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Writer and the City
30 Days in Sydney: A Wildly Distorted Account
Peter Carey captures our imagination with a brilliant and unexpected portrait of Sydney.
Bloomsbury is pleased to announce the second title in the phenomenally well-received Writer in the City series-in which some of the world's finest novelists reveal the secrets of the city they know best. In the midst of the 2000 Olympic games, Australia native Peter Carey returns to Sydney after a seventeen-year absence. Examining the urban landscape as both a tourist and a prodigal son, Carey structures his account around the four elements-Earth, Air, Fire, and Water-insisting on the primacy of nature to this unique Australian cityscape.
As his quixotic account unfolds, Carey looks both inward into his past (as well as Sydney's own violent history) and outward onto the city's familiar landmarks and surroundings-the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge, the Blue Mountains-achieving just the right alchemy of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water to tell Sydney's extraordinary story.
Bloomsbury is pleased to announce the second title in the phenomenally well-received Writer in the City series-in which some of the world's finest novelists reveal the secrets of the city they know best. In the midst of the 2000 Olympic games, Australia native Peter Carey returns to Sydney after a seventeen-year absence. Examining the urban landscape as both a tourist and a prodigal son, Carey structures his account around the four elements-Earth, Air, Fire, and Water-insisting on the primacy of nature to this unique Australian cityscape.
As his quixotic account unfolds, Carey looks both inward into his past (as well as Sydney's own violent history) and outward onto the city's familiar landmarks and surroundings-the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge, the Blue Mountains-achieving just the right alchemy of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water to tell Sydney's extraordinary story.
212 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2001
21 people are currently reading
574 people want to read
About the author
Peter Carey
103 books1,028 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Peter Carey was born in Australia in 1943.
He was educated at the local state school until the age of eleven and then became a boarder at Geelong Grammar School. He was a student there between 1954 and 1960 — after Rupert Murdoch had graduated and before Prince Charles arrived.
In 1961 he studied science for a single unsuccessful year at Monash University. He was then employed by an advertising agency where he began to receive his literary education, meeting Faulkner, Joyce, Kerouac and other writers he had previously been unaware of. He was nineteen.
For the next thirteen years he wrote fiction at night and weekends, working in many advertising agencies in Melbourne, London and Sydney.
After four novels had been written and rejected The Fat Man in History — a short story collection — was published in 1974. This slim book made him an overnight success.
From 1976 Carey worked one week a month for Grey Advertising, then, in 1981 he established a small business where his generous partner required him to work only two afternoons a week. Thus between 1976 and 1990, he was able to pursue literature obsessively. It was during this period that he wrote War Crimes, Bliss, Illywhacker, Oscar and Lucinda. Illywhacker was short listed for the Booker Prize. Oscar and Lucinda won it. Uncomfortable with this success he began work on The Tax Inspector.
In 1990 he moved to New York where he completed The Tax Inspector. He taught at NYU one night a week. Later he would have similar jobs at Princeton, The New School and Barnard College. During these years he wrote The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith, Jack Maggs, and True History of the Kelly Gang for which he won his second Booker Prize.
He collaborated on the screenplay of the film Until the End of the World with Wim Wenders.
In 2003 he joined Hunter College as the Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing. In the years since he has written My Life as a Fake, Theft, His Illegal Self and Parrot and Oliver in America (shortlisted for 2010 Man Booker Prize).
Peter Carey was born in Australia in 1943.
He was educated at the local state school until the age of eleven and then became a boarder at Geelong Grammar School. He was a student there between 1954 and 1960 — after Rupert Murdoch had graduated and before Prince Charles arrived.
In 1961 he studied science for a single unsuccessful year at Monash University. He was then employed by an advertising agency where he began to receive his literary education, meeting Faulkner, Joyce, Kerouac and other writers he had previously been unaware of. He was nineteen.
For the next thirteen years he wrote fiction at night and weekends, working in many advertising agencies in Melbourne, London and Sydney.
After four novels had been written and rejected The Fat Man in History — a short story collection — was published in 1974. This slim book made him an overnight success.
From 1976 Carey worked one week a month for Grey Advertising, then, in 1981 he established a small business where his generous partner required him to work only two afternoons a week. Thus between 1976 and 1990, he was able to pursue literature obsessively. It was during this period that he wrote War Crimes, Bliss, Illywhacker, Oscar and Lucinda. Illywhacker was short listed for the Booker Prize. Oscar and Lucinda won it. Uncomfortable with this success he began work on The Tax Inspector.
In 1990 he moved to New York where he completed The Tax Inspector. He taught at NYU one night a week. Later he would have similar jobs at Princeton, The New School and Barnard College. During these years he wrote The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith, Jack Maggs, and True History of the Kelly Gang for which he won his second Booker Prize.
He collaborated on the screenplay of the film Until the End of the World with Wim Wenders.
In 2003 he joined Hunter College as the Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing. In the years since he has written My Life as a Fake, Theft, His Illegal Self and Parrot and Oliver in America (shortlisted for 2010 Man Booker Prize).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 84 reviews
January 25, 2024
Almost incredible that the legendary Carey (I have all his books, mostly first editions) would write a pedestrian book like this: why? As far as I know Carey is from rural Victoria and has never lived in Sydney (?), although he is obviously familiar with it. A mystery!
March 23, 2017
This is not a review, it's a response, I guess.
Almost all the characters are men. The one woman, Vicki, shows up near the end, driving a tow truck. Clara, a semi-ex-wife, is just a voice on the phone.
The friends of Peter Carey who populate this book are mostly left-leaning professionals, mostly doing well, but there's a crack in each one's foundation. (I like the geology in the book.)
