Read this book!
I think Roger McDonald read Patrick O'Brian books as part of his research for Desmond Kale. There's lot more rum drinking, shanty singing and holystoning of decks than was really needed to get the characters from A to B (via C,D,E and F). And he uses a surprising number of nautical terms, in a manner completely consistent with Mr O'Brian. At least they're not talking about sheep in these bits. I only wish Captain Jack would arrive!
One of the many things bothering me about Desmond is the opposite sort of problem to the one I was complaining about the other day where Peter Ackroyd put real people in his novels. In this book, major figures based on real people have different names and (I assume) different characters but I'm ashamed that I don't know enough about Australian history to know who their real world proxies would be and how similar they are. I thought for a while that the governor was meant to be Lachlan Macquarie, who was rather nice to the convicts and built lots of public buildings which are still standing and established the only good town planning Sydney ever had even if it was reversed the minute he left. I remember that he wasn't treated that well when he returned to England but what happens to the character in the book is quite OTT.
And there's an explorer who I feel like I should recognise but grade four Social Studies was a long time ago.
So I guess it's all fiction and I shouldn't be overly suprised by an ending that doesn't accord with reality. Maybe the won't establish a great Australian wool industry.
On to more pleasant things: we went and saw Tristram Shandy the other day about the making of a movie of an apparently unfilmable book. It was great fun, not least because Gillian Anderson demonstrates she CAN move her face unlike in Bleak House. But NO-ONE I've spoken to about this has read the book. Most of the people in the movie hadn't either but that was the point.
Um, it's terrific. Easy to read - I've never finished Gullivers Travels so it's easier than that. Funny. Makes you really think that people living in the eighteenth century are just like us.
Admittedly the only reason I read it was because the terribly clever and beautiful girl George Johnstone was in love with in My Brother Jack carried a copy with her wherever she went. I can't remember if they read it either.
One of the many things bothering me about Desmond is the opposite sort of problem to the one I was complaining about the other day where Peter Ackroyd put real people in his novels. In this book, major figures based on real people have different names and (I assume) different characters but I'm ashamed that I don't know enough about Australian history to know who their real world proxies would be and how similar they are. I thought for a while that the governor was meant to be Lachlan Macquarie, who was rather nice to the convicts and built lots of public buildings which are still standing and established the only good town planning Sydney ever had even if it was reversed the minute he left. I remember that he wasn't treated that well when he returned to England but what happens to the character in the book is quite OTT.
And there's an explorer who I feel like I should recognise but grade four Social Studies was a long time ago.
So I guess it's all fiction and I shouldn't be overly suprised by an ending that doesn't accord with reality. Maybe the won't establish a great Australian wool industry.
On to more pleasant things: we went and saw Tristram Shandy the other day about the making of a movie of an apparently unfilmable book. It was great fun, not least because Gillian Anderson demonstrates she CAN move her face unlike in Bleak House. But NO-ONE I've spoken to about this has read the book. Most of the people in the movie hadn't either but that was the point.
Um, it's terrific. Easy to read - I've never finished Gullivers Travels so it's easier than that. Funny. Makes you really think that people living in the eighteenth century are just like us.
Admittedly the only reason I read it was because the terribly clever and beautiful girl George Johnstone was in love with in My Brother Jack carried a copy with her wherever she went. I can't remember if they read it either.
posted by Mary Bennet | 1:00 pm
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