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Everything I Found on the Beach
A dark tale of slavery, immigration, and murder set on the west coast of Wales, this is a startling portrait of three ordinary lives taken to extremes. In the aching cold where night bumps into day, Hold hears noises confirming he isn't alone. At the edge of his nets, a rudderless dingy thumps against the rocks, prey to the ebbing tide. What he finds there changes everything. Meanwhile, Grzegorz works hard, with no time for rest and little thanks. All he needs is an opportunity; when it comes, with no apparent strings attached, what can he do but take it? On the other hand, the Big Man knows only one kind of life—where all that is needed are a code of honor and a reputation—but it’s leaving him behind and he’s struggling to keep up. One random technical hitch later and the three men are set on a journey that none could have foreseen, none can halt, and that ends as abruptly as it began.
200 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
30 people are currently reading
1318 people want to read
About the author
Cynan Jones
21 books363 followersCynan Jones was born in 1975 near Aberaeron, Wales where he now lives and works.
He is the author of five short novels, The Long Dry, Everything I Found on the Beach, Bird, Blood, Snow, The Dig, and Cove.
He has been longlisted and shortlisted for numerous international prizes and won a Society of Authors Betty Trask Award (2007), a Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize (2014), the Wales Book of the Year Fiction Prize (2015) and the BBC National Short Story Award (2017).
His work has been published in more than twenty countries, and short stories have appeared on BBC Radio 4 and in a number of anthologies and publications including Granta Magazine and The New Yorker. He also wrote the screenplay for an episode of the BAFTA-winning crime drama Hinterland, and Three Tales, a collection of stories for children.
The Independent on Sunday declared "There is no doubt that Jones is one of the most talented writers in Britain” and he is frequently
acknowledged as one of the most exciting voices of his generation.
His most recent work, Stillicide, is a collection of twelve stories commissioned by BBC Radio 4 that aired over the summer 2019.
He is also responsible for 'The Fart'.
He is the author of five short novels, The Long Dry, Everything I Found on the Beach, Bird, Blood, Snow, The Dig, and Cove.
He has been longlisted and shortlisted for numerous international prizes and won a Society of Authors Betty Trask Award (2007), a Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize (2014), the Wales Book of the Year Fiction Prize (2015) and the BBC National Short Story Award (2017).
His work has been published in more than twenty countries, and short stories have appeared on BBC Radio 4 and in a number of anthologies and publications including Granta Magazine and The New Yorker. He also wrote the screenplay for an episode of the BAFTA-winning crime drama Hinterland, and Three Tales, a collection of stories for children.
The Independent on Sunday declared "There is no doubt that Jones is one of the most talented writers in Britain” and he is frequently
acknowledged as one of the most exciting voices of his generation.
His most recent work, Stillicide, is a collection of twelve stories commissioned by BBC Radio 4 that aired over the summer 2019.
He is also responsible for 'The Fart'.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 117 reviews
January 23, 2023
Geachte mevrouw, geachte heer. Graag had ik van u gehoord of er een fanclub van Cynan Jones bestaat. Indien niet: weet u of er aan een fanclub wordt gedacht? Ik ben niet op zoek naar een club die samenkomt. De bedoeling zou zijn om bij het uitlezen van een nieuwe Jones — als ik een titel mag noemen: ‘Alles wat ik vond op het strand’ — enige tijd te verstillen en aan de andere leden te denken. De leden zouden in gedachten gezamenlijk kunnen vloeken, ik denk aan (bijvoorbeeld) g*dv*r wat kan die Cynan prachtig schrijven, of g*dv*r hoe slaagt hij erin een voorgevoel in mijn onderbuik te planten? Leden die zich van krachttermen onthouden kunnen elkaar sterke passages doorsturen. In het boek dat ik noemde steekt het hoofdpersonage een telefoon van een overleden man in brand. Jones schrijft dan: ‘De telefoon krulde ineen tot foetushouding [...] hij bedacht dat hij wat geheugenverlies in de dode man brandde.’ In mijn notities vond ik terug dat ik sinds ‘Inham’ fan ben — dat gebeurde om precies te zijn op 03/01/17 om 15u39. Het is mogelijk dat ik superfan ben.
‘Alles wat ik vond op het strand’ is schitterend uit het Engels vertaald door Manon Smits.
