Review of The Living Sea of Waking Dreams, by Richard Flanagan

The Living Sea of Waking Dreams is about a dying mother, Francie, and the efforts of her adult children to keep her alive, even though she wants to die. The children have lost the ability to communicate with each other and are out to show they have the power, at least in the case of Anna and Terzo, to keep their mother alive. Tommy, a failed artist who is Francie’s carer, acquiesces to the will of his other two siblings. 

 The novel is also about our dying planet, particularly from climate change, as animals go extinct. We say we care but do little to prevent the unfolding disaster. The novel is set in Tasmania while bushfires rage throughout that state and the rest of Australia. 

 Anna is the main protagonist, a successful architect, who, rather than face her mother's pain, her crap relationship with her son, or the raging climate around her, retreats into social media. She frequently forwards articles she has not read to her friends, showing how she avoids taking responsibility for what is happening around her, and in the world, generally by staying uninformed and deferring action to others. 

The novel has magic realism elements that work. Other reviewers have likened it to The Corrections by Jonathon Franzen, a book I enjoyed. It was full of characters deceiving others and themselves.

Much is going on in The Living Sea of Waking Dreams. I was particularly interested in it as I have an elderly mother the same age as Francie, whose mental capacity and stamina have been declining in the past few months after a fall, and I wonder how I would respond if she, like Francie, lying in a hospital bed in pain, requested the last rites. Would I have the courage of my convictions to let her pass? It's a bit like how the father with dementia drew me into The Corrections, as my father was battling dementia when I read that novel. But then climate change, the destruction of the planet, and my feeble attempts to do something about it come to the fore. I hope this novel will get me to do more. 

 The Living Sea of Waking Dreams is a novel that will get people and possibly bring to the surface their guilt and fears.

 It is an utterly compelling read.

 

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I haven't posted for a while due to work and before that study and I now have long covid, but I hope to reverse that trend and start posting book reviews once more and information about writing.