Hossein Asgari, Desolation

 

- A writer enjoying a tea in a cafe is approached by a Middle Eastern stranger who asks in Farsi to listen to his story. And so begins a fascinating tale of Amin’s large family and his life and one event in particular. 

- The oldest boy in his family was Hamid who was a brilliant maths fanatic and an atheist. He has been asked to come to Harvard for an interview, so boards a commercial flight from Tehran to Dubai in July 1988 to obtain a US visa. The plane, Iran Air Flight 655, is misidentified by the Americans and shot down over the Strait of Hormuz, killing all 290 passengers and crew on board. 

- From there we're immersed in Amin's story. He's a teenager in a small town when we meet him and is keen to meet up with his attractive female neighbour Parvaneh. They go to high school together. An affection grows and she invites him to come to their house. (DANGER! Asgari's novel explores the traditional Islamic restrictions on male/female behaviour and relationships). The classmates watch classic American movies. Amin asks her about her writing and reading. She’s read The Great Gatsby five times and loves Of Mice and Men. And movies. She also loves Marilyn Monroe and Madonna and Pink Floyd and Bob Dylan and Billy Joel and John Lennon. She's secular and modern. (MORE DANGER!) 

- The Iran/Iraq war has finally ended and Parvaneh’s family return from the countryside to Tehran. She called occasionally but he was distant. He became more religious and angry and never shaved. He verbally abused young men in the park for smoking and their hairstyles. He quit his university course in his second year and enrolled in military service. 

- His family went to Tehran for a wedding. On the first day he bumped into Parvaneh with her new boyfriend. He turned and walked away. Later he regretted that. But ‘he had seen her happy with another man and that was something he could never forgive her for’. The wedding party with its drinking and without sex segregation, and its unbearable dancing, also offended him. Walking, he accosted a young couple holding hands (‘Are you guys related’), but was beaten by them, and told ‘You fucking village people come here and dare to tell us how to live our lives, huh?’ 

- He enjoyed his harsh 3 months military training. At the beginning of his service he met Ghazi, who was three years older and had a Bachelor in History from the University of Tehran. He had interesting insights into classic books like Crime and Punishment and Don Quixote, and the importance of bookshops. They became good friends. They often met at a restaurant because Amin was fond of the waitress there. He was enthralled by the way she carried herself ‘with such effortless grace’. Her name was Ayesha and he knew he was going to marry her. He’s Shia but would be willing to convert to the more secular Sunni if necessary. But there's a mystery about her, a secret. 

- It was not from Ayesha but Ghazi that he finally learnt the truth. Ghazi, Haroun the restaurant owner, and Ayesha were planning to join al-Qaeda. The Palestinian religious scholar Abdullah Azzam was their inspiration, and Osama bin Laden had formed al-Qaeda. The mute prodigy Salman was his right hand man. They traveled to Pakistan to meet them. 

- Back in Tehran Amin tells Ayesha he wants to start his own business and do nothing else. She says ‘You’re not the man I thought you were’. And she's pregnant but that is illegal in Iran as their marriage is still not registered. He deserts her and flies to Kuala Lumpur then, after five years, to Australia. 

- At the end of the novel the writer questions Amin's story. Was he lying about his involvement and his support for al-Qaeda? Imagine if his brother had actually arrived in the US and lived peacefully with his family, but became victims of 9/11? Would that change his perspective. 'No!' shouts Amin.   

- The novel ends with Amin's memories of Salman's final two years of life after Osama's death. The 'silent evil genius' survived three attempts on his life before they finally got him. 'This very hand has shaken the hand of Salman the Mute. If I told that to the people in this garden, so carefree, so ignorant, so absorbed in their little lives, they would shit themselves'.

- 'He looks at me in silence'. 

- Hossein Asgari has written a powerful and informative novel about race, culture, religion, tradition, and passion. It's questioning and absorbing. 

James Curran, Grand Ambition: Paul Keating's Global Vision for Australia

 

 

- James Curran, a Professor of Modern History at the University of Sydney, has written a detailed and utterly absorbing story of Paul Keating's time as Treasurer and Prime Minister of Australia in the 1980's and 90's. 

- I can do no better than quote in full the summary on the inside flap:

'Written with never-before-seen documents from Paul Keating's archive and drawing on many years of conversations, this book explores the ambitions for Australia that guided Keating: arguably the last prime minister with a compelling long-term vision for the country.