Some of the cracks have become major destabilizing fissures and others are just little hairlines.
The elements – Earth, Air, Fire, Water – give the book one structure. The history – dispossession, displacement, accommodation, resentment, acceptance – is like the fabric of a tent stretched taut over those elemental ribs.
Native land claims, convicts, corruption past and present, and a raft of historic and present injustices at all scales, are never far away.
30 Days is a short read and one that anyone going to Sydney should absorb beforehand. Sydneysiders and Novocastrians won't look at this story the way I do as a foreigner, but for me much was new. I did not know that ANZAC Day commemorations are at 430 in the morning, the hour of landing on the Turkish coast in 1915.
This is my second or third reading of 30 Days. Like all the books in the "The Writer and the City" series, it is beautiful.
Almost all the characters are men. The one woman, Vicki, shows up near the end, driving a tow truck. Clara, a semi-ex-wife, is just a voice on the phone.
The friends of Peter Carey who populate this book are mostly left-leaning professionals, mostly doing well, but there's a crack in each one's foundation. (I like the geology in the book.)
Some of the cracks have become major destabilizing fissures and others are just little hairlines.
The elements – Earth, Air, Fire, Water – give the book one structure. The history – dispossession, displacement, accommodation, resentment, acceptance – is like the fabric of a tent stretched taut over those elemental ribs.
Native land claims, convicts, corruption past and present, and a raft of historic and present injustices at all scales, are never far away.
30 Days is a short read and one that anyone going to Sydney should absorb beforehand. Sydneysiders and Novocastrians won't look at this story the way I do as a foreigner, but for me much was new. I did not know that ANZAC Day commemorations are at 430 in the morning, the hour of landing on the Turkish coast in 1915.
This is my second or third reading of 30 Days. Like all the books in the "The Writer and the City" series, it is beautiful.
February 15, 2012
Peter Carey’s 30 Days In Sydney claims to present a wildly distorted account of a writer’s return to a city he knows well. After ten years in New York, the author spends a month in the city he left behind and he records the experience. It’s not at all distorted, except interestingly via an essential personal perspective. It’s more than a travelogue, less than a memoir, certainly not a guidebook. The form is intriguing. It could pass as a commonplace book, the merely fleshed out notes of an individual’s visit to his own past. And the form works well.
The idea, it seems, is to communicate a feel for a place. The result is a collected experience where the personal rubs shoulders with the historical, where memory meets geography, where the past is partly lived again through recollection and the lives of others who themselves have moved on. And all of this takes place in less than sixty thousand words.
Peter Carey’s aim of using the ancient elements, fire, air, earth and water, as a thread to bind his impressions, however, simply does not work. The idea appears and then seems to be forgotten for some time. The earth is surely special in Australia, quite unlike anywhere else. And water is everywhere in Sydney, whose harbour is surely one of the world’s most beautiful places. Fire certainly formed – and continues to form – this landscape: no Australian needs to be reminded of this. Air, however, did not seem to have its own angle, apart form the author having arrived by plane. Looking back now, perhaps the thread was there, despite the fact that at the time it seemed something of a complication.
Themes apart, 30 Days In Sydney is a delightful read because of the characters that Peter Carey meets, depicts and describes, both the living and the dead, the contemporary and the historical. The mix is unique. The rawness is abrasive, but the sophistication alongside is always breathtaking.
Sydney is the kind of city where multiple cultures coexist. In that it is not unique. But it is also the largest city of a nation that has recently rediscovered an aboriginal identity that is being apologetically sanctified. It’s a city where the bar at the opera probably has a poker machine. In Manly, the multi-class seaside suburb, a beautiful person with headphones and roller blades can flash past the open door of an amusement arcade while the police swing band, live in the open air, all in uniform and wearing shades, plays a Glen Miller selection. It’s a place where you can be pushed off the sidewalk by a redneck right outside the most utterly twee of art galleries. Such contrasts are all there in Peter Carey’s book.
The idea, it seems, is to communicate a feel for a place. The result is a collected experience where the personal rubs shoulders with the historical, where memory meets geography, where the past is partly lived again through recollection and the lives of others who themselves have moved on. And all of this takes place in less than sixty thousand words.
Peter Carey’s aim of using the ancient elements, fire, air, earth and water, as a thread to bind his impressions, however, simply does not work. The idea appears and then seems to be forgotten for some time. The earth is surely special in Australia, quite unlike anywhere else. And water is everywhere in Sydney, whose harbour is surely one of the world’s most beautiful places. Fire certainly formed – and continues to form – this landscape: no Australian needs to be reminded of this. Air, however, did not seem to have its own angle, apart form the author having arrived by plane. Looking back now, perhaps the thread was there, despite the fact that at the time it seemed something of a complication.
Themes apart, 30 Days In Sydney is a delightful read because of the characters that Peter Carey meets, depicts and describes, both the living and the dead, the contemporary and the historical. The mix is unique. The rawness is abrasive, but the sophistication alongside is always breathtaking.
Sydney is the kind of city where multiple cultures coexist. In that it is not unique. But it is also the largest city of a nation that has recently rediscovered an aboriginal identity that is being apologetically sanctified. It’s a city where the bar at the opera probably has a poker machine. In Manly, the multi-class seaside suburb, a beautiful person with headphones and roller blades can flash past the open door of an amusement arcade while the police swing band, live in the open air, all in uniform and wearing shades, plays a Glen Miller selection. It’s a place where you can be pushed off the sidewalk by a redneck right outside the most utterly twee of art galleries. Such contrasts are all there in Peter Carey’s book.
February 2, 2021
Peter Carey can write, he can also be pretty damn smug at times.
