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A review by estienne
Gould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish by Richard Flanagan
3.0
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.