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archytas's review
3.0
I learned perhaps more than I realised from this book, about a much wider than range of topics. From the atmosphere of Sydney in the 1880s, to the journalistic strengths and limitations of early photography, to the development of Australian mapping history and painting. The book meanders through topics just as it wanders through place and time, with a careless air that belies a seriously earnest intent.
It was perhaps humbling to discover that Australia's early painters loved the landscape with the same passion as mine - perhaps even the same sense of home.
I wanted to like this more than I did. But for exhausted-end-of-the-day reading, the disregard for such conventions as dates, full names, bios of newly introduced folk, and clearly delineated changes of location became bewildering and irritating, rather than charming. There are few things that annoy this reader as much as having invested 5 minutes in reading before realising you had invested the description to the wrong people, or location. Having to wipe the mental slate clean and start again, with a fresh set of investment.
Still, well after I put the book down with little sigh of relief, I find myself looking for what it described in paintings, and viewing my own landscape slightly differently.
It was perhaps humbling to discover that Australia's early painters loved the landscape with the same passion as mine - perhaps even the same sense of home.
I wanted to like this more than I did. But for exhausted-end-of-the-day reading, the disregard for such conventions as dates, full names, bios of newly introduced folk, and clearly delineated changes of location became bewildering and irritating, rather than charming. There are few things that annoy this reader as much as having invested 5 minutes in reading before realising you had invested the description to the wrong people, or location. Having to wipe the mental slate clean and start again, with a fresh set of investment.
Still, well after I put the book down with little sigh of relief, I find myself looking for what it described in paintings, and viewing my own landscape slightly differently.
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