Customer Reviews

Matthew Flinders' Cat

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a difficult novel to define. The three main characters are the street dwelling alcoholic, Billy O'Shannessy, Ryan Sanfrancesco the 11 year old streetwise boy whose future is at risk, and Trim (Matthew Flinders's cat). Trim was, apparently, the first cat to circumnavigate Australia (1801 to 1803) when he accompanied Matthew Flinders.

Potentially, there are at least three stories in this book. The one I focussed on, and enjoyed the most, was the role of Trim, as developed in Billy's imagination and then researched, in saving Billy and Ryan.

The stories of Billy and Ryan did not engage me as much as Trim, yet I enjoyed the way Mr Courtenay wove the separate stories together. There are no real heroes in this story, and yet there is hope. And a kind of irony in that Trim the cat, who was part of the voyages that helped define Australia still has a contemporary role.

Recommended. An interesting, if quirky, novel.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

I love cats and was born but not raised in Australia. I enjoyed this book for all of it's Australian setting, characters and lingo. I found some of the subject matter a bit troubling but am naive to the seedier side of real-life for so many. It was a great mix of past and present, swashbuckling and the settling of Australia and modern day sleazy city life and struggle. I liked it enough that I now search out all books Bryce Courtenay has written and pick and choose the ones with best reviews. I am really, really enjoying "Four Fires".

Reading this book requires an immense "Suspension Of Disbelief" on the part of the reader which I could not quite accomplish. In this book the reader is intoduced to Billy, an ex lawyer turned Homeless Street Alcoholic. Billy sleeps on a park bench with a briefcase handcuffed to his arm!!!One gets the impression that Billy and his briefcase would be separated from each other in about 5 minutes on the mean Homeless Streets of Sydney, Australia and he would be lucky to keep his hand in the process. Instead of being totally absorbed in his quest to find the next available drink ( just like any typical street drunk would do) Billy meets a young boy by the name of Ryan who he takes a liking to. Billy entertains Ryan with fanciful invented tales just like any good lawyer .Ryan has troubles of his own and Billy goes to great lengths to help him. Any resemblance to any real street drunk in this book is purely coincidental. I give this book 5 stars because Mr. Courtenay has written a few good books although this is not one of them.

This is the first Bryce Courtenay I've ever read, and having heard much about him and his popularity, I have to say I was staggered by how poor it was. The research involved is thorough, points for that, but as far as telling a story, alas!!

This is the sort of thing I would expect from a prepubescent at a creative writing short course. There is no conciseness -- where one or two well phrased sentences would convey an idea well, we get half a page of banter which is largely a repeat of earlier exposition, as if the author feels he has to remind us of the thesis of his writing.

The characters are to some extents well developed, but not enough for this reader to care one way or another about them. The author seems to want to give everyone in the book a laconic australian (lowercase deliberate) flavour, and his treatment of some of the characters, eg Con the Greek cafe owner, was xenophobic and patronising.

The inner story of Matthew Flinders cat was also a bemusing choice of story craft. Maybe this reviewer's missing a point, but I saw little in the way of any parallels between the main plot and this inner plot, except for some superficial connections to the main character's recovery from alcoholism. Here too we see a rather comic book telling of the history, having the cat rendered as an irritating anthropomorphic caricature which insults the true nature of felines.

In a nutshell, it was like watching a combination of a tabloid current affairs show and a soap opera, only in book form. It will be the last Courtenay book I read without hearing of a spectacular improvement in style from him.