It was book club last week and as ever it was lovely to be with my reading friends, and we had a great catch-up with what we’ve all been up to, where we’ve been, what else we’ve been reading, family, news, and forthcoming plans. There’s a family wedding in the offing, a potential house-move of a family member, someone off to Glastonbury to see in the solstice, a new direction about to be taken by an off-spring, and less pleasant – a trip to the dentist! Congratulations were hearty for one of us who at last has completed the final assessments of a long and challenging course, and has passed with flying colours! Well done her!
I had prepared some snacks and nibblies and had various bottles and glasses to hand, kettle ready in the kitchen if anyone wanted tea, but the book clubbers arrived with wine and before you could say ‘spring that cork!’ we were charged and ready to read! Actually we were ready to talk about reading and the chosen book we had read. As usual, for various reasons not all of us had completely read the book, but we all had plenty to say! The book was ‘Death Of A River Guide’ by Richard Flanagan who won the Booker Prize in 2014:
Beneath a waterfall on the Franklin, Aljaz Cosini, river guide, lies drowning. Beset by visions at once horrible and fabulous, he relives not just his own life but that of his family and forebears. In the rain forest waters that rush over him he sees those lives stripped bare of their surface realities, and finds a world where dreaming reasserts its power over thinking. As the river rises his visions grow more turbulent, and in the flood of the past Aljaz discovers the soul of his country.
(Amazon blurb)
I was excited by the choice – my great grandfather was born in Tasmania and in 2017 we went to visit the island and we had the most marvellous experience. We didn’t manage to get to the Franklin River, we stayed around Hobart and then travelled north to Launceston; however, we did have river trips, we did visit similar types of country, and we saw plenty of information about different parts of the amazing state.
I don’t like to find out too much about a book before I read it, obviously the genre and general background, but I like reading to be an adventure where I enter a story and travel through it with the different characters. All I knew when I started it was that it was about the death of a river guide, as the title told me. When I realised that not only was it about rivers – which I love and which are very meaningful to me, but it was a river in Tasmania, the place with which I feel such a very strong connection, I started reading with a real sense of anticipation.
However (you probably guessed there is a however) I had to reread parts because I just didn’t grasp what was going on and became confused with the characters. I struggled on as new characters arrived, some from the previous century, and although I realised that Richard Flanagan is an excellent writer, his style defeated me. I confess, I gave up even though there were aspects of the book (some parts were set in the past at the times of Tasmania emerging from its complicated and bloody history of violence and colonisation that were fascinating.) My understanding was compromised by my utter confusion at times of what was going on, who some of the characters were and how they were related to each other and the narrative.
However (another however) I thoroughly enjoyed our book club discussion which was lively and interesting – and was much relieved that only one of us had completed the book! We were able to discuss it, and managed to work out some of the things which had confused and defeated us, and it may be that some of us return to it. I don’t think I will, but I will explore other Tasmanian writers and their books, no doubt wondering if we will ever be able to return,
Lois Elsden 