Before he won the booker prize for Oscar and Lucinda Peter Carey was writing short stories for journals and the like. Carey enjoyed success from his first short story collection, The Fat man in history, and then came out with the darker more broody War crimes. Highlights include "A Schoolboy Prank", a macarbe tale of revenge by a group of professionals on their old school teacher and "Kristu-Du" a story of the delusion of an architect (somewhat loosely taken from the story of Nazi architect Albert Speer). Macarbe, inventive and always a little funny Carey provides a collection worth reading over and over again

'Tis true my form is something odd
but blaming me is blaming God,
Could I create myself anew
I would not fail in pleasing you.

If I could reach from pole to pole
or grasp the ocean with a span,
I would be measured by the soul -
the mind's the standard of the man.

I bought this book many years ago, unfortunately I made the mistake of lending it to someone and I never got it back. This is a remarkable book. I was touched by Joseph Merrick years ago. For the past nine years, I have been running the Joseph Carey Merrick Tribute Website. It is a site dedicated to Joseph, the person - not Joseph, the disability. I'm presently heading a London and Leicester (UK) campaign to have a commemorative plaque erected in his honour. He deserves to have a permanent tribute. He has done a great deal to advance medical science, through his skeleton, and thanks to him, there will one day be a cure for Proteus Syndrome. It's time the world said 'thank you'. Please give your moral support by visiting the site. I'm not sure if web addresses can be mentioned here, so simply type the following in your web browser: Joseph Carey Merrick Tribute Website

I inherited this book from a deceased family member. I had heard about David Lynch's movie about The Elephant Man, but I never saw it. Reading this book made me cry and empathize with Joseph Carey Merrick for his condition and the ostractize he received from the world based on his looks and not his soul.

Joseph Carey Merrick was the real Elephant Man not a fictional character. Joseph had a loving mother that died when he was a child and his father moved and remarried. His step-mother didn't like him and scorned him for his looks and his inability to find work due to his lameness, telling him that what she fed him was more than he earned. Eventually he refused to return home for meals because he didn't want to listen to step-mother barate him anymore. His father stopped looking for him, but did get him a hawker's license to hawk wares on the street. But people were afraid of him and would not buy his wares, and he acquired a gathering of curious people around him. His uncle gave him shelter for a while, but Joseph left there too. He worked in the workhouse a place of refuge and work for the poor and destitute for 3 years, but hated it and left. He ended up being exhibited as a sideshow freak under the name of "The Elephant Man" because his congenital deformity made it so that he resemble that of an elephant (or so the posters showed him to resemble). When he was at Whitechapel Road, across the street from the London Hospital Dr. Treves saw him for the first time and brought him to the hospital to examine him. Over the next few years Joseph was exhibited, his managers robbed him of his life savings and left. Joseph went back to Whitechapel Road and to the care of the only friend he knew . . . Dr. Treves. He spent his remaining years under the friendship and care of the staff at the London Hospital.

I loved this story. Michael Howell and Peter Ford told a true and compassionate account of Joseph Merrick's life. A man who was like any other human being with hopes and dreams with one setback.. His congenital deformity that prohibited his ability to be like, and experience and sleep lying down on his back like other people. Through all of years and hardships, Joseph was scared, but kind and kept a calm serenity inside himself about his condition. He had so much gratitude for the staff and his new friends who helped him, he made cardboard models and sent these things to those people who saw to his care in his appreciation for their help. The book also includes pictures how Merrick looked when he was admitted to the London Hospital, and a display of his skeleton after death.

I first read the original article on the elephant man Joseph Merrick by Dr Treves in a magazine in the mid 1970s. I then saw the movie in 1980. The movie peaked my interest for further info so I bought the book. The book not only goes into extensive detail of the disease but goes also extensively into Joseph Merrick's life as well as life in the Victorian era as it effected the common man. The imagery of the period was brought out by the writers: the London Hospital, the surrounding area, the showmen and their lives, etc. The research was very detailed, although later after the book's publication we learned of the possibility that Merrick suffered from Proteus and not pneumofibromatosis. This book should be read by anybody interested in these diseases as well as anybody interested in this time period.

