Friday Five: Books Read in June

1. The Morningside by Téa Obreht (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) - The Morningside is an apartment building in a future dystopian world in an unnamed country where rising sea levels have flooded much of the land. Silvia is an eleven-year-old child whose mother manages the apartment. They are refugees who have arrived as part of a humanitarian scheme which sends children to school but offers little else in the way of welfare. She encounters another girl, Mila, who seems to have much more privilege, and they have adventures which are hauntingly unpleasant. The world created is sketchy as seen through a veil of imagination and terrifying fairy tales (Silvia's aunt Ena tells her magical folktales) and the young person narration shifts the reader’s focus. This is true magical realism in which the reader should go with the flow rather than swim against the (rising) tide. 
2. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown (Vintage) - Written as social anthropoly, this book studies each Native American tribe's relation to and treatment by the American government. The litany of lies, deceptions, broken promises and massacres are overwhelming as the settlers keep pushing West, plundering resources and dispossessing the Indigenous population of their land and livelihood. We know the names of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Red Cloud and Geronimo, and this fills in their stories with ever-depressing detail. It has an elegiac tone as it focuses on defeat and victimisation. "Their musical names remained forever fixedon the American land, but their bones were forgotten in a thousand burned villages or lost in forests fast disappearing before the axes of twenty million invaders." While this book, first published in 1970, undoubtedly changed the way Native Americans were viewed (savages and brutal warriors), the narrative maintains a tragic death of their culture rather than propounding the vibrancy of their survival. 
3. Psykhe by Kate Forsythe (Vintage) - This begins as an interesting history then rapidly descends to teen-fantasy quest using the myth as a narrative structure. Natalie Haynes, Kamila Shamsie and Madeline Miller are all doing interesting things with myth – Kate Forsythe is not. She tells the story of Eros and Psyche as a template for the Beauty and the Beast fairytale, set in the fifth century BC. Her focus on Estruscan life draws unfavourable parallels with Ursula Le Guin's Lavinia, as she offers up recognisable history without contemporary interest, and the fantastic decriptions of lavish settings are strangely underwhelming, like those of biblical tales. She then attempts to retrofit feminism with passages about the lack of self-determination for women, but succumbs to a conventional narrative in which the supposed passion and desire present more like coercive control. "He had never let me see his face; he had come and left in darkness, he would not let me know his name. I had been kept locked in, forbidden to see or speak to anyone else.” It is rather perfunctory and lifeless and adds little to the ever-increasing canon of mythical revisionism.
4. The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden (Penguin) - Living in a colonised country, one notes strong parallels with the themes in this novel of contested ownership and possession. Isabel lives in the family house in the Netherlands with no real understanding of its origin or how they came by it. She and her younger brother, Hendrik, mockingly discuss their older sibling, Louis, knowing that he will inherit the home when he marries, and that Isabel merely inhabits it on suffrance until that time comes. When Louis, dumps his graceless girlfriend, Eva, on her doorstep, Isabel is initially repulsed by and later drawn into a relationship with her, which is almost Chekovian in its repressed passion and unspoken trauma. There is aching loneliness and explosive sexuality in this stifling millieu of 1960s middle Europe with a focus on atmosphere and undercurrents rather than superficial storytelling.

Friday Five (on a Saturday): World Cup Wonderings Week Three

Herewith, the latest instalment:

1. The stars are out to play. Mbappe and Haaland may be taking over from Messi and Rondaldo as the newer generation of super strikers. Goals galore are also expected from the likes of Kai Havertz and Vinicius Junior, while I am quietly keeping an eye on Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham. it was also noted that Mo Salah scored his first World Cup goal helping Egypt to win their first World Cup match (3-1 v NZ). How have they not done this before now? They are now in the round of 32: let's hope their successful run continues.
2. Meanwhile, other so-called celebrities are less illuminating. Those from the realm of music and film are recognisable: Mick Jagger; Matt Damon; Penelope Cruz; Javier Bardem; Tom Cruise; Billy Bob Thornton; Rob Lowe; Owen Wilson; Sofia Vergara; Alanis Morisette; Ryan Reynolds, to name but several. There are also plenty of former footballers out and about, notably David Beckham, Roberto Carlos, Ronaldo, Alexia Putellas, Zinedine Zidane, and Luis Suarez. The VIP lounges are full of champagne and prawn sandwiches, but the English commentators hilariously fail to recognise any 'stars' of American sports. The cameras pan to the supposed superstar who has no interest in the match and is purely there to be seen and dead air ensues while the commentator is clearly being told who that might be, before they announce it is of course some legend from letters (NFL; NBA; MLB). Until last week I had never heard of Patrick Mahomes, Marshawn Lynch, Jalen Brunson, Dirk Nowitzki, or Aaron Judge, I'm pretty sure many of the UK commentators hadn't either. Welcome to Corporate America.
3. Staying with transatlantic travesties, what are they trying to do to our language? When did transition become a footballing term? I know what it means, as a team tries to play out from the back through the midfield towards the opposition goal, but of course Americans need a new way to explain moving from DEEfence to OFFfence. While we're here, it is nil not zero, pitch not field, shirt not jersey, clean sheet not shut out, boots not cleats, manager not coach; striker not forward; squad not roster, and definitely club not franchise. Franchises have no place in sport. And teams are plural. You may be You Ess Eh? But We Are England.

