Wanting - Softcover

Flanagan, Richard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802144772 ISBN 13: 9780802144775

Publisher: Black Cat, 2010

Synopsis

Internationally acclaimed and profoundly moving, Richard Flanagan's Wanting is a stunning tale of colonialism, ambition, and the lusts and longings that make us human. Now in paperback, it links two icons of Western civilization through a legendarily disastrous arctic exploration, and one of the most infamous episodes in human history: the colonization of Tasmania.
In 1841, Sir John Franklin and his wife, Lady Jane, move to the remote penal colony of Van Diemen's Land, now Tasmania. There Lady Jane falls in love with a lively aboriginal girl, Mathinna, whom she adopts and makes the subject of a grand experiment in civilization--one that will determine whether science, Christianity, and reason can be imposed in the place of savagery, impulse, and desire.
A quarter of a century passes. Sir John Franklin disappears in the Arctic with his crew and two ships on an expedition to find the fabled Northwest Passage. England is horrified by reports of cannibalism filtering back from search parties, no one more so than the most celebrated novelist of the day, Charles Dickens. As Franklin's story becomes a means to plumb the frozen depths of his own life, Dickens finds a young actress thawing his heart.

About this title

Review:

"'This is the best novel I have read this year or expect to read for several more.' Sydney Morning Herald 'This is no literary anaesthetic; Wanting shakes us rudely from our stupors, wakes us up to history. There can be no author more passionate or unfettered than Flanagan.' Sydney Morning Herald 'Wanting is a novel you never want to end. As a reader, I can offer no greater accolade.' Canberra Times 'Powerfully and poetically evocative.' Adelaide Advertiser 'Flanagan is a beautiful writer and Wanting is a beautiful and considered addition to his oeuvre.' The Age"

Book Description:

'Reason is only reason and satisfies only man's reasoning capacity, while wanting is a manifestation of the whole of life' Fyodor Dostoevsky

About this edition

• Publisher: Black Cat
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0802144772
• ISBN 13: 9780802144775
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272