I’ve just read ‘Graham Greene: A Life in Letters’ edited by Richard Greene [no relation], published in 2007 [446 pages]………….I’d never read any of Greene’s novels though knew I had one somewhere, eventually tracked it down, a Penguin paperback of The Honorary Consul’, first published in 1973, which I refer to later, as I decided I had to read at least one of his novels.
As revealed through his letters, his novels were generally based upon people he’d met, or places and international conflicts that he found himself involved in. And as revealed through the letters, a vivid portrait of a fascinating writer, a mercurial man of courage, wit and passion.
As Amazon describes it – “One of the undisputed masters of twentieth-century English prose, Graham Greene (1904-1991) wrote tens of thousands of personal letters. This exemplary volume presents a new and engrossing account of his life constructed out of his own words. Impeccably edited by scholar Richard Greene, the letters–including many unavailable even to his official biographer–give a new perspective on a life that combined literary achievement, political action, espionage, travel, and romantic entanglement. The letters describe his travels in such places as Mexico, Vietnam, and Cuba, where he observed the struggles of mankind with a compassionate and truthful eye. Letters to friends such as Evelyn Waugh and Muriel Spark offer a glimpse into the literary culture in which he wrote, while others reveal the agonies of his heart. The sheer range of experience contained in Greene’s correspondence defies comparison”.
These letters, as published by his namesake, were written over 70 years, from September, 1921 to the 21 March, 1991 [14 days before he died]. As a prolific writer of diaries, personal notes and reflections myself, I guess that was the reason I was attracted to the book. He was not just an author – but a journalist, reporter, investigator, confidante of the famous in both literary and political circles, constantly travelling around the world, usually to political hotspots and war or revolutionary zones in Asia, Central and South America, Africa, Russia and other Communist controlled countries during both the years of World War II, and the subsequent Cold War period, with his life and personal safety often at risk. His letters generally pulled no punches, many of a highly personal and romantic nature. His correspondence relationship with so many great authors [many of whom I was not familiar with] including in particular that great novelist and diary writer, Evelyn Waugh [whom I always believed was a woman for some reason] provided for me, a fascinating insight into the world of writers, publishing and books in general.
[Incidentally, I don’t have any of Waugh’s novels, but do have a massive volume of his life’s Diaries, which admittedly, I’ve not yet tried to tackle!!].
In addition to the actual letters, there are footnotes on most pages. Providing either a brief biography of the person to whom he is writing, or where it was known why he was writing in particular instances. These notes of course do slow down the reading process, but are an invaluable aid to understanding [usually] the purpose of the letter and Greene’s connection with the recipient.
Grahame Greene himself notes that – There have been a number of Graham Greene biographies, but none has captured his voice, his loves, hates, family and friends–intimate and writerly–or his deep understanding of the world, like this astonishing collection of letters………………………………………………………………….. Graham Greene is one of the few modern novelists who can be called great. In the course of his long and eventful life (1904—1991), he wrote tens of thousands of letters to family, friends, writers, publishers and others involved in his various interests and causes. A Life in Letters presents a fresh and engrossing account of his life, career and mind in his own words.
In summary a comment from Google.books provides another encouraging description of the book – ‘In several letters, the individuals, events or places described provide the inspiration for characters, episodes or locations found in his later fiction. The correspondence describes his travels in Mexico, Africa, Malaya, Vietnam, Haiti, Cuba, Sierra Leone, Liberia and other trouble spots, where he observed the struggles of victims and victors with a compassionate and truthful eye. The volume includes a vast number of unpublished letters to authors Evelyn Waugh, Auberon Waugh, Anthony Powell, Edith Sitwell, R.K. Narayan and Muriel Spark, and to other more notorious individuals such as the double-agent Kim Philby. Some of these letters dispute previous assessments of his character, such as his alleged anti-Semitism or obscenity, and he emerges as a man of deep integrity, decency and courage. Others reveal the agonies of his romantic life, especially his relations with his wife, Vivien Greene, and with one of his mistresses, Catherine Walston. The letters can be poignant, despairing, amorous, furious or amusing, but the sheer range of experience contained in them will astound everyone who reads this book.’
While from the book cover – “When he loved, he loved fervently, but he also struggled to manage the unpredictable mood swings, the highs and lows of bipolar disorder that drove him from exalted happiness to despair. Letters to friends like Evelyn Waugh, Muriel Spak, Anthony Powell and R.K. Narayan offer a glimpse
into the literary culture in which he wrote. Other letters reveal the agonies of his heart, how his manic depression wreaked havoc on his marriage to Vivien Greene and injured his relations with his mistress Catherine Walston.”
A book that gives new perspective to a life that combined literary achievement, political action, espionage, travel and romantic entanglement….following him through joy and turmoil, from the gnarled and fissured forests of Indo-China to war-torn Sierra Leone, from the mountains of Switzerland to hotels in Havana and a connection of sorts with leaders like Fidel Castro, and various revolutionary characters from South America.
The letters also reveal much about his support at times, and other times, conflict with the Catholic Church, and his inter-action with a couple of the Popes of his era, and other religious intermediaries.
A brief comment on The Honorary Consul by Grahame Greene [published in 1973, of 268 pages [my Penguin edition]. After having read Greene’s letters, I expected his novels to be essentially based on parts of the world he had travelled to, often with the purpose of exploring those areas and lifestyles for incorporation into a planned novel. I wasn’t sure what to expect, not having read him previously. This story, I found somewhat enjoyable, if at times, realistically unpleasant in terms of the subject matter.
A gripping tragicomedy of a bungled kidnapping in a provincial Argentinean town, considered to be one of Greene’s finest novels. The story is set in the provincial city of Corrientes, part of the Argentine Littoral, on the shore of the Paraná River. Eduardo Plarr is an unmarried medical doctor of English descent who, as a boy, fled to Buenos Aires with his Paraguayan mother to escape the political turmoil of Paraguay. His English father remained in Paraguay as a political rebel and, aside from a single hand-delivered letter, they never hear from him again. Throughout the novel, there is much reflection by various characters on the absence of ‘father figures’ for numerous reasons. I believe the story is also set on the eve of Argentine’s ‘dirty War’ in the early 1970’s.
In this provincial Argentinian community, Charley Fortnum – a British consul with dubious authority and a notorious fondness for drink – is kidnapped by rebels in a case of mistaken identity. Fortnum, 61 years old is married to Clara, a young ex-whore from Senora Sanchez’s brothel. The young but world-weary Doctor Eduardo Plarr, is left to pick up the pieces and secure Fortnum’s release, wading through a sea of incompetence and unearthing corruption among authorities and revolutionaries in the process.
First published in 1973, The Honorary Consul is a British thriller novel, and was one of Greene’s own favourites of his works and is regarded amongst his finest novels, with Plarr perhaps the most moving and convincing figure in his fiction. The story is set in an unnamed city in northern Argentina, near the border with Paraguay which can be assumed to be the city of Corrientes.
