Ratings3
Average rating4.3
From the winner of the Man Booker Prize. Death of a River Guide, Richard Flanagan's debut novel, is widely regarded as a classic in Australian literature. Beneath a waterfall on the Franklin, Aljaz Cosini, river guide, lies drowning. Beset by visions at once horrible and fabulous, he relives not just his own life but that of his family and forebears. In the rainforest waters that rush over him he sees those lives stripped of their surface realities, and finds a world where dreaming reasserts its power over thinking. As the river rises, his visions grow more turbulent, and in the flood of his past Aljaz discovers the soul history of his country.
Reviews with the most likes.
Could you imagine that you knew you were dying and that your life would flash before you in the time it takes you to drown?
If you could, would you allow your mind to take you back to the traumatic realities of your families past?
If you could, would you allow yourself to view the intimate details of your conception and birth?
If you could, would you allow the image of the deaths of those nearest and dearest to wash through your mind?
Would you allow your death to be a therapeutic cleansing?
Would all this dissociation from your present trauma give your mind a transcendental focus that brings an inner peace?