Book Notes: "Walk a Mile in My Shoes" by Tom Collins

Walk a Mile in My Shoes by Tom Collins

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


My grandmother insisted I read this book when I was in my mid-teens, more than thirty years ago. I recalled the book recently and managed to purchase a copy; so this is my second reading. The book was originally published in 1981. This version was published in 2000. As I read, I could not help feel awkward about the conservative Queensland idea of doing "the right thing", something I struggled to escape from initially then later see for myself how I might make my own way with my own ideas about existence. My grandmother insisted that we did not know how hard it was back in the old days. Tom Collins insisted that we should know through his story. Having worked in the scrub in Far North Queensland and experienced physical hardship through work as a chain-man (surveyor's assistant) and later with the military, I feel I have some idea about hardship and physical toil, although obviously not the experience of the Great Depression. So as I read I often pulled a face at the moralising tone. Until the very end of the book. An epilogue, written by Collins' daughter, Cynthia, has been added to this later edition. In 1999, Collins was in a nursing home suffering from dementia. His tale had been told. Despite my reluctance, I have often recollected his stories throughout my life and I was sad to learn of his demise. But his story has been told. And well-received.



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Book Notes: "Towards a New Architecture" by Le Corbusier

Towards a New Architecture by Le Corbusier

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This translation of Towards a New Architecture, originally written in 1923, is prophetic in many ways. Le Corbusier writes of the “machine age” much like someone now might write of the “information age”. But he is somewhat poetic, repetitive and I would not be surprised if Tom Peters (ex-Harvard innovation guru) adopted something of Le Corbusier's style. While many of the architect's ideas were controversial, and may not have functioned as desired, he foresaw many of the things that are happening today in terms of construction materials. Although I do not doubt that the way these materials have been used meet the "cheapness" but not necessarily the "good work" he envisaged (p. 284). My favourite quote: "There is no such thing as primitive man. There are primitive resources. The idea is constant, strong from the start" (p. 70).



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Book Notes: "The Shipping News" by Annie Proulx

The Shipping News by Annie Proulx

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I have wanted to read The Shipping News since I first learnt of its Pulitzer Prize winning credentials in The Bulletin back in the 'nineties. I am not usually a fan of recent fiction but this work is very good. A back cover review cited from The Sunday Telegraph wrote of the style as "compressed" and "poetic" and this mirrors my own thoughts on the prose. What impresses me most about Proulx is that she did not publish her first novel until she was in her fifties, and The Shipping News is a masterpiece, proving that it is still possible to flower in the latter stages of middle-age. Having travelled briefly through The Maritimes, specifically Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, the novel brought back memories of the frozen sea and the various shanties along the coast of New Brunswick. At the time, these sights sent me back to my childhood memories of the television series The Beachcombers (although the series is from the west coast), and what was then that strange land of First Nations peoples, "Mounties" and Quebecois to the north of the United States rarely seen on Australian television. The cold salt air, the smell of seafood, that the sea could be frozen at all - Proulx captures these magnificently while weaving a story of lost souls, like driftwood, colliding with events directed by freezing currents. Towards the end I had to try to piece together the various characters whose individuality tended to blend into one another. In this edition, a typographical error where Bunny is a "he"; and another where the character Tert Card appears as Terd Card, stick in my mind. Nevertheless, on finishing the book I was rewarded with the tingling sensation of a well-written novel and an enlightened story. It was worth the wait, lived up to the expectations that have been built up for me over the last twenty years, and encouraged me to consider expanding my reading program beyond my recent focus on early twentieth-century authors. Will The Shipping News stand the test of time and become a classic? Given that the heartache of dying communities far from the fringes of the burgeoning metropolises continues while shallow urban existence intrigues, when the façade collapses, The Shipping News might just become the "backronym" that first truly captured the phenomenon in quality literature.



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Book Notes: "The Mutiny of the Elsinore" by Jack London

The Mutiny Of The Elsinore by Jack London

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Apparently this is London's worst work where he is quite the racial supremacist while being very poor at 'doing' romance. While some parts were gripping in the lead-up to the climax, the long slow anti-climax was disappointing, although one could imagine such things happening on the high seas. I doubt that London was being such a racial supremacist in the spirit of the noble savage à la Joseph Conrad or Rudyard Kipling, rather he added this to his somewhat awkward class commentary while at the same time trying to write a Boy's Own story. However, I wonder if I would have been so put-off by the book if the short introduction did not tell me how awful the book was, compared with London's other works, before I had even started.



