The World's Literature in Europe discussion

Richard Flanagan's explorations on the nature of societal evil and of interpersonal deceptions. Gina Davies, called The Doll, works as a pole dancer at the Chairman Lounge in Sydney. The reader gets to know her personality in context with other characters before she is unwittingly misidentified as an accomplice to terrorism.

In an interview, Flanagan commented, :

"RICHARD FLANAGAN: All of my books have been about love. But when I started writing this book I realised that we lived in a world where it was ever harder to manifest love, where people were increasingly isolated from the things that really fed their spirit in a positive way: family, friends, land and so on. We live in a world where we are ever more divorced from what makes us spiritually rich and of course we're materially rich, but spiritually impoverished. I wanted to have a character who wants to love, but is denied the chance to love and in the end is presented as simply an object of hate. Look at what that person might do in those circumstances. Because I think as a society this epidemic of loneliness, of sadness, is really related to the way in so many ways we're stopped from being able to show love, express love and be love to one another."

In an early passage, Doll's materialism for a Louis Vuitton handbag pervades her mind during her erotic performance. In another passage, her secretive nature keeps knowledge about shady Mr. Moon's proximity from another dancer Fung.

As a fan of postmodernism, this novel demonstrates how history is fiction. While The Doll is living her life she experiences the media creation of herself based on rumor, predjudice, assumption, wishes, lies, dreams until the creation of herself is more real than she is. She cannot escape the fictionalized Gina. She is doomed. Can her killing of Richard Cody be justified? Is it the only way she can protest the unjust taking of her freedom? Did she have another choice? Do any of us have a choice? Is there free will, or are we all Ginas with slightly different details?

Suzann wrote: "...Did she have another choice? Do any of us have a choice? Is there free will..."

I've read ahead, so have an idea of Gina's predicament and of the novel's ending. What part of the novel I've admired to this point is the author's metaphors. Before the media chaos worsens the characters' lives, he's giving the reader a glimpse of characters' more real lives--how those lives are lived, how the characters relate to other characters, and how Gina's thoughts and home-life portray a more real image of her than the spread of media portraying her.

Gazing over the transcript of ABC's first Tuesday book club, I noticed that the program opens with the identification of David Hicks. He's the dedicatee of this novel.

In the same program, the novel's mention of Chopin's Nocturne in F Minor comes up. I suppose that this is the musical piece.

Chapter 40
Besides the Chopin (the musical pieces presumably express celestially inspired Art without an evil purpose), Frank Moretti's museum-like residence embodies representations of life in Art. One of them is the artist Miró's man "Mangeur de Soleil". Doll sees the artwork thus,

"...a bizarre little man with big bug eyes and a square for a body, no arms or legs to speak of, the torso crosshatched so it looked like both a nought and crosses board and jail cell bars. Imprisoned in the stomach of the Miró man was a red sun and a blue sky."

To Doll, it resembles the wheelchair-bound Moretti. By contrast, is the beauty of a French rococo side table with a photograph of the beautiful, muscular young Moretti. Among other sculpture, furniture, &c, there is a nail-studded cabinet with an historical, global collection of once infamously used tools.

Having read Flanagan's first three novels and am so far reading a fourth, I note that their several protagonists struggle against a fateful outcome. In Death of a River Guide, the m.c. is wedged barely inches under the river's surface, looking through a glass ceiling as everything and everybody above the surface and through history was made clearly visible. From that watery vantage point, the m.c. narrates the book. In The Sound of One Hand Clapping, the mother tries to escape her fate, walking away through a snowstorm to her death; that early episode lingers throughout the story. After years pass, the daughter and father are luckier than the mother and wife in their rough lives eventually bearing some successes with rapprochement, betterment, and hopes. In Gould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish, the artistic m.c. is seemingly forever consigned to a horrid Tasmanian penal colony. Similar to the man in charge there who turned from prisoner to Commander, Gould reinvents himself from a would-be hard laborer to a more comfortably situated artist of sculpture and painting for the Commander. Having honed the lifelike depictions of the island's natural history, he morphs from human to Fish. In the current reading book The Unknown Terrorist, the Doll perceives her doomed fate to be sealed by the influence of media on hysterical, unquestioning listeners.