This is a good read for Aussie expats, not least because the author is one of Australia's more prominent contemporary literary figures, staging a return visit to Sydney from his current home in New York. Aussies living in America will probably be tuned into the way observations of one country are used to shed light on the other, the extra explanations he is obliged to include for either culture, as well was the exercise of reacquainting oneself with one's place of origin and trying to come to grips with its history and character. On occasion the author's own brand of cronyism (men relive their exploits or otherwise act out their mid life crises) is a bit irksome, but then he is well aware of such potential gripes and fends them off within the book ('Mate, you're making a big mistake talking to all these men. You're ignoring the women''). In all, he spins a good yarn, and the final pages will have you heaving on the open seas at the mouth of the Hawkesbury River.

Peter Carey spent 30 days in Sydney in 2000 and we readers are the lucky recipients of his account. He clearly loves Sydney and demonstrates this love in every page of this little volume. His love is contagious. For example, on viewing what he calls "the great Pacific Ocean," he writes: "It is one of a hundred places you will find in Sydney which take your breath away, and I, familiar but disoriented, was in a state of constant amazement that any metropolis could be so blesssed." He also obviously cares deeply for his friends who still live there. About his friend Jack Ledoux he says: "I have lived in more than one house Jack has designed and would be a happy man if I could wake up in one tomorrow morning and live in it all my life. Every time I walk into one of his constructions, it makes me happy." What an extraordinary way to describe a friend!

Mr. Carey sets out to describe this great city in terms of earth, air, fire and water. He does this by having several zany friends of his-- some of them friends of thirty years-- tell their stories. Any one of these characters ought to be found in a novel, at least one of Mr. Carey's. In his hands they become flesh and blood and as interesting as the city they describe. Good stuff jumps out on every page. Mr. Carey admits that he cannot drive over Sydney's famous bridge without having a panic attack, a fact that is particularly significant to me since I suffer from the same problem with high bridges. Then there is the delicious account of the word "Eternity" and the little man responsible for writing the word everywhere or anywhere he felt his God called him to write it. Carey's handling of the "Aborigine problem" is particularly poignant in his discussion of Vicki, who was taken from her parents and raised by a white family.

Carey, now living in New York, did not move to Sydney, the city his mother said was just like Liberace, until he was almost forty-- ". . . even then I carried in my baggage a typical Melbournian distrust of that vulgar crooked convict town." I for one would love to see him write similar books about both Melbourne and New York.

So much good writing-- so many marvelous stories in 248 pages. A great read!

"Children and Monsters" starts exactly where "Devil in the Gateway" ended: after Lucifer finished doing God's quest, he received a gate into the void - a place outside of creation. That is the main storyline of this novel. This graphic novel also contains three parts:

The first story tells how Lucifer journies into the Japanese dimension of death. As we found out in the previous novel, the Japanese goddess of Death obtained Lucifer's wings (which were torn off him). Thus, Lucifer embarks on a quest to get back his wings. I loved this part! If I didn't know, I could've sworn Neil Gaiman wrote this part.. it really felt as if it belonged in the "Sandman" universe.

The second story is above an immortal girl who was born thousands of years ago, yet can't die because she was cursed by her gods for not getting an abortion.

The third story unites the previous novel with the first two parts of this one.. Lucifer comes back with his wings and wants to enter the void, only to have an army of angels try and stop him. All the previous threads come together here.

I think this graphic novel was much better than the previous one. It definitely feels more and more like an extension of the original "Sandman" series. If this level continues - I am definitely going to stay till the end! Highly Recommended!

As an avid (trader paperback-only) reader of Neil Gaiman's Sandman series, and the non-Gaiman spinoff "The Dreaming," Mike Carey's "Lucifer: Children and Monsters" wins top marks all around.

The first Lucifer collection "Devil in the Gateway" re-introduced us to Lucifer from the Sandman stories. "Sandman" fans will recall that he gave up his wings, closed shop, retired to a nightclub in Los Angeles and watched the ensuing chaos resolve itself.

In "Devil in the Gateway," Lucifer named his price for a task requested of Heaven. Not much of a task... the mere disposal of a few ancient gods. In exchange for this errand, Lucifer's price is paid: a Letter of Passage.

