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flying_monkey's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
This is one of the most beautifully written books I've read for a long time. There are sentences that make you stop in your tracks and read them again, and not just one or two - the whole book is filled with powerful pithy or occasionally laugh-out-loud phrases, often cutting character sketches and pungent description. At its heart it's the story of two ageing British drifters, Shaw and Victoria, neither of whom really know what they are doing with their lives, which are almost entirely empty of meaning, ready to be filled by whatever they encounter, however pitiful that is. For a while that is each other, as they pursue a half-hearted relationship in Shaw's desultory and damp bedsit, but then they drift apart, with Victoria inheriting her late mother's house in a small castle town in the Welsh borders, complete with her mother's strange friends and neighbours. Water is everywhere in this book. Shaw's life is governed by the Thames, by canals, London ponds and his boss's obsession with a conspiracy theory about the aquatic origins of humanity; Victoria's by the River Seven which curves around her new home town, by saturated fields, by rain, endless rain and by visions of her new friends disappearing into strange lakes. Nothing much happens until there's a weird and brutal crime towards the end of the book that is neither predictable nor resolving , there's no plot as such, just a feeling of damp uneasiness. When you've finished, you don't know exactly what you've just read or whether it was worth it.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Mental illness
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