As Australia stands on the edge of the greatest reappraisal of its strategic circumstances, what is the relevance of Paul Keating's vision for Australia in the world today?

At the moment of his political defeat in 1996, Paul Keating stood defiant, still arguing for a vision of Australia that reached far beyond the limits of electoral politics. Three decades on, this book revisits that vision: bold, contested and somewhat unravelled by subsequent Coalition governments. It traces how Keating sought to reshape Australia's foreign policy at the end of the Cold War: anchoring the country in Asia, embedding China within a regional order, deepening ties with Indonesia and challenging long-held assumptions about dependence on great powers. For Keating, economic reform, national identity and international strategy were inseparable: part of a single, sweeping project to remake Australia.

Ambitious and provocative, this is both a portrait of a singular political mind and a reappraisal of a pivotal era. It argues that the questions Keating grappled with - about independence, security and identity - remain unresolved, and more urgent than ever in a world defined by rising tensions between the United States, China and the rest of the world.'  

- What I particularly enjoyed were Keating's thoughts on our current times. He tears AUKUS into shreds for example: '...the decision represented an appalling ignominy' that 'speaks volumes about our incapacity to absorb the region, enjoy the region, be part of the region and to celebrate the fact that we're here'. AUKUS 'was in effect a resuscitation of the Cold War policy of 'forward defence', the stance adopted by successive Coalition governments in the 1950s and 1960s and designed to keep Asian communism as far as possible from Australia's shores. AUKUS fused and made permanent the idea that China should be regarded primarily as a threat, and that Australia should rely on its traditional 'great and powerful friends'; a triumph of the Anglosphere...'  

- He also bluntly repudiates the idea that Australia should aid the defence of Taiwan. Taiwan is 'not a vital Australian interest'. 

- So Curran has written a superb book. It's a must read.

William Boyd, Cold Sunset

 

- This new novel by the excellent William Boyd is the third in his Gabriel Dax series. I very positively reviewed the second last year: here 

- Cold Sunset is just as good. In fact in a number of ways it's better. Gabriel is a very popular travel writer who gets approached every now and then by Faith Green, an MI6 secret service agent working to uncover Russian spies. It's the mid 1960's at the peak of the Cold War. The traitors Philby, Maclean and Burgess have been uncovered. And there must be more. 

- Gabriel is a handsome unmarried man in his mid-thirties. He and Faith, also single and attractive, indulge in frequent sex. And he has other attractive partners too. In fact there is far more sex in this novel than in the previous two combined. It adds a spark!

- The plot thickens considerably as the novel proceeds. Spies are uncovered and they need to be eliminated. Gabriel is sucked in and he becomes hunted. Yet he does the job. He spends time in Russia, Norway, and the Greek Islands, and his gun is always at the ready. 

- The plot gets complicated as it proceeds but it remains logical and credible. Boyd knows how to enrich the drama and colour it with glorious details on art, architecture, and literature. 

- Hopefully he is working on a fourth in the series. 

Rachel Cusk, Life of M

- This new novel by Rachel Cusk is both brilliant and sort of annoying. As a reader who loved many of her previous books I was constantly befuddled by the lack of clarity in this one. Who is the narrator - a woman or a man? Who is 'we' - one person or a couple? We are thrust into confusing and unreal worlds.   

- Cusk wrestles with the concept of 'reality' and its distortions. Of course movie scenes are fake, and acting is fake. The narrator and the actress are both constructing fictional worlds. 

- Cusk has no doubt based the character 'M' on the celebrated actress Natalie Portman. The unnamed films she refers to are Portman classics: Leon: The Professional (1994) and Black Swan (2010) for which she won an Oscar. Portman has apparently complained about how M was portrayed by Cusk, which is a little unfair as M in the novel is highly likeable, generous, grounded and approachable. 'She is unable to see selfishness as anything other than the product of stupidity'. 

- Cusk may be examining unreality but she also details the real world in numerous chapters. 'We’ describe the city and countryside they walk in (unnamed but Paris and its surrounds no doubt) and visit a museum and a bakery. They reflect on garbage collectors, bodies, tourists, the river and its bridges, the homeless and their strewn rubbish, dogs, pigeons, their parents’ house, and their domestic staff. 

