Wanting - Couverture rigide

Flanagan, Richard

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 184887071X ISBN 13 : 9781848870710

Editeur : Atlantic Books, 2009

Synopsis

Unusual book

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

It is 1844. In the remote penal colony of Van Diemen’s Land, a barefoot Aboriginal girl sits for a portrait in a red silk dress. She is Mathinna, the adopted daughter of the island’s governor, Sir John Franklin, and his wife, Lady Jane, and the subject of a grand experiment in civilization -- one that will determine whether science, Christianity and reason can be imposed in the place of savagery, impulse and desire.

A quarter of a century passes. Somewhere in the Arctic, Sir John Franklin has disappeared with his crew and two ships on an expedition to find the fabled Northwest Passage. The people of England are horrified by reports of cannibalism filtering back from search parties, no one more so than the most celebrated novelist of the day, Charles Dickens, for whom Franklin’s story becomes a means to plumb the frozen depths of his own life.

As several lives become joined by unexpected events and tragedies, Wanting transforms into a stunning contemporary meditation on the ways in which desire -- and its denial -- shape all our lives.

Présentation de l'éditeur

From the author of the bestselling Gould’s Book of Fish, The Sound of One Hand Clapping and The Unknown Terrorist comes a haunting meditation on love, loss and the way life is finally determined never by reason, but only ever by wanting.

 

In 19th-century Van Diemen’s Land, a young Aboriginal girl, Mathinna, is adopted by the celebrated explorer Sir John Franklin and his wife, Lady Jane, to show that the savage can be civilized. Lady Jane believes the distance between savagery and civilization is the learned capacity to control wanting. The experiment fails, and Sir John disappears into the blue ice of the Arctic, seeking the Northwest Passage. A decade later, Lady Jane enlists Charles Dickens’ aid to put an end to the scandalous suggestions that Sir John’s expedition ended in cannibalism.

 

Wanting confirms Richard Flanagan’s growing reputation as one of our most original and powerful novelists.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Atlantic Books
• Date d'édition: 2009
• ISBN 10: 184887071X
• ISBN 13: 9781848870710
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 272