‘Alles wat ik vond op het strand’ is schitterend uit het Engels vertaald door Manon Smits.
May 17, 2018
Cynan Jones is a talented young Welsh writer and this is the second of his books I have read after The Dig. Once again, this is spare, bleak, poetic and visceral, and once again he is inhabiting the minds of people on the borders of society facing elemental struggles.
The book opens with a body being found on the beach, with wounds that suggest foul play, but we only discover its significance much later in the book.
The two main characters are Grzegorz, a Polish immigrant who works in an abattoir and is desperate to find enough money to move his young family out of an overcrowded shared house, and Holden (Hold) whose little money comes from fishing and shooting rabbits - he dreams of owning his own boat and creating a better life for his dead best friend's widow and her son.
Both are driven to take risks involving drug dealers to pursue these ambitions, and there is never much hope for either of them. What rescues the book from bleak savagery is the language, Jones's feeling for its Welsh coastal landscape and the depth of his characterisation, which includes giving equal weight to the thoughts of the Irish thugs hired by the drug dealers.
Like The Dig, this is a vividly realised story but not one for the easily shocked.
The book opens with a body being found on the beach, with wounds that suggest foul play, but we only discover its significance much later in the book.
The two main characters are Grzegorz, a Polish immigrant who works in an abattoir and is desperate to find enough money to move his young family out of an overcrowded shared house, and Holden (Hold) whose little money comes from fishing and shooting rabbits - he dreams of owning his own boat and creating a better life for his dead best friend's widow and her son.
Both are driven to take risks involving drug dealers to pursue these ambitions, and there is never much hope for either of them. What rescues the book from bleak savagery is the language, Jones's feeling for its Welsh coastal landscape and the depth of his characterisation, which includes giving equal weight to the thoughts of the Irish thugs hired by the drug dealers.
Like The Dig, this is a vividly realised story but not one for the easily shocked.
December 22, 2017
In his introvert style cynan jones tells this tale of brutality with much compassion for the main character. There is suggested more than explicitly spoken of the naivity of this man, his love for his family, the duality to do well but being attracted by what he finds on the beach. He decides to introduce himself in a world he does not know with fatal implications. Everything is suggested more than told explicitly; one has to guess much of what happens between the lines. Like in the Dig Cynan Jones writes with much slowness, a world of quiety where although bad things happen. The struggle for life is a main theme. Although I also liked this book, I liked the Dig better because its more subtle and nature is an more important theme.
January 1, 2019
Cynan Jones (n. 1975) - definitivamente um dos mais talentosos escritores da Grã-Bretanha - um dos meus favoritos na actualidade...
Três homens desesperados. Três homens sem alternativas de vida.
Cynan Jones (n. 1975) apresenta-nos três homens: o trabalhador emigrante polaco Grzegorz, o pescador galês Hold e o gangster irlandês Stringer. No entanto, as duas personagens mais centrais são Grzegor e Hold. Ambos tentam melhorar a sua vida – um pretende dar mais bem-estar e melhores condições à sua mulher Ana e aos seus dois filhos, um deles recém-nascido; o outro precisa de cumprir uma promessa feita ao seu melhor amigo Danny: zelar pela viúva Cara e pelo seu filho Jake.
”Aquilo Que Encontrei na Praia” tem duas narrativas que progressivamente se articulam num enredo semelhante a um thriller, com Cynan Jones a exercer a sua habitual mestria na descrição das paisagens e na descrição sanguinolenta e visceral do trabalho num matadouro e num barco de pesca, nomeadamente, na preparação do peixe.
Em ”Aquilo Que Encontrei na Praia” o desespero económico perpetua as vivências e a aflição das personagens principais. Cynan Jones acentua magistralmente as suas recordações e as suas recriminações. Lutando para sobreviver enveredam por esquemas drásticos na expectativa que o seu destino se altere. O desânimo vai-se instalando, com a descrença a realçar os sinais de ansiedade e de amargura numa impossibilidade de se desenvincilharem da fatalidade anunciada. Os elementos da vida quotidiana e os eventos devastadores não têm paralelo, são incapazes de distinguir o certo e o incerto.
