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betweenthelinesbookclub's review against another edition
1.0
Naomi J Williams' debut novel, Landfalls, was certainly not a perfect storm, more of a storm in a teacup for me. If your a history buff and hold an interest in this subject, it may appeal to you more. Williams has obviously researched the subject well and she portrays many emotions through the different characters. I had no previous knowledge of the events and think this is maybe why the book didn't keep me interested.
Thank you NetGalley for providing me with a free copy for an honest review!
Thank you NetGalley for providing me with a free copy for an honest review!
midwinterreads's review
adventurous
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
juliechristinejohnson's review
5.0
So recently set adrift by two novels with multiple points-of-view, each chapter taking me through my paces with a new voice, each novel leaving me parched for emotional resonance as though I were desperate sailor drinking sea water, I thought, 'No, not again," when I embarked upon this voyage with Naomi J. Williams and her debut Landfalls.
Okay, I'll stop with the silly seafaring metaphors.
But I won't stop raving about this unputdownable tour de force, crashingly good, tsunami of a novel.
Williams offers a kaleidoscopic view of the ill-fated Lapérouse expedition of 1785-89, which saw two frigates filled with over two hundred men attempt a circumnavigation of the globe for the glory of science, human endurance, and the maritime prowess of France. With each chapter the kaleidoscope shifts, offering a different perspective—from seaman to scientist, Tlingit child to French castaway. Several of the chapters were published as short stories and in many ways this novel is a collection of individual works, as Williams leaps nimbly from voice, perspective, and style. Yet with each landfall, the threads of characters' lives are woven through the narrative, connecting each part to all those which precede it and the underlying tension of a well-paced thriller holds you fast. The author frames a daring, complicated structure and shores it up, page after page, with a gripping, marvelously inventive, and historically solid story.
The scope of Williams's research is breathtaking yet, like modern masters of the form Mary Doria Russell, Hilary Mantel, David Mitchell, you are drawn naturally, unresistingly into a distant era by flesh-and-blood characters. Heartstrings are pulled in the opening pages and are never released, until the gasping end. There is humor and irony, violence and tragedy, longing and despair. I greedily devoured the pages of a dreamlike obsession with a child bride at a Chilean outpost, gasped at the crystalline and savage beauty of Alaska, burned with anger over sadistic priests on the California coast, mourned love found and lost during the heartbreaking Siberian journey of a translator and his devoted bodyguard. The scope of history and setting, of character and voice and emotion, is nothing short of astonishing.
This is simply the best of what historical fiction can be: a voyage of discovery that speaks to the imagination and the heart, swallowing the reader whole like a literary whale.
Okay, I'll stop with the silly seafaring metaphors.
But I won't stop raving about this unputdownable tour de force, crashingly good, tsunami of a novel.
Williams offers a kaleidoscopic view of the ill-fated Lapérouse expedition of 1785-89, which saw two frigates filled with over two hundred men attempt a circumnavigation of the globe for the glory of science, human endurance, and the maritime prowess of France. With each chapter the kaleidoscope shifts, offering a different perspective—from seaman to scientist, Tlingit child to French castaway. Several of the chapters were published as short stories and in many ways this novel is a collection of individual works, as Williams leaps nimbly from voice, perspective, and style. Yet with each landfall, the threads of characters' lives are woven through the narrative, connecting each part to all those which precede it and the underlying tension of a well-paced thriller holds you fast. The author frames a daring, complicated structure and shores it up, page after page, with a gripping, marvelously inventive, and historically solid story.
The scope of Williams's research is breathtaking yet, like modern masters of the form Mary Doria Russell, Hilary Mantel, David Mitchell, you are drawn naturally, unresistingly into a distant era by flesh-and-blood characters. Heartstrings are pulled in the opening pages and are never released, until the gasping end. There is humor and irony, violence and tragedy, longing and despair. I greedily devoured the pages of a dreamlike obsession with a child bride at a Chilean outpost, gasped at the crystalline and savage beauty of Alaska, burned with anger over sadistic priests on the California coast, mourned love found and lost during the heartbreaking Siberian journey of a translator and his devoted bodyguard. The scope of history and setting, of character and voice and emotion, is nothing short of astonishing.
