Customer Reviews

THE SOUND OF ONE HAND CLAPPING

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Absolutely beautiful story of people who lose each other and the heartbreaking, vulnerable steps taken to find each other again.

I found that real emotion pored out of this book of real people, people with flaws, people who can't say the words that they know others need to hear. So much of the style reminded me of Alice Hoffman's books. An absolute beautiful story that I won't tire of reading.

The story begins with Maria, who is leaving her daughter, Sonja, and husband, Bojan. Forever. The images and sounds of the snow falling as she leaves her daughter are absolutely one of the finest passages I have read in a long time. I went back to it after I finished the book and it meant so much more. I could feel the snow and the despair of this family acutely the second time. Richard Flanagan takes us through present and past to tell this story, using prose that speaks like poetry. There were sentences I just read repeatedly because they were written so well. It is a sad book, beyond heartbreaking at times when we see how much hurt each member of this family has borne. There were times when I hated Bojan as much as his daughter did, but when his full story is revealed, he must be understood and forgiven.
The book ends with hope and redemption, and it is believeable and welcome. This book, its characters, images, and symbolism in the writing, are unforgettable.
This is another example of a superior novel that begs to be read by a larger audience.

This is an impressive novel. The story of a post-war Slovenian immigrant family whose lives gradually fall apart. The journey of the main character (Sonja) and her father (Bojan) towards some kind of redemption, and a regaining of some meaning in their lives. (See other reviews for fuller plot descriptions). The quality of the writing occasionally reaches a quality I can only call stunning. Having said this, Flanagan's literary aspirations almost fail to come off in some passages as he seeks to wring every nuance of emotion out of a scene. This is far outweighed by the positives however, and I would rate one chapter in particular (I won't tell you which!) as one of the finest pieces of prose I have read anywhere!. As another reviewer has noted, this is a 'literary' read and not for the faint hearted. Those of us who actually live where the novel is set have the added bonus imagining the action in the precise geographical context that Flanagan himself had in mind. An appreciation of the harsh contradictions in Tasmanian history, climate and geography goes a long way to enhancing the appreciation of this fine novel. Regardless of this Tasmanian setting (which is extremely important in all Flanagan's work) any serious reader will be well rewarded by a careful reading of his fine literary craftsmanship.

The reviewer below who recommends that this novel not be read lightly or quickly has hit the nail right on the head. It's not so much that the subject matter is hard to grasp -- it's the fact that the author's well-crafted images, and the portrayal of the deep emotions experienced by the characters demand the reader's full attention. This is not something to be read lightly.

The novel is set in Tasmania, and centers around a young woman named Sonja Buloh, focusing on three periods of her life -- as a very young child living in the company of both her parents; as a slightly older child living with her father, after her mother walks out on them both during a fierce snowstorm; and as an adult, returned to Tasmania from Sydney, pregnant and filled with questions about her relationship with her difficult father, Bojan Buloh, an immigrant from Slovenia.

Much of the difficulty in their relationship stems from the intense pain and suffering experienced and witnessed by her father (and her mother, Maria) in their homeland, Slovenia, during World War II. The atrocities they have witnessed have scarred their psyches forever, like white-hot wires laid across their memories. Maria basically shuts down at long last, giving up on the dreams she has entertained about a 'new life' in Australia, seeing her husband slaving away on a hydro dam project -- work that seems to be reserved for 'wogs' like themselves.

Bojan has no idea of how to deal with the pain inside him. He feels inadequately eqipped to speak of it -- words mystify and then anger him in his inability to weild them to his satisfaction. After his wife disappears, he attempts to care for his young daughter as best as his abilities, finances and emotions will allow -- but his frustrations with his 'new land', his backbreaking work, and the horrors he has witnessed drive him to find a way to bury them all. He finds a way to do this by drinking himself into a stupor as often as he is able -- and when he gets drunk, the anger and pain find their way to little Sonja, who suffers terrible beatings at his hands. She resolves that when she can, she will leave and never return.

Sonja herself finds little to satisfy her emotionally in Sydney, where she settles as an adult. She has a relatively good job, working in a TV studio -- nothing glamorous, but steady -- but she feels that her life is empty, without direction. She returns to Tasmania, to visit her childhood home -- and Bojan, her 'artie' (in the old tongue) -- in an attempt to find herself, to answer some deep questions about her life.

The novel is mesmerizing, taking the reader on a journey both by Sonja and Bojan -- told in the present tense as well as in a series of flashback chapters, filling in the gaps, letting us in on the story of their lives, the whys and wherefores, the pain, and even a little joy. Working through their old memories and old issues -- and the disappearance of Maria, Sonja's mother -- is a painful process for them. Sonja almost gives up, then, almost on a whim -- or perhaps by instinct -- she decides to keep the baby she had previously decided to abort, and to stay in Tasmania.

The journey through all of this pain is a hard one to watch -- and it is a life-changing one for both Sonja and Bojan -- but it is a beautiful one, and inspiring. On p.358, it occurs to Sonja that perhaps she has misunderstood the concept of lost innocence: 'There was about Bojan Buloh that strange evening something that approached the most curious innocence. As if innocence, thought Sonja, were not something one had before it was lost, a natural state into which one was born before life sullied it forever, but rather something that could only be arrived at after one had journeyed through all the evil life could manifest. He was lost and condemned to loss, he was damned and lived with the damned, but somehow, somehow because of what he had lived through he had acquired an innocence.'

Finding innocence at the end of a road built almost exclusively on pain -- this is a blessing to discover.

