30 Days in Sydney: A Wildly Distorted Account

Many cities rejoice in their history, but in this, too, Sydney is special. Founded as a convict colony, it grew into a major Pacific port. Survival was a struggle with poor soil, vagaries of rain and wind and the presence of the Aborigine population - issues that urbanisation hides but cannot eliminate. Sensing its importance early, Sydney girted the Harbour with forts, something Carey lightly applauds when old forts become new parks. Carey conveys the sense of struggle, but time has transformed equal starving of convicts and guards to ideals of social equality - so long as that society is white, he reminds us. His "distorted view" imparts his dissenting view on relations with displaced Aborigines, among other topics.

However booksellers classify this work, it's not a travel advisory. Tourists will be unlikely to join the Sydney to Hobart race. Even more unlikely when they read Carey's account of the disaster of 1998. Nor will the casual visitor find themselves in a capsized racing skiff in the teeth of ten metre waves and forty knot winds. If you do visit, be careful hiking in mountains. If your visit occurs in the Southern Hemispheric summer, be extra cautious with matches or campfires. What can happen if you aren't Carey imparts with stunning clarity. Having lost his own house to fire, a telephone dialogue with a friend fighting to save one is a gripping read.

Carey's many awards are well deserved. His descriptive writing skills and characterisation are well demonstrated in this book. It's no matter if these are real people, mixtures of many into one or wholly invented. Their own stories are from real life and deserve attention. Carey snags your attention from the first page and you give it willingly to the rest of the book. An essay string that may be enjoyed by anyone, this book provides entertainment, education and excitement. Try it and see. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]


A Great Writer's Love Affair with a Great City!   September 2, 2002
 5 out of 5 found this review helpful

Peter Carey spent 30 days in Sydney in 2000 and we readers are the lucky recipients of his account. He clearly loves Sydney and demonstrates this love in every page of this little volume. His love is contagious. For example, on viewing what he calls "the great Pacific Ocean," he writes: "It is one of a hundred places you will find in Sydney which take your breath away, and I, familiar but disoriented, was in a state of constant amazement that any metropolis could be so blesssed." He also obviously cares deeply for his friends who still live there. About his friend Jack Ledoux he says: "I have lived in more than one house Jack has designed and would be a happy man if I could wake up in one tomorrow morning and live in it all my life. Every time I walk into one of his constructions, it makes me happy." What an extraordinary way to describe a friend!

Mr. Carey sets out to describe this great city in terms of earth, air, fire and water. He does this by having several zany friends of his-- some of them friends of thirty years-- tell their stories. Any one of these characters ought to be found in a novel, at least one of Mr. Carey's. In his hands they become flesh and blood and as interesting as the city they describe. Good stuff jumps out on every page. Mr. Carey admits that he cannot drive over Sydney's famous bridge without having a panic attack, a fact that is particularly significant to me since I suffer from the same problem with high bridges. Then there is the delicious account of the word "Eternity" and the little man responsible for writing the word everywhere or anywhere he felt his God called him to write it. Carey's handling of the "Aborigine problem" is particularly poignant in his discussion of Vicki, who was taken from her parents and raised by a white family.

Carey, now living in New York, did not move to Sydney, the city his mother said was just like Liberace, until he was almost forty-- ". . . even then I carried in my baggage a typical Melbournian distrust of that vulgar crooked convict town." I for one would love to see him write similar books about both Melbourne and New York.

So much good writing-- so many marvelous stories in 248 pages. A great read!


Lots of good stories within stories   February 1, 2002
 8 out of 9 found this review helpful

This is a good read for Aussie expats, not least because the author is one of Australiays more prominent contemporary literary figures, staging a return visit to Sydney from his current home in New York. Aussies living in America will probably be tuned into the way observations of one country are used to shed light on the other, the extra explanations he is obliged to include for either culture, as well was the exercise of reacquainting oneself with oneys place of origin and trying to come to grips with its history and character. On occasion the authorys own brand of cronyism (men relive their exploits or otherwise act out their mid life crises) is a bit irksome, but then he is well aware of such potential gripes and fends them off within the book (yMate, youyre making a big mistake talking to all these men. Youyre ignoring the womenyy). In all, he spins a good yarn, and the final pages will have you heaving on the open seas at the mouth of the Hawkesbury River.