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Melbourne Remade: The Inner City Since the 70s by Seamus O’Hanlon (2010)

October 15, 2010 Book Reviews
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Melbourne Remade: The Inner City Since the 70s by Seamus O'Hanlon (2010)For my birthday this year, a group of friends and I went on the Haunted Melbourne walking tour. The host constantly lamented the lack of old buildings in which these ghostly sightings or morbid stories had occurred. While I imagine that the structural evolution of a city somewhat hampers attempts to revisit its supernatural past, in Melbourne Remade: The Inner City Since the 70s, Seamus O’Hanlon takes us through the myriad of architectural changes within Melbourne’s centre since the 1970s and how they represent the shift from an industrial history to a post-industrial society.

O’Hanlon covers much of the inner city of Melbourne, as well as the hip inner suburbs. Looking at different aspects – landmarks, retail, the Yarra river, events and the iconic streets – he outlines the significant development of Melbourne since the 1970s. Not simply reminiscing the loss of historical structures, O’Hanlon instead insists that history is evident not just within the heritage listed buildings, but in the evolution enforced by changing social, cultural and economic shifts.

Mainly, it is a pleasure to learn stories about places that have become so routine that it’s easy to forget their long history as they are so gradually removed from their past. Take Melbourne Central, for example. Now a bustling underground train station and modern entertainment and retail complex, it was once a closed off and dominated by department store Daimaru. I remember getting lost within the maze and seeming lack of exits many times, or struggling to even find a way into the building. O’Hanlon also points to how the integration of the new, more open retail space with laneways not only opens up Melbourne Central to the surrounding streets and make it more inviting, but also places it within the larger context of Melbourne itself. The now iconic Melbourne laneways exist as almost polar opposites to the mega-development schemes that dominated the city for many years. Here we see the small scale, quirky and local enliven and define the city space, even as they exist alongside the massive globally financed structures.

Soon after completion the Rialto was dubbed ‘Melbourne’s Ayers Rock’ by journalist Keith Dunston; like a member of other former Collins Street defenders Dunstan found himself something of a reluctant fan of the building’s twin blue glass towers that seem to change colour depending on the time of day and direction of the sun. The beauty of the building is breathtaking, especially from a distance. One of the best ways to see it in all its glory is from the West Gate Bridge at dusk. Even up close it has a majesty that’s difficult to describe.

It would be too easy to simply recite all the interesting changes that have taken place over the past forty years, changes that have been evident within my lifetime, and some that their relative consistency seems to erase their past. There is much to learn in Melbourne Remade about the origins of Melbourne in trade and free enterprise and how these traditions are carried on in to our current consumer culture, how the public transport system affected the growth of inner city retail strips, the creation of a recreation space along the Yarra, and the transformation of the inner suburbs from “working class landscape[s] of production” to upmarket residential zones.

Although one aspect of Melbourne Remade that struck me was the creation of Melbourne as an event, sport and culture destination to offset the deindustrialisation and urban decay after the recessions. It was an economic necessity that has significantly boosted tourism numbers and the structure of the city itself. Even more interesting is the fact that less than 10% of the metropolitan population live in Melbourne’s inner city, so that while Melbourne city can now be seen as a hub of culture, events and recreation, this centralisation effectively distances the benefits, both cultural and economic, from the majority of the population. O’Hanlon makes a heartfelt argument, and one that I strongly agree with, that though it may not bring in the international tourists, extending these cultural renewal strategies out into the suburbs will ultimately benefit more of Melbourne’s population. I also wonder, if this sort of extensive influx of money and resources ever happens, will we see the same gentrification of the outer suburbs and industrial areas that the inner city has seen over the last 40 years, thus pushing the outer suburbs even further “out”?

Melbourne Remade shows us how a number of forces, economic, social, cultural and historical, have seen the inner city reinvent itself from a past of manufacturing and industry to a post-industrial, economically privileged retail, recreation and residential space. O’Hanlon provdies more context for these changes than you would think possible for such a physically little book, and even manages to build some hype for Arcade’s next release MacRobertsonland with the intriguing legacy of Macpherson Robertson making an appearance. Most importantly though, O’Hanlon gives us another outlook through which to view our city, through the changes that occur, and keep occuring, allowing us to build our own “visual archaeology” of Melbourne.

