"In
Wonders of a Godless World> former Miles Franklin winner Andrew McGahan has essentially written a fable, albeit a fable of planetary scope and awe-inspiring grandeur. At the heart of this expansive novel lies a beguilingly simple message: life is all the more precious because it is brief."
"It is not an original theme by any means: the contemplation of our own mortality has ever been a central concern of literature, from Achiles to Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged. From the sublime poetry of John Keats to our popular fascination with vampires, humanity in death, our need to accept that one day we will die, has always preoccupied our imagination. It is a theme that is particularly well served, however, by the special ability of science fiction and fantasy to explore the possibility of life without death."
"Tolkein's Numenorean Kings saw their longevity decrease as successive generations clung ever more desperately to life. Kim Stanley Robinson's martian colonisers discovered that the gerontological treatments that prolonged their bodily lives were unable to protect their identities against inevitable memory loss. Wonders of a Godless World, unfolding within the walls of an insane asylum, charts the dehumanising effect of immortality with exquisite precision."
"Set on a unnamed volcanic island, Wonders of a Godless World is told from the perspective of an orphan, retarded from birth and adopted by the hospital in which her mother died. She earns her keep by cleaning and doing odd jobs around the wards, spending much of her time amongst the island's benignly insane. The arrival of a comatose foreigner disrupts the relative peace of the hospital as the patients begin to behave strangely to the foreigner's presence and the Orphan soon discovers she can communicate telepathically with the mysterious newcomer."
"Leaving their physical bodies behind, the foreigner introduces the Orphan to the natural wonders of the world beyond her tiny island home and tells her his own incredible history. He also awakens the Orphan to her own extraordinary powers and encourages her to practice and develop them, despite the unintended consequences for their fellow residents."
"Delving deep into the earth sciences and beautifully exploring the seemingly miraculous connection between the planet and the life it sustains, Wonders of a Godless World is a heady, exhilarating story and a brilliant dissection of what makes us, and keeps us, human."
Reviewed by Richard Bilkey, Booktopia Buzz Editor
The witch, the virgin, the archangel, the duke and an orphan meet in the extraordinary new novel from the award-winning Andrew McGahan - an electrifying, tumultuous story of inner demons, desire and devastation, a powerful and apocalyptic tale that sweeps the reader from the beginning of time to the end of the earth.
On an unnamed island, in a Gothic hospital sitting in the shadow of a volcano, a wordless orphan girl works on the wards housing the insane and the incapable. When a silent, unmoving and unnerving new patient - a foreigner - arrives at the hospital, strange phenomena occur, bizarre murders take place, and the lives of the patients and the island's inhabitants are thrown into turmoil. What happens between them is an extraordinary exploration of consciousness, reality and madness.
Wonders of a Godless World, the new novel from Miles Franklin-winner Andrew McGahan, is a huge and dramatic beast of a book. It is a thought-provoking investigation into character and consciousness, a powerful cautionary tale, and a head-stretching fable about the earth, nature and the power of the mind. It is utterly unlike anything you've read before - it will take you by the shoulders and hold you in it grip to its nerve-tingling finale.
About The Author
Andrew McGahan was born in Dalby, Queensland, but has lived and worked
mostly in Brisbane. His first novel Praise (1992) was winner
of The Australian/Vogel Literary Award. Since then his
writing includes an award winning stage play (Bait) and the
AFI award winning screenplay for the movie version of Praise.
His second novel was the prequel 1988 (1995), and his third novel Last
Drinks (2000) was shortlisted for multiple awards, including The
Age Book of the Year and The Courier Mail Book of the
Year, and won a Ned Kelly award for crime writing. In 2004 The
White Earth was published and went on to win the Miles Franklin
Literary Award, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for the South East Asia
and South Pacific region, The Age Book of the Year (Fiction)
and the Courier Mail Book of the Year Award. It was also
shortlisted for the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards that same year.
