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A review by tony
Ring of Bright Water by Gavin Maxwell
4.0
I almost abandoned this after the first couple of chapters. The tale of Maxwell moving to the remove Scottish highlands (by a slightly circuitous route involving buying a whole island for an ill-fated shark-catching business venture), with only his dog for company, was pleasant enough, but generally rather dull. After reading a few reviews that said things pick up after a few chapters, I decided to stick it out a while longer. For any future readers pondering the same question, I’d like to be much more specific: Things start getting interesting in Chapter 6, and really get going in Chapter 7. Feel free to skip everything before that. You’ll miss a tiny bit of context, but the book is written by a somewhat unreliable narrator[1], and jumps about quite oddly at times anyway.
The remainder of the book, taken simply at face value, is delightful. His sheer joy at having an otter, not so much as a pet (he comes to discover rather quickly that otters aren’t like dogs: “they co-exist with humans rather than being owned by them”), but as the most important relationship in his life, is infectious, and it’s no surprise that this book seemingly created an entire generation of naturalists.
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[1] Kathleen Raine jarringly gets a one sentence passing reference half-way through that makes it clear she was a hugely important figure in the story, but otherwise is excised entirely.
The remainder of the book, taken simply at face value, is delightful. His sheer joy at having an otter, not so much as a pet (he comes to discover rather quickly that otters aren’t like dogs: “they co-exist with humans rather than being owned by them”), but as the most important relationship in his life, is infectious, and it’s no surprise that this book seemingly created an entire generation of naturalists.
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[1] Kathleen Raine jarringly gets a one sentence passing reference half-way through that makes it clear she was a hugely important figure in the story, but otherwise is excised entirely.