4. On the subject of FIFA faffing, it never rains but it pours. We are now all aware of the sporting rain and weather protocols: we learned that U.S. sporting protocol requires a mandatory wait time of thirty minutes after the last observed lightning strike or thunder before play can resume. Every time a new lightning strike occurs within the designated danger radius (typically 8 miles or 13 km), the 30-minute countdown clock resets completely. So, after the start of the Mexico v Ecuador game was delayed by an hour, we were all expecting that there would be no hydration break, especially because FIFA announced that there wouldn't be. However, as the temperatures plummeted to 14 degrees, everyone was adequately cool and refreshed, and the momentum of the match was cracking along exceptionally energetically, Fox must have called FIFA and reminded them of the money they were making through the ads, and so we were 'treated' to one after all. What an absolute shower.
5. The super-subs: Over 20% of goals scored have been by substitutes, and many of these within mere moments of the sub coming off the bench. There are plenty of reasons for this, namely, it's only the second World Cup that has allowed teams to make five substitutions, and also, the fatigue of the existing players means the fresh legs are particularly valuable. It's hot, it's humid, some stadiums are at altitude, and this combination of factors causes players' performances to drop off towards the end of the match. It makes thing interesting if nothing else. Mattias Svanberg scored in the 84th minute for Sweden in their 5-1 victory over Tunisia, 18 seconds after stepping onto the pitch and with his very first touch in a set piece. Romelu Lukaku made a near-instant impact for Belgium in the 66th minute against Egypt. A mere 22 seconds after his introduction, his powerful run forced an Egyptian defender to turn the ball into his own net, rescuing a 1–1 draw. Coming on as a late tactical change in the 90+5 minute against Algeria, the Austrian Saša Kalajdžić met a crossed ball with his first touch to power home an equalizer just 61 seconds later. The dramatic finish meant that Iran were knocked out of the tournament as a 3rd place getter with insufficient points. When Switzerland played Bosnia and Herzegovina in their group-stage match, four of the five goals were scored by subs. As always, fans are often disappointed when their favourites are subbed off, but when it works, the manager is considered a tactical genius. Conversely, Australian manager Tony Popovic subbed on experienced captain, Matthew Ryan in the 119th minute of extra time to replace starting goalkeeper Patrick Beach for the penalty shootout against Egypt. The high-stakes strategic gamble ultimately backfired, as Ryan was unable to save any of Egypt's four penalties, resulting in elimination for the Socceroos in the round of 32.

Friday Five: World Cup Wonderings Week Two

Carrying on where we left off last week - I've not actually left off at all to be honest - here are some more musings from the highest echelons of the beautiful game.

1. The individuals - Yes, it's a team game. But the golden boot competition is for single strikers, and it's alive and kicking. Of course we have to mention Lionel Messi. At 39 years old he is leading the race, scoring a hat-trick in Argentina's opener against Algeria. He went on to bag a brace against Austria, leaving his team top of their group and breaking a whole heap of records in the process, some of the most eye-catching being: the most goals scored at a men's World Cup; the oldest player to score a hat trick in World Cup History; the most World Cup matches played by a single player. It seems it is almost impossible to chat about Messi without bringing up Cristiano Ronaldo - the two have been pushing each other (in the media's headlines if not their own minds) for as long as they've been playing. Ronaldo also knocked in a couple in Portugal's second game making him equal with Messi in scoring at six different World Cups. He's two years older than Messi so has got the better of him on that front. A quick Google comparison indicates that Messi is the leader in many statistics, "most notably leading in goals, assists, total goal contributions, and by winning the World Cup trophy in 2022." While that last statistic may be the one that counts the most, what really interests me is that Messi has four times the number of assists and more than double the 'goal contributions'. One of these players knows it is not all about them.
2. The defenders - as a former right back, one of the things that annoys me a bit about the media and the punditry is the focus on the attackers. A goalless draw can be fascinating if one appreciates the art of a good block or an off-the-line-clearance. I know there is also a golden glove contest for the keepers, but most of the time folk bemoan the lack of goals as if they're the only consideration. It's like watching cricket and ignoring the bowlers' skill, claiming a match is only interesting if there are lots of runs, without acknowledging the wickets taken. True, a lot of the challenges are tough and it's not always pretty, but it is crucial. Unfortunately, we saw the worst of it when the tackle from Qatar's Assim Madibo resulted in a broken leg for Canada's Ismael Kone, and a red card and five-match ban for the guilty midfielder. However, I maintain that if France win the World Cup (and they are my favourites to do so), it will be largely due to their impeccable defence.
3. The managers - There's always a bit of debate about who controls the team - the manager, the captain, the talisman player, the bloke who's good for the dressing room (which appears to be the reason Jordan Henderson is in the England squad), or the media darling (see Cristiano Ronaldo). Tunisia thought the manager had pre-eminence and sacked Sabri Lamouchi after their first-round 5-1 defeat by Sweden. It didn't do them much good, however, as they finished bottom of their group with no points and a goal difference of -10. They have form at this, having previously sacked their manager, Henryk Kasperczak, two games into the World Cup in 1998, from whence they proceeded to also finish last in their group. Meanwhile Didier Deschamps will miss the largely exhibition match between France and Norway as he flies home for his mother's funeral. The team will show their support and undoubtedly play their finest football in respect. And the manager of Ecuador, Sebastian Beccacece, acts as if his country's victory against Germany is all due to him as he prances up and down the touchline, hugging his entourage in the crowd, tennis-style, and drawing all attention to his antics before finally congratulating his players, basically carrying on like a pork chop, as they say in these parts. 

4. The new rules - FIFA enjoys faffing about with the rules of the game just before big tournaments (silver goal, anyone?). The changes are usually introduced to make things more 'exciting', to give more impetus to the attackers and to speed up the run of play. This time round the new rules largely relate to time wasting and affect tardy throw-ins, substitutions and VAR decisions over off-sides and corner kicks. As mentioned in the previous post, the referees are being relatively consistent and, despite the three red cards in the first game of the tournament (Mexico v South Africa), are letting the games flow. One new rule which has has immediate dramatic results, however, is the one about covering the mouth in a confrontational situation. In a Champion's League game, a Benfica player was accused of making discriminatory remarks to Real Madrid’s Vinícius Júnior, but because he covered his mouth, lip-readers (who are employed for exactly this sort of thing) could not verify the accusation and so it went unpunished. Paraguay’s Miguel Almirón was the first to fall foul of this new regulation as he was sent off in his team's group match against Türkiye. We may not know what he said, but he knows he shouldn't have said it, and he definitely shouldn't have tried to hide it. He can't say he wasn't warned.
5. The commentators - Most of them are knowledgeable and informative, guiding the viewer through the games with helpful understanding. Andy Townsend is, of course, my favourite and has been ever since I met him at a book signing in 1994, and Peter Drury is particularly solid with his mix of enthusiasm and expertise. And then we have the Americans. Brad Friedel has experience despite a complete lack of apparent personality, but he is infinitely preferrable to John Easton who blurts out bullsh*t at an incredible rate. The epitome of someone who has never been told that if he hasn't got anything interesting to say, he should remain quiet, he barely listens to his fellow commentators, and just repeats what they might have said more loudly and more crassly. It was actually a relief when someone killed the sound during the Netherlands v Sweden match so we could concentrate on the football rather than the banal yahooing. At least we are spared the Fox fiasco, in which Alexi Lalas has apparently managed to ghast the flabber of even the most insouciant Henry with his verbose vapidity. It is painfully embarrassing to all in the studio and at home what a glaring division there is between the 'soccer' sycophants and the rest of the world.