[Disclosure: Publisher supplied e-galley of Melbourne Remade: The Inner City Since the 70s, but then I liked it so much that I went out and bought myself a physical copy! Melbourne Remade is published by Arcade Publications, ISBN 978-0-9804367-8-5]

The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas (2008)

August 20, 2010 Book Reviews
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The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas (2008)I know. You’re suffering from Man Booker longlist fatigue too. However, I give you my word that this and Alan Warner’s The Stars in the Bright Sky are the only titles on the longlist that I have any interest in reading. For a while it seemed that Christos Tsiolkas‘ The Slap was the novel that everyone in Australia was reading, discussing and arguing over. It’s a little pleasing to know that the novel is having the same divisive effect overseas. Nonetheless, The Slap feels inherently Australian, so intimately linked with our issues as a nation and as a culture that I have to wonder if it has the same potency outside of our shores.

The Slap is also one of those books where you feel like a broken record in repeating the plot, so intrinsic is it to the title and the hype surrounding the book. At a barbeque in suburban Melbourne, fittingly with multicultural backgrounds and a variety of age groups present, a man slaps a misbehaving young boy who is not his own. The Slap follows the consequences and reverberations in the lives of those who witnessed the slap that afternoon. Intriguingly, all of the stories, despite the multicultural, gender and generational differences, are all told in the same the same third person voice.

I expected class to play a big role in The Slap, and was surprised to find it difficult to recognize any class aspects coming in to play. The Slap opens with the perspective of Hector, a man who is hosting the barbeque, and is feeling not so much trapped, but definitely unappreciative of the benefits of his middle class male existence. The parents of the slapped boy parrot politically correct dogma, echoing sentiment they believe they should have – and are noticably poorer than the rest of the characters. Sure, the characters throw around “middle-class” as an insult, but for the most part it seems that class has become such an intangible issue, secondary to cultural, gender and generational differences. Tsiolkas is forcing us to look at the negative aspects of all of these characters regardless of their financial position, we’re invited to explore their faults. The characters are hugely unlikeable, except for the two younger characters.

Anouk, a childless by choice writer on a television soap, should have by all rights appeal to my liberal sensibilities. She too has made the unpopular decision to not bear children – most of the female characters in The Slap are burdened by their choice to have children, motherhood defines them. She is a confounding character, it is difficult to understand how someone so supposedly intelligent can have such simplistic views about class and her friendship with Rosie. Why does someone who fiercely holds to her decisions in all other aspects of life so quickly back down for someone she doesn’t even like any more? It’s a question that is raised repeatedly through The Slap, and the answer seems to be compromise. It’s not a romanticized compromise, it’s a compromise always marked by bitterness and resentment.

Anouk’s liberal attitude only gets her so far though, and in particular it made me extremely frustrated that she is so ignorant about the culture that lies “out there”, beyond her inner city comfort zone. Her presumption that her usual treatment of immigrant men – a Muslim taxi driver in the given example – is above the “immense sea of indifferently racist Australians out there, a world that existed – as far as she could tell because she’d never visited ‘out there’ – somewhere beyond the yellow lines that marked the inner-city zone-one train and tram tracks on the Melbourne transport maps.” This hit hard, as I live in the forbidden blue zone two and I resented Anouk’s inner-city presumptions because it felt like they were, implicitly, a reflection on me. However, while doing some research on my electorate for the recent election, I discovered some interesting facts that reaffirmed my position. My electorate has the highest proportion of Muslim residents in Victoria, the third highest in Australia. For Anouk, Muslims represent her taxi drivers, “out here”, they are our neighbours, our friends, our colleagues. Yes, racism exists in the outer suburbs, but it is not any worse, or any better, than inner-city exclusive racism.

The shallowness of Anouk’s nameless apology for her rudeness to her taxi driver is later strengthened by Manolis’ later comments about the ease with which Australians say sorry. Forgiveness is a large part of the Slap, characters seek it, characters forgive for the wrong and right reasons, yet the hollowness of these apologies was always read through the lens of Manolis view, and reflected on the greater problems related to our own national and cultural apologies.

The words dropped easily from her lips but they meant nothing. Australians used the word like a chant. Sorry sorry sorry. She was not sorry. He thought she loved him, respected him. He’d nursed this hope for years. He wanted to strike himself for his vanity and foolishness. He had never asked anything of her before and she must know that he would never ask a thing of her again. Sorry. He spat out the word as if it were poison.