Lucifer transforms the letter into a gateway leading Outside of Creation. The gateway is crafted with the divine name so that even the Creator himself cannot close it without destroying all of Creation.

In "Children and Monsters" Lucifer's must reclaim his wings from the Japanese pantheon of gods (on mortal terms, no less), deal with the assembled Armies of Heaven, and finally resolve a unfinished scenario with one of his fellow Fallen.

Since I'm not one for buying issues each month, I can only say that I eagerly await the third book.

The story of Oscar Hopkins who, despite being the son of a Baptist (or because of that), becomes an Anglican priest. And the story of Lucinda Leplastrier, who inherits a glass factory in Australia.

The early parts of the novel, in fact nearly the first half of it, are taken up with Oscar and Lucinda's life stories up until the time they meet. Carey switches the narrative between England and Australia, and does so with skill - the chapters are short, helping the reader skip along with the story.

Thereafter, as Oscar and Lucinda meet and they agree on an ultimate bet (the plot device which underpins the latter half of the novel) I thought that the pace and flow of the novel slowed. The real problem I had with it though, and why I think I struggled to maintain an interest the longer the novel went on, was that in fact its characters are very two-dimensional. All, without exception, are eccentrics, reminding me of the worst of Dickens: a series of whimsical characters whose quirks are supposed to amuse and interest the reader. I'm afraid for me, that kind of stuff has a very limited effect, and my boredom threshold is reached very quickly.

To be fair, one could make an argument that Lucinda's character is more fully drawn. Her obsession with gambling could be interpeted as a way of seeking acceptance in the male-dominated world of the mid-nineteenth century. She struggles with the burden of her inheritance and with her feminity - for example, Oscar gains the instant acceptance from her workers she has never had when he visits her glass factory, and she resents that.

But this wasn't enough to ease my struggle with finishing the book - even quite shocking events near the event lost their impact due to the fact, I think, that Carey over-loaded the novel with whimsy, and because I felt that Carey is a cold, somewhat distant author: difficult to describe what I mean here, but it's almost akin to feeling the author views his characters in the same way as a chess player views his pieces - to be moved about with the object of winning the game rather than worthy of development in their own right.

I am hard-pressed to remember two more strange protagonists in all of literature than Oscar and Lucinda. That they meet, fall in love and make a bet on whether a glass church can be transported and constructed "by Easter Sunday" for the benefit of an out-of-the-way congregation and its minister is even more absurd. Yet, page after page, I read, absorbing the wonderful and vibrant detail of mid-nineteenth century England and Australia. Only in the world of this novel could these two characters be "perfect" for each other. And in being written, this book issues a challenge to this world to accept that which is odd and unconventional, that which is outside societal and religious standards.

Somehow I am reminded of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice; the interplay between Oscar and Lucinda amongst "strict society" strikes the same chord as that struck in the love story of Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, a man and a woman outside the "norm." This book is wonderful reading to get lost in.

Oscar and Lucinda are a pair of unusual characters , both victims of childhood trauma, who share a weakness for gambling and a penchant for obsessions of all kinds. Carey might have created a simple romance here about two misfits who find each other, and on the surface that is indeed what happens; however, the story is far more complex and is peopled with assorted other characters that give the book added richness. Mr. d'Abbs, Mr. Jeffris, the Strattons, Oscar's father, Theophilus, and others serve to demonstrate that we are all subject to our own foibles and obsessions. One of Carey's messages is clearly that none of us is "normal"; that behind the mask we wear for society lurks a mass of insecurities and imperfections. Oscar and Lucinda give each other what they each seem to need, and it is not at all what the reader expects. If this book has a fault, it may lie in the sometimes disjointed method of narration. It can be intrusive. However, the identity of the narrator--not revealed until the end of the novel--is a nifty twist itself. A challenging read that is well worth the effort.

This book is well worth the purchase price for the entertainment value. With an original plot and multi-demensional characters, this book holds the readers attention through its many twists and turns. In the beginning, Harry Joy has a seemingly ideal life when he has a near death experience. Everything, it turns out, was an illusion. Now he is in Hell, or so he thinks. On his way to an eventual true happy life in a setting the Harry Joy at the beginning of the tale would have never dreamed, Carey has some good comments on how we arrange our lives and how we deal with other people. This is the first work of Mr. Carey's that I have read. Based on this book, I will read more.

