Reviews and Comments

The second time I read "The Book of the New Sun" I felt like I had a good grasp on the events of the saga as well as the characters and their relationships with each other. It was a gripping tale, a page-turner filled with monsters and adventure and politics and war and love and conflict. But there's still a high degree of mystery and fantasy in the book. Some of the events seems to come about as the result of some kind of destiny, the result of a prophecy perhaps. Or is it a projection of the author's beliefs? Gene Wolfe was a Catholic, and - spoiler alert - Catholicism makes no sense and has no internal logic. So maybe this book is no more coherent than that. It could be like a creation myth where things just happen because that's how the story evolved as it was passed through the generations. Wolfe's story includes rockets and a reference to a journey into space, but that shouldn't deceive you into thinking that this is a science fiction story and everything that happens in it has a scientific explanation.

Confounding this, "The Book of the New Sun" is complex, and you could think you didn't read it closely enough to get a grip on its internal logic.

I don't know how many times I'll have to read it to settle those questions. What I do know is that I find it to be a beautiful book, with beautiful words and characters an hugely tragic events, dealing with love and death and memory and pain and guilt.

I have a presentiment of my future, that I'll be reading it again soon.

I've read a few of Dick's novels, and a common theme is a sort of nightmare of suburban reality and domestic life. From the top here you get protagonist Deckard's unhappy marriage, in a home where the "mood organ" is an essential appliance. It allows you to schedule whatever emotion or experience you feel you need to have, be it loving your job or enjoying television. Then there's the status symbol of having a pet. Animals are rare and expensive, but if you can only afford a robotic replica (an electric sheep) you won't impress the neighbours who might own a real one.

As he gets into his action man job, hunting illegal human replicants, Deckard stumbles into part of the city where everything is flipped. Biological humans are illegal, robotic detectives hunt them. But one key question is the same in both worlds: how can you know if you're real or artificial?

I mention the domestic setting and the "mirror world" chapter because they are not included in the film. I can't help comparing it to the film, which I love. But none of the films I have seen of Dick's work fully capture his recurring themes of unreality, asking what is it like to be inside your own mind, when your own mind deceives you so much? Maybe you, the reader, can answer that question with comfort if you are talking about your own thoughts, but when you read a Dick book you are in HIS mind and he is - how shall I put this - crazy? It's not the right word. He was paranoid, in the sense of believing people were out to get him, suspicious of government in a sort on conspiracy theory way, and later in his life subject to a delusional obsession which seems to have resulted from a neurological condition, leading him to believe that he was in contact with some sort of higher power or cosmic consciousness.

In the end, Dick's world is just too much for me. I can't love his books, but I still read them. His ideas are - umm - FAR OUT, and I like that. But his mind is warped and ultimately that's what the books are about.

The invented future dialect is front and centre of this book. There are words and sentences you won't fully understand at first, but as you read you get better at understanding it in context. Then you are almost FEELING the language, making up for anything you miss with that added element in the text. Re-reading is rewarding and it will open up more details of the story.

Young Riddley Walker tells the tale of life in an England long after a nuclear holocaust which has largely destroyed civilisation. The remnants only have a sketchy understanding of what has gone before, mixed in with religion, history and mythology, as they terrifyingly rediscover a weapon of destruction, known as the 1 Big 1. Not yet MASS destruction, but you have a feeling of dread that the cycle is starting again.

It's comparable in themes to Walter M Miller's "A Canticle for Liebowitz", and in style to Anthony Burgess' "A Clockwork Orange". Iain M banks' "Feersum Endjinn" also does a great job at the invented dialect. But of all these, I think "Riddley Walker" is the one I'll never tire of re-reading.

I love myth-making, I love the film "24 Hour Party People". There's that special wistful feeling when you think of the sad loss of an artist who died young. But this book gives a massive injection of reality to go alongside the fandom: Ian Curtis could also be a bit of a prick.

