerated for the story) in a forum outside of the normal preaching-to-the-converted arenas. Here's what I mean. I knew about 'blood diamonds' before reading the book. I knew that there are groups agitating to reduce the trade in those diamonds. However, and this is not to diminish the efforts of those groups, their voices seem to be lost in general tumult of voices clamouring for attention on behalf of ALL the world's problems. And the people that tend to listen to the merits of supporting a particular cause tend to be those who are already committed to some degree to helping that cause. It's hard to win new supporters, just because there are so many causes to choose from when decided to lend one's support. I suppose it's a supporter's market...

The political economy of international aid. I'll have to remember that for my Ph.D!

Anyway, good subject matter, somewhat above average writing, and thankfully a little thin on the combat-and-gear related jargon.

Cosmopolis

Don DeLillo has written another pretty nifty book. Set in NY, NY, the last day on earth of a super-wealthy technology playa is delightfully surreal. The surreality (I don't know if that's a word - if not, it is now.) took a bit of getting used to, but in the end was a bit like reading one of those waking dreams, where things could make sense, but not from your particular perspective at the time. You sort of need to let all sorts of preconceptions slide - like since when is gravity a law, anyway?

My thesis advisor let me know about DeLillo all those years ago - thanks, Vinny! DeLillo's narrative realm is the city. He doesn't write about cities, per se, but writes about things that are informed by their occurring within the city. He's got postmodernism going on, what with the meaning of referants and empty signifiers and all that, he's got deconstructionism going; and the part that I kind of like, he's got a knack for picking up on little, seemingly normal parts of city life (I'm assuming - I don't live in New York. I'll keep an eye out in Sydney, and see if any of it generalizes down there), and troping them into narrative foils for some commentary or another.
Right now (I'm writing on 20 March 2005, backdating this because I didn't have time yet to make the captain's log) I'm reading another DeLillo. It's just as bizarre.

Anyway, I figure these books aren't for everyone's taste, but I'm pretty impressed by 'em.

Whisper of the Ax

Richard Condon writes a wierd book - I didn't like it much at all. This is the same fellow that wrote the Mancurian Candidate, which was itself a little strange. The Whisper of the Ax did not leave me fulfilled or satisfied at all.

A brief summary: A bunch of people, whose characters are not wholly credible - that is, I had a lot of trouble suspending my disbelief - conspire to their different ends, and naturally, are thwarted from disrupting the flow of life in the United States and causing chaos for the greater good of their ideological perspective. Really, it was pretty boring.

After reading two of Condon's books, I'm starting to form the impression that he's mildly obsessed with the possibilities (or impossibilities) of, and cue the dramatic music here, mind control. In the Candidate, the principal is under mind control to assassinate the president, and in Whisper, there's a whole mind control industry dedicated to turning out good little guerrillas.

Not much to see here, carry on.

Camp Concentration

Holy mackerel, I'm going to read this one again before the library gets it back. The premise is pretty basic - in the context of some embattled, Orwellian society, one person (the main character) is imprisoned as a conscientious objector. Turns out he's a poet, and gets transferred to a top secret installation where nutcase scientists are trying to use a syphilus-derived treatment to get the inmates to achieve vaulting feats of genius.

Sure, why not. Blah, blah blah (It's a heck of a lot better than the book I'm reading now.)

What makes this book particularly interesting, is the intellectual name-dropping that Thomas M. Disch pulls off in the telling. I couldn't drop names with the same alacrity; the ones I do know he presents in a way that's familiar enough that I'll give him the benefit of the doubt on the other ones. It is a fascinating book. I'm sure that when I read it the next time (and look up the stuff I don't know) it'll be even cooler.

For example, I don't know who Ursula K. Leguin is, but she's just a little over the top in her fulsome praise, claiming that the book is a work of art and if you read it you will be changed. No: I don't think it's that kind of book. Notwithstanding, it's very interesting.

The Wedding

According to J. M. Coetzee, Imraan Coovadia's book is a tender love story rendered in prose of dazzling comic wizardry. Perhaps I don't have the same depth of wisdom as Coetzee (who I think is a fine writer) but this book kind of left me unsatisfied. I probably don't have enough personal experience (even second hand experience) of the Indian experience this century to really 'get' the book. There's a certain lovableness to the characters, but in the end, I didn't really care about them. The greatest pleasure I derived from the book was the presentation of what might be stereotypical patterns of speech; but after about the halfway point, even that wasn't particularly interesting.

This book is hailed on the covers as a brilliant first work; Coovadia certainly has skill as a writer, but I didn't feel the same affinity to the book as the authors quoted did. I thought the male main character was faintly dippy, the female antagonist was a pain in the ass, and the family interactions were typical.

I'm not saying don't read this book - I'm just saying that it's okay, not brilliant.

Omega

Jack McDevitt has a really interesting science fiction book here. Set a couple of hundred years in the future, with humans possessing faster-than-light travel, and all sorts of other nifty technological doodads, the story is of the "Omegas", big ol' scary interstellar travelling clouds that, well, home in on and destroy whatever looks like civilization - e.g., right angly stuff. Humans are looking for neighbours in the universe, and have found a couple - a bunch that like to fight, and a bunch that got walloped by the Omegas and went from some pinnacle of evolution to clubbing things with sticks.