Two articles about this novel came to my attention.

One article was written by Richard Flanagan himself and was followed by commenters' dialogue about Flanagan's impassioned, literary message. To effect, this novel is rooted in 21st-century Australian society. The story portrays a heady materialism among the urban east, a dominant media in which few, unheard souls question the slanted broadcasting, and some newly passed undemocratic laws. All of those together added up to a "thriller" of literary fiction. In Flanagan's article, he relates a recent, personal story about freedom of speech, and the commenters' replies to it were helpful for an idea about his novel's raison d’être.

Janet Wilson wrote the other article, which included the reason for Australia's passage of counter-terrorism laws. I.e., the 2002 Bali episode in which many Australians were among the victims. Her article's focus compares three contemporary, genre novels on the harmful effect of societal fragmentation.The societies become factionally split between mores (religious v. secular; or, we v. other). What its author wrote about Snow can be extended to her description of The Unknown Terrorist

"The problematic perception of the other is mediated through the media—TV, the web, newspapers-- which propagate stereotypes, and blurred half images that become turning points in the plot. Political reporting stirs up public uncertainty by playing on fears of annihilation and developing an atmosphere of mistrust, suspicion and menace, so diminishing the characters’ sense of reality."

The uneven acceptance of Flanagan's novel was surprising.

At the bottom of RRL Book Club's page, there is a part titled Discussion questions.

Often humorous, 2008 dialogue between Flanagan and Ramona Koval has a transcript* and an audio. Discussion includes the writing and interpretation of this novel; the life, career, and philosophy of Richard Flanagan; the country of Australia; and a brief reading from the novel's closing.

*Transcript omits the small, last part about the Italian countess.

Asma Fedosia wrote: "Often humorous, 2008 dialogue between Flanagan and Ramona Koval has a transcript* and an audio. Discussion includes the writing and interpretation of this novel; the life, career, and philosophy of..."

Thanks so much for posting the dialogue link. I really like some of the things Flanagan the interviewee has to say, but, holy cow, if we are meant to realize from Unknown Terrorist that "And yet the world advances, generally, to a better place because every day there are so many acts of kindness and goodness made in the everyday world by everyday people. I realised they were the things I wished to honour and speak about and write about..." I completely misread this book! As I mentioned in the other thread, I think it is very interesting that he mentions Heinrich Boll in this interview given the similarities between Unknown Terrorist (2006) and The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Los... ). His perception of the political climate in Australia seems overwrought to me. In general so far this year, the Australian titles seem to show a willingness to believe the worst about others from their land. Strikes me as oddly illiberal given how lovely the people one encounters from there seem to be.

It's noted by Don and acknowledged by reviews and by Flanagan himself that this novel's plot owes a lot to the plot of Böll's The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum. Reviews* have described the fictional story in terms of a "dystopia". Its sexist, racist characters live in a daily chaos of unfocused anxiety and with an overvalued, in-debt materialism. They seek assurance from the media's factual programming and from the security operations of government. They accept the conclusions of the omniscient-like spokespersons.

Theodore F. Sheckels** looks at the similar "gender stereotypes" of some contemporary Australian literature, noting how perceptions of sexism and otherness disempower a feminine or marginalized character. He notes how this "political novel" echoes in other Australian fiction.


*Reviews:

Poles Apart by Tony Smith (AQ: Australian Quarterly, Jan. - Feb., 2008, pp. 37-38, 40).

More than a potboiler by Richard Carr (Antipodes, December 2007, pp. 184-185).

**Gendered Terrorism: Intertext, Context, and Richard Flanagan's "The Unknown Terrorist" by Theodore F. Sheckels (Antipodes, June 2010, pp. 35-39). Mentioned are:

Summer of the Seventeenth Doll;
McTeague;
Greed;
Underground;
Orpheus Lost.