Há inúmeras mensagens subjacentes a este ”Aquilo Que Encontrei na Praia”. Uma delas expressa claramente o falhanço da Europa Ocidental quer para com os seus cidadãos residentes quer para com os imigrantes originários de países pouco desenvolvidos. Cynan Jones refere inequivocamente a cultura capitalista ligada ao grande consumo que se consubstancia nos enormes supermercados construídos nos subúrbios das cidades e dos aglomerados urbanos e na inviabilidade económica das pequenas explorações agrícolas e pecuárias. Esta é uma visão sombria sobre um futuro cativo das suas próprias responsabilidades e das suas próprias incongruências.
”Aquilo Que Encontrei na Praia” é um romance excepcional na forma como me cativou para realidades devastadoras, mantendo um equilíbrio entre a caracterização das personagens e brutalidade de algumas cenas com animais (um aspecto igualmente recorrente em ”A Cova”).
O enredo é angustiante, profundo e elaborado de forma a realçar e a explorar a condição humana nas histórias individuais de Grzegorz e Hold. O desespero por um futuro melhor é inequívoco em ambas as vidas dos homens; a que se associam actos imprudentes, por vezes, inexplicáveis.
Valorizo uma obra literária que me mantenha absorto quer na narrativa, através de um suspense enigmático, quer pela complexidade das personagens - ”Aquilo Que Encontrei na Praia” associa irrepreensivelmente essa conjugação.
Entrevista de Cynan Jones durante o festival literário Folio em Óbidos, Portugal.
https://observador.pt/2018/10/21/cyna...
November 21, 2016
another amazing read. another favorite of the year.
review to come
review to come
August 4, 2022
In rugged West Wales, three ordinary lives turn dysfunctional.
A fisherman stumbles upon a floating corpse.
A poverty stricken migrant worker aches for a chance to improve his wife and child's future.
A ruthless gang member struggles to adapt to change after prison.
All three lives intertwine in catastrophic consequences.
Another stunning novella from a superb Welsh writer whose back catalogue never fails to unnerve and amaze.
A fisherman stumbles upon a floating corpse.
A poverty stricken migrant worker aches for a chance to improve his wife and child's future.
A ruthless gang member struggles to adapt to change after prison.
All three lives intertwine in catastrophic consequences.
Another stunning novella from a superb Welsh writer whose back catalogue never fails to unnerve and amaze.
May 4, 2025
https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2025...
"Estate preparado para el miedo. Hay que dejar que pase."
Al final de esta novela hay una nota de su autor Cynan Jones, en la que explica las circunstancias en que fue publicada esta novela. De alguna forma intenta ser honesto ya que la primera vez que se publicó, sintió que su libro no era del todo suyo. Todo lo que encontré en la playa se publicó en 2011, por la editorial galesa Parthian y aunque a los editores les había gustado la idea, querían una narración más larga. “Era mi segundo libro, yo era un escritor joven y acepté. Y aprendí mucho en el proceso. Sin embargo, siempre hubo algo que me molestó: el libro no era del todo mío.” Diez años después, y durante la pandemia, Cynan Jones vuelve al texto guiado por esa primera visión que había tenido de él, así que vuelve a hacer una revisión, volviendo de alguna forma a ese minimalismo del principio. Cynan Jones reescribe el texto en un intento por ser fiel a sus principios pero siendo ahora un escritor más experimentado. No sé cómo sería esa primera versión de esta novela, pero entiendo ese empeño en reescribirla porque lo que me queda claro es que Cynan Jones es un escritor parco en palabras, seco, muy lacónico, que va al grano. Extiende su narrativa al mínimo, en frases cortas, contundentes, sin dejar nada a la imaginación pero al mismo tiempo, y en esta fisicidad expresada, se intuye un mundo interior, se intuye solo, porque ya digo que Jones no expone ese mundo interior ni se detiene en adornar nada. Sus personajes están demasiado ocupados en sobrevivir como para pararse a reflexionar sobre ellos mismos.
“Sintió el frío de inmediato. Hold trató de asirlo como si fuera algo sólido, para lidiar con él más tarde. Hay que levantarse. No cojas frío. A levantarse. Está subiendo la marea. Hay que arrastrar el bote más para allá.”
