The Sea Lady

by Margaret Drabble

This is the story of Humphrey Clark and Ailsa Kelman, who spent a summer together as children in Ornemouth, a town by the gray North Sea. As they journey back to Ornemouth to receive honorary degrees from a new university there—Humphrey on the train, Ailsa flying—they take stock of their lives over the past thirty years, their careers, and their shared personal entanglements. Humphrey is a successful marine biologist, happiest under water, but now retired; Ailsa, scholar and feminist, is celebrated for her pioneering studies of gender and for her gift for lucid and dramatic exposition. The memories of their lives unfold as Margaret Drabble exquisitely details the social life in England in the second half of the last century.

Genres: Fiction, British Literature, Literary Fiction, Literature, Feminism, Novels, Book Club

345 pages, Hardcover

First published May 7, 2006

About the author

Dame Margaret Drabble was born in Sheffield in 1939 and was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge. She is the author of eighteen novels including A Summer Bird-Cage, The Millstone, The Peppered Moth, The Red Queen, The Sea Lady and most recently, the highly acclaimed The Pure Gold Baby. She has also written biographies, screenplays and was the editor of the Oxford Companion to English Literature. She was appointed CBE in 1980, and made DBE in the 2008 Honours list. She was also awarded the 2011 Golden PEN Award for a Lifetime's Distinguished Service to Literature. She is married to the biographer Michael Holroyd.

Drabble famously has a long-running feud with her novelist sister, A.S. Byatt. The pair seldom see each other, and each does not read the books of the other.

Reviews

[Elaine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was really fine Drabble. Warmer and more optimistic than some of her work. And I enjoyed her clear, detailed and neither sentimental nor overly dramatic depiction of post-War British childhood. I hadn't read anything of hers that purported to be told from a child's viewpoint before, but she does it very well. My Year of Margarets continues!

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were decent stretches of this book that were readable and even engaging, if not invested with quite the intense profundity the author seemed to intend. The descriptions of postwar English childhood, and the northern seaside, were particularly good. But most of the book is annoyingly overwritten. The first appearance of the "Public Orator," a narrative device and apparently a winking indication of what the author considers her post-modern cleverness, almost had me hurling the book across the room in irritation. (Unfortunately, the device continues throughout the book; fortunately, it's only in very small doses, so it doesn't get in the way too much.) The ending of the book also fails to have anything like the significance the author seems to see in it: its mild "twist" seems disproportionately extraordinary and portentous to the characters (and, by implication, the author), and the constant references to death, rebirth, redemption, and so on seem unearned given the book's thinness. (This is not to say that this exaggerated melodrama was not foreshadowed by extravagant metaphor earlier in the book.) All in all, the book is far too overdone, and if the cover blurb's absolutely ludicrous comparison to Wordsworth is any indication, the author is not solely to blame for what seems to be her satisfaction with her own stylistic extravagance.

[Joan Colby · Rating 5 out of 5]

This wonderful complex and intelligent book illustrates the difference between a quick pleasant read and a truly masterly novel with complicated characters, rich detail, philosophical and esoteric observations, a compelling background and history, and the sort of progression that emanates from the characters rather than from an imposed plot. Examples of the asides include a wealth of detail on marine biology (the profession of Humphrey Clark, the main character) and feminie studies (the area engaged in by the other main character Ailsa).

[Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of my finest reading moments have occurred at this restaurant and my first Margaret Drabble book was started there. Her books are quiet books where not much happens externally. If you are a reader who likes plotting and lots of action she is not an author for you. Internally, however, there is so much going on in her books that it sometimes overwhelms a reader. For me, her books are small, perfect gems that resonate with me for years afterward.

[Callie · Rating 4 out of 5]

How have I not known about Margaret Drabble? She reminds me of Iris Murdoch and A.S. Byatt. Very British. Very Feminist. Very intellectual. Ooooh, you have to love all of those things, don't you? I think I liked the first part of the book the best--the description of the idyllic childhood summer when Humphrey Clark and Sandy Clegg caught fish and studied them and were lovely innocent precocious little boys together. And then Ailsa and her sly brother Tommy come along the next summer and ruin everything! At times I found it hard to believe that Humphrey could fall for Ailsa, she was a complicated and interesting character, but none too loveable. This is the kind of book you would want to read in a book group, for there is much to discuss here. Gender. In fish and in humans. Fish who change gender. Humans who don't fit their roles. Sometimes, Drabble's sea talk and sea metaphors seemed overdone, but that is a minor point.