Don wrote: "...His perception of the political climate in Australia seems overwrought to me...Australian titles seem to show a willingness to believe the worst about others from their land..."

I am not following Australian news. Literature is enough. Flanagan created a fictional scenario, perhaps suggesting "draconian" security laws which hadn't then been passed at the time of his writing. It's a sort of what-if novel, reminding me about the short story in which a future man is stopped and questioned when he is taking a nightly walk around the block.

Imo, Flanagan is a realist in terms of social relations. Gina's awareness (and the narrator's) of her and others' reactions is one of the greatest changes in the book. Nevertheless, there's still hope in the trying.

Don wrote: "His perception of the political climate in Australia seems overwrought to me."

I think Don makes a fair point. I don't quite understand this decision of Flanagan's:
It was no good doing it about a Muslim, or an Arab, or anyone like that. I wanted people who weren’t Muslim or Arab to read this book and think: it could be me they come for next. (from the interview Asma linked to).

If we look at it as a what-if dystopia, as Asma says, rather than an analysis of the current situation, that's different. But I think he meant a current cautionary tale? In Australia, as elsewhere, we have had an excess of security that results in injustice and innocent people suspected/punished. But I have to say I'd find the plot more believable were she at least a Muslim convert: her story is not like that of the dedicatee.

One might say there is too much fear in society right now; is it reasonable to also say that novels on this topic (of course there are others, on victims of new terrorism laws) can be in danger of exacerbating these fears? It is a contentious, fraught subject, and must be very hard to write fiction about, responsibly, with truth and ethics. Of course reception of this one was mixed -- though that in part seems to be his major change in style, too.

Bryn wrote: If we look at it as a what-if dystopia, as Asma says,..."

Thanks Bryn. "Dystopia" seems inconsistent, imo, with the scenes in the book of a family at the beach and the world-famous Sydney gay pride parade. Yet, the reason he may have picked a non-Muslim was because he wanted to try to create a sense of a materialist, non-spiritual society. IMO he kind of looks down on average people and imagines that average people really are like The Doll and see salvation in designer bags. The whole security issue doesn't seem too relevant here other than as ideological window dressing, just reflexive, selective opposition to authority. It seems like Flanagan is ambivalent about the security theme, anyway, in that one of the law officers is doing his best to save her. In addition, it seems that ASIO was around for a long time before the setting of this book if wikipedia can be trusted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austral... I think he seems to be suggesting that Australians are susceptible to mass-media driven hysteria. My impression is this is more projection than reality and I tend to want to think of him as something of an elitist snob but a lot of that is my priors. Yes, it might be seen as a cautionary tale, but, then really its feeding paranoia while denouncing paranoia. Kind of a paradox.

Don wrote: "...really its feeding paranoia while denouncing paranoia."

Exactly.
On Australians susceptible to mass-media driven hysteria, I can only suppose he'd suggest this of much of the 'Western world'. Probably about materialism, too.
Oh yes, ASIO is not newly invented.

Bryn wrote: "I can only suppose he'd suggest this of much of the 'Western world'. Probably about materialism, too...." Good point. Not at all an uncommon perspective, I think, but one I don't understand. Just picked up The Bourgeois: Between History and Literature though so maybe that will help me get the point of it.

We're not a bad mob, Don, come and visit.

Don wrote: "Just picked up The Bourgeois: Between History and Literature though so maybe that will help me get the point of it."

That looks confronting on a few well-beloved novelists. I have subscription access to it, so can dip in.

Bryn wrote: "We're not a bad mob, Don, come and visit."

Wouldn't I love to! Maybe next year when only one child in college. Hey and congratulations on Ashes! Sorry to your sister. Looks like England has it wrapped.

Yup, between me and my sis, one of us has got to be happy whichever way the Ashes go, and that's a consolation either way.

Bryn wrote: "Don wrote: "Just picked up The Bourgeois: Between History and Literature though so maybe that will help me get the point of it."