Anouk is not the only frustrating character in The Slap, the other adult characters are completely unlikeable: emotionally unavailable, potentially violent and dangerous, dangerously irresponsible, constantly lying to each other and themselves. However, The Slap is thematically very rich, covering so many aspects of contemporary Australian life that it would be impossible to cover them all in one review. One other thing that had strong resonance with me was the nature of compromise. This could be because I am much too self-involved to truly understand the complexity of compromise involved in marriage, relationships and motherhood, but The Slap repeats that compromise made under the guises of these important roles are often made to someone characters are not even sure they like, let alone love. There is a deep-seated resentment behind these decisions which is not healthy. The Slap asks the question of where do our loyalties lie? With family? With friends? With strangers? With ourselves? The answer is never clear, and identity is so built upon traditional roles that, by their very nature, force us to define ourselves in relation to another.

Again she experiences a wave of weariness, a numbing heaviness to her neck and shoulders, to her very bones. This, finally, was love. This was its shape and essence, once the lust and ecstasy and danger and adventure had gone. Love, at its core, was negotiation, the surrender of two individuals to the messy, banal, domestic realities of sharing a life together. In this way, in love, she could secure a familiar happiness. She had to forego the risk of an unknown, most likely impossible, most probably unattainable, alternative happiness. She couldn’t take the risk. She was too tired.

And then, there is Connie and Richie. One of the things I loved about Tsiolkas’ debut novel Loaded (incidentally, does anyone else think that the Ari at the barbeque who gave Hector speed could possibly be Ari from Loaded? Just coincidence, or a wink to knowing readers?) was the exploration of a multitude of complex issues and themes related to growing up in Australia through the energy and exuberance of youth. Tsiolkas knows how to write about adolescence in a way that, compared to the hateful and bitter adults, gives hope: I almost wonder why he is content writing about middle-class, middle-aged bores when the real passion and excitement comes through his sensitive treatment of his younger characters. Connie and Richie are marked by a fear and anticipation of the future, but in their confrontation with their future, they change in a way that the adult characters can not. Previously held prejudices disintegrate as they learn, adapt and evolve. They are the only ones truly willing to forgive their friends and family of minor and major transgressions, and thus the real hope of The Slap lies with them.

In summary, I can’t honestly say that I liked The Slap. It didn’t leave me giddy with pleasure, but it did force me to think about issues about identity and compromise, and for that I am appreciative. It begins to approach the problems and concerns confronting contemporary Australian society in a way that is easy to relate to, yet avoids taking an overly moral tone. It is a completely frustrating novel for so many reasons, but absolutely a worthwhile read.

Loaded by Christos Tsiolkas (1995)

February 26, 2010 Book Reviews
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Loaded by Christos Tsiolkas (1995)Christos Tsiolkas‘ Loaded follows Ari, a nineteen year old of Greek heritage and a sexuality he is not entirely comfortable with, in the hedonistic events of one night out in Melbourne. Although he has no problem with his desire to sleep with masculine men, he feels some discomfort in labeling himself as gay; it’s not just his sexuality that he dislikes defining, but his entire self, his racial and cultural heritage, his taste in music. He refuses the delineations of identity that society, his family and his peers want him to define himself by. He eschews work and study, and becomes frustrated and impatient when people seem to demand that he “do something.” Caught between the traditional Greek culture of his immigrant parents and his position in contemporary Australian society, and not feeling at ease in either, Ari struggles toward finding a place where he can just be himself without outside constraints or imposed definitions.

Speed is exhilaration. Speed is colours reflecting light with greater intensity. Speed, if it’s good, can take me higher than I can ever go, higher than my natural bodily chemicals can take me. [...] On speed I feel macho, but not aggressive. I’m friendly to everyone. Speed evaporates fear. On speed I dance with my body and my soul. In this white powder they’ve distilled the essence of the Greek word kefi. Kefi is the urge to dance, to be with good friends, to open your arms to life. Straight, I can approximate kefi, but I am always conscious of fighting off boredom. Speed doesn’t let you get bored.

