 Book Reviews
with Robin Osborne
I Am Charlotte Simmons
By Tom Wolfe
Cape $49.95
 Prime Minister Howard is not alone in regarding Tom Wolfe's 1987 novel The Bonfire of the Vanities as a highlight of modern fiction. He'll be less approving about this tale of how Charlotte Simmons, from a religious family in North Carolina, wins a scholarship to elite Dupont University and discovers sex, booze and rock 'n roll, albeit in a sanitised way.
Charlotte has topped her school and when we meet her she is giving a valedictory address for which she has prepared by spending hours on her hair and contemplating her pretty yet virginal face - 'the humiliating term itself flashed through her head.' Not for long, though.
Even below his best, Wolfe delivers prose that crackles, amuses and surprises. He hasn't quite pulled this one off, but it's still a good read, especially for anyone university-bound.
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 White Gold
By Giles Milton
Hodder & Stoughton $35
In 1715, Cornish lad Thomas Pellow sailed with his 'gruff sea-dog' uncle John and five others to do trade with Italy. Captured by slave traders from Morocco, he endured a 23-year stint as a slave in the courts and later the army of the omnipotent Sultan Moulay Ismail, whose wrath he only survived by converting to Islam.
From the writer of such derring-do tales as Nathaniel's Nutmeg and Samurai William comes the 'Extraordinary Story of Thomas Pellow and North Africa's One Million European Slaves', filled with brutality, treachery and some fascinating history.
The white slaves were kept in cells, tortured routinely and forced to labour on grandiose architectural projects.
Pellow fled into the mountains, where, helped by his superior Arabic, he posed as a healer, survived attack and made the safety of an Irish-commanded ship that took him away.
 Wordwatching
By Julian Burnside
Scribe $32.95
Earning full marks for a splendid sub-title - 'Field notes from an amateur philologist' - barrister, refugee advocate and arts identity Burnside has made a welcome contribution to the genre of handsome little books about words and language.
A worthy companion to the likes of Don Watson's Death Sentence and Weasel Words, Ruth Wajnryb's Language Most Foul and Lynn Truss's Eats Shoots & Leaves, this is full of amusing and amazing trivia: 'Bridal was originally bride-ale... the ale drunk at the feast for a newly married bride', while 'admirable' comes from the Arabic amir al bahr, or commander of the sea.
'Holy Wars', about Arabic derivations, is a timely chapter to itself, as are 'Haitch' and 'Doublespeak', while 'subagitate' is the only verb whose sole meaning is to engage in sexual intercourse.
 The Plot Against America
By Philip Roth
Jonathan Cape $49.95
The fictional events in this chilling novel beg two questions - what if? and could it ever happen?
Philip Roth (Portnoy's Complaint, American Pastoral et al) hypothesises that Charles Lindbergh, famous for solo-flying the Atlantic and losing his son to a murderous kidnapper, nominated for the US presidency in 1942, won Republican endorsement, signed a peace pact with Hitler and then organised the repression of America's Jews.
Narrated by a savvy 7 year-old from a non-religious Jewish district of New York, the story involves the struggle between keeping America neutral and supporting its natural allies.
The adversaries are the glamorous Lindbergh - in real life a right wing anti-Semite - and the wheelchair-stricken President Roosevelt.
When the flyer's populism succeeds, he establishes an 'Office of American Absorption' with patriotic schemes dubbed 'Just Folks', a 'volunteer work program introducing city youth to the traditional ways of heartland life', and 'Homestead 42'.
Jews are murdered, then killed in riots, a fate that also befalls famous broadcaster Walter Winchell, an arch critic of the president. When Lindbergh vanishes, rumoured to have fled to Germany, the nation re-elects Roosevelt, averting chaos and entering the war.
A book with the swastika on its cover should not deter anyone from reading it.
 Wrong About Japan
By Peter Carey
Vintage $24.95
Novelist Peter Carey's Lost in Translation-style visit to Japan was sparked by his 12 year-old son Charley's passion for the hugely popular Japanese manga comics and wildly original animated films, anime, so far removed from Walt Disney.
Before leaving their New York home Charley promises to eat 'raw fish... and slimy things' but insists that temples, museums and suchlike must be off-limits: 'No Real Japan'.
Deal done, they descend on electronic Tokyo, guided partly by the teenaged Takashi whom Charley met on the internet. Consuming a daunting array of comics, animations, sushi and donuts, they meet leading directors and artists, and even experience a little 'real' Japan, appropriately a master sword-maker.
Carey's sharp eye for the absurd creates an amusing, informative tale and the little book has some great illustrations.
- Books reviewed are available at Book Warehouse, Keen Street, Lismore.
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