That looks confronting on a few well-beloved novelists. I have subs..."

Oh oh....not sure how far I will get with this. Unusual writing style with a high level of abstraction. If you do dip in, please let me know what you think?

Suzann wrote: "...Is it the only way she can protest the unjust taking of her freedom? Did she have another choice?..."

The protagonist was in a bind of confusion. An obvious choice was to tell someone, and she told her friend Wilder. Wilder's advice extended to platitudes and to policeman Nick Loukakis's assistance, i.e., she will soon be yesterday's news, and later, she ought to tell someone in authority, or as one reviewer wrote, to find a lawyer. The events about her in the media were a shocking surprise. How was she to respond to the escalating news coverage? At novel's end, she takes controlling steps at her peril. Christopher Sorrentino's review of this novel says that the Doll's weakness was to do nothing about the slander for most of the novel.

"The Doll's ultimate undoing comes about because of her inability to face what is happening to her in any but the most familiar and passive way, as a spectator of the process by which the media turn her "from a woman into cartoons, headlines, opinions, fears, fate."" [Bookforum, Apr/May 2007].

In reply to your question, she did have choices. Tragedy overwhelmed the plot. At one point, she goes to the police but walks into a chaotic incident inside the station. In other characters trying to take up her cause for truth, their views are dismissed. There also is the accidental discharge of the weapon in the end when Billy the Tongan tries to protect her.

Bryn wrote: "...Of course reception of this one was mixed -- though that in part seems to be his major change in style, too. "

His simpler style is supposed to appeal to more readers. I thought the new style was okay; as he adeptly used metaphoric language and continuously kept up the pace.

Don wrote: "... It seems like Flanagan is ambivalent about the security theme..."

Yeah, I think that you're right. The story is like a Greek tragedy. The main character is beset with a hardly solvable situation. Her flawed character is driven to solve the problem in conjunction with her own demise.

Don wrote: "...Just picked up The Bourgeois: Between History and Literature ..."

Don, did you note the author's name? Franco Moretti, the character of the novel.

Asma Fedosia wrote: she (Doll) did have choices

We see marginalized people like Doll suffer injustice in the news every day. I'm more cynical I guess because I think it's a crap shoot as to whether any authority would seek the truth about Doll when the media frenzy had already convicted her. The privileged expect justice, but Doll expects to get by under the radar. She's Other, Outsider and doesn't trust the law to offer protection. Justice is an ideal and I think Flanagan is pointing out how subjective and power-dependent the delivery of justice is. Doll's freedom and identity have been taken and I don't think she can redeem them through the conventional power structure. Her civil disobedience, the murder of the messenger, is effective. Terrorism is effective in giving voice to those the powerful do not want to hear. The Unknown Terrorist became a Known Terrorist, fulfilling expectations. Although her story is still unknown to those in the community, she acted with integrity IMO.

Asma Fedosia wrote: "Don wrote: "...Just picked up The Bourgeois: Between History and Literature ..."

Don, did you note the author's name? Franco Moretti, the character of the novel."

Wow - good catch Asma! That would also suggest that Flanagan's use of "The Doll" is a reference to the 1890 Polish novel of that title - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dol... the plot of which perhaps not coincidentally "brings its protagonist to a full awareness of the chasm that stretches between his dreams and the social reality that surrounds him."

Without the book at hand I hesitate to bring up the epigraph without rereading, but... As I recall it is a story about Nietzsche observing an owner beating his horse. Nietzsche's entreaties for mercy fail and he puts himself between the horse and owner, an act for which he was institutionalized for the rest of his life. So why this epigraph? My first guess is that Doll is the victim and, as in most cases, no one intervenes on her behalf. Folks of compassion or with a sense of justice are oblivious? Lack the courage to buck the powerful? Have their own self-interest at heart? Is Flanagan raising the question of responsibility to others? Does the horse have a choice? Did Doll make that choice and was it justified as a response to the abuse of the powerful?

