 A whip-smart young woman spars with a self-satisfied married man
Thirty-year-old Arabella has three complicated male relationships in her life. She lives with her widowed father, an impossibly accomplished man whom Arabella feels she has devoted her life to, perhaps at her own expense. Then there is her brother Michael, who is on some sort of spiritual / poetic quest in Pakistan. His letters are full of complex introspection, intellectual jousting and spare-no-details descriptions of a debilitating illness he has contracted. And finally, Charles Hamblin, the happily married man that Arabella, against her better instincts, decides to date. The two circle each other, making judgements and assessments, until an uneasy settlement is arrived at. Rosemary Tonks (1928-2014) was an English poet and novelist, active mostly in the late 1960s and early 1970s. She then became a fundamentalist Christian and disappeared into obscurity, treating her own literary output with disdain. She sought out copies of her novels from public libraries in order to destroy them, and in 1981 burnt an unpublished manuscript. The Way Out of Berkeley Square reads like an autobiographical novel, written in a playful, almost artificial voice. Tonks sees fiction writing as a bit of a game, and she likes to toy with the reader, but in a fun, if puzzling, way. Her interactions with the three main male characters - father, brother and potential lover - show her in a somewhat submissive, supporting role - but intellectually it's clear she’s a dominating force. (There’s an argument to be made that the text is latently feminist, with its idiosyncratic portraits of father, brother and lover.) Her surreal and offbeat descriptions, which richly inform every word of the novel, create a delightfully absorbing, unique world. Here is a taste from an overflowing banquet: “There are opium dens in North Africa where a big carpet, impregnated with some narcotic, is very slowly shaken over the heads of those who seek oblivion.” Rosemary Tonks is a true original, and every word she writes makes you sit up in your chair and pay attention. The only writer that comes close to her in style and originality is the poet Stevie Smith, who wrote a series of autobiographical novels written in similar brassy style. There is also a touch perhaps of Sylvia Plath, another poet. It’s wonderful news that Vintage has now published four of Rosemary Tonks’ six novels. Don’t miss this little gem. The Way Out of Berkeley Square, by Rosemary Tonks. Published by Vintage. $22.99 Review by Chris Saliba  The Sapiens author looks into the past to warn about what our future might look like.
The publishing world is now releasing a steady flow of books about Artificial Intelligence (AI), some prognosticating doom, others predicting a supercharged future. Into this vexed subject steps Yuval Noah Harari, mega successful historian and philosopher, who has sold some 45 million books. Harari has long had an interest in information technology, and how it interacts and shapes society. His 2016 followup to Sapiens, Homo Deus, mused on what technology might have in store for the human race, and how our outsized desires could be our downfall. That book had a bemused tone at the folly of humans. Nexus takes on a more alarmed tone. The main contention of the book, which many may find hard to accept, is that more information does not lead us to the truth. Harari writes that information more often than not is about maintaining order. An alarming example is Stalinist Russia. The Soviet state was able to amass enormous amounts of information about its citizens and thus keep them in line. Or there is the invention of the Gutenberg press, which democratised information and made possible the European witch hunts. In 1486 the German Catholic clergyman Heinrich Kramer published his bestseller The Hammer of Witches, which kicked off a bloodcurdling period in European history. On a more positive note the Bible, Harari contends, was a genius piece of information technology, as it kept an agreed upon set of “facts” that could hold society together. If Biblical facts were contested over time, there was a self-correcting function, in that scholars and clerics could write new interpretations, publish them, and generate a new point of consensus. The second part of the book, after the historical overview of information systems, concentrates on the future of artificial intelligence, its possible advantages and many dangers. In Australia, we have perhaps had a taste of the brutal effects of unregulated algorithms in the robodebt scandal, where many vulnerable people were sent incorrect computer generated tax bills. Harari argues that AI will become so complex, with its large-scale machine learning capabilities, that no human will be able to understand it. If society’s basic functions are run by incomprehensible AI, how will citizens have redress when things go wrong? In essence, Nexus argues for regulation and human intervention. Yuval Noah Harari’s great skill is as a communicator of complex ideas, drawing together different strands of history and weaving them together into a compelling pattern. The first half of Nexus, which deals with the history of information, ideas, society and politics, is brilliant. The second half, while raising many interesting points that the reader may not have thought of, flags slightly. As Harari is writing about the present and possible future, it feels like we cannot see the forest for the trees, stuck as we are in the midst of so much technological progress. Harari makes predictions about the future, but it is impossible to know what will pan out. A brilliant book, also a highly enjoyable read and one that will open your mind to a new way of thinking about information, technology and society. Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks From the Stone Age to AI, by Yuval Noah Harari. Published by Fern Press. $39.99 Review by Chris Saliba  A man in the 1970s Soviet Union reflects on the life of one of Russia’s greatest writers.
