Robbie Arnott, Flames

- Fires, floods, madness and a magic pelt, which all add up to a disappointing mishmash from debut Tasmanian author Robbie Arnott. 

- Flames is a grab bag of literary genres, the core one being magical realism, personalising the forces of nature. But unfortunately it's rather YA in treatment. The young woman Charlotte, who should have been called 'Fire Lady', is the key character. Seriously, we're in Marvel Comics superhero territory! Her and her brother Levi are the children of Fire. 

- What's missing is any depth of meaning or significance. If the island of Tasmania is meant to be suggested a beautiful, magical place, then the novel fails to convince.  

- The real world genres work a lot better and are very satisfying. 

- There’s an utterly delightful Andy Griffith/Lemony Snicket type story - a coffin builder and his wacky, absurdly over-the-top, correspondence; 

- There's a sassy, cynical, private detective character who is extremely engaging; 

- There's a horror story involving a farm estate manager, where Charlotte and her friend Nicola work for a while. 

- There's the country town matriarchal biography of Mavis Midcurrent, a local Avoca identity from the CWA. It's a delightful comic portrait.

- These stories give the novel substance and panache, but they are relegated to subordinate roles which is how the novel as a whole fails in the end. 

Nicholas John Turner, Hang Him When He is Not There.

- I’ve never been a great fan of experimental fiction. James Joyce's Ulysses was the best I could do, and there's no way I'd ever attempt Finnegans Wake. I found this debut novel by Brisbane author Nicholas John Turner difficult, yet strangely compelling. By the end I’d grown to like it. I’d been sucked in, enchanted by its spell. 

- It proceeds like a slow burn, with a low hum - multiple voices, multiple stories, multiple locations and countries, with a reflective, philosophical, frequently academic, tenor. As one character reflects ‘...a stereotypical introduction to the intellectual scratching of an existential itch’. 

- My colleague, former bookseller and now literary agent and, let me proffer, modernist, Martin Shaw, is enthusiastic about this book so I felt obliged to read it. 

- It has a flatness in style. There’s virtually no dialogue, and only occasionally a light humorous touch. 

- Psychological and psychiatric issues dominate. These are not confessions or stories of or about ‘normal’ people. Madness, nightmares, anxieties, dangers, strangers - nothing is settled or quotidian. Meaningless sex and masturbation abound as characters desperately attempt to connect in circumstances that offer only superficial or temporary order. But the author stays very much in control. The pace is maintained, the journey developing, the writing superb.

- Some stories are impenetrable, but others clear and compelling. The story of Art and Jennifer (ch 7) for example is superb. As a whole the novel has an absurdist edge to its general nihilism, as it builds in power. Thin tendrils, barely visible, connect the individual stories and are made clear in the end. 

- One thing about Turner's style struck me - he is obsessed with the physical appearances of all his characters, major or minor. Constant descriptions of hairs, skin marks, body shapes, facial features, teeth, weight, etc. Eg ‘...a sack of loose skin hung out of her armpit like a turkey’s neck and was pinched and strangled red’ (66). ‘A white plaque or scum was building along the flanks of her tongue and in her gums, and tiny bunches of bubbled spittle were sitting on her molars’ (68). (You can sense the rhythm in just those two sentences).

- This is a writer with an enormous gift. He'll be huge one day, no doubt at all.

Andrew Sean Greer, Less.

- A sequence of literary events on a travel itinerary that takes in Mexico, Italy, Germany, France, Morocco, India and Japan. Leavened by a delightful wit as Arthur Less, a 49 year old gay man terrified of soon turning 50, experiences new lovers and fondly remembers old ones (Howard, Carlos, Robert, Freddy).

- What makes this 2018 Pulitzer Prize winning novel so pleasurable to read is the sublime prose. Some passages are so stunningly beautiful as Less reflects on his life and his loneliness they demand immediate re-reading then reading again. And then there’s the startlingly original metaphors on virtually every page...

- Less is a not a commercially successful writer, and his latest book has been rejected by his long-time publisher. ‘He is grieving, for sure - the loss of his lover, his career, his novel, his youth...’ But, ironically, in his travels he comes across many fans who love his books. And they love the fact he’s an American and a gentleman who’s always wearing his blue linen suit. 

-  His new novel, Swift, seems like the one we’re reading. It’s about him: ‘A white middle-aged American man walking around with his white middle-aged American sorrows’. 

- As one friend tells him: ‘It is our duty to show something beautiful from our world. The gay world. But in your books, you make the characters suffer without reward’.

- Less lived for over a decade with a world renowned poet who most critics regarded as a genius (modelled on Robert Lowell?). His description of living with genius is inspiring. 

