The Postcolonial Historical Novel Realism, Allegory, and the Representation of Contested Pasts

At first sight, Richard Flanagans Goulds Book of Fish (2001) may appear impossible to reconcile with a critical-theoretical account of the postcolonial historical novel predicated on realism. This ironic and self-reflexive novel violates conventions of verisimilitude, combining a satirical account of contemporary Tasmanian malaise with a secret history of the island that includes impossible events and supernatural phenomena.1 It purports to be the transcribed manuscript of a convict journal written in blood, squid-ink and powdered gemstones by William Buelow Gould, a historically documented painter who in 1827 was imprisoned at the remote Sarah Island penal station. Gould narrates the rise and fall of the Commandant, a megalomaniacal naval imposter who transforms the prison into an independent city-state modelled on Renaissance Venice. Compelled to assist the political and scientific ambitions of Sarah Islands ruling class, Gould witnesses representative instances of the horrors of Vandemonian history, including the extermination of Indigenous Tasmanians and the brutal exploitation of convicts, until a catastrophic fire and military coup destroy the settlement. The opening chapter relates how Goulds manuscript, illustrated throughout with authentic watercolour fish-paintings created by the real Gould and now held in the State Library of Tasmania, is discovered in twentieth-century Hobart by a forger of fake antiques called Sid Hammet whose name alludes to Cervantes spurious Moorish source for Don Quixote.