But Davis is already impatient of mere imitation and almost every page shows flashes of originality. Usually these are statements so condensed that they are poetic explosions and not sober prose. Reviewed by Bob Williams What Rough Peace by Josh…
Tag: fiction
A review of Blueback by Tim Winton
Winton called this novel a contemporary fable, and there is certainly a clear and obvious moral with a positive answer to the question of how can we live in the modern world with our morality and respect for the environment…
A Review of Liam’s Going by Michael Joyce
So often novels have style but little substance and often there is a struggle to express substance but the project is doomed without style. Here is a book with both in abundance and a sense of poetry that illumines both…
A review of The Muse and the Mechanism by Josh Davis
This is a remarkable novel. It is described on the back cover as his second book but the name of this first book appears nowhere. This may thus be his first published work. It is eminently readable and assured. Reviewed…
A review of Names for Nothingness by Georgia Blain
Nothing is simple, and as Blain herself says, Names for Nothingness raises more questions than it solves. Caitlin’s life is sad, but she finds a kind of peace, even if the reader disapproves of her choice, which seems little more…
A review of Still Life in Motion by Sean Brijbasi
The arrangement of the many stories in Still Life is an adventure in itself. The groupings have titles and the succession is ‘stories about something,’ ‘stories about nothing,’ ‘stories about things that might have happened,’ ‘true stories,’ stories about things…
A review of Death of a River Guide by Richard Flanagan
“In an age where everything can mean anything, perhaps it is only possible to exist as a cipher, as a thin, fragile outline of a hope etched across an infinity of madness.” (309) Flanagan provides his answer – in the…
A review of Living to Tell the Tale by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a writer of such greatness that his autobiography has an intrinsic interest on the score both of his greatness and the skill with which he tells his own story. Living to Tell the Tale is the…
A review of Ignorance by Milan Kundera
When Ignorance is good, the novel flows like an insightful and moving non-fiction essay along the lines of Garner’s work. The reader perceives Kundera’s insight and shares in the attempts at returning home. There are also moments of sad beauty…
A review of Love by Toni Morrison
The truth of these characters is something both suppressed and created by the man who has damaged them. Cosey’s influence, his power, is one which sits at the opposing pole to the power demonstrated, especially in the end, by Christine…