Desire, by Richard Flanagan

Any summary will not be fair due to the intensity of the complexity and contradictions in this deep astonishing novel. There were moments of great power and music in "Desire." The novel illustrates once again — through painful events and perceptions — how fabricated history and real people are a great tax. Unlike the painter and the historian, the writer is not obliged to verified facts or their absence, which is disappointing, as he roams freely considering credibility and acceptance within the character and motives, possibilities, and assumptions. With confident and expert hands, imagination can free the past and our view of many main or secondary historical characters in a way that journalists envy. Richard Flanagan was a living embodiment of this point through the imagination of those pale, shy images, the openings. New witnesses have provided a contemporary testimony about the past, and the Tasmanean silence was filled with voices. Number of pages: 240