A Pain in the RSS

Book: The Unknown Terrorist
Author: Richard Flanagan
Publisher: Picador
Year: 2006

Having recently seen an Australian Story documentary about Richard Flanagan and, to my shame, knowing nothing about him, I set about to remedy this lacuna in my knowldege of Australian literature and read ‘The Unknown Terrorist’.

Had I not been given the impression that Flanagan was (perhaps is) a sometime enfant terrible of the Australian (world, discuss?) literary scene, my expectations of this novel might have been different. In that case, I’d merely have accepted ‘The Unknown Terrorist’ as a pulp crime thriller (in the ilk of Michael Connelly) and taken it for what it is. Unfortunately, Flanagan’s pedigree (Rhodes scholar no less) combined with the opening passages of the book, which quote Nietzsche, lead one to expect much, much more than this novel delivers.

Flanagan was obviously inspired by the circumstances of Mamdouh Habib and David Hicks, the Australians who were famously imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay, and their trial by media in Australia, while not by court in the USA.

The plot is far fetched although not totally beyond the realms of believability, but the characters are superficial and, as a reader, I did not really care for the protagonist, the Doll. Was it Flanagan’s intention that the reader should meander through the book with a sense of being slightly detached from the action? Perhaps that’s the genius of it, but if it was, it was a genius largely wasted on me as a reader.

On the whole an acceptable read, but not something I’d breathlessly compel friends to commit to. Despite that, I’m seeking out other novels by Flanagan in the hope I’ll come to understand what the fuss is all about.