Reviews

Vinland by George Mackay Brown

kateslowreads's review against another edition

3.0

This book made me hope to revisit Scotland and make the journey up to Orkney this trip, with beautiful descriptions of the ocean and the daily hardships and joys the islanders experienced.

However, I found the path the story took with the main character in the latter half of the book to be a bit frustrating. It seemed at a turning point when I really expected closure from Ranald setting out to sea again, he instead became a hermit and isolated himself from his family. To me, the reason why he had never returned to the sea was so that he could take care of the farm and his family, but if he isolated them and didn’t take care of them anyway, why did he stay on land?

Maybe I didn’t understand what the author intended. Parts of it were so lovely, but I lost my patience with the book in the latter half.

elenajoy's review

adventurous informative reflective slow-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

avid_d's review

3.0

An unusual read - written in a pseudo viking saga style.

I didn't love it but I did enjoy reading it.

helenmcclory's review

3.0

A saga-like story, crisp and compelling, but not exactly what I wanted at the time. My review here: http://schietree.wordpress.com/2012/02/28/endless-reads-review-vinland-by-george-mackay-brown/