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A review by saralynnburnett
Castle of Water by Dane Huckelbridge
5.0
Where do I even begin with this book? First of all, I had (still have…) a major work project due so I needed something to escape into during breaks and settled on this classic castaway story but then 2 pages in I didn’t stop reading. I could NOT put this book down. So here I am a day later, no further towards completing that aforementioned work project but in the last 24 hours I have laughed, cried, stopped breathing, started breathing again, nodded along, thrown this book, cradled this book, and googled lots of pictures of random Pacific islands.
There’s nothing surprising about this story – it’s a castaway story and set not *that* far from the castaway story we all know (Tom Hanks / Wilson the football etc - Fiji area vs. Tahiti area) but it was so much more than that. It was beautifully written and seamlessly combined all the trappings of French-American bohemianism with survivalist knowledge, research (you didn’t know about the equatorial counter current either?), and dry humor on a gorgeous island in the vast Pacific.
I’ve often said that if I end up a castaway on a deserted island and got to bring something it would be books… well this book shows that all you really need is the company of someone who appreciates western literary traditions, adventure, and Paul Gauguin as much as you do.
Plus, it was SO refreshing to read a book with a fun / great story that isn’t dumbed down (fact: most mainstream novels, even in the literary fiction category, are written at a 5-6th grade reading level. Fact: a writing craft book I recently read recommended keeping that in mind. Fact: Dane Huckelbridge did not keep that in mind, thank goodness, and did it all without sounding odiously pretentious which is a total feat considering the author graduated from Princeton, wears tweed, and lives in Paris). I found myself reaching for my dictionary app a few times, marveling in the sentence structure, narrative structure, and missing the classic literature I grew up on.
I need more books like this in my life pronto.
There’s nothing surprising about this story – it’s a castaway story and set not *that* far from the castaway story we all know (Tom Hanks / Wilson the football etc - Fiji area vs. Tahiti area) but it was so much more than that. It was beautifully written and seamlessly combined all the trappings of French-American bohemianism with survivalist knowledge, research (you didn’t know about the equatorial counter current either?), and dry humor on a gorgeous island in the vast Pacific.
I’ve often said that if I end up a castaway on a deserted island and got to bring something it would be books… well this book shows that all you really need is the company of someone who appreciates western literary traditions, adventure, and Paul Gauguin as much as you do.
Plus, it was SO refreshing to read a book with a fun / great story that isn’t dumbed down (fact: most mainstream novels, even in the literary fiction category, are written at a 5-6th grade reading level. Fact: a writing craft book I recently read recommended keeping that in mind. Fact: Dane Huckelbridge did not keep that in mind, thank goodness, and did it all without sounding odiously pretentious which is a total feat considering the author graduated from Princeton, wears tweed, and lives in Paris). I found myself reaching for my dictionary app a few times, marveling in the sentence structure, narrative structure, and missing the classic literature I grew up on.
I need more books like this in my life pronto.