Review of "The Explorers" by Tim Flannery

For those who are unfamiliar with Australian geography, take a look at any topographical map of the continent.  Roughly 70% is covered in dry land, most of which is arid desert seeing little to no rain throughout the year.  Inhospitable to say the least, this knowledge was known only to the Aborigines when Europeans began settling the land more than 300 years ago.  White man’s ambitions being what they are, the desert was seen as something to be conquered and an obstacle to be "discovered" as more and more foreigners began settling the land.  In following, numerous parties set out with differing goals in mind, some to find mythical places, others to be the first to cross continent, or be the first to plant a flag at the center.  Not all the expeditions successful, Tim Flannery’s The Explorers: Stories of Discovery and Adventure from the Australian Frontier collects the “best of” of journal entries from those who braved the endless desert—only the words living on to tell of the experience for some.

Most if not all of the explorers and expeditions Flannery includes will be known to Australians.  They include the Sturt expedition (he brought a boat thinking to find a huge lake in the center), Ernest Giles (who wisely turned around after getting lost a few times), and the famous Burkes and Wills’ (from which only the journals survived of the expedition leaders).  Each having its own angle on Australia’s interior, the landscape and its harsh realities come to life as each viewpoint adds itself to the previous.  Hot, dry, and endless are only the beginning.

Review of "Tracks" by Robyn Davidson

The human mind, and those random people it incites to attempt the most difficult journeys, is one of the most amazing aspects of life.  Climbing the world’s highest mountains, surfing the biggest waves, trekking to the poles, and numerous other determination-requisite quests make humanity what it is, as much as war and disease.  Robyn Davidson possesses a brain with such ambition, and her 1980 Tracks is the open, inspirational record.  

An Australian and lover of her country’s desert lands, in the late 1970s Davidson set out to the interior of Australia with $6 in her pocket and the desire to work with camels such that she might fulfill her dream of travelling from Alice Springs to the Indian Ocean by camel.  Two years later a handler of the eccentric humped back animals, she was still unable to meet the financial requirements of outfitting a solo expedition.  But after applying for support from National Geographic, Davidson was on her way, four camels and a trusty dog at her side.

Review of "The Etched City" by K.J. Bishop

Reading K.J. Bishop’s 2003 The Etched City is like bathing in warm honey.  There are times the aroma is fresh and the taste sweet, no other cares in the world.  Then there are others when one wants to get out of the bath, wash their skin of the sticky, cloying substance, and feel a cool breeze on their skin.  One lost in the moment, the other knowing where it’s going, such is the paradoxical experience of Bishop’s first and only published novel to date.

 The Etched City is sure to cause a split among readers, especially those coming from a strong Tolkien-esque fantasy background.  Though a couple scenes and happenings warrant the categorization, most other aspects remain equivocal parallels to the genre at best.  There are no magic swords, wizards, or dragons; only the occasional supernatural event sneaking into the storyline.  More in the vein of magic realism, flowers sprout from wounds, humans birth crocodiles, and cigarettes are conjured from thin air - these are the greatest journeys the story takes into the fantastic.  Thus, dungeons and dragons fans seeing the awards the book has garnered, be warned.

Whether The Etched City is a novel in the classic tradition, however, is debatable.   A second-reading needed to discover if in fact a spine exists, the book is more a collage of vignettes than straightforward storytelling.  The narrative describes rather than tells of the lives of Raule the healer, Rev the priest, Lisbeth the artist, and Gwynn the mercenary.  Bishop constantly keeping readers at a distance from the characters, substance moves to the forefront.  Philosophic dialogue on the nature of religion, metaphysical speculation, and art and the pull of the soul leisurely fill the pages, instead.  The narrative is motivated in patches, however.  Gang warfare, drugs, prostitution, and other social ills occasionally emerge from the waters below to nudge the plot forward, but overall the book floats rather than swims.   

Taking advantage of the set up, Bishop arranges some interesting oppositions: the worldviews of the Rev and Gwynn, the moral orientation and gender roles of Gwynn and Raule, the life’s devotions of Lisbeth and Raule, and so forth.  These opposites presented rather than directed, the book is undoubtedly for the reader who prefers the stasis of muse to linear plot movement.