I like Peter Carey the writer, I don't like Peter Carey the Advertising Executive. Unfortunately, you get a little too much of the latter in this book. Lunches at Rockpool etc.
As an ode to Sydney the book was still pretty strong. Weaving in Sydney's history with the post-Olympic zeitgeist at the turn of the millennium. Amazing how prescient the constant referral to firestick farming among his friend group was for a wider Sydney discourse 20 years on. Also great to see a straightforward explanation for why Sydney and Australia is ravaged by bushfires. The attempt to describe Sydney through the four elements worked only in getting Carey sniffing out the stories he needed. Although the recognition and worship of water was perfect.
In a strange turn of events I just so happened to watch a documentary about Richard Leplastrier a few weeks ago and so he jumped off the page at me. I'm sure it's not news to anyone 20 years on. If you haven't looked at some of the homes he designed do yourself a favour and check them out. My ignorance of the rest of Carey's inner circle didn't diminish my enjoyment of their tales. The comments about a lack of feminine presence in the book I think is misguided. This is a man visiting his best mates, who in this city all happen to be men. There's also a little explanation in one of the stories told by Carey's friend Sheridan. Sydney and Australia more broadly is built on mateship.
If you live in Sydney or have spent time there this book will be enlightening, enjoyable, and potentially frustrating. If you haven't been to Sydney this book won't be a good read, not only because it doesn't work for the uninitiated but also because no writing can ever do the city justice. Standing on the edge of the harbour is the only way to understand why the city continues to call to Mr Carey (A Melbournite who now lives in New York).
Carey quotes Anthony Trollope at the start of the book and that best represents Sydney's beauty.
I like Peter Carey the writer, I don't like Peter Carey the Advertising Executive. Unfortunately, you get a little too much of the latter in this book. Lunches at Rockpool etc.
As an ode to Sydney the book was still pretty strong. Weaving in Sydney's history with the post-Olympic zeitgeist at the turn of the millennium. Amazing how prescient the constant referral to firestick farming among his friend group was for a wider Sydney discourse 20 years on. Also great to see a straightforward explanation for why Sydney and Australia is ravaged by bushfires. The attempt to describe Sydney through the four elements worked only in getting Carey sniffing out the stories he needed. Although the recognition and worship of water was perfect.
In a strange turn of events I just so happened to watch a documentary about Richard Leplastrier a few weeks ago and so he jumped off the page at me. I'm sure it's not news to anyone 20 years on. If you haven't looked at some of the homes he designed do yourself a favour and check them out. My ignorance of the rest of Carey's inner circle didn't diminish my enjoyment of their tales. The comments about a lack of feminine presence in the book I think is misguided. This is a man visiting his best mates, who in this city all happen to be men. There's also a little explanation in one of the stories told by Carey's friend Sheridan. Sydney and Australia more broadly is built on mateship.
If you live in Sydney or have spent time there this book will be enlightening, enjoyable, and potentially frustrating. If you haven't been to Sydney this book won't be a good read, not only because it doesn't work for the uninitiated but also because no writing can ever do the city justice. Standing on the edge of the harbour is the only way to understand why the city continues to call to Mr Carey (A Melbournite who now lives in New York).
Carey quotes Anthony Trollope at the start of the book and that best represents Sydney's beauty.
"I despair of being able to convey to any reader my own idea of the beauty of Sydney Harbour. I have seen nothing equal to it in the way of landlocked scenery, - nothing, second to it. Dublin Bay, the Bay of Spezia, New York and the Cove of Cork are all picturesquely fine. Bantry Bay, with the nooks of sea running up to Glengarrif, is very lovely. But they are not the equal of Sydney either in shape, in colour, or in variety. I have never seen Naples, or Rio Janeiro, or Lisbon; - but from the description and pictures I am led to think that none of them can possess such a world of loveliness of water as lies within Sydney Harbour."
May 22, 2015
Structure is a regular bugbear when it comes to writing and a key area where many a writer can fall down. But the criticism is usually that there is not enough attention being paid to structure, that the result is undisciplined and not cohesive enough. This book, it seems to me, suffers from the more unusual foible of having too much structure.
As someone who lived in Sydney a few years back (actually at roughly the time Carey is writing about here) I very much wanted to enjoy this book. But while it contains a great many lyrical passages, some nice writing and a lot of interesting ideas, it is in the end a rather unsatisfying read.
I suspect that Carey himself realised this. The books subtitle “A Wildly Distorted Account” has something rather apologetic about it. And indeed Carey’s first line is to invoke the “despair” Anthony Trollope felt in his attempts to describe Sydney Harbour. But then again, is there anything more difficult than trying to encapsulate your feelings towards “home”?
Part of the problem is that this book doesn’t really know what it wants to be. Is it a travelogue? A memoir? A treatise on the writer’s relationship to the city itself? The answer is that it’s a little of all of these but none in sufficient depth to convince.
And if this wasn’t enough, Carey also imposes on the narrative the rather constrictive conceit of examining Sydney in the context of the four elements — air, earth, fire and water. Thus we get sailing anecdotes, climbing anecdotes, bushfire anecdotes, and so on.
I can see the logic of it and to an extent it does work. The anecdotes chosen are engaging, illuminating and well-told. But it still seems like an overly artificial constraint that all too often gets in the way of the narrative. Carey has made a rod for his own back here, I think. The 30-day time period was an adequate framing device and he could have allowed himself a far greater latitude within it.
The main problem here is that he’s so intent on his elemental anecdotes that the travelogue aspect of the book gets almost completely lost. There are lots of references to the various locales in and around Sydney but as a former Sydneysider myself, I recognised the names, I had memories evoked but Carey didn’t really convey anything of the city I knew.
