THE TRIUMPH OF THE SUN...

TITLE: The Triumph of the Sun

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AUTHOR: Wilbur Smith
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GENRE:Historical Fiction/Adventure

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An Epic tale of romance, adventure and unimaginable horrors in the deserts of the Sudan and Egypt…

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Prologue: I have to say, first up, that I am an avid Wilbur Smith reader. I have his entire collection in Hardback and have read them all many times. The exception is his last novel, which I will not go into, but just let me say it was tragic in every aspect. I have noted in your comments, that many of you dislike ‘packaged’ writing but I find sanctuary in these types of novels as they lead me through history, peoples and landscapes that I would not normally read about through the more normal channels of history texts. His research is impeccable and like Alfredo Massimo Manfredi’s – Alexander series, I find that I better understand history and its peoples. I am not naive enough to believe that they do not embellish history to suite their stories but in the main they are true to History as recorded and after all is not history just the biased written word of the victor? Smith has led me through the Arab and Western Slave trade, White Settlement, the Zulu wars, the gold and diamond rushes, the Boer Wars, WWI and WWII, the apartheid era, Egypt, Namibia, South Africa, Rhodesia/Zimbabwe and all the while he let me see Africa’s history from a personnel level. It is, raw, majestic and brutal. He has painted the pictures for my mind and I have opened it up for him. If you cannot imagine and feel his environment then Wilbur is not for you. Now on with my attempt to paint a picture of Mr Smiths “Triumph in the Sun”…

Theme: Set in the Sudan during the siege of Khartoum. The Mahdi ‘The Expected One’ has declared a Holy War and aims to cleanse the land of the unbelievers through his fanatical Dervish armies.

This book ties the two great British ‘Smith’ families of the Courtneys (Sound of Thunder, When the Lion Feeds etc) and Ballantynes (A Falcon Flies, Men of Men etc) together for the first time in their African timeline.

It centres around two main male characters; Captain Penrod Ballantyne of the King’s 10^th Hussars and the enigmatic Ryder Courtney, the Captain of a river trader. They are based in the besieged City of Khartoum under attack from the Mahdi, himself residing in the twin city of Omdurman a canon shot away, across the quickly receding Nile River. The river is the only barrier protecting those trapped inside Khartoum’s walls. A third male lead is introduced and offers an insight into the mind and culture of the supporters of the Mahdi…Osman Atalan is an Emir the Beja tribe and introduces us to an underlying core set of values and true morality, from his perspective. It is a truly wondrous and at times brutal ride.

The women, and there is always a love interest, centre around the daughters of the widowed British Consul, Sir David Benbrook. His eldest daughter Rebecca captures the heart of all the male leads while her twin, younger sisters eventually usurp her as the love interest of the British leads.

Sir Charles ‘Chinese’ Gordan is one of the non fictional characters whom link our fictional characters into history. He is/was an infamous English General sequestered into the Egyptian Army as the commander-in-chief, the Sirdar. He was ostensibly sent to Khartoum to evacuate the western population and the Egyptian garrison but defied inducements to evacuate, leading to his demise. Lord Kitchener, plays a hand eventually, and finally subdues the Sudan by 1898 before terrorising the Boers and then later the Germans on the Western Front of France.

The novel is based on history and we follow actual events through the eyes and actions of our fictional and non fictional characters. We find ourselves in the midst of actual battles fighting alongside everyone from the British camel corp to the Ansar of the Mahdi. Smith’s characters are always larger than life, strong, brave and handsome and through either actions or birth are destined for greatness.

Whilst his hallmark passages of epic battles, dusty and dangerous elephant hunts and fiery romance abound in this adventure, in droves, there is also the historical tale that has been researched very well….although, disappointingly, the last thirty years, or so, seem to be crammed into the final few pages to get to end the Sudanese saga.

One of my big criticisms of this and his later books is that, Smith steps aside from his tried and true and some would say ‘packaged’ stories…”Boy meets girl, Boy great Warrior/Adventurer/Entrepreneur, Epic adventure with African backdrop of wild animals and wild natives, Boy wins girl”…and possibly debases his female characters and the read by trying to intersperse rather graphic – for Wilbur – Sex scenes into his book. These tacky scenes do nothing for the story or the characters nor do they do anything for Smith or the reader. His attempts at describing lovemaking are akin to fingernails being dragged down a blackboard…they made me cringe.