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Book Notes: "The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Confession" by Leo Tolstoy

The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Confession by Leo Tolstoy

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is a well-planned and executed translation and companioning of Tolstoy's novella and his non-fiction Confession. Although the introduction and notes on the translation lean one towards such a conclusion, that it does what it says it will do makes it all the more satisfying. The novella focuses on vanity and death while Confession documents Tolstoy's grappling with the meaning of life. I am drawn to Proverbs 19:3 by this book: "The foolishness of a man twists his way, And his heart frets against the Lord."

I could hear Hemingway denouncing Fitzgerald for exposing his personal weaknesses in The Crack Up. Yet at the same time, it was interesting to read the inner ruminations of a literary great. That Tolstoy finds solace in aspects of Christianity should not take away from the different approaches to thinking about life and its meaning that he outlines for those who may be navel-gazing such topics. I couldn't help but think of my own way of, I suppose, finding peace in the way of Larry in Maugham's The Razor's Edge, in that I believe that without faith, there is no point. So without faith, life is meaningless. My thoughts here echo Tolstoy's in that he looks for a rational explanation but finds only 0=0, which is no explanation at all. Looking beyond the rational seems to be key, and reconsidering my own philosophical meanderings in the light Tolstoy's confessing was certainly food for thought.

This is an excellent pairing of the works of a master, post the glory days of Anna Karenina (which he later regarded as an abomination).



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Academic Insights from Literature

Professor B.F. Skinner. Photo: https://psychbehaviorism.wikispaces.com/CC By-SA

I use the website Goodreads to set annual ‘reading for leisure’ goals and to write reflections and reviews of the various works I read. I aim to read a book each week. This week, I completed Aldous Huxley’s (1957) Brave New World Revisited.

I thought I might share some reflections on my ‘reading for leisure’ program and how that influences my view of the academic life. Huxley’s companion to Brave New World (1932), reflects on his predictions 25 years after the fact. My review on Goodreads is reproduced below:

Huxley writes about the world in 1957, 25 years after his most famous novel, Brave New World. This is more or less an academic work where Huxley considers numerous scholars of the period (in particular, psychologists and behaviourists) and comments on propaganda, marketing, and social engineering of the day (noting John Dewey and B.F. Skinner a few times). I took the time to write down all the names and works that appear in the book, as much of Huxley's commentary is lost to earlier memories. Nevertheless, his companion book to his major work of fiction is no less prophetic. I couldn't help but wonder first, how Brave New World could have such predictive power in 1932, and second, that he could do the same again in 1957. I suppose this particular work is somewhat lost because it is not a work of fiction. But it has opened my eyes to how the issues of the present are rooted in the past.

After following up on the late Professor B.F. Skinner of Harvard, I discovered that he had written a novel, Walden Two (1948), a utopian work based on his research findings in psychology. (Walden is a famous work from 1854 by Henry David Thoreau, a transcendentalist. Huxley focused on mysticism in his later writing. By way of explaining the numerous ‘connections’ that fascinate me in literature, I am currently reading Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Confessions. Tolstoy, too, had his own moral crisis after labelling his 1877 work Anna Karenina ‘an abomination’, and then went on to found the basis for non-violent resistance as practiced by Gandhi and later Martin Luther King.) Skinner’s work extended that of Ivan Pavlov, the Russian physiologist who focused on ‘classical’ or ‘respondent’ conditioning, which was to become the foundation for ‘behaviourism’ which is something some members of the School of Government and Policy at the University of Canberra have been interested in of late.

What struck me about Skinner was that he lost credibility with his colleagues after publishing Walden Two. While he went on to contribute significantly to what we now know as behaviourism, Noam Chomsky remains one of his most exhaustive critics (see ‘A Review of B. F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior’. In Jakobovits, L.A. and Miron M.S. eds. 1967. Readings in the Psychology of Language. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall: 142-143)

The above has led me to ask my colleagues the following questions: Do you read literature and connect it to your research? If so, how? And, does the writing of a novel reduce one’s academic credibility? How?

If you are interested in connecting via Goodreads, my profile is here: https://www.goodreads.com/ madepercy.

Book Notes: "Brave New World Revisited" by Aldous Huxley

Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Huxley writes about the world in 1957, 25 years after his most famous novel, Brave New World. This is more or less an academic work where Huxley considers numerous scholars of the period (in particular, psychologists and behaviourists) and comments on propaganda, marketing, social engineering of the day (noting John Dewey and B.F. Skinner a few times). I took the time to write down all the names and works that appear in the book, as much of Huxley's commentary is lost to earlier memories. Nevertheless, his companion book to his major work of fiction is no less prophetic. I couldn't help but wonder first, how Brave New World could have such predictive power in 1932, and then, that he could do the same again in 1957. I suppose this particular work is somewhat lost because it is not a work of fiction. But it has opened my eyes to how the issues of the present are rooted in the past.



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Canberra-Sydney High Speed Rail: Civic or Airport Terminal?

© Depositphotos.com/@svetap

When it comes to constructing a high-speed rail link between Canberra and Sydney, where the link terminates doesn't really matter, right? Well, no.

When I travelled on the 300km/h high-speed rail service from Shanghai to Hangzhou (return) recently, I experienced two different terminal locations: An airport and a city centre.

The high speed rail station in Shanghai is based at the Hongqiao International Airport. This is not the main international airport (which is known as Pudong) but is an older airport that services domestic flights and various Asian international airlines. The airport and the rail terminal are huge. Waiting times for trains are up to 45 minutes. Although getting to the terminal took about 30 minutes in a taxi, from the time the gate opened until we were in our seats took only a few minutes. Security was the same as any airport.

When we arrived in Hangzhou, the terminal was located in the middle of the city. Exiting took about the same time as exiting from any regular train service. We were immediately in the middle of the city and were able to walk around to all of the locations we had time to see.

In a previous post, I examined the problems we had purchasing tickets for the return journey in a mini-ethnography. What I did not do was explain the return journey from the Shanghai terminal to our hotel.

On arrival, we thought we would take a taxi and pay the extra to return to our hotel, rather than take a regular train and then walk the 2km at the end of a long day. However, we were in for a rude shock.

As we approached the taxi rank, numerous "unofficial" taxi drivers offered to take us home. We had read up on these characters and decided there was no point pushing our luck. None of the other people were engaging with these characters so we followed suit.

As we attempted to ignore one, he stated confidently, "Come with me or it will be a two-hour wait for a taxi!" The line for the taxi rank extended beyond the horizon. He was right.

Unperturbed, we about-faced and walked back to the Shanghai Metro, caught the regular train to within walking distance of the hotel and were home within the hour. We had options.

My point is that having a terminal for a high-speed train at Canberra Airport might be useful to overcome the problems of parking in Civic, but surely the Sydney terminal must be in or near Central Station. Otherwise, what is the point?

For Canberra, a train station at the airport would justify the extension of the Capital Metro tram from Civic. For Sydney, a train station at the airport would defeat the purpose of the train. Why not fly if you need to catch a taxi from the airport anyway?

With high-speed rail between Brisbane and Melbourne back on the federal government's agenda, it is important to know what purpose it will serve.

In the forthcoming ACT election, voters have clear choices between alternative transport policies. But the re-invigorated interest in high-speed rail adds another layer to the complexity of transport infrastructure design.

My experience of the Shanghai-Hangzhou service suggests two alternative approaches to terminal location. Given that Shanghai's population is greater than Australia's (yes, Australia's entire population), the trip to the Hongqiao Airport to catch the fast train is facilitated by extensive ring roads and elevated free-ways that make the drive from Sydney airport to the CBD feel like a caravan trip along the Silk Road. In Hangzhou, the convenience of a centrally located terminal was obvious.

If high speed rail is to solve air traffic problems in major airports (for example, Sydney is the 5th busiest airport in the world), then this is quite different to high-speed rail introducing an element of competition or choice in transport between the major metropolitan centres. 

Further, if high-speed rail is meant to improve travel times, particularly in the 300-450km distance range where train travel has the potential to be faster than air travel if the terminals are closer to city centres, then terminal location becomes an important issue.

Prime Minister Turnbull's current plan for a high-speed train between Sydney Airport and the proposed Badgerys Creek makes some sense, especially if the link passes through the CBD, which seems to be on the agenda.

But I wonder if the logic for a high-speed rail terminal at Canberra Airport makes sense? Saving a few dollars by avoiding a tunnel through Mount Ainslie while ignoring the much greater cost of tackling the Brindabellas seems rather pedantic. 

