Jul 21, 2016 08:48 PM
1108 Views
This is a fabulously idiosyncratic small masterpiece. There are books you can't stop reading, books you have to force yourself to pause at certain moments to highlight portions you want to remember. and also books that you highlight so you don't fall asleep and manage to keep going. Yes, like a textbook. This is one of those. After finishing Caitlin Moran's "How to be a Woman" then grabbing this one, seems I have gone from feminine to profoundly masculine in one mere grab. Peter Carey writes about his town of choice Sydney and the relationship he has with it. His friends are all men and he chooses to tell the story of the city through his friendship with them. I found this book to be incredibly masculine in the way it was written and the tales it tells. Sydney too is one of my favourite cities and it at least explained some history and the meaning behind Eternity…. 30 Days in Sydney is surely one of the most self-indulgent books I've read. The back cover claims this to be an attempt to capture Sydney's character but it's little more than the reminiscences of a small group of men of a similar age and background. The stories themselves are interesting, as are the interlinking bits of Sydney's history, but they're more relevant to the Sydney of the 70s and 80s than to the city as it is now……. Apart from the somewhat interesting bits of history(which I don't know how true they are), the book is pretty much a journal of Carey's travels in Sydney. I was not interested in his weird dreams nor his sailing adventures but what kept me going was the hope that I'd pick up some good travelling tips for when and if I visit Sydney some day. It would be interesting to incorporate the locations he's featured in a travel itinerary for Sydney. I would have preferred a little more "travel guide" and less drama in this travelogue but I think this is what makes it so different from a Lonely Planet guide.(Traveller Magazine calls it "a refreshing antidote to the average city guide.") An Australian would probably appreciate this book more than I did. The writer in him gets truly hooked, and so does the reader . a book of fierce colour and shape' New York Times.It’s a place where you can be pushed off the sidewalk by a redneck right outside the most utterly twee of art galleries. Such contrasts are all there in Peter Carey’s book.