"Todo lo que encontré en la playa" se podría decir que es una especie de novela negra pero realmente no funciona por etiquetas o me resulta imposible encasillarla en un género. Es cierto que el ritmo de Cynan Jones imbuye la novela de un suspense muy atmosférico y es cierto que la trama podría encajar en lo que es la novela negra, pero es prácticamente imposible etiquetar esta novela. Tampoco se debería hablar mucho de la trama para no desvelar momentos decisivos, pero se puede decir que el texto gira en torno a dos hombres que nunca se conocieron: uno de ellos muere en una playa y el protagonista Hold, a partir de que lo encuentra varado en un bote, comienza una carrera contrarreloj, una carrera de supervivencia de la que el lector es testigo:
“Cuando salió de la cabina se quedó sentado un rato en la camioneta mirando la carretera y viendo como las nubes se acurrucaban sobre las montañas tierra adentro. Bueno, ya estoy metido en esto, dijo. Después puso el vehículo en marcha y enfiló hacia su casa por carreteras secundarias.”
En un estilo muy metódico, Cynan Jones nos hace seguir paso a paso cada uno de los movimientos de Hold, su protagonista, un pescador que se las ve y se las desea para sobrevivir y no ahorra detalles con sequedad lacónica sobre cómo dispara a un conejo, vemos la secuencia casi a cámara lenta, el antes y el después del disparo, en una reflexión sobre el acto de supervivencia, tanto de una como de otra parte. Cuando momentos después descubre al muerto en el bote varado en la playa, a partir de aquí, Cynan Jones ya nos ha propuesto la postura moral de su protagonista frente a la vida. Me ha interesado muchísimo el estilo de Cynan Jones porque compone una novela silenciosa en la que prácticamente solo sale él y en la que su protagonista Hold está solo frente a sí mismo tomando decisiones imbuidas de una violencia que está en el aire continuamente. Es un estilo narrativo reducido al mínimo y así y todo consigue transmitir esta violencia silenciosa que está en cada página de la novela, una violencia emparentada a la naturaleza, tal como hacía Cormac McCarthy cuando exponía como la naturaleza era testigo impasible de la intervención del hombre. Y en una novela tan corta de apenas 110 páginas, y con este lenguaje mínimo y seco, es casi un milagro que Cynan Jones consiga transmitir tan bien este aislamiento del ser humano cuando se encuentra perdido. Sí, es una novela corta, pero es muy compleja en lo que va revelando de la naturaleza humana, de la supervivencia que siempre es violenta, muchas veces además una violencia que no se percibe desde fuera, sino que es totalmente interna. Un autor al que tengo que seguir leyendo.
"Las cosas pasan y todo lo demás depende de lo que uno haga con ellas. No hay que tomar decisiones por miedo."
♫♫♫ I want to go to the beach - Iggy Pop ♫♫♫
March 16, 2014
This is a brilliant writer at work in the grand tradition. Steinbeck and Hemingway seem influential, but his voice is truly unique. He takes you up close to the smallest of details and explores large universal themes in the process. The struggles of a beetle and a pigeon are as important as those of the humans in this dark novel. The reader is forced to struggle at times too. Very effective!
April 16, 2021
Fan van de schrijfstijl van deze man. Deze novelle is wat meer verhalend van toon dan de andere drie novelles en ook weer erg mooi. Kenmerkend is zijn scherp waarnemingsvermogen van de gewone kleine mens gevangen in zijn leven, omgeving en zijn diepste worstelingen.
En dan die covers ♡
En dan die covers ♡
"He watched the coast receding, the lights that were coming on in the late afternoon blinking and then dropping in the stretched distance.
The man was in a kind of numb, tired shock.
'What did I do?' he asked. There was just this widening grey sea out there and the rain, blurring the last visible lights now.
There was no choice. I had to do that. I didn't have a choice.
He considered what he had done.
I didn't have a choice, he told himself.
He stood on the deck for a long while and just watched the coast thinning and receding. But he couldn't get rid of the question.
'What is it that I've done?'"
December 12, 2019
This is the 4th book I have read by Cynan Jones. I'm not sure I can read any more books by this person. His novels are so so sad and depressing..The Long Dry, The Dig, and Cove. And then this book. Pretty much everybody dies in the end. Every character has a relative who has died some sad death. His descriptions of food, of ferry boats, of bugs, of pigeons, etc. etc. were so long winded...and yes, also so sad. It got to the point I was just skimming pages to see how things ended. There was one description of a ferry boat window that was just too much. Maybe if this was a novella it would have been clever but this was like on p. 194 of what was getting to be an insufferable book..."the windows were all scratched with salt like there was a glaucoma to them"...Like geez...
