GatesyRead

I bought the hardback of Amos Oz's Between Friends (2012) this year from a good bookstore, on sale for $5. I felt a bit sad buying the book at this price, like a man taking pity on a stray dog at the pound of some undoubtedly good pedigree, misplaced. And that feeling of melancholy lasted with me as I read the book, the fourth I have read by the Israeli writer, peacemaker, and intellectual. This is a short book so I will tell a little of my other readings first. Black Box (1988) is written as a series of letters between divorcees with shared responsibility for their son, Boaz. Just having a character, Alec, as a university professor, travelling between locations as part of the correspondence introduces a political and social complexity. It’s an intellectual book about emotional issues; something that fills me with envy as a writer. In the Land of Oz (1983; 1993) is a memoir of voices of Israel and the West Bank from the 1980s – of both and all sides (if you can see that paradox

I am very intrigued by writers who seem to be able to shift gears so dramatically. Richard Flanagan’s The Unknown Terrorist is like a Stephen King novel, skilfully written as a genre piece, almost with the trace of the author’s style. If you are a fan of Flanagan’s earlier books, particularly Death of a River Guide and Gould’s Book of Fish, then you will scarcely recognise the prose. But form suits the message here. Flanagan is writing for a wider audience, and he wants to give them a very clear message: we construct our own monsters, from our own fears. This is a case of using a popular form of fiction to portray an unpopular idea; the irrational fears that beset us make us vulnerable to manipulation by government agencies bent on power, and media outlets bent on profit. I wondered whether the title, ‘The Unknown Terrorist’ is something of a play on W. H. Auden’s famous poem, ‘The Unknown Citizen’. Auden writes about a man who has done nothing wrong, and indeed, is a modern saint