GOULD’S BOOK OF FISH – A NOVEL IN TWELVE FISH | RICHARD FLANAGAN | 2001

My oh my, where to start with this book. I admit to feeling not up to par with a review of such a stupendous work. It’s everything a great book should be. Gripping, challenging, unputdownable, yet daring you to turn the page to reveal its next awfulness.

It’s a story within a story within a story. It’s intriguing, brutal, funny, sad, gross, and probably any and every adjective could be used to describe it. William Buelow Gould is an artist and has the unique ability to paint the type of illustrations used in scientific works. Hence, as a convict on Sarah Island off Tasmania’s notorious west coast in the 1830s he’s commanded to create a work depicting Tasmania’s sea life. But the journey of the fish and the man become intertwined and each becomes more than the sum of their parts.

At first glance I’d have to say I didn’t enjoy this book but I loved its challenges. I loved the irony of the present-day forger juxtaposed with Gould’s forgeries. I loved the prose. I loved the setting and I confess to going to Sarah Island to see where the book is set. The complexity of the imagery is compelling while at the same time disconcerting, but I couldn’t put it down.

Not for the faint-hearted.