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4.0étoiles sur 5
"I do not entirely agree with those who say it is a matter of science", Jui 5 2009
1850's Van Diemen's Land - Tasmania and the ongoing war between the whites and the blacks is a war the Aborigines can no longer win. With the colonial government offering the last and only realistic option: sanctuary at Wybalenna, the outpost on the islands of Bass Strait in return for their country, it is here amongst the sad broken-down remnants of what was once a proud race that a man called "The Protector" tries to become their savior. But nothing that he did for them could alter the fact that the people who he had bought to God's light were yet dying in a strange way. When the famous polar explorer the newly appointed Governor of Tasmania Sir John Franklin and his wife Lady Jane Franklin travel to Flinders Island, Lady Jane befriends Mathinna, a young aborigine girl initially under the tutelage of The Protector.
Entranced by Mathinna's dancing, her slow way of moving, so distinct and so poignant, Lady Jane transports her back to Hobart as part of a new kind of experiment. Perhaps they can somehow breed some of this "savagery out" of the wayward girl. Cementing Mathinna's introduction into Hobartian society, the Governor and his wife instill in her all that is virtuous in English civilization, along with a favorite red dress, uncomfortable court shoes, and the appointment of a tutor Francis Lazaretto. Unfortunately the marriage between Sir John and Lady Jane is on shaky ground with Lady Jane feeling faint and lost. Watching Mathinna she feels she understands the child, imagining her grief, her needs, and her dreams. Even as the Franklins fall ever-more in love with the girl, Mathinna can't shake the ways of her native world. She's a girl where freedom is running through wallaby grass, her bare feet on the wet mushy earth and the beliefs in the sacred spirit stories of her people, the spirits who could fly.
While the dramas of Mathinna and her strange involvement with the Governor and his wife play out amongst the balls and parties and society events of the young colony of Hobart, the town awash in visitors, old colonists, and prospective new free settlers, all the way across the oceans in England, Charles Dickens finds himself linked to the fates of Lady Jane and that of the faded actress Mrs. Ellen Ternan. Emotionally fleeing from his wife, Catherine, her very presence bringing on in him a wordless anguish, Charles's life suddenly becomes an object lesson in the control of his passions. Ironically, it is his best friends Wilkie Collins and John Forster, and his meeting with Lady Jane that resonate in an unexpected and as yet intangible ways with him.
This beautifully composed novel works on so many levels, especially as a subtle homage to the nature of unfilled desire contained in the private passions of Dickens, of Sir John and Lady Jane, Ellen Ternan, and mostly of poor Mathinna who finds herself exiled from both worlds as she steadily drinks herself towards darkness. Of course fate waits by to ambush Mathinna in what predictably becomes a sad and sorry life. Weaving into his characters an intricate web of personal demons, political desires, and an intense ambition, the harsh realities of a cruel world and that of Tasmania, and it's convict and aboriginal history (and also this reviewer's birthplace) are what ultimately drive this intense novel.
Certainly for the natives, the arrival of the British heralded a new world filled with the devil, for their part the white settlers considered the aborigines as pests and barbarous heathens who had turned away from God. At first, the narrative which constantly moves between Dickens's England and the events in Van Diemen's Land is a bit distracting, yet the sections with the world's most famous author do give an added weight to much of the presumed power and moral authority of the "mother country." But what is ultimately so formidable and tragic in this story is Flanagan's simple but gifted prose and his vision of a State and of a country forever on the cusp of change. Mike Leonard June 09.
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3.0étoiles sur 5
Not Bad, Avril 6 2009
When all is said and done this is a strange little story. It is two stories in one; first that of the past where Sir John Franklin is the Lieutenant-Governor with Lady Jane Franklin of Van Diemen's Land (currently Tasmania, Australia) and how they come to 'adopt' a little Aborigine girl to prove that a savage can be civilized. Then there is the story of the future, one where Lady Jane, whose husband has now been missing for 9 nine years and she beseeches Charles Dickens to write an article squashing the horrible rumours of cannibalism among her husbands' last crew. This he does but the story does not centre on that but on the relationship between himself and Ellen Ternan.