So there we have it…adventure, romance, brutality, war, love and religion...all we need now is a Starbuck’s and we would have it all. As I said in my prologue, I am a great Smith fan and I forgive his weaknesses and his repetitive narrative* because I see beyond his writing and lose my self in the historical canvass he paints of the wondrous times and events of history.

Thanks for reading :)

* Smith quotes, almost verbatim, certain events that happen time and again through his sagas like whenever a lion attacks; we can smell its cadaverous breath and visualise its yellow eyes or when an Elephant sucks the air and blows the scent onto its olfactory gland by use of its trunk. He explains it very well and we can really see the moment but when you read almost the same passage in every novel it gets a bit rich. It is almost like he is too lazy to write it another way so he just cuts and pastes these little snippets.

Reading notes

Not to lower the tone of things, but my mother-in-law has just been to stay and left a great stash of trash. So if any of you need to know the latest status on Brad/Jen/Angelina/Brad's mum; Diana's heartbroken children; the night that Britney and KFed were both spotted out on the town (where were the kids); or the increasing influence of Posh over Kat, do let me know.

I have also just finished reading Last Drinks by Andrew McGahan. I know, you read it years ago, but if you didn't, I do recommend that you make time to read it now. Set in Queensland, post those days, it's kind of crime, but kind of not. It's interesting, to read a story narrated by a protaganist you're never quite sure you completely dislike.

The Pharmacist's Mate by Amy Fusselman

I have read The Pharmacist’s Mate by Amy Fusselman from cover-to-cover three nights running. I’m still not entirely sure I’ve got to the bottom of it.

The Pharmacist’s Mate is a memoir of Fusselman’s experiences trying to get pregnant after the death of her father. It has a loose narrative structure, but is more “point-in-time” than linear. It ranges from matter-of-fact observations about the colour of semen which has been “washed” for insemination (pink), to musings about the way in which deaf people might interpret guitar-playing as a visual activity.

Fusselman is what other writers might consider achingly honest. She records her thoughts without fear or favour – an observation that she thinks “My Dad is Dead” would be a good name for a boy child is delivered in the same voice as her description of her mother’s visions of “something” in the room with them.

Fusselman’s writing is blog-like and conversational. She records her thoughts in a series of staccato paragraphs which are interspersed with entries from her father’s diaries as a Pharmacist-Purser’s Mate on a merchant marine vessel during World War II.

She doesn’t like the word “husband” (“it sounds like we had a party and ate cake and said words”). She is intrigued by the type of porn her husband watches at the IVF clinic (“Valentino’s Asian Invasion”). She writes in a detached way about her inability to become pregnant.

There is something about the tone of this novel which gives it a kind of sleeper effect. In some ways, the tone of writing is similar to Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho: shattering events are given the same treatment as everyday occurrences.

If I were the kind of smash-grab spin writer who might prepare a blurb on this book for Oprah, I’d observe that it “has something for everyone” – which it does in some ways. But it’s an unsettling read despite its tone, and although it goes into some detail about Fusselman’s almost accidental attendance at an AC/DC concert, AC/DC fans would find it a thin read if this was their focus.

It’s possible I may be able to tie this book down after a few more reads, but I wouldn’t bet my life on it. In the meantime I’ll be recommending it to friends, and I suspect lending it to several people.

Anyone else who is interested can get it at a bargain-basement price from McSweeney’s Internet Tendency

Orpheus Lost

Orpheus Lost, Janette Turner Hospital, Harper Collins, $29.95

Set in a near future when suicide bombers strike at will in American cities and people are snatched from the street for interrogation by mercenaries, Orpheus Lost is a tale of love in a time of terror.

Mishka is an Australian violinst who lives in his music, while Leela is an intimidatingly intelligent young woman from the Deep South who is researching the mathetmatics of music. This unlikely pair meets and falls in love in the underworld of the Boston subway when she is drawn to his soulful violin.

With his Jewish background and dreamy vagueness when faced with the real world, Mishka is the least likely terrorist imaginable. When masked men kidnap Leela and question her about her lover’s apparent double life and jihadi connections, she thinks the world has finally gone mad. To make things even more surreal, her hooded interrogator turns out to be her childhood friend, the bizarrely named and deeply troubled Cobb Slaughter.

