I finally finished this complicated and time shifting story told by Aljaz Cosini.
He is a river guide on the Franklin River in Tasmania and is fighting for survival as he struggles on a cliff in the rising waters. The story consists of flashbacks of his life and of his ancestors who were part of the penal colony, or miners or other trades trying to survive in the harsh landscape. Aljaz was a troubled lonely child of mixed blood who does not feel love or a sense of belonging to his past and yet this is what preoccupies his mind as he struggles to avoid drowning.
I found the story hard to follow as the timelines are all mixed up. ( )

I think I'm justified in calling the genre of this book magic realism. However, it's a sort of magic-realism-lite, since it's written by a white English-speaking man with no particular religious background. Yes, there are ghost animals at the dinner table, but they don't actually talk. Yes, there's knowing of the unknowable, but the protagonist is aware he's having a vision and he admits that it might all be imagined. For this reason, it's probably about as palatable to me as magic realism will ever be. It's also wonderfully written, with genuinely beautiful passages and a sensitivity to emotion that is incisive, but used with exquisite restraint. The Tasmanian bush comes alive, as does the sad history of that island and its eerie echoes today. This book stands as one of the literary milestones of the last twenty years and is essential reading for anyone visiting Tasmania or who loves to venture into the bush (especially white-water rafting). ( )

Flanagan's language is something else. It encapsulates the Australian environment. ( )

Wonderful writing but oh so sad. With 5 kayaks sitting outside the house the book had to go before anyone else read it, but I'm very glad to have read it myself. ( )

There is nothing really wrong with this book and it may even be a really good book, as other reviewers have indicated. There are some remarkable passages and a couple of interesting memories. However, this book did not speak to me. I found it muddled, swirling, eddying, like the river in the gorge and like the unfortunate rafters I found it took all my effort to hang on and to get to the end.

At times I wished he would just hurry up and die. I'm not generally so callous... ( )