Reviews

• Perfect copy

• Excellent read! Book received earlier than expected and in mint condition.

• Question seven by Richard Flanagan: - “My father used to laugh about one of his fellow POWs who spoke of seeing the atomic bomb blast light up the night sky over their camp as if it were day. The atomic bomb over Hiroshima exploded at 8:16 a.m. The past is always most clearly seen by those who never saw it.” - From the very first moment I started reading this book, I was completely blown away by the story Flanagan told. It blends a narrative about the author’s quest to uncover his father’s story with reflections on these narratives. His father only survived the war because the Americans dropped the Hiroshima bomb, but what does this mean for everything else? Within this story, Flanagan explores the Japanese culture of the time, where people were so deeply held to their beliefs that they would kill their own children for dishonouring them. He also delves into the idea that parents would kill their own children, and in this light, what meaning did they have for treating the enemy in any better way? Their lives were meaningless, yet they still existed. - As well as exploring the narratives and stories we tell ourselves, Flanagan also tells the story of H.G. Wells and Rebecca West, a love story that came out of their relationship. He explores how they often tried to fight it, especially when West first met Wells, a much older man, and she felt she was the ugliest man she had ever met. Despite this, she fell in love with him. What does this symbolise? The story of his Nan, who had a stroke and should have died when she was in her 50s, and yet she lived to be 99. She also endured the loss of all her many children, and Flanagan questions whether this was a curse or a blessing. - Thoughts and memories intertwine with stories in this book. One of its central themes is the absence of answers to questions. After inventing the atomic bomb, HG Wells believed the world would be governed by rational people. However, this beautifully juxtaposes with the love story at their house with a much younger woman, Rebecca West. On first sight, she declares that she is now in with a man who was considered great but was exceedingly small and found him ugly, yet her heart broke for him. They met after he criticised his book, and all HG Wells’ subsequent actions can be considered irrational, but he probably thought he was rational. - The book is full of questions, inspired by the idea of an Anton Chekhov story. The authors Nan lives until she is 99 but should have died of a stroke in her 50s. She ends up living most of her life through her children. Richard Flanagan only ever says to his dad, “I love you,” and that’s how the author knew he was dying. His dad had survived a Japanese war camp, only surviving because the Americans invented the atomic bomb, which killed thousands of people in Japanese cities. His dad would never have survived on more cruel winter, where the Japanese made fellow inmates suffer and die. Despite this, the author visits a Japanese prison and ends up hugging one of those guards who had been there, filmed by a camera crew for the event without the author’s consent. - What does it all mean? We can’t know how life will turn out, dictated by fate. We think we can be certain of things because of the stories we tell ourselves, built upon layers until they sink into oblivion. The father of the story once didn’t want to be working class, but then he didn’t want to be any other class. A maid steals money from him, so he leaves more for her to steal. Some men aren’t ruled by money, but by the love and well-being of others. But what would you expect if you’ve survived a Japanese war camp? Would you expect to hate everyone? - This book is brilliant. Life is about asking questions, not expecting answers. This review might seem all over the place, but read the book, and it’s all beautiful in a story that’s also a biography, and quite unique. - Chekhov believed that literature’s role wasn’t to provide answers, but to ask the necessary questions. One of his earliest stories was a parody of mental arithmetic asked of schoolchildren. In Anton Chekhov’s (1882) short story, question seven is as follows: - Question 7. On Wednesday, June 17, 1881, a train had to leave station A at 3 am to reach station B at 11 pm. Just as the train was about to depart, however, an order came that it had to reach station B by 7 pm. Who loves longer, a man or a woman? - One question you can ask is how many people died in Hiroshima or Nagasaki. No one knows the true number, but no one knows the true number of who survived, such as Hannigan’s dad and many others, because this brought about the end of World War II. So, Hannigan asks more questions, some may have answers, and some may not. - He takes some really big ideas and condenses them into very readable prose, while also telling the story of