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oanh_1's review against another edition
2.0
Was I more critical of this one than the other two in the series (Melbourne, Hobart) that I'd read because I know Brisbane well? Possibly (I'm prepared to admit as much) but I don't think so. The occassional third person narration was annoying, and unnecessary. It felt like he tried to grasp to hard for a theme, when one - a potentially interesting one - was staring him right in the face and he didn't explore it. He talks of leaving Brisbane as a young man and returning decades later with a family. He alludes to why, but he doesn't explore that. Instead, he juxtaposes his blissful childhood with his son's, and an exploration of Brisbane's murky beginnings and an historian's misplaced self-esteem. Maybe he just couldn't decide what the hell Brisbane was going to be about, and threw in too much, and made much too much of a deal of some of the things his son does, that he also did. I did like the exchange between father and son about where Brisbane was, however. It was one of the few things in the book that seemed true and like meaning wasn't painfully extracted from it. Just a kid, asking about a park and then distracted by the idea of playing. Anyway, it also made me tire of the series. So I'll take a break before embarking on Sydney and Perth and Adelaide (and will Canberra and Darwin get a look in? I hope so.)
patchy_at_best's review against another edition
2.0
Australian author and journalist, [a:Matthew Condon|210378|Matthew Condon|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1487546456p2/210378.jpg], captures the essence of his childhood city in this memoir of Brisbane’s past and present. As a fellow “Brisbanite”, I struggled to relate to Condon’s romantic point of view.
Brisbane pieces together the city’s elusive history with painstaking detail. The key focus is on rediscovering John Oxley’s original 1824 landing site, following the misjudgment of the memorial’s placement in North Quay.
To avoid being too dry, Condon breaks up the book with personal anecdotes from his childhood and interactions with his young son in the present day. Although this nostalgia can be cloying, his writing is a lot more engaging here, adding a pinch of tasteful narrative to an otherwise very bland book. Condon explains that he deliberately wove the book’s structure to mirror the meandering flow of the Brisbane River. Attention to details like this redeems this heavy read.
Although I would never read this book for pleasure, I appreciate the insight it gave me. I would have liked to learn more about my city’s cultural history, rather than just its town planning. Unfortunately, the topics covered in this memoir will interest only a narrow, local readership.
This review can also be found on my blog Paige's Pages.
Brisbane pieces together the city’s elusive history with painstaking detail. The key focus is on rediscovering John Oxley’s original 1824 landing site, following the misjudgment of the memorial’s placement in North Quay.
To avoid being too dry, Condon breaks up the book with personal anecdotes from his childhood and interactions with his young son in the present day. Although this nostalgia can be cloying, his writing is a lot more engaging here, adding a pinch of tasteful narrative to an otherwise very bland book. Condon explains that he deliberately wove the book’s structure to mirror the meandering flow of the Brisbane River. Attention to details like this redeems this heavy read.
Although I would never read this book for pleasure, I appreciate the insight it gave me. I would have liked to learn more about my city’s cultural history, rather than just its town planning. Unfortunately, the topics covered in this memoir will interest only a narrow, local readership.
This review can also be found on my blog Paige's Pages.
kali's review
5.0
Ostensibly for book research, but I was drawn into this multilayered, overlapping, story of the author’s search for both Brisbane’s European origins, and his family’s. Both histories are blank — ‘books without an index’ — and he follows memories, documents, and names down gullies and across valley floors. Brisbane is a mud map, made from the surrounding environment, and washed away to be made new again.
patchy_at_best's review
2.0
Australian author and journalist, [a:Matthew Condon|210378|Matthew Condon|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1487546456p2/210378.jpg], captures the essence of his childhood city in this memoir of Brisbane’s past and present. As a fellow “Brisbanite”, I struggled to relate to Condon’s romantic point of view.
Brisbane pieces together the city’s elusive history with painstaking detail. The key focus is on rediscovering John Oxley’s original 1824 landing site, following the misjudgment of the memorial’s placement in North Quay.
To avoid being too dry, Condon breaks up the book with personal anecdotes from his childhood and interactions with his young son in the present day. Although this nostalgia can be cloying, his writing is a lot more engaging here, adding a pinch of tasteful narrative to an otherwise very bland book. Condon explains that he deliberately wove the book’s structure to mirror the meandering flow of the Brisbane River. Attention to details like this redeems this heavy read.
Although I would never read this book for pleasure, I appreciate the insight it gave me. I would have liked to learn more about my city’s cultural history, rather than just its town planning. Unfortunately, the topics covered in this memoir will interest only a narrow, local readership.
This review can also be found on my blog Paige's Pages.
Brisbane pieces together the city’s elusive history with painstaking detail. The key focus is on rediscovering John Oxley’s original 1824 landing site, following the misjudgment of the memorial’s placement in North Quay.
To avoid being too dry, Condon breaks up the book with personal anecdotes from his childhood and interactions with his young son in the present day. Although this nostalgia can be cloying, his writing is a lot more engaging here, adding a pinch of tasteful narrative to an otherwise very bland book. Condon explains that he deliberately wove the book’s structure to mirror the meandering flow of the Brisbane River. Attention to details like this redeems this heavy read.
Although I would never read this book for pleasure, I appreciate the insight it gave me. I would have liked to learn more about my city’s cultural history, rather than just its town planning. Unfortunately, the topics covered in this memoir will interest only a narrow, local readership.
This review can also be found on my blog Paige's Pages.
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