Michelle de Kretser's Miles Franklin winning novel uses travel as a lens to look at two drastically different protagonists: Laura, a footloose middle-class Australia; and Ravi, a Sri Lankan caught up in that country's brutal civil war. The book follows their life journeys, which ultimately intersect at a travel publishing firm (where else?).

The first third of the novel mainly deals with the interminably boring Laura and her mundane roaming around the usual tourist spots of Asia and Europe. Just as the reader is about to nod off, de Kretser hits you with a head-snapping plot twist that transforms this novel into something very different. The pace and tension pick up from there but unfortunately de Kretser cannot sustain it. The story she tells of Ravi's experiences is emotional, nuanced and topical. However Laura's story is cliched and bathetic, unable to be saved by a surprise ending.

The questions of the title are posed through the key characters' stories. One is "what am I doing here?". Another is "why does everybody have to leave in the end?", immediately followed by "when will it be my turn to leave?'. These deep questions are a great theme for the novel, but could have been much more tellingly explored by cutting Laura's character to the bare minimum and placing the focus on Ravi's more compelling odyssey. In the process, a good editor could have cut 150 pages from an unnecessarily long novel. ( )

This book is among the worst I've honestly ever read. I'm still struggling to understand the point of the book.

It's essentially a double-narrative following the stories of Ravi and Laura over the course of 30 years. The two characters and their stories are completely unrelated for the vast majority of the book. The narration is scattered, rambling, and extremely difficult to follow. There are moments when things are incredibly vague and/or confusing, frequent jumps in time/flashbacks, and random characters and events that don't seem to serve any purpose than to fill a few extra pages. I was surprised to learn this book actually won an award. It was a chore to read this book and I don't recommend it to anyone.

(eGalley provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.) ( )

Gave it a good go but could not find the books rhythm. Did not finish ( )

Beautifully written tedium. I abandoned it. ( )

This highly acclaimed and awarded novel did little to inspire our group. The mingling of Laura and Ravi’s stories tended to confuse rather than bind, and most of us found ourselves lost in the language rather than thriving in it. Not the reaction we generally look for in a novel.

Therefore, our discussion centred mostly around travel verses tourism, as this was the only real theme we could identify with. In doing so, we shared some wonderful travel stories and chatted about the pros and cons of travelling, where it took us and what we gained from it. Most of us have travelled moderate to extensively, so it was a lively discussion.

This was all very interesting, but what were de Kretser’s questions of travel … in other words, what was she trying to say to us in this novel? Cheryle struggled big time with this book and even tackled it by reading all of Ravi’s story first, then going back and reading Laura’s. Not with any great success, but at least she gave it an honest shot!

In the end we came to the conclusion that literary fiction may not be our ideal read … but as a book club we are always up to the challenge.