January 17, 2023
Grauw, realistisch en ongemeen spannend.
March 16, 2023
Laat ik hier nog wat van lezen.
July 3, 2024
Las historias de Cynan Jones suelen ser trágicas pero cargadas de belleza. Su prosa descriptiva, con el puntillismo de un naturalista, siempre pone el foco en la naturaleza —tal vez porque hay algo despiadado y a la vez bello en ella— y esta novela no es la excepción. La playa, el frío, el gris impenetrable de los cielos nublados, el olor penetrante a yodo que emana de los crustáceos y peces muertos son el telón de fondo, la excusa para hablar de lo que el protagonista encuentra en la playa.
"Todo lo que encontré en la playa" se centra en la vida de un pescador galés que, durante una de sus tardes de pesca, se topa con un bote varado en la orilla. En su interior, descubre un cadáver y un cargamento de cocaína. Este hallazgo inesperado teje una trama que une para siempre las vidas de dos hombres que jamás se conocieron, alterando sus destinos de manera irreversible.
Jones nos sumerge en un relato donde cada decisión tiene un profundo impacto en la vida de varias personas con ramificaciones a veces insospechadas. La tensión y el suspense se mantienen hasta el final, mientras el autor nos guía con su estilo preciso y evocador a través de las sombras y luces de la condición humana.
La siempre impecable traducción al español de Chai Editora logra preservar la esencia poética y la atmósfera ominosa de la obra original. Este libro es una muestra perfecta del talento de Cynan Jones para crear historias que, a pesar de su tragedia, resplandecen con una belleza inigualable.
"Todo lo que encontré en la playa" se centra en la vida de un pescador galés que, durante una de sus tardes de pesca, se topa con un bote varado en la orilla. En su interior, descubre un cadáver y un cargamento de cocaína. Este hallazgo inesperado teje una trama que une para siempre las vidas de dos hombres que jamás se conocieron, alterando sus destinos de manera irreversible.
Jones nos sumerge en un relato donde cada decisión tiene un profundo impacto en la vida de varias personas con ramificaciones a veces insospechadas. La tensión y el suspense se mantienen hasta el final, mientras el autor nos guía con su estilo preciso y evocador a través de las sombras y luces de la condición humana.
La siempre impecable traducción al español de Chai Editora logra preservar la esencia poética y la atmósfera ominosa de la obra original. Este libro es una muestra perfecta del talento de Cynan Jones para crear historias que, a pesar de su tragedia, resplandecen con una belleza inigualable.
July 21, 2024
Como dice el mismo autor: “Ayer y hoy, esta es una historia que podría suceder”.
Un hombre (al parecer huraño y estepario, con poco roce emocional), descubre un botín de droga en una playa junto a un cuerpo. De allí en más se desarrolla una nouvelle de decisiones éticas y sus consecuentes costos.
Me gustó la extensión y su velocidad. Me hizo sentido la estructura. Me tensó constantemente.
Un hombre (al parecer huraño y estepario, con poco roce emocional), descubre un botín de droga en una playa junto a un cuerpo. De allí en más se desarrolla una nouvelle de decisiones éticas y sus consecuentes costos.
Me gustó la extensión y su velocidad. Me hizo sentido la estructura. Me tensó constantemente.
May 28, 2017
That was amazing! Jones' writing reminded me of Annie Proulx or Cormac McCarthy. He captured the very essence of what it is to be poor and unable to get out from under. To have the circumstances of your life keep you from doing any better than those before you. He captured this so well that I had to take breaks every few pages to keep from crying. I always read Annie Proulx this way especially. It hurts the heart. By the same token, it makes you count the blessings you have.
February 27, 2019
If I explain my emotional response to this book it will likely give up the ending, so I’ll refrain. This is a story about people who are neither here nor there. The in between place of leaving something terrible behind, not finding much traction to change this, and living on hope for one big chance. Grzegorz is a Polish immigrant desperate with longing to provide for his family. Desperate enough to do most anything, to cross boundaries no longer useful in his internal demand for a chance. Hold is a fisherman @ease in the rhythmic movements of the sea. His belief - a thing should not be hurt without purpose. Two men each trying for a new direction. Both need big money. Clenched jaws and fists, occasional lost moments with forays to an imaginary tomorrow, promises made not yet kept. Jones writes without frills in a no nonsense manner that simultaneously manages to be shimmering with beauty. I had a visceral experience with this story. There was something so bitter, lost and despairing that it lodged in my interior. A lonely place. Cynan Jones in a magician in his use of language. I have to get rid of those involuntary shivers.
