Incredible language. Incredible insight into the darkness of a small insular broken community. Impossible to imagine how a 27 year old could have so much understanding of a time and a place and a destruction so removed from his own life.
But it was Nick Cave. And he was deep in addiction.
It's a tough story. Nobody survives. ( )

i'm trying to add books that i read long ago. this is one of them. would i give it four stars now? i don't know, and i'm kind of afraid to find out. ( )

Update 24/3/2020 I discover Nick Caves reading this and it's great. Maybe it's like Dickens, has to be performed, not read. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQOn9z_CUEQ Highly recommended.

Also: he thought while he was writing it that using a lot of words nobody knew was very funny, but in retrospect he wasn't so sure; this from an interview in the early nineties.

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I think this just isn't my thing. On some sort of word/sentence level I'm admiring it, it reads a bit like music. Lots of people have called it indulgent, and that's a fair cop surely. The language, the style, the unusual words, the gothic floridness. But it has a uniformity of the bizarre that makes this dull after a while. David Katzman confessed that having read it a while back, the details are no longer with him, just an idea of the creepiness. That sums up the impact for me. But I feel like it could make a powerful movie, it is very VERY visual.

Nick Cave said recently that he should have set it in Australia, it's quintessentially Australian. Can anybody else see that? I've tried and been found wanting if that's the case. https://www.abc.net.au/doublej/music-reads/features/nick-cave-conversations-revi...

I'm moving on, having read the first 60 pages or so - but I can't help feeling I've let the author down and that it deserved more from me. Maybe it's one to be revisited in the right mood. ( )

Update 24/3/2020 I discover Nick Caves reading this and it's great. Maybe it's like Dickens, has to be performed, not read. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQOn9z_CUEQ Highly recommended.

Also: he thought while he was writing it that using a lot of words nobody knew was very funny, but in retrospect he wasn't so sure; this from an interview in the early nineties.

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I think this just isn't my thing. On some sort of word/sentence level I'm admiring it, it reads a bit like music. Lots of people have called it indulgent, and that's a fair cop surely. The language, the style, the unusual words, the gothic floridness. But it has a uniformity of the bizarre that makes this dull after a while. David Katzman confessed that having read it a while back, the details are no longer with him, just an idea of the creepiness. That sums up the impact for me. But I feel like it could make a powerful movie, it is very VERY visual.

Nick Cave said recently that he should have set it in Australia, it's quintessentially Australian. Can anybody else see that? I've tried and been found wanting if that's the case. https://www.abc.net.au/doublej/music-reads/features/nick-cave-conversations-revi...

I'm moving on, having read the first 60 pages or so - but I can't help feeling I've let the author down and that it deserved more from me. Maybe it's one to be revisited in the right mood. ( )

Update 24/3/2020 I discover Nick Caves reading this and it's great. Maybe it's like Dickens, has to be performed, not read. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQOn9z_CUEQ Highly recommended.

Also: he thought while he was writing it that using a lot of words nobody knew was very funny, but in retrospect he wasn't so sure; this from an interview in the early nineties.

----------------------------------
I think this just isn't my thing. On some sort of word/sentence level I'm admiring it, it reads a bit like music. Lots of people have called it indulgent, and that's a fair cop surely. The language, the style, the unusual words, the gothic floridness. But it has a uniformity of the bizarre that makes this dull after a while. David Katzman confessed that having read it a while back, the details are no longer with him, just an idea of the creepiness. That sums up the impact for me. But I feel like it could make a powerful movie, it is very VERY visual.

Nick Cave said recently that he should have set it in Australia, it's quintessentially Australian. Can anybody else see that? I've tried and been found wanting if that's the case. https://www.abc.net.au/doublej/music-reads/features/nick-cave-conversations-revi...

I'm moving on, having read the first 60 pages or so - but I can't help feeling I've let the author down and that it deserved more from me. Maybe it's one to be revisited in the right mood. ( )