Sir John Franklin, sailor, Arctic explorer and former Governor of Tasmania

[ozfille]

I listened to an episode of a book reading of The Discovery of Slowness by Sten Nadolny.

The book is described on the site as being  a fictionalised meditation upon Sir John's life which takes the biographical facts and creates a richly-imagined inner world for this great man.

If you want to listen to the episodes already broadcast you can by going

Comments

[caduceus]

Hi!
Thanks for that awesome link - I've read Nadolny's book before and loved every sentence of it! Fortunately for us, if you search for "The Discovery of Slowness" among the other past programs, you can still find episodes 1 and 2 here. (At least I hope that this link will work - if not, just type the title into the search box and it should pop up (at least for a while, they seem to keep their past programs for up to eight weeks...).
Hope that helps! *goes back to listening*

[ozfille]

Oh, thanks for that. I'll go back and listen to the first two episodes.

[ozfille]

Well Flinders was his uncle. *g* Wasn't Nelson a middie on his uncle's ship?

They obviously liked to keep it all in the family.

[ozfille]

I suppose it was understandable in that at the time it was seen as a way of earning a very good income admittedly with a fair amount of risk but the potential wealth and increase in social status if you were a successful naval officer certainly made it worthwhile. And if you had a relo to help you make your way onto the quarterdeck I'm sure many families would pressure them to take on a young nephew.