And if you have to catch a tram from Gungahlin to Civic, then from Civic to the Airport, then a train to Sydney, why not cut out all the middle-men and simply catch a cab to the airport and fly to Sydney as we do now? 

Whether such seemingly simple issues can be thought through and implemented well remains to be seen. But if the to-ing and fro-ing (or argy-bargy in contemporary parlance) between interest groups that beset the Gungahlin Drive Extension is anything to go by, the ACT Government, regardless of which party is in power, certainly has its planning work cut out for it.

Book Notes: "On a Chinese Screen" by W. Somerset Maugham

On A Chinese Screen by W. Somerset Maugham

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


It was pleasing to have purchased this book in Shanghai and to have read it with the images of Shanghai and Hangzhou fresh in my mind. Maugham captures a good deal of the Chinese culture and, from what I saw of The Bund in Shanghai, the Colonial era in full swing. The work consists of 58 portraits of individuals and their idiosyncrasies and various places. At times, it is difficult to tell whether Maugham is mocking, mimicking, or satirising the various ways in which an air of cultural superiority was practised by foreigners in China. Yet it is fascinating reading, particularly in the context of just having visited Shanghai and noting the extent of its Colonial history in the face of ancient culture.



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Buses versus Light Rail: Finally, a Real Transport Policy Debate in the ACT

Adapted from © Depositphotos.com/@Den.the.Grate@gmail.com

I lost faith in Action's bus service many years ago when the Gungahlin routes were changed, making my former suburb, Palmerston, a veritable public transport backwater. I am still confused as to how Capital Metro will solve the problems for those who do not live along the Gungahlin-Civic proposed light rail corridor, but now the Canberra Liberals have provided an alternative to the accepted wisdom of light rail.

The announcement by the Canberra Liberals is an important counter-point to ACT Labor's Capital Metro. Here, the proposal for major investment in light rail is brought into sharp relief by an alternative policy. This is what oppositions are supposed to do - provide alternative policies so that voters have some choice.

Kirsten Lawson's balanced comment in The Canberra Times on Thursday quite rightly questioned the Canberra Liberals' ability to detail individual bus routes:

The first thing that you wonder, though, is who are the Liberals in the realm of specialist transport planning? You can draw all the obvious lines you like on a map of Canberra, but shouldn't bus routes be devised by bus experts? If it is as simple as this, surely it would have been done already.

While I am not a fan of political parties getting too involved in the details of day-to-day management, given my experience of Action buses, it is high time that an alternative to an ongoing problem was proposed. Surely, if the bus experts had got it right then there would be less demand for a light rail service.

I am not opposed to light rail, but it is clear that land tax - as part of value capture from improved land values in the vicinity of Capital Metro - is the unspoken motivation for light rail's role in achieving high-density, "buzzing" urban-ness in the National Capital. Social engineering if you will.

Capital Metro, however, does not provide a clear solution for Canberra's transport problems. Indeed, I would argue that higher density living is something that policy-makers desire more than citizens.

So the Canberra Liberals' proposal seems to me to be doing what the "bus experts" were unable to do. The plan is simple but it makes sense. It is also cost-effective no matter how you look at it.

But Australia certainly needs to invest in infrastructure. Travel anywhere else and you will know that for a rich country, our infrastructure is cheap and nasty. But whether governments should be doing this is another matter. There is also the issue of sovereign risk should the existing contracts be torn up if a change of government occurs. While some suggest that sovereign risk is not an issue in Australia, global businesses do not necessarily agree.

Yet these are the types of policy debates that we need here in Australia. The detailed type of debate where politicians do the ground-work and present down-to-earth solutions to everyday problems. The proposal is so simple it might just work.

The NBN (nbn) is another of my pet issues, but the problem is not the technology. Despite all the policy focus on and investment in broadband, Australia's poor showing in the global rankings is a bigger problem than whether we use fibre or not. Nevertheless, the debate is stuck on which technology we should or should not be using.

The Canberra Liberals have picked up on a major policy issue: Action is not providing the necessary transport solutions needed by the Territory. Until this problem is addressed, Capital Metro will remain an expensive side-issue. 

But the alternative transport policies offered by the Labor Government and the Liberal Opposition provide real choices for voters at the coming ACT election. That can only be a good thing, regardless of how clever the "memes" might be.