Emancipist: A Saga of the Early Days of Australia

by Veronica Geoghegan Sweeney

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0380701944
• ISBN13: 9780380701940
• Release Date: January 1987
• Publisher: Avon Books
• Length: 1056 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Good historical novel; rather unnecessarily involved story

I can't call The Emancipist an average book, although I don't really consider it to be a good one either. Apparently written over an entire decade of the author's life, it seems she had plenty of time to lose not only the thread of her tale, but also its perspective. The first five hundred pages contains the Irish section of the story, and Ms. Sweeney has managed to weave a tale skilfully around the issues facing landowners and tenants in the time of the Famine. It is very well done, the more so because the book then tends to wander off precariously into its own more or less relevant story about the on-again, off-again relationships of the main protagonist with his various female, shall we say, interlocutors. I suppose some readers may find the degree of attention to detail in the middle and latter stages of this 1100-page odyssey quite fascinating. However, I did not, as it seemed evident to me that the author started out with an object in mind and then allowed herself to be waylaid along the way. As a result we learn far too much about the inner workings of the main character's mind, not to mention his libido, and not enough about the real issues involved, as a result of the initial action (which is based on historical fact). It might almost be said that the book was taken over from the author by the extremely powerful and overbearing main character, something which should not be allowed to happen. In some books, it happens that the author intrudes upon the text; in this one, the main character did and I don't think I have come across such a phenomenon before! Nevertheless, if one can pass through the overlong and seemingly endless passages to do with the various amorous relationships being considered, there is a good deal of interest underlying this work, which as I have said, is attempting to tell an important story. To this day (2009), Australia is still somewhat marked by its convict past, and the fact that many of the felons were transported more or less because they were poor, or simply unwanted, rather than being criminals in any sense, remains an important part of that overall history. So, full marks for attempting to tell the tale, but some reservations about the way it has been told, and at times, like the snake eating its tail, got lost altogether.