Ari’s voice is undeniably passionate, confused as it is. He is full of adolescent generalizations about people who aren’t like himself, and he is not afraid to voice them. Though his experience of life is troubled by numerous conflicts, he cannot seem to see the same ruptures at work in the lives of others, choosing instead to take a simplified view of everyone else. Even Johnny, Ari’s openly gay friend whose relationship with his father is complex, doesn’t receive much sympathy from Ari. When Johnny appears as Toula, his drag alter ego, Ari refuses to acknowledge or address him as Toula, instead insisting on calling him Johnny. While there remains a friendliness between them, and a closeness, but these little things make up the sum of Ari’s personality. Even Ari’s sexual partners, even objects of intense desire, do not receive much thought especially after the physical act of sex has taken place. Then, for Ari, all mystery has gone. He has known them physically, so as Ari surmises, he has known them fully. This is all he has wanted them for, true, but the dismissal is abrupt and complete.

Inherently Melbournian, Loaded is divided into four sections – East, North, South and West – each representing time spent in the suburbs in the corresponding parts of Melbourne. As Ari articulates his frustration and rage, he manages to also pin down the divisions between different parts of the city – from the standards of living, the types of people who congregate there, what that represents and how it relates to his own experiences of life. Here is where the novel had so much power for me, though Ari’s outlook is much more cynical and pessimistic than mine. Like the divides that ravage his search for identity, he sees the divides that separate the city:

The West at night, as you drive over the Westgate Bridge, is a shimmering valley of lights. In the day, under the harsh glare of the sun, the valley reveals itself as an industrial quilt of wharfs, factories, warehouses, silos and power plants. And the endless stretch of suburban housing estates. The West is a dumping ground; a sewer of refugees, the migrants, the poor, the insane, the unskilled and the uneducated. There is a point in my city, underneath the Swanston Street Bridge where you can sit by the Yarra River and contemplate the chasm that separates this town. Look down the river towards the East and there are green parks rolling down to the river, beautiful Victorian bridges sparkle against the blue sky. Face West and there is the smoke scarred embankment leading towards the wharfs. The beauty and the beast. All cities, all cities depend on this chasm.

Rife with a drug fueled frenetic energy that doesn’t let up, Loaded kept me up to the early hours of the morning. The complex issues of immigrant identity, second generation immigrant children, sexuality, racial tension, desire and family are all explored in a youthful, vivacious, unrelenting prose that hums with the energy of late nights, pills and booze.

Book Loot: Week Ending February 21st, 2010

February 21, 2010 Book Loot
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Book Loot: Week Ending 21st February, 2010It seems a fitting end to Carson McCullers Week 2010 that this week’s loot includes a McCullers book. I’ve discovered a British publisher that re-released her novels with the release of the Mortgaged Heart in the early 1970s, and they all have classic typographical hardcovers. And so, in typical obsessive mode, I’m working on collecting myself a complete set, starting with The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, with Clock Without Hands [review] making its way to me from France, and pining for the rest of them.

I even had the first pick of a huge box full of outdated trade proofs at work and only came home with E.L. Doctorow’s Homer and Langley. I think my attitude to book buying/hoarding has shifted, I’m just not sure when/why/how this shift occurred. Working in the bookstore hasn’t weakened my resolve, the only books I’ve bought there so far have been as presents for others. Although I do have my eye and heart eagerly set on a delicious looking Penguin reference box set.

Simon Caterson’s Hoax Nation: Australian Fakes and Frauds, from Plato to Norma Khouri is a review copy kindly sent from Arcade Publications, and I’m really looking forward to getting stuck into it. They also sent me their Melbourne by the Book pamphlet of “Literary Hot Spots, Bookstores, Festivals and More” which is going to give me a lot of new bookish places to explore around town, giving me approximately 451283 more reasons to love Melbourne.

In addition to these new reads, I’ve also been borrowing from the library a lot. And I really mean a lot. I’m too embarrassed to post a photo of exactly what I have borrowed over the past week or so because it displays the sheer audacity of my ambitious approach to reading. I’ve got some young adult fiction, a lot of books by authors from the Gala Night last week, and some books I’ve just haven’t yet gotten around to reading or have found impossible  to find elsewhere. It’s almost daunting, it would be impossible for anyone to read the stupid amounts of books I have out on loan, but goddamnit if I’m not going to try.

