The Unknown Terrorist

Recently for my English Course in college, I had to read a novel title "The Unknown Terrorist" by Richard Flanagan. The book was aimed to depict areas of Australian society using a fictional story. The main topics covered were media, government, terrorism and gender in Australia. The novel set forth a very pesemistic view on Australian society. The main character in the story was a pole dancer who ran by the nick name "The Doll". She was one of the several women named over the course of the story and made a living through pole dancing. This woman derived from the non desired suburbs of Sydney and found a "better" life in the rich areas.

The Doll ended up sleeping with a man she met at the Mardi Gras. Later the man named "Tariq" was accused of terrorism and people smuggling and low and behold took the shape of Böll's Verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum. The Doll after sleeping with the stranger is accused of being an accomplance and spends her last 4 days on the run before being shot dead.

The plot of the story lacks interest and the main threshhols is in the themes, ideas and values of the author. Firstly the media and government of Australia are described as corrupt bodies that only work to help themselves. Now this seems a very generalized opinion to assume that all members of such groups are part of a dishonest firm. To accept such ideas would be to scorn Australias journalists ethical code and to degrade Australian society.

At first Flanagans opinions on the media and government had some effect on me. The power and influence of the media seemed at first scary however as the novel progressed the realism was stretched to a point where it was non beliavable. The main journalist in the novel, Richard Cody sentenced "The Doll" to her death through a contreversial article on the terms of wanting a promotion with a Hit article. This to me came across very unbeliavable and judgemental to represent Australian journalist in this form.

The next main issue covered in the text was the roles of gender in Australian society. The author used a minority of characters to classify all Australians. In the novel there were 3 females and around 4 men who were used to stereotype all Australians. This seemed closed minded and rather unbelivable especially as most characters displayed similiar persona's and shared similiar goals, greeds and values. All men were represented as rich, un ethical and selfish whereas the females were shown to be independent, lack of need for men and money hungry.

This seemed a very negative outlook on Australia as many males and females I interacted with, differed from these descriptions bestoved upon Australians. To me it seemed as if Flanagan had met some sour people in his time and felt condemned to symbolize the majority of Australians like this.

This book did not stand well with my views as it catogorized life and depictided it as a predictible journey on which you will meet simiar characters and little joy. To me life so far has displayed, diversity, un-predictability and lots of joy and this novel failed to portray Australian society in a realistic manner