his family, juxtaposing that with the story of HG Wells and his love affair with Rebecca West. - Some of the questions and themes explored in the book revolve around death, such as when we die, if we are dying, and why we live. - There’s no precise statistic to measure Hiroshima, nor can it be pretended that there’s some moral calculus to death. There’s no equation of horrors. Everyone knows of the victims of the first atomic bomb, but few know of those who died who worked on the Death Railway, whose dead number (in the typically imprecise way of evil) ranges between 100,000 and 250,000 human beings. While the world still grieves for the dead of Hiroshima, outside Japan, who grieves for the firebombing of Tokyo, which saw perhaps even more die from conventional bombs than the first atomic bomb—an estimated 100,000 victims? Which war crime is greater? Who do we remember and who do we forget? Thomas Ferebee or Leo Szilard? - Consider the destruction of Hiroshima and its people. After all, how many more would have died if the bomb had not been dropped? In July 1945, the American Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson, commissioned a study on the human cost of an invasion of Japan. The study estimated between 1.7 million and four million Allied casualties, with 400,000 to 800,000 dead and between five and ten million Japanese dead. So many Purple Hearts (awarded to US soldiers wounded or killed in combat) were manufactured in preparation for the invasion and its expected feats of death—some half a million—that the stockpile has not been exhausted to this day, many wars and nearly eighty years later. - Tragedy and stories like that about what happened in Hiroshima—tragedies help us understand what makes us human—are something that makes us human. Tragedy versus itself in our minds because it reminds us that justice is an illusion. - The book also finishes with an interesting story about his own moment of horror while on the river, being trapped and thinking he was going to die, which sort of brings the book full circle in the circumstances, fates, and twists that turn our lives into momentary, active this and that. Tragedy exerts its hold upon our imaginations because it reminds us that justice is an illusion. Hiroshima is the great tragedy of our age from which we continue to seek understanding yet can never truly understand. From the book: - “So much of my own life—perhaps the most important parts—are simply blank to me. What remains are small, beautiful fragments. I recall lying as a seven- (or eight- or nine-) year-old with my big sister in long grass in the old abandoned Forth River cemetery. Amidst half-drunk headstones of long-forgotten family, we watched a cloud racing by. The summer wind rustled the tall river eucalypts, and my head was slightly intoxicated by the somehow obscene funk of the thrusting, insistent green growth. It was a smell stronger than much else, so much more substantial about which I can recall nothing. And vanished too whole years that I have been alive.” - “When I try to recall them, my family scatters into shards I cannot hold on to, but occasionally, they drag me into parts of a story.” - “Without Rebecca West’s kiss, H.G. Wells wouldn’t have fled to Switzerland to write a book about everything burning. Without that book, Leo Szilard wouldn’t have conceived of a nuclear chain reaction. Without that, he wouldn’t have grown terrified, and without that, he wouldn’t have persuaded Einstein to lobby Roosevelt. Without Einstein lobbying Roosevelt, there would have been no Manhattan Project, and without the Manhattan Project, there’s no lever at 8:15 am on August 6, 1945, for Thomas Ferebee to release 31,000 feet over Hiroshima. There’s no bomb on Hiroshima, no bomb on Nagasaki, and 100,000, 160,000, or 200,000 people live. My father dies. Poetry may not make things happen, but a novel destroyed Hiroshima. Without Hiroshima, there’s no me, and these words erase themselves and me with them.” - “Tragedy and stories like that regarding what happened in Hiroshima a tragedy and tragedies something that make us human or look Tragedy versus itself in our mind because it reminds us that justice is an illusion.” - The author concludes the book with his own story about his own moment of horror while trapped on the river, thinking he was going to die. This brings the book full circle, considering the circumstances, fates, and twists that turn our lives into fleeting moments.

• There is little that I can add to the other positive comments which have been made about this book. Which is about so many things. Thomas Flanagan is one of the best writers in English in our time. If you are only going to read one book this year, this is a good one to pick.

• A book which is difficult to categorise. An intimate family history which draws in world affairs. I thought it was outstanding.

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