Customer Reviews

Wrack: A Novel

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

 

 

The characters seemed shallow, without depth given to some of their pasts. The plot droned on and on...with me pursuing only to find the ending, which was disappointing. The lack of quotation punctuation was annoying. It felt like a cheap show with gratuitous sex thrown in for appeal. If you like historic mystery try: City of Light instead.

I read 'Wrack' for my final year at High School in Australia and upon first reading it found it to be uninteresting and dreaded spending a year studing 'Wrack'. After re-reading it and discussing it with my teacher and classmates I discoved the many layers of this very deep and suprising novel. Bradley explores so many issues in this book and examines the characters relationships on many levels that I finished my school days feeling that I had read a great novel by a very talented writer.

So give 'Wrack' a chance - it's a great book!

This story of intersecting love triangles is a thoroughly absorbing but ultimately unsatisfying read. The opening pages promise a depth of emotion that is never fully realized as the book prgresses. Still the skillfull writing and a powerful grasp of history show that Bradley is capable of great things. I expect to see truly extraordinary work as his writing matures.

One cannot help but notice the similarity between THE WRACK and the ENGLISH PATIENT. I made two attempts before I could finish EP and as I began this work, I made up my mind I would hang in no matter what. About 20 pages into the book I began to really try to dislike the author for jumping around so much just as in EP. I also found the absence of quotation marks irritating, butI thought, that's my hang-up. Hard as I tried to dislike Bradley for confusing me, I have to admit the book intrigued me. He is a very knowledgable chap supplying much history, most of which I will never remember. I liked Claire but thought David pretty shallow. I felt Bradley wove such a tale he was at a loss on how to finish it...very banal ending. Surely Bradley could have written a much more fascinating ending,but perhaps he was exhausted after having come so far.

This was the first novel by James Bradley I have read, and I was disappointed in it -- but I will read another.

I picked up "Wrack" because of the idea of mapmaking. I anticipated a riveting novel and the unraveling of a puzzle, along the lines of Sobel's Longitude [yes, I realize it is not a novel]. The plot was predictable, and the ultimate denouement was an anticlimax.

That said, I think Bradley is a gifted writer. Two quotes: "Although he ... believes in the coded and ordered knowledge of science, the structured discourse of academic debate, he feels the pull of other places, other times." And: "We know so little. And it's only when we come to try and understand why something might have happened that we realize how poor and cheap our tools of understanding are. Forensics, memories, the law; but in the end they're all just matches we're striking in the darkness." Bradley is able to do what few contemporary writers even attempt: he expresses, and expresses well, our unuttered fears and limitations. A writer with that talent deserves a second reading.

You'll learn more about early Australian history, and the history of map making, than you'd ever imagine. But don't let that keep you from a very interesting story that combines history, academic politics, and (oh but the way) murder.

Who really discovered the continent? and when did it happen?

More interestingly, what happens when an academic disagrees with the prevailing thought about that, and says so, and thinks he can prove it? As it turns out, there are two different people, about fifty years apart, who come up with the same 'alternative explanation.'

All it takes to complete the story is the discovery of a body of too recent vintage during an archeological dig, the delay caused by the police, and an old bum living in a shack in the area who may or ma not have the answer to both mysteries.

If you like history, or if you like mysteries, you'll like this book.

This book was a surprise to me...I thought it was merely a mystery from all the reviews I had read, and even from the cover of the book itself. Yet the mystery turned out not to be as compelling as the historical story and the story of dual obsessions. The intelligent narration of the story within a story proved to be confusing sometimes, yet overall the writing was spectacular. This young author has a definite way with words and descriptions of the possible discovery of Australia by the Portuguese proved to be one of the most compelling historical fiction I have read in years. The research and incorporation of the cartographic science involved, and also the tale of scientific obsession which leads to jealousy, bitterness, and rivalry is all too credible. I personally am not crazy about the use of objectional language, especially if it serves no purpose to move the story along (which I felt was the case here). However, Bradley's impressive language use and insights into the links between the past, present, and future made for an exquisite book.

This book is a definite must for readers who enjoy mysteries with plausible historical context and for those who enjoy writers who are masterful practitioners of the English language. Karen Sadler, Science Education, University of Pittsburgh

Billed as a mystery-within-a-mystery, this book has a moderately interesting historical premise with some tantalizing bits from relatively ancient sources. The angst of academics pursuing a probably hopeless cause is overdone, I think. The unraveling of that tale is way too slow, little suspense actually builds, and the ending is a disappointment. The soap opera within a soap opera love story(-ies) just seemed pointless, a lame attempt at titillation, with an ambigous resolution. The gratuitous four-letter words were an annoyance.

WRACK is heart breaking story of love and obsession. Mixing a search for proof that the Portuguese were the first to reach Australia with a murder mystery and a love story may not seem to be a natural fit, but Bradley makes it all work. Reminiscent of [ASIN:0679745203 The English Patient]] in the way time is used and with its dying storyteller, WRACK remains true to itself as its tale of obsession plays out in a desolate shack where a desperate archaeologist and his former lover try to piece together the story of a cancer ridden man, who may have the answer to where the ship is located but who definitely has his own agenda. WRACK remains intriguing to its bitter end.[

"Wrack. A Novel" by James Bradley.
Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1998.

A novel set in Australia, about two love stories that take place fifty years apart, brought together by the common theme of the search for the Portuguese ship, the first European vessel to discover Australia.

In the late 1930s, just before World War II erupted, Kurt and Veronica became involved. Veronica Marshall was upper class, and Kurt Seligman a poor student. Kurt worries about the condition of his poor clothes, his inability to pay the lunch tab, etc., but Veronica ignores all of that. They become lovers. But then, Veronica marries Fraser McDonald. Not only has Kurt lost Veronica, his lover, but, of all things, she has become the wife of his thesis advisor! Heaven help us.

The second love story is between David and Claire and set in the 1990s. David is a widower and Claire, a medical doctor, has just moved back after a failed affair. In some sense, then, both individuals are on the "rebound". Fortunately, Claire, as a doctor, is available to keep the old man, Kurt, medicated and alive as David attempts to pry the secret from him of the Portuguese ship.

And the ship is the central unifying theme of this book. Sixty plus years ago, Fraser McDonald and Kurt Seligman were looking for the wreck of the Portuguese mahogany ship that was rumored to have sailed around the continent of Australia. In the 1990s, David is looking for the same vessel. Kurt is dying and Claire assists David by keeping the old man, Kurt, both alive and lucid.

The story jumps back and forth between Kurt/Veronica and David/Claire, with side explanations of the Portuguese exploration of Africa, India and the Orient. Did a Portuguese vessel actually make the journey from Goa, India, down to the then unknown continent of Australia? Was the Portuguese red mahogany wreck buried in the beach sands and did Kurt know the location? While developing both love stories, the author also finds it necessary to develop the history of map making, and to give a synopsis of Portuguese exploration contemporary with Columbus and other explorers of Spain. The brief history of Portuguese exploration by James Bradley in this novel is better than most text books, where Spanish exploration dominates the pages. (A recent example of this emphasis on Spanish exploration is: "The Discovery of Mankind: Atlantic Encounters in the Age of Columbus" by David Abulafia.)

So, in this novel you get two love stories, an introduction to maps, a synopsis of the history of Portuguese exploration, the Australians in Singapore as the Japanese advance down the peninsula, and it all begins with the discovery of a mummified body in the beach sands. Read the book to find out if the Portuguese wreck is found.