- A subtle, delightful and gentle book that surprises with its insights and profundity. 

- Highly recommended.

Michael E Mann, The Madhouse Effect

- This is an excellent summary of the current state of the climate change debate in the US and around the world.

- Its main purpose is to single out and attack the loud and noisy climate change deniers - the usual, very well funded voices mostly representing the fossil fuel industry, and the by now predictable right wing dinosaurs in the Murdoch media.

- Mann is a very well-known climate scientist, famous for his ‘hockey stick’ paper and graph of 1999, which clearly illustrated the dramatic rise in temperatures in the Industrial Age due to the growth of human carbon dioxide emissions. He was pilloried by deniers for ‘getting it ludicrously wrong’. In this exceptionally well written polemic he returns the favour. 

- He clarifies the science behind climate change but only presents the details when absolutely needed to flesh out the argument. 

- This is a relatively short tome at 215 pages, but is really all you need to get to the heart of the ‘debate’. It is also full of delightful and acerbic cartoons by the Washington Post cartoonist Tom Toles. 

- This book was originally published in 2016 and therefore missed the arrival of Trump and his reactionary, anti climate change moves. However the paperback edition was published in 2018, so a Trump administration final chapter was able to be included. 

- Highly recommended. 

(Distributed in Australia by Footprint Books, the price is $37.99. This is a rip-off. The US price is $18.95. At the current exchange rate of around $US0.71 the local price should be no more than $32.99, GST included). 

Barbara Kingsolver, Unsheltered

- This novel is well written but it goes on and on for 460 pages. It connects two historical timeframes (contemporary and the 1870s) by the house both parties lived in which is now falling down. 

- There’s something quite tiresome about this book. It’s just too relentless in the way it pushes its themes and dissects its characters. 

- It's a story of marriage, love and family as well as social change and politics.

- Both time periods suffer the intrusion of the future. Some people can handle it, are even enthusiastic embracers of it, some can’t - the conservative, unimaginative reactionaries. The social/political disruptions are the same. Symbolically the ceilings are falling down. Ceilings of authority, of habit, of comfort, of ignorance, of dependence. Ceilings that truth and reason blast away. 

- The historical story, based on actual people and events, is far more interesting and engaging. In the modern story the conversations between the husband and wife, Iano and Willa, are too often twee, lovey-dovey, endless and tedious. Kingsolver does not so much write, as indulge in writing. Her prose has a journalistic swagger that I found irritating. Clearly she is thrilled by her own gift, and she can’t let up. 

- The constant, unrelenting political arguments between their two offspring, Tig the commo greenie and Zeke the investment banker (yes, the names, I know) are frequently annoying and rarely enjoyable. 

- On the other hand the mother-daughter discussions are searingly honest and delightful.

- A few idiosyncrasies: for some unfathomable reason Kingsolver refuses to name the presidential candidate as Trump rather than ‘this billionaire running for president’; the chapter headings are the final words of the previous chapter, despite the new chapter being the other time period. There's no meaning to that. It’s a link but a tricksy and artificial one.

- So, all in all, four out of five stars. 

Movies seen in 2018 (apologies for using the word 'brilliant' a lot!):

- All the Money in the World: good but not great. Three stars. In some real way the film just doesn’t work. Some scenes make no sense (eg, the dumping of 1000 newspapers on Getty’s lawn). Lacks dramatic power, narrative energy, and real tension. No kicks in the gut here. Michelle Williams is great as usual, as is Christopher Plummer. Why is Mark Wahlberg’s character in the film at all? No substance to his role. He just seems to drive cars through press packs. 

- The Post: excellent movie, well acted and a very realistic 70’s look. The screenplay and the dialogue are superb. Captures the highly dramatic events and particularly the pressure on Katherine Graham very well. Such sexist times. Its only problem is the parade of cliched emotional cues, typical of a Spielberg movie. 

- The Darkest Hour: magnificent! Utterly compelling portrait of the human side of Churchill and the enormous challenge he faced on assuming the prime ministership. A wonderful glimpse into the hallways of power. 

- Trip to Spain: very enjoyable as usual. The chemistry between Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon is obvious. Their impersonations of Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Roger Moore and others are amazingly good and very funny. And the Spanish food looks sublime.

- Ali’s Wedding: enjoyable but shallow and cliched. I’m surprised it was so popular at the cinema. 

- Lola Versus: Greta Gerwig the star and only actor worth watching in this rather slight three-star girlfriend/boyfriend story. New York in the summer is enchanting. Gerwig is mesmerising. Her presence and beauty are astonishing. In fact the whole movie is simply a paean to her - a love letter. 

