Leviathan: The unauthorised biography of Sydney (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 563 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; Vintage ed edition (2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0091842034
• ISBN-13: 978-0091842031
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #528,634 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars An autopsy more than an autobiography, September 29, 2009

By	Carla Sammut (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

An astonishing book about my hometown, and ultimately peels back the skin and provides the autopsy on the scum ridden country I call my birthplace. Every Australian needs to read this book.

3 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars a macho, pretentious, Oh So Cool glamorisation., September 19, 2005

By	Will De Vere (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews

Pretentious and macho? Simultaneously? If it's written by John Birmingham (Jack London?)the answer is 'Oui'. As much as I like to read about the multitudinous blemishes of that ugly, over-rated city, 'Leviathan' irritated me, starting with its pretentious title. New York, Moscow and Tokyo are Leviathans. Sydney is just a mediocre city in a middling country. If he stole the title from Thomas Hobbes, it's double-plus phoney.

I should acknowledge that Birmingham has worked very hard and done a great deal of historical research to dig up some of the mouldier bones in the Sydney knackers yard and there are many events and characters here, but it doesn't hang together too well. What on earth do tsunamis and racist gangs have in common? Nothing, but by inundating Bondi in giant waves - perhaps the best way to improve that suburb - JB might have been attempting to imitate the famous Marxist historian of Los Angeles, Mark Davies, the author of 'City of Quartz' and the definitive book on Californian eco-disaster, 'Ecology of Fear'. Sure, Sydney society has always been corrupt, ugly, arrogant and pretentious, but it's not interesting, much less glamorous or exotic. Beneath his crusading, muckraking pose, Birmingham wants to glamorise it. In his own way, he is as much of a gushy civic booster as that pukka Establishment gel, Lucy Turnbull.

Please don't mention - it's such a downer - all the pathetic and deranged junkies of Darlinghurst: Birmingham has made a career out of being the streetwise dope smoker, for example, he's made a great song and dance out of being homeless for a few days - on the 'Rolling Stone' payroll. He can write well, but he's a poseur.

After enduring a few years of Sydney's Cool, aka cold and surly , I'm delighted to be far, far away from it. My favourite comment about Sydney was by the Sydney Morning Herald's columnist Richard Ackland a few years ago: 'Sydney is so deluded it has no idea how ordinary it is'. Spot on, Maa-aate.