This, I feel, is a wasted opportunity. This is a “personal odyssey”, fair enough. But surely a big part of the appeal of such a book is that people who don’t know the city would like to get some sense of it. I don’t believe they would from reading this. It’s a wasted opportunity that we didn’t get more of an insider’s guide from such a gifted writer.
The size of the book is the essential problem. With some judicious editing, it would have made a first-class weekend supplement piece. Or with greater development and depth, it could have made a better book. As it is, it rather falls between the two stools, as it were.
If all this sounds overly negative, it shouldn’t. Carey is one of the best writers Australia has produced and there’s plenty of examples in this book to back up that claim. There’s just something ultimately unsatisfying and, well, under-achieving about this work. It certainly pales in comparison to Jan Morris’s great book on Sydney.
And if anything, it brings home the fact that another intimate literary portrait of what I think could safely be argued to be the coolest city on Earth. Carey has made a spirited but ultimately failed attempt to do so here. I very much hope there are others.
As someone who lived in Sydney a few years back (actually at roughly the time Carey is writing about here) I very much wanted to enjoy this book. But while it contains a great many lyrical passages, some nice writing and a lot of interesting ideas, it is in the end a rather unsatisfying read.
I suspect that Carey himself realised this. The books subtitle “A Wildly Distorted Account” has something rather apologetic about it. And indeed Carey’s first line is to invoke the “despair” Anthony Trollope felt in his attempts to describe Sydney Harbour. But then again, is there anything more difficult than trying to encapsulate your feelings towards “home”?
Part of the problem is that this book doesn’t really know what it wants to be. Is it a travelogue? A memoir? A treatise on the writer’s relationship to the city itself? The answer is that it’s a little of all of these but none in sufficient depth to convince.
And if this wasn’t enough, Carey also imposes on the narrative the rather constrictive conceit of examining Sydney in the context of the four elements — air, earth, fire and water. Thus we get sailing anecdotes, climbing anecdotes, bushfire anecdotes, and so on.
I can see the logic of it and to an extent it does work. The anecdotes chosen are engaging, illuminating and well-told. But it still seems like an overly artificial constraint that all too often gets in the way of the narrative. Carey has made a rod for his own back here, I think. The 30-day time period was an adequate framing device and he could have allowed himself a far greater latitude within it.
The main problem here is that he’s so intent on his elemental anecdotes that the travelogue aspect of the book gets almost completely lost. There are lots of references to the various locales in and around Sydney but as a former Sydneysider myself, I recognised the names, I had memories evoked but Carey didn’t really convey anything of the city I knew.
This, I feel, is a wasted opportunity. This is a “personal odyssey”, fair enough. But surely a big part of the appeal of such a book is that people who don’t know the city would like to get some sense of it. I don’t believe they would from reading this. It’s a wasted opportunity that we didn’t get more of an insider’s guide from such a gifted writer.
The size of the book is the essential problem. With some judicious editing, it would have made a first-class weekend supplement piece. Or with greater development and depth, it could have made a better book. As it is, it rather falls between the two stools, as it were.
If all this sounds overly negative, it shouldn’t. Carey is one of the best writers Australia has produced and there’s plenty of examples in this book to back up that claim. There’s just something ultimately unsatisfying and, well, under-achieving about this work. It certainly pales in comparison to Jan Morris’s great book on Sydney.
And if anything, it brings home the fact that another intimate literary portrait of what I think could safely be argued to be the coolest city on Earth. Carey has made a spirited but ultimately failed attempt to do so here. I very much hope there are others.
July 11, 2017
There is a genuine warmth that comes off the page, really bringing you into the centre and soul of Carey’s journey. He’s almost like a restrained Iain Sinclair transported down under. This is a biography/travel book, but it’s also filled with history, philosophy and politics. He traces the origins of the city from way back in 1788 with the early white settlers, talking of the Eora tribe who inhabited the area before the white men came, telling of midden heaps, lime and convict clay. Middens so great there was piles of shells twelve metres high on the site of the Opera House, this was the first city of Sydney.
His love and longing for the city is apparent at every turn, and at times it’s like someone coming across a past lover remembering what they had and thinking what could have been. He meets up with some old friends who turn out to be a band of affable larrikins and deep thinkers, who don’t always like to act their age as they relate their, often fascinating, first-hand accounts of wild bush fires and other extremism in the Blue Mountains and some churning maritime encounters, including the fatal Sydney to Hobart boat race of 1998.
Carey also leaves plenty of space for the architecture, the climate and fauna and flora that make the country so distinctive. He reveals his anxiety issues around driving across the Harbour Bridge. He also revisits and ponders over the many other attractions like Bondi Beach, the Manly ferry and Darling Harbour. Ultimately Carey shows many compelling facets to the city, he is able to see the best and worst of what this incredible city has to offer and this is a superbly rendered account of it all.
March 8, 2016
Peter Carey was born in country Victoria and raised in Melbourne, but it’s clear from many of his novels that his heart truly belongs to Sydney – even though, as he explains in the opening to this book, “I did not come to live in Sydney until I was almost forty and even then I carried in my baggage a typical Melbournian [sic] distrust of that vulgar crooked convict town.” (The fact that he misspells Melburnian is perhaps the best proof that he is a proper Sydneysider.) Carey ultimately settled in New York City, but 30 Days in Sydney – part travelogue, part memoir – details a month he spent revisiting his adopted hometown in 2000, the city’s Olympic year.
In both fiction and non-fiction, Carey has a way of beautifully capturing a place. I’ve been to Sydney for perhaps three cumulative weeks in my life and can’t really claim to know it, but the way Carey describes the place makes it stand out in my head as clear as anywhere I’ve ever been: the lush subtropical heat, the parks of palm and fig trees, the huge sandstone cliffs along the coast, the “great height and dizzy steel” of the bridge, and the dazzling expanse of the cerulean harbour itself, the greatest natural anchorage in the world, branching into a thousand secret coves and inlets.
