I'm afraid I found this book pretty hard going. I wanted to like it, but in the end I didn't find it nearly as profound or beautiful as it thinks it is.
The story is really about the healing of broken lives and spirits. It concerns Francis Drake, a war-damaged ex-soldier in 1947, who returns to England and, by various means, ends up living in an isolated Cornish river inlet with 89-year-old Marvellous Ways, a wise old woman with considerable Second Sight and a Story Of Her Own needing resolution. Their two life histories emerge slowly in the narrative, as do those of two other characters who appear later, as they all strive for healing and hope in the semi-magical landscape and in the wisdom and insight of Marvellous Ways.
This is a perfectly decent basis for a story and character study. I am in sympathy with its message of finding the depth in things, finding the depth in yourself and putting that depth into what you say and do. I have spent a lot of time in Cornwall and in its more secret places, and I think it truly is a healing, almost magical place. All of this should have made me like this book a lot, but I'm sorry to say that I don't think it is well enough done to make it really work.
The book is written in heightened language almost throughout, which may be an appropriate idea but doesn't quite succeed. I began to feel as though I was wading through treacle after a while, with lots of bits like this, for example: "The hamlet was eerily deserted. It was so quiet he could hear the mercury drop in that still air of yesteryear." This sounds very atmospheric and profound, but "hear the mercury drop"? I know it's not to be taken literally, but it's pushing hyper-reality a bit far for me. Or this, later on: "...then a shyness took hold, a shyness so acute that at the height of summer even her shadow refused to go out and play." It's intended to be profound and evocative, but I'm afraid I just found it strained and a bit silly.
I found this a lot, with a great deal of rather mannered Fine Writing but a content which shifts, disperses and often vanishes as you look at it. It isn't helped by Marvellous telling her stories at length in a voice isn't that of a woman born in 1858 and speaking in 1947, but the author's own, modern, Fine Writing, narrative voice, which threw me further out of the story.
I'm sorry to be grumpy about this book. There's more I could say about anachronisms and use of language, but I'll stop. I really thought there was lots of Style here but a good deal less insight than meets the eye, and that the style itself was mannered and, in the end, rather irritating. I know that we are supposed to find books like this Beautiful, Profound And Uplifting, but I didn't, and had to slog my way to the (rather predictable) end. Others may enjoy this more than I did, but personally I can't recommend it.
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