Wanting - Richard Flanigan

Wanting
Richard Flanagan
Knopf

I heard Richard interviewed on the radio and was intrigued by the story. I love books that use historical characters and weave a fictional story around them - a reason why I enjoy Geraldine Brooks' titles.

The book opens in 1839 in an Aboriginal community at Flinders Island that is ravaged by consumption. Seven year old Mathinna, daughter of a chief king, has lost both her parents but still possesses a quality that charms all that come into contact with her. On a visit to the island, the new Tasmanian Governor Sir John Franklin and his wife Lady Jane become captivated by the girl. The childless couple decide to adopt the girl as an experiment to prove that the savage can be civilised.

Eighteen years later in Manchester, author Charles Dickens is enlisted and befriended by Lady Jane to defend canabalising rumours circulating around the Sir John's failed expedition to find the North West Passage. Dickens gallantly defends Sir John in a piece in his journal 'Household Words'. The piece inspires The Frozen Deep, a play in which Dickens, stars, produces and directs. He meets Ellen Ternan, a girl many years his junior who fills the void of his loveless marriage.

It was Mathinna rather than Dicken's story that kept me reading. After she was cruelly abandoned by the Franklins, her life spiralled into days fuelled by alcohol, sex and violence. Her upbringing in the Franklin household ensured she would never feel at home amongst the Aborigines and yet the colour of her skin ensured she would never be accepted by the whites. Wanting is a tragic meditation on desire and it's denial. Although I fell in love with the concept, I found most of the book a difficult task to read. Up to the point Mathinna was put into an orphanage by the Franklins I had trouble empathizing with any of the characters.

Wanting is the type of book which will surely be winning awards but have trouble finding readership outside die-hard literary circles. Personally I'd rather read something that has me glued to it's pages.