What do you think?
Rate this book
Il posto
Un villaggio di pescatori, apparentemente lontano dal mondo. Un ufficiale bussa alla porta dell’anziana vedova Lilian per comunicarle che deve andarsene da casa sua: lì ci costruiranno un’autostrada. Così si presenta il «Movimento», la rete di paura e fascismo che sta avvolgendo il paese con il consenso silenzioso della popolazione. Lilian e il suo coinquilino Robinson, un misterioso uomo d’affari in pensione, sceglieranno la fuga grazie ai buoni uffici degli impiegati dell’ambasciata e agli ultimi due posti sull’ultimo volo in partenza per la lontana e libera Avalon. Il loro drammatico viaggio in taxi verso l’aeroporto nella città sconvolta dal golpe è degno di un grande action movie, e ci ricorda che il peggiore di tutti i regimi autoritari può nascere anche quando tutto, fino al giorno prima, sembra perfettamente normale.
156 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1965
2 people are currently reading
218 people want to read
About the author
Bryher
23 books29 followersBryher was the pen name of the novelist, poet, memoirist, and magazine editor Annie Winifred Ellerman.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
May 20, 2012
Reading Margaret Atwood’s collection of essays, articles and short fiction (“In Other Worlds”) led me to Bryher and “A Visa for Avalon”. A very short novel, it is written simply, focusing on a small number of characters over a brief span of time. External events and other individuals are briefly illuminated as if from a distance when the characters look in their direction. There are some sentences and phrases where the use of certain words caused me to stumble; however, I have