Friday Five: World Cup Wonderings Week One

The World Cup has kicked off and there is plenty to think about. I will not venture into the tactics of teams or specific match reports in these posts, and I will do my best to stay away from the politics of the Resident Evil. But there is plenty of other chat around the grounds.

Three lions in the crowd

1. Ad breaks - call them what they are. The totally unnecessary, momentum-killing, three-minute intervals midway through the halves give the Americans what they have always wanted: a game of quarters for their attention-deficit, commercial-forward nation. They were understandable in Qatar (the fact that the World Cup was held there at all is a totally different proposition), but everyone knows they are not really for hydration here. The rest of the world despises them (the breaks; not the nation - we save that contempt for their president), and the fact the crowds at every game are boo-ing them is testament to their unpopularity. Maybe FIFA will take note of this, but probably not.
2. National anthems - Scotland win, and I don't mean with Yes, Sir, I Can Boogie. I'm not a great fan of bagpipes, but they certainly make a noise. And I have to concede that when played well, they are a damn sight/ sound better than vuvuzelas. To be fair, those blowing and squeezing out Flower of Scotland in Boston are generally superb. Uruguay are a close second with a jolly, rousing number that makes one want to party. The New Zealand cry-for-help in song is a two-header. Everyone thinks it's finished after the Māori version and then are surprised when the English version kicks in - people might know the words to this bit, but they're bored by the end of it. New Zealand are the lowest ranked team in the tournament, so we're unlikely to hear it too often.
3. The refs - Ref cam is fascinating. We can watch the match officials try to keep up with the game while staying out of the way, which doesn't look easy - they have to read the game to know where they expect the ball to go and then be near it but not in its path. The view shows what they see of the action and explains why they sometimes need to refer to VAR because their vision is blocked of a potential infringement. It's early days, but I think they're doing a good job, refusing to be swayed by histrionics and giving free kicks for obvious shirt pulls and trippings. 
4. Tiny teams - The extended format of this tournament isn't to everyone's liking (I have questions, including why do some group winners play the second-placed finishers in the next round, while others get an apparently easier route against the best-placed losers?) but it does introduce new countries and their fans to the world stage - namely Cape Verde, Curaçao, Jordan and Uzbekistan. Curaçao (a nation with a population the size of Toowoomba) scored their first ever world cup goal against Germany, and one of the biggest talking points of Week One was when Cape Verde kicked off their first ever World Cup campaign with a point from a scoreless draw against fifth-ranked Portugal. And what's not to love about that?
5. The crowds - Scotland (again), who have embarked upon a full-frontal love affair with Boston in which they have drunk the city dry, the mayor wants to twin town with Glasgow, and no traffic cones are safe. The colours are a riot - and perhaps fearing this, England fans have been told they cannot hang theirs at stadiums because they might - heaven forbid - cover up the advertising hoardings. See point one about the money-making-morality of this tournament. Apparently images depicting weapons are also not allowed (because we all know how strict Americans are about 'actual' gun control...) so a submarine on a Barrow AFC flag is forbidden entry. The flag of Haiti, however, bristling with six rifles, two axes, two cannons and two piles of cannonballs, is absolutely fine. If you haven't got a flag to wave, you can always hold a baby aloft. We only a week into this tournament and it appears that babies are the new must-have accessory as many folk seem to be thrusting at the cameras for air-time. No, sir/madam, I have no interest in your spawn; I would far rather watch the Norwegian team sitting down on the pitch to celebrate their victory by joining the fans in a Viking row. 

Fiday Five: More Cats

Because they are endlessly entertaining. And absolutely bonkers.