A Gala Night of Storytelling – February 13th, 2010

February 14, 2010 Event Reviews
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As someone who meticulously prepares travel times – making sure to allow extra time for the very possible and unforeseen delays of the Melbourne public transport system, seriously miscalculating how long it takes to catch a tram from one place to another – having to rush from work to Melbourne Town Hall for the Wheeler Centre‘s inaugural public event “A Gala Night of Storytelling” was weighing heavily on my nerves. Luckily, I not only was let off from work fifteen minutes early but the public transport gods conspired to make my tram ride a speedy sojourn, with the added bonus of having only one drunken tourist starting a slurring imitation of conversation with me, and I arrived at the corner of Swanston and Collins with ten minutes to spare.

The ten minutes giving me ample time to continue walking up Collins to join the end of the swarming queue of literati, the bespectacled, the well-read, and, let’s be perfectly honest here, the really really ridiculously good looking. The line thankfully moved quickly, abuzz with anticipation, and shuffled eagerly into the hallowed halls. Welcoming comments and introductions from the Wheeler Centre director, government Arts ministers and indigenous leaders were succinct, encouraging, and inspiring.

Then, the main acts, a veritable who’s who of Australian literature and culture: Chloe Hooper, Paul Kelly, Cate Kennedy, Judith Lucy, Shane Maloney, David Malouf, John Marsden, Alex Miller, John Safran, Christos Tsiolkas, Tara June Winch, Alexis Wright; each of them offering a short story from their own lives, based largely on their families and the wisdom passed down generations. The tone varied from the gut-bustingly hilarious and flattering (to paraphrase Shane Maloney, “if the roof caved in now, the average Australian I.Q. score would instantly drop by twenty points.”) to the poignant and poetic; the best combining both. I don’t think a single person was unaffected by Paul Kelly’s amazing rendition of “South of Germany”, made all the more moving after hearing the family legend that inspired it.

Despite the massive crowd, the stories mostly felt intimately personal, as though being told over a coffee or two. The variety of voices made me appreciate the distinct sounds and nuances of the Australian accent, and the range of experiences and stories we all have to offer each other. Inspired to seek out the written stories from the voices I’d sat and listened to all evening, as I made my way home through a rougher suburb of Melbourne – its reputation much, much worse than its actual bite – I listened closely to the voices around me and the stories they told, a reminder that there is just as much quality storytelling available in our daily lives, through families and friends, or drunks on the bus, as in the pages of books.

The Wheeler Centre’s launch event was a roaring success, and it was more than worth the five dollar student concession ticket price just to hear famed Australian young adult author John Marsden drop the magical phrase “mad cunt.”

Radical Melbourne: A Secret History by Jeff and Jill Sparrow (2001)

January 20, 2010 Book Reviews
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Radical Melbourne by Jeff Sparrow and Jill Sparrow (2001)In Radical Melbourne: A Secret History brother and sister duo Jeff and Jill Sparrow look back over the turbulent political history of inner city Melbourne. Covering a time period of roughly the first century of the city until the mid 1940s, they feature the stories behind 50 prominent inner city Melbourne locations, starting at Flagstaff Gardens and winding through the city before ending up at Trades Hall. This is a history of Melbourne with a focus on the left of the political spectrum, a history that doesn’t get taught in schools.

Each location examined has been the site of significant form of political struggle, from housing dissident political parties, anarchist bookshops and co-ops, to bloody street brawls and protests. These places have become nothing more than banal facades of the city streets, so it is extremely eye-opening to read about the colourful history behind many of them. Radical Melbourne works to uncover the histories that have been lost beneath the ideal image of Australian history, and at the same time, establishing the important message that public space is active, evolving and ever-changing according to the needs of its people, yet also shaped by dominant political ideologies.

However, in a new century, the problem that motivated Chummy Fleming and his comrades to take to the Bank has reasserted itself with a vengeance. In the new Melbourne of casinos and giant outdoor television screens, there are almost no places in which people can congregate. The inadequate space outside the State Library has become the focus for every rally and demonstration, simply because nowhere else exists.

While there is a wealth of truly fascinating stories behind many of the buildings of Melbourne’s cityscape, the “radical” aspect of the book does become tiresome and overly didactic at times. Yes, the struggles of the working class to assert their rights were important and made great headway into establishing what we now accept as basic working rights, and it is increasingly important to highlight their causes in order to maintain them. However, sometimes the writing took on the tone of a student-socialist sneer – especially when commenting on what particular buildings are today.

