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A review by kris_mccracken
Carpentaria by Alexis Wright
3.0
Carpentaria by Alexis Wright
This sprawling novel encompasses the interconnected stories of multiple inhabitants of a fictional town that sits on Queensland’s remote Gulf of Carpentaria. The book is an allegory that employs fantastical and magical realist elements to explore the realities of Aboriginal life in modern Australia.
I found this a difficult book to engage with. At those points that I started to ease into the narrative progression, the story would take a surreal turn backwards or forwards in time that jolted me out of the story and bewildered by the wrench away from what narrative thread there is.
Perhaps this is the point, like the book. Sometimes it seems to be as much an exploration of Aboriginal masculinity in the context of historical dispossession as it is the battle of a people to survive in the face of a hostile oppressor. At others, it is the intergenerational tale of the struggles of a particular family or the plight of a divided community against the might and money of a multinational mining company.
To achieve this, Wright conjures up an experimental, playful and (at times) incredibly lyrical novel. The book moves in giant leaps from the poetic (hmm) to an argument in pidgin English (delightful) to pseudo-Christian lectures on morality (dull) to moments of intense vulgarity (fun) to extended mediation on the fish found in the far north (okay…). The net effect on this reader was dizzying, but not in a good way.
The novel’s central point (I believe), that white history is a counterfeit construct designed to suit the purpose of the ‘victors’, is a fair one. Alas, like those times that I’ve tried to read Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus, the non-linear and deliberately nonsensical temporal structure makes for awfully hard going.
There is some lovely writing here, consider:
We’re treated to some incredibly memorable characters in the Phantom family, but in the abandonment of chronology, blending of dream and reality, and mischievous deconstruction of European ways of telling stories, I struggled.
This is an important novel but be prepared for heavy going throughout.
⭐ ⭐ 1/2
This sprawling novel encompasses the interconnected stories of multiple inhabitants of a fictional town that sits on Queensland’s remote Gulf of Carpentaria. The book is an allegory that employs fantastical and magical realist elements to explore the realities of Aboriginal life in modern Australia.
I found this a difficult book to engage with. At those points that I started to ease into the narrative progression, the story would take a surreal turn backwards or forwards in time that jolted me out of the story and bewildered by the wrench away from what narrative thread there is.
Perhaps this is the point, like the book. Sometimes it seems to be as much an exploration of Aboriginal masculinity in the context of historical dispossession as it is the battle of a people to survive in the face of a hostile oppressor. At others, it is the intergenerational tale of the struggles of a particular family or the plight of a divided community against the might and money of a multinational mining company.
To achieve this, Wright conjures up an experimental, playful and (at times) incredibly lyrical novel. The book moves in giant leaps from the poetic (hmm) to an argument in pidgin English (delightful) to pseudo-Christian lectures on morality (dull) to moments of intense vulgarity (fun) to extended mediation on the fish found in the far north (okay…). The net effect on this reader was dizzying, but not in a good way.
The novel’s central point (I believe), that white history is a counterfeit construct designed to suit the purpose of the ‘victors’, is a fair one. Alas, like those times that I’ve tried to read Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus, the non-linear and deliberately nonsensical temporal structure makes for awfully hard going.
There is some lovely writing here, consider:
When the policeman came, the Phantom kids cringed like dogs, with their backs flat against the walls, trying to attain a powerless invisibility. Immobilised by fear of being seen, they listened to their thumping hearts race when they watched their father being taken away.
We’re treated to some incredibly memorable characters in the Phantom family, but in the abandonment of chronology, blending of dream and reality, and mischievous deconstruction of European ways of telling stories, I struggled.
This is an important novel but be prepared for heavy going throughout.
⭐ ⭐ 1/2