An American mangling of an Oxford novel. What search committee? How would she possibly have been admitted to Oxford with a mediocre background? And so on and so on.
0ne of the very few books which deserves five stars by my reckoning. Biography, autobiography, history, literature, ecology. From page 277 is a brilliant analysis of English (Martian) attitudes to Australian convicts and Aborigines. It is as if, he says, 100 years after the holocaust the perpetrators blamed and scorned the victims. I have often thought something similar, but this book puts it so well, so much better than any of my writing.
This isn't a review of this profound book, but notes to remind myself of its themes.
(Wild religion as off shoot of evolution. Theory of mind results in belief in life after death, can't imagine end of mind. Teleological impulse, always a reason, leads to creator gods. Awareness of risks results in belief in spirits. Morality not rooted in god, but based on universal principles. Later says religious impulses now used by commerce and advertising. Three drivers throughout all history are cooperation, religion and tribalism.)
(Wild religion as off shoot of evolution. Theory of mind results in belief in life after death, can't imagine end of mind. Teleological impulse, always a reason, leads to creator gods. Awareness of risks results in belief in spirits. Morality not rooted in god, but based on universal principles. Later says religious impulses now used by commerce and advertising. Three drivers throughout all history are cooperation, religion and tribalism.)
The preceding review sums up my view of this well written book. Oddly enough, I'm one of the hundreds, possibly thousands, of descendants of Susannah Harrison and Isaac Peyton, on whom the characters of Meg and Daniel are based. Their fictional characters are more saintly than they seem to have been in reality. Susannah seems to have left NSW, abandoning her children. And Isaac was a thumping crook all his life. He died alone, having defrauded one of his sons in law, and was in legal trouble frequently. He built the stone bridge over the Tank Stream and was one of two builders of the Female Factory. Both structures were badly made, apparently. Their lives were more colourful than the Meg and Daniel of the book, which, of course, is centred on Bligh's daughter Mary, a splendidly rich character.
Great short book which takes a very long term approach to history, essentially Charlemagne to the present. There is the real Germany, the south and west, at the heart of Europe. Then there is the east, dominated by Prussia and battling/cooperating with Slavs, Russia and the east. Latter is like the American old south, and he argues that tht needs to be understood and patiently tolerated. It won't change. Hitler's power, like the Junkers, lay on the east.
I gave up with only 50 pages to go. I found it was very tedious reading.
I can see why people like this book. Excellent, convincing characterisation. But why does the publisher call this a comedy? Should we laugh at the sad actions of an alcoholic?
I think it is important to first read the previous book in this now two part series, Shades of Grey. That was terrific and so is this. Such imagination, and for what is really a dystopian comedy, this contains real depth.
How frustrating for the author that his previous title Shades of Grey was swamped by 50 other shades. This series has nothing in common with that. This series is funny, touching and intelligent.
How frustrating for the author that his previous title Shades of Grey was swamped by 50 other shades. This series has nothing in common with that. This series is funny, touching and intelligent.
I rarely abandon books The publisher claims this has "Dickensian flair". Many of Dickens' novels are as long or longer than this, but something happens in them by page 162, when I abandoned this. These characters and their backstories just don't justify such length.
A brilliant book about George Orwell's overlooked, usually unnamed wife, Eileen. Despite her admiration for his work, Anna Funder has revealed him as a monster of the patriarchy. Not so much misogynist as utterly neglectful of Eileen's needs, especially of her health. Is he though simply a man of his extremely patriarchal times, or is the extremity of his masculine selfishness at least partly due to the school he attended, Eton? His disregard of women as human beings made me think of Boris Johnson. Their politics could hardly have been more different, but they seemed to have shared a complete inability to see women as people with human needs and demands. Both attended Eton.
When would Dickens, or anyone English, say "wrote his fiance" rather than "wrote to his fiance"? Or refer to fall rather than autumn?
This is obviously written for an American readership, where both expressions are perfectly fine, but using them in the mouths of fictional English people? The author isn't trying to write like Dickens - who could? - but the language in the mouths of her characters really grates.
This is obviously written for an American readership, where both expressions are perfectly fine, but using them in the mouths of fictional English people? The author isn't trying to write like Dickens - who could? - but the language in the mouths of her characters really grates.
An excellent legal history of one of the great disputes about art. What is a portrait? Must it be "beautiful" or flattering? What a fine engaging book about wartime Sydney.
Excellent readable account of the life and significance of Charlotte Badger, a woman who played all the roles listed in the title. Historiographically sophisticated, yet entirely readable. A great book.
Interesting plot but at 500 pages, it is about 150 pages too long. 350 pages woukd have been plenty for the complex plot and character development to be worked out. Not sure I have the patience to read any more in the series, which is a pity.
