Question 7

Richard Flanagan writes a remarkably astonishing multi-genre, imaginative and speculative memoir that he describes as a love song to Tasmania, its history, his family, and a world that has vanished, questioning history's too often linear and limiting perspective,, and the sense and stories we personally construct of who we are and how we come to be where we are in the present. Anton Chekov's satirical and absurd Question 7 is cited, Who loves longer, a man or a woman? He juxtaposes the bleak darkest of tragedies, the devastating bombing of Hiroshima, with the serendipity that it simultaneously is the reason that he exists at all as his father was in a Japanese prisoner of war camp, a situation in which he would have surely died.

The dropping of the atomic bomb is traced backed to HG Wells and his love affair with Rebecca West, the break up of which has him writing The World Set Free, a book that inspired scientist Leo Szilar and traces the follow up to the horrors of the bomb itself. This characterises the chain reactions, a thoughtful set of circular life connections that Flanagan makes, including the part played by British colonialism in genocide and the destruction of the natural world. He is offering the kind of surprising insights and perspectives that undoubtedly will challenge accepted realities and make people think. He is unsparing in relating his failings and his frightening near death experience in a river.

This is a profound, philosophical and emotional read, a revealing, captivating memoir that takes in the bigger picture amidst the more personal and which I found utterly gripping as it shines a critical light on what is accepted as reality. It is a unforgettable brilliant 'memoir' that I have no hesitation in saying this is a must read and am recommending it to all readers, particularly as I believe this is the best thing that this acclaimed author has written! Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book. I honestly didn’t know what to expect when I received the chance to read this book as it’s not my usual type of book. I was pleasantly surprised. Very well written. Great stories.

I have never read a book quite like this one. It's a family memoir, a history of the atom bomb, an exploration of colonialism, a vivid recollection of a near-death experience, a reflection on morality and a synthesis of everything that goes into making a person. I'm not really clever enough to review it properly, but I found it so affecting and it gave me lots to think about.

The title, Question 7, is a reference to Questions Posed by a Mad Mathematician by Anton Chekhov. The question is: Wednesday, June 17, 1881, a train had to leave station A at 3am in order to reach station B at 11pm.; just as the train was about to depart, however, an order came from that the train had to reach station B by 7pm. Who loves longer, a man or a woman?

There is no answer. That's life!

I chose this book because it was written by a booker prize winner, though I have never actually read any of his books. But when I picked it up to read, and read the blurb I felt that maybe it wasn't really a book for me. However, I started reading and kept reading. It is beautifully written and flows more like very accessible narrative poetry. I kept reading it because it was lovely to read, and I wanted to know what was happening next. I found the text unpredictable, which is one of the things that keeps me reading. (Once I feel I know what is going to happen next I usually get bored with a book) It is a hard to describe book, but I think anyone that reads the first few pages in a bookshop will buy the book.

HG Wells meets a young woman and begins a torrid affair that influences his later writing. A talented scientist realises that the power of the atom could be uses to create a devastating weapon. The crew of a bomber plane release a bomb which kills thousands and changes the direction of world history. An Australian prisoner of war struggles to survive in a Japanese camp. A young boy starts life in poverty but grows to be a writer. An island is conquered and destroyed.
This is an amazing read! Partly a series of short stories and musings, partly a treatise about the effect that humans have on society, the whole is just wonderful. Flanagan is a great writer and here his passion for his homeland shines through. The themes are disparate and shouldn't work but they do and the whole is powerful and profound.