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georgina08's review against another edition
5.0
I love how overrun with life the world feels - ants, swans, rats, owls. It’s so textured and so much attention is paid to the creatures that make up its settings. So even though it’s apocalyptic it feels really lived-in.
raven_morgan's review against another edition
5.0
Every once in a while you pick up a book that you immediately want to buy copies of for half (or all) of your friends. This is one of those books.
"The Swan Book" is set in a future Australia, where much of the world has been devastated by global warming and subsequent climate change. Whole nations have been swallowed by the sea, and entire peoples made refugees. Australian Aboriginals are living underneath the Intervention, essentially locked into camps in the north of the country.
Obilivia Ethyl(ene) lives in one of these camps, a collection of people eking out a life around a polluted lake. Gang-raped by petrol-sniffing youths, she reduces her life to myth. She walks through a strange life surrounded by swans, brolgas and owls, where people are not always people, and her path can just as easily be a poem or a song.
This book may not be for everyone: the prose is often poetic, slipping into colloquialisms and stream-of-consciousness and back again, often within the span of one sentence. If you want your story told in a straightforward manner, then you should look elsewhere. But if you are willing to enter a world where myth walks beside reality, and there can be beauty even in the most horrible of things, then "The Swan Book" is for you.
Absolutely incredible, and I am not surprised at all that this has been shortlisted for the Stella Prize.
"The Swan Book" is set in a future Australia, where much of the world has been devastated by global warming and subsequent climate change. Whole nations have been swallowed by the sea, and entire peoples made refugees. Australian Aboriginals are living underneath the Intervention, essentially locked into camps in the north of the country.
Obilivia Ethyl(ene) lives in one of these camps, a collection of people eking out a life around a polluted lake. Gang-raped by petrol-sniffing youths, she reduces her life to myth. She walks through a strange life surrounded by swans, brolgas and owls, where people are not always people, and her path can just as easily be a poem or a song.
This book may not be for everyone: the prose is often poetic, slipping into colloquialisms and stream-of-consciousness and back again, often within the span of one sentence. If you want your story told in a straightforward manner, then you should look elsewhere. But if you are willing to enter a world where myth walks beside reality, and there can be beauty even in the most horrible of things, then "The Swan Book" is for you.
Absolutely incredible, and I am not surprised at all that this has been shortlisted for the Stella Prize.
julziez's review against another edition
challenging
dark
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
bjayfogg's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
cassowary_and_sachertorte's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
blairmahoney's review against another edition
2.0
Her previous novel Carpentaria won the Miles Franklin and this one has been long listed this year and widely praised. I gave up on it about a third of the way through because I just couldn't bear to wade through any more of this mess. I kept thinking the problem was mine and I should just keep on going and I would eventually find it rewarding, but no. It's the kind of thing I thought I would like: an indigenous perspective on a dystopian near future Australia, but I thought the writing was just horrible. In the interests of fairness for anyone else who might be interested in writing from acclaimed Indigenous Australian writers, here is a glowing review from the Sydney Review of Books: http://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/going-viral/
kenchingfox's review against another edition
challenging
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0