This book is entertaining and well-written -- and well worth the time it deserves to experience fully.

I loved this book whose story outline I will not repeat here as it is covered in the editorial reviews above. I read this book slowly, pusposefully, because I didn't want it to end, even repeating passage frequently to fully feel their emotional impact, which was considerable. It is written with prose sharp, crisp and frighteningly beautiful and disturbing, at once discordant and riveting, like a spear though one's own heart.

This is one of the best books I have read in quite some time. It is full of deep, rich characters and profound symbolism. I found myself wanting to read it slowly and fully so that I could savour the the story and allow myself the indulgence of getting to read some fine literature. It was the interesting and unique title that drew me to this book, and time and again Flanagan demonstrated the deep symbolism of the sound of one hand clapping. This is must read for anyone who enjoys a deep and telling story. Enjoy!

This, the third of Flanagan's books I have read - after the brilliant Gould's Book of Fish and Death of A River Guide - is, like them, preoccupied with the harrowing lives of individuals in Tasmania's brutal history as well as with using their lives as a synecdoche for the lives of us all. Also, like the other books, there is a poetic fascination with death in the stylised writing coupled with a disdain for what one might call the Jane Austen approach to life, the notion, masterfully rendered, that civilisation and mannerisms amount to nothing at all aside from self delusory window dressing.

But this book is also very different than the other two in lacking what I can only describe as a poetic fierceness defiantly facing death's onrushing triumph. The book is certainly poetic, but rather sloppily so at times - astute readers will note recurrent cribs from T.S Eliot's The Waste Land: "mixing memory and desire," "the pearls of his eyes" (actually a crib of Eliot's from Shakespeare's The Tempest) etc. - and the telling of Sonja's and father Bojan's dark history is so mind-numbingly bleak that it is - as an Australian writer has written in an otherwise glowing review - "almost unbearable." It has the poetry, but not the poetic energy of the other two books. This is the best way I know to put it.

Finally, there is what is called the "redemptive" ending about which one wonders, or I do. How long can the idyllic setting with which the book ends endure the hell that is life throughout the rest of the book?

How long before descriptions such as this one of the human condition prevail once again?

"Sane or insane, the city did not care, went to pains not to know, and within it she felt a sense of liberty, of having joined some huge fraternity of the fallen, all refusing to acknowledge the devil was on their tail. Lives filled with purpose existed only in rumours and advertisements. In the big smoke there were a billion particles of smog, caustic residue of millions of similarly incinerated lives. The city filled her with the anonymity of others and in that vast wash of shared nothingness, where people were ordered like factory hens and worked like mules and only in their nightmares were human."

Flanagan is at his best in writing of the nightmares.

This story is interesting particularly from my point of view as a Slovenian since it deals with a Slovenian immigrant to Oz. The story unfolds slowly, but the gripping and in depth character descriptions and development make up for the slow pace. Although the metaphors are a bit too obvious at times for the story line to flow smoothly and subtly, this is an enjoyable read and a story that stays with the reader long afterwards.

Bojan Buloh isn't a cheery bloke. A "reffo wog" [immigrant from Southern Europe] in Tasmania, he lives a disenchanted life. His taxing job is meaningless, his quarters squalid, his friends and co-workers equally hopeless. His wife, Maria, has disappeared into a blizzard, leaving him with three-year-old Sonja.

Bojan's grief at the loss of Maria is compounded by memories of his early years. As a young Yugoslav partisan messenger, he witnessed war in all its viciousness. These aren't the fond childhood recollections of most of us. In Tasmania, he confronts the realities of immigrant life - exploitation, scornful neighbours, reduced status and few opportunities. A lesser man might cave in under such pressures, but Bojan is a tough bloke. Being tough, however, makes him neither happy nor successful. He survives with the help of the bottle, all the while expressing his resentment at the vagaries of his life. Some of that resentment falls, as it must, on Sonja. She represents the missing Maria.

Maria Bull's fading into a snowy Tasmanian night triggered dark guilt in Sonja - which she carries through her life. Their shared grief doesn't bring Sonja and Bojan closer. His drinking and violence only compounds Song's sense of detachment. She withdraws, although the spark of affection for Bojan never quite expires. Fleeing to Sydney, Sonja tries to shed the past, living the present intensely. Her grief is little assuaged as she uses a succession of men to compensate for, in effect, the loss of both parents. The ember of regard for Bojan dims feelings she might hold for another man. Cruel, drunken, cynical as he is, Bojan remains the one solid aspect of her life. It is to this lodestone she returns at last, in an attempt to take charge of her life. If "it is written," she determines at last to do her own writing.

Reviewing Flanagan inevitably evokes the tired clichés - "powerful" or "intense." While both terms apply, neither sufficiently addresses the quality of Flanagan's writing. One phrase, rarely applied to today's writers is "clarity." Although the story of Sonja and Bojan Buloh is told through broken chronology, Flanagan is able to hold the reader's attention throughout the tale. Skipping from present to past in a narrative is too often a distraction, but Flanagan manages the feat with unusal precision. Given the depth of feeling presented, he deserves high praise for his accomplishment. His story disturbs, sometimes repels, the reader, but the tale is never false nor the events contrived. His writing contains no cliches, nor is it tired. Only the reviewer is guilty of those sins.

The depth of individual feelings by father and daughter drills into the universal pathos of those who live isolated lives. The history of relationship between daughter and father seeped through this novel. Relationships like this, as in my novel Paid-In-Full, build on the effect of parent and child conflict. Take your time reading One hand Clapping and savour the character development.