Quotes:

"The richness of the unknown world was almost unbearable to him. Mighty, altruistic visions of sacrifice and glory and discovery swelled in him as he lay alone up in his attic room. The books were full of such promise,such large questions, such wild hope. He knew that he would try to solve the mysteries. It was his destiny."

"The problem, as I see it. . .is to do with teleology. We were all brought up in a teleological universe. We were brought up to believe that stories have meanings and that meanings have stories and that journeys have ends. We were brought up to believe that there would be an ending, that there would be completion. For each and every life, for each and every organism. But now we know that that's not true. It was true, once, but it's true no longer. We have passed the point in time and in history where that truth applies. The universe has shed the teleological fallacy. So now we have to work out what can take its place. We have to tell and shape our stories in another space, in another concept of space."

Many of the Orator's words were borrowed from Wordsworth, and Professor Clark knew them well.
Sandy Clegg would have given his right arm to be able to write words like those. He would have sawn it off himself with a hacksaw. But to write them, you have to feel them. To write them, you have to be pure of heart. To write them, you have to believe them.

[Paul The Uncommon Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Memories, fossils, rock pools

There was just enough mystery, just enough insightful reflection on the relationships we have with our own childhoods, a touch of exploration on what happens when staid, male academics meet live-wire, unhappy women – do opposites really attract or is it not more often bad chemistry? Or in this case, biology. Scientists and artists, male and female. There was just enough of these things to make this a very enjoyable and worthwhile book for me.

I liked how the time shifts re-enforced the impression of the flow of life – how memories and the interpreted and re-interpreted experiences that we have in childhood not only shape us, but, when we are old, provide a backdrop to and a way of explaining our lives. Dies are cast early on, and although these childhood experiences mix and mould with decisions that we take, the two together make for a fairly fatalistic, destiny-formed view of life. Thomas Hardy definitely came to mind:

“We cannot unweave, and remake. For chance and choice happen. They coincide, they coalesce, they mix, and then their joint outcome becomes as hard and as fixed as cement. Like a fossil in stone, it hardens, in its own indissoluble, immutable shape.”

And, even more pessimistically:

“How can old Professor Clark … how can he think for one moment that he has a hope, a chance, a possibility of redemption?”

The imagery of the sea, of cliffs and rock-pools reminded me of my own childhood. Beaches and tidal pools hold a peculiar fascination for all children. Can it be because it is from here that life first evolved?

There was something captured in here, something akin to the poetry of memory and how childhood memories are so integrated into our adult lives that often we don’t know that we are acting on them, because of them and in what ways our earliest memories make us who we are.

It was less a case of two people looking back ruefully at their losses and mistakes and the very fact that they suddenly find themselves to be old and have no idea where all the time went (though these things are important in the novel). It is more an attempt to isolate a few things that do actually make us human – our ability to remember and be conscious, our propensity for collecting things (biological historical facts, for example), and, above all our awareness of these things. Coupled with, or in some way negated by; or at least there is a paradox in there, our inability to really explain them. That science can only go so far before the mists of our evolved selves (in all senses of that phrase, i.e. ourselves and our ancestors) cloud issues and make us ultimately unexplainable.

A thoughtful and enjoyable read.

[Dottie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, I've given this time to percolate and then gone back to see what I said in discussing it and then percolated some more. Am I ready to write a review yet? Not quite. But I am moving it up to five stars from the four I gladly gave it at first blush.

I'll be back soon. See, back already.

Here goes -- this book was just 'okay' as it started out but I fell into it quickly enough. In looking back at my comments, I've decided that I fell into this for several reasons -- not the least of them is the fact that this is about people who are my contemporaries in age and stages of life and that the characters as written became very real people rather immediately -- a factor which I greatly appreciate in any book. I cared about the people in this book and they are lingering in my mind even now.

Secondly, this echoed a recent experience of my own when attending a reunion. I wasn't knowingly going to an encounter after many years with an old flame as was Ailsa but even so my experience resonated within the context of Ailsa and Sandy and Humphrey's stories. In meeting with a person whom I hadn't seen in 45 years, I heard a story from the person which was at direct odds with much of what I and others I know had recalled as being true of this individual; yet there were bits of the story as this person told it which rang small far-off bells in the far, cobwebbed corners of my memory -- I took that as a sign that I may have felt, known something back 45 years ago which would lend credence to those bits -- others, seemed to have no such response to what was said and to corroborate the overall impressions the group had held back then of this person. All very mysterious and vague.