- I, Tonya: very good story, well acted by Margot Robbie and Allison Janney. Though the domestic violence is hard to take, and Harding’s constant return to her husband is profoundly annoying. One standout character is the fat, stupid bodyguard. Whitewashes Harding’s actual involvement in the ambush of Nancy Kerrigan. Makes her a victim of others. Also, the typical US movie trope of establishing working class credentials by the constant use of ‘fuck’ is annoying. 

- Sweet Country: very powerful and dramatic narrative about racism in Australia. The ugly whites versus the benign blacks, but the whites are unbearable to watch. Offset by the fair-minded judge and the compassionate preacher. Well acted. The quirky flashbacks/flashforwards don’t work. The song over the closing credits by Johnny Cash was a stupid choice. Totally out of character. Why not an Australian country music song, or even better, one sung by an Indigenous artist (such as Gurrumul Yunupingu)?

- Lady Bird: wonderful, brilliantly acted and directed movie. Written and directed by Greta Gerwig. What a talent. A coming of age and a mother/daughter story, with the spice of comedy and craziness that Gerwig has made her own. Not perfect - the mother is a professional career-wise but strangely hopeless at navigating through the daughter/mother relationship, even when the daughter is a really nice and mature person. She’s just plucky and wants to embrace a larger life, but her mother can’t emotionally handle it. A control freak. Her father gets it though. Also, why wasn’t the university that accepted Lady Bird disclosed? That was a point of interest to the viewers.

- Terror Nullius: brilliant assemblage of Australian film, video and music clips to construct a counter narrative to the originals. Paints a picture of gross racism, misogyny, and social/cultural/political ugliness. 

- Loveless: Utterly brilliant story of a loveless married couple and their profoundly neglected son. The Russian director of the superb Leviathan has pulled off another masterpiece.

- The Death of Stalin: both a comedy and a drama but didn’t work on either level. Steve Buscemi was excellent as Khrushchev, as was Simon Russell Beale as Beria, but other principal characters were mostly disappointing and annoying, like the regularly awful Michael Palin. Stalin’s was a particularly brutal and violent regime, as sickeningly evidenced in the movie and deeply felt by the audience, so the attempt at a comedic treatment of these criminals went against the grain. The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth. 

- A Quiet Place: excellent movie. Well acted and directed but with a pretty slight screenplay. It’s slow moving with a few events just thrown in to heighten the drama and enrich the story (the nail; the water leak; the grain silo fall) as nothing much happens otherwise. A satisfying conclusion though. 

- Tombraider: Alicia Vikander was completely miscast. The film never really takes off, although the opening sequences were exciting and promising.

- West of Sunshine: Excellent work, but very uncomfortable to watch. I felt a constant tenseness and dread. The feeling was that something bad was always about to happen - particularly to the son due to his father’s driving. So much of the story takes place in the car, and the father is constantly, and illegally, on the phone. And he’s a total loser. In fact the pivotal plot point - his gambling away all the money he’s just won - is a very predictable cliche. Wonderful shots of Melbourne. A very Greek production. 

- The Insult: Excellent political drama about the Christian/Muslim conflict in Lebanon in the 80’s. Also a personal and courtroom drama. Brilliant performances and superb cinematography. Five stars.

- You Were Never Really Here: Mixed feelings about this. Original in film technique but lacking narrative coherence, which is annoying. Left me with too many questions, and annoyed at plot points that made no sense (eg, holding hands with his mother’s killer; his dangerous sleepiness when he’s driving; his inarticulateness). Quite a simple plot really but buried by trickery and artifice.

- Searching: Excellent storyline about a father’s search online for his missing daughter. A number of plot twists and a major one at the end. Thrilling and suspenseful. (And Debra Messing in a serious role!). But maybe a huge ad for Windows.

- Ladies in Black: Brilliant movie directed by Bruce Beresford. And wonderfully acted, particularly by Angourie Rice and Rachel Taylor. Feel good story and excellent cinematography. A classic Australian film of the old school, with wit and charm in spades. 

- Custody: This is NOT about ‘a family’s struggles with the  fallout of divorce, and the resulting impact on the two children’ at all. The blurb is a lie. It is about the horrific trauma of domestic violence and abuse, perpetrated by the husband. An ugly, nauseating film. Extremely hard to watch. I hated it. As for ‘evoking profound sympathy for all its protagonists’ - this is bullshit. Two stars.

- July 22: Very literal telling of the Norwegian mass killing by alt-right Nazi Anders Breivik. And a study of one of the victims and his family. Produced and directed by English director Paul Greengrass, featuring a Norwegian cast and crew. In English. Well done. 

