F.E. Beyer's Blog, page 8

Buenos Aires Triad 2

The Target:

Exiting the plane and walking down the steps to the tarmac, Diana felt a thrill at being outside, but then she saw the line stretching out of the terminal. She didn’t understand what was going on at first; was this the line for immigration? With his hat in the checked luggage, her husband, Dinos, had the sun blasting his baldpate as they waited in line for the next hour. The melasma recently removed from his scalp with acid meant he shouldn’t be in the sun. Once inside the ter...

Devil of a State

Devil of a State, published 1961, is set in Dunia, a fictional East African state on the verge of independence. In this novel Burgess draws on his experiences as an Educational Officer in the Sultanate of Brunei where the original manuscript was set. Fearing a possible libel case, the publisher, Hutchinson, had Burgess change the setting. This may have been a good move because one of his earlier works about Malaya had provoked a lawsuit and another novel Burgess published in 1961, The Worm a...

Wake in Fright

This is a classic tale of the civilised man from the coast going mad in the barbarous interior. John Grant is a country-town school teacher on his way back to Sydney for the summer. However, because of problems with his flight, he gets stuck for one night in the Yabba, a town based on Broken Hill in the West of NSW. Author Kenneth Cook spent time in Broken Hill himself and he recreates the atmosphere in brilliantly cynical fashion. Wake in Fright was his first novel and it’s certainly the mo...

Thoughts: Netflix, The Serpent, The Queen’s Gambit, Walter Tevis, The Hustler, The Color of Money

(Photo: Jenna Coleman in “The Serpent”)

Just watched the first two episodes of “The Serpent” and am happy to find another engaging Netflix series. It is somewhat based on a book called “On the Trail of the Serpent”, published in 1979.

In the quest for hit shows, (potential?) Netflix writers are scouring non-fiction and fiction books for exciting (long forgotten) tales. For example, Walter Tevis was not a writer on my radar until I watched “The Queen’s Gambit”. Although I had a fake ...

Flag of the Southern Cross

A foreigner with glassy eyes and a gut, par for the course, it was his ears which caught my attention, like classroom models complete with painted on veins. He was with a diminutive woman, hers was an alcopop, his a large bir Anker. A German, who had lived in Australia for twenty years; when he recited Henry Lawson’s poem “Flag of the Southern Cross” tears welled up in his eyes – because, he said, Australia didn’t live up to the spirit of the work – there was no fairness in that country....

Confucius and Opium

The American writer Isham Cook is an eccentric who might be telling us the truth – or at least trying to. An open minded reader, who doesn’t mind having their leg pulled a bit, will find the erudite “Confucius and Opium” a rewarding read.

This work contains eleven ‘book review essays’ that are in-depth, no holds barred investigations of writing about China from the nineteenth century until the present day. Multiple books are discussed in each chapter/essay, and there is a risk that you’ll...