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3.68 AVERAGE
3.68 AVERAGE
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
marvelous! so glad i found this author. this is my third book of his and i have not been disappointed even once. here we have a patchwork of stories that become a grand quilt of humanness. the stories are devastating, humorous, and malignant. the storytelling is grand, the characters vivid, and the writing gorgeous.
64: From a Low and Quiet Sea by Donal Ryan...whose works I first read a year ago when we were preparing to travel to Ireland. I'm a tad sad this time around that I don't have a trip quite like that to read for. I completely disagree with the blurbs on this book's cover that talk about this book being quite humorous...I think one even says, "hilarious." I found the book, overall, to be nearly 100% the opposite and to be presenting, instead, the idea that every one of us carries a grief of some kind. Ryan suggests that everyone (at least every character in this book) has some cross to bear, some real, painful, daily struggle. I do find the book overall to be very clever and creative in presentation, and I did value what I would call, quickly, a pretzel of organization to the stories contained in this book, as they are all valuably intertwined, and demand close reading and thoughtful "work" to recognize that. I liked that, though, that different perspectives of the same story--or at least a story's results--were shared throughout. It does make me wish I had done more (any) work to meet Ryan when we were in Limerick and visiting the university. He's a smart and talented author!
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Donal Ryan is an incredible writer with undeniably gorgeous prose and fantastic character voice. His quirk is that he builds his "novels" from disconnected chapters, almost like short stories, narrated by different characters. In the first book I read by Ryan, [b:The Spinning Heart|15995144|The Spinning Heart|Donal Ryan|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1349169242s/15995144.jpg|21753684], there were 21 of these narrators, too many in my personal opinion, so I was pleased to learn that this number is vastly reduced in From a Low and Quiet Sea. Unfortunately, I actually think Ryan pulled off the unusual structure better in The Spinning Heart, where there were little hints to the overall "novel" plot and how the stories linked together throughout forming a cohesive storyline of interlocking events. Here, however, the standout "story" which begins the book and is narrated by Farouk seems remarkably distant from the next two sections. Indeed, it is only in the forth and final section that the connections were finally revealed. More than that even, it was really just in the last few pages. This reveal seemed too unexpected and out of the blue for my tastes, and unfortunately really affected the strength of the middle two sections, in my opinion. A shame as I do love a lot that was here!
Beautiful writing, wonderful characters, lovely structure.
A bit of a cheat, but I'm commuting more these days so I thought I'd try to push through more of the 2018 Booker Prize longlist via the audiobook editions. Some of them are not suited for that though, such as the case in hand.
"From a Low and Quite Sea" is constructed as 3 seemingly independent stories which are then tied together by a concluding 4th story. The 1st story about a Syrian doctor named Farouk was the most immediately engrossing of these. I'll confess that the middle 2 stories of Lampy the bus-driver and John the retired accountant mostly just droned on past me, the only impressions being that Lampy was bullied as a child and John had an affair. I paid more attention to the conclusion in order hear the resolution but it all seemed rather banal in the end. I probably need to give this another chance in written form.
"From a Low and Quite Sea" is constructed as 3 seemingly independent stories which are then tied together by a concluding 4th story. The 1st story about a Syrian doctor named Farouk was the most immediately engrossing of these. I'll confess that the middle 2 stories of Lampy the bus-driver and John the retired accountant mostly just droned on past me, the only impressions being that Lampy was bullied as a child and John had an affair. I paid more attention to the conclusion in order hear the resolution but it all seemed rather banal in the end. I probably need to give this another chance in written form.
Heavy going but worth it. Now I have a confession to make. I used an audio book. Nothing strange in that except that I feel the emotion of the book really came to the fore. Speaking to some of my friends they didn't feel the same.
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
Yes
Structured into four distinct, yet interrelated sections, I'm not sure that this one played out as coherently as Ryan's first novel, The Spinning Heart. Ryan has done well in capturing a number of quite distinct voices, but the big twist/ reveal didn't really click with me.