Follwing a suicide bombing that destroys a bus, Mishka suddenly bolts, making himself look blindingly guilty. He leaves for Beirut with a fake passport in another name and vanishes from a street corner, but Leela still refuses to believe he could be involved in the bombings.

Turner Hospital has taken the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice and turned it on its head. Instead of a resolute Orpheus venturing into the underworld to bring back his lost love, it is Eurydice who is the stronger character and who launches the rescue mission.

This is the second of Turner Hospital’s terror books, following on from Due Preparations for the Plague, a chilling retelling of Boccaccio’s Decameron that substitutes hostages from a hijacked plane waiting to choke on poison gas for the revelers waiting for the bloom of the Black Death.

Turner Hospital's writing is evocative and in places beautifully wrought. She brings to life the wet tropics of Far North Queensland, a small and down-at-heel town in South Carolina and a subterranean gulag with equal skill. The supporting cast of characters is pleasingly complex: there is Leela's father, the mad and dying preacher who takes numbers far too seriously; Cobb's father, an alcoholic veteran who was demonised as a war criminal on his return from Vietnam; and Mishka's mother, who perpetrates the myth that an uncle dead for decades is actually playing his violin just upstairs.

The only real sense of a character with something lacking comes with Mishka. Though devoted to his music and to Leela, compared to other, stronger characters, he comes across as somewhat limp and weak. Sometimes he appears to be little more than a symbolic victim waiting meekly to be sacrificed

Orpheus Lost returns to the writer’s favourite themes of disappearance, loss, redemption and the rubbery and difficult nature of truth. The lines between reality, illusion and delusion, between right and wrong are blurred. Despite Mishka's shortcomings, this is a satisfying, intelligent read that never loses faith in humankind, despite the difficult and trying times against which it is set.

My Sister's Keeper

Title: My Sister's Keeper
Author: Jodi Picoult
Publisher: Atria Books, 2004



Written more in the style of a movie than a book, My Sister's Keeper outlines the story of a family torn apart and drawn back together by their decisions in supporting a child with an acute form of leukemia.

The story is told from multiple points of view, but it is mostly about Anna, the youngest of three children who was conceived in order to be a bone marrow donor for her sister Kate, who suffers said leukemia.
Anna, 13, decides she wants medical emancipation from her parents - and informs them of this by filing a law suit. It isn't clear, until the final pages of the book, just why Anna files the law-suit originally, as we, the reader, are only given opinions of those surrounding Anna, she herslef never divulges the reasoning behind her decision.

This book touches on many issues, but central to the plot - should society allow parents to decide whether or not one child should become a donor for another, sick, sibling?
I believe that the characters presented, within Anna's family are all believable. Jesse (brother) and Anna clearly show the effects of being neglected, in an emotional sense, by their parents, especially the mother, who are entirely focused on having three healthy children, ie. dedicating most of their time to Kate (although i think Brian, the father, is not so much guilty of this as the mother. He appears more in-touch with the states of all his children and the mother's clear 'writing-off' of Jesse is depressing in the fact that it is so common amongst youth of my generation who are misunderstood and get caught up in drugs and other bad practices).

To me, the characters presented outside the family, Julia and Campbell, diminish the quality of the rest of the book as they are much harder to believe. Their sub-plot does add some much needed distraction from the times within the book when Sara, the mother - and easily the most unlikeable character - is talking from her viewpoint.

All in all, this book is a fabulous read that touches on some of the hottest topics relevant in today's society from IVF and genetic engineering to just how much can a parent control their child?

Callisto

The Facts: Callisto (Torsten Kroll, 2007 Picador by Pan Macmillan Australia) rrp $32.95 Available everywhere

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Torsten Krol, if he exists and isn't (as suspected) a pseudoym for some well-known author who is worried that writing something like this could be potentially damaging to his or her marketability in the US, lives in Queensland. This is his second book and if you can find out any more than that about him, you're a better Sunday morning researcher than I am.

Callisto is one of those books that currently seems to be near the front door of most bookshops, like they’re either trying to create a bestseller or just get rid of it. I picked it up because, well, bright colours and glossy covers appeal to that simple side of my brain.

