Jen Craig, Panthers and the Museum of Fire.

 

- This Australian novel was published in 2015. Respected literary agent and industry colleague, Martin Shaw, has been raving about it for yonks so I felt it was about time I read it. 

- And I'm so glad I did. It's just brilliant. Experimental, strange, meandering and complex, it's like walking through a hall of mirrors, but with a witty and delightful companion. 

- The story, if that's what it is, moves forward, circles back, catches up. The narrator seems vaguely autistic, indulging in ...the kind of writing that moves over water without visible sails; 

- Here's the narrative framework: Jen had a friend at school called Sarah who has just died. At the wake Sarah’s sister Pamela gives Jen a manuscript written by Sarah called Panthers and the Museum of Fire. So this book is not just titled Panthers and the Museum of Fire it is ABOUT Panthers and the Museum of Fire. 

- But as readers we're not just subject to a technical indulgence. We’re plunged into a maelstrom of reflections, weaving and circling, the product of a consciousness that's sharp and insightful, sceptical yet confident. She walks the streets of inner-city Sydney, bored by her day job, but relishing her friendship with Raf who frequently visits for dinner and who tolerates her endless prattling about her comings and goings and observations. And her aching, 'diseased' ambition to be a writer.

- The book is full of absolutely wonderful quotes, so here's a taste:

The older people get, the tighter they get, their skin becomes loose but their minds just tighten like drums.

I actually enjoy reading - and while I am usually sure just from reading the first two pages of a book that I will be nothing but disappointed when I read it, I have never allowed myself to give that book away without testing how far this could be true...I force myself to read these books from beginning to end, I force myself to read them just in case I am wrong, although at this moment I cannot recall a single example of this.

I am always being duped into thinking that there is, somewhere, a clear connection between all events and outcomes in my life. But in reality nothing was obvious then and is not obvious now (and is still not obvious, as I can see now, four years later). 

It is inevitable that the young person becomes convinced that they are the first to see clearly what others have failed to see; that they judge eighty to ninety percent of the population to be bogged in imbecility and that they alone (with very few intellectual compatriots) are the only ones to have the daring and capacity to resist.

Highly recommended.

Robin Gaster, Behemoth: Amazon Rising.

 

                                  

- This is an exceptionally good, well written and fascinating book. Unlike so much that is written about Amazon it is fair and even-handed, fact based not fear based. And it's very up-to-date, the manuscript being completed in November 2020. Many statistics date from late 2020.

- Gaster is president of a data and program evaluation consultancy and a visiting scholar at George Washington University. He's an expert in the field of ecommerce.

- There is a lot of detail about Amazon’s battles with publishers in the early days: discounts demanded, discounted pricing, the ‘Look Inside’ initiative, the Kindle and ebooks revolution including the low $9.99 price point, among others. As George Packer observed in his classic New Yorker article 'Cheap Words' in 2014, Amazon executives considered publishers to be 'antediluvian losers with rotary phones and inventory systems designed in 1968 and warehouses full of crap...the New York publishing business was just this cloistered, Gilded Age antique just barely getting by in a sort of Colonial Williamsburg of commerce'.

- The book is also excellent on the new and flourishing self-publishing industry. And stunningly good at summarising Amazon’s encroachment and now virtual ownership of the book industry. 

- But today's Amazon is a huge enterprise, having moved well beyond books. In fact the book industry only takes up the first 40 pages of this 370 page tome. We move on to the amazing Amazon Prime story, to the massive investments in logistics and distribution capabilities, to the hugely successful Amazon Web Services, to the smart speaker Alexa, to the highly profitable Amazon Marketplace which offers more than two million small to medium sized independent sellers of goods a sales and distribution platform. While Amazon Retail itself is highly unprofitable, Marketplace on the other hand is highly profitable and has emerged as the real core of the entire business. It generates more operating income than any other segment (including Amazon Web Services).

- We've rarely seen any of Amazon's numbers however - its revenues by segment and associated margins, expenses and profits/losses. Gaster delves deeply into all this and has scoured a comprehensive array of sources to put together some telling financial data. 

- While celebrating the positives Gaster doesn't shy way from Amazon's substantial negatives. In Marketplace for example Amazon often plays really dirty, excluding and undercutting suppliers, stealing product designs, and indulging as a matter of course in ruthless, autocratic, uncompetitive behaviour. There are plenty of stories from disgruntled sellers who accuse Amazon of screwing them over.

