Synopses & Reviews
Published in hardcover to outstanding acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic, and winner of the prestigious Commonwealth Writers Prize,
Gould's Book of Fish is a marvelously imagined epic of nineteenth-century Australia a world of convicts and colonists, thieves and catamites, whose bloody history is recorded in a very unusual taxonomy of fish. Widely hailed as a masterpiece and a work of genius, it stands out as one of the best novels of recent years.
Billy Gould was a forger and thief sentenced to life imprisonment in a penal colony in Van Diemen's Land now Tasmania. After six months he escaped and boarded a whaler for the Americas, but before long his adventures landed him back in prison. The prison doctor Lempriere utilizes Gould's painting talents to create an illustrated taxonomy of the country's exotic sea creatures, which Lempriere madly believes will assure his place in history and the Royal Society. Lost and re-created, destroyed and hidden, Gould's book finally resurfaces in the present day littered with scrawls recording his unutterably strange life part freewheeling picaresque, part tragicomedy and that of his country, a penal colony, settlement, and magical space populated by generals, visionaries, and madmen.
Gould's Book of Fish is a tour de force that questions the reliability of history and science, and the substance of artistic creation.
Review
"Richard Flanagan has written a book that's THIS BIG, surely the slipperiest, most outrageous novel of the year. Who else would dare start with a 40-page preface that describes the story we're about to read as wondrous, luminous, and captivating?...The story Gould tells of the land way down under is absolutely captivating. But be forewarned, it's also scatological and shockingly violent a cringing nightmare inversion of the elegant British society that constructed this place....The current is dangerously strong here, but the water is irresistible, and once again Flanagan is a death-defying guide." Ron Charles, The Christian Science Monitor (read the entire CSM review)
Review
"Flanagan's masterful balancing act between what we endure and where we prevail ricochets page-to-page at breakneck read with passion and compassion, from the rhapsodic to Rabelaisian." Gordon Hauptfleisch, San Diego Union-Tribune
Review
"Remarkable...A serene, chilling vision of human life as comparable to the life of fish, 'swimming in vast coldness, alone.'" The New Yorker
Review
"A work of significant genius...terrifying, exhilarating, and amazingly beautiful." E. William Smethurst, Jr., Chicago Tribune
Review
"A whiff of magical realism and a generous abundance of expressionistic hyperbole create the uniquely suprareal texture of this wonderful third novel from the prizewinning Australian author....Fascinating work, and very much Flanagan's best yet." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"[G]orgeously written....Readers will be...entranced with this richly detailed work that calls attention to a major new talent." Brendan Dowling, Booklist (starred review)
Review
"Gould's Book of Fish...is ...by turns bawdy and pensive, moving and abrasive, visionary and squalid, apocalyptic and confessional." Chris Lehmann, The Washington Post Book World
Review
"Flanagan's darkly humorous tale is impressive in its ability to cross seamlessly the borders between the realistic and fantastic and carries a wonderful sense of drama and satisfying closure. The unique story is accompanied by the book's novel packaging." Library Journal
Review
"Carefully crafted and allusive, this blazing portrait of Australia's colonial past will surely spread Flanagan's reputation among American readers." Publishers Weekly
Review
"[A] huge, phantasmagorical work that combines magical realism, Joycean language and Melvillian intonations...and turns out to be as inventive and visionary in its reimagination of history as [Toni] Morrison's masterwork, Beloved." Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
Synopsis
Winner of the Commonwealth Prize
New York Times Book Review--Notable Fiction 2002
Entertainment Weekly--Best Fiction of 2002
Los Angeles Times Book Review--Best of the Best 2002
Washington Post Book World--Raves 2002
Chicago Tribune--Favorite Books of 2002
Christian Science Monitor--Best Books 2002
Publishers Weekly--Best Books of 2002
The Cleveland Plain Dealer--Year's Best Books
Minneapolis Star Tribune--Standout Books of 2002
Once upon a time, when the earth was still young, before the fish in the sea and all the living things on land began to be destroyed, a man named William Buelow Gould was sentenced to life imprisonment at the most feared penal colony in the British Empire, and there ordered to paint a book of fish. He fell in love with the black mistress of the warder and discovered too late that to love is not safe; he attempted to keep a record of the strange reality he saw in prison, only to realize that history is not written by those who are ruled.
