Initially I wrestled with the writing style, because Flanagan is prone to overly-long sentences that sometimes so twist and bend out of shape you feel like you’re riding a rollercoaster: This is a book that possesses a strangely heady mix of bleakness and despair, tempered by moments of clarity and joy. Like Gould’s Book of Fish, both are set in Tasmania, an island state of Australia, where the author resides.Īt its most basic level The Sound of One Hand Clapping is about the strained relationship between a father and daughter, but it is far more complicated than that, touching on a wide range of issues including poverty, alcoholism, domestic violence and wartime atrocities, all set within the social and historical context of Australia’s immigrant past.
Prior to this Flanagan had written two other novels: Death of a River Guide, in 1994, and The Sound of One Hand Clapping, in 1997. The book went on to win the Commonwealth Writers Prize in 2002. This one, my third in a matter of weeks, is by Richard Flanagan, who first came to international prominence with Gould’s Book of Fish, which I read several years ago and loved very much. I seem to be on a roll with Australian books.
Fiction – paperback Grove Press 425 pages 1997.
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