- There are two chapters on Amazon's appalling treatment of its workers - blue and white collar. It operates like a cult. There’s something fascist about it - setting a bar for human performance that a large percentage of people can’t meet, and terminating them accordingly. 

- Gaster considers whether there is a case for Amazon to be broken up under Antitrust law. He concludes, quite credibly in my view, that that path would be a waste of time and resources because in all likelihood it would not be successful. The option he prefers, in the interest of taming the beast, is government regulation by an independent government agency. Full disclosure of all data should be required: sales, costs, staffing, disputes, etc. Utility-style mandatory disclosure would provide permanent and real-time monitoring of Amazon’s platform. Information transparency would enable Amazon to be held to account and prosecuted if it deviated from standards set by law.

- I've no doubt that this book will become a classic in the business genre. It's a must read.

 (It is self-published, and unfortunately the text is littered with quite a few missing words, letters and misspellings. A professional proofreader would have corrected these easily).

Leanne Hall, The Gaps

 

- I've been long convinced that all adults should occasionally read high quality YA fiction. The authors are so insightful about the stresses and strains of young adulthood, and the pressures young teens acutely feel in these difficult times.

- Leanne Hall's new novel is amazingly good. And it is a riveting read. In prose that is beautiful and frequently poetic, but never overly dramatic, she creates a world of pain and anxiety as young women at at a prestigious private girls school in one of Melbourne's upmarket suburbs confront the mysterious disappearance of a classmate. As the weeks roll on the tension builds. Where is Yin and is she still alive?

- Hall tells the story from two perspectives - Chloe, a quiet and artistic scholarship winner from a working class background, and Natalia, a beautiful and supremely confident young woman from a wealthy family. They are immensely likeable but worlds apart in virtually every way. The fate of their friend Yin however brings them together. 

-The girls' relationships to their friends and family members, and to the school authorities, are intricate to the story. There is tension and drama, particularly regarding the academic pressures and expectations on them and the dynamics of classmate rivalries, but Hall treads lightly here and always sensitively. 

- I highly recommend this hugely enjoyable novel. 

Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and The Sun

 

- I've read most of Nobel prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro's novels and was very enthusiastic about his last one, published in 2015, The Buried Giant. He has a very light and steady touch, his narratives sliding almost unnoticed into meaningful social critiques. 

- Initially I was captivated by Klara and The Sun, as it was clear the same dynamic was at play. The story progressed slowly, teasingly, seemingly gaining real power. But unfortunately it turned out to be both remarkable and unremarkable. It's both suggestive of insight, depth and meaning, yet disappointingly fails to deliver in the end. It lacks the king hit. 

- We're introduced to a society where robots (Artificial Friends or AFs) are purchased by parents for their children, much like pets. They are highly engineered and have intelligence, emotions and insight. The Sun (always with a capital S) is the source of their energy and 'life'. 

- Klara, the AF bought by the Mother for her daughter Josie, is very kind, generous, altruistic and loyal. She understands life giving and life extinguishing forces (the Sun, always with a capital S, and pollution). She gets these basics but not at all the minutiae. 

- Josie is ailing and we're never told why. Her Mother (always with a capital M), divorced from her father, is a ‘high-up’ in this stratified society and frequently cold and hard to read. In fact she's a quite unlikable and manipulative person. She works each day so reluctantly buys Klara to keep her daughter company. Josie's childhood friend Rick and his mother are neighbours but are not as ‘high-rank’ as Josie and her Mother. Parents in Rick's strata desire their children to be ‘lifted’. Those that haven’t benefited form this method of ‘generic editing’ (we are not told the process) are denied access to the best schools and universities. There are hints of fascism here. 

- The novel is full of all sorts of interesting details and cheeky observations. Melania Housekeeper for example is employed for domestic duties in Josie's house and has a foreign accent (just of course like Melania Trump!)

- An ‘oblong’ is presumably a computer, and is a learning device for Josie and Rick who are schooled at home.

- Lots of questions remain unanswered: What is the robot made of? What is Josie’s illness? What year is it? Why does she address people in the third person? We're told she can't smell but we have to presume she doesn’t drink or eat. All this makes the narrative intriguing but in the end frustrating.

- Klara learns as she goes. She registers for example that the individual and group dynamics of humans are complicated and unpredictable. 

