Laura Hewson reviews Wanting and As It Is On Telly.
RICHARD FLANAGAN
Random House, $39.99
Desire and the cost of its denial through reason are paramount in Wanting, the latest novel by Richard Flanagan (author of The Sound of Two Hands Clapping and a screenwriter for the flop movie Australia).
In mid-19th-century England, successful author Charles Dickens has fallen out of love with his wife and family, and is undergoing a professional and emotional crisis.
Across time and space in Australia, Sir John and Lady Jane Franklin seek to save the savages on Van Diemens Land (Tasmania).
They are aided in this vision by the Protector, a man no-one much cares for who can't understand why the Aborigines keep dying despite all the changes he has instigated for their own good.
Against reason, Lady Jane's deeply buried maternal instincts are awakened by Mathinna, a free-spirited Aboriginal girl who is perhaps the only one content with her life.
Mathinna's fate, heavy-handedly foreshadowed early on, becomes a mirror for that of her people in general.
Flanagan crosses the two storylines in the future, when Lady Jane calls on Dickens to help save the reputation of Sir John, lost on a polar expedition and accused of cannibalism.
Dickens resolves to help by writing his own heroic account of the expedition, which grows to consume him, transform him and ultimately, against reason, lead him to a new love.
Despite using historical events and figures, Flanagan denies this is a historical novel, which allows him the freedom to rewrite history as he wishes.
Unfortunately, I found I was more interested in knowing what really happened than in Flanagan's account.
Wanting is beautifully written, and both the Tasmanian and London backdrops could have been fascinating, but the events and ending were all too easily predicted, with the reader just having to ride it out.
I was left wanting some lighter touches to balance the bleak, as well as a deeper affinity for the characters.
Jill Marshall
Penguin, $35, pbk
As It Is On Telly is a book I wouldn't normally look twice at - the premise is beyond ridiculous and the main character is called Bunty - but, surprisingly, it did manage to produce a few laughs.
TV bug Bunty suspects her boring, dependable husband Graham is having an affair so, as you do, decides to find herself a new, even richer, husband before her current one dumps her and she's forced to get a job.
The story centres on Bunty's search for financially-secure love without Graham and her teenage daughter Charlotte finding out about it.
Her partner in crime during this mostly self-inflicted, alcohol-fuelled crisis is her buxom best friend Kat, who manages to be just as silly and self- centred as Bunty.
There's also a Kiwi connection in Ben, one of Bunty's suitors. "Bin", as Bunty likes to call him, conforms to many New Zealand stereotypes.
He looks like a rugby player, has a thick Kiwi accent and likes to test people's knowledge on Split Enz. He's a yachtie - "brought up in Auckland, the City of Sails, it's hard to be anything else" - and he loves eating lamb - "I practically am one." What!
This book falls firmly into the chick-lit category. If you find it funny when well-off women drink loads and behave very, very stupidly, then you'll get a laugh out of this.
Just suspend all disbelief first.
- Laura Hewson is online deputy editor for the Otago Daily Times website.
