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Sea Stories
To mark the 70th anniversary of the opening of the National Maritime Museum, we have brought together this collection of short stories inspired by a great literary muse. Written by an impressive line-up of British and Irish authors, the collection is intended not only as a celebration of the sea but also of the wealth and diversity of contemporary writing talent.
From the remote and wild coastal landscapes of Orkney and the west of Ireland to mysteries set in the Mediterranean, and from stories inspired by John Franklin’s ill-fated expedition to find the Northwest Passage back in the 19th century to a 1970s cruise ship full of teenagers on their way to Gibraltar, this collection takes us on a voyage – challenging our perceptions of the sea along the way.
From the remote and wild coastal landscapes of Orkney and the west of Ireland to mysteries set in the Mediterranean, and from stories inspired by John Franklin’s ill-fated expedition to find the Northwest Passage back in the 19th century to a 1970s cruise ship full of teenagers on their way to Gibraltar, this collection takes us on a voyage – challenging our perceptions of the sea along the way.
- GenresShort Stories
320 pages, Paperback
First published September 27, 2007
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About the author
Desmond Barry
6 books2 followersDesmond Barry is a Welsh author. He was born in 1955 in Merthyr Tydfil and raised on the town's Gurnos estate.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 27, 2008
Sea Stories, National Maritime Museum, London, 2007
This is a wonderful collection of short stories by contemporary writers. I’d delved in first as relief from ‘demanding literature’, I was freighted with deep emotional attachments to the sea yarns of old childhood, expecting perhaps the adventures of a cast of rugged seafarers tossed upon tumult and enduring against tempest and shipwreck. Well, there is some of that thick imagery of the sea in full fury, and superbly written too, yet what the stories together show is that ‘sea’ is deeper and wilder and more endless than our museum of memories and ideas can contain. The last story in the collection, ‘The Museum of the Sea” makes this point lightly and humorously, the more so given the collection celebrates the National Maritime Museum.
Each story really deserves praise and its own review. I was struck by the fact that although a story about the sea may invite, from this reader at least, a preliminary expectation of the primacy of swirling imagery, each story here is marked by precise control of the short story form. The ‘art’ refreshes while the ‘content’ disturbs, the old shared symbolisms of sea unravel certainties.
There is a wonderful range of treatments, all delighted me. Perhaps if there is anything that unites them it is less the sea or our conceptions of the sea and more the ‘seas’ of faith and trust and love and loss, betrayal, the tumults and storms of our lives, our experience of being humans with explicit conscience and intention, yet tumbled in circumstance, making passages from no return. And perhaps too these stories even when obliquely are about reading and writing too, these as structures of lives which are stories “which begin inside another, older story, and around all the stories, circled the imprisoning sea.” One of the dour, near ancient wisdoms of the sea-philosopher: “It is not possible to control events at sea. What else are the old songs and stories but ways of teaching what we need to know?” (both quotations from ‘The Island’ by Roger Hubank).
I hope that does not sound too pretentious, for most of all this is a wonderful and rich collection that will give a great deal of pleasure.
This is a wonderful collection of short stories by contemporary writers. I’d delved in first as relief from ‘demanding literature’, I was freighted with deep emotional attachments to the sea yarns of old childhood, expecting perhaps the adventures of a cast of rugged seafarers tossed upon tumult and enduring against tempest and shipwreck. Well, there is some of that thick imagery of the sea in full fury, and superbly written too, yet what the stories together show is that ‘sea’ is deeper and wilder and more endless than our museum of memories and ideas can contain. The last story in the collection, ‘The Museum of the Sea” makes this point lightly and humorously, the more so given the collection celebrates the National Maritime Museum.
Each story really deserves praise and its own review. I was struck by the fact that although a story about the sea may invite, from this reader at least, a preliminary expectation of the primacy of swirling imagery, each story here is marked by precise control of the short story form. The ‘art’ refreshes while the ‘content’ disturbs, the old shared symbolisms of sea unravel certainties.
There is a wonderful range of treatments, all delighted me. Perhaps if there is anything that unites them it is less the sea or our conceptions of the sea and more the ‘seas’ of faith and trust and love and loss, betrayal, the tumults and storms of our lives, our experience of being humans with explicit conscience and intention, yet tumbled in circumstance, making passages from no return. And perhaps too these stories even when obliquely are about reading and writing too, these as structures of lives which are stories “which begin inside another, older story, and around all the stories, circled the imprisoning sea.” One of the dour, near ancient wisdoms of the sea-philosopher: “It is not possible to control events at sea. What else are the old songs and stories but ways of teaching what we need to know?” (both quotations from ‘The Island’ by Roger Hubank).
I hope that does not sound too pretentious, for most of all this is a wonderful and rich collection that will give a great deal of pleasure.
October 11, 2011
Great collection - I really struggled to find a weak story within it. Real variety of style, the straightforward plotted kind and the strange and unexpected. Each read like a proper story, not a mere writing exercise passed off as story which I sometimes feel with collections gathered under a theme. Each also bore a decent connection to the sea. Some treats by authors I'm familiar with (the Evie Wyld was wonderful) as well as a neat list of new names of people I want to check out further. Top stuff!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews