Author Archive: Lesley Jakobsen
Time Slip
"Let's Meet at Biba!"
I once thought I would like to wear a graceful chiton draped over one arm and ascend the shining steps to the Parthenon in Athens’ Golden Age. Certainly some of that sentiment has inspired my choice to learn Ancient Greek. However, when I thought a bit more about the role of women at that time I imagined that I might do better nibbling on pastries as I am fitted for wardrobe by Marie-Antoniette’s couturiers – but that time had its problems too. You will note that my historical imaginings are far more concerned with the fashion of the time than any…
Continue Reading →Sydney Bookshops
CAT PATHWAY No Books Here Please
Lesley McKay’s at Woollhara looks like any other, small, new-book shop. Yet it has unexpected gems crammed into the teeny tiny spaces. Gleebooks (x 2, both on Glebe Point Road) is duller and more mainstream than in its heyday. Sappho (also on GPR) is well worth a visit – 4 floors of carefully chosen second-hand books rub shoulders in tea-table nooks. Notably there is a particularly impressive room of works on music and scores. Gould’s massive, industrial, mezzanined cavern at Newtown has no discernible order but is still terrific, with a cats’ crawlspace set aside especially. L got some very good Attic Greek language books at…
Continue Reading →Suddenly Last Summer
Sydney Theatre Company, Opera House, March 2015 A thin story, not as shocking now as it was when Tennessee Williams wrote it, or even when it was filmed in 1959. Presented here as a sort of live cinema – for much of the play the actors are videoed as they perform in a pot-plant garden behind the screen on which the video is shown. Doors and windows open and shut. Robyn Nevin doesn’t really have much to do. Eryn Jean Norvill as Catherine and Mark Leonard Winter as Dr Cukrowicz are impressive. Sebastian’s part is effective and powerful. An odd choice of play for such an…
Continue Reading →The Buried Giant
(by Kazuo Ishiguro) A plodding tale about memory, being nice to one another and Sir Gawain. Fittingly, the dragon who may or may not be the villain of the piece is thin, bloodless and apparently asleep. The plot meanders episodically. The characters Axl and Beatrice are loving and real in their way, but the other characters are indistinguishable. There is no soul, no gravitas, no depth. Is the giant Arthur? or the dog of war? or does it have some eschatological meaning? Either way it stayed well buried. If one wishes to read about King Arthur’s nephew, try Sir Thomas Malory (picture of the Grail on…
Continue Reading →The Heart is a lonely Hunter
(Carson McCullers) Not as completely ghastly as a Flannery O’Connor but up there in the southern Gothic oh-my-gawd stakes. The ultimately empty, Christ-like Singer and the yearning tomboy Mick are stock characters perhaps but they live and breathe in this story of poverty, hopelessness and waste. Ian Hunter’s “Cambreau” from Strange Cargo and Conrad Veidt’s “Stranger” from The Passing of the Third Floor Back meet Scout Finch in a boarding house, a café and a ditch.
Continue Reading →