Luckily, the strength and number of interesting/frightening stories for the most part overrides the sometime disconcerting tone. For instance, did you know that Victoria’s Parliament House still has slits for gun lofts, allowing riflemen to fire upon demonstrators coming up Bourke Street? Or that it houses an underground dungeon, which now functions as a cleaners tearoom? There is enough similarly startling stories in Radical Melbourne to ensure that you will never look at Melbourne the same way again.

Initially written as a walking tour guide through the city streets, Radical Melbourne is perhaps better read chapter by chapter, a book to visit occasionally and to ruminate over rather than read cover to cover as the stories of riots, marches and political struggle do begin to blend together. It gives Melbournians and tourists alike a chance to look at the city in a different light.

E.W. Cole: Chasing the Rainbow by Lisa Lang (2007)

January 11, 2010 Book Reviews
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E.W. Cole: Chasing the Rainbow by Lisa Lang (2007)When I was younger my favourite books to borrow from the library, apart from the adventures of my hero, first love and ideal manboy Tintin, were the Cole’s Funny Picture Books. They were full of witticisms, puns, wordplay, visual gags, puzzles and they were deliciously odd. It never occurred to me that they were old-fashioned, at the time I had no idea that these books were first published in the late 1870s. If you ever glanced through a Cole’s, you may remember the illustration of the Whipping Machine for Flogging Naughty Boys. Sounds terribly politically incorrect, and probably would be treated as such now, but it made me laugh myself sick as a kid and stuck with me throughout childhood. Little did I know that the man behind such a cornerstone of my childhood nostalgia was such a varied and interesting figure of Melbourne’s history, and E.W. Cole: Chasing the Rainbow takes a look at the man behind the Funny Picture Books – Edward William Cole and his emporium of exotic treasures and Book Arcade in the heart of Melbourne in the late 19th century.

“Edward claimed to stock over a million books. His titles ranged from poetry to Marxism and sex education. For Edward, books were not just a business but a moral crusade. As one of his slogans proclaimed: ‘The happiness of mankind, the real salvation of the world, must come about by every person in existence being taught to read and induced to think.’

Lang’s biography is a short one, delivered in Arcade Publications‘ signature mini-book size, that takes us through Edward William Cole’s humble beginnings on the fraught goldfields of Victoria, to selling cordial to the goldhunters and even manning a late night meat pie stand until he settled on selling books from a cart on the street. He educated himself in the public libraries of Melbourne and wrote a book about world religions and religious tolerance, which was a difficult sell to publishers of the time. As his book cart grew to a full store at the busy Eastern Market, Cole took to unconventional promotional measures.

The media frenzy that Cole stirred up to promote his newly opened bookstore is ingenious and indicative of a highly media-savvy entrepreneur. In 1873, Cole put a column in the daily newspaper announcing the “Discovery of a Race of Human Beings with Tails” and that more would be revealed in Monday’s paper. Needless to say, Monday’s newspaper sold out. In the following week, Cole listed other traits of the people of the so-called Elocwe (read it backwards for a hint) and incited great anticipation about further revelations. On Saturday of the same week, the final episode was published:

“It invited all tailless inhabitants of Melbourne to go to Cole’s Cheap Book Store at the Eastern Market, where they would find for sale a great variety of TALES.”

Okay, I know you probably just rolled your eyes and it does seem a little quaint now, but it was clever. Viral marketing existed as early as 1873! It proved to be a great success. People turned up in droves to his book stall. Later, Cole was forced to move and bought out the arcade which would go on to become his famous Book Arcade, painting the façade white and emblazoned with the trademark rainbow.

Cole encouraged customers to sit down and read for as long as they wished (bliss!), as well as expanding the bookstore to an eclectic mix of a lending library, a tea salon, and selling “perfume, musical instruments, confectionery, and ornaments.” Including a room of monkeys. Monkeys! Eventually, his store expanded so much that it took up a whole city block. Cole’s Book Arcade was an amalgam of his varied interests. Cole’s Funny Picture Books were released in 1879 – a sort of scrapbook of things Cole had found and written – and were a publishing sensation, as literature aimed at children was sparse and the Funny Picture Books were relatively cheap.