Acclaimed as a masterpiece around the world, Gould's Book of Fish is at once a marvelously imagined epic of nineteenth-century Australia and a contemporary fable, a tale of horror, and a celebration of love, all transformed by a convict painter into pictures of fish.
Synopsis
Published in hardcover to outstanding acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic, and winner of the prestigious Commonwealth Writers Prize, Gould's Book of Fish is a marvelously imagined epic of nineteenth-century Australia -- a world of convicts and colonists, thieves and catamites, whose bloody history is recorded in a very unusual taxonomy of fish. Widely hailed as a masterpiece and a work of genius, it stands out as one of the best novels of recent years. Billy Gould was a forger and thief sentenced to life imprisonment in a penal colony in Van Diemen's Land -- now Tasmania. After six months he escaped and boarded a whaler for the Americas, but before long his adventures landed him back in prison. The prison doctor Lempriere utilizes Gould's painting talents to create an illustrated taxonomy of the country's exotic sea creatures, which Lempriere madly believes will assure his place in history and the Royal Society. Lost and re-created, destroyed and hidden, Gould's book finally resurfaces in the present day littered with scrawls recording his unutterably strange life -- part freewheeling picaresque, part tragicomedy -- and that of his country, a penal colony, settlement, and magical space populated by generals, visionaries, and madmen. Gould's Book of Fish is a tour de force that questions the reliability of history and science, and the substance of artistic creation. Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times called it "a huge, phantasmagorical work ... as inventive and visionary in its reimagination of history as [Toni] Morrison's masterwork, Beloved." "Gould's Book of Fish ...is ... by turns bawdy and pensive, moving and abrasive, visionary and squalid, apocalyptic and confessional." -- Chris Lehmann, The Washington Post Book World "Flanagan's masterful balancing act between what we endure and where we prevail ricochets page-to-page at breakneck read with passion and compassion, from the rhapsodic to Rabelaisian." -- Gordon Hauptfleisch, San Diego Union-Tribune "Remarkable ... A serene, chilling vision of human life as comparable to the life of fish, 'swimming in vast coldness, alone.'" -- The New Yorker "A work of significant genius ... terrifying, exhilarating, and amazingly beautiful." -- E. William Smethurst, Jr., Chicago Tribune "Flanagan ... leaps beyond his country's history toward the biggest questions that love and language can pose." -- Ron Charles, The Christian Science Monitor
Synopsis
Winner of the Commonwealth Prize
New York Times Book ReviewNotable Fiction 2002
Entertainment WeeklyBest Fiction of 2002
Los Angeles Times Book ReviewBest of the Best 2002
Washington Post Book WorldRaves 2002
Chicago TribuneFavorite Books of 2002
Christian Science MonitorBest Books 2002
Publishers WeeklyBest Books of 2002
The Cleveland Plain DealerYears Best Books
Minneapolis Star TribuneStandout Books of 2002
Once upon a time, when the earth was still young, before the fish in the sea and all the living things on land began to be destroyed, a man named William Buelow Gould was sentenced to life imprisonment at the most feared penal colony in the British Empire, and there ordered to paint a book of fish. He fell in love with the black mistress of the warder and discovered too late that to love is not safe; he attempted to keep a record of the strange reality he saw in prison, only to realize that history is not written by those who are ruled.
Acclaimed as a masterpiece around the world, Goulds Book of Fish is at once a marvelously imagined epic of nineteenth-century Australia and a contemporary fable, a tale of horror, and a celebration of love, all transformed by a convict painter into pictures of fish.
Richard Flanagan on PowellsBooks.Blog
First Person is about the strangeness of writing, its costs, its impossibility. Maybe it’s also an argument for the truth of which novels speak. Perhaps it is about the necessity of such truth in our age when the very idea of truth is itself under attack...
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