This is simply the best of what historical fiction can be: a voyage of discovery that speaks to the imagination and the heart, swallowing the reader whole like a literary whale.
janeinbc's review
4.0
A thoroughly enjoyable fictionalization of an actual French expedition in the 1780s. The expedition comprised of two ships and over 200 men. It was to rival Captain Cook's in their circumnavigation of the globe. The tale is told from various overlapping and differing perspective by men on the ship as well as a few women off of it. I felt that Williams did an excellent job with her historical research and it was folded well into this novel's retelling of this actual maritime adventure.
balancinghistorybooks's review
2.0
Naomi J. Williams' Landfalls was my final choice on my Around the World in 80 Books challenge journey. I selected the novel, which takes place in several geographical locations - 'From the remote Alaskan bay, where a dreadful tragedy unfolds, to the wild journey Barthelemy de Lesseps undertakes from the far east of Russia to St Petersburg' - as my Pacific Islands choice. I did not really know what to expect with the novel; whilst I love stories of exploration, I have been rather disappointed with similar tomes in the past. The blurb, however, did intrigue me, promising to take me along on 'an epic voyage, undertaken with the grandest of ambitions.'
Landfalls begins in 1785, and tracks many different characters who are connected in various ways with the real-life four-year long French government-backed expedition. Williams tells us, as she introduces some of the novel's characters, that 'this is to be a voyage of scientific and geographical discovery - but every person on board has their own hopes, ambitions and dreams.' The first chapter begins in spring of this year, at the French port of Brest. The voyage, which is being prepared at this point, is 'meant to compete with the accomplishments of the late Captain Cook, a voyage that is supposed to be secret until it departs.'
Williams' writing is intelligent; whilst the descriptions are sadly few and far between, the prose seems very natural, and the third person perspective which has been used for several of the chapters sits well with the myriad stories which unfold. I found it rather problematic after a while that each chapter employs a different narrative style. The first is relatively fragmented, and others are long streams of prose given in the third or first person perspectives. The structure feels effective at first, but as the novel goes on, it is rather a jarring technique.
The use of so many different narrative voices and characters almost made the novel feel like an interlinked short story collection. Whilst rather a rich and multilayered story is created, I personally enjoyed and connected with some of the chapters, but not with others. My interest waned when the particular story which Williams was telling did not grab me at all. Despite the way in which Williams based this novel upon a real expedition, the characters felt largely unrealistic, and two-dimensional.
Landfalls has been meticulously researched. It is an ambitious novel, particularly for a debut. Sadly, I did not find the book an immersive one; as soon as I became interested in a particular character or thread of the story, it would end - sometimes quite abruptly - and something entirely different would be focused upon. There was an imbalance here.
I felt as though Landfalls had far more potential than was realised, and the reading experience was slow and not overly enjoyable. Williams seems to subscribe far more to 'tell, don't show' than I personally like in my fiction; no vivid pictures were created, or even attempted here, despite the exotic and varied locales which Williams had at her disposal. The novel did not come together for me; it felt as though several loose ends had not been tied up, and the detachment which was present in most of the chapters did not endear me to the novel or its characters. There was not enough emotion here; whilst Williams sets out to show the effects such a voyage would have had on myriad characters, there is no real depth of feeling to be found within the pages of Landfalls.
Landfalls begins in 1785, and tracks many different characters who are connected in various ways with the real-life four-year long French government-backed expedition. Williams tells us, as she introduces some of the novel's characters, that 'this is to be a voyage of scientific and geographical discovery - but every person on board has their own hopes, ambitions and dreams.' The first chapter begins in spring of this year, at the French port of Brest. The voyage, which is being prepared at this point, is 'meant to compete with the accomplishments of the late Captain Cook, a voyage that is supposed to be secret until it departs.'
Williams' writing is intelligent; whilst the descriptions are sadly few and far between, the prose seems very natural, and the third person perspective which has been used for several of the chapters sits well with the myriad stories which unfold. I found it rather problematic after a while that each chapter employs a different narrative style. The first is relatively fragmented, and others are long streams of prose given in the third or first person perspectives. The structure feels effective at first, but as the novel goes on, it is rather a jarring technique.
The use of so many different narrative voices and characters almost made the novel feel like an interlinked short story collection. Whilst rather a rich and multilayered story is created, I personally enjoyed and connected with some of the chapters, but not with others. My interest waned when the particular story which Williams was telling did not grab me at all. Despite the way in which Williams based this novel upon a real expedition, the characters felt largely unrealistic, and two-dimensional.
Landfalls has been meticulously researched. It is an ambitious novel, particularly for a debut. Sadly, I did not find the book an immersive one; as soon as I became interested in a particular character or thread of the story, it would end - sometimes quite abruptly - and something entirely different would be focused upon. There was an imbalance here.
