![]() There was nothing subtle in his story about vanishing body parts, a dying mother and a world in flames. It can be hard to resist a good old preachy sermon. It can be hard not to rave and rant in absolute frustration. ![]() Writing a book while all of this is happening around you, can take its toll. It was easy to feel like it was the beginning of the end. The smell was inescapable, the heat was oppressive, the news catastrophic. Our skies were grey with smoke and ash for month after month. The bush fires were the worst we’d ever experienced. Last summer was ghastly for all of us in Australia. Instead I got whack after whack of anger. With such a convoluted title, I was expecting more nuance and intellectual word play. It’s not that I didn’t love it, or even admire what Flanagan was trying to achieve, but it’s not easy to read a book where you feel like you’re being smashed over the head, not just with a hammer, but with the biggest, heaviest mallet that Flanagan could find, on every single page, at every single turn. ![]() ![]() I know there is a lot of love for The Living Sea in Waking Dreams out there already. ![]()
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