Suzann wrote: "Without the book at hand I hesitate to bring up the epigraph without rereading, but... As I recall it is a story about Nietzsche observing an owner beating his horse. Nietzsche's entreaties for m..."

Personally, I don't that this is an oppressor-oppressed axis story. Doll is free and independent, self-employed, possesses a large amount of cash, and enjoys purchasing clothing. She has friends. Yes, some unfortunate things have happened in her past but not persecution. Moreover, she lives in Australia, a country with a highly developed social safety net: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_... . I think she is meant to represent the "middle class" or "bourgeois class." The books seems more political to me, like some kind of delayed protest against Howard-era privatization, allowing him to indulge in a bit of moral preening about the insensate vacuity of ordinary folks who have failed to heed the call of whatever particular revolutionary drummer he imagines he hears.

Don wrote: "Personally, I don't that this is an oppressor-oppressed axis story...."

How do you read the epigraph? Do you think Doll would have a chance pleading her case to the authorities in a country with a "highly developed social safety net"? In my experience in the US social safety net industry, the client is a minor factor and decisions are made on prejudicial information often provided by the client themselves in what they assumed was a confidential relationship with therapists or other service providers. The folks I work with do not trust the system. They are black and have lots of experience. My guess is that Flanagan chose a white female to avoid the race or ethnic issues of black or Arab characters, but that he has made the point more universal with a white female. Terrorism is the persecution of the moment.

Suzann wrote: "We see marginalized people like Doll suffer injustice in the news every day...I think it's a crap shoot as to whether any authority would seek the truth about Doll ..."

Just like the media unrelentingly defamed her to the general population, it would similarly need to come to her defense. In the news, one often reads of well-known personalities jump-starting the process of justice or medicine for someone.

Don wrote: "...That would also suggest that Flanagan's use of "The Doll" is a reference to the 1890 Polish novel of that title..."

Wow, good reasoning, Don. Thanks for the suggestion.

Suzann wrote: "Don wrote: "Personally, I don't that this is an oppressor-oppressed axis story...."

How do you read the epigraph? Do you think Doll would have a chance pleading her case to the authorities in a c..."

Yes, I think Doll would have had chance if she were not killed being captured. Australia is much different than the US which has one of the worst criminal justice systems in the world and in which mistrust is generally justified. In the US, I'd note, it is just as likely the police as the marginalized who are victimized by press lynchings. I read the epigraph as a general reflection of the irresolvable nature of injustice in the world generally. Not sure how other members of the press could have rescued her without her stepping forward to tell her story. Terrorism is a reality and finding the proper response to it is a difficult challenge.

Suzann wrote: " My guess is that Flanagan chose a white female to avoid the race or ethnic issues of black or Arab characters, but that he has made the point more universal with a white female. Terrorism is the persecution of the moment."

Although I agree with this, I regret the choice. My perspective is, his choice to say to majority Australia 'It could be you', and 'it's no use to have a Muslim' (from interview above) misses the real danger, and even detracts from the real injustices that have ensued. I know he wrote in 2006, and I'm watching the consequences in 2015. Last year I read on recommendation A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb from 2009: journalism on the fallout from the War on Terror, with a focus on India and the US -- Amitava Kumar's two homes -- because these problems are not country-specific, we catch them from each other.

If Flanagan had written about the Muslim community, anti-Muslim sentiment, and the targeting of perceived foreigners as Kumar documents, I'd have found the novel much more relevant. Instead of enlisting the self-interest of the mainstream with 'It could be you', if he had said, 'It is your Muslim neighbour.'

Suzann wrote: "... Is Flanagan raising the question of responsibility to others? Does the horse have a choice? Did Doll make that choice and was it justified..."

If Doll intentionally made the choice, then she would have shot Cody with premeditation. She had a premonition to do something. With forethought about her deed, she would have have become what Cody labeled her. She did remember that Cody spent Tuesday night at the Lounge; she headed outside through the pain and cuts of giant, falling hail. Her giving her last funds to a taxicab driver sounds like foreknowledge of her death. Rather than premeditated, her use of the Beretta appears instinctive (primal, visceral) for self-defense.

