More Book Reviews!

Still trying to catch up, today's reviews concern a trilogy from Melvyn Bragg. I'm not certain, but there is a fair hint of autobiographical detail within.

Melvyn Bragg, The Soldier's Return

The story for the most part concerns that of a man returning to his wife and son after serving in Burma during WWII. No doubt like many of his generation, the central character feels suffocated by life in small town Wigton (in Cumbria, just out of Carlisle). For mine, Bragg effectively captures the inner turmoil and unrest that must have troubled men like Sam Richardson. Those who didn't serve have a tendency to ask too many painful questions (and would not doubt not really want to hear the answers), and the vivid memories rob Sam of sleep. The shift back to the daily grind of work and home is mundane and demeaning, and the difficulties of rebuilding life with his wife and young son (who he barely knows), is fraught with unease, misapprehension, and an inevitable (but silent) frustration.

Without giving too much away, the book is a thoughtful, sensitive, and sympathetic to the ache and difficulties of relationships under repair. In the creation of the central character, Bragg writes with tremendous delicacy yet significant force about the desire and futile effort to return to a past that time and the war has ensured can never happen. Surprisingly unsentimental (almost gloomy in parts), it is however a magnificent mediation on the key themes of love, responsibility, obligation, pain and healing. The book offers a tremendous insight to those of us who had grandparents who must have experienced similar trials and experiences, and a great work of fiction. Recommended most highly.

Melvyn Bragg, A Son of War

The second of the trilogy, it continues the tale of seemingly insignificant lives that encompasses the broader issues of faith, courage, endurance and aspiration. There is a shift in focus from the first book, away from Sam to his wife and son, with Bragg entering into the hearts and minds of his characters, exploring their milieu. For mine, it lacks the poignancy of the first book, perhaps as the pacing of the narrative is far more irregular than The Soldier's Return, this is perhaps understandable as the central focus becomes Joe (Sam's son) and his reflections upon his parents and their relationship. Yet it remains a warm and engaging book, telling a familiar take in a sympathetic, leisurely and believable manner. Very much recommended, essential if you have read the first.

Melvyn Bragg, Crossing the Lines

The third in the series, and for mine the weakest. For the main, this is due to the narrative shifting to the adolescent struggles of young Joe, which (understandably) lack the complexity or depth to those of his father's post-war readjustment. However, it does explore the difficult choices faced by the immediate post-war generation's adjustment to a brave new world of opportunities and challenges, which differ markedly from their parents. In this, Crossing the Lines offers a measured examination of post-war English life, but it does have the tendency to feel a little uneven, and perhaps lacks the complexity in characterisation that so marked the first two novels. Recommended, even more so if you have read the first two.

Despite my preference for the first text, I very much hope that Bragg continues the series. They are all very good reads, and would recommend anyone even slightly interested to check them out. As Molly would say, do yourself a favour...

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke...

Hold me now, oh hold me now, until this hour has gone around. And I'm gone on the rising tide, to face Van Dieman's Land

Theme Thursday again, and this one is rather easy. I am Tasmanian, you see, and aside from being all around general geniuses - as I have amply described previously - we are also very familiar with the concept of WATER. Tasmania is the ONLY island state of an ISLAND continent. That means, we're surrounded by WATER. That should help explain why I take so many photographs of water . Tasmania was for a long time the place where the British (an island race terrified of water) sent their poor people most vile and horrid criminals. The sort of folk who would face the stark choice of a death sentence , or transportation to the other end of the world. Their catalogue of crimes is horrifying : stealing bread assault stealing gentlemen's handkerchiefs drunken assault being poor affray ladies being overly friendly with gentlemen for money hitting people having a drink and a laugh public drunkenness being Irish Fenian terrorist activities being Catholic religious subversion. ...

This will hurt me...

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