La Metamorfosis 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.