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The Last Magician
The Last Magician | Janette Turner Hospital
16 posts | 1 read | 5 to read
This superb novel is richly textured and intellectually challenging, a tour de force from our most elegantly seductive writer. The last magician is Charlie, the photographer, who monitors and records everything as he seeks the silent Cat through physical and emotional infernos. Charlie, Cat, Robbie and Catherine shared a childhood summer in a Queensland rainforest. But a death intruded on their charmed circle, binding them to complicity and silence. Decades later, festering memories seep through into the present, in the same way as the desperate underside of a corrupt Sydney breaks through into tidy lives and well-kept streets. The Last Magician was listed in the Weekend Australian Most Notable Books of 1992 and the New York Times Best Books of 1992.
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Gina
The Last Magician | Janette Turner Hospital
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"We'll have a bonzer time in Sydney, you and me. We love doing things together, don't we, old chap?"

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shawnmooney
The Last Magician | Janette Turner Hospital
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Bailedbailed

Abandoned 20% of the way in. The writing is excellent, but the story seems to be being told predominantly through extended descriptions of an artist's arthousey films and photographs, and the main character's reactions to them. I am not a particularly visual person/reader, and so this mode of storytelling simply doesn't engage me.

LeahBergen I've only read one of hers (YEARS ago) but wasn't all that enthused. Shhhh... 8y
shawnmooney @LeahBergen It'll be our little secret, so long as you don't tell my dear friend and distant cousin Mary Jean, who avidly and repeatedly recommended this book to me in the early nineties, that when I finally tried it all these years later I ended up bailing! :) 8y
LeahBergen Don't get her to join Litsy! 😂 8y
43 likes3 comments
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shawnmooney
The Last Magician | Janette Turner Hospital
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shawnmooney
The Last Magician | Janette Turner Hospital
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shawnmooney @saresmoore If you read this, I'd sure be interested in your thoughts: I'm finding it extremely hard to get into, but the wonderful prose is keeping me going, as is one of my dearest friend's recommendation that I absolutely must read this book, dated approximately 1990... :) 8y
saresmoore Following your Litsy posts has effectively ruined my best-laid reading plans—for the better. This is some seriously good writing! I'm still thinking about "crocheted lace over mahogany" from the last quote you shared. 8y
saresmoore In response to your comment, I'll share a quote from Atonement: "The crystalline present moment is of course a worthy subject in itself, especially for poetry; it allows a writer to show his gifts, delve into mysteries of perception, present a stylized version of thought processes...Who can doubt the value of this experimentation? However, such writing can become precious when there is no sense of forward movement." 8y
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saresmoore I'm not sure if that fits with your experience of this particular book. It seems like one worth reading, at least in parts, even if it fails to engage. 8y
shawnmooney @saresmoore I am glad some of the books I'm reading are intriguing to you! And the McEwan quote is a gem! It speaks more to my experience of (at least the 72 pages of) Kovacic's Newcomers, in which everything is gorgeously described at length but so very little has actually happened so far! (i read up until page 100 before deciding whether to bail or continue). 8y
shawnmooney @saresmoore As for this one by Turner Hospital, it's not that stuff isn't happening, or that the writing isn'r really quite stunning, it's more that I am having trouble clearly understanding what is happening. It may be too clever for me... :) 8y
saresmoore @shawnmooney Somehow I doubt it's too clever for you! But I appreciate your thoughts on it for when I try to read it. I also like to give books 100 pages, especially the ones that are a challenge. Although, if it's just plain not great, I can usually tell in under 20. 8y
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shawnmooney
The Last Magician | Janette Turner Hospital
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shawnmooney
The Last Magician | Janette Turner Hospital
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shawnmooney
The Last Magician | Janette Turner Hospital
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shawnmooney
The Last Magician | Janette Turner Hospital
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shawnmooney
The Last Magician | Janette Turner Hospital
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shawnmooney
The Last Magician | Janette Turner Hospital
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shawnmooney
The Last Magician | Janette Turner Hospital
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shawnmooney
The Last Magician | Janette Turner Hospital
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shawnmooney
The Last Magician | Janette Turner Hospital
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shawnmooney
The Last Magician | Janette Turner Hospital
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shawnmooney
The Last Magician | Janette Turner Hospital
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blurb
shawnmooney
The Last Magician | Janette Turner Hospital
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This novel came out in 1992, and it wasn't long after that that one of my best friends, Mary Jean, enthusiastically recommended it to me. She checked back with me over the next few years to see if I read it. I had not. Today, January 1, 2017, I'm about to finally begin reading it, and thus fulfill one of the many book challenges I'm doing, which has a category of reading the book that's been on your TBR the longest.

LeahBergen I should dig through my library for the oldest on my TBR, too. This is great! 😂 8y
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