Thirdly, the underlying themes which I took from the book were those of making a choice/decision or opting to make a choice by not deciding; random encounters, serendipitous events, and the resulting direction which one's life takes as a result and the multiples of which each of us human individuals is composed -- the person we are in our own eyes and the person we are in the eyes of every single other being with whom we have interaction in the course of our lives and the multiples of each of those persons as they are known by every being with whom they have interacted. See the connection to the encounter I mentioned above? So the question remains -- how well do we know either ourselves or the others who have been slightly or intricately involved in our lives?

This last item is one of my "soapbox" topics -- I am always ready to say that each person sees an event or a relationship or "X" in his or her own way and to propose that not even when two people/siblings are raised by the same two parents in the same household and go through the same gatherings/events and so on do those two (or more) siblings tell the same story of any one moment in their shared lives. This happens for many reasons -- and this author did a beautiful job of laying out this thesis and telling a marvelous and lovely story in the process.

Highly recommended.

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I confess I began reading Margaret Drabble's books because I wanted to understand the sister relations between her and A.S. Byatt and Iris Murdoch. Were they really like the sister characters in their novels? Which was which? Surely they couldn't ALL be that brilliant.

The details of their personal lives with each other have been successfully obscured for the most part, but they really are ALL that brilliant.

This novel follows a sad boy who becomes a famous marine biologist, and a controversial public intellectual who turns out to have known him when she was a girl. And, slowly, a third characters emerges, with some kind of mysterious semi-omnipotence, the "Public Orator." I'll resist explaining that character further, as it's such a delight the way Drabble shows her hand. The characters are magnificently drawn, and the world is exquisite.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Given how much I enjoyed Drabble's Seven Sisters, I found this effort even more disappointing. Though the book clearly deals with similar themes to Barnes' more recent Sense of an Ending, and also reminded me a bit of Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go in its rendering of childhood relationships, there is an extra layer of tedium here that makes the book seem more dolorous than introspective. This said, I found Drabble's musings on academia stunning and sometimes painfully emotionally accurate. But, these moments of true introspection weren't enough for me to buy into her otherwise repetitive refrains on growing old and endlessly lusting after ideas of youth and sexuality. Maybe, I guess, I'm just not old enough?

[Alisa · Rating 1 out of 5]

While I liked the book a bit more in the final 80 or so pages than the first 200, it simply wasn't that interesting and the conceit of the omniscient "Public Orator" was nothing more than annoying. The basic plot is that the two main characters, with an entangled past encompassing both childhood and romance, are winding their way toward meeting after not seeing one another for years. Frankly, neither character is interesting, which make for a long read.

[Bethany · Rating 2 out of 5]

Margaret's prose glimmered, but it just wasn't enough. I found Aisla to be a grotesque character, at least when it came to her actions; and I confess, I wasn't much interested in Humphrey. The only other of Maragaret Drabble's books I've read is The Millstone. That book was published in 1965; The Sea Lady was published in 2006. The difference was horribly apparent. I believe I shall stick to Margaret's earlier books after this... I think I prefer her when she's less explicit.

[Laurel-Rain · Rating 3 out of 5]

When two distinguished guests are invited to a special ceremony, they will be meeting for the first time in three decades. In fact, neither of the two knows for sure that the other will be there.

In the beginning moments of the book, we meet one of them who is at a different event, presenting an award-winning book. We see that she is used to the spotlight—she is even boldly dressed and seems confident in her place at the podium. This woman is Ailsa Kelman and she seems created for public life.

Then we focus on the other one—Humphrey Clark—who is traveling toward the event on a train. He seems plagued by all kinds of physical manifestations of his anxiety about the event, although he seems convinced that he is coming down with a cold. But then he realizes that nostalgia may be at play.

Over the next few chapters, we then see these characters as they reflect on the past, on the childhood summers in England's North Sea area, in the town where the special event will be held. Ailsa and Humphrey actually only spent one summer together in that town, along with Ailsa's brother and another child, Sandy Clegg; as each character reminisces, we see quite divergent experiences from each person's perspective.

