The Narrow Road to the Deep North - Richard Flanagan

A book that one of my favourite students got for me (and damn, I like that so much more than a bottle of wine!) as he came to visit me on his way to Antarctica. 

I suspect the construction of the Burma Railway is something that most Australians are at least reasonably familiar with, but for an Italian it remains something shrouded in a bit of mystery and something I really didn't know much about beyond what The Bridge on the River Kwai left me with (and to think that I'm a historian!). 

Perhaps unusually, I feel that the parts of it that will stay with me the longest will not be the ones set in Burma, but rather the final chapters covering the lives of the survivors and the lasting impact of the war. I can’t quite figure out why (perhaps because war and its atrocities are way more often covered in works of fiction than the long-term personal implications of conflict?), but it’s quite similar to how I felt about watching The Best Years of Our Lives (which I was mind-blown by).

Yet, despite liking the book and having finished it months ago, it is still resting on my bedside table - proof of the fact that perhaps I should consider getting a bigger bookshelf, as I can't quite figure out what book to remove to make space for this one. 

His Illegal Self - Peter Carey

 

This book was OK, which is a pretty sad statement for anything written by Peter Carey, but hey, you can't write something Booker-worthy every time. 

His Illegal Self  has a wild and pyrotechnic beginning, but once the actions shifts to Australia and the secrets of Che's "mom" are uncovered (a bit late to cause significant shockwaves) the book appears to settle, which is bizarre considering that I was expecting Carey to be - quite literally - at home there. 

And the ragtag Australian hippies are on the whole rather boring (or maybe it's just the nature of their anachronistically alternative lifestyle that doesn't attract me anymore?) and quite caricatural, which makes for many dull passages spent discussing the present and future of a former stray cat.  

Parrot and Olivier in America - Peter Carey

  

I thought that Peter Carey could make the life of 19th century French aristocrats interesting to me. I was wrong. In fact, he didn't even make it readable, as the book was an overlong slog. 

The best thing in the novel was the artwork on the cover page, but I doubt that it was down to Carey himself...

Or maybe the best thing in the novel was the fact that I only spent a couple of pounds on it in one of my last Fopp sprees?

A Long Way from Home - Peter Carey

Possibly the best book I've read this year (then again, I probably have a handful of books I can say the same for if I go through the list). I've read reviews saying that Carey was back to the level of Oscar and Lucinda, but I liked this book so much more. 

What I liked about it is its soft and subtle approach to issues of race and repression in Australia. He surely gets plenty of things wrong, but he appears to me one of those white men who at least make an effort, and obviously that's something that resonates with me. 

And, despite not being into any sort of motorsport, I have to say the idea of a car race across an almost uncharted Australia is absolutely fascinating. On top of that, the switch of focus from Irene to Willie works surprisingly well, as the reader grows truly fond of both of them.

Oscar and Lucinda – Peter Carey

I had been waiting to read a “real” book by Peter Carey ever since reading his minor Bliss and absolutely loving it – luckily, as is often the case, the Amnesty International Book Sale in Blackheath had the solution to this problem (for 1 £…).

I liked the book, but in all honesty I’m not quite sure it’s Pulitzer-worthy (then again, reading the shortlisted titles, I’m also quite positive Chatwin’s Utz wouldn’t have been a good candidate either) – I found it a bit long (well, unsurprising given the size…), could have done without much of the background stories of Oscar and Lucinda’s families, probably the gambling world doesn’t attract me too much anyway, and I just didn’t get too excited by the big voyage of discovery in Australia.

The book does, however, have a number of great ideas, like the ways in which Oscar fights his phobia of the Ocean, the discovery (for me) of Prince Rupert’s Drops, and the transportation of the glass church, which reminded me of Fitzcarraldo and is a literary picture that many authors can spend an entire career waiting to develop. 

Bliss – Peter Carey

And another book given to me by my colleague as he was moving flats (this time, however, one that I greatly enjoyed).

Bliss’s plot is hilarious (a term that I normally detest, but that I think describes the novel quite well) and its improbable twists all appear somehow believable. I just kind of wish the reader was told what happened to Lucy and her truck-driving boyfriend, but Carey’s novel remains for me a wonderfully entertaining and witty portrait of a clash between high-flying career-focused people and, erm, hippies.

And probably I also really enjoyed this because I know nothing about Australian literature (well, it depends on whether you consider Coetzee to be Australian…).