Books

Newcastle Herald

Saturday May 10, 2008

EDITED BY ELVIRA SPROGIS

Troubling thoughts

THINKERS OF THE JUNGLE: The orangutan report

Gerd Schuster, Willie Smits and Jay Ullal

H.F. Ullman, $59.95

At first glance this is a book of stunningly beautiful and moving pictures of orang-utans at play and in their natural environment. But move from pictures to text and a sickeningly cruel story unfolds.

Schuster, Smits and Ullal expose corruption in Borneo and Sumatra that has allowed the illegal destruction of forests for the planting of vast palm oil plantations and at the same time caused the awful deaths of thousands of orangs.

The orangs, our closest relatives in the animal kingdom, are doubly damned. Their homes are destroyed by fire or chainsaws and when the starving animals go to the new plantations in search of food and water they are subjected to horrendous treatment and torture.

Thriving black market demands for cute baby orangs to be kept as pets means hunters use food and water to attract orang families, then maim and blind the mothers with machetes and air rifles so their babies can be stolen and kept cruelly in tiny cages. Many rescued babies have been found in the most barbaric conditions and the graphic details in the book make for disturbing reading.

Maree Davison

Weekender has a copy of this book to give away. Write your name and address on the back of an envelope and send it to: Orangutangs, Weekender, PO Box 510, Newcastle, NSW 2300, by Monday, May 19.

LOST GIRLS AND LOVE HOTELS

Catherine Hanrahan

Pocket Books, $21.95

Girly anti-hero Margaret is a twentysomething hiding from herself and her past in downtown Tokyo.

She's designed to appeal to the chick lit audience. She's a cynical, tough protagonist who defies convention but still manages to fall in love, although rather unbelievably, with a Japanese gangster, and reconcile herself with her past and family.

There's little story to hold together Margaret's cliched bad girl behaviour. She drinks too much, she takes drugs, she's sexually promiscuous and jaded.

Hanrahan attempts to balance Margaret's tough exterior with an innocent inner girl. But the thumb-sucking that endears her to the gangster is just one example of the forced symbolism that weakens the tale.

The scene setting and foreigner's perceptions of urban expat life in Japan, however, are the book's strongest point.

But what is designed to be a gritty cut above the usual journey of self-discovery falls flat.

Louise Fraser

THE ANGEL OF GROZNY: Inside Chechnya

Asne Seierstad

Virago, 340pp, $35

This disturbing book is a fine piece of reportage by Norwegian journalist Asne Seierstad.

She was on assignment to Moscow when the Russians invaded Chechnya in 1994. She watched reports on TV and decided to go there secretly to see what was really going on.

She was particularly concerned to find children hungry, lonely, angry and traumatised, many of whom had lost their parents because of the war. One oasis for the children was the home of Hadijat, the Angel of Grozny, who did her best to provide love, food and security.

The world has forgotten Chechnya, but visits by Seierstad in 2006-2007 showed that the suffering and devastation remain.

Seierstad's book would have been more powerful had it been more tightly focused on the children and the Angel, but it still reminds us that there is much cruelty, brutality and evil in our world.

Peter Beale

DIARY OF A BAD YEAR

J.M. Coetzee

The Text Publishing Company, $35

J.M. Coetzee has written more than 50 short pieces dealing with the sort of thing that we grumpy old men worry about: they range from Guantanamo Bay to current English usage.

Perhaps not surprisingly, I agree with his opinions on practically everything except for, I hasten to add, intelligent design and the theory of probability.

For reasons best known to himself, he has chosen to add a story, threaded through the essays, with two narrators speaking concurrently. The effect is to present the reader with a half page of essay, interrupted by a few inches of first narrator, then the second narrator has a turn for the rest of the page.

Reading the book is like trying to keep three balls in the air and I am afraid that my mind is not nimble enough for the task. Perhaps that is why Coetzee's much-admired Tolstoy never tried his hand at the form.

David Christie

CLOSING HELL'S GATES: The death of a convict station

Hamish Maxwell-Stewart

Allen & Unwin, 342pp, $24.95

This meticulously researched history is about a little-known aspect of Australian convict history, "devil's island" called Sarah Island, on the rugged west coast of Tasmania.

It operated from 1822 to 1834. Its story is arguably a shameful blot on our history. The convicts sent here from Hobart Town were allegedly the worst, although many had been brutalised by the system.

This is a detailed history of the 12 years of this dreadful place. It is written thematically, rather than chronologically and covers aspects such as the soldiers and prisoners, the geography of the place, attempted escapes and the horrendous punishments meted out.

The main problem with this book is that it is so macabre and gruesome as to be off-putting, at least to this reviewer.

However, if you have an interest in the convict era then you won't be disappointed here.

Paul Kraus

BESTSELLERS

FICTION

Breath

Tim Winton

$29.95

This Charming Man

Marian Keyes

$19.95

Change of Heart

Jodi Picoult

$19.95

Hold Tight

Harlan Coben

$24.95

The Host

Stephenie Meyer

$21.95

NON FICTION

New Earth

Eckhart Tolle

$29.95

Underbelly - The Gangland Wars

John Silvester & Andrew Rule

$19.95

4 Ingredients

Kim McCosker & Rachael Bermingham

$17.95

Eat Pray Love

Elizabeth Gilbert

$24.95

Australian Game of Football

ed. Geoff Slattery

$59.95

List and prices

courtesy of Borders

© 2008 Newcastle Herald

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