Much of the book is fictionalised; Carey gives all his friends false names, and their conversations have that same wonderful patter as the characters in his novels; rambunctious people ear-bashing, arguing, cutting across each other – garrulous figures who never fail to say what they think. Like Mark Twain, Carey is a writer who will never let the truth get in the way of a good story. One of my favourite stories in 30 Days in Sydney concerns a pair of houses on Pittwater, a semi-wild part of Sydney’s urban fringe, where Carey and some of his friends lived for a number of years. In 1994, during a dreadful bushfire season (and after Carey had moved to New York), those two old houses full of so many wonderful shared memories came under threat as the fire front came down the peninsula:
With the red glow of fires all about them, Sheridan and Jack had stayed there one last night. They cooked a final meal, and at half past four in the morning, as the fire jumped the last break and spread in a great whoosh across the crowns of eucalypt, they boarded Jack’s rowing boat, pulled off into the bay, and watched the houses burn.
A moving image – probably embellished, but who cares?
Carey touches many other things throughout the book: Aboriginal dispossession, the corruption of the New South Wales elite, the experiences of early settlers, the Rum Rebellion, the Blue Mountains, sailing (including the dreadful storm of the 1998 Sydney-Hobart yacht race, in which six people died) and quite a lot more, considering it’s a short book.
Actually it’s 248 pages, but I read it in two days, since Carey is so wonderfully readable. I imagine you’d get less out of it if you weren’t at all familiar with Sydney, but I loved it.
In both fiction and non-fiction, Carey has a way of beautifully capturing a place. I’ve been to Sydney for perhaps three cumulative weeks in my life and can’t really claim to know it, but the way Carey describes the place makes it stand out in my head as clear as anywhere I’ve ever been: the lush subtropical heat, the parks of palm and fig trees, the huge sandstone cliffs along the coast, the “great height and dizzy steel” of the bridge, and the dazzling expanse of the cerulean harbour itself, the greatest natural anchorage in the world, branching into a thousand secret coves and inlets.
Much of the book is fictionalised; Carey gives all his friends false names, and their conversations have that same wonderful patter as the characters in his novels; rambunctious people ear-bashing, arguing, cutting across each other – garrulous figures who never fail to say what they think. Like Mark Twain, Carey is a writer who will never let the truth get in the way of a good story. One of my favourite stories in 30 Days in Sydney concerns a pair of houses on Pittwater, a semi-wild part of Sydney’s urban fringe, where Carey and some of his friends lived for a number of years. In 1994, during a dreadful bushfire season (and after Carey had moved to New York), those two old houses full of so many wonderful shared memories came under threat as the fire front came down the peninsula:
With the red glow of fires all about them, Sheridan and Jack had stayed there one last night. They cooked a final meal, and at half past four in the morning, as the fire jumped the last break and spread in a great whoosh across the crowns of eucalypt, they boarded Jack’s rowing boat, pulled off into the bay, and watched the houses burn.
A moving image – probably embellished, but who cares?
Carey touches many other things throughout the book: Aboriginal dispossession, the corruption of the New South Wales elite, the experiences of early settlers, the Rum Rebellion, the Blue Mountains, sailing (including the dreadful storm of the 1998 Sydney-Hobart yacht race, in which six people died) and quite a lot more, considering it’s a short book.
Actually it’s 248 pages, but I read it in two days, since Carey is so wonderfully readable. I imagine you’d get less out of it if you weren’t at all familiar with Sydney, but I loved it.
February 26, 2023
The notion of this book is that “the finest writers of our time” are asked to “write about the city they know best”. What we got in this instance is falling way, way short of the hype. You get some basic knowledge of the city. For instance, White settlers fought an occupation war with the natives and yet pretend the place is unoccupied. The soil is poor and dinner invitation often says “bring your own bread”. In the early time of convicts, they lack all kinds of supplies. With 300 people huddling in tents, the governor is already imagining a future city with 200-ft wide streets. But that’s about it. Most of the book shows sign of the author dragging out conversations that are often pointless other than to fill the pages.
One such story features someone describing in great detail the weather of one day, how he has good knowledge of the weather in general, how storms usually start, etc. etc. This long-winded monologue is generously sprinkled with dozens of profanities. The punchline of this story is that some random dude drove out a motor boat in that bad weather because he thought someone might be in trouble. This dude towed the story-teller’s boat to safety. This story is actually one of the best ones as it had at least a point — some people in Sydney are nice. Most others are rambling without a point or any interesting plot.
Overall, very very disappointing. Carey may be a fine writer, but he certain didn’t show it in this book. Sydney is not a city he knows best as he never lived there for real and only visited for 30 days to do this assignment.
One such story features someone describing in great detail the weather of one day, how he has good knowledge of the weather in general, how storms usually start, etc. etc. This long-winded monologue is generously sprinkled with dozens of profanities. The punchline of this story is that some random dude drove out a motor boat in that bad weather because he thought someone might be in trouble. This dude towed the story-teller’s boat to safety. This story is actually one of the best ones as it had at least a point — some people in Sydney are nice. Most others are rambling without a point or any interesting plot.
Overall, very very disappointing. Carey may be a fine writer, but he certain didn’t show it in this book. Sydney is not a city he knows best as he never lived there for real and only visited for 30 days to do this assignment.
September 5, 2020
Thanks for visiting us Peter and reminding us of all the great and not so great things that happened in Sydney. Hope you had a good flight back to Manhattan.