- Bohemian Rhapsody: Enjoyable, particularly the music, but focuses on the personal trials and tribulations of Freddie Mercury rather the drama of the band and their songwriting, rehearsing, performing. And we don’t get to hear the anthem Bohemian Rhapsody in full! 

- Wildlife: Brilliantly directed by Paul Dano, and so well acted by Carey Mulligan, Jake Gyllenhaal and Ed Oxenbould. Very intense, but subtle and nuanced, and builds slowly into a powerful yet restrained climax. 

- Sully: typical Clint Eastwood, hero-worshiping, sentimental effort. Old white guy saves the day. Rather lame script. Two stars.

- Roma: disappointing. After all the hype I expected a lot more. Saw it on Netflix. I doubt the wide screen theatre version would have made much difference. (There was no hand-held camera, despite reviews mentioning it, which was a blessing). Continuous background noise and incidental visuals didn’t add much. A cinematic essay on quotidian reality without depth or insight. 

- Dumplin: enjoyable Dolly Parton romp but lightweight and cliched. (Netflix). Jennifer Aniston with her usual tics.

- The Favourite: Didn’t click with me at all. I was surrounded by giggling simpletons in the theatre who thought it ‘hilarious’. It wasn’t. It was boring and cliched and utterly meaningless. These royal costume dramas have been done to death in cinema/TV. Not what I expected from a Yorgos Lanthimos film at all. If it weren’t for Emma Stone I would have walked out. (BUT, were there subtle Trump references? The Queen was erratic, incoherent, ignorant, and her staff at war with each other while sucking up to her). The ending was typical Lanthimos - made no sense at all. 

- Vice: brilliant film with brilliant performances by Christian Bale (Cheney), Amy Adams (Lynne Cheney), and Steve Carrell (Rumsfeld). A bit of fantasy and fifth wall breaking adds spark and wit, but in the main a history story. But hard to totally engage because the main players were such dangerous, deluded Republican fools. It basically made me seethe with anger. Cheney really ran a hard right, ugly, corporatist regime, constantly abusing the democratic process on every level. The script was a tad conspiratorial but these people were thugs. Bush was just a presentable front man. Cheney’s apologia to camera at the end demonstrated his self-righteous arrogance and sheer ignorance. 

- Cold War: Just a bit disappointing. Sensational music and singing, choral and dancing, including jazz. And also ‘Rock Around the Clock’! A post war love story in an Eastern European Soviet political time but lacked a certain power and credibility because of the inexplicable choice of the young woman to hold back. She passionately ‘loves him’ but she resists committing to him because she’s a bit, er, crazy. Small, square, black and white screen reflects the time, and it works. But it unfortunately also reflects the minimalist narrative. The story needed more flesh. 

- Shoplifters: Absolutely sublime film, full of subtlety and immense charm. The ‘family’ were living on the edge of society, disconnected from all norms, unlucky in work, yet with the purist of intentions and real love and devotion to each other. They were abandoned by their real families but came together over time and lived as their own loving unit in a tiny house. The society favoured the affluent and privileged, not them. And cruelty, via domestic abuse, was perpetrated on them, particularly the young kids. 

- Colette: A wonderful story, truly inspiring. Keira Knightley and Dominic West are superb, and their evolving, complex marriage is well portrayed. The dialogue is rich and satisfying. Set in the early 1900’s in Paris, therefore has lovely scenes of Paris and the French countryside, and the luscious interiors of the sublime apartments. It’s also a story of the coming modernity - electricity, motor vehicles, cinema, the development of popular fiction, and of course the emergence of women from under the yoke of masculinity. I enjoyed it very much indeed.

My Top Fiction and Non-Fiction Books for 2018

Australian Fiction:

Shaun Prescott, The Town.
Trent Dalton, Boy Swallows Universe.
Jock Serong, Preservation.
Moreno Giovannoni, The Fireflies of Autumn.
Robert Hillman, The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted.


International Fiction:

Anna Burns, Milkman.
Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow.
Rachel Tusk, Kudos.
Sally Rooney, Normal People.
Sebastian Faulks, Paris Echo

Australian Non-Fiction:

Behrouz Boochani, No Friend But the Mountains.
Clementine Ford, Boys Will Be Boys.
Bri Lee, Eggshell Skull.
Bruce Pascoe, Dark Emu.
Chloe Hooper, The Arsonist.


International Non-Fiction:

John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality.
Bob Woodward, Fear.
Kishore Mahbubani, Has the West Lost It?
Peter Frankopan, The New Silk Roads.
Tim Wu, The Curse of Bigness.