Friday Five: Books Read in May

1. Flowers for His Funeral by Ann Granger (Headline) - In the seventh of the Mitchell and Markby Costwold whodunnits, we encounter rural mansions, village pubs, unfriendly locals, hidden shelters in the woods, and crumbling masonry. When Markby runs into his ex-wife Rachel at the Chelsea Flower Show, he would not believe that her present husband, Alex, would wind up dead moments later, and yet when that happens, he and Meredith (Mitchell) head to Rachel's village to help find the killer, convinced the cause of death was not simply a heart attack. Malefis Abbey, where Rachel lives, is a picture-book murder house, "Its Gothic windows and fantastic chimneys all looking odder than ever among the surrounding trees, suggesting a secret and sinister castle in a fairy-tale." There are some woeful stereotypes as the streetwise Londoners have to deal with the cunning country folk, and suspects are on the list merely because of their foreign nature - "Forgiveness was not much in the tradition of the Middle East. Vengeance was." I'm still not sure what the relationship is between the two main sleuths - friends with benefits? - but the author is at pains to point out how solid, sensible Meredith is completely at odds with flighty, demanding Rachel.
2. Question 7 by Richard Flanagan (Penguin) - Chekov's Question 7 is a short story incorporating misdirection as a parody of children's mental arithmetic puzzles: "Wednesday, June 17, 1881, a train had to leave station A at 3am in order to reach station B at 11pm; just as the train was about to depart, however, an order came that the train had to reach station B by 7pm. Who loves longer, a man or a woman?" Flanagan uses the concept of this non-sequitur to write about his past, his father, nuclear fusion, the affair between H.G. Wells and Rebecca West, science fiction, Tasmanian tigers, half-life, extinction, ur-texts, Hiroshima, near death experiences, and other chain reactions. There is a lot to consider, and some of it feels like the unedited ramblings of a man who has won many literary prizes. Some of the aphorisms feel like homilies - "The past is always most clearly seen by those who never saw it"; "Experience is but a moment. Making sense of that moment is a life"; "Sometimes we discover that we live in the dreams and nightmares of others and we dream anew." He strings these together in a way which initially seems profound but may equally not be. Trent Dalton and Tim Winton write in the same manner of short apparently punchy sentences - it is the way of the male Australian literati, but it leaves me largely unmoved.
3. Everything's Fine by Cecilia Rabess (Picador) - The theme of this story might be to question whether opposities can be together if they do indeed attract in the first place. Josh is preppy, Conservative (with a large C) and white; Jess is from an entirely different background, motivated by morals rather than money, and the only black person in their economics class at their Ivy League college. They have a whirlwind and tempestuous relationship which matures over a length of time (reminiscent of David Nicholls' One Day in that regard) but the cracks appear when Jess is forced to admit to her friends that her boyfriend is a Republican and Josh doesn't understand why she might be upset that he owns a MAGA hat with all its connotations of "racism, hatred and systemic inequality". There's a lot of lecturing as the politics are personal, and Jess tries to ignore the signs - "Everything's fine". She knows her father would be horrified to learn about her boyfriend's ideals, and Josh tells her, "It's better to be happy than right." Is it? Or is it true that "Love conquers all, except geography, and history, and contemporary sociopolitical reality"? 
4. Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Matthew by Shehan Karunatilaka (Penguin Books) - From the Booker-Prize-winning author (The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida) comes a book he wrote ten years earlier, which has since been republished in the light of this acclaim. The sort of shaggy dog story follows retired sportswriter and cricketing tragic, W.G., as he attempts to track down his hero, spin bowler Predeep S. Matthew. W.G. believes Matthew, international representative for Sri Lanka, was the greatest cricketer ever to walk the earth, but his name has been largely erased from the records due to high-profile personality clashes and disciplinary actions. Now that W.G. knows he is dying, he wants to uncover the bowler's story and publish it in a book as his final magnum opus. Alongside the cricket (and there is a lot of it with pen and ink drawings of different ball deliveries) is his personal relationships, with his long-suffering wife, estranged son and ragtag mob of besties. The setting in Sri Lanka is fascinating geographically and politically as the country is torn apart by civil war and the pronunciation of a word can get you killed, and when the novel moves to New Zealand for its denoument, it is no less vibrant. There is much to admire, even if cricket is not your thing, as the tale is deliberately obtuse. After all, a Chinaman is not just a rare bowling action designed to deceive the batter, it is also a term meaning gullibility in Sri Lankan dialect. How much to be swept up in the narrative is entirely up to the reader.
5. The Long Night by Christian White (Affirm Press) - A young woman is kidnapped and taken to a cabin in the woods. A mother paints her trauma onto canvases - the pictures are pretentious and her explanatons of them even more so - and displays her art in galleries when her world is rocked by the abduction of her daughter. The novel mines every trope of the horror film (cabin in the woods; person in back seat of the car; lightning flashes; well on property; trap for young women; trying to remain silent and still while being crawled on by insects), of which Em is entirely aware, having watched them all and enjoying them dispassionately.“I don’t like being scared, exactly – I like being scared on my own terms. Something about the fear makes me feel safe and in control, like I can hold the monsters at arm’s length.”Once again, women are victims of male aggression, but they also save themselves and each other which may go some way to redressing the balance. "They're both breaking down: both bruised and mud-streaked and drenched. The night has peeled them back to the bone, like so much hanging tree bark."It is very well constructed with alternating chapters which get shorter, each one finishing on a cliff-hanger, and a clear timeline as sections are divided into hour stamps: 7pm; 10pm; Midnight; 2am; 4am; Dawn, which plays into the long night of the title. However, White has done this seemingly concurrent narrative that turns out not to be thing before in The Wife and the Widow, so the ‘twist’ is not a surprise.

Friday Five: Inhabiting Change

At the Belconnen Art Gallery, I came across an exhibition, Inhabiting Change by Fiona Heard. Change Management is one of the things we hear about often at work. In corporate spaces, the theory of how to adapt and manage changes to our routine and processes is much touted. I thought I'd take a look at how that is represented in art and nature. 

According to the brochure, Fiona Heard is a multidisciplinary artist based in Lake Macqaurie who, inspired by the Australian landscape, uses mark making to explore the relationship between nature and time. Mark making is described as a deeply personal 'visual signature' of an artist, crating different lines, dots, patterns, textures and shapes in an artwork. 

Fiona Heard writes, "Inhabiting Change explores the nature of impermanence, framing the present not as a static destination, but as a dynamic threshold between what was and what will be. The images in this body of work originate in the landscape of South Western NSW: a reflection of both childhood memory and my evolving relationship with the region as an adult. My process mirrors this continuous state of becoming. I begin with the unpredictability of hand printing, embracing chance marks and reduced control to form an initial visual language.

"The final worls emerge through physical reconfiguration. By tearing, combining, and sewing these printed elements, I mimic the way memory and land are constantly reshaped. The resulting pieces move beyond literal representation to evoke an abstracted familiarity, reflecting the reality that change is never a finished state, but an ongoing transformative process."

The Guarded Ruin

Dawn Arrives and Colour Returns

The Deserted Hearth

Birdsong and Bullrushes

The Scorched Earth

The Sun's Benediction

What strikes me most about these images is the fluctuating light and shadows; hues change constantly with the intensity of the day, with our eyes deceiving us after dark - forms around us seemigly move and change, prompting us to question what is real and what is imagined? In some images the landscape is stripped back to its red ochre earth; in others trees stand as sentinels or skeletons. The shifting nature belies a restless earth that envelops the vegetation in its path, subsuming ruins of buildings and infrastructure, echoing absences and acknowledging ghosts.