When I started reading it, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Now that I’m done - I’m still wondering.

This is the story of Odell Deefus: a young, white, poor American male, on his way to join the army. He hasn’t got a high school diploma, but he’s pretty sure that won’t matter, because the army is desperate, what with the war killing off all their personnel and a general reluctance among would-be recruits to be next. On his way to his local recruiting centre, his car breaks down and he meets Dean Lowry, who puts him up for the night until he can get his truck fixed.

It’s an ill-fated meeting, with Dean ending up dead and Odell getting caught up in multiple terror plots, a little drug smuggling, murder and late-night TV Christianity.

On the surface, Callisto is just your typical wrong-place-wrong-time story, sitting somewhere in the genre intersection between small-town fish-out-of-water, crime and political thriller. Read a little deeper, however, and its loftier ambitions become apparent.

Callisto reminds me in some ways of Winston Groom’s Forrest Gump, in that it’s a story told through the eyes of a rather dim-witted soul who keeps getting caught up in quite remarkable events – thankfully, there’s not so much of the tweeness and no t-shirtable sayings. Krol has obviously given Odell’s ‘voice’ a lot of thought, and the result is convincing, without getting annoying. Odell isn’t particularly likeable, and I spent a lot of the book marveling at his stupidity, but ultimately you do feel for him and want him to get away – if only because he didn’t do anything (much).

This is actually quite a political book, and Krol finds ways to work in commentary on a gamut of issues – from homophobia and the church-state divide to the guilty-until-proven-innocent treatment of suspected terrorists, with many in between. It’s not always successful, but for the most part it is thought-provoking and the ‘message’ is pretty clear: something is rotten in the Untied States of America.

Callisto seems a little unsure of itself at times, like it can’t decide whether it wants to be pulp fiction or serious literature. Some of the ideas are a little clunky and the way all the loose ends tie up at the end is a little bit forced – as though Krol wrote himself into a corner and didn’t really know how to get himself out.

Ultimately, though, this is a fairly easy, if not always light, read. It’s a black comedy that just keeps getting blacker and that bad taste in your mouth through the last hundred or so pages – well, that’s kind of the point.

Book for October 07

My instinctive reaction on finding myself first cab off the rank in the reviews, to follow the extremely polished performance of redcap was...well, you can imagine!

I pondered long and hard. Stayed awake at nights. Trawled bookshops like a woman possessed - which I was. Then realised the solution was staring me in the face.

A fabulous book by a local author which I had recently had recommended to me. I had bought it, been unable to put it down till I finished it, then, carried away with enthusiasm, had lent it to the next person to arrive at my house.

As is the way, that was the last I heard of my prized possession until now. I have recovered it and am re-reading it. I really hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

I am in Hobart, and the author, John Honey, is also a local. I have spoken to John and warned him about what I was about to do, so he knows exactly what the score is.

The description on the back of the book reads, "Kevin 'Boris' Goodenough, Vietnam vet and reclusive artist, loves food, wine, women.....and paint. When an old post-traumatic dream recurs he launches on a major series of paintings about war. Suddenly his world changes, then threatens to fall apart...."

It's an easy read. One I identified very much with, being the progeny of an artist.

It is currently in the planning stage of being made into a movie, with the first draft of the screen play having been finalised in March this year. It is now in script development. The producer, Rosemary Blight, has been working on her recent production, Clubland, with Brenda Blethyn. It is looking like a 2009 film, at this stage.

John Honey has worked inTV/current affairs and film & TV writing/directing. He made the Tasmanian movie "Manganini" and worked in the US in the 90's making TV documentaries. He was also an original writer on the team of McLeods Daughters.

The book is only available from the author. He published it himself, so the details of how to obtain your copy are:

Cost of book is $29.95
No postage or handling will be charged within Australia
You can email or call direct or fax your details
www.redhillbooks.com
email directly: redhillbooks@iinet.net.au
or call John on 03 6267 2331
or fax your address and credit card details to 03 62671036

John is an incredibly straightforward person with no delusions of grandeur at all. If you want to call him for a copy of the book, just pick up the phone!
Be warned though, he has a stall at the infamous (Hobart) Salamanca Market, peddling his book, so that's where he is to be found every Saturday.