- M's real world is luxurious: her mansion and its furniture, the spa, sauna and pool on top of a tall building, the principal actors room in a theatre, the fashion cocktail event which will be filmed. (Portman represents Dior in real life). M feels like an alien in this terrestrial scene. She avoids the city's famous and elaborate restaurants. 

- As the book proceeds M is seen as mature and wise. She understands stuff and can manage her career's ups and downs. 

- An excellent chapter towards the end describes M’s interview with a respected journalist. She finds him very attractive. At one point they discuss sex scenes in movies old and new. She feels lost. 

- And the final chapter is a sort of reckoning. The author visits M who tells her she doesn’t like the way the author's portrayed her. ‘Actually, it’s hurtful’, she says, and then she asks 'Are you a guy or a girl?' They are the last words in the novel. And they are quite meaningful given all her experiences of male behaviour, both good and bad, in her career. 

- So is this novel worth reading? Absolutely. 

Toby Walsh, God AI

 

 

- This new book by Australian AI expert Professor Toby Walsh is a must read. It's remarkably good, full of detail and wisdom. I've read a few books on AI and many articles over the years, but this exploration of the future of human society dominated by AI over the next five or fifty years is extraordinary. 

- Walsh has dotted his thesis with quotes over the decades from visionaries like Arthur C Clarke, Stephen Hawking, Geoffrey Hinton, Alan Turing and Albert Einstein - all confronting a possible AI’s potential and destructive inevitability. And he includes the views of today's AI leaders like Open AI's Sam Altman and Anthropic's Dario Amodei. We are facing Boom or Doom. 

- The big question is when will artificial intelligence exceed human intelligence? Within the next five or fifty years? Most experts predict five. 'The AI revolution now promises to automate much of our cognitive work'. Sure, many jobs will disappear, but there will be plenty of shortages of jobs in critical areas, particularly the services sector. And many of us will work only four days a week. 'All in all, we might live healthier, wealthier and worthier lives'. 

- Walsh's final chapter 'Machines of Loving Grace' opts for optimism not pessimism. Although he admits he could be wrong. 'There is something unmistakably theological about the way many AI researchers speak of AI. It often sounds less like an engineering project and more like a religious movement. Baldur Bjarnason, author of The Intelligence Illusion, a critical examination of the tech industry, described it well: 'They like to think they're sensible people making sage comments, but they sound more like monks in the year 1000 talking about the Rapture. It's a bit frightening.' 

- Dario Amodei has it both ways: 'I like to think most people are underestimating just how radical the upside of AI could be....just as I think most people are underestimating how bad the risks could be'. (Only his first sentence is in bold). 

- Walsh ends his book with this piece of wisdom: 'If we train AI systems on data that reflects historical inequities and biases, we will amplify injustice on an unprecedented scale. It we allow a small number of corporations or nations to monopolise AI development, we will embed dangerous concentrations of power into the fabric of our future. The lesson I believe we should take from this is simple, and straight out of Frankenstein. Only wise choices made today will ensure that the gods we build tomorrow don't become monsters beyond our control.' 

  

Bozorgmehr Sharafedin, Yeganeh Torbati, Stolen Revolution

 - This superbly written book is a fascinating and detailed dissection of the current Iranian religious regime and the suppression of its reformers. It's thoroughly enlightening on every level.

- It focuses on the incredible stories of six principal activists and dissenters. Their stories are ones of sheer bravery and heroism. The regime is utterly brutal, murderous, and misogynistic on every level. 

- I can do no better than provide this excellent summary of the book inside the cover:

'The moving, riveting and immersive story of six Iranians who, together, lived the entire arc of modern Iranian history: the promise of the 1979 revolution, its betrayal by the Islamic mafia state and a people’s undying spirit of resistance. 

Fuelled by Iranians’ dreams of social justice and political freedom, the 1979 revolution swept aside the shah's ailing repressive monarchy. But in its place the revolution's leader Ayatollah Khomeini and his acolytes built a system that served his narrow Islamic fundamentalist faction and worsened every failing and brutality that had existed under the shah. Award-winning journalists Bozorgmeh Sharafedin and Yeganah Torbati tell the entwined stories of six Iranians, providing a powerful new lens on Iran’s recent history in all its bitter twists and stubborn hope as crises engulf the country.

MEDHI KARROUBI: a devotee of Khomeini, he rose to the heights of power on the wave of the revolution, before being casted out of its inner circle.