In what is described as a ‘perfectly executed narrative’, Greene explores the repercussions of the bungled kidnap, and gives special attention to Dr Plarr whose deficient emotions form the heart of the story.
While I won’t go into the article itself, a piece written on a site named literarysum/com and titled ‘Unveiling the Layers: A Comprehensive Literary Analysis of The Honorary Consul by Graham Greene’, introduced the subject as follows – ‘The Honorary Consul by Graham Greene is a complex novel that delves into the themes of love, betrayal, and political intrigue. This article provides a comprehensive literary analysis of the novel, exploring its various layers and uncovering the hidden meanings behind its characters and plot. Through a close examination of the novel’s themes, symbolism, and narrative structure, this article aims to provide readers with a deeper understanding of Greene’s masterpiece’ which all indicates we have more than just a ‘British thriller novel’, another indication of Greene’s literary talents.
As described at the time of publication, by the Daily Mail: ‘The prose is monkishly spare and taut. The minor characters are brilliantly and sardonically drawn, that ever he has given us’. It sounds as though I made the right choice, in being introduced to Greene’s writings [apart from his letters].
This contribution looks at a number of books and other publications which I have read and examined over the past two or three months, as listed briefly below.
Australian Foreign Affairs, Issue 23 ‘Planet Australia’;Escaping America’s Orbit’.
Quarterly Essay No. 97: ‘Losing It. Can we stop violence against women and children’ [by Jess Hill];
Memorial Days’ by Geraldine Brooks [2025];
The Fallen Woman by Fiona McIntosh [2024];
Lyrebird by Jane Caro [2025];
The Historian: To you perceptive reader, I bequeath my history, by Elizabeth Kostova [2005];
The Astonishing History of Ballarat, Volume 3: The Story of the Quartz Miners of Ballarat: 1851-1878 by Doug Bradby [2020];
Quarterly Essay No. 98 headed ‘Hard New World: Our Post-American Future’ by Hugh White.
What is Australia’s place in the new global landscape?
‘Until August’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ [2024]; and,
This 23rd issue of Australian Foreign Affairs [a publication issued three times a year] explored Australia’s changing fortunes as Donald Trump returns to the White House and threatens to dismantle the diplomatic, economic and defence foundations on which Canberra has long built its security and prosperity. It examines the consequences for Australia as some of its most important friends and partners – including India, Indonesia and the United States – shift towards authoritarianism and illiberalism. Featuring special contributions from our three most recent ambassadors to the United States, Planet Australia looks at how Australian leaders and diplomats should deal with Trump and prepare for looming challenges to the alliance, open trade, and a secure and stable Asia.
Essays included:
James Curran explores Australia’s relationship with the US in the age of Trump. He points to the fact that the America Australia has become accustomed to, is changing.
Emma Shortis argues that Canberra should be bold as the global order shifts. Among other things, suggests that Trump does not care about Australia, so why should be cosy up to him, it won’t make Australia any safer.
Susan Stone analyses Trump’s economic plan and how Australia might benefit, in a fairly detailed analytical approach to that aspect of the economic relationship.
Kim Beazley, Joe Hockey and Arthur Sinodinos discuss the diplomatic challenges facing Australia in Washington DC. An interesting set of views from three former ambassadors. From Beazley – “Trump will be more disruptive and les predictable, but Australia is well placed to protect and advance its own interests’. Hockey: “No matter what, the United States has [historically] had ‘disruptors in chief’ before. It’s institutions and constitution are robust enough to cope with the strain’. From Sinodinos: “Swlf-reliance is not a code for appeasing China, we have stood up to China in recent years and weathered the trde and economic coercion that followed – self-reliance also means putting our own house in order [and] in Trump world, the fate of regional groupings hangs in the balance”.
Other items included a discussion of Kevin Rudd’s recent book ‘On Xi Jinping: How Xi’s Marxist Nationalism Is Shaping China and the World’ – worth a read I feel, although as Rudd himself warns, it is ‘a heavy read’ and parts of it have a deep textual analysis which might defeat the ordinary readers [where I might place myself]. The other interesting book review is of ‘Gret Game On: The Contest for Central Asia and Global Supremacy’ by Geoff Raby. The reviewer suggests that Raby doesn’t cover in much detail the real states of central Asia – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan – those areas or of interest to myself, I’d like to find a book specifically about their history and people, other than through this publication.
28th March
Quarterly Essay No. 97: ‘Losing It. Can we stop violence against women and children
What will it take to stop gendered violence? This was a quite disturbing, and worrying essay, extremely well researched by Jess Hill, author of ‘See What You Made Me Do’
What went wrong? Australian governments promised to end violence against women and children in a single generation. Instead, it is escalating: men have been murdering women at an increased rate, coercive control and sexual violence is becoming more complex and severe, and we see a marked rise in youth-on-youth sexual assault. Why?
In Losing It, Jess Hill investigates Australia’s National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children to find out what’s working and what’s not – and what we can do to turn things around. This compassionate, ground-breaking essay lifts the lid on a national crisis.
“Over several years I often heard the same misgivings from academics, bureaucrats and frontline workers: many believed the [prevention] strategy … was too abstract and disconnected from the front line; that it did not reach the boys and men it needed to, and at worst was actually promoting backlash. Many were – and still are – afraid to say so openly.” – Jess Hill, Losing It.
Tonight, I finished reading ‘Memorial Days’ by Geraldine Brooks, published in 2025, just 207 pages, a short easily read personal story full of pathos, unbelievable grief, and a reckoning with the inevitability of loss.
In 2022. The award winning book ‘Horse’ by Geraldine was published, and I made comment on that book in the Coachbuilder’s Column that year.
She was partway through the writing of that book, when, on Memorial Day in the USA, May 27, 2019, she received a ‘cold’ phone call from the local hospital, to tell her that her much loved husband, Tony Horwitz, had collapsed and died on the street, far from home, in the middle of his own strenuous book tour. The complex tasks required in the face of such a sudden death left her no time to properly grieve for him. Three years later, still feeling broken and bereft, she booked a flight to Flinders Island off the coast of Tasmania [where she and Tony had spent some together]. There, she pondered the ways other cultures deal with mourning and finally seized the time and space she needed for her own grief. Alone on a rugged stretch of coast, she revisited a 35-year marriage filled with risk, adventure, humour and love.
‘Memorial Days’ is Geraldine’s story of the loss of her husband and the immediate months that followed, the eventual publication of ‘Horse’, and her healing period of isolation on Flinders Island. A short book, short chapters, alternating between the immediate weeks following Tony’s death, and her time on Flinders Island.
If readers feel this story might help with their owe loss of whatever nature, I recommend a read, In the meantime, four short quotations from ‘Memorial Days’.