Not only was Cole an impressive businessman, publisher and bookseller, but he was an inspired intellectual with a Utopian vision. He shunned the rampant racism evident in Australia, he wrote extensively against the White Australia policy and he advocated literacy and education for all. Cole’s is not a sensational biography, well, perhaps apart from the monkeys and his pet marmoset, but Lang shows us an eccentric man with strong ideals and business acumen who was a pioneer of his time.

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I do love compiling a brief list of links related to the Melbourne history books I’ve been reading, and E.W. Cole doesn’t escape this.

Madame Brussels: This Moral Pandemonium by L.M. Robinson (2009)

January 6, 2010 Book Reviews
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Madame Brussels: This Moral Pandemonium by L.M. RobinsonMadame Brussels: This Moral Pandemonium is a gorgeously designed, pocket sized historical biography of notorious Melbourne brothel owner, savvy businesswoman and entrepreneur Caroline Hodgson. The use of pink and white pages printed with black and red ink lends the book a little decadent flourish, perfectly suited to its subject matter. Madame Brussels has recently been immortalized by a twee bar and Melbourne City Council naming a laneway after the famous brothel, the continued popularity fueled surely by the legend, gossip and hearsay about the good madame.

Traveling from London, Caroline Hodgson arrived in Melbourne with her husband Studholme George Hodgson in June of 1871. Studholme joined the police force and was stationed in Mansfield, leaving his young wife alone in the growing city. By 1874 Hodgson had founded, presumably with the financial assistance of male benefactors, the successful brothel Madame Brussels in Lonsdale Street in inner Melbourne. Quickly established as a bagnio of the highest calibre, Madame Brussels was the destination of choice of a number of men of prominent, influential position. Attracting the attention of evangelist Henry Varley, Hodgson was the subject of numerous court cases in an attempt to rid the city of vice; which, it must be said, never effected her business. The economic Depression of the 1890s, after the boom years of the 1880s, saw business dwindling, but Madame Brussels continued to survive until Hodgson’s health deteriorated. In total, Madame Brussels operated for over 30 years.

The scandals of the business and Hodgson’s personal life are delightfully fleshed out in Robinson’s diminutive dissertation. Although there are many gaps between the documentation available, Robinson does a great job of considering the possibilities behind the historical blind spots. Some of the rumours surrounding Hodgson are hilarious in their extravagance, regardless of their possibly tenuous relationship to the truth:

But perhaps the greatest rumour was the one regarding the birth of an illegitimate daughter some time toward the end of the decade [1880s]. As befitting a mother dubbed ‘the wickedest woman in Melbourne’, the event was said to have been celebrated with a program of low festivities to which all the city’s ‘bloods’ were invited. After carousing with the brothel’s ‘nymphs’ and supping on high-quality liquor supplied by the Commercial Hotel in Spring Street, the invitees are meant to have cheered as a mock priest baptised the child in champagne and endowed her with the appropriately shocking name of Syphilia.

Then there is the captivating, and unbeknown to me until now, story of the mace stolen from Victorian Parliament in 1891. The mace has never been found and a reward ($50,000!) still stands for its return. The missing mace was one of the scandals which damaged, however slightly, the mutual relationship between the officials of Parliament and Madame Brussels. Hearsay from a Sydneysider (of course!) suggested that three women had stolen the mace and that the politicians were using Parliament House to entertain the flash ladies. Following the death of her first husband Hodgson married Jacob Pohl, who disappeared on her … twice. The book is full of so many equally fascinating stories.

Illustrated with beautiful engravings from the State Library of Victoria archives and snippets of articles from the sensationalist media of the time, Madame Brussels creates a vivid portrait of a fascinatingly ambiguous woman and the city of Melbourne.

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Here’s a number of ancillary links which I strongly encourage you to have a browse through if Madame Brussels or Melbourne history rouses your interest. Excerpts from an essay by John Leckey sheds further light on the brothel industry in Melbourne in the 1800s. Wikipedia’s entry on Caroline Hodgson provides a decent summary of her life and career, much of it taken from Madame Brussels: This Moral Pandemonium. There are also a couple of interviews with L.M. Robinson available online – from Moreland council and “The Real Madame Brussels: Love, Lust and More” -which elaborate further on Madame Brussels and Robinson’s research and attraction to the project.