Harry Joy is much like someone we all probably know. A regular guy, a successful businessman, husband, and father. But after suffering a heart attack he transforms into someone much more interesting. He is rescusitated, but convinced he is in hell.
Don't read this and think you know where this story is going, there isn't anything that can prepare you for the rest of this brilliant, quirky, dark, hilarious story. Harry is surrounded by a cast of characters who are not necessarily likeable, but complex and interesting. We get to know his wife, his children, his business partner, and some new friends as well as Harry gets to know people as they really are, and not as he thought they were. This is a funny story, told in a serious way. Pay attention and you will laugh out loud. Highly recommended, Peter Carey is a brilliant writer.

Bliss is a lively, entertaining, and thought-provoking seriocomic novel, and Peter Carey is a terrifically amusing writer with a great ear for dialogue, a wry humor, and a broad vision. He delights in poking fun of us and our foibles, while saving his barbs for corporations and institutions. Although I thoroughly enjoyed Bliss, I know I would have enjoyed it even more, and maybe even loved it, when it was published in 1981. I feel Bliss to be just a bit dated now--still well worth reading and lots of fun, with many extremely funny scenes--but less relevant with its environmental messages and its anti-Big Business needling than it must have been when these messages were fresh, new, and more importantly, uncommon. As it was, Carey's approach now feels a bit patronizing at times and the environmental message, just a bit didactic--and old.

The book opens with Harry Joy, an advertising executive, having an out-of-body experience as he "dies" from a heart attack. When he comes back to life, he is convinced that he is in Hell. Since his wife is having an affair with his business partner, his son is selling drugs, and his daughter is a sexually precocious junkie, it is easy to see why Harry is convinced that his life is Hell and why he feels a captive to it. As he seeks enlightenment, Harry recognizes that Krappe Chemicals, a client, is polluting the environment with cancer-causing fumes, sees a cancer map showing the rates of cancer near industrial polluters, and meets Honey Barbara, an environmentally conscious prostitute with a heart of green.

Carey's satire here also includes the vagaries of religious doctrine, the absurdities of police procedure, the abuses of the mental health "industry" and its institutions, the fear of Communist conspiracies, and even of the trustee selection process for the State Gallery, which draws from "the very inner circle of society." It is lots of fun to read, with some laugh-out-loud funny scenes, but its thematic punch seems to have dulled a bit over time.

This is a collection of short stories. While the main characters from the movies are mentioned only briefly, if at all it is still an interesting read.

This was truly a great collection of Star Wars short fiction. Each story is totally different, and yet forms a whole, of life in the Star Wars Galaxy.

Interlude at Darkknell: By Tim Zahn and Mike Stackpole, this one delivers. It is the big draw to the whole book, and lives up to that. We get to learn more about Hal Horn and Gen. Bel Iblis, against the background of some major galactic events. Good characters and some great tying together of loose threads. (similer to the Zahn/Stackpole in Tales from the Empire)

Jade Soliaire: Zahn really has some fun with this one, showing the infamous Mara Jade in action. While there are some tie ins with other stories in the universe (Hand of Thrawn especially), it stands alone by and large. Well written, and a fast read.

Gathering Shadows: Kathy Burdette does a great job with this one, showing the very real effects of tourture and imprisonment, with a healthy dose of doubt and disillousionment thrown in. Kind of heavey reading, but very emotional and well done.

Hutt and Seek/ Simple Tricks: Chris Cassidy and Tish Pahl, two non-fiction writer SW nuts, pull it off. These two stories feature Fenig Nabon and her partner in crime Ghitsa Dogder, as they swindel denizens of the Galaxy. These two stories are pure fun, but offer an interesting look into the galaxy. Simple tricks has some great scenes with Kyp revealing the depth of his anguish for destroying Carida. Well done ladies.

The Longest Fall/Uhl Eharl Khoehng: Patricia A Jackson is a Dark Jedi Nut. Both of these stories feature Dark Jedi she created. While I am sick of Dark Jedi popping up whenever you kick a rock these days, these are good stories. While the Longest Fall is not really my cup of tea, it is a bit obvious, Uhl Eharl Khoehng is a great story. It comes back to the Dark Jedi and family featured in her story from Tales from the Empier. The Emotion and writing is GOOD in this one.