Dull, skips from one timeline to another in order to confuse the reader. Abandoned at page 118.
Great background story, well worth telling. Not such great writing though.
Gave up after 171 pages. I liked the context, but so much detail, instance piled in instance.
Great writing, but rather bleak. Nothing happens, but it is a (multiple) character study.
A wonderful approach to New Zealand history. It concerns the introduction of writing to Maori people, and does it through rich and sensitively expressed context.
On a rereading in 2021. He attacks fundamental literal approaches to the Bible. Concludes that there were no miracles, virgin birth, resurrection etc. All of that was invention decades later, to fit Jesus into Old Testament themes and forecasts. Why then follow Jesus? Because of his humanity. He was a great humanist, rejecting prejudice against others, whether of religion, tribe or gender. This then is a straight atheist line, so where is God I ask? Somehow, Spong concludes that Jesus' humanism is all we need to know that God was in him. Something open and humanist is God. Humanism becomes God by changing the meaning of God. Is this the atheist Anglican bishop then? God, he says, does not sit above in judgement responding to some prayers and not others. A good person is proof of God's existence. (Eh? Really?)
He says at p 285 that we can't define God, we can only experience it. And that might be an illusion(!) says Spong. He just assumes that his most profound feelings, such as love, come from what he calls God.
He says at p 285 that we can't define God, we can only experience it. And that might be an illusion(!) says Spong. He just assumes that his most profound feelings, such as love, come from what he calls God.
On a second reading after a few years, I have revised my opinion. I think I can see its weaknesses now, There are some factual assertions which are simply false. Among some examples, he states that no Christian or Muslim thinkers condemn the violence and misogyny so evident in the churches and mosques. That's simply false: has he never heard of Christian pacifists? I'm persuaded by atheism/agnosticism, but this falsity really weakens the book, making its opponents into straw people. Also, a second reading shows how wedded he is to Foucault, not surprising in a French thinker. (He criticises Foucault's attitude to Iran, in the end.)
Knowledge is inextricably linked to power, says Foucault, and Christian power in the west pollutes all medical and other knowledge. Assertion, assertion. Is there no room for independent knowledge? How else did the Enlightenment emerge?
He then seeks to base a new epistemology on Bentham's utilitarianism with its very obvious weakness of oppression of the minority for the benefit of the majority, the greatest number.
Towards the end, the book is less atheist than hostile to religion. The two are not the same.
I enjoyed the first reading. Not so much the second, despite the clarity of his writing and strength of his anti-religion arguments.
Knowledge is inextricably linked to power, says Foucault, and Christian power in the west pollutes all medical and other knowledge. Assertion, assertion. Is there no room for independent knowledge? How else did the Enlightenment emerge?
He then seeks to base a new epistemology on Bentham's utilitarianism with its very obvious weakness of oppression of the minority for the benefit of the majority, the greatest number.
Towards the end, the book is less atheist than hostile to religion. The two are not the same.
I enjoyed the first reading. Not so much the second, despite the clarity of his writing and strength of his anti-religion arguments.
The argument seems to be that prayer resolves all. Just believe that God answers and everything will work out well. The problem of course, is the problem of evil. How is it that a loving all powerful God can let his little girl get so ill, and then respond only if lots and lots and lots of prayers are made. What's the author's answer to the problem of evil? I dunno he says.
Another great book by Kate Grenville. This is a fictionalised account of Elizabeth Macarthur, wife of the greedy Trumpesque character of early New South Wales. The author decided to omit the great event of John Macarthur’s life, his role in the military coup against Governor Bligh. Two arrogant men clashed, but there is barely a hint here.
Much is true in this book, particularly Elizabeth’s autonomy in John’s absence. Missing, I think, is the paranoia John displayed through much of his life. Always finding new enemies, eventually he was declared a lunatic by one of his self-declared enemies, Francis Forbes, Chief Justice. John Macarthur was even more interesting than this book reveals.
Much is true in this book, particularly Elizabeth’s autonomy in John’s absence. Missing, I think, is the paranoia John displayed through much of his life. Always finding new enemies, eventually he was declared a lunatic by one of his self-declared enemies, Francis Forbes, Chief Justice. John Macarthur was even more interesting than this book reveals.
So very dull. I read 14 chapters and gave up. And I enjoy spy stories and am interested in Berlin’s history.
Yet another sci fi book which shows great imagination, but in which the characters are rather one dimensional. Are any sci fi authors great novelists as well?
I have read a lotof his books, but the characters and dialogue in this felt so wooden that I gave up.
A fine history and legal history of New South Wales up to about 1850. Its focus is madness, what caused it in a penal colony, and how it was treated in law. Trauma explains much, it argues, and few places were as riddled with traumatic events as a penal colony stolen violently from its indigenous inhabitants.