Later in the book, we realize that their paths actually crossed again a few years later, when they were in their twenties. Something surprising happens between them, an event that few people know about.

We travel with these characters through their memories and also follow their moments toward the final ceremony, where much is revealed. Surprising secrets are unveiled.

Throughout the book, I enjoyed some of the stories and nostalgic moments. But sometimes these reflections went on so long that I was bored with the tedium of the past. I enjoyed most of Ailsa's reflections, but Humphrey's memories seemed laced with boring descriptions of scientific experiments. Perhaps these experiences were a mirror of his persona, which might explain the tedium. I did not like this character, and only minimally enjoyed Ailsa.

In fact, "The Sea Lady" felt like a long journey I had to get through, perhaps like the journey the characters were taking toward their ceremonial destination.

I probably would have abandoned the book at some point, except that I was curious. So, while I didn't really enjoy most of it, I kept plugging along. For this reason, I will give the book a 3.5 starred review.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

I usually enjoy Margaret Drabble. I enjoyed the writing in this one (so English and much more complex than most US books I read) -- but the plot was very contrived and unbelievable -- 2 seniors (late 60's is my guess) go back to a small town where they met as children. They are to receive honorary degrees at a new University there. The two had a passionate love affair and brief secret marriage when they were much younger and have not seen each other for over 30 years. Little do they know that some of the other characters from their childhood have contrived to bring them back together in this place that was so important in the formation of their lives and careers.

I think I enjoyed it because it does make you pause and think about the influences in your lives, however small they may have seemed at the time -- in this case, the man in this book towards marine biology and the woman to become a cultural iconoclast and provocateur (or is it euse??) I also enjoyed the message at the end that there is always hope to change course, to reconnect, forgive and forget and maybe forge a different path.

I enjoyed the references to those places which have such wonderful remembrances from childhood -- whether it is near grandparents, or holiday places and the memories of the days when children could wander free and amuse themselves, with all kinds of fantasy adventures and explorations without the grownups worrying about child predators. (as we used to do!)

Perhaps you have to be English to really appreciate much of this -- I enjoyed the descriptions and references to the coastline close to where I went to university, to the national health mandated cod liver oil and orange juice -- and finally to Shipham's paste sandwiches ( the staple of all birthday parties when I was growing up!!) It was a fun walk down memory lane perhaps -- but did not strengthen a weak plot!!

[Perry Whitford · Rating 3 out of 5]

Humphrey Clark is a marine biologist of some fame, though his methods are now considered antiquated. He likes field work, not the lab, rues the concept of the selfish gene and "yearned still for the possibility of the generous gene, the sacrificial gene."

Ailsa Kelman is a feminist "agitateuse" in the Germaine Greer mold, a media personality who has tried her hand at many things bred out of the cultural explosion of the 1960's, including risque burlesque, controversial newspaper columns, confrontational TV discussion programs and the like. She once wore a fossilised foetus on a necklace!

Subtitled "A Late Romance", this is the story of old, retirement-aged ex-lovers on collision course to meet again decades later as they both receive honourary doctorates from a new university in the north east of England, in the place where they first met as youngsters.

So this is a "story of convergence", but is it coincidental? The presence of a curious narrator who keeps interjecting, a bespectacled male figure called the Public Orator who is trying to construct meaning from the memories, seems to suggest it might not be.

The identity of the Public Orator adds a minor mystery and added element to the narrative, but in truth these passages were slightly overstated in tone for the most part, whereas the real charm of the story rests in the understated nature of the prose elsewhere.

At the start of The Sea Lady, Humphrey Clarke takes a train journey. His thoughts run to the changing initials of the railway companies after privatization, the numerous passenger safety notices posted around the cabin and to the contents of the free magazine. Dear me, how drab Miss Drabble, I thought.

But as the story shifts back to the past, Drabble wove a gently beguiling spell.

[Peter Mathews · Rating 1 out of 5]

When I first read A.S. Byatt's Possession in 2005, I thought the style was stilted and overwrought, a problem that I also had when I shortly after read some of Byatt's other fiction. Over time, that impression softened so that, while some of Byatt's efforts still seem like a failure, overall I have come to a deep appreciation of her work as a whole.

I mention my experiences with Byatt here because Drabble is Byatt's younger sister. The two sisters don't get along, and if you read the fictional portrait in Byatt's The Game, it's not hard to see why. The two women don't read each other's work, although in more recent times both authors have played down the feud as mere sibling rivalry.