January 31, 2023
3.5 * Niet z’n beste maar toch zeker de moeite waard in deze verkorte versie. De burcht, de eerste die ik las van Jones, blijft ook na deze (5de) toch nog altijd de beste!
October 26, 2012
What I love about Cynan Jones’s writing is the way all his characters experience existence, not merely the main figures, but all of them. There are no caricatures in his work. Each is permitted his or her own store of dignity and motive force. All are fragments of some lost and broken force and each is afforded a spirit and a share in humanity. It’s something that’s very much in accord with the strong moral thrust of his work. When I started reading this novel, I’d positioned Jones a sort of inheritor to Cormac McCarthy, but Everything I Found on the Beach is more expansive in its existential concerns, still, as with The Long Dry, crazily, inexplicably optimistic, but now more hopelessly doomed than ever and he seems to me to closer to Graeme Greene. This is perhaps of little surprise, as here is an intelligent thriller that doesn’t skimp in the task of developing our affinities with the characters, something that makes the endgame (fifty pages of heart-pounding tension) all the more satisfying.
February 6, 2017
An interesting read but ultimately too heavy handed. Every sentence seemed to be triple underlining that the story was going to have an unhappy ending. Lots of, the bird was trapped, if it had made one choice differently in its life it would have been free, but once it was on the path it was trapped, in a net, etc.
March 19, 2016
A harsh reality lyrically laid out in a manner that reminded me of No Country for Old Men. Two men, their story told in alternating chapters, desperate and willing to take a chance just to make it, to prove something to those whom they love.
July 5, 2018
Jones doesn't reach the same balance between show and tell, scarcity and richness as in his Cove and his The longest dry.
August 1, 2024
Lo leí de un tirón.. me gustó cómo escribe Jones, con pocas palabras describe muy bien acontecimientos y un ambiente complejo, con lo que logra construir -en 120 páginas- una gran novela.
Me llamó la atención la nota final en la que comenta que un editor le pidió completar algunos vacíos en una edición anterior, porque siento que justamente eso que no dice (o al menos no tan claramente), la intriga de los vacios y silencios que deja en ciertas partes, fue lo que mas me gustó de su escritura.
Me llamó la atención la nota final en la que comenta que un editor le pidió completar algunos vacíos en una edición anterior, porque siento que justamente eso que no dice (o al menos no tan claramente), la intriga de los vacios y silencios que deja en ciertas partes, fue lo que mas me gustó de su escritura.
November 16, 2019
Compelling stuff - a body found on a beach and then its back story. Desperate people abraded by the physical work they do and getting involved with drug runners and gangsters. The tension is almost unbearable at times. Jones' writing is tight and beautiful: I called him the Welsh Cormac McCarthy in my review of The Dig - this is further confirmation (although I think this was written earlier).
April 30, 2024
in vijf delen met korte hoofdstukjes weet de schrijver de spanning in het verhaal van een eenzame visser telkens op te drijven tot het einde. Pareltjes van omschrijvingen maken het visueel voor de lezer en dat tot in de kleinste dingen.
May 24, 2022
Another excellent Jones novel. Beautiful landscape based prose, a sinister story line, and no happy ending - what is not to love?
Second book by Jones, another one on order.
Second book by Jones, another one on order.
September 17, 2020
I found it harder to get into this than Cynan Jones' other novels, but the quality of his writing saw me through and it was worth it for the pay off.
July 6, 2024
Una lectura distinta, debo decir.
No me esperaba el desarrollo de los acontecimientos y mucho menos lo abrupto del final, aunque se dieron pistas a lo largo de la historia.
El autor nos transporta a una atmósfera fría y opresiva, donde hasta el clima y el mar son un reflejo de la vida del protagonista y de sus cercanos.
Siento que la historia transcurre muy rápido y hay detalles que quedaron suspendidos, pero en general es una lectura que se disfruta.
