A review by angelayoung
A Year of Marvellous Ways by Sarah Winman

5.0

If I could give A Year of Marvellous Ways 100 stars I would. Its combination of magical realism, poetic prose, compelling storyline, witty wordplay (just two: Amber Lynn and St Ophere - you'll have to read the novel to find out), fantastic (in all senses) characters, sheer beauty and prose that rises and falls with the rhythm of the sea is breathtaking. I didn't want to stop reading it and I'd love to have written it. Of all three of Sarah Winman's novels (so far) this is my favourite. And one other small but good thing: there are no quotation marks round the dialogue which makes for a freer flow, makes what the characters say absolutely integral to who they are.

Here, in no particular order, and without giving the plot away, are a few extracts to show you why I feel the way I feel about A Year of Marvellous Ways:

She chose the tides well and kept great pace with the out-haul of the sea. It was quite beautiful. Masthead lights rose and fell like wounded stars in the darkness.

It wasn't the sound of silence pressing against his ears, but something different, something else. Something that made his guts stir, made them twist ... he felt his heart lurch. ... he stumbled as he turned. It wasn't the sound of silence, but the sound of absence.

A dream lined up to take flight across her sleep, a dream that would deposit two images, at last, to the door of her mind: the image of a linnet, tentative and free, flying across the Thames with a chest full of song. The image of a young man looking towards a horizon that promised nothing.

A doctor tending a sick but wise woman says:

I said I thought it was pneumonia. I said, Open your mouth. She said, Open your mind. ... Every day she told me about her life and the river ... and on the last day I took out my stethoscope and listened to her breathing. There was no pneumonia, no hysteria. Just the sound of deep sorrow. It was the first time I had ever made such a diagnosis.

A Year of Marvellous Ways is a great hymn of a novel. Read it. You must.