[On Flinders Island] – Two of my friends approach, their faces grave. How an earth did they get here? One gently reaches out and touches my shoulder. ‘You said you wished there had been someone there with you, the last time, so we’ve come here to tell you….An immense dread. I wake up, heart pounding. The nightmare expresses my life’s sudden precarity. I absolutely cannot afford to lose anyone else [p.167-168];
Night is an even better time to be out here. If the island’s rocks put me in my place, it’s stars do, too. Nature is a remorseless reminder of human insignificance. Daytime, nighttime – there’s no escape from the realization of how little we matter [p. 191];
I have written this because I needed to do it. Part of the treatment for ‘complicated grief’ is to relive the trauma of the death, returning to the moments again and again, striving each time to recall more detail. That’s what I have tried to do. [p.202];
The time on Flinders Island allowed me to set down one of the bundles in the baggage of my grief. It’s the grief I’d been carrying for the life I would have had, the life U=I had counted on having. It was the life with sunset-facing rocking chairs, growing old with Tony beside me, laughing, arguing over the news, revisiting shared memories, and taking pride as our sons moved confidently into manhood. That life is gone, nothing will get it back. I have accepted that. I have embarked on making the life I have as vivid and consequential as I can. Do your work, said Bader Ginsburg. So, that is what I do [p. 204];
23rd April
‘The Fallen Woman’ by Fiona McIntosh [published in 2024] of 431 pages – an English historical fiction novel set in the English countryside, in a forgotten orchard and beneath the ancient spire of Salisbury Cathedral, basically a heart-wrenching story of family betrayal, loss and tragedy, the love of an unwanted child, and the potential, almost lost through misunderstanding, of a new previously undreamed of life, about a woman who finds that in her darkest hour, she can harness her greatest strength. The author, an internationally acclaimed best-selling Australian who roams the world for her writing research, and lives between Adelaide [SA] and Wiltshire, England. An enjoyable read, away from the more serious deep-thinking non-fiction reads of recent times.
In basic summary – Botanical artist Jane Saville is devastated when her manipulative mother banishes her to the countryside to protect someone else’s honour. Isolated far from home, she is forced to live an impoverished, secretive life to save the family from public shame.
Guy Attwood is heir to a fortune, but prefers his quiet passion for rare-apple hunting on behalf of Royal Kew Gardens to building the family’s business empire. He sets out to find a critically endangered apple species that he dreams of gifting and re-naming for his friend, the soon-to-be coronated George V.
When the paths of these people from two very different worlds collide, Jane begins to hope for a different future, but their new friendship is shattered by jealousy, misunderstanding, duty and treachery. A young boy will inspire Jane to defy the powers working against her and prove she is no woman to be outcast.
Released into the congested Christmas market for 2025, The Fallen Woman went straight into the National Top 10. Since then, it has consistently been praised as a favourite – if not THE favourite – of McIntosh’s recent historical novels. It is Fiona’s 44th title.
23rd April
Another light read – ‘Lyrebird’ by Jane Caro [published in 2025], of 360 pages. A modern crime thriller set within the Maitland – Newcastle – Barrington Tops area of NSW, when an ornithology student comes across a lyrebird in the remote Barrington area which she videos as it projects a variety of mimics, one of which is that of a woman screaming in terror, and realising that the lyrebird does not create its own sounds but mimics those it hears, takes her video to the police, who after a cursory and ‘scornful’ investigation, drop any subsequent searches etc. Despite support from the newly minted detective, Megan Blaxland, with no missing person reported and no body, her evidence is ridiculed and dismissed.
Twenty years later, the remains of a woman are found in the area where the student had claimed the screams had been recorded. As well as an original mystery murder thriller, this novel also considers issues of injustice and prejudice, the slavery of the Asian sex-trade, and the vivid description of a major Australian bush fire in which many of story’s participants get caught up in.
15th May
I’ve just completed reading ‘The Historian: To you perceptive reader, I bequeath my history’ written by Elizabeth Kostova [published in 2005], of 642 pages. When I began this book, I wondered if I’d get through it, not quite in the mode of novel I generally prefer – the historical aspect of the novel was quite fascinating, but in my eyes, the unreality of what was been depicted went a bit far! However, the further I read, the more I was drawn in and keen to see the novel’s outcome.
Bram Stoker wrote the novel ‘Dracula’ in 1897, and this was produced in 1992 as an American Gothic horror film. In 1462, Vlad Dracula returns from a victory in his campaign against the Ottoman Empire to find his beloved wife Elisabeta has committed suicide after his enemies falsely reported his death. A priest of the Romanian Orthodox Church tells him that his wife’s soul is damned to Hell for committing suicide. Enraged, Vlad desecrates the chapel and renounces God, declaring he will rise from the grave to avenge Elisabeta with all the powers of darkness. He then drives his sword into the chapel’s stone cross and drinks the blood that pours from it, becoming a vampire.
Elizabeth Kostova’s novel is based on that story of Dracula, and the repercussions of his curse on a number of scientists and historians some 500 years later and set principally during the post -WWII period in the Communist controlled countries of eastern Europe at that time. It is a novel that blends fact and fiction to create a compelling story. The novel follows an unnamed narrator who accompanies her father, Paul, on a journey across Europe in the early 1970.
The San Franciso Chronicle described her novel as – ‘The record-breaking phenomenon from Elizabeth Kostova is a celebrated masterpiece that “refashioned the vampire myth into a compelling contemporary novel, and a late-night page turner’. [Though perhaps not a book to read late at night with just oneself as company ].
The novel is best summed up as follows from Kostova’s website
Late one night, exploring her father’s library, a young woman finds an ancient book and a cache of yellowing letters. The letters are all addressed to “My dear and unfortunate successor,” and they plunge her into a world she never dreamed of, a labyrinth where the secrets of her father’s past and her mother’s mysterious fate connect to an inconceivable evil hidden in the depths of history.
The letters provide links to one of the darkest powers that humanity has ever known and to a centuries-long quest to find the source of that darkness and wipe it out. It is a quest for the truth about Vlad the Impaler, the medieval ruler whose barbarous reign formed the basis of the legend of Dracula. Generations of historians have risked their reputations, their sanity, and even their lives to learn the truth about Vlad the Impaler and Dracula. Now one young woman must decide whether to take up this quest herself–to follow her father in a hunt that nearly brought him to ruin years ago, when he was a vibrant young scholar and her mother was still alive.
What does the legend of Vlad the Impaler have to do with the modern world? Is it possible that the Dracula of myth truly existed and that he has lived on, century after century, pursuing his own unknowable ends? The answers to these questions cross time and borders, as first the father and then the daughter search for clues, from dusty Ivy League libraries to Istanbul, Budapest, and the depths of Eastern Europe. In city after city, in monasteries and archives, in letters and in secret conversations, the horrible truth emerges about Vlad the Impaler’s dark reign and about a time-defying pact that may have kept his awful work alive down through the ages.
Parsing obscure signs and hidden texts, reading codes worked into the fabric of medieval monastic traditions-and evading the unknown adversaries who will go to any lengths to conceal and protect Vlad’s ancient powers-one woman comes ever closer to the secret of her own past and a confrontation with the very definition of evil. Elizabeth Kostova’s debut novel is an adventure of monumental proportions, a relentless tale that blends fact and fantasy, history and the present, with an assurance that is almost unbearably suspenseful-and utterly unforgettable.