The vibrating earth will continue thrumming with life. Birdsong breaks into quietude and, "The sun's energy unites the earth and the sky, the life cycle continues and still waters witness a world out of time." Everything has a place and co-exists; we cannot have the present without the past that informed it. Just as the canvas is composed of many layers and palimpsets, so is the country on which we live, work and play.

Renaissance Ripper: City of Vengeance

City of Vengeance by D. V. Bishop

Macmillan

Pp. 400

The city in question is Florence, and there are some good descriptions of the narrow streets and the crowded bridges. A map reveals the layout of the city in the sixteenth century, with many landmarks which still stand, such as the Duomo, the Ponte Vecchio and the Bargello, while others such as Le Stinche (the prison in the eastern quarter) have since been demolished.

“Florence: a jumble of grand palazzos and humble hovels, bustling marketplaces and quiet piazzas, churches and workshops, all elbowing one another for room. Above them loomed the Duomo, terracotta bricks divided into vertical segments by columns of pale stone, keeping a proud watch amid the plumes of smoke billowing from the city’s chimneys.”

This is a world where courtesans hustle for business among the wealthy men at court, secrets are round every corner, and the murder of a Jewish moneylender (Levi) barely raises an eyebrow, until a ledger of unpaid debts is stolen, leading to the Duke to make the Wildean quip, “The murder of one moneylender is bad for business. The murder of two is bad for the whole city.” With practically his dying breath, Levi forbids his daughter, Rebecca, from marrying his apprentice, Joshua. Another body, found beaten to death, turns out to be a man dressed as a woman. Meanwhile there is courtly intrigue as this is the time of the Medicis, when Alessandro, Duke of Florence, murdered by his cousin, Lorenzino de’ Medici, was succeeded by Cosimo de’ Medici. “Killings in Florence were not infrequent and were usually personal, fuelled by family, love, hate or greed.” With multiple plots, subplots, and frequent switches between character and locations, the story is almost deliciously Shakespearean.    

 

Cesare Aldo is our unlikely hero, a former soldier, with a war-injured knee, now a member of the Otto di Guardia (the eight), the city’s most feared criminal court. While ruthless when required – “Cesare Aldo took no pleasure from killing, but sometimes it was necessary” – he has a (poorly kept) secret of his own. He is homosexual, a ‘crime’ punishable by death. Although historically, this sentence was rarely executed, it makes a sufficient plot point for his blackmailer to warn that if discovered, “you’ll be hung from the gates, your body set on fire, and your ashes hurled into the Arno. That’s what the likes of you deserve.” Several set pieces and action scenes bring the novel to life. Florence is “a labyrinth for those who didn’t know it well, The Duomo and the Arno were helpful landmarks, but often hidden from view among the narrow streets and close buildings.” The opening chapter contains a thrilling ambush, and the chase sequences are full of evocative detail.

“The approach to the bridge [Ponte Vecchio] was choked with sellers hawking poultry, fish and produce to potential buyers, all of them arguing about prices. The aroma of fresh bread filled Aldo’s nostrils as he passed a baker. In the next doorway three youths were playing dice, pushing and shoving at each other, shouting to be heard above the babble of voices. Ahead the bandit had to swerve around a trader holding live chickens high in the air, one in each fist, proclaiming their price a bargain. The birds clucked and protested, flapping their wings, feathers fluttering down.”

Other locations are also described according to their geographical and historical features. The little village of Le Casette owes its existence to its position beside an easy place to ford the river Po. “The tallest building was the church with its bell tower, while the coach house and stables stood across the dirt road from it. Salvation and God on one side, drink and the potential for devilment on the other – it was often the way.”

 

The explanations of the legal machinations incorporate daily reports being made, denunciations being filed, and the quality of justice being questioned. “Explaining a dead body to the Office of Decency was always a nightmare. The court’s officials turned a blind eye to most things, if their vision was clouded with enough coin. But a corpse was too much, even for the greediest of them.” One of the wealthy merchants, Landini, has a very modern right-wing viewpoint:

“For every moment of triumph, there was always an official ready to interfere. Florence had dozens of different courts overseeing every aspect of city life. Didn’t the guilds do enough to bring prosperity to the people? Well, not all the people, but certainly to those who deserved it. Anyone who couldn’t – or, more likely, wouldn’t – work could always go to church for alms. It was the way of things, and some things never changed.”

Morally and politically, there is a balance between acceptance of the status quo and the potential for change. “At times Florence stumbled beneath the influence of those who did not have its best interests at heart. Mad monks that held sway over the people and their fearful souls. Wilful men clouding minds with talk of a republic where all might be equal. Guilds and merchants battling for financial supremacy. Armies fighting for territory. Kings and cardinals grappling for control.” 

Aldo concedes, “The people could have all the will they wanted, but the future of Florence would always remain in the hands of the few.” The struggle for influence and power, is only achievable by certain strata of society. Maria, Cosimo’s mother bemoans, “To be a woman in this world was hard enough; to be a mother and a widow was worse still. All the responsibility and none of the power.” Women, Jews, homosexuals, illegitimate children, in fact anyone but the sanctioned elite, must get by as best they can. “We do what those like us have always done. We live, we drink, we love, we fight, and we endure. The fools in charge do their worst, and we try to survive. Tomorrow will come, whether we welcome it or not.”

 

On the other hand, choices are important and no fate is inevitable. Doctor and love interest, Orvieto, tells his patient, Aldo, “Doesn’t matter how often I tell you to rest; what happens next depends on you. It’s the same with this conspiracy. You can warn those in danger, but they must decide how to respond.” Aldo has his own views on jeopardy. “There was no prudence in avoiding danger, because danger always came. Better to calculate the risk and act decisively.” 