September 6, 2025
Greetings from Sydney, where I managed to visit the highlights in half a day and where I am currently curing my jetlag sipping coffee.
Peter Carey apparently spent 30 days in Sydney in order to write this book. It has plenty of interesting chapters, but is far from a tourist guide. Carey’s intention was apparently to collect stories covering Earth, Air, Water and Fire aspects of the city and he did so consulting his old friends (“mates” in Australian), who all came up with outrageous stories that were not necessarily much to do with the city itself. Wildfires outside Sydney, some ocean race far north of the city, etc. Entertaining as such, but perhaps too far-fetched for a book that is supposed to cover a city.
If you plan to go here, find a copy and read it on the plane, like I did.
Peter Carey apparently spent 30 days in Sydney in order to write this book. It has plenty of interesting chapters, but is far from a tourist guide. Carey’s intention was apparently to collect stories covering Earth, Air, Water and Fire aspects of the city and he did so consulting his old friends (“mates” in Australian), who all came up with outrageous stories that were not necessarily much to do with the city itself. Wildfires outside Sydney, some ocean race far north of the city, etc. Entertaining as such, but perhaps too far-fetched for a book that is supposed to cover a city.
If you plan to go here, find a copy and read it on the plane, like I did.
March 11, 2017
This was a short but great read. Best if you've been there, I think, but would probably be great even if you haven't. Carey tells the story of the city through his mates, keeping things nice and local. Do yourself a favor and dedicate a few hours to discovering Peter Carey's Sydney. Now he's got to do one about Melbourne!
June 28, 2021
I'd only heard about Peter Carey before reading this - and it was on account of the title, rather than the author, that I picked it up, sometime, somewhere, over the last few years. Therefore, while this book definitely does at times approach brilliance, I was slow to warm to Carey's idiosyncratic style (and never really did entirely), I did not love some of the more indulgent elements of the story such as his interactions with the imagined author/companion (I can't remember which), and I did not enjoy his off-putting, if emotionally potent, denouncement of ANZAC Day, even if it is laden with stuffy royalist ceremony.
Nevertheless, there are some very vivid moments within these pages, and some very memorable characters too. It's a long, long way from a bad book.
Nevertheless, there are some very vivid moments within these pages, and some very memorable characters too. It's a long, long way from a bad book.
July 26, 2013
There are books you can't stop reading, books you have to force yourself to pause at certain moments to highlight portions you want to remember... and also books that you highlight so you don't fall asleep and manage to keep going. Yes, like a textbook. This is one of those.
Apart from the somewhat interesting bits of history (which I don't know how true they are), the book is pretty much a journal of Carey's travels in Sydney. I was not interested in his weird dreams nor his sailing adventures but what kept me going was the hope that I'd pick up some good travelling tips for when and if I visit Sydney some day. It would be interesting to incorporate the locations he's featured in a travel itinerary for Sydney. I would have preferred a little more "travel guide" and less drama in this travelogue but I think this is what makes it so different from a Lonely Planet guide. (Traveller Magazine calls it "a refreshing antidote to the average city guide.") An Australian would probably appreciate this book more than I did.
Apart from the somewhat interesting bits of history (which I don't know how true they are), the book is pretty much a journal of Carey's travels in Sydney. I was not interested in his weird dreams nor his sailing adventures but what kept me going was the hope that I'd pick up some good travelling tips for when and if I visit Sydney some day. It would be interesting to incorporate the locations he's featured in a travel itinerary for Sydney. I would have preferred a little more "travel guide" and less drama in this travelogue but I think this is what makes it so different from a Lonely Planet guide. (Traveller Magazine calls it "a refreshing antidote to the average city guide.") An Australian would probably appreciate this book more than I did.
April 25, 2024
Meh. I’ve given every Peter Carey book I’ve read a five star review - he’s one of my favourite authors and I love his unique, rich, multilayered writing. So this was a big disappointment. I think he should stick to fiction and steer clear of memoir writing:- unfortunately neither he or his friends are particularly interesting in this collection of stories. However as a former Sydney sider I really appreciated his insights and descriptions of my old stomping grounds. The chapter on Eternity was my favourite chapter and it made for a fascinating read.
July 29, 2015
Peter Carey plays with the line between fiction and nonfiction once again (the subtitle of his memoire: "a wildly distorted account"), and the results are delicious. Even if you've never been to Australia, I think you'll love these archetypal characters. If you have had the luck (it is the "lucky country") of living there, then you'll delight at the depictions of Aussie culture and history, I reckon.
May 13, 2012
It's too personal an account that I cannot finish the book. Maybe I'll come back and read it again when I know more of Sydney. But where to start?
July 17, 2022
A Wildly Distorted and Biased account
I picked this up in London from Daunt books. I was living abroad in Paris and traveling with a sense of wanting to remember Sydney. As a fellow Expat, the author starts of appeasing every Sydney-sliders senses by: recounting only some of the unspoken things that makes Sydney unique.
However, the author’s left-leaning, north shore mindset not only distorts the view of Sydney, it misconstrues it.
The author fails to talk about much of what made Sydney in the era in which the book was written: migrants, and abundance of cultural diversity, the work ethic of sydney siders, the working-class backbone of Sydney, and the rising status of Sydney as a cosmopolitan at the time.
Surprisingly, the author barely talks about how much influence the Olympics was having on society at the time and on the rapid development of many suburbs within Sydney.
Later in the book, the author expounds his leftist views with negative tones underpinning his talk around Anzac Day and making it clear that he didn’t typically see eye to eye with John Howard.
Next, the author uses a lot of language and references that in my opinion only Sydney siders would know, identify, acknowledge, or appreciate.
The only other criticism I have is that the author jumps into little stories about his friends and inconsistently highlights what this means to him or what this shows of Sydney siders.
