Gould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish (Hardcover)

Will a valid history of that Empire ever be written? Flanagan makes no such claim. He views its immensity from a tiny salient through the eyes of one its outcasts. William Buelow Gould is a man whose perception becomes increasingly distorted in a place that could break the strongest mind. Macquarie Harbour was a dumping ground for "hard case" convicts. Here, a thirty-two year old appears dismayingly aged. Here, all were "cobbers and dobbers" - men were mates ranged against prison authority but turning traitor against each other ["dobbing in"] when survival was the issue. Gould, an artist-forger, seems spared the worst effects of The System when he's posted to the colony's surgeon to produce watercolours of the local marine life. In this role, Flanagan takes us on a tour of "scientifick" thought of the time and its impact on people on the far reaches of the Empire - which spans the planet. Phrenology, evolution, religion of the time come to light from his skilled prose.

Gould, ever a pawn on The System's board, is taken from the surgeon to embark on a fresh enterprise. The prison Commandant has a commission for him. Gould's new project reflects the Commandant's ambitions for the colony, but we witness a new attitude in Gould as the story develops. What truly happened in this place bracketed by screaming winds and a mountain wilderness that inhibited dreams of escape? Flanagan makes Gould the only valid witness to events - at least the only one leaving a record. Can we, however, trust the words of someone recording so many irrational acts? Gould assures us: "if you can't trust a liar & a forger, a whore & an informer, a convicted murderer & a thief, you'll never understand this country." To Flanagan, that statement sums up the dilemma of Australia. Whose account of history are we to believe?

Gould is ultimately convicted of a bizarre murder and placed in a cell inundated by each day's tide. Using his marine paintings he begins the chronicle of his life in the colony. His Book of Fish, however, ranges far beyond simply a journal of events illustrated with symbolic watercolours. Flanagan assaults all written accounts as deceptive, even questioning the validity of the most mundane of books - a prison registry. The registry becomes a pivot around which Flanagan twists a skein of questions of human values. More than simply historical "truth" is under scrutiny here. What price are we prepared to pay in resolving "scientifick" issues? How can we categorize our fellow humans when we know, as Aborigine Twopenny Sal tells Gould, "Long time before, you were us." Human ancestry lies in Africa, not London, Sydney or even Ottawa. These questions haunt Gould throughout the book, and Flanagan wants them to haunt you a bit, as well. Read him and ponder them.

Sentenced to life imprisonment on an island off the coast of Tasmania, Gould cleverly plays the survival game, ingratiating himself with the authorities through his willingness to paint whatever they want-species of fish for the surgeon, fake Constable landscapes for the turnkey Pobjoy, murals for the Commandant's great Mah-jong Hall, and backdrops for his railroad to nowhere. It is through the fish paintings that Gould paints for himself, however, that he tries to hang onto his sanity against overwhelming cruelty, continuing to believe that life has meaning, though "[it] is a mystery...and love the mystery within the mystery."

This is not an easy book. The action, such as it is, is all filtered through Gould's mind, and that is shaky, at best. In a few passages, Gould (and Hammett, the speaker who opens the novel) describe dream-like reactions to events, reflecting their mental states (not magic realism). When the last hundred pages become surreal, the reader is well-prepared to accept the strange events which unfold. Flanagan's novel is very clever, and his use of specific fish as parallels to the people and events within chapters (especially the serpent eel) is particularly amusing. His characteristically 19th century list of topics at the beginning of each chapter, his duplication of the writing style of the period, his satire, his literary jokes (purple sea urchin ink for "purple prose," jokes about George Keats's brother, a failed poet), and his broad vision of what makes life meaningful are signs of a mature novelist who doesn't hesitate to take chances--5 stars for originality! Mary Whipple

It is the melancholy fortune of a modern Australian forger of antiques (to sell to gullible American tourists) & a kindred imbiber of spirits to discover in a decrepit "meat safe" this extraordinary book, Gould's Book of Fish, & to be mesmerized by it & its author only to discover that all the authorities in nineteenth century antiquities to whom he presents the book disparage it as a fraud & a fake & show him the door. And then, what is worse, as he is taking his physick of beer at a tavern it is lost or stolen, & at any rate disappeared from him, so that it haunts his memory to a great distraction until at length he is forced to rewrite from memory the entire oeuvre.

Thus we have the premise & the frame for this rather extraordinary historical novel from Down Under. It is a wicked tale of the debasement of humanity, spun out in a humorous & satirical style reminiscent at once of the great novelists of the nineteenth century, of Hawthorne & Dickens & Melville with backward glances at Voltaire, set in a milieu that suggests adventures in distant lands with pirates & various other scallywags, infused with the peculiar spirit of nineteenth century science, which Richard Flanagan both deprecates & celebrates. Overlaid is a veneer of artistick struggle & accomplishment culminating in the portraits of fish.

Yes, fish. These fish (& a lobster & two sea horses) are reproduced in this beautiful volume in color prints at the beginning of chapters so that one can see how Flanagan's narrator (& himself) were taken with the artistry of the painter. The type in the pages of this book (which is interestingly enough published by Grove Press) is set in a wine vermillion & a sea creature green & in octopus black & some other colors--I believe. The beguiling colors fade & return on these old eyes like faint visions, depending on whether I am using artificial light to read by or have the advantage of the sun streaming in.

In short, this is an extraordinary read, like nothing else coming out of the publishing factories these days, original to a startle, fascinating & funny, a work of art that gives one once again a reason to read fiction.