No Disitegrations, Please:

Paul Danner scores with this story, featuring the only movie character in the ENTIRE book, Boba Fett. It follows Fett as he battles an Imperial garrison for a bounty. Nice to really see Fett in major action.

The other stories are- Conflict of Interest, a nice one about the morality of the individuals and their respective govornments, Day of the Sepulchral Night, an interesting exposition on Weequays, and The Last Hand, a really nice story about a great gambler with a big heart, who (gasp!) is not Lando. I would be remiss if I did not commend Paul Youl for his wonderful cover, one of his best. (I still prefer the Bacta War cover) This book is 5/5, even better than its companion.

Tales of the New Republic is to my mind the very best of the "Tales" compilations. The stories in this book all fall in the "New Republic" era. The characters include a favorite from the movies (Boba Fett), many of the most fascinating characters from previous novels, (Talon Karrde, Mara Jade, Garm Bel Iblis), and some very interesting new additions.

_Tales_ will immediately interest readers familiar with Zahn's work and the X wing books; the contributions by Tim Zahn and Mike Stackpole are up to their usual standard. But the stories here are also accessible to readers new to Star Wars books, and some of the best work here is by writers new to the Star Wars universe.

I especially enjoy this short story format, which lets me read about a wide variety of characters and situations. I want more Tales!

I had never heard of Ned Kelly before reading this book. In no way did that detract from the experience. Mr. Carey allows us to view Ned's world from his eye. He is portrayed as the oppressed Australian everyman who can't catch a break. Not only can't he catch a break, but he seems to be a fairly well established target for friends and foes alike. Well, Ned tries to play along, but as events spin beyond control, Ned takes matters into his own hands.... What follows is a wild ride with a morally conscious outlaw. Ned becomes a hero and a savage, and you will have no trouble cheering him on crime after crime. Trying to figure out what to make of his mother is much more complicated!

As other reviewers have noted, the language can be annoying at first. Reading the first couple of pages, I hoped the narration would switch to a more polished style, but it didn't, and I found I didn't mind.

Every Australian knows about Ned Kelly. He continues to live as a true blue Aussie legend. But aside from his easily recognizable attire (steel armor, bucket over his head), what do we know about him as a man, son, brother, struggling farmer? Peter Carey's vision of Ned Kelly as human being is the most brilliant piece of writing I have read in years.
Written in first person, in the language of the time, the first few paragraphs cause you to slow down and try to absorb what he's saying. Carey takes the premise that Kelly wrote his story to his daughter, and the parcels of letters were amongst the "souvenirs" taken when Kelly was captured at Glenrowan.
While some may find this gimmicky, I found it inspired. You can really believe Ned Kelly wrote this; you can see him, you can feel his emotions, you can sense his hopelessness in a way a 3rd person narrative could never do.
Australian colonial history is particularly harsh. Britain dumped their unwanted in a great untamed land for which they never could have been prepared. And the crimes they committed to bring them here were not forgotten. This is the world Ned Kelly was born into, the son of an Irish convict reminded of his heritage at every turn. His story begins at age 3, and while his family is dirt poor, he remains blissfully unaware until his father's death when Ned is 12. As the eldest son, he takes on the responsibility of his mother and siblings.
His story and his personality are complex and multifaceted. This is a man who loved the land, loved his horses, and loved his family. He despised conflict, but above all, he had an incredible sense of loyalty and fair play. His loyalty to his family is amazing, especially in light of his treatment by his mother. She fiercely loved Ned, but sacrificed him when her situation got desperate. This was a woman who sold her 14 year old son to a bushranger. "...I knew how deep I loved her we was grown together like 2 branches of an old wisteria". She was the weaker in character, he would remain loyal to her until the end. Ned gets drawn into conflict at every turn and seemed to fall into most of his dire predicaments when attempting to right a wrong, rescue a brother, or save his mother.
An accidental bushranger? Probably not, Ned Kelly never shirks responsibility for what he becomes. But in reading this story, you come to realize that the stories that live on, the legend, are more complex than you may have originally thought. Was he forced by circumstance to commit his crimes? We'll never know. But it does make you wonder about the parallels between Ned Kelly and the desperate criminals we know in our time. As Carey quotes from William Faulkner, "the past is not dead. It is not even past". Do we continue to create criminals with poverty, discrimination, and abuse of human rights? A bigger question to take with you after reading this book.
Philosophizing aside, this can stand alone as a great story. It has all the elements of a great action adventure novel: great characters, tragedy, comedy, beautiful descriptive prose, and the ability to transport the reader to another era. Never visited Australia? You will feel as though you have after reading this book. You will be transported to colonial Australia; you will feel the heat of the summer, the brittle cold of the winter, the hardness of the ground, the harshness of the land.
A myth brought to life, The True History of The Kelly Gang is a book not to be missed.