Nonetheless, with The Sea Lady, the first novel I have read by Drabble, my mind goes back to that first experience with Possession, and I can't help but compare the two writers. As it turns out, Possession was an aberration - I have reread it more recently, and still don't like it - but I have a profound admiration for many of Byatt's other works. In particular, I have gotten a sense of her development as an artist - if you go back to her first novel, The Shadow of the Sun, you can see how her style and themes have changed as she has matured.

Because this is my first work by Drabble, I can't make a similar comparison, but I will say this based on my first impression: this novel stinks as much as the awkward fish metaphor that runs throughout the book. I hope other books by her are better, but I don't hold out much hope of that. This style, I fear, is her defining feature.

The story itself revolves around two main characters: Ailsa Kelman, a feminist, actor, and television celebrity, and Prof. Humphrey Clark, a celebrated marine biologist. Each of them is returning to Ornemouth, a place on the northern English coast, to accept an honorary degree from the new university there. As they travel back physically, they also travel back in time, to the childhood when they first met.

Humphrey recalls his first summer by the sea, at his grandmother's house during World War II, when he became friends with Sandy Clegg. Together, the two boys became interested in marine life and set up an aquarium together. They lose touch, until Humphrey returns unexpectedly the next summer. The dynamics have changed, however, because the two boys are joined by the Kelman children, Tommy and Ailsa. Humphrey feels deeply rejected when Tommy and Sandy go off without him, and he is left with Ailsa. There is also a lonely, excluded girl named Heather Robinson, who is mentioned several times but is superfluous to the story. The time by the sea marks Humphrey for life, inspiring his career as a marine biologist.

As the characters travel back in their thoughts, we mainly see through Humphrey's eyes at first: his conventionality, his re-connection with Ailsa when she is starting out as an actress, his encounter with the narcissistic Marcus Pope, their love affair that leads to a brief but damaging marriage, the guilt that Ailsa and Humphrey feel for what they did to each other. We also see Ailsa's rise to fame, and the parallel success of her Machiavellian brother, Tommy.

The disappointing aspect of Drabble's narrative is how forced and inauthentic it feels. There is no sense of losing yourself in the mind of the characters, because Drabble exhausts every nuance by over-explaining it, on top of which she constantly tries to teach her readers about all kinds of irrelevant details, ranging from forgotten historical figures to the mating habits of fish. She compounds this awkwardness by adding the meta-textual character of the Public Orator, a kind of master narrator who is weaving all these stories together. This device adds absolutely nothing to the story: it is pure writerly masturbation.

When Ailsa and Humphrey finally make it to the ceremony, it turns out that the whole thing has been engineered by Sandy, who now goes by the Alistair Macfarlane. Sandy had kept his distance from his friends because - get this - it turns out that he is gay, and didn't want to associate his friends with that social stigma. It turns out that the excursions with Tommy were among his first homosexual experiences.

The biggest problem I had with The Sea Lady was its lumbering, imperious, and ultimately ungainly style. Drabble's prose lacks any kind of discipline. It is full of an unconscious arrogance and lack of awareness that is driven by an overbearing but undeserved sense of self-importance. This stylistic clunkiness, together with the unlikability of the banal characters and utterly pedestrian nature of the plot, made The Sea Lady an excruciatingly difficult novel to finish.

Drabble, it seems, wanted to make some kind of high-minded comparison between fish and the evolution of human behavior, particularly with regard to sexuality. The result is laughable - the homosexuality of Sandy Clegg, and the international make-up of the student population of the university at Ornemouth are mistaken for a more widespread diversification of human culture. Drabble never even considers how condescending this conclusion is, nor how it remains blind to the neo-conservative and racist elements that continue to churn away in British society.

For me, The Sea Lady was a failure in every way. Unlike with Possession, I don't yet see how Drabble's reputation, for me, can be redeemed. Only time, I suppose, will tell.

[Larissa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Is Margaret Drabble a knee-jerk racist?

I can't comment on the literary merits or even the interest of Ms Drabble’s fiction because I was stopped cold in my reading of this book by encountering on p. 52 -- the N-word.

Used to describe the colour of a certain set of curtains.