The author cannot disguise his political or religious views, literally repeating himself. Early in the novel Aldo remarks, “Changing the minds of those with faith was almost always a lost cause.” Later, as he questions whether so many churches are necessary in Bologna when the coin could be better spent helping the needy, the constable, Strocchi, is uncomfortable with this reasoning. “Aldo chided himself for breaking his own rule: never argue with men of true faith, as changing their minds was almost always a lost cause.” Fearing Aldo is on a revenge mission, Strocchi warns, “You might be able to kill a man in his bed, I can’t. It is for God to take a life.”

 

Bishop animates this time and place with fictional features based on fact. Aldo explains to Cosimo, “Myths are stories told many times. The truth is usually still inside them.” This is the first in a series featuring Cesare Aldo and the city of Florence, and I would be happy to read more about both.

Friday Five: The shows keep on coming

1. The Dear Departed: Live Radio Play - Lexi Sekuless Productions and ArtSound, The Mill Theatre: A fun hour or so spent in the presence of some fine actors going through their paces and clearly enjoying themselves. The play itself is a fairly innocuous drama from 1908 by Stanley Houghton which Bart Meehan has adapted into something more immediately palatable. A couple of sisters, Amelia and Elizabeth (Andrea Close and Helen McFarlane) and their extended family of husbands and child (Richard Manning, Sarah Hartley and Timmy Sekuless), squabble over the last will and testament of their dear deaprted father, until they realise that he (Graeme Rhodes) is not dead a at all. Although they do their own foley and commit to the characterisation, I question whether performing a rehearsed reading is a little self-indulgent. Don't get me wrong, all these people are charming actors and delightful company, but I can't help questioning whether it is more entertaining for the actors than the audience.
2. No Exit - Mockingbird Too, The Studio, Belconnen Arts Centre: The famous quote, "Hell is other people" is the premise of this play, except it was written by Jean-Paul Sartre, so it is actually, "L'enfer, c'est les autres". The originial title is Huis clos, which is the French equivalent of the legal term, in camera, itself Latin for 'in a chamber' or a private discussion behind closed doors. These levels of translation and interpretation are relevant to this existentialist drama first produced in 1944, in which three people, Garcin (Eli Narev), Inez (Victoria Tyrell Dixon) and Estelle (Phoebe Chua) are trapped together in the afterlife. They imagine they will face torture or flames of damnation but the Valet (played with goblin-like glee by Peter Fock) who guides them to their room, assures them that while there is none of that, they can never close their eyes. While physically this does indeed sound like torment, metaphorically they are forced to see everything, including themselves through others' eyes and without filters. Initially they attempt not to speak to each other, but they then decide to explain why and how they died, before falling back upon the realisation that they don't like each other and perhaps silence might be the best policy. Being as we know that hell is eternal, there is no dramtic intrigue in the expectation of a denoument which compromises the pacing of the play. The actors try their best to enliven the situation and Victoria Tyrell Dixon in particular displays her range, from anger to seduction and back through desparation and ennui, as well as she can. The other two are less successful and once the premise is set, the action doesn't really take us anywhere - perhaps that is the true meaning of hell.    
3. Thom Pain (based on nothing) by Will Eno - Lexi Sekuless Production and Joey Minogue, The Mill Theatre: Do you like those stream of consciousness comedians (usually American - usually New York) who seem to fall apart in front of your eyes when performing in a club? Or do they make you cringe as you have no option but to sit and endure their manic inner monologue, wondering if there are actually any jokes in this set at all? If the former, this is the play for you, as Joey Minogue as Thom Pain performs an hour of deep introspection, musing on seemingly random subjects including the death of his childhood dog, which informs his adolescent trauma, while being constantly distracted by his environment. It's a rambling monolgue delivered as therapy, without inviting the audience to do anything but witness a private meditation. The performace is solid, but the show is unengaging.

4. Les Liaisons Dangereuses - Canberra Repertory, Theatre 3: This is a strong production of a highly-regarded play. Excellent performances from the three leads carry the drama and wit well; the casting of married leads (Jordan Best as Merteuil and Jim Adamik as Valmont) allows the sexual flirtation to flourish, and Yanina Clifton as Tourvel displays a haughty demeanour which is broken as she abandons herself to a torturous love. Director Lainie Hart keeps the action tight, with staging in quadrants and sharp character-driven scene changes, the fight scene is well executed, and the understanding of the game-turned-bad nature comes across well through card games and levels of both actors and set. The innovative approach to multiple scenes and locations keeps the pace from dragging too much, as the scene changes are fluid and morph into each other, although a touch more of the letters on which the play/novel is based would have been welcome. The set, sound and costume and are all cohesive; the scarlet woman taffeta of Merteuil and matching waistcoat of Valmont are suitably sumptous, and all the bodices, bustles, ruffles and cuffs look absolutely comme il faut. A commendation must go the intimacy consultant (Jill Young) as this play contains a rape scene which is vey sensitively handled. 
5. Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike - Mockingbird, The Studio, Belco Arts Centre: Brother and sister (by adoption; not birth, which accounts for some almost incestous contemplations), Vanya (Chris Bladock) and Sonia (Tracey Noble) live alone together in a Pennsylvanian farmhouse  contemplating the blue heron in the garden and their daily grind. Their lives stretch before them in an endless future of ennui, until the third sibling, Masha (Helen McFarlane) returns from her rapidly-drying-up screen career with a toyboy lover, Spike (Darcy Worthy), in tow and news that she is going to sell the family home (which she owns and allows her siblings to live in rent-free). There is also a fancy-dress party next door to which she has invited them, bringing costumes that show her in a good light. A young woman, Nina (Lily Welling), suggests a threat to Masha's hold over Spike while providing a catalyst for Vanya to stage his play based on the avant-garde work of Konstantin in The Seagull. And hovering on the edges is Cassandra, the housekeeper who spits out random portentious warnings and dabbles in a little voodoo on the side. Mockingbird Theatre often mixes veteran actors with newcomers, and the effect can make for an uneven production. Chris Baldock is commanding as Vanya, particularly shining in his closing tirade lamenting the decline of manners in the modern world, Tracey Noble fully embodies the petulance of a woman afraid she has missed out on life and trying to blame someone else for her failings, and Helen McFarlane is utterly beliveable as the one trying to cling to her outward presentation to the world, secretly knowing that it isn't their true self. Darcy Worthy keeps taking his clothes off as the script demands and he is certainly nice to look at, although his acting is laboured and gestures repetitive, Lily Welling's freshness and innocence are delightful but the pitch is a little too high, and India Kazakoff feels too young and inexperienced to carry the weight of the Cassandra character (described as '30-60' in the script). Steph Evans directs with a relatively light touch - the best moments are the natural sibling bickerings - in this consummate satire of Chekovian drama in which nothing appears to happen, but everything actually does. 