Like an actor who "becomes" a character, author Peter Carey "becomes " Ned Kelley in this brilliant fictional autobiography.

Carey makes the risky choice of telling the story of notorious Australian outlaw Ned Kelly as if Kelly were writing it for his young daughter. From childhood to the eve of his death we get an unvarnished view of Kelly and the times and events that shaped him.

Kelly was a late 19th century Robin Hood who achieved mythic status. Carey tells his story, not apololgeticaly, but as a part of a view on how a person's best intentions can go awry when faced with repeated injustices.

The Australia of the time is laid bare with corrupt, cruel police, desperate rascals and innocents caught up in events.

The limitations of Carey's narrative technique are compensated for by the authencity of his voice and the stories he has to tell.

Action, adventuire, comedy, tragedy, history, romance all in one book.

Inspired!

Carey is an excellent storyteller, with a gift for witty juxtaposition and dropping plot bombs on his readers. We've all known someone a little bit like Herbert Badgery: "I am a liar. I am one hundred and thirty-seven years old." So it's a shaggy-dog story about a pathological liar who has a lot of charm and can lead people to believe exactly what they'd like to believe in the first place.

However, this book has garnered many awards, and wide critical acclaim, and I don't see why. Many people say it is symbolic of Australian culture and history. Perhaps I, as an American who hasn't even been to Australia, don't know enough about Australian history to fully read Herbert Badgery as a stand-in for Australia itself, or to catch the many historical references that Carey has probably hidden in the book. Yet my position is likely similar to that of most of Carey's prospective readers; he cannot assume a deep knowledge of Australian history from someone who is just picking up the book as a pleasure read. Maybe I will give the book another try, this time explicitly trying to dissect it as an analogy and as "great literature." Right now, I can only see it as a pleasurable and fairly simple read.

In summary, this is a highly entertaining novel, even if its headier aspects are lost on many readers. Carey is a long-winded storyteller, but a very funny one, and the interweaving plot of Badgery, his mythical airplane factory, and the people who surround him is engaging and humorous.

Peter Carey seems to be a great literary secret -- hugely imaginative, immensely readable, a touch surreal, full of startlingly accurate insight into the frailties of humanity, and just plain funny -- but until I came to Australia I hadn't heard of him and his stunningly absorbing novels. His books are TERRIFIC.

Illywhacker is, on one level, a highly absorbing story about a born liar and showman and his varied life across southeastern Australia during the twentieth century. But on a deeper level, Illywhacker is a complex allegory about Australia itself, with interwoven and tangled images of cages, the uses and abuses of lying, Australia's search for itself vs. the UK and US, Australian animals, and Australia's simultaneous entanglement with and rejection of the Asian cultures with which it coexists. The result is a complicated, thoughtful, and even disturbing portrait of a maturing Australia that has made me reassess my own view of the country. Read Illywhacker! for the amusing liar's tale, read Illywhacker for the thoughtful commentary on Australia's national self-consciousness and insecurity -- but either way, read it!