I personally think the book started off good, but became inconsistent in the end.
To talk of Sydney, even in the year 2000, without acknowledging how culturally diverse it is fails to represent Sydney as it what, so I guess in many ways the book achieves what it says it is.
For me, the book appeased my home-sickness and gave me a sense of nostalgia, and for that I’m glad and happy I read it
I picked this up in London from Daunt books. I was living abroad in Paris and traveling with a sense of wanting to remember Sydney. As a fellow Expat, the author starts of appeasing every Sydney-sliders senses by: recounting only some of the unspoken things that makes Sydney unique.
However, the author’s left-leaning, north shore mindset not only distorts the view of Sydney, it misconstrues it.
The author fails to talk about much of what made Sydney in the era in which the book was written: migrants, and abundance of cultural diversity, the work ethic of sydney siders, the working-class backbone of Sydney, and the rising status of Sydney as a cosmopolitan at the time.
Surprisingly, the author barely talks about how much influence the Olympics was having on society at the time and on the rapid development of many suburbs within Sydney.
Later in the book, the author expounds his leftist views with negative tones underpinning his talk around Anzac Day and making it clear that he didn’t typically see eye to eye with John Howard.
Next, the author uses a lot of language and references that in my opinion only Sydney siders would know, identify, acknowledge, or appreciate.
The only other criticism I have is that the author jumps into little stories about his friends and inconsistently highlights what this means to him or what this shows of Sydney siders.
I personally think the book started off good, but became inconsistent in the end.
To talk of Sydney, even in the year 2000, without acknowledging how culturally diverse it is fails to represent Sydney as it what, so I guess in many ways the book achieves what it says it is.
For me, the book appeased my home-sickness and gave me a sense of nostalgia, and for that I’m glad and happy I read it
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 28, 2019
I wanted so much more from this book and from Carey, especially because "True History of the Ned Kelly Gang" is one of my favorite books. "30 Days" is disjointed, all right, but not in the way I think Carey intended. It's kinda travelogue, sorta memoir, somewhat novel-like, and mildly humorous. And whose decision was it to forego quotation marks? Those alone would have made this a better read.
There were good phrases ("aggressively trying to eviscerate our trash"), humorous anecdotes, insightful tidbits, and engaging (if all male and rather sexist) characters. Kelvin, for example, disliked the pseudonym Carey saddled him with, but was one of the more interesting (if, again, sexist) guys from Carey's past. However, Carey spent a lot of time reminiscing about personal relationships and events, so the reader doesn't have much context and can't join in. And once you feel like you know what he's talking about and how that fits into his Air/Water/Land/Fire framework, he's moved on to something completely different.
Taken together, however, it's disjointed and not very intersting, especially as a non-Australian. I should have tempered my expectations. It looked like a light, semi-fluffy read, but I just wasn't getting anything out of it—even guilty pleasure.
There were good phrases ("aggressively trying to eviscerate our trash"), humorous anecdotes, insightful tidbits, and engaging (if all male and rather sexist) characters. Kelvin, for example, disliked the pseudonym Carey saddled him with, but was one of the more interesting (if, again, sexist) guys from Carey's past. However, Carey spent a lot of time reminiscing about personal relationships and events, so the reader doesn't have much context and can't join in. And once you feel like you know what he's talking about and how that fits into his Air/Water/Land/Fire framework, he's moved on to something completely different.
Taken together, however, it's disjointed and not very intersting, especially as a non-Australian. I should have tempered my expectations. It looked like a light, semi-fluffy read, but I just wasn't getting anything out of it—even guilty pleasure.
June 20, 2020
Read as part of 20/20 challenge in the category of book set in the country in which I reside.
I was born in Melbourne but have lived in Sydney for many years and, although I know how lucky I am to live in Sydney, it is not my favourite city . . . but this book warmed my heart and made me glad I live here. It does describe a nostalgic Sydney having been written nearly 20 years ago . . . much has changed in many ways, but much remains the same.
Peter Carey has been criticized for the hotch potch of styles he uses in this book, but I feel that he always chooses the 'right' style for whatever aspect he is describing and the variety is not off-putting at all. This book is part history, part geography, part anecdotes, political comment . . . It is everything. Perhaps above all, it is nostalgia, as Carey returns to Sydney from his home in New York.
Loosely using the Earth, Fire, Water, Air elements as a structure for his writing, Carey refers to iconic Sydney: the Harbour, the Bridge, the Manly ferries, Anzac Day, R.S.Ls, Indigenous issues, development and architecture, crooked cops, the Blue Mountains, bushfire, disaster, Eternity . . . a whole range of descriptions and anecdotes.
This book is hugely entertaining, beautifully written, entirely engaging and loved it! *****
I was born in Melbourne but have lived in Sydney for many years and, although I know how lucky I am to live in Sydney, it is not my favourite city . . . but this book warmed my heart and made me glad I live here. It does describe a nostalgic Sydney having been written nearly 20 years ago . . . much has changed in many ways, but much remains the same.
Peter Carey has been criticized for the hotch potch of styles he uses in this book, but I feel that he always chooses the 'right' style for whatever aspect he is describing and the variety is not off-putting at all. This book is part history, part geography, part anecdotes, political comment . . . It is everything. Perhaps above all, it is nostalgia, as Carey returns to Sydney from his home in New York.
Loosely using the Earth, Fire, Water, Air elements as a structure for his writing, Carey refers to iconic Sydney: the Harbour, the Bridge, the Manly ferries, Anzac Day, R.S.Ls, Indigenous issues, development and architecture, crooked cops, the Blue Mountains, bushfire, disaster, Eternity . . . a whole range of descriptions and anecdotes.
