Book Group Discussion: Beside the Ocean of Time
9 watchers
Nov 2016
12:21pm, 16 Nov 2016
1,742 posts
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DazTheSlug
books that are a-series-of-short-stories-masquerading-as-a-novel normally give me the "right hump" but this one didn't! I liked the simple style (leavened with just right amount of poetical/flowery bits), it was short (so didn't outlive its welcome), and the stories were linked wrt Thorfinn's life/history of the island I think I liked the "selkie bride" story best - a bog-standard folktale, but given remarkably fresh/engaging life a solid 4-Star on the Goodreads scale, equates directly to 8/10 in our poll |
Nov 2016
12:56pm, 16 Nov 2016
87,111 posts
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GregP
Nice review. I don't particularly agree - I only really liked the "A man's life" interlude - but I understand your POV.
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Nov 2016
1:50pm, 16 Nov 2016
1,369 posts
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westmoors
I'm still on the fence with this one.
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Nov 2016
3:22pm, 26 Nov 2016
6,983 posts
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Little Nemo - this kitten can
It was an easy read and because each chapter was almost a stand-alone short story if one of them was a bit boring you knew another one would be along shortly. I found the first two stories not so interesting as they read almost as children's fiction. V. straightforward story telling but almost no internal dialogue which made them slightly flat. I enjoyed the chapter about the life of the old man seen as a day and the one with the seal-woman much better. I felt the last chapter fell away a bit, perhaps because it covered such a long period of time. It was a nice ending though. Some of his writing was lovely, perhaps that's his poetry showing through. And it was good to get some historical background to the Orkneys which is something I don't know a great deal about. I'm not sure if I'd try another one of his books, probably only if they were in the library. This is not going to be a novel that stands out in my mind, but I think I'll remember some of the images from it. The thing I'm most wondering about is did the author write the books he was describing? Maybe he wrote historical novels under a pseudonym and this was a way of working out his regret over them. I gave this book a 7. |
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Nov 2016
3:28pm, 26 Nov 2016
6,984 posts
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Little Nemo - this kitten can
I wrote above before reading the thread so I wouldn't be influenced by anyone else's review. Interesting to see that it's the man's life in a day and the selkie-bride parts that people most enjoy.
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Nov 2016
4:03pm, 26 Nov 2016
87,458 posts
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GregP
Just the man's life in a day for me. Didn't like the selfie-bride thing at all. There's a faint tang of misogyny underpinning the whole work I feel,
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Nov 2016
4:18pm, 26 Nov 2016
6,989 posts
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Little Nemo - this kitten can
I didn't notice any misogyny myself. It was definitely mainly about men and had some old fashioned attitudes but I thought it was a reflection of the times it was writing about.
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Nov 2016
8:11pm, 26 Nov 2016
759 posts
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Serendippily
It got over for me how life seems to jog along endlessly and then one day it's all covered in concrete and that phase is over and it's not even the main event. I thought the writing in the run up was deliberately child like. So it resonated with me 
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Nov 2016
6:17pm, 30 Nov 2016
18,913 posts
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Diogenes
Well, much to my surprise as I didn't think I was going to be in tune with what I expected to be a piece of Celtic whimsy, I found myself absolutely loving this book by the end and absolutely at one with its spirit. I felt that it did hold together as a novel and that part of its quality was the way the strands were part of a larger piece, and the way the style and the stories developed and matured as Ragnar got older. The child became a man and his tales became novels, the idle dreamer became a man who made his dreams came true, and also a practical man able to patch a boat and live off a barren land. I thought he was partially good on death, and there were a couple of passages that also made me well up - I'll post them up when I'm not typing on my phone - and I also loved the romanticism that came through in the end. The Orcadian landscape and lifestyle are so beautifully evoked that it makes it all the more distressing when farms and crofts are tarmacked over for the airfield, houses requisitioned, and people displaced. One of my favourite sections is also A Man's Life, but I really liked each chapter after the first two, especially The Muse. I'm giving it a 9 on the poll. |
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Nov 2016
6:19pm, 30 Nov 2016
18,914 posts
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Diogenes
particularly not partially
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