The story set in the past of Sir John, Lady Jane and Mathinna, the little black girl, is very absorbing and could have been a book itself without the other half of the 'future' plot. What Lady Jane did from the goodness of her heart turned against all those concerned and became a tragedy. The added story of Dickens really felt out of place here; it's only connection to the other story is that Lady Jane appears at the beginning and at the end, plus the plot revolves around the time when Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins were putting on their play, No Frozen Deep, concerning a melodramatic love story set on an Arctic exploration. I can't say I enjoyed this second part of the story at all, it seemed pointless to the plot.
The book is told in chapters which suddenly switch back and forth from one plot to another going from the past to the future willy nilly, which creates a somewhat dizzying affect to the reader until one has settled down into the style. The writing is good, the story is fast-paced and easy to read and certainly a page-turner during the Mathinna scenes.
But ultimately the theme of this book is not the plot but that of the title, "wanting". Everyone in this story is wanting love. Sir John wants the love of a woman as Lady Jane makes it known early in the marriage that she finds wifely duties distasteful. Lady Jane wants maternal love, though she succumbs to her wifely duties at such times as necessary she is rewarded with being barren. Mathinna wants the love of belonging. She is a black who acts too white to be accepted by the blacks and feels the thoughts of a white but of course is black and will not be accepted by the whites . Then we have Charles Dickens who desperately wants the love of Ellen. A young, coquette who, in this book, is the first person to ever truly understand him. In truth their relationship has never really been firmly decided one way or the other.
An interesting, quick read but I found the whole Charles Dickens aspect of the story to be irrelevant to the plot and could have been left out entirely to leave a much more satisfying story of the Franklins' "experiment' in raising Mathinna and the tragedy it became.
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4.0étoiles sur 5
Everybody wants something, Fév 14 2009
There are several stories in this novel that have been laced together by the common theme of wanting.
Sir John Franklin is long missing on his fateful voyage to the Arctic in search of the Northwest passage. Charles Dickens is at a cross roads in his marriage. The Aboriginal population of Van Diemen's land (Tasmania) are being hunted to extinction and the remnant population has been isolated on Flinder's Island, while Franklin was the Governor.
Lady Jane Franklin wants Charles Dickens to squash the rumors of cannibalism that are being linked with her husband and his ship mates. She also wants a child, a daughter, and adopts an Aboriginal one when she is resident in Van Diemen's Land. The child, Mathinna, wants to contact her ancestors, mostly her father. She wants to live when so many of her people have died. Charles Dickens wants to know what is wrong in his marriage, wants his play "The Frozen Deep" to be a success and he wants Ellen Ternan, a young actress that is performing in the play.
What do I want? I want this book to be about Australia and its original population. In a large way it is. We clearly see the attitude toward the Aboriginal populations in the early and mid 19th century. They are viewed more as animals to be hunted and controlled rather than as a people with thousands of years of a rich history. Lady Jane is unsuccessful in her adoption of Mathinna mainly because she seems to have no idea how to mother a child. If she had hugged Mathinna as her first impulse suggested, the rest might have turned out much differently.
I have read a few books recently about the Indian Residential Schools in Canada and couldn't help but see the similarities. Children removed from their cultures and raised and educated by cold, impersonal strangers. Then they are thrust back into a society where they no longer fit neither as a white person nor as a native person.
At first I didn't understand why Charles Dickens was such a major character in the book. As I kept reading I understood that without his eloquent written support, the reputation of Sir Franklin would have been badly tarnished and that would have destroyed Lady Jane.
This is a wonderfully written book. I could easily imagine the desperation of Mathinna when her adopted life is taken from her. I could also see myself kicking my shoes off and curling my toes into the soil and getting the 'feel' of the land inside me. I would have like to learn more about Lady Jane and her interactions with Mathinna, but perhaps the act of adopting her and parading her to society was as deep as the relationship ever got.
As I was reviewing what I had written and thought about 'wanting' these lyrics by the Rolling Stones came to mind: "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you might find you get what you need"
I wonder if Mathinna finally got the contact with her father that she wanted?
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de Kate Grenville
de Sarah Waters
de Tim Winton
de Kazuo Ishiguro
de Roland Huntford
