![Wanting](https://d3525k1ryd2155.cloudfront.net/h/581/937/800937581.0.m.1.jpg)
Wanting
by Flanagan, Richard
- Used
- Paperback
- first
- Condition
- Very Good Condition
- ISBN 10
- 1741666686
- ISBN 13
- 9781741666687
- Seller
-
King River, Western Australia, Australia
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Vintage, Sydney, 2009. First Edition. Softcover. Very Good Condition. First impression. Size: Octavo 8vo (standard book size). Text body is clean, and free from previous owner annotation, underlining and highlighting. Binding is tight, covers and spine fully intact. No foxing in this copy. All edges clean, neat and free of foxing. The cover has bumps and marks indicating prior use but is in very good condition overall. This BOOK IS IN STOCK and READY TO MAIL NOW. Your book when ordered will be securely packed and promptly dispatched by Great Southern Books. A novel by Man Booker Prize winning author - Richard Flanagan Quantity Available: 1. Shipped Weight: Under 500 grams. Category: Fiction; Australian Fiction; ISBN: . ISBN/EAN: 9781741666687. Pictures of this item not already displayed here available upon request. Inventory No: 4698. . 9781741666687
Synopsis
"A Knopf book."-- tp. verso.
Reviews
On Jan 25 2016, CloggieDownunder said:
Wanting is the fifth novel by award-winning Australian author, Richard Flanagan. In 1841, Mathinna, an orphaned young Aboriginal girl, one of the remaining Van Diemen's Land indigenous who were kept on Flinders Island, was plucked from the "care" of George Augustus Robinson, the Chief Protector of Aborigines, to become the subject of an experiment in civilisation of the savage, conducted by the Governor of Van Diemen's Land, Sir John Franklin and his wife, Lady Jane Franklin.
Mathinna loved the red silk dress she was given, but hated wearing shoes. She wanted to learn to write because she knew there was magic in it. "Dear Father, I am a good little girl. I do love my father. ……come and see mee my father. ……I have got sore feet and shoes and stockings and I am very glad……..Please sir come back from the hunt. I am here yrs daughter MATHINNA". But when her (dead) father failed to come to her after several letters, her passion for writing faded. "And when she discovered her letters stashed in a pale wooden box….she felt not the pain of deceit for which she had no template, but the melancholy of disillusionment".
In tandem with Mathinna's story, Flanagan relates incidents in the life of Charles Dickens, some twenty years later. The tenuous link between the two narratives is this: when Sir John Franklin is missing in the Arctic on his search for the North West Passage, Lady Jane asks Dickens to help refute allegations of cannibalism made by explorer, Dr John Rae. Dickens also writes and stars in a play about Franklin's lost expedition, during which he meets Ellen Ternan, the woman for whom he leaves his wife.
Flanagan's interpretation of Mathinna's life is certainly interesting: his extensive research into the lifestyle and common practices in the colony in the mid-nineteenth century is apparent, and he portrays very powerfully the mindset that led to the virtual extermination of the native population. While the Dickens narrative does have interesting aspects, it is so far removed from the Tasmanian story as to seem somewhat irrelevant, more of an interruption than an enhancement.
Flanagan states in his Author's Note that "The stories of Mathinna and Dickens, with their odd but undeniable connection, suggested to me a meditation on desire-the cost of its denial, the centrality and force of its power in human affairs. That, and not history, is the true subject of Wanting". Perhaps this statement would be better placed in a preface so that readers do not find themselves distracted wondering about the relevance of the Dickens narrative. Excellent prose make this, nonetheless, a powerful read.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Great Southern Books
(AU)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 4698
- Title
- Wanting
- Author
- Flanagan, Richard
- Format/Binding
- Softcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Very Good Condition
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- First Edition
- Binding
- Paperback
- ISBN 10
- 1741666686
- ISBN 13
- 9781741666687
- Publisher
- Vintage
- Place of Publication
- Sydney
- Date Published
- 2009
- Keywords
- BZDB137 richard flanagan, fiction, Fiction; Australian Fiction; EAN: 9781741666687 Flanagan, Richard Wanting
Terms of Sale
Great Southern Books
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including original shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
About the Seller
Great Southern Books
Biblio member since 2012
King River, Western Australia
About Great Southern Books
We are an independent online bookstore and have been in business since 2012.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Tight
- Used to mean that the binding of a book has not been overly loosened by frequent use.
- Bumps
- Indicates that the affected part of the book has been impacted in such a way so as to cause a flattening, indention, or light...
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Octavo
- Another of the terms referring to page or book size, octavo refers to a standard printer's sheet folded four times, producing...
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
- Edges
- The collective of the top, fore and bottom edges of the text block of the book, being that part of the edges of the pages of a...