Looking for reviews of the book, we had both sides of extreme reactions – I’ve chosen one which is basically in tune with how I felt about the story but does also highlight some of the reasons why people did not like the story or writing style. One Book Club member wrote:
“This is actually the second time I’ve read this book. For a first novel, it is outstanding. I was completely engrossed in the story. I really love history and the whole Dracula lore. I thought it was a great mix of both. It added a lot of suspense that made me read it with the lights on. I think I read it in about four days, I just couldn’t put it down. I will say this though, if you are not really into history or researching, I would skip it. If you are wanting to read it just because it has to do with Dracula, I would pick a much smaller book. However, I just love history and research (duh, I work in a library) so it was right up my alley. Actually, I’m doing a little research on it myself. I did read some of the comments on Amazon.com and wasn’t exactly surprised by the comments. It was either a “love it” or “hate it” book. That is why I throw my caution out there. Basically, people who didn’t enjoy it were out for a Dracula story and thought the history was “a drag”. I’m really into history so I thought it was pretty damn good. I will say I did discover a few historical inaccuracies, but I think I’ll let them fly for now. All in all, a good read, especially for a rainy day.”:
In sharp contrast, amongst many criticisms, but especially with regard to the ‘letters’ which form the basis of the novel, someone wrote – — “Unbelievably detailed letters! Now I have read a number of great books that use the format of letter writing to convey the plot. But this? Ridiculous. Not only are these letters insanely long, but they are insanely detailed as well, creating yet another reason why the book and the characters are completely unbelievable. If that’s how the author wanted to write this, why did she do the letter thing at all? “
[I have to admit, that at times, it wasn’t always initially clear who was writing which particular letter, although that was eventually recognisable]
19th May
Another fascinating little touch of Ballarat gold-mining history – the book was titled ‘The Astonishing History of Ballarat’, Volume 3: The Story of the Quartz Miners of Ballarat: 1851-1878 by local author Doug Bradby, published in 2020, of 266 pages, personally signed by the author. I have read, quite quickly at the time, many of Doug’s historical little books about Ballarat – this one I found to be much more technical, with lots of tables, and statistics, with his usual predominance of quotations of newspaper articles, etc – which is probably why reading was deferred so any times over recent years [since being given to me at the end of 2021] and diverted to other reading material, finally returning to the book recently
In 1856, at the height of the alluvial goldrush, Ballarat produced 823,334 ounces of gold. By 1878 the figure was a mere 12,984 ounces. Ballarat was ‘on its last legs’. However, in the Black Hill [near my former Ballarat home], Llanberris [where my Saturdays were spent at the subsequent athletics track in the 1960s], Temperance and Imperial mines, miners had developed efficient ways to find and extract gold from quartz. Ballarat now had a fighting chance of surviving. Thank heavens they persevered, comments Doug Bradby.
This Astonishing History of Ballarat, Volume Three tells the story of those undervalued, marginalised miners, who from 1851 to 1878, laid the foundations for Ballarat’s transition from alluvial to quartz mining
Speaking about his book for the Ballarat Times newspaper in July 2020, Bradby, in an article written by Edwina Williams, said “this period was one of great difficulty for miners trying to make a living in Ballarat, with the press describing the local industry as being “on its last legs.” This is when they know the alluvial gold in the buried rivers will run out and they’ll have to make a painful transition to an industrial, complex quartz mining system,” Bradby said. “They know at some point, they’ll have to go back to finding where the quartz came from, smashing it, and getting the gold out.
“Ballarat in the 1870s was in diabolical trouble, in a depression. They struggle, and struggle and struggle, and by 1878, they haven’t succeeded, although there’s persistence and resilience from four mines that get better and better.”
He said the three decades were packed full of conflict.
There’s a big riot in Lydiard Street South, with thousands of men involved, laws are broken and shafts filled in. Another interesting story is a tar and feathering at the Temperance Mine in Little Bendigo.”
All volumes of The Astonishing History of Ballarat have been timelessly and whimsically illustrated by Carson Ellis, a former history student of Bradby’s at North Tech.
“He does a fantastic job. The cartoons bring out the seriousness of the situations, instantaneously and affectively summarising what’s going on,” Bradby said.
7 June
Quarterly Essay No. 98 headed‘Hard New World: Our Post-American Future’ by Hugh White.
What is Australia’s place in the new global landscape?
Are we ready for our post-American future? In an era of rising danger for all, and dramatic choices for Australia, Hugh White explores how the world is changing and Australia should respond. We confront the world’s deepest and most dangerous international crisis in generations. The old global order faces direct challenge in three crucial regions, including our own. War has already engulfed Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and the risk in East Asia grows. White explores Australia’s responses to these crisis and lays out, in stark terms, the hard choices ahead and explains how we can make our way in a very different world I must day, those ‘stark terms’ were somewhat unsettling, especially with respect to his warnings about the potential use of nuclear weapons as a ‘last’ or ‘accidental’ resort!
Under Donald Trump, America’s retreat from global leadership has been swift and erratic. China, Russia and India are on the move. White explains the big strategic trends driving the war in Ukraine, and why America has “lost” Asia. He discusses Albanese Labor’s record and its post-election choices, and why complacency about the American alliance – including AUKUS – is no longer an option. This essential essay urges us to make our way in a hard new world with realism and confidence.
Hugh White breaks his essay up into a number of scenarios including:
American revolution;
What happens when America steps back from the role which has defined the global order for over three decades?
Putin’s gambit;
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought nuclear weapons and the threat of nuclear war back to the central position in international politics that they occupied throughout the cold war;
Ukraine’s predicament and the future of Europe;
The balance of power in Asia;
The end of the world as we know it, yet Australia is not acknowledging that fact: Australia today faces the biggest shift in our international circumstances since Europeans first settled here in 1788.
A few quotations from the essay highlighting just a snippet of points from White’s ‘warnings’ and possible world scenarios, some of which may seem to some readers to be ‘over the top’ and almost scare-mongering, while writing how he sees it!!!
[1] “The Canberra establishment is shocked by any suggestion that we should walk away from the ANZUS commitments. They think we can and must depend on America more than ever in today’s hard new world. But that misses the vital point. It is America that is walking away from the commitments it made in very different circumstances seventy-five years ago. That was plain enough under Joe Biden. It is crystal clear today under Trump.”—Hugh White, Hard New World
[2] “But perhaps the most important reason why America and its allies have for so long downplayed the significance of nuclear weapons is that they raise a very awkward question. Is Washington willing to fight a nuclear war to defend the post-Cold War order, as it had been willing to do to contain the Soviets in the Cold War? This is a question that no one in Washington wanted to consider too carefully, because they suspected the answer would be ‘no’. Now Putin has forced them to confront it, and Joe Biden gave the answer they all feared. Even before the invasion, he promised that, whatever happened, America would not go to war to defend Ukraine because, as he repeatedly said, ‘We will not fight the third world war in Ukraine’. His meaning was very clear, especially to people like him of the Cold War generation to whom the ‘third world war’ means only one thing – a full-scale nuclear conflict…Was he right to fear this? Was the risk of nuclear war serios enough to deter Washington and its allies from giving Ukraine the only kind of help that would help it to win……………….US intelligence analysts assessed there was a 50 per cent chance that Putin would authorise the use of tactical nuclear weapons to prevent further losses. Putin certainly spoke as if that was so……But the Biden administration took his threats seriously….They were right to do so. A decision to use nuclear weapons would have been unprecedented, but so were the circumstances…[and from Putin’s viewpoint regarding any hint by to Biden to break his promise]….. would Putin have taken Washington’s threats seriously? Would he really have believed that Biden would risk [losing] New York and Washington to save Ukraine? Or would he have called Biden’s bluff?”