This book was the basis for the film "Control". The major players were consultants. There's no angry "how dare you tell such lies" from them. Ian's widow is telling a truth, her truth, the truth. All three. One of her most shocking claims is that he always voted conservative! She throws it out almost casually. After all, it is sort of incidental after everything else she outlines in their lives.

There's also a lot of love and wonder, and a reproduction of his lyrics at the end. He was a unique voice in rock music, but this book goes deeper into the life behind the music.

A flood of commercialisation and west coast hippy mindlessness inundated America and the world, but floating among the flotsam and jetsam is the Fugs. They are irreverent, naughty, wildly creative, poetic, satirical, radical. They grew out of the Beat poet movement, but they seemed to skip over the whole early folk scene with Dylan and all that, and jump straight into an anarchic psychedelic collective musical project.

Here Ed Sanders tells the story and it is an absolutely thrilling ride, from the pre-Fugs days of his poetry journal "Fuck You - A Magazine of the Arts", through the cultural hub of the Peace Eye Bookstore (where visiting freaks could bed down for the night if they had nowhere else to stay), through to the Fugs' almost accidental acceptance by the music industry and the Folkways label. Ed witnessed menacing American nazis on the fringes of the march on Washington, when MLK declared that he has a dream. The Fugs led the exorcism of the Pentagon at the height of the protest movement against the Vietnam War ("out, demons out!"), and they brought a raw, spontaneous lust to their music, be it poetic or puerile.

Throughout it all Ed Sanders rolls along with remarkable stability, a calm voice in the storm, following his muse of the moment - the ancient Greek poets or maybe the slum goddess from the lower east side. He and the late Tuli Kupferberg remain guiding lights.

The garden is open. Grope for peace.

I first read this book when I was ten years old. Saint Edward's School Canowindra didn't have a library, but the local council had a bookmobile - a van loaded with items from local libraries, which would visit weekly or fortnightly and let the children borrow a few books.

The title story left a great impression on me. It's a creation myth about the third dimension, and as such it involves concepts akin to geometry and physics, rather than the more typical geography and biology. There are plenty of them in here as well.

I was already pre-disposed to myths and fantasy. Around the same time I read a book of Arthurian legends, and another collection of ancient Greek and Roman myths. But these stories came from my own country, where I'd lived all my life, the only one I'd ever seen.

I have no indigenous ancestry. We lived on stolen land, sovereignty was never ceded. Of course these stories would have so much more strength coming directly from, and being heard by First nations people. I presume Roland Eggleston is a white person. The brief biography says he lived for months among First nations people, and from his writing I feel that he has tried to be a neutral medium for other people's stories. It's a shame he didn't do what folklorists like the Brothers Grimm did, and give credit to the individuals who passed on the stories for him to put in a book.

But this is the book I found in 1973, and if I'd waited for something more authentic, I would probably have been left in even more ignorance. Later I would enjoy the picture books by Dick Roughsey, a brilliant first nations artist who helped educate us about the Rainbow Serpent and other deep dreamtime stories. My own children would be told the story of Tiddalik the frog, who drank all the lakes and rivers until the other animals made him laugh and quench the parched land. It's now a mainstay of early childhood education.

As I type Australia is debating whether to create a formal voice for indigenous people, and enshrine it in the constitution. These stories show that there is so much to say, and hearing from all those voices can enrich us all.

Sometimes I look at the Apollo program as a collaborative conceptual art project. The props and the set and stage design were better than anything that came before. The accompanying audiovisual elements were superb. The casting was brilliant. The scriptwriters set out to tell a story of American superiority, but as the project progressed, the themes evolved into a wider story encompassing all humanity.

Making Armstrong leading man was a key part in that evolution. His first instinct was to recognise that he was a small part in a massive engineering project, and he always acknowledged the countless thousands of people who made his famous journey possible. He was also smart enough, wise enough, to recognise that he would inevitably be seen as some sort of emissary for humanity, a chosen one, a messiah figure.