HILA SEDIGHI: a young activist, who gave voice through her poetry to her peers' hopes during the reform years and ultimately immortalised their shattered dreams.

AMIR MOGHADAM: an ambitious government bureaucrat, who witnessed corruption and graft on a scale that impelled him to take enormous risks to expose the truth.

SAID RAHMANI: a successful global tech entrepreneur who returned to Iran to spark a start-up boom in his native country, and encountered a ruthless security state that wanted his company for itself.

ROZHIN YOUSEFZADEH and KOSAR EFTEKHARI: both born in the 1990s, they escaped their gendered destinies by leaving their hometowns for Tehran, where they joined a mass movement that confronted a ferocious state apparatus: the Woman, Life, Freedom protests. Each paid an enormous price.

Through vivid and original reporting, Stolen Revolution offers a compulsively readable new story of Iran, centering ordinary Iranians' lives, whilst providing a visceral understanding of how life is actually lived under a modern authoritarian state. This is a harrowing story of power, corruption and greed - and those brave individuals who fought back.'

- Both authors are highly experienced, award-winning journalists who spent five years working on this book, interviewing hundreds of Iranians, many in fear for their lives. 

Adam Ouston, Mine

- Adam Ouston has written a thoroughly engrossing novel. Magical, deep and an absolute joy to read. 

- Ouston’s focus is on men at the extremes. His first novel Waypoints, published four years ago (which I reviewed here), explored the same theme. 

- An old man in his late seventies, a poet and retired academic, falls down a mine shaft in Northwest Tasmania. He’s severely injured, and can't see a way out. He’s desperate for water and to relieve his pain by moving. But if he sucks the drip near him will he be poisoned? But he's dying of thirst so is it worth the risk? He reflects on his life, his passions, and his deceased friend the journalist who shared his anger at the world. The old man attended his funeral service and was unimpressed by the superficiality of it, especially the comments by friends and colleagues.The tepid mundanity of it angered him. 

-  What sort of person emerges from his reflections, memories and stories? An angry, unhappy one. A man with a ‘natural tendency to understatement and rumination’. A university lecturer who loved the word ‘bullshit’. His students did too. He was interested ‘in getting to the bottom of things’. Tasmania was ‘a cartography of sighs’ and nature a ‘gnashing machine of time’. 'It could be said he'd long been in possession of an issue with authority...protesting pulp mills, dams, deforestation, and the grubby practices of governing bodies, good old-fashioned Tasmanian dissent facing off against good old-fashioned Tasmanian corruption...'

- The novel is one long sentence of 278 pages. The man's thoughts, registered in poetic and fluid prose, are winding and loose, and glide smoothly in and out of the major events in his long life. The reader can’t help but be captivated by this man and his magnificent descriptions of nature and its wild glory. 

- As for the men 'in extremis', We're immersed in the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company and its ‘secrets, half-truths and straight up lies’. Copper mining was the obsession a century ago and the mining boom continued, with its smelters and railroads. '...it was staggering what some people did and allowed to be done to something so precious, something so beautiful, so meaningful...he could not fathom the irrespressible greed...how could it be that greed was the most robust condition? not love or lust or ambition, but greed...'. 

- We're reminded of the tragic story of the research expedition deep into the Antarctic by Sir Douglas Mawson over a century ago, and the subsequent missions by ships to the icebergs to rescue ships and crews, and confront illegal whale hunters. The old man was on one of them, the Aurora. 

- The early explorers of the 16/17/18th centuries believed there must have been a  southern landmass with ‘fifty million souls’ or so. Scottish geographer Alexander Dalrymple was certain, and the British were determined to explore it. 

- We're taken deep into the detail of the disaster of the North Mt Lyell mine in 1912. There were dangerous tunnel collapses, fires, choking black smoke and poisonous carbon monoxide. And no alarm system, and the cage got stuck. Dozens of men, some 1000 feet underground, lost their lives despite the bravery of rescuers who did all they could. And many more suffered from illnesses related to coughing and breathing for the rest of their truncated lives. The author absolutely immerses us in this horror. 

- 'For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror' (Rilke). The novel ends with the old man thinking about 'the nature of evil, the emptiness of evil, the way it can lurk in beauty or come dressed as beauty...' And he thinks about the ship Aurora and its crew and passengers trapped in the Antarctic ice, forever. And there's a full stop at the end. And that's meaningful.