Sound of One Hand Clapping

This, the third of Flanagan's books I have read - after the brilliant Gould's Book of Fish and Death of A River Guide - is, like them, preoccupied with the harrowing lives of individuals in Tasmania's brutal history as well as with using their lives as a synecdoche for the lives of us all. Also, like the other books, there is a poetic fascination with death in the stylised writing coupled with a disdain for what one might call the Jane Austen approach to life, the notion, masterfully rendered, that civilisation and mannerisms amount to nothing at all aside from self delusory window dressing.But this book is also very different than the other two in lacking what I can only describe as a poetic fierceness defiantly facing death's onrushing triumph. The book is certainly poetic, but rather sloppily so at times - astute readers will note recurrent cribs from T.S Eliot's The Waste Land: "mixing memory and desire," "the pearls of his eyes" (actually a crib of Eliot's from Shakespeare's The Tempest) etc. - and the telling of Sonja's and father Bojan's dark history is so mind-numbingly bleak that it is - as an Australian writer has written in an otherwise glowing review - "almost unbearable." It has the poetry, but not the poetic energy of the other two books. This is the best way I know to put it.Finally, there is what is called the "redemptive" ending about which one wonders, or I do. How long can the idyllic setting with which the book ends endure the hell that is life throughout the rest of the book?How long before descriptions such as this one of the human condition prevail once again?"Sane or insane, the city did not care, went to pains not to know, and within it she felt a sense of liberty, of having joined some huge fraternity of the fallen, all refusing to acknowledge the devil was on their tail. Lives filled with purpose existed only in rumours and advertisements. In the big smoke there were a billion particles of smog, caustic residue of millions of similarly incinerated lives. The city filled her with the anonymity of others and in that vast wash of shared nothingness, where people were ordered like factory hens and worked like mules and only in their nightmares were human."Flanagan is at his best in writing of the nightmares.

I was intrigued to read this book because of its setting (Tasmania) and its price. Indeed, you can profit from both, learning about the landscape and some of the history as well as the conditions people lived under during the building up of a land, using immigrant labor from war-torn European nations - for a modest price.I suspect the author intended this work to be a sort of National Epic in a tragic vein (perhaps along the lines of Pasternak?) and if I cared enough about the work I might be able to enlarge on that thought via some of the repeated themes. But I can't say it succeeded in this objective (if that was the objective).Mind you, I'm no writer or literary critic, but this novel, in my view might have benefitted from a better editor. Internal monologues were unnecessarily repetitious. Characters made sudden, uncharacteristic or inexplicable, abrupt changes, notably near the end, when the long, bleak story veered toward a cheery ending (right after a dreadful revelation to explain its beginning scene).For whatever reason, I have compassion for the writer - someone who seems to have bitten off more than he could chew - residing on an island off of Australia, which seems to want a literary scene of its own but lacks the requisite assistance to live up to that aspiration.For a small price, you might read the book to see if this review or the book has any merit!

This was a difficult book to get into, but Wow! I started this book some time ago and gave up very quickly. Came back determined to get through it. I noticed that of the one star reviews none of the readers finished the book. Some only got a few pages in. In reality, this is a beautiful book, part history, part father-daughter coping with life and family tragedy, part environment of Tasmania. It helped to have visited Tasmania several years ago so the rain, the dammed rivers, the forests, the evidence of fires-both recent and ancient, and the incredible amount of dead animals on the road all made sense. This book is worth the effort. It didn't click for me until I was 20 percent in, then I couldn't put it down.

I so enjoyed this book. It is written beautifully that is rings of poetry sometimes. The story is sometimes cruel and at times loving - just like real life. I would recommend this book to everyone. It's not an easy read so don't expect to turn pages too quickly. But certainly worth you time. This is the second book of Mr. Flanagan's I've read and so enjoyed them both. I will definitely read more of his works.

I am a Flanagan addict now having just finished the present marathon of Gould's Book of Fish, The Hidden Terrorist and The Sound of One Hand Clapping.Having lived for three years (in the 1980s) in Hobart, Tasmania I was particularly taken with Flanagan's ability to portray that incredible place.His command and use of the language is fascinating and so very enviable as well as being mesmerising and irresistible by being truly original and unique.Be warned - if you begin any of his books, particularly The Sound of One Hand Clapping, prepare to be hooked, sleepless and exhausted with eyes needing comforting and relief.I can't recommend anything Flanagan writes highly enough. He is truly remarkable.

A very worthwhile story but marred by literary mannerisms. The chronologic shuffle of the story fragments seems mannered and unnecessary. Besides, it is quite simply irritating. Irritating also is the fact that Flanagan, enamoured by his own verbal talent, often gives in to the temptation to show it off as, for instance, in the unkind and unnecessarily 'humorous' description of the poor Heyney family across the road.It is a great pity that this look-at-me style writing stands between reader and subject matter: Immigrants dislocated between two cultures and their valiant, life-long effort to fit in.

Having come to Richard Flanagan through the excellent The Narrow Road to the Deep North, like I suppose many would, I've read a couple of his other books - this after The Unknown Terrorist. Neither I've read since have come up to the standard of the Narrow Road, and this book especially has frustrated.It is a decent enough story and comes together nicely towards the end, but it is about as flowery as a book can be. Yes, the description is nice in places - and can be poetic - but it's employed far, far too much. For example, without exaggerating, the word 'flesh' is used almost every chapter. I noticed this after a few chapters and rolled my eyes every time I saw it thereafter. Consequently I rolled my eyes a great deal. It began to feel like a tool to describe how purple it was; do a control F and if you find a hundred uses of the word 'flesh' then you may have overdone it.I like to see things through and did get to the end, but I flitted over the last fifty pages, trying to pick out the substance and ignoring everything else that read like a literature student showing off.I wouldn't bother; read something else.

The story is set in Tasmania and focuses on the lives of Slovenian father and daughter Bujon and Sonja Buloh. The chapters move between the 'present day' (1989) - when Sonja returns to Tasmania to visit her father in an effort to lay some ghosts to rest - and the 1950s - where Flanagan prepares the groundwork for their difficult relationship and the family's tragedy. There were some beautiful and poignant moments throughout and I was so close to rating this a 4 star read. But I found the writing convoluted in places and there were far too many long descriptive sentences for me to really love this.

A beautifully written story of one woman's emotional journey from the disappearance of her mother from her life to the turbulent relationship with her emotionally scarred hard drinking father. Their journey goes full circle in reaching an understanding, peace and, although not perfect, an opportunity for a better future. Considering the author is male, Richard Flanagan has the ability to understand and get inside the mind of a woman - a remarkable read.

Has to be one of the most demanding, raw, and heart-wrenching books I have ever read. Sometimes I had to put the book down for a day or two before picking it up again so remorseless and powerful the tale and its telling. Yet too one of the most beautiful, sensitive, poignant and well observed works I've ever had the privilege to read. The writing and scope are extraordinary.Few writers in my experience manage to bridge the range of human experience and emotion as Flanagan does. Highly recommended.

Book arrived in the time expected and as described condition (used). I wish I'd discovered Mr Flanagan a long time ago...but then I would have finished all his books a long time ago too. I bought this after reading his extraordinary book The Long Road To The Deep North. A book that is deeply ingrained in my soul...read it. I am only half way into The Sound Of One Hand Clapping and will very soon finish it. This book is written in the same remarkable way that lays bare raw memories, traumatic experience, cruel history, loneliness and deep deep anger, pain, bewilderment, discrimination and love but all without sentiment, weakness or attention seeking. How Mr Flanagan achieves this I just don't know but oh, how I wish that I could.