This edition was published in 2006. Had Drabble and publishers not caught up with the post-colonial, or even post-slavery universe by then, in which intellectually aware and ethical discussion, condemnation and repudiation of racist, infantile, stupid terminology had long eliminated such ignorant vocabulary?

Why am I and other conscious readers, being ambushed in the 21st century by such base assumptions of what's OK, acceptable, "normal"?

[Jonna Higgins-Freese · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jane Smiley praises Drabble in _13 Ways of Looking at the Novel_, and I enjoyed _The Red Queen_, but this was insufferable. I have no patience for minute, precious, overly ironic examinations of the ways in which privileged academics feel they have wasted their lives and grapple with their mortality. Which is hypocritical because I am definitely an overeducated academic-y sort of person, probably precious, who struggles with mortality as much as the next person. I just hope I'm not as annoying about it as Drabble and these characters are. Though this is a good kick-in-the-pants book to get over yourself.

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

The characters in Drabble’s novels have grown older with me. Ailsa is the 60 year old sea lady (she is dressed like a flashy, scaly mermaid when we meet her). She and Humphrey (whom she knew in childhood and married briefly as a young adult) are both travelling northwards to receive honorary degrees. Different histories, different temperaments, different values are about to collide – and we, the readers, can enjoy and reflect on the results.

[Lucy Shahar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've always liked Margaret Drabble. In her novels, she consistently combines social commentary with amazing character development. I found it difficult to put this novel down, perhaps because the characters, like me, are aging and aware of the tenuousness of everything in their lives. Or maybe, it's that Drabble has a wry sense of humor and knows how to tell a good story. I wanted to know what would happen next and I wasn't disappointed.

[Tara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was intrigued by the summary on the inner flap of the book's cover. However, this book is more about the story of childhood friends and what brings them back together toward the end of their lives. It is exactly that, there are no flashes of glamour, excitement or crime. It is simply about the lives of childhood friends.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting character based novel abut the reunion of Ailsa Kelman and Humphrey Clark, now in their sixties, fifty years on from the time they met as children at Ornemouth by the sea. At the reunion ceremony they are to receive honorary degrees, as Alisa is a famous feminist and Humphrey a marine biologist.

The novel begins with Ailsa and Humphrey recalling their childhood meetings by a northern sea, where Humphrey’s grandparents and aunt had lived. They meet again at adults in their twenties when Ailsa was an actress. Ailsa later became a scholar and social commentator. A famous feminist celebrity and very good public speaker. Humphrey is a respected, more reclusive marine biologist who is more comfortable in the underwater world.

The novel explores love, the passage of time, memory and how lives are shaped by location and chance meetings.

Readers who enjoy Margaret Drabble’s writing style should find this novel a satisfying reading experience.

Here are some quotes from the novel:
“We cannot unweave, and remake. For chance and choice happen. They coincide, they coalesce, they mix, and then their joint outcome grows as hard as fixed as cement. Like a fossil in stone, it hardens, in its own indissoluble, immutable shape.”
“Sailing is the perfect antidote for age, Reyes. Everything you do on a sailboat is done slowly and thoughtfully.”
“You cannot cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.”


This book was first published in 2006.

[Ange · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written in a meandering and gentle style, The Sea Lady is one of those books that seems to have great promise that it doesn't completely fulfil. Humphrey and Ailsa are the childhood friends who are destined to meet again in their 60's, having had a brief, unsuccessful marriage more than thirty years past. Humphrey is a moderately successful academic in marine biology and Ailsa is a celebrity scholar/feminist/cultural icon. The novel spends much time on their childhood and that of their friend Sandy Clegg along with Ailsa's brother Tommy. It feels like a build up to some momentous occasion, but when the meeting occurs, at a university ceremony to honour the career accomplishments of both Humphrey and Ailsa, it's a let down. Humphrey and Ailsa don't seem like a couple that should have got together in the first place, so it's a mystery as to why the manipulative force that has driven their late-life meeting is doing just that. With a minimal plot, but fine writing, The Sea Lady may, however, be worth revisiting.

[Emi Yoshida · Rating 2 out of 5]

I made a mistake and thought I loved all books by Margaret Drabble, and then while reading this was underwhelmed and faint of interest. I liked the promised premise: that childhood acquaintances should meet again in their 6th decade, with a science angle and UK setting to boot! But there was too much pontification, even for rarefied characters in academia I felt. I liked how main characters Ailsa Kelman and her opposites attract counterpart Humphrey Clark alternated narrating chapters, but the whole notion of the anonymous-Public-Orator-who-then-is-named didn't work for me, even though I had wanted to know what happened to the character who turned out to be the Public Orator.