No me esperaba el desarrollo de los acontecimientos y mucho menos lo abrupto del final, aunque se dieron pistas a lo largo de la historia.
El autor nos transporta a una atmósfera fría y opresiva, donde hasta el clima y el mar son un reflejo de la vida del protagonista y de sus cercanos.
Siento que la historia transcurre muy rápido y hay detalles que quedaron suspendidos, pero en general es una lectura que se disfruta.
February 29, 2012
This is not a book for the faint-hearted. There were many times I wanted to put it in the freezer. It's pretty obvious from the beginning that things are not going to go well for Grzegorz, a Polish immigrant who is enslaved by poverty, as he ruminates about wastefulness he sees in the slaughterhouse where he works. "'This gratefulness to an animal,' he thought, 'is what's gone here. There is a sorrow for it, as there always is, but it is without gratefulness and eventually you just go numb to it. It's the way you have to feel about crowds of people, about strangers. You can't care for them. You can't let yourself. There's too many of them."
Things probably won't go much better for Hold, a fisherman who is saddled with debt after the death of his friend, and guilt because of his feelings for the friend's wife and child. Hold, like Grzegorz, wants to get ahead, but feels trapped by circumstances. He looks at his fishing net and compares a bass which died violently fighting the net, and a mullet which "looked more at peace with itself..." Well now, do you want to be a bass or a mullet? A sheep or a cow? The choices are how aware do you want to be about your impending doom. Escape doesn't seem to be an option.
Not so much happens in this book, but you follow the character's thoughts as they assess their situations (am I caught in a net? Am I swimming toward it?) and convince themselves that they are making the best choice for them to move ahead.
Bookmunch in wordpress.com wrote a rather scathing review about the prose, which is very Hemingway-esque. There are times that the wording seems odd (the police looking at a body described as "severe". ("It was really severe to look at.") Is that British? I would say gruesome or gory, but then I'm not an author. But to me the writing is the strength of the book. That is what captivated my attention, even after I finished reading. I can't say that I enjoyed the fatalism of the book, but I did enjoy the writing.
Things probably won't go much better for Hold, a fisherman who is saddled with debt after the death of his friend, and guilt because of his feelings for the friend's wife and child. Hold, like Grzegorz, wants to get ahead, but feels trapped by circumstances. He looks at his fishing net and compares a bass which died violently fighting the net, and a mullet which "looked more at peace with itself..." Well now, do you want to be a bass or a mullet? A sheep or a cow? The choices are how aware do you want to be about your impending doom. Escape doesn't seem to be an option.
Not so much happens in this book, but you follow the character's thoughts as they assess their situations (am I caught in a net? Am I swimming toward it?) and convince themselves that they are making the best choice for them to move ahead.
Bookmunch in wordpress.com wrote a rather scathing review about the prose, which is very Hemingway-esque. There are times that the wording seems odd (the police looking at a body described as "severe". ("It was really severe to look at.") Is that British? I would say gruesome or gory, but then I'm not an author. But to me the writing is the strength of the book. That is what captivated my attention, even after I finished reading. I can't say that I enjoyed the fatalism of the book, but I did enjoy the writing.
November 20, 2012
This is Cynan's second book and it is nothing short of brilliant. The talent shown in The Long Dry develops further in this book as we follow two men that come from very different lives yet are strangely similiar. First we meet Hold, a Welsh fisherman who is struggling to make ends meet, raising another's son, as he discovers a body on the beach that holds a possible way to make life a little easier. Then we meet Grzegorz, a Polish immigrant who shares a house with his own family and that of another while paying over the odds on rent to his landlord and employer as he tries to fit in shifts as a cocklepicker between working at a slaughterhouse. Both men face difficult decisions and testing times and are constantly second guessing themselves but each time convince themselves that they are doing the right thing to provide for their families. Yet as the story progresses we find that that is not necessarily the case and things don't quite turn out as they hoped. The story itself is superb in its simplicity, creating a tense dark tale that pays hommage to the classic writing of yester-year with a very modern twist. While some may say that there is little happening in this book, the key to it for me is what happens between the lines, paragraphs and pages, those things hinted at by Cynan every so often that allows the reader to create a little of the characters themselves so everyone takes something a little different from the book. And lets face it, it would be boring if we were told everything, now wouldn't it?
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