Leonid Tsypkin (1926-1982) was a Soviet writer and medical doctor. He and his wife tried several times to emigrate, but were unsuccessful. Tsypkin’s attempts to leave were not appreciated by the Soviet regime, and he was demoted from his job and suffered humiliating pay cuts. The couple lived in crushing poverty and Tsypkin died at the age of 56, of a heart attack. His only full length novel, Summer in Baden Baden, was published the week before his death. It was his only fiction that he would see in print. An English translation by Roger and Angela Keys appeared in 1987, and the novel soon sunk back into obscurity. In the early 1990s, American critic Susan Sontag was rummaging in a dump bin of old paperbacks in a Charing Cross bookshop and by chance came across Tsypkin’s yet-to-be classic. Sontag’s intervention ensured success (and even renewed Russian interest) and Summer in Baden Baden has now entered the pantheon of Russian literature. It’s the 1970s, a Russian winter. An unnamed Jewish narrator catches a train from Moscow to Leningrad, tracing the footsteps of his literary hero, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and along the way making a few autobiographical digressions. He has borrowed from his aunt a published diary by Dostoyevsky’s wife, Anna. The diary relates an infamous gambling trip Dostoyevsky and his wife took to the German resort town of Baden Baden. The narrator describes in his own words the madness of Dostoyevsky’s obsession with gambling, his addiction and pathetic weakness. Dostoyevsky has an uncontrollable compulsion to gamble big and recklessly, running back to his wife in shame and humiliation after losing all, asking for forgiveness, only to return to the gambling tables to lose all again. The novel then jumps to Dostoyevsky’s final years, devoting a substantial final stretch to his death. I didn’t expect to like Summer in Baden Baden. Its style is unusual and off putting, written in extremely long sentences, mostly one to two page length paragraph-blocks. However, the prose is warm and inviting - if somewhat breathless. Tsypkin does an excellent job of describing a complex marriage, often on the brink of destruction by one partner (Dostoyevsky) but saved by the grace and saintly patience of the other (Anna). It’s a portrait of a vulnerable couple trying to hold all together, despite so many personal demons. The last section of the novel, dealing with Dostoyevsky’s death, and Anna’s shock and disbelief, is incredibly moving, a tour de force in fact. An anatomy of a marriage, very much brought to life by the author’s luminous prose and unending passion for the life and works of Dostoyevsky. Kudos to the great Susan Sontag (who introduces the book) for her genius in plucking this gem out of a trash can. Summer in Baden Baden, by Leonid Tsypkin. Published by Faber. $24.99 Review by Chris Saliba  In 7th century imperial China, a magistrate is poisoned in mysterious circumstances.
Robert van Gulik was a Dutch diplomat and China expert. He lived most of his professional life in China and married a Chinese woman. He started writing his Judge Dee mysteries in English, the character based on an 18th century Chinese fictional detective (who was in turn based on the historical figure Di Renjie, a 7th century magistrate). The early books in the series were translated first into Japanese and then Chinese, not finding English publication until several years later. Later books would be published in their original English first. It’s 663, a port city in the Shantung Province. All is not well in the district of Peng-lai. Judge Dee has been appointed there after the previous magistrate was murdered by poisoning. With the help of his two rough and ready assistants, Chiao Tai and Ma Joong, the judge starts to unravel a series of murders and disappearances connected to the dead magistrate. There’s even the mystery of several ghostly apparitions that also needs explaining. Van Gulik writes in an elegant, lapidary prose, perfectly fitted to this tale set in 7th century imperial China. There’s an intriguing cast of characters - sex workers, faux intellectuals and vagabonds - that makes The Chinese Gold Murders both a juicy crime whodunnit and a fascinating portrait of life during the Tang dynasty. The reader learns much about law, commerce, cultural norms, social hierarchy and etiquette. Indeed, the China of this period seems surprisingly advanced and progressive. A crime book that doubles as a fascinating literary time machine to another time and place. The Chinese Gold Murders, by Robert van Gulik. Published by Penguin. $22.99 Review by Chris Saliba |
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