Melbourne author Jeff Sparrow’s latest book takes him a long way from his previous ‘radical’ histories. After becoming fascinated by the mummified head of a Turkish solder in World War I, discovered in a country town recently, Sparrow embarks on a quest to find out how hard it is for humans to kill. Being fascinated, [...]
Also posted in Nonfiction |
Even though Radovan Karodzic, former Bosnian Serb leader now in jail, won’t attend the start of his Hague war crimes (genocide) trial, that trial will commence tomorrow (see the CNN article). I’ll try and follow this, as it seems to me yet another signal from the international community. Signal: no matter how safe you think [...]
Can a novel change your life? Can it indeed! One third of the way through Roberto Bolano’s final, posthumously released, 898-page novel, I scribbled down: ‘2666 has changed my life.’ What on earth did I mean? I’m still puzzling over those five words (and the puzzle feels increasingly meaningful) but I think I was exulting in [...]
Also posted in Literary Fiction |
The only Tracy Kidder I’ve read was the one that made him famous, The Soul of a New Machine, and that was 28 years ago! But a glowing review in the August 30 issue of the New York Times Book Reviewby Ron Suskind will have me looking out for Kidder’s latest, Strength in What Remains, [...]
Also posted in Nonfiction |
Fearless Russian journalist Anna Politskovskaya was murdered just outside her apartment in October 2006 (we see footage of the hooded killer), one of a number of Putin era critics and investigators (she sneaked into Chechnya a number of times to pursue damning stories) to have been killed. I knew quite a bit about her before [...]
The closing day was docos galore: Anders Østergaard’s Burma VJ captures, courtesy of anonymous citizens with handy cams, the 2007 uprising in totalitarian Myanmar. It’s spellbinding, well structured, and a tribute to the spirit of mankind. 4 stars. Rem Koolhaas: A Kind of Architect, made by Markus Heidingsfelder, is a doco about a controversial architect. [...]
Also posted in Creative Life, Film |
Like many, I see recent US (and my home country Australia) invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan to be utter mistakes, firstly because they’re doomed to failure, but also because their ethical underpinnings are shaky. However, like many, I decry the lack of action against genocide in Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, and now Darfur. How does [...]
Complete contrasts: Sergio, Greg Barker’s documentary on Sergio De Mello, the high-profile UN envoy who died in a Iraqi suicide bombing in 2003, is a work of consummate filmmaking. The close-up interviews of the participants who tried to save Sergio’s life (as the movie points out, this man was always known by his first man) [...]
Also posted in Crime Fiction, Film |
After reading Neal Bascomb’s Hunting Eichmann (see my capsule review), a natural question is: what further interest do I have in Adolf Eichmann? For a long time, I’ve assumed my interest was great, since Eichmann remains one of the key laboratory specimens for exploring the key question about the Nazis: how could they? But Bascomb’s [...]
Also posted in Nonfiction |
Imagine the thrill I felt when walking down the hill to the Greater Union cinemas in Russell Street, marvelling at the queues amassing in the street in both directions. The Melbourne International Film Festival has begun! My first film was My Neighbor, My Killer, a documentary examination of how Rwanda’s Gacaca courts, government-organized open-air community [...]