Some of the poetry is subtly humorous, such as the cleverly written “The Graveyard,” a poem written in 69 rhyming, heroic couplets. At first glance this looks like an anachronistic, and chaotic wandering in the clichéd landscape of Ancient Greek…
Category: Book Reviews
Book Reviews
A review of King Street Blues by Denis Fitzpatrick
The story is rooted in both the Melbourne and Sydney street life, and rich with the detail of finding food, places to sleep, and coping with law and ignorance while trying to remain artistically productive. It is an honest, and…
A review of The Tent by Margaret Atwood
This is an interesting collection, as much for the quality of Atwood’s writing, which, in itself, never falters, as for what she tries to say. But it never reaches full fruition. It needs more synthesis, more culling, and more development…
A review of In Search of a Brilliant White Cloud by Simon van der Heym
There’s something plodding about some of the recounting of Eric’s business transactions—and yet they’re valuable: I understood his business and his mind better after knowing his management concerns: though he had made mistakes as a husband and father, mistakes involving…
A review of Nietzsche, Godfather of Fascism? by Jacob Golomb and Robert S. Wistrich, eds.
The editors say that Nietzsche’s philosophy cannot be simplified, but that has happened periodically; and his work has been utilized by both conservatives and radicals. (It may be an irony that so accessible a writer requires interpreters.) Nietzsche’s high regard…
A review of Out of Whiteness: Color, Politics, and Culture by Vron Ware and Les Back
The commentary in the book is consistently intelligent and informed, featuring wide-ranging references, historical and current, and the tone of the book is austere; but this project seems drenched in a self-conscious piety, a dull redundancy of fact, and oddly…
A review of The Little Prince (audio) by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
This latest audio version, read in a lucid and calm BBC voice by actor John Gaden, is beautifully set out, with exquisite and carefully chosen classical music between each chapter. The music is played by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and…
A review of City of Glass by Paul Auster
There is a play on names that runs through this book like a fugue. The putative writer of the book Paul Auster will prove to be another, a writer whose name is not given. Peter is the name of Quinn’s…
A review of W, or the Memories of Childhood by Georges Perec
This is a book of complexities and difficult issues. It finds an imaginative path into the abyss of man’s failure to be human. It is therefore a horror story, but one with unflinching honesty and an ability to extract poetry…
A review of Things: A Story of the Sixties and A Man Asleep by Georges Perec
With merciless persistence Perec pursues the crowd of shallow young men and women with their dissatisfactions which they mistake for pleasures and with their greatest goals both paltry and foolish. They have a need for one another but no loyalty,…