Book review: First Person, by Richard Flanagan

Some novelists are “putters-in”, others “takers-out”. The former drench you with incident and information, and work on a big canvas; the latter value economy, both of words and effects. The alert reader, noting the word “drench”, will recognise which I prefer. That said, many great novelists belong to the former category. Richard Flanagan, winner of the Booker Prize three years ago, has been called “Australia’s greatest living novelist,” and he is very obviously a putter-in. First Person is a rambling, garrulous novel, telling a story which a different sort of writer, Ron Rash for example, might have written at a third of the length. In this he resembles Jonathan Franzen, and, like Franzen, lavish praise and big sales have been his reward.