I just realized every Drabble book I'd read before I rated 3 stars, and every AS Byatt book I've read I've rated 4 stars. So maybe there was some misplaced lofty expectations at play here ,but I'll happily continue reading both sisters!

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read many Margaret Drabble Books, many when i was younger this one i never knew about so was eager to read it.but.... its a very dry clinical book ,i was hoping to be engaged but did not care for the characters . So did not care what happened to them much. I know it was also about aging and how some cope well and dance over obstacles that make them feel old , some ride the trains deep in thought feeling quite sorry for themselves even though life has been quite kind.The sea plays a big part in this which i loved , it fascinated them as children and later as adults i love the swim described on the last pages the moment when you plunge in with no concern about how you look or care at all what anyone thinks and feel the water close over you and push you out in the waves, beautiful. when i swim i am twelve again and seeing if i can swim the length of the pool holding my breath.

[Karin · Rating 1 out of 5]

When I found this book at the library I thought it might be interesting to read a book with a little science in it. This book had very little science. The thing it reminded me most of in science circles is writing found in scientific journals. The author reminds me of someone who tries to make themselves seem more educated by using an 8 letter word where they could have used a 3 or 4 letter word and be better understood. It isn't her vocabulary that is overdone, it is her writing. Approximately 80 % of the book is all one huge chapter. I kept hoping for it to end. Her use of the narrator makes me believe that she thinks quite highly of herself and it reads rather pompously. I have only seen the technique she is trying to use a handful of times but never so poorly done. I have never been more relieved to reach the end of a book. It really doesn't even deserve a single star.

[Colleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my second book by Margaret Drabble. I didn’t care for it very much. The author is highly regarded and has a solid fan base. But for me, I found her writing uneven here as I did with the first book I read by her. I hate to say it but I also found the writing style pretentious. I felt as if she was trying to impress me, or perhaps herself, and I found that distracting.
On a more positive note, when the novel simply focused on the main characters’ relationships during childhood I was enraptured. I could not put it down. The bliss of summertime activities with best friends down at the swimming hole is perfectly nuanced. I was dying to see what was going to happen.
It wasn’t that the magic spell burst when they grew up. It’s that in the end I disliked too many things, including the conclusion. Odd and unsettling.

[Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

As always, Margaret Drabble is a wonderful writer. Many sentences and paragraphs were so delicious that I could not stop myself from insisting that my husband listen as I read them aloud to him. He also enjoyed her way with words, the delightful turn of phrase.
That said, the characters did not appeal to me, so that I could not really feel swept into their world. I needed to put the book down regularly and take a break by reading something else for 15-30 minutes, then returning to this novel.
I think that a Margaret Drabble fan like myself will find much to enjoy in this novel, and yet may feel somewhat disappointed.
I have read other readers’ reviews. Strangely, I find myself agreeing with them all, both the positive and negative.

[Jennifer Jank · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was the book selection for June in my reading challenge this year.

The characters in this one could have been more interesting. They were developed, but the author did much more telling than she did showing. The Public Orator character was pretty unnecessary.

I kept reading because the male character seemed so alarmed by the possibility of meeting his ex-wife (whom he'd met in childhood). It seemed something must have happened then, and I was going to find out!

The Public Orator is unmasked, and...well... there was pretty much no reason whatsoever for his sense of doom and their shock upon discovering the Orator. This one kind of dribbled to a close.

[Vicky · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the earlier portions of this novel, which deal with the childhood experiences of the principal characters; the details were exquisite and convincing. Later, the narrative devices to which Drabble resorted seemed artificial, a little pretentious. A mysterious personage labeled the "Public Orator" is evidently running the show -- is it the author? destiny? God? All of the above, evidently, but with a human avatar. It felt like Drabble was adding unnecessary mystery and glamor to her story, which could have stood on its own merits.

[Peter Burton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good especially enjoyable to older readers who can identify with the post WWII world and have a sense of a life lived with all the odd twists and turns that life brings and a final sense of reconciliation.It can be a little hard to get into with its discussion of marine life with many technical features but Margaret Drabble’s skill and writing is enough to pull you along.Well worth a read as all her books are.