I felt as though Landfalls had far more potential than was realised, and the reading experience was slow and not overly enjoyable. Williams seems to subscribe far more to 'tell, don't show' than I personally like in my fiction; no vivid pictures were created, or even attempted here, despite the exotic and varied locales which Williams had at her disposal. The novel did not come together for me; it felt as though several loose ends had not been tied up, and the detachment which was present in most of the chapters did not endear me to the novel or its characters. There was not enough emotion here; whilst Williams sets out to show the effects such a voyage would have had on myriad characters, there is no real depth of feeling to be found within the pages of Landfalls.
timshel's review
3.0
I was really attracted to this book. From the beautiful cover to the promising description (“grounded in historical fact . . . refracted through a powerful imagination”), Landfalls appeared to me a definite win. Then it went nowhere for me. That is to say, it was incredibly dry, which is ironic considering that this is a novel at sea, but—a ha!—'tis not a novel at sea at all, but a collection of stories that occur when the sea voyager is docked, a fact that should be obvious by the blatant title but wasn't clear to me until the third chapter or so. That sentence feels like it needs several exclamation points, doesn't it? Okay, let's go back. ...wasn't clear to me until the third chapter or so!(!!)!! Doesn't have the same effect now, does it? Okay, moving on.
So reading Landfalls had its ups and downs. Many of these stories didn't resonate with me. Some really did. But I think the book's greatest flaw is its very concept, that of focusing only on the landfalls of the Lapérouse expedition. Seafaring voyages are made by what happens at sea, not on land. On land, the characters are not stretched in the same way. The reader doesn't really get to know these characters and how they have interacted and grown together. The characters are put at sea together and more than six months pass before their first landing. What happens in all this time? How have these men grown? How have they rallied together? How have they struggled with one another? These are the stories I want. Instead, what we're offered are the men's time cavorting with Spanish dignitaries and locals. Indeed, these moments are important too, but I feel like I'm missing a big chunk of the story. Frankly, for the most part, I had trouble differentiating the characters because I never really got to know them on the voyage. I felt like I was locked away in the hold of the ship, then, upon reaching land, I was released and allowed to follow whatever crewmember I wanted until the ship again disembarked. Then, the process was repeated over and again. By the end, I felt unsure of where I was in the world and who I'd spent all that time with.
As I stated earlier, there are definitely some strong moments in this novel. A few of the stories—particularly those where members of the crew interact with locals of a very different culture—are simply amazing. Throughout the book, the writing is flawless. Indeed, Williams is an exceptionally talented author. As a whole, however, Landfalls didn't keep me interested enough. I was promised magic, but what I was given did not shine.
So reading Landfalls had its ups and downs. Many of these stories didn't resonate with me. Some really did. But I think the book's greatest flaw is its very concept, that of focusing only on the landfalls of the Lapérouse expedition. Seafaring voyages are made by what happens at sea, not on land. On land, the characters are not stretched in the same way. The reader doesn't really get to know these characters and how they have interacted and grown together. The characters are put at sea together and more than six months pass before their first landing. What happens in all this time? How have these men grown? How have they rallied together? How have they struggled with one another? These are the stories I want. Instead, what we're offered are the men's time cavorting with Spanish dignitaries and locals. Indeed, these moments are important too, but I feel like I'm missing a big chunk of the story. Frankly, for the most part, I had trouble differentiating the characters because I never really got to know them on the voyage. I felt like I was locked away in the hold of the ship, then, upon reaching land, I was released and allowed to follow whatever crewmember I wanted until the ship again disembarked. Then, the process was repeated over and again. By the end, I felt unsure of where I was in the world and who I'd spent all that time with.
As I stated earlier, there are definitely some strong moments in this novel. A few of the stories—particularly those where members of the crew interact with locals of a very different culture—are simply amazing. Throughout the book, the writing is flawless. Indeed, Williams is an exceptionally talented author. As a whole, however, Landfalls didn't keep me interested enough. I was promised magic, but what I was given did not shine.
hdungey's review
2.0
DNF. Could not get into it, probably because I was expecting a little more action and swashbuckling (more along the lines of Patrick O'Brien) and it's more talk, relationships, and the story is fairly diffused among a number of characters.
kater's review
5.0
I loved this book. Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover - found this on a shelf at the library, thought it looked good and the summary sounded interesting. Before I read this my total knowledge about Lapérouse and his voyage was that he arrived in Sydney shortly after the first fleet and there are some areas that are named after him.
And then I became entranced with this book and the stories of the times these explorers were on land. I dreamt of them, I mourned them when they died, even if they had already been long dead. I learnt about the different places they visited, their discoveries and the different cultures they ran into.
A well researched book that was very enjoyable.
And then I became entranced with this book and the stories of the times these explorers were on land. I dreamt of them, I mourned them when they died, even if they had already been long dead. I learnt about the different places they visited, their discoveries and the different cultures they ran into.
A well researched book that was very enjoyable.
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