The loose style at the end of this novel leaves an open possibility imo. Whose weapon, Loukakis's or the Doll's made the hole through her head and behind her ear? I'm assuming the bullet was accidental from the policeman. Still, I'm unsure because of the scene's omissions of details. Would the Doll's conscience loathe what she did to Cody and then turn the Beretta on herself, or would her penchant for control extend to responsibility/control of her own impending death? Is the scene with Billy and Loukakis misleading?

Asma Fedosia wrote: "he's (Flanagan) giving the reader a glimpse of characters' more real lives--how those lives are lived, how the characters relate to other characters, and how Gina's thoughts and home-life portray a more real image of her than the spread of media portraying her. .."

This is the advantage of fiction. Gina's "real" life is constructed so the reader sees the injustice of the crime against her. I see it as a "soft" injustice or oppression. There are no marks on her, but the effects are more insidious. She has no way to fight the oppression, or recover from the wounds. The words "known" and "unknown" are ironic. When Gina reveals herself in her act of violence, she becomes the "known" terrorist, but her motivations and life remains "unknown" .

Asma Fedosia wrote: "Just like the media unrelentingly defamed her to the general population, it would similarly need to come to her defense. In the news, one often reads of well-known personalities jump-starting the process of justice or medicine for someone. .."

IMO for every individual whose cause is jump-started by a media personality, there must be thousands whose story we do not know--the Ginas of the world for whom justice is illusive.

going back to the epigraph--It's interesting that the authorities totally misinterpret Nietzsche's compassionate intervention on behalf of the horse. He is punished for his compassion. Any parallels in the story? Is our materialistic culture so far removed from compassionate human interaction that the rare individual whose action is guided by compassion is considered insane? Would that be the fate of anyone who had the courage to come to Gina's defense?

Suzann wrote: "... Gina's "real" life is constructed so the reader sees the injustice of the crime against her...."

So true, Suzann. The startler of this novel is the contrast between the reader's true knowledge of Gina and the others' fabricated knowledge of her. There is little if any mutual understanding between her and others. At times, I thought that she and Moretti understood each other, as if he recognized her true predicament. Wilder did not understand her imo for Wilder believed in her own platitudes of eventual goodness. There were some other doubting characters, too, who looked at the illogicality of the hysteria but they can't be said to understand her. All the characters seemed to be able to act only in their jobs--the doorman; the drug squad policeman. Noticeably absent were ethical, learned societies.

Suzann wrote: "...for every individual whose cause is jump-started by a media personality, there must be thousands whose story we do not know..."

I can think of the urban people without air-conditioning, the dirty restaurants, the secret political prisoners, the unpublicized genocides, the hungry and sick, and the tiny, daily injustices which make people's lives harder.

Suzann wrote: "...the authorities totally misinterpret Nietzsche's compassionate intervention on behalf of the horse. He is punished for his compassion..."

In some ways that age and place is not so distant from today. Recent news in Colorado found a school cafeteria manager dismissed because of her compassion to feed the hungry kids unqualified for the federal lunch program.

Asma Fedosia wrote: "Noticeably absent were ethical, learned societies. ..." I think maybe you have hit on why I think Flanagan has taken a Marxist approach. Ethical, learned societies are impossible, from his perspective, in a capitalist Australia. I finished Franco Moretti's The Bourgeois: Between History and Literature and it seems to me Flanagan's reference to the Marxist literary critic was intended, consistent with Flanagan's other novels, to condemn the grubby, far-from-perfect reality of human existence by comparison with some blue sky ideal he imagines attainable. Pretty much like every other novelist since Balzac. That is all well and good and everything, but in the end, we are left with the fact that McDonald's feeds more poor people in an hour than all of the poets, novelists, and philosophers who have now, or ever will, live, in their combined life times. Sorry. My personal beef with Flanagan's harsh judgement of Australia, which is ranked number 2 globally on the U.N.'s Human Development Index: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...

is that it suggests liberal (in the original - non U.S. - sense) democracy is somehow undesirable when in fact growing global liberalization is improving life for so many:

http://www.newsrecord.co/is-an-end-to...