Humans find another civilization because one of the clouds they're tracking noticed it and wandered over to beat up on it. Humans are also scared 'cos one of these clouds is coming to pay a visit in a few thousand years. Humans also know that they can't do much with these clouds - for example, they're not terribly bothered by a bunch of nuclear explosions inside them. Humans figure that this could be a good test run to fend off a cloud; besides, maybe they can make friends with the really nice civilization they found.

Fairly standard sci-fi stuff. What makes the book interesting (and I suspect it is contingent on the reader actually responding to these themes) is the way the story includes trenchant observations on ego, faith, epistemology, doctrine, and humanity.

I think I'm going to hunt down his "Polaris" and "Chindi".

The Manchurian Candidate

Apparently this tale by Richard Condon has stirred controversy and debate over the past, what, 40 years or so. It's been somewhat on the fringe of my awareness for a while, so I finally decided to read it when I stumbled across it in the library.

The edition I picked up has a introduction including some manner of analyis, though clearly not in sufficent depth to cover the reactions of the whole period since the book was published. Clearly, though, the introduction's author knows far more about the book's and the author's circumstances than I do, making references to the screen-play qualities of the book, and the logic that it should have those qualities as Condon was in the midst of the Hollywood whirl while writing it.

The book is plenty readable - there are rough patches, where it's a little incomprehensible, and some of the vocabulary is inconsistent with the surrounding text. Of course, it is greatly appreciated when an author drops in an unusual, go-get-the-dictionary word; and it turns out to be the perfect word. That happens once in a while; occasionally, the word is not the perfect one, which just seems kind of embarrassing.

The story is just a little far-fetched, but appears to be based somewhat on real life events. The main character's patrol in Korea is ambushed, and brainwashed. The main character is moulded into the perfect assassin - once triggered, he completes the orders; once completed, he doesn't remember anything. Lovely fellow.

His mother is a scheming, despicable woman; and I have never really figured out where her allegiances lie. Most likely, to herself and herself alone. She mixes it up with a US Senator, and the arc of this duo's ascent not too subtly echos the black mould of McCarthyism - entirely understandably.

Blah blah blah, the story goes on, and comes to a logical, though not necessarily entirely pleasant ending.

I suppose this is one of those books that's a 'must read' from the American canon. Fortunately, it is a pretty good book.

Time Scout

Robert Asprin's tale of time tourism and adventure is remarkably entertaining and engaging, for what appears to be a pulpish sort of little paperback science-fiction diversion. Certainly not to be ranked among the Asimovs and Bradburys, the story has a core of sympathetic, albeit archetypal characters - the hardbitten, experienced elder statesman adventurer, a young woman with burning ambition and something to prove, an intelligent hippyish independent, a couple of lost souls, one or two unpleasant people, the requisite corporate entity that invites the derision of those involved at the lower levels, and, of course, an eccentric though brilliant seamstress/tailor/costume maker.

I particularly liked the way Asprin treated the issue of occupying the same space at different times, and vice versa; as well as the enormous emphasis placed on learning about different eras to which people may travel, and the fine detail that is required for time tourists to safely (e.g., anonymously) visit other times.

A fun little book.

Hot Plastic

Peter Craig has managed to write a book that I found interesting. The story follows the three major characters as they con their way around the US in the 1990s, elaborately purloining identities to gain funds, making fencing scams for the same purpose, shoplifting for the same reason... yep, all they do is flit around trying to hit the big one.

Why is it interesting? First, Craig manages to make the characters engaging. Second, he successfully uses the disjointed chronology technique, leaping between the end of the story and the backstory to hustle the plot along. Third, he rather comprehensively details the intimate details of the cons, but doesn't get overly concerned in technical details when it comes to the junior members forays into high-tech scams.

I'd say it's worth reading.

Shampoo Planet

Douglas Coupland is overrated, in my opinion. This book starts like it has attention deficit disorder, and while I can see some of the social commentary regarding the importance of shallow concerns such as appropriate product choice, it's not nearly as incisive, telling, or astute as it would have to be to be a fantastic book. It's not terrible - don't get me wrong; it just is kind of laboured, like he's trying really hard. It could be that I just didn't find the characters that interesting, too.

Old Enough to Say What I Want

Dave Broadfoot has got to be one of my favourite comedians. This is his life story, and is as funny as any of his monologues. I had no idea he was so old, though, and some of the stuff he's done and is able to relate humorously is amazing. By all means, if you like comedians, read this. As a bonus, he includes some of his material - Sgt. Renfrew, Big Bobby Clobber and the whole gang.

Portfoolio 20 - The Years Best Canadian Editorial Cartoons

This is a collection of editorial cartoons for 2004. The cartoons are typically brilliant; the editorial blurbs introducing sections are somewhat wan as they try to mix written humour with a 20 second backgrounder on the issues being addressed by the cartoons.