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3.64 AVERAGE
3.64 AVERAGE
It's hard to classify this book. Is it a fantasy? A historical novel? A character study? Flanagan's book is even harder at times to handle, let alone classify. The Tasmanian prison in which Gould is incarcerated is stripped of all human niceties and we view the nature of man in all its stark, visceral, troubling glory. This one is not for the faint of heart. The tortures Gould faces as he survives in this hell-hole leave nothing to the imagination. Is our narrator trustworthy? By the end of the book, that question still rang in my ears. If you're willing to take a chance with this novel, you will be fascinated by the characters, run the gamut of emotions, and discover an amazing story that will haunt you long after you finish the last page.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Odd, strange, bizarre, weird, odd, different, odd, but very interesting. Very interesting history, told in an abnormal way.
Gould's Book of Fish is less about the people of Sarah Island, but about the island itself and the way it transforms over the course of Gould's sentence. The longer the book went on, the less I understood. Reality and fabrication blur into a single entity, with the only anchor being fish and their likenesses.
Richard Flanagan's ability to build such a repugnant little world out of a vague book of fish is nothing short of impressive. Both the world and its inhabitants are painted in a gruesome and unapologetically jarring light, perfectly matching the awful nature of the Sarah Island penal colony.
I had planned to critique this book on its overall meaning and what the point of it all was; but now that I think about it, I think it's meant to be meaningless - the impact of the book of fish, the reasoning behind Gould's prison life, the morphing of the island into an absurd amusement park of unfathomable attractions.
My only issue left then is the characters. I found myself at all times unable to follow the characters, their goals and honestly even their names. I would continuously get confused about who actually runs the island. I'm not sure if I managed to miss every single point where characters are explained or if Richard Flanagan simply makes fully-fleshed characters appear out of thin air.
I'm not sure about whether I actually enjoyed Gould's Book of Fish, but it's given me a lot to think about.
Richard Flanagan's ability to build such a repugnant little world out of a vague book of fish is nothing short of impressive. Both the world and its inhabitants are painted in a gruesome and unapologetically jarring light, perfectly matching the awful nature of the Sarah Island penal colony.
I had planned to critique this book on its overall meaning and what the point of it all was; but now that I think about it, I think it's meant to be meaningless - the impact of the book of fish, the reasoning behind Gould's prison life, the morphing of the island into an absurd amusement park of unfathomable attractions.
My only issue left then is the characters. I found myself at all times unable to follow the characters, their goals and honestly even their names. I would continuously get confused about who actually runs the island. I'm not sure if I managed to miss every single point where characters are explained or if Richard Flanagan simply makes fully-fleshed characters appear out of thin air.
I'm not sure about whether I actually enjoyed Gould's Book of Fish, but it's given me a lot to think about.
adventurous
funny
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Thomas Pynchon and David Lynch had a love child and called it Book of Fish. Loved it.
I enjoy Flanagan’s writing, there is a depth and elegance to it that draws me in like few others, this alone saved this book for dipping below 3 stars in my humble, questionably educated opinion.
It started strong but I found it sprawled out into something a little too ridiculous and with great effort a conclusion was Frankensteined together from prior monologues.
It lost me about halfway through and although I got through the back end of the book felt like work then the sheer enjoyment I got from Flanagan’s other works.
Perhaps I was not in the right mind frame for this book however as there is a lot to unpack here but I feel at this point in time it wasn’t a cohesive read and I didn’t completely buy into the narrative. (And rightly so as it turns out!)
It started strong but I found it sprawled out into something a little too ridiculous and with great effort a conclusion was Frankensteined together from prior monologues.
It lost me about halfway through and although I got through the back end of the book felt like work then the sheer enjoyment I got from Flanagan’s other works.
Perhaps I was not in the right mind frame for this book however as there is a lot to unpack here but I feel at this point in time it wasn’t a cohesive read and I didn’t completely buy into the narrative. (And rightly so as it turns out!)
Este livro está em standby. Acho que vou ter de o começar de novo pois já há muito que não lhe pego.
Não desisti, está só à espera de melhor humor em relação à escrita!
Não desisti, está só à espera de melhor humor em relação à escrita!