Yes, of course, we could all do more to be more supportive of the other people in our lives and of the less fortunate. No one is perfect. The human condition is not amenable to utopianism. Nevertheless Flanagan's condemnation of an entire society, strikes me as more bigoted than insightful. Australians, like Americans, seem very willing to buy into the whole guilt complex thing, but is that more about moral preening? or actually making a difference?

Don, did you read the transcript of our ABC television Book Club programme, that Asma linked to early on? (I'd rather watch them, but you probably can't see outside Australia). A few Australians discuss the book. One or two have concerns; for instance, with a stereotyped Sydney. I'd have to third them on that... might depend on your suburb, but still. It's a nice discussion.

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/firsttuesday...

Don wrote: "moral preening? or actually making a difference? ..."

I think that's one of the questions Flanagan raises. I keep going back to the epigraph because I think it was so central to what Flanagan was thinking about when he wrote this book. I think the story suggests that action with compassion is the hope of wayward society. Courageous individuals must act despite the consequences. The possibility of action is a reason for optimism. I like the story below about the cafeteria worker who lost her job for feeding hungry children. These moral acts are not preening to use Don's word, but there's plenty of preening. I think it is possible to act morally and moral acts, not philosophical navel gazing, are the random acts of justice that give us hope, not utopia, but the best we've got. Flanagan wants to be the compassionate actor, but I think he's discouraged about the vastness of the injustice needing intervention by individuals with understanding, compassion and the courage to act.

Bryn wrote: "Don, did you read the transcript of our ABC television Book Club programme, that Asma linked to early on? (I'd rather watch them, but you probably can't see outside Australia). A few Australians di..."

No, actually I had not. Thanks very much for mentioning it. I had just read the overview and not clicked through to the transcript. Very glad you prompted me to do so. Its reassuring to see that I am not the only negative Nelly out there on this one.

Don wrote: "No, actually I had not. Thanks very much for mentioning it. I had just read the overview and not clicked through to the transcript. Very glad you prompted me to do so. Its reassuring to see that I am not the only negative Nelly out there on this one."

I was reassured to see another Aussie or two react as I did.

I was living in Sydney at the time he wrote this; quite a stranger to Sydney, certainly noticed its 'big, fast city' differences from Canberra where I grew up -- was dismayed by the class connotations of its suburbs, and by its Howard voters (Flanagan has discussed the Howard government in interviews), neither of which I had seen much of in the capital. Even so, I worked in an office right near Central Station (Inner City), in a group who became close friends, including Nige from the North Shore, who we did tease for elitist background but was very Left and a Buddhist convert, and Sarah who took up prostitution in Kings Cross as it paid more than the office -- but she wasn't a materialist, either. None of us were, not even the Westies. I don't recognise his Sydney.

Bryn wrote: "I don't recognise his Sydney."

Thanks for that insight Bryn. In light of that maybe I need to reassess whether the description of this as an alternate dystopian reality does make sense?

Don wrote: "...Ethical, learned societies are impossible, from his perspective...I finished Franco Moretti's The Bourgeois: Between History and Literature.."

The description of Sydney is a bit overdramatized. Over the top from the ordinary is a condition for thriller films and books. Maybe a truly fictional city would have put fewer readers on edge. Those characters who seek a bit of happiness in the story are let down and are no longer seeking a utopia in their lives. The history of Australia's colonization might be the guilt, as if that irrational thread in humans continues into twenty-first-century urban life. Looking at society, the author zooms in, greatly magnifying the life and mind of one character. With so concentrated a picture, the normal lives drop out of view.

Bryn wrote: "Don, did you read the transcript of our ABC television Book Club programme...It's a nice discussion..."

The transcript of the program was a humorous conversation with opinionated participants. The participant who truly disliked the novel was Germaine Greer.
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/firsttuesday...