Gould's Book of Fish

Image credit: Penguin.com.au

We often think of history as that which has already happened. An event, a person, a time period that has been and gone. Of course, with humanity’s habit of chronicling and revisiting history through the artistic means of art, film, and literature, history is certainly something that is gone but not forgotten. Made up of great and memorable characters, daring and disastrous adventures, lessons, mistakes, triumph and regret, history is a self-replenishing wellspring of inspiration for the artist.

This is certainly the case with the most recent book that I have just closed the cover on: Gould’s Book of Fish by Richard Flanagan.

Rotting away in a flooded cell in the penal colony on Sarah Island, William Buelow Gould – forger, liar, murderer, and artist – chronicles his new life in Australia. Brought as a convict to suffer and slave, his modicum of artistic talent provides him the hope of avoiding life in a chain gang: he is commissioned to illustrate a book of fish. Thus begins the final days of silly Billy Gould who discovers beauty, love, and mirth anew as well as the dark side of ambition and the true horror of irony.

Richard Flanagan is a celebrated Australian author, and rightly so. This is the first book of his that I have read and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Crisp and lyrical prose that is both poetic and ‘artistic’ and horrendously crass and filthy – much like the stories it describes- fills the pages of Gould’s Book of Fish, creating a fictitious historical account of Tasmania in 1826 that at times feels a little For Whom the Bell Tolls and at others The Master and Margarita.

Told in the most part from the perspective of Billy Gould, the book recounts a particularly horrific and disgusting part of Australia’s history while at the same time inserting some ridiculous characters and stories that bring a level of hilarity and oddness to the landscape. Amidst the madness of the Surgeon who speaks to severed heads, the Commandant who dreams of building Europe on the untameable landscape of Van Diemen’s Land, and Castlereagh the pig who is the Devil incarnate, William Gould experiences the miracles of a change in perspectives, a change in life goals, and a change in physical form.

Image credit: Penguin Books Aus

I found this to be a beautiful and engaging read that was also rather challenging. A black comedy that also features some scenes fit for any horror film set against the terrible Australian outback, this fictional memoir is a remarkable piece of work from one of Australia’s most celebrated writers and is definitely worth the read if you are looking for something different.

Author: Richard Flanagan, 2001

Published: Picador, an imprint of Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited, 2001. Pictured edition published by Penguin Random House Australia, 2018