One point I’d like to take issue with is the book’s back cover comparison to Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series and China Mieville’s Bas-Lag.  Undoubtedly a marketing ploy, the overall feel of the novel is wholly different than these two authors’ created worlds.  Though a hint of resemblance exists (particularly in the opening section’s desert setting to King’s world), the remainder of the scenes in the book are nothing short of an homage to Bishop’s native Australia.  The flora and fauna, monsoons and heat, streets and jungles of fictional Ashamoil have more in common with the Northern Territory’s Darwin and Kakadu than any of the filth and squalor of New Crozubon.  Secondly, while Mieville details his world a la Peake, Bishop wields her brush only enough to establish tone, the result being that the mind’s eye resides more in the imagination than on paper.  

In the end, The Etched City will undoubtedly disappoint readers expecting an oriented plot and empathetic characters.  Bishop’s thematic intentions ambivalent at best, an indifference should be expected on the part of the narrator and a vague, magic-realist atmosphere doing nothing to clearly delineate objectives.  Like realist novels, the reader should also expect a more than healthy dose of deliberation over a variety of social and human phenomena.  A climax of sorts does exist to end the book, but due to the aforementioned attributes, it lacks the impact many readers expect, and therefore must be reckoned with in alternative fashion.  Well written, the book is recommended for those who don’t mind a subtle, meandering read set in a surreal world more reminiscent of Kipling than Mieville, themes slowly flowering in afterthought. 

Review of "The Songlines" by Bruce Chatwin

I’m aware this book has a bit of a following and is popular amongst most who have read it - and it’s certainly not my intention to cast Chatwin’s effort into the mud - but I have to say I was a disappointed upon finishing The Songlines.  I don’t expect scientific objectivity in my travel writing (read Lewis and Clark’s journals if you want boring), but I do expect the writer to refrain from overhanded intrusion, redirecting their experience toward a personal agenda.  After all, aren’t we reading such travelogues to get a sense of what a place is like, not what the writer wants it to be?  As such, the book should be approached as a personal reflection while in Australia, rather than travel writing, if it's to be fully apprciated.  But before getting to the positives of The Songlines, I should first loose my feelings regarding the downside.

The artistic license with which Chatwin goes about dictating The Songlines (in my opinion; others may disagree) detracts from the effort rather than improving it.  Reading like a novel, dialogue is often relayed in verbatim form, as if conversation were recorded and later fit (miraculously) within the larger text.  This dramatization, while certainly bringing the experience closer to the average reader, only cheapens the overall product.  Like a friend exaggerating to make the bully they knocked out a little bigger and meaner, Chatwin manipulates the reader’s experience by adding direct speech that only resembles reality rather than representing it.   Such practice begs the question: if a writer tailors travel dialogue, what else are the willing to alter to make a book suit their needs?  But I digress.

Aboriginal awareness – one of Chatwin’s goals in writing The Songlines - is certainly commendable.  The book a record of his time in the Australian Outback, his descriptions of Aboriginals and their lives in the desert makes for solid reading.  Stealing the show, though, are the wild west blokes toughing it alone in the inhospitable Outback, their characters the bright points of the book.  Chatwin is widely read, and along with the topics he discusses related to Aboriginals, he weaves in evolutionary theory, nomadism, and “the Other,” using the Aboriginee mythological idea of “songlines” as a metaphor for the interconnections of humanity and nature.  This being said, I unfortunately must mention the negative side of this content.  

Australia is home to hundreds of different tribal groups, and despite crossing the territories of dozens in his trip from the Adelaide into Australia’s center, Chatwin ignores this myriad culture, universalizing their individual beliefs and traditions with blanket statements that subsume the whole.   The result is that individual cultures of the First People are mixed together into one bowl to satisfy Chatwin’s philosophical objectives, which leaves one wondering whether the exposition of his own theories didn’t take on more importance than the cultures and people he was reporting on.  

When taken at face value, The Songlines is a likeable read.  Readers of Bryson or Theroux would enjoy the charm of travel Chatwin invokes.  In fact, the colorful characters and scenes would be interesting to many, the well traveled to the stay-at-home dreamer.  I just personally find it difficult to move beyond the artistic license and self-aggrandizement.  Others, well, if you're not put off by such tactics, you may be one of the many who enjoy the book.