The Secret River Book

Yes, this book is admirably researched and yes, the basic premise is interesting. But no, it is not particularly absorbing and no, it is not well written. I have a particular bias against writers that spend an inordinate amount of time on painstaking (read painful) descriptions of setting. The novel is 334 pages long - about 80 per cent of that is taken up with environmental minutiae (or at least it felt like it). Pages and pages of it - then perhaps a couple of lines of dialogue, hidden away in italics as if it were something to be ashamed of. The characters mumble their way through the book, and no-one has anything of significant interest to say. As a protagonist, Will Thornhill is the biggest 'dumb-arse' I've ever had the misfortune to come across. Sure, Grenville is probably being ruthlessly true to historical fact - colonial Australia was populated by simple-minded petty criminals and their ignorance in this exotic setting is not far-fetched. But that doesn't necessarily make for great fiction and what was needed here was for the main character, at least, to leap-frog this cultural intertia and actually LEARN something. The ham-fisted Thornhill lacks any developent whatsoever - he has no real insight and experiences no epiphany. By the end of the book, Grenville purports him to be a wealthy landowner, whilst I would have probably placed him into a sheltered workshop. But I did at least empathise on one point. As I laboured towards the closing pages, I also was more than ready for my Ticket of Leave.