Friday Five: Books Read in April

1. City of Vengeance by D. V. Bishop (Macmillan) - This is the first in a planned series featuring Cesare Aldo and the city of Florence, and I would be happy to read more about both. This is the time of the Medicis, when Alessandro, Duke of Florence, murdered by his cousin, Lorenzino de’ Medici, was succeeded by Cosimo de’ Medici. There are murders, family feuds, personal grievances, religious disputes and secrets around every corner.With multiple plots, subplots, and frequent switches between character and locations, the story is almost deliciously Shakespearean. Cesare Aldo is our unlikely hero, a former soldier, with a war-injured knee, now a member of the Otto di Guardia (the eight), the city’s most feared criminal court. While ruthless when required, he has a (poorly kept) secret of his own. He is homosexual, a ‘crime’ punishable by death. Ambushes, chase sequences and vivid descriptions of the Renaissance city keep the pages turning rapidly, while digressions about the nature of power and control give the novel a contemporary aspect.
2. Madame Burova by Ruth Hogan (Two Roads) - Nice cover; shame about the cloying middle-class morality and condescending judgement. Madame Burova is a tarot reader who takes over from her mother Shunty Mae to run their sea front booth in Brighton and also works at the local holiday park, meeting lots of 'interesting characters'. Meanwhile, Billie, a young woman in London whose entire individuality seems to rely on the fact that she wears a jaunty bowler hat, finds out that she is adopted and travels to Brighton to uncover the truth of her origin story. The author makes her point so often that the characters have no personality of their own, and there are pages of exposition and creaky prose littered with unncessary adjectives. The period setting of 1973 to which we frequently flash back is practicably indistinguishable from the contemporary sections; what world does this author live in? We are firmly in the 'what could ever make a woman give up her precious baby' territory and authorial attitudes I thought had been left behind last century. 
3. Witches: What Women Do Together by Sam George-Allen (Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group) - I listened to this one as it is read by the author and they kept me company on car rides and bus trips. The premise is the fear that patriarchy has of women, especially when they get together, leads to their need to silence, censure, denigrate and ridicule us. From sport to music, to communication and activism, women's activities are seen as lesser by society. The greatest success of the patriarchy is pitting women against each other - women are easier to control (and sell things to) and compress into one of the very few ways to 'acceptably' be a woman if they are isolated. Conversely, they are often forced into the 'community and caring' roles, which are naturally underappreciated and underpaid, because they are 'women's work'. The allure of a network of connected women is what lies behind the pull of Wonder Woman and the fear of The Handmaid's Tale. This is admittedly a western-centric view of society - because that is the one in which the author and I live - which celebrates the power and pleasure of being among women. 
4. Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy (Penguin Random House Australia) - The world setting of this novel makes a mark right from the start. A man and his three children live on a remote island halfway between Australia and Antarctica (it's called Shearwater and clearly based on Macquarie), which is rich in marine wildlife and home to the world's largest seed bank. A woman is washed ashore while looking for her husband who was working there and left increasingly mysterious messages. As the family nurse her back to health, she realises that the island hides secrets and as the sea levels rise, all the inhabitants are threatened. Part mystery; part eco-drama; part psychological treatsie on isolation, preservation and growth, this book is patchy in places but memorable as a whole.

Friday Five: Cross-stitch Scandi Love

This collection from Spruce Cross Stitch was called 'Scandi-love', so I thought it approrpriate to post them as we head into Eurovision. I gave the first one of them to a friend for her birthday - it sits framed on her desk at work.

 

Horror in Another Dimension: Strange Houses

Strange Houses by Uketsu

Pushkin Vertigo

Pp.197

 

This is the first of three (so far) short novels by Uketsu, translated to English from the original Japanese by Jim Rion. According to the publisher’s blurb, the author, Uketsu, is “an enigmatic YouTuber and author, specializing in horror and mystery, who has exploded onto the literary scene in Japan, where his books have sold millions of copies. He only ever appears online, wearing a mask and speaking through a voice changer. His true identity is unknown.” A sort of viral Banksy if you will.

 

The story begins with the narrator explaining, “I’m a freelance writer, my speciality being stories of the macabre. Given this line of work, lots of people approach me with their personal experiences of the eerie and the unpleasant.” He goes on to tell a story with a blanket level of detail, in which floor plans and family trees take up half the book – refreshingly, there is no need to flick back to the beginning pictures to follow along. The floor plans reveal hidden passages and secret rooms for nefarious business. Most of the text is written as play dialogue, which contains all the exposition so there is very little description. There is an element of Edgar Allen Poe’s short stories; thrilling creepy tales that can be read in a day or two.

 

In keeping with detective fiction rules that all clues must be mentioned, there are plenty of apparent irrelevancies, but also deliberate omissions. Despite exhuming some standard tropes, the Japanese horror story is certainly different. Sub-headings within chapters are almost like a child’s first reader: A Message from a Friend; An Unexpected Email; The Mysterious Space; Daydream; Two Bathrooms; The Article; A Grisly Discovery; Differences; The Letter; The Hidden Room; The Sign. The tale deals with dismembered bodies, curses, murderous children, blackmail, and the importance of succession and illegitimacy. One character fairly remarks, “I can see how it all fits together, but… isn’t it all a little far-fetched? It’s so convoluted.” Japanese horror is built on this sort of thing, and there is already a film - released in Japan in 2024.