This book is hugely entertaining, beautifully written, entirely engaging and loved it! *****
January 14, 2018
Peter Carey returns Sydney to collect stories from his friends which he hopes will explain the city through the four elements. (He lives in New York.)
It doesn't always go as planned, yet we still get enticing insights into the Sydney that was, and how it grew from near-disastrous and shocking beginnings into the dazzling yet frustrating metropolis of toady (2000, just after the Olympic Games in the book's case.). He explains his reluctance to cross the Harbour Bridge, talks about books, relevant historical excerpts and essentially irrelevant ones like Flann O'Brien's Irish surreal murder mystery, The Third Policeman (!) from which he borrows a character to talk to - very O'Brienesque, and meets with his fascinating rascally old mates in various and varied venues to record their yarns. One bit I like was the how all the car-yards on Parramatta Rd (which I have driven along many times) were once carriage and cart stores, and before that horse-yards, as this was the route to fresh water and the semi-despot John Macarthur's house to the west in Parramatta. True or not, a great story from the many illywhackers who routinely people Carey's books.
It doesn't always go as planned, yet we still get enticing insights into the Sydney that was, and how it grew from near-disastrous and shocking beginnings into the dazzling yet frustrating metropolis of toady (2000, just after the Olympic Games in the book's case.). He explains his reluctance to cross the Harbour Bridge, talks about books, relevant historical excerpts and essentially irrelevant ones like Flann O'Brien's Irish surreal murder mystery, The Third Policeman (!) from which he borrows a character to talk to - very O'Brienesque, and meets with his fascinating rascally old mates in various and varied venues to record their yarns. One bit I like was the how all the car-yards on Parramatta Rd (which I have driven along many times) were once carriage and cart stores, and before that horse-yards, as this was the route to fresh water and the semi-despot John Macarthur's house to the west in Parramatta. True or not, a great story from the many illywhackers who routinely people Carey's books.
October 22, 2017
A thought struck me as I started to write this review. Wouldn't the title of this seem a lot different if it was a video and not a book? I digress in the way the author does a lot in the book.
What the book does is to give a (possibly true) history of Sydney different to any other that is likely to be written. From its origins to recent history told by those there to witness it. Funny in places but morose in others. It provides an interesting snapshot.
The style of writing is occasionally hard to follow but the words do flow despite this. It does feel like the author wrote a lot of it while drunk which is probably the Sydney way and it adds to the appeal of the book.
What the book does is to give a (possibly true) history of Sydney different to any other that is likely to be written. From its origins to recent history told by those there to witness it. Funny in places but morose in others. It provides an interesting snapshot.
The style of writing is occasionally hard to follow but the words do flow despite this. It does feel like the author wrote a lot of it while drunk which is probably the Sydney way and it adds to the appeal of the book.
March 22, 2020
What a book. I think I was expecting a light hearted bill bryson type travel through Sydney. Instead what I got, which was written/based on year 2000, was an eye opening look at the history of Sydney with some really important cultural arguments that, to be honest, I didn't think Australians were sensitive to 20 years ago. Peter Carey is now a very clever man in my eyes.
In essence, not at all the book I was expecting, but I feel much more educated and awake as a result of reading it. It impressed me immensely.
In essence, not at all the book I was expecting, but I feel much more educated and awake as a result of reading it. It impressed me immensely.
December 26, 2020
I could almost have rated this a 5, but figure that would be a little bit of hometown bias. This is an excellent account of so many of the factors, both good and bad that make Sydney the incredible city it is. It includes details of the landscape, the country’s history (including white colonisation and the displacement and mistreatment of the aboriginal people), and so much of what contributes to the culture of the city. If you are from the city it’s a must read that I hope you’ll also love. If you’re not, then it’s a great way to get a sense of the place. A great read.
March 25, 2023
Super stoked to come across this one in a local used bookstore, especially as my wife & I were talking about a future trip to Australia. The author does a great job of intermixing stories of his local friends and their tales with the deep seeded histories of Sydney, but I often found myself distracted and not really caring about the extensive stories and connections. This is better read by someone with a profound love and basis of understanding Sydney than someone who is an eager learner/newcomer. Perhaps I would enjoy it more after our trip in a few years?
May 6, 2022
I was bored since page 1. The author doesn't have any intention to present himself or the city, he just starts narrating random events and places without any introduction or presentation. Also, he is a smug and his friends aren't that interesting as well. The only thing I liked was this special link with nature that Australians seem to have. I don't even know why I finished it, don't recommend it, obviously.
February 25, 2019
Carey takes us in this short novella through Sydney, looking at the past to his own memories of the place he loves. The cast of characters are engaging and it is just a wonderful capture of time and place.
I really enjoyed this book, the words, the rhythm, the descriptions and just being wrapped for a short time intimately into a big city.
I really enjoyed this book, the words, the rhythm, the descriptions and just being wrapped for a short time intimately into a big city.
July 29, 2018
OK, now I want to go back to Sydney! It's over twenty years since I spent time there and it remains one of the best cities in my memory, which this book brought back vividly with it's tales and life. A splendid read.
February 27, 2020
A very entertaining 3-hour's worth of reading about Sydney & Australian anxieties about the past; the honesty of Carey's assessment of his home-city & his old mates is the best element of this 2001 survey of one of the world's youngest cities...though it is beginning to show its age!
December 1, 2020
An interesting reflection on Sydney. I note Carey's reflection on how most urban Australians grow up without having an aboriginal friend. This is true for me and probably indicates that I have missed much that this country has to offer.
August 6, 2017
A bit of well-written fluff. A sorbet between courses. Readable and potentially of more interest due to my familiarity with many of the settings.
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