- For some silly and unexplained reason she becomes determined to destroy the 'Cootings Machine' in the city, presumably a building site generator, because it pollutes, and she's convinced its destruction will save Josie from her life-threatening illness. She's naive in the extreme. She's also silly about the nourishment Josie would get from exposure to the Sun. The so-called adults in the room never stoop to help her, inform her, or teach her.  

- Ishiguro's point seems to be that the social dynamics of adult humans are complicated, difficult and mysterious, and not open to full understanding. He doesn't show much sympathy for them. His novels often pit the young against the old and this one is no exception.

- In so many ways the real adults in this story are the two teenagers, Josie and Rick. Closely followed by the robot.

Michael Winkler, Grimmish

- We read a lot about toxic masculinity these days, but this new, exciting and cold shower of a novel by Melbourne based author Michael Winkler focuses on a tradition of masculinity that is age old and can only be called raw, brutal and essentially inhumane.

- The whole book is an essay on pain. We are listeners to the young, unnamed narrator's Uncle Michael tell tales of Italo-American prize fighter Joe Grim. Grim spent a few years in Australia in the very early 1900's and his talent was to never be knocked out no matter the extreme beatings he faced from seasoned opponents in the ring. Often the referee's count would get to nine but up Joe would always spring. The sports columnists at the time, enthralled by this, as were the crowds, described the physical contests in graphic detail. They are ugly and almost unbearable to read. 

- But there is a lot more to this vividly written tale than boxing stories and vignettes. There are colourful characters who inhabit and fight in bars, and many authorial reflections on what possible meaning extreme pain could have. And Winkler fesses up about the real and constant pain of writing.

- Narrative voices are meshed which can be confusing, but the prose style is never not vibrant. It's such a pleasure to read, a real thump in the gut that makes you breathless. (Boxing, right?). The author labels his book ‘exploded non-fiction'. There's a core historical narrative but there's much more going on.

- For instance the most delicious and delightful character in this book is a talking goat! Yes, a goat. And he swears constantly. It's all fucken this and fucken that. But his weary commentary on his human companions is spot on.

- And then there’s Pig Thug, ‘a blubbery naked grotesque'! And vicious too. 

- The young narrator asks his uncle at one point - why no indigenous voices in your stories? There are serious reflections on that. And women? Well finally Joe meets the young, intelligent and beautiful Dora, and Dora writes a letter to her sister describing the interaction. It's brilliant.

- One critically important feature in the novel are the quotes from noted authors, academics and philosophers in the many footnotes dotted throughout the text. I particularly enjoyed philosopher and literary critic Terry Eagleton's meditations on pain and various other things. I've been a fan of Eagleton's for decades but, although always rich in insight, he can often be abstruse. 

- I guess that sums up this powerful and meaningful novel.

Rebecca Starford, The Imitator

 

- This is an absorbing story of a clever lower class girl from a small town in England who, after graduating from Oxford with a first in German, finds herself sucked into one of the great dramas of the 20th century - England's war against Nazi Germany. 

- Starford's portrayal of Evelyn during her school years and her life in London after graduation is masterful. Her friends Sally and Julie are also finely drawn, sympathetic characters. Their different family circumstances are critically important in forming and positioning them in a society riddled with class discrimination. The young woman and only child Evelyn as she settles in London has a stifling relationship with her rather ordinary parents. It's excruciating but central to her identity and self-belief. 

- And she has a problem with men. She finds it difficult to get emotionally involved. Despite being physically attractive she is 'so cold'. As Sally’s husband Jonty says, she's ‘too self-assured, too cool...Smug, that’s what you are...It’s not an attractive quality’.

- However, in her defence, the men are, with a few exceptions, arrogant, pompous, pretentious and prone to violence. And often weak and indecisive. Misogyny at that time was universally the mode.  

- After joining the War Office and subsequently MI5, Evelyn is tasked with infiltrating the anti-Jewish, pro-German conspirators whose numbers are swelling in England. They are passionately opposed to the oncoming war and believe appeasement the best way forward. Their enemy is Churchill, their friend Hitler. Evelyn needs to present herself to them as a fascist to gain their confidence and trust. 

- The narrative is engrossing and Starford has a real gift for building tension and suspense. Her prose is also beautiful, often poetic.

- The one real problem with the book is the way some threads resolve in the end. I found elements of it quite disappointing. 

- But that doesn't detract from what a thoroughly enjoyable read this novel is.