[3] and briefly on the Middle East tragedies: “It should not have been hard for the Biden administration to work out a response to the tragedy in Gaza that matched its professed commitment to avowed values and international law. The argument is not, after all, so very complex. Israel has a right to exist within secure and internationally recognised borders. The Palestinians have a right to a state in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel has refused to countenance the establishment of such a state. That does not justify Hama’s crimes on and since 7 October 2023. Equally, those crimes do not justify Israel’s assault on Gaza since then. Both sides are deeply in the wrong………..Upon that basis the Biden administration could have constructed a policy that accorded with its claims to global leadership. Instead, seemingly from sheer moral and political weakness, it went along with the Netanyahu government’s crimes, tacitly adopting the view so neatly described by Tom Stevenson. ‘Any violence committed by Palestinians justifies all violence by Israel, and no violence committed by Israel justifies any by Palestinians.’ That is the opposite of leadership. Trump’s policies on Gaza are, of course, even worse, but they are less hypocritical. He doesn’t pretend to defend universal values, international law and the old vision of US global leadership. In this respect the most prodigious liar in the history of US politics is more honest than his opponents”.
20th June
Tonight, I did indeed finish reading ‘Until August’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ [published in 2024], just 129 pages – basically, to my mind, a short romance, described by his son in the Preface as ‘not as polished as his greatest books’, none of which to this point in time, I’d sadly not given myself the opportunity to read.
The reason for that description – little book published 10 years after the author’s death [in 2014] – in the words of his son again – “The memory loss our Father suffered in his final years….the way that loss diminished his ability to write with his customary rigor was a source of desperate frustration for him ….’Until August’ was the fruit of one last effort to carry on against all odds. The process was a race between his artistic perfectionism and his vanishing mental faculties”
Not long before his death Gabo’s final judgement ‘This book doesn’t work. It must be destroyed’. The family didn’t destroy it but set it aside, and as his family said “In an act of betrayal, we decided to put his readers’ pleasure ahead of all other considerations…it’s possible Gabo might forgive us’.
Amongst other plaudits the ‘Guardian’ wrote ‘Few writers can be said to have written books that have changed the whole course of literature. Gabriel Garcia Marquez did just that’.
So, having read Marquez for the first time, through this little book, I would think that description of his literary skills highly over-inflated. Quite obviously I need to search out some of his original novels, of which there are at least seventeen which I’m assuming the basis of the ‘Guardians’ assessment related to.
Until August by the Colombian author and Nobel Prize Winner – romantic, sensual, a profound meditation on freedom, regret and the mysteries of love – you can read it at one sit – Goodreads, in describing the book as ‘an unexpected gift from one of the greatest writers the world has ever known’ – summarises the story briefly as “Sitting alone beside the languorous blue waters of the lagoon, Ana Magdalena Bach contemplates the men at the hotel bar. She has been happily married for twenty-seven years and has no reason to escape the life she has made with her husband and children. And yet, every August, she travels by ferry here to the island where her mother is buried, and for one night takes a new lover. Across sultry Caribbean evenings full of salsa and boleros, lotharios and conmen, Ana journeys further each year into the hinterland of her desire and the fear hidden in her heart”.
Meanwhile, I believe I have some enthralling explorations of Gabo’s literature ahead of me!
23rd June.
‘Melaleuca’ by Angie Faye Martin, published in 2025, of 419 pages. I think I saw a review of this book in the Ballarat Courier, made a note if it, and later searched it out.
Easily read, a basic murder mystery set in in a small rural Australian ‘fictional’ township about 200 kms west of Brisbane on the Sturt Highway, which even came with a sketch map of the town which all of it’s major features as referred to in the book. Perhaps Queensland was an apt selection for this book with it’s strong references to Australia’s Indigenous history at the hands of colonisation, and the injustice and racism typical of Australia in those times, and particularly the early squatters and settlers of Queensland, though the setting is in later generations. Described by one author as ‘A blistering outback noir that doesn’t flinch away from Australia’s Indigenous history at the hands of colonisation’. Meanwhile, the author herself, as someone who grew up in regional Queensland, the places and people of Angie Faye Martin’s Melaleuca are viscerally recognisable.
In summary – A country town, a brutal murder, a shameful past, a reckoning to come… The injustices of the past and dangers of the present envelop Aboriginal policewoman Renee Taylor, when her unwilling return to the small outback town of her childhood plunges her into the investigation of a brutal murder.
Renee Taylor is planning to stay the minimum amount of time in her remote hometown – only as long as her mum needs her, then she is fleeing back to her real life in Brisbane.
Seconded to the town’s sleepy police station, Renee is pretty sure work will hold nothing more exciting than delivering speeding tickets. Then a murdered woman is found down by the creek on the outskirts of town.
Leading the investigation, Renee uncovers a perplexing connection to the disappearance of two young women thirty years earlier. As she delves deeper and the mystery unfurls, intergenerational cruelties, endemic racism, and deep corruption show themselves, even as dark and bitter truths about the town and its inhabitants’ past rise up and threaten to overwhelm the present. Or as described by another author: ‘Powerful First Nations crime noir that interrogates law enforcement and how it intersects with Indigenous victims’.
While in reading, one can develop one’s own ideas about who the ‘guilty parties’ are, the eventual unexpected revelations may still come as a surprise, which I guess should be the aim behind an authentic crime novel. If readers like an easily read mystery with a strong connection to historical injustice and not so past social issues, this is the book for you.
Overnight, I finished reading ‘Boy Swallows Universe’ by Trent Dalton, my edition published in 2024, of 500 pages – I had read various reviews, mostly favourable, about this book, but for some reason it didn’t appeal to me, perhaps the title alone suggested something for much younger readers. Anyway, the other day in my favourite book shop, there it was on the shelf at a reasonable price, and curiosity got the better of me. This was intended as a brief posting, but for those who read through, I apologise for it’s unintended length
Right at the beginning, praise for the book from at least four sources was encouragement enough for me to proceed!
• From The Sydney Morning Herald: ‘The best Australian novel I have read in more than a decade….’
