The Book Depository The Unseen by Roy Jacobsen
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Price: £9.99
Brand: The Book Depository
Description: The Unseen : Paperback : Quercus Publishing : 9781848666108 : : 01 Jun 2017 : A group of children inherit an elemental paradise on earth in Roy Jacobsen's phenomenally bestselling new novel about love, poverty and tragedy in early twentieth century Norway. The Book Depository The Unseen by Roy Jacobsen - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk
Category: Books
Merchant: The Book Depository
Product ID: 9781848666108
MPN: 9781848666108
GTIN: 9781848666108
Author: BookWorm
Rating: 5
Review: This book is one of those that, if you described it, would sound dull. But it is far from that. The first two thirds detail the life of a family living on a tiny island off the Norwegian coast in the early 20th century. The island is so small just the one family live there, scratching a living through fishing and farming. The story spans the childhood of Ingrid, from the age of four until her teenage years, when she is sent off to the town on the mainland to work as a housemaid. The story encompasses all of the characters on the island equally though so it's not really a book about Ingrid in particular. The last part of the book is concerned with the events after Ingrid leaves and her eventual return to the island. I think the story must be well translated because the short and deceptively simple sentence structure comes across well. It's one of those books that you can't put down, yet can't explain why it is so compelling and engrossing. The depiction of a very different way of life is fascinating, the characters are interesting and believable, and the chapters flow at just the right pace. The characters' speech is rendered phonetically in a way that sounds a bit Scottish - I guess this is the translator's attempt to reflect whatever the original used but in English. It's well done in that it's still readable and it creates the same impression of people who don't speak grandly that I presume the author conjured up in the original Norwegian. I sometimes get bored with literary novels as so many are overlong, overwordy or pretentious. But Jacobsen's work is none of those things. He doesn't waste words and he conjures up a strong sense of place. I'd highly recommend this book to readers in general. Also his novel 'The Town of Burned Out Miracles' is another excellent read and worth trying if you enjoyed this.
Author: C. A. Foster
Rating: 2
Review: Couldn't finish it. Man. I was passionately curious about island life before I started this book. I made it about 100 pages. Sure it has the modern feel "nothing means anything", which is drab enough, but each chapter has one arbitrary topic (e.g. someone finds a telescope) that is slowly made boring until it is put down without fanfare and the next object is grabbed at. And I love Dostoevsky, Ulysses, and such. I can handle long religious conversations, or just plain not knowing what the hell is going on. This book... it is written concise, and the author makes some very sage short statements, but they tend to come one per chapter and leave you wondering, if that's the pearl, what exactly is the rest of all that shuffling around for? On the cover it says "Easily among the best books I have ever read." What a statement! Why did they say that?
