Wanting: A Novel
Wanting , by Richard Flanagan NY: Atlantic Monthly Press, $24 Reviewed by Russell A. Potter Wanting is the latest, but surely not the last, in the tradition of fiction inspired by some aspect of the career of Sir John Franklin. And yet, even in this crowded field, it stands out as one of only two or three that draw fully and richly from the indigenous cultures among which Franklin sojourned, and it is the only one to take on his and Lady Jane's relationship with the aboriginal peoples of Tasmania. At the same time, by alternating this narrative with a fictionalized account of Charles Dickens's personal crises in the later 1850's -- a period which would see both the death of his youngest daughter and his separation from his wife -- he complicates the colonial landscape with a cobblestone corollary . The most unexpected figure in all of this is a tragic heroine of almost Dickensian proportions, the native Tasmanian girl Mathinna, adopted by the Franklins during their tim