 

The murders themselves seem quite matter of fact. “The Katabuchi family has been murdering people for generations. I don’t know why, but it has become a tradition.” When a character suspects her father is involved, the narrator notes, “It was not the kind of truth that most people could have accepted so calmly, but she seemed surprisingly untroubled.” He, himself, hardly seems more disturbed, as he ponders where a child was killed, but not why they were killed at all. He casually discusses horrific customs, such as, “Mabiki. ‘Thinning the garden’. In Japan, there was once a tradition of aborting babies or even killing children to keep down the number of mouths to feed. The practice lasted into the late nineteenth or even early twentieth century in some communities.” When the ending appears to be inconclusive, and his colleague “flashed a broad grin”, he allows himself to feel “a twinge of irritation at his total lack of concern.”

 

Training children in macabre cults and brainwashing them into murder adds a particularly chilling element. “He had an unhealthy pallor, and his expression was as blank as if it had never known emotion… He never took any action of his own volition and never expressed any of his own feelings or desires.” The whole scenario is highly implausible, but this is the breeding ground for horror. “It sounds wild, but we already know the Katabuchi family is not a normal one.” Investigating murder by looking into floor plans brings a new angle – in many dimensions – to a standard genre. They may be compact crimes, but they are far from cosy.

Fiday Five: Latest Cat Memes

Simply because these things make me happy, and anyone who shares feline company can relate.

Friday Five: Books Read in March

1. Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall (Elliott and Thompson Ltd) - To see how nations and cultures behave they way we do, we often look to history. In this fascinating work, Tim Marshall posits that past actions may have more to do with geography; natural rivers and mountains as boundaries (France was a successful nation because it has the most kilometres of navigable rivers of any country in the world, thus facilitating movement of goods and ease of trade), and artificial partitions (the arbitrary division of East and West Pakistan has caused unrest and volatility in the subcontinent for the past eighty years). For example, the USA and Russia had communication and unification issues purely due to their physical magnitude; Egypt didn't become a colonialist power because it had no trees with which to build ships; and China seeks expansion to secure warm water seaports. Control of ports, seas, exclaves, canals and straits are of crucial geopolitical importance. Marshall wrote this book in 2015, and this is a revised version published in 2025. With recent global conflicts, including the war to control the Strait of Hormuz, he has plenty to include in his next update. 
2. Cunning Women by Elizabeth Lee (Windmill Books) - Of course I was going to read this book set in 1620 Lanacshire, at the height of the persecution of women condemened as wiches. In a small hamlet abandoned since the plague, the only people who live there are the Haworth family: Sarah, her little sister Annie (who is practically feral), her brother John and their mother, who is losing her wits (increasingly conversing with her familiar, Dew Springer) potentially due to lack of contact with the local community. It's sort of a love story as Daniel falls for Sarah but cannot explain why, so naturally others say it's because she has bewitched him, particularly the pretty May Queen who wants him for herself. It is also an exposé of hypocrisy as the villagers like the family and use their knowledge when it suits them, but blame and condemn them when that is more convenient.
3. The Dark Side of Camelot by Seymour Hersch (Harper Collins) - There is a romantic view of JFK, enhanced in part by his assassination. If that's the way you'd like to preserve your idealisation, I would recommend steering clear of this book. From his serial womanising (he had people to procure him prostitutes and warn him when Jackie was returning to the White House so he could get them out of the pool), to his evident connections with the Mafia and organised crime, via his complete and callous incompetency over the Bay of Pigs incident and the Cuban Missile Crisis, there was something very rotten in the state of D.C. As part of his personal feud with Fidel Castro, Kennedy authorised to the CIA to lace Castro's cigars with toxins, poison his milkshakes, prepare contaminated diving suits and rig brightly-coloured explosive seashells in the areas where he commonly went skin diving, not to mention bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war. He made deals with Russian politicians, which have only come to light since the declassification of documents and personal correspondence in the late 1990s, escalated the Vietnam War and approved the use of chemical weapons. He was also on multiple drugs (including opioids, anaesthetics, steroids, tranquilizers and stimulants) to manage his back pain - naturally this toxic cocktail would have affected his judgement as much as the corset he wore to straighten his posture prevented him from slouching in the seat on that fatal day in Dallas. The tone of the book is very serious and wordy, so don't expect light relief, but then again, you might consider that the hagiography of an arrogant, misguided misogynist to be no laughing matter.
4. The Shortest History of Australia by Mark McKenna (Black Inc.) - The 'Shortest History of' series began with Europe in 2012. It has since expanded to include titles on Japan, Greece, Ancient Rome, India, Democracy, The Crown, War, Economics and Innovation. The premise is that they offer 'clear and concise accounts of broad-ranging topics from the world's leading subject matter experts [that] can be read in an afternoon and will transform your perspective for a lifetime.' At over 250 pages and packed with facts and information, I dispute the idea that this could be read in an afternoon, but I do agree that it is fascinating and illuminating. Perhaps the main theory behind this treatsie is that the history of Australia is neither linear nor consequential but that many strands can co-exist consecutively. Indigenous Australia, the penal colony, the gold rush, Federation, WWI and the formation of the Anzac legend (Australia being "the only modern nation-state to create an origin myth not located on its own soil"), WWII, the Cold War, and waves of non-British migration are all necessary to the shaping of the country, and all are essential to understand Australia as it is now.  
5. Strange Houses by Uketsu (Pushkin Vertigo) - In this Japanese horror/ mystery, housing floor plans and family trees take up half the book. Much of the text is written as play dialogue, which contains all the exposition, so there is very little description. The tale deals with dismembered bodies, family curses, murderous children, blackmail, and the importance of succession. Despite being pretty far-fetched and exhuming some standard tropes, the creepy thriller is certainly different in style. There is an element of Edgar Allen Poe's short stories, which can be read in a day or two, but leaves a lasting impression.