For a lesser man, especially a military man, how easy to slip into that role and be an all-American cliche. Armstrong was never going to be anything other than himself. I enjoyed reading about his unorthodox religious beliefs (or lack thereof). He was guarded about it, but before he was a megastar he once openly described himself as a Deist, someone who doesn't believe in an interventionist god. His mother was a devout Christian, she could always be counted on to turn to the camera and declare that god would protect her son and bring him home safely. Even she expressed doubts later in her life, she was like a foxhole Christian. When confronted by death she didn't have the strength to maintain her delusions, she finally adopted some of her son's rational approach. (Actually I'm exaggerating this part of the book somewhat, but that was my personal reaction).

What I've written above is my take on this excellent biography. I emphasise certain elements of Armstrong's life which I relate to. A lesser book would leave those bits out for fear of provoking controversy. The religious right doesn't care about facts, truth, or ethics. They'd prefer to have some dishonest American mythology. Armstrong wouldn't let them, and Hansen is not playing their ridiculous game either.

It's laid out like a series of magazine articles, there are lots of photos. It's fun! But the writing is not dumbed down, it tells it like it is. Bubblegum music was right on the edge because every time it mentioned sugar, you know it was really about sex.

Also, if you are a late boomer or an early gen-Xer, you remember how smug your big brother or your uncle was about bloated wanky crap like Yes and Grand Funk Railroad. The summer of love had disappeared up its own arse like a cocaine suppository. "Whole Lotta Love" and "Sugar Sugar" both came out in 1969. I love Led Zep as much as the next rock n roll tragic, but somehow there is a perfection about the Archies/Ron Dante's smash hit, the national anthem of Bubblestan. Play it loud and get you revenge on your dopey, clueless older siblings, who will be driven insane. Even more insane than they already are.

I sent an email to Kim Cooper to tell her how much I like her writing and she sent me a lovely reply. I also sent one to Sandra Dedrick, the lead singer of The Free Design, who are the subject of a chapter in this book, she also wrote back to me. I feel absolute solid gold love for those people!

I ordered this book from Redeye records in Sydney and when it arrived the staff member was surprised by its bulk. "Wow, it's a TOME!", he said. (tome: A book, especially a large or scholarly one).

So, yes, it is long and detailed, maybe too detailed for some. I love the band enough, and I had the appetite for it. The preface is fantastic. It explains how the author, growing up in the midst of Beatlemania, became a Byrds fanatic, living in a part of London where houses were unchanged since the 1940s, while a few blocks away the Fabs, the Stones and Donovan were grooving at the Speakeasy. By the end, decades later Rogan is close enough to the band to counted as a friend, but he resists entering their social circle to remain an outsider, because this book is like his life's work and he feels it would be damaged if he crossed that line.

Of course you get a great and detailed account of how a bunch of LA folkies invented folk rock and were at the vanguard of a cultural explosion in the 1960s. And at the end you learn of Crosby's drug hell, Hillman's tea party conservatism, McGuinn's bible-obsessed Christianity. It's a long and weird journey. If it's disturbing or depressing, just put "Younger Than Yesterday" on, turn it up to 11, and it all dissolves in an instant.

It turns out Julian Cope's writing skills are on a par with his musical abilities.

I was there on March 21st, 1982 at the Paddington Town Hall. Troy Tate's amp wasn't working and he threw his guitar at it and stormed off stage. Julian picked up his 12 string and finished the set without his star ring-in. When "Peggy Suicide" came out, it was a sort of emergence from the chrysalis, from pure pop to universal cosmic rock. I stayed with him then, too.

In this book you get the whole life story, including the episode where he steals his father's car even though he has no licence - "I'm driving and I can't even drive", as he sang in "No Hard Shoulder to Cry On". Look from the outside at his piano-surfing Top of the Pops performance on (redacted online video platform), then FEEL the same experience from the LSD-soaked interior of Julian's consciousness. Understand his Detroit-inspired road to Damascus moment, when he travels via megalithic monuments to a realisation that rock and roll is the true calling. Word!