Ian Townsend (1)
Auteur de Affection: There is No Cure
Pour les autres auteurs qui s'appellent Ian Townsend, voyez la page de désambigüisation.
A propos de l'auteur
Crédit image: Picture by John Bean.
Œuvres de Ian Townsend
Étiqueté
Partage des connaissances
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Membres
Critiques
This is the story of an Australian family, including the 11 year old son, executed as spies by the Japanese in Rabaul in 1942.
The author poses the question - why are these events not more widely known in Australia? Rabaul, and New Guinea more generally, were Australian territory at the time of World War 2. The failure to evacuate civilians prior to the Japanese invasion, and the failure to support Australian military forces in the area, reflect poorly on Australian leadership and planning.
And how can an 11 year old boy be executed as a spy??
The book is well researched and written. The awful events are movingly told.… (plus d'informations)
The author poses the question - why are these events not more widely known in Australia? Rabaul, and New Guinea more generally, were Australian territory at the time of World War 2. The failure to evacuate civilians prior to the Japanese invasion, and the failure to support Australian military forces in the area, reflect poorly on Australian leadership and planning.
And how can an 11 year old boy be executed as a spy??
The book is well researched and written. The awful events are movingly told.… (plus d'informations)
Historical fiction set in Townsville, Queensland, during an outbreak of bubonic plague in 1900. The author tells us in an afterword that all the basic facts and characters are historic, but the interactions, and emotions etc are fictional.
It works - a very enjoyable read.
I found the start a bit clunky. The book opens with the two main characters meeting again after 20 years. The plot device is to have some issues hidden, and slowly unfold during the book. It mostly works, but the opening is unwieldy, with the reader not knowing names and events to make sense of the content.
But this is a small quibble. The books gets underway, and the reader is carried on a delightful journey. Although the basic plot - plague outbreak - is BIG, the book is not really plot driven - it is the people that carry you along.
I'll be looking for more by this writer. Line of Fire, set in Rabaul during Japanese occupation is next.… (plus d'informations)
It works - a very enjoyable read.
I found the start a bit clunky. The book opens with the two main characters meeting again after 20 years. The plot device is to have some issues hidden, and slowly unfold during the book. It mostly works, but the opening is unwieldy, with the reader not knowing names and events to make sense of the content.
But this is a small quibble. The books gets underway, and the reader is carried on a delightful journey. Although the basic plot - plague outbreak - is BIG, the book is not really plot driven - it is the people that carry you along.
I'll be looking for more by this writer. Line of Fire, set in Rabaul during Japanese occupation is next.… (plus d'informations)
This is a very nice book - well written and very informative about the state of medicine at the beginning of the 20th Century. Townsend is a fine writer, and he gives us a very nice picture of life in Australia. The story takes place in Townsville, a modest city on the northeastern coast of Queensland.
One major problem is that while he does an excellent job of writing about the handling of contagious disease in 1900, the author seems less adept at handling some of the more emotional undercurrents of the subplots in the book - perhaps a significant flaw, since Townsend is the one who put the subplots in there to begin with.
Primarily, the narrator, Lin Row, a physician on the area's Epidemic Council, has suffered the loss of a daughter to diphtheria. His relationship with his wife has become strained, and is brought up periodically throughout the story, but the "resolution," if one can count it as such, is fluffed over with no real insight being achieved.
And I suppose that is the biggest flaw in the book - there seems to be no real insight into the characters or the situation. Things are laid out, the story told, but there is no depth to anything. It's all just presented in a perfunctory fashion - Bob's your uncle, and all that.
An interesting summer read. Mostly harmless.… (plus d'informations)
One major problem is that while he does an excellent job of writing about the handling of contagious disease in 1900, the author seems less adept at handling some of the more emotional undercurrents of the subplots in the book - perhaps a significant flaw, since Townsend is the one who put the subplots in there to begin with.
Primarily, the narrator, Lin Row, a physician on the area's Epidemic Council, has suffered the loss of a daughter to diphtheria. His relationship with his wife has become strained, and is brought up periodically throughout the story, but the "resolution," if one can count it as such, is fluffed over with no real insight being achieved.
And I suppose that is the biggest flaw in the book - there seems to be no real insight into the characters or the situation. Things are laid out, the story told, but there is no depth to anything. It's all just presented in a perfunctory fashion - Bob's your uncle, and all that.
An interesting summer read. Mostly harmless.… (plus d'informations)
Prix et récompenses
Statistiques
- Œuvres
- 3
- Membres
- 93
- Popularité
- #200,859
- Évaluation
- 3.7
- Critiques
- 10
- ISBN
- 19
This is the blurb:
The structure mirrors the way that 19th century weather forecasting across the vast distances of North Queensland was fragmentary and hampered by poor communications. So it takes a little while to bring together the fractured threads of the narrative...
Centred on the pearling industry when pearls were an unpredictable by-product of collecting mother-of-pearl shell, a.k.a. nacre which was widely used at the time to inlay cutlery, jewellery boxes, buttons and jewellery — the novel brings together these issues:
- The illegal pearl industry. Shells and whatever's inside them belong to the boss, but pearls get found and sold illegally to offshore buyers, obviously for less than they are worth, but the pearler gets a healthy 'bonus' instead just his pay for the day. Two characters are employed in the risky business of spying out these illegal transactions. One of these is dead, or might be, but whether he is or not, he's triggered an 'investigation' by the Native Police because he is said to have been speared.
- Frontier conflict: the characters of Dr Walter Roth, Chief Protector of Aborigines, and Constable Jack Kenny, a Native Policeman, are alert to the irony that Roth's job is to protect the Aborigines, and Kenny's is to 'pacify' them.
- Romance, and its complications: Maggie marries a pearler, dislikes his long absences at sea and decides to live on board with him and their baby Alice. This leaves her father, the Chief Resident alone and frail on Thursday Island, so the unmarried older sister Hope is (as was common in those days) the obvious choice to be his carer. But Hope has accepted an impulsive declaration of love from Kenny, from a difference social class and not in a position to support her. There are more complications than this spoiler-free summary, but the racial dilemmas introduce another interesting thread. (The novel is rich in issues for book groups to discuss.)
… (plus d'informations)To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2020/11/19/the-devils-eye-by-ian-townsend/