• From The Guardian: ‘One of the best Australian novels I’ve ever read’;
• Goodreads writes “““A story of brotherhood, true love and the most unlikely of friendships, Boy Swallows Universe will be the most heartbreaking, joyous and exhilarating novel you will read all year. Trent Dalton writes for the award-winning The Weekend Australian Magazine”. , and,
• The Washington Post ‘Hypnotizes you with wonder, and then hammers you with heartbreak’,
At about page 60, I was beginning to doubt the sanity of those reviews – crude people, language, violence, criminal association, drugs – by then I’d decided I was not enjoying this story, not the kind of novel I get much pleasure from in my vintage years – but, going back to the SMH review where I read on “The last 100 pages of Boy Swallows Universe propel you like an express train to a conclusion that is profound and complex and unashamedly commercial…A rollicking ride, rich in philosophy, wit, truth and pathos’.
So, with 440 pages to go, and deciding not to ignore a world of favourable reviews, I read on. And yes, it was all of those descriptions above – reminded me, near the end, of some of the Stephen King or Dean Koontz novels that I read three or four decades ago. And yes again, difficult to put aside over the last 100, even 200 pages. I won’t reveal the plot here [that will appear in a future Coschbuilder’s Column], but one interesting method used by the author – the numerous chapters throughout the book all begin with the word ‘Boy’, for example, Boy writes words; Boy loses luck; Boy stirs monster; Boy sees vision; Boy bites spider; and so on, with one exception, the final chapter – Girl saves boy!
Wikipedia describes the book as Dalton’s semi-autobiographical coming-of-age novel, and if you read his reasons for writing the book, below, you will understand why.
There is a movie version which I’ve not seen [would have had no appeal prior to reading the book] so some readers may be quite familiar with the storyline I’ve not illustrated here.
And a brief summary to wet the reading appetite:
An utterly wonderful novel of love, crime, magic, fate and coming of age, set in Brisbane’s violent working-class suburban fringe – Brisbane, 1983: A lost father, a mute brother, a mum in jail, a heroin dealer for a stepfather and a notorious crim for a babysitter. It’s not as if Eli’s life isn’t complicated enough already. He’s just trying to follow his heart, learning what it takes to be a good man, but life just keeps throwing obstacles in the way – not least of which is Tytus Broz, legendary Brisbane drug dealer.
But Eli’s life is about to get a whole lot more serious. He’s about to fall in love. And, oh yeah, he has to break into Boggo Road Gaol on Christmas Day, to save his mum.
Meanwhile, amongst the many Reviews I came across of this book, I decided to share just one with the readers – written in 2019, by a reviewer named Theresa Smith, who at the beginning, expresses similar doubts about the book, in the manner in which I began this contribution!!
Smith writes:
I wasn’t going to read this book on account of all the hype. But then I thought I’d better read it after all, because of, well, you know, all the hype. I’ve been burned by hyped up books in the past, the type of burns you never recover from – eg. Girl on the Train; I’m still scarred. I was most definitely not burned by this one though. Boy Swallows Universe more than lives up to all of its hype. It surpasses it and then some. It’s wholly unique, filled with so much about so many things. Could I be more vague? I’ll try my best to tell you why I loved this book so much without giving anything away because the less you know going in, the better.
Is it a true story? Bits and pieces, no doubt. Many who have heard Trent Dalton speak since its publication have heard a lot about what’s true and what’s not. I haven’t heard anything; I live in the back of beyond where no one comes to speak about anything and then of course I wasn’t planning on reading it, so I deliberately didn’t read any articles either. Until last week when I read this really beautiful piece on the Booktopia blog written by Trent himself called, ‘Why I Wrote Boy Swallows Universe.’ After reading this article, I immediately unearthed my copy from my mountainous tbr, which instantly gives me away, because despite deciding not to read it, I had a copy on hand – because sometimes I like to challenge myself and buy a book I’m not intending to read just to see how long I can hold out. But this article was so moving, it reached me, and I knew I needed to read the book. Cut through the hype and judge for myself. Lucky I had that copy! (I held out for about eight months, by the way). It’s important to not get too caught up in what’s true in the book and what’s not. It’s a work of fiction, inspired largely by the author’s early life, but it’s not an autobiography. This separation of the author from the work enabled me to fully appreciate what Trent has done. I’ve read a few reviews that seemed to have trouble with this separation, even going so far as to call it Trent’s life story; autobiographical fiction (no such thing exists) that was too far-fetched to be believed. This is a work of fiction. That it’s heavily inspired by Trent’s early life certainly enhances it, but it doesn’t define it.
Anyone who grew up rough will find the familiar within these pages. For those who didn’t, the book may or may not work for you, it probably all depends on how you approach it and what your tolerance levels for the nastier side of life are. For me, reading Boy Swallows Universe was a deeply personal journey back into my own early life; the good, and the not so good. I related to the story, as well as to Eli and Gus, on so many levels. The story was in turn blisteringly funny and achingly sad. It’s ultimately an adventure, a crime story, a family drama, solid gold Aussie, and in essence, it really reminded me of the Australian film, Two Hands, with its coming of age/standing at a crossroads vibe. Anyone who grew up in the 1980s, that tragic yet golden heyday, will be immersed in the nostalgic atmosphere. While I wouldn’t touch one now with a barge pole, back in the day, a devon and sauce sandwich always hit the spot. And those KT26’s; oh my goodness, we were all wearing them while walking around in the blazing sun without hats on sucking on Sunny Boys. And 80s TV shows. All those great shows Eli and Gus were growing up to. Kids today are learning their values from American MA15+ rated video games instead of cheesy, yet wholesome, American PG rated family sitcoms. The tragedy is very real. The 1980s just springs to life in this book. It’s a brilliant trip down memory lane; but it was also a difficult one. Because there are other parts of the 1980s that weren’t so great: domestic violence was nobody’s business, you probably asked for it; child protection was of little importance; welfare was rife in certain parts of Australia and for some, the dole was a career goal; QLD didn’t even sell mid-strength beer until later in the decade, exacerbating the violence that stemmed from pay day binge drinking; having a mental illness meant you were crazy and thus judged and ostracised accordingly; weapons were frequently brought to school and used in the playground; smoking was cool, those who didn’t do it were not; the police were not to be trusted, at least, not by the people in my neighbourhood. Nostalgia can work both ways, and it does so very well in this book.
Ultimately, I took away a lot from reading Boy Swallows Universe, but there are a few things, take home messages I suppose, for want of a different way of putting it, that I particularly appreciated:
1. At some point, everyone is faced with a choice: go this way, the same as everyone around me, or go that way, forge a new path. The cycle can be broken. You can go your own way. It’s not easy, but it is possible.
2. Love is messy, particularly when it comes to family. You can hate what someone does, but still love them fiercely. You can be deeply ashamed of your family, but still love them wholly.
3. There are shades of grey in all of us. Good people can do bad things. Bad people can do good things. Sometimes it’s not about the labels, but more about the moment of action.
4. People make mistakes. People can be bad parents but still love their kids.
5. Forgiveness can be as much for yourself as for the person you are forgiving.
Trent Dalton’s reasons for writing the novel – it’s lengthy but I’ve decided to copy his comments in full to conclude this contribution.
Dalton wrote:
About three summers ago on a blazing hot Boxing Day in South-east Queensland I was standing at the back of a small blue Holden Barina with my mum. The boot hatchback door was up and I was helping my mum load a bunch of Christmas gifts and cooking equipment into her car. We’d all just enjoyed a good family catch-up in a shared Bribie Island holiday unit, one of those nice peaceful Christmases where nobody argues about who was supposed to make the coleslaw, and my mum was distracted for a moment by my daughter – she must have been about seven then – doing one of her impromptu interpretive dances through an avenue of coastal paperbark trees. I followed her eyes and was, naturally, also quickly ensnared in this vision… my girl’s hair blowing in the wind, her bare feet making ballet leaps between those trees, a stick in her hand acting as a wand…
Then out of nowhere and for no apparent reason – not moving her eyes for a second away from my daughter – Mum said something beautiful. ‘I wouldn’t change any of it,’ Mum said. It sounds cheesy, I know, but that’s what she said. ‘I wouldn’t change any of it. If I had to go through it all again to get to this, I would do it. I wouldn’t change any of it.’
I’m a journalist who has written thousands of words about the most harrowing stories about Australian life in the suburbs… tragedy, violence, trauma, upheaval, betrayal, death, destruction, families, abandonment, drugs, crime, hope and healing, no hope, no healing … and I’m often reminded by my gut that kicks from the inside sometimes how my own mother’s life story remains the most harrowing story I’ve ever had the strange and often unsettling honour of being a significant part of.
She’s the one. ‘Who’s the most interesting person you’ve ever spoken to?’ people ask. Nah, not the Dalai Lama, nah, not John Howard or Bob Hawke or Priscilla flipping Presley or Heath Ledger or Matt Damon. Nah, it’s my Mum, by a damn sight. You’ll know why, when you read the book.
Though to be honest, the book doesn’t say a tenth of what’s she’s been through and, in turn, my admiration for her, for coming out the other side of those things, for getting to the point one day three summers ago where she’s looking at her granddaughter dancing and she comes to the realisation that it was all heading somewhere – all the pain, all the social suffering, all the madness, all the longing, all the loss, all those bad choices and all those good choices – they were all leading to a girl she loves more than life itself dancing between some swaying trees. So that’s where the book started, by that boot of mum’s Holden Barina. It took a year to write between the hours of 8pm and 10pm after work, and it took my whole life to write. The research was really remembrance. Remembering all those years when the world around my small family crumbled. When people we loved were being taken away. When things we thought true were being turned false. Heads were being slammed into fibro walls. Dangerous people were knocking on doors at daytime. And when that world of ours crumbled – the world of prisons and small-time suburban crime – and my brothers and I went to live with my father who I never knew, that world we knew was replaced with a new world of a Brisbane Housing Commission cluster swirling with a hundred social issues – alcoholism, unemployment, domestic violence, generational social curses – all of which I would later write about as a journalist.
All of me is in here. Everything I’ve ever seen. Everything I’ve ever done. Every girl I ever kissed on a wagged school day, every punch I ever threw, every tooth I ever lost in a Housing Commission street scrap and every flawed, conflicted, sometimes even dangerous Queenslander I’ve ever come across, as the son of two of the most incredible and beautiful and sometimes troubled parents a kid could ever be born to.
The key characters all draw on the people I love most in the world. The most beautiful and complex people I’ve ever known, and I never even had to walk out the door of my house to find them. I just wanted to give the world a story. To turn all these crazy and sad and tragic and beautiful things I’ve seen into a crazy, sad, tragic and beautiful story.
Love, above all else, is threaded through this novel. I wanted to write about how it is possible to love someone who has killed. How it is possible to love someone who has hurt you deeply. How love is the closest thing we have to the truly profound. The kid in the book is feeling love like he’s feeling the edge of the universe, and it’s so big and beyond him he can only see it in colours and explosions in the cosmos. He can explain those things he sees in his mind – even the things he might hear in his head – with about as much clarity as anyone can truly give the mysteries of true love. He can only feel these things.
Ultimately, it’s a love story.
All I think I’ve done as a journalist over 17 years, if I’m being really honest with myself, is process all the baggage of my life through the stories of thousands of Australians who tell me their deepest darkest secrets in the sacred spaces of their living rooms, and I take these secrets and turn them as respectfully as possible into magazine stories, and these stories help me learn and know and sometimes even heal … Boy Swallows Universe is me taking all my own secrets this time and turning them as respectfully as possible into a novel.
This book is for the never believers and the believers and the dreamers. This book is for anyone around the world who has been 13 years old. This book is for a generation of Australians who were promised by their parents they would be told all the answers as soon as they were old enough. Well, now you’re old enough.
Here are my answers:
1. Every lost soul can be found again. Fates can be changed. Bad can become good.
2. True love conquers all.
3. There is a fine line between magic and madness and all should be encouraged in moderation.
4. Australian suburbia is a dark and brutal place.
5. Australian suburbia is a beautiful and magical place.
6. Home is always the first and final poem.
In conclusion, two quotations direct from the book where in [1], the boys’ father is arguing against the fear that his boys are going to be taking away from him, and [2] the reaction of the non-speaking brother to school room teasing
[1] ‘You think you’re serving your profession so nobly, so compassionately,’ Dad says. ‘You’ll take those boys from me and you’ll split ‘em up and you’ll strip ‘em bare of the only thing that keeps ‘em going, each other, and you’ll tell your friends over a bottle of chardonnay from Margaret River how you saved two boys from their monster dad who nearly killed them once and they’ll bounce from foster home to foster home until they find each other again at the gate of your house with a can of petrol and they’ll thank you for sticking your nose into our business as they’re burning your house down.
[2] ‘Every now and then some unfortunate kid in August’s class makes fun of August and his refusal to speak. His reaction is always the same: he walks up to that month’s particularly foul-mouthed bully who is dangerously unaware of August’s hidden streak of psychopathic rage and, blessed by his inability to explain his actions, he simply attacks the boy’s unblemished jaw, nose and ribs with one of three sixteen-punch boxing combinations my mum’s long-time boyfriend, Lyle, has tirelessly taught us both across endless winter weekends with an old brown leather punching bag in the backyard shed. Lyle doesn’t believe in much, but he believes in the circumstance-shifting power of a broken nose.’
As has been his practice over recent years, this author has produced another non-fiction contribution to the world of books and literature. ‘The Legend of Albert Jacka’ by Peter FitzSimons, published in 2024, of 463 pages, including some substantial section of Notes, References, etc. This book is the story of the first Australian soldier to be awarded the VC [Victoria Cross] in World War One – that award arising from his actions in Gallipoli, and later earning many accolades for his efforts on the various battlefields of France, actions which in the opinion of many [but not his seniors] should have earned him further VC’s.
As with past contributions from FitzSimons, I found this a fascinating historical depiction of those years, though written in his inevitable style of the novel format. I must admit however, that after having already read many depictions of some of those crucial battles on the Western front in France during WWI, and now moving through FitzSimons’ vivid up-front descriptions of those campaigns which cost so many thousands of lives, often with little reward for these human tragedies, many of which could have been avoided with more competent British leadership, I’m thinking I might desist from reading about that war for the time being. Though it does seem to have been a favoured topic for the author over recent years!!
From the broadly accepted summary of the book, we read thus:
‘Our heroes can come from the most ordinary of places. As a shy lad growing up in country Victoria, no one in the district had any idea the man Albert Jacka would become. Albert ‘Bert’ Jacka was 21 when Britain declared war on Germany in August 1914. Bert soon enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force and the young private was assigned to 14th Battalion D Company. By the time they shipped out to Egypt he’d been made a Lance Corporal. On 26 April 1915, 14th Battalion landed at Gallipoli under the command of Brigadier General Monash’s 4th Infantry Brigade. It was here, on 20 May, that Lance Corporal Albert Jacka proved he was ‘the bravest of the brave’. The Turks were gaining ground with a full-scale frontal attack and as his comrades lay dead or dying in the trenches around him, Jacka single-handedly held off the enemy onslaught. The Turks retreated. Jacka’s extraordinary efforts saw him awarded the Victoria Cross, the first for an Australian soldier in World War I. He was a national hero, but Jacka’s wartime exploits had him moving on to France, where he battled the Germans at Pozières, earning a Military Cross for what historian Charles Bean called ‘the most dramatic and effective act of individual audacity in the history of the AIF’. Then at Bullecourt, his efforts would again turn the tide against the enemy. There would be more accolades and adventures before a sniper’s bullet and then gassing at Villers-Bretonneux sent Bert home’.
And that ‘war injury’ in particular the gas injury which basically ended Jacka’s service in the field, though didn’t stop him from seeing out the war in other relevant areas, would see him return to Australia, but be dead by the age of 39 years.
As for the horror and human waste of that time – well FitzSimons warns readers right at the beginning of this book as he introduces as to Jacka “Starting out on this book, I already had a fair idea of the sheer horror he had endured and triumphed over, given the books I had done on Gallipoli, and the battles of Fromelles and Pozieres, together with the battles of Villers-Bretonneux and Hamel. It was fascinating to research and write as I kept discovering detail that put flesh on the bones of the story and showed it in all its gory glory, its wonder, its desperation and inspiration…………Allow me to say how much I came to like and admire Jacka the deeper I went – and how amazed I was that he managed to survive, given the risks he took and the furious fire he faced. He was an extraordinary soldier……”
Meanwhile, the author and Jacka himself, back in Australia at war’s end, didn’t forget that other famous Australian military leader, Sir John Monash. While it is suggested in many quarters that Jacka did not receive additional awards of recognition for his courage and achievements under fire because he had so often being too ‘outspoken’ against some of his superiors; similarly with Monash, upon returning to Australia, he was overlooked for many roles that it was felt he had earned, and again some quarters would suggest that his Jewish background was used against him. As FitzSimons put it – “Jacka is dismayed at the lack of acclaim for the man who had saved more lives than any other Australian officer. Monash gained the eternal respect of his men simply by caring for them, and pursuing tactics that did not involve thoughtless slaughter as a starting point’ [page 380].
About Jacka, FitzSimons writes: “Happily, as I uncovered ever more about what he had accomplished, and how he had not only overcome amazing odds in battle to triumph, but also against efforts that were made against his attempts to rise in a system ill-disposed to allow a man with strong opinions on how things should be run on the battlefield to prosper” [page xiv]’
Jacka had a very similar attitude to those he served with and as a leader in the 14th Battalion – this attitude is perhaps reflected in the post-War years by the following description by FitzSimons.
[page 379] – ‘Activities with the RSL inevitably bring Jacka back into contact with Sir John Monash, which includes the two of them marching side by side every year in the annual Anzac Day marches down Collins Street. [In strict contrast to Jacko’s growing closeness to Monash is his public disdain for the likes of General James McCay, the Butcher of Fromelles as he is known, who had not only ordered his men over the top in that disastrous battle, but refused a truce with the Germans the following day that might have saved hundreds of Australian lives. When the two find themselves on the same stage for a fundraiser for the RSL, Jacka refuses to shake McCay’s hand].’
Of course there is both praise and ridicule of FitzSimon’s books, some of the latter quite harsh, for eg, two very contrasting opinions I noted recently among a series of reviews on the Goodreads website.
[1] – Peter Fitzsimons is just so good at identifying a great story, especially his books covering Australians at war, and delivering an offering that can’t be put down, brings tears to your eyes, intense pride and raises the hairs on the back of your neck. Usually simultaneously.
[2] – Sadly, a worthy subject and a life worth knowing has been let down by a writer who delights in mangling puns and similar juvenile comic effects. Rather than a proper biography it reads as an overblown piece from a weekend tabloid.
The latter writer also points out numerous factual errors that appear in Jacka – whether they can be totally blamed on the author, or more correctly on the editor/publisher, etc, remains at issue.
In a recent review within the November 2024 edition of the Australian Book Review, Robin Gerster reviews Peter Stanley’s book ‘Beyond the Broken Years: Australian military history in 1000 books’. Speaking of FitzSimons, he writes “One theme, however binds the discussion: [t]he chasm between the more astringent academic approach and the bombastic nationalism of popular writers’. Stanley is disdainful of the so-called ‘storians’, the term coined by the ubiquitous Peter FitzSimons, whose steady stream of bloated blockbusters, including Kokoda [2004], Tobruk [2006], and Gallipoli [2014], pursues a familiar nationalist itinerary. FitzSimons seeks to put the ‘story’ in war history, by writing it in the manner of a novelist and taking liberties with mere facts. That may be all right if you are Leo Tolstoy. FitzSimons is an obvious target of derision; that his brick-size books [and here’s the rub] sell so well is a trickier issue to consider”.
I guess I am one of those buyers who deserves to be a target of derision, based on Stanley’s viewpoint. So be it – while occasionally FitzSimon’s style of writing may seem a bit over-cooked, for myself, the stories depicted are a source of education which perhaps I find an easier way to ‘learn’ about events in preference to ploughing through a detailed historical analysis, which incidentally, I still do from time to time. Those of you who have read some of my past book reviews will note the range and variety of ‘historical novels’ I read ‘because’ they usually educate the reader about historical events, albeit written in the ‘manner of a novelist’ as described by Stanley.
In any case as with all genres of books – the worth of a book on any subject is in the eyes of the reader. Despite the criticism, I recommend ‘The Legend of Albert Jacka’ by Peter FitzSimons, and form your own opinion.
As for Jacka, we conclude with the words of Charles Bean [famed journalist, and later the Official Australian Historian who was embedded with the AIF during WWI] when he wrote:
‘Jacka should have come out of the war the most decorated man in the A.I.F. One does not usually comment on the giving of decorations, but this was an instance in which something obviously went wrong. Everyone who knows the facts, knows that Jacka earned the Victoria Cross three times’
].
All in all, a good read, especially for a rainy day.”:
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