Perhaps this is not the best thing that Peter Carey wrote, but that's not really saying much. Ah, Peter Carey, writing at length about Australia without ever resorting to cliches. If you are not Australian, I don't think you can really understand what a relief it is to read something like this about Australia. First of all, there is a nationalistic hero (nationalism and pride in (white) Australia is something so rare that the novelty is enough to sustain the entire book); secondly, the characters (including the women) are interesting and convincing; thirdly, I am completely homesick and this is so Australian; fourthly, he creates a new kind of poetry (new to me anyway). I didn't like the part about snake dancing, and the characters change too quickly (for example, Charles and Phoebe) and you kind of lose the thread. I like the way he dances about with truth, and I like the deep sadness about us losing our identity (whether or not it's true). I recognize a lot of the characters and the patterns of events from my own relatives and ancestors. I've never seen these things outside Australia, and you forget them, so thank goodness someone's documenting it all. This is so impressive if it's his first book. Read it.

EXQUISITELY WRITTEN. THE BEST THING YOU CAN SAY ABOUT JACK MAGGS IS THAT IT DRIPS WITH ATMOSPHERE AND MOOD, EVOKING PERFECTLY THE DICKENSIAN WORLD, ON ALMOST EVERY PAGE. CARREY'S TAKE ON THE NINETEENTH CENTURY HOWEVER, IS MUCH DARKER AND REALISTIC THAN ANYTHING DICKENS EVER PENNED. ALTHOUGH THE PLOT TAKES A LONG AND SEEMINGLY UNEVENTFUL TIME TO GET SET UP, THE PERIODIC FLASHBACKS ARE BRILLIANTLY EXECUTED. IN FACT THE STORY TOLD WITHIN THE FLASHBACKS OF JACK MAGGS BRUTAL CHILDHOOD WERE BY FAR THE BEST PART OF THE NOVEL FOR ME. CARREY'S DESCRIPTIONS OF POVERTY, BURGLERY, AND DEPRAVITY WERE VIVIDLY RECOUNTED TO GREAT EFFECT. THE OTHER OUTSTANDING ELEMENT OF JACK MAGGS IS THE CREATIVE CHARACTER PORTRAYLS. TOBIAS OATS IN PARTICULAR WAS WELL FLESHED OUT. THE PLOT IS WELL EXECUTED AND RELATIVELY COMPLEX, BUT NOT NEARLY AS COMPELLING OR INTRICATE AS CHARLES PALISER'S THE QUINCUNX. THE STORY JUST SEEMS TO UNFOLD IN A SOMEWHAT FLAT MANNER. I NEVER FELT LIKE THERE WAS A WHOLE LOT AT STAKE FOR ANY OF THE CHARACTERS. OVERALL, WORTH THE READ, IF FOR NO OTHER REASON THAN TO SOAK UP THE LONG AGO LONDON WORLD CARREY HAS PAINSTAKINGLY RE-CREATED.

The best thing you can say about Jack Maggs is that Peter Carrey has fashioned a darker, more realistic, more interesting Dickensian London for the reader to inhabit. Although the plot takes a long, uneventful time to get set up, the periodic flashbacks are brilliantly executed. The story told within the flashbacks of Jack Magg's brutal childhood were by far the best part of the novel for me. Carrey's descriptions of poverty, burglary, and depravity were vividly recounted to great effect. The other outstanding element is the creative portrayals for the secondary characters. Tobias Oats in particular was well fleshed out and had a life of his own. The plot is well executed and relatively complex, but not as compelling or intricate as Dicken's best or Paliser's 'The Quincunx'. The story unfolds in a somewhat flat manner and lacks the urgency one would expect. Overall, worth the read, if for no other reason than to soak up the long ago London world Carrey has painstakingly re-created.

This is the first Peter Carey book I have ever read, and it certainly won't be the last. Carey skillfully (& loosely) bases his latest novel on the Dickens' classic "Great Expectations". But whilst the character of Jack Maggs is obviously based on Dickens' Magwitch, it would be an over-simplification to say that Jack Maggs IS Magwitch.

You see, Carey skillfully uses the character of Jack Maggs in order to re-write the character of Magwitch. It's as if Carey felt the need to write his latest novel because of his anger at Dickens' often cold and distant attitude towards Magwitch in "Great Expectations". And Carey is justified in being angry! After all, Carey is Australian and Magwitch was one of the first "Australian" characters in novelistic fiction. But in Dickens' English hands Magwitch is just a pitiable villain. Contrast this with Carey's deeply complex, but ultimately admirable hero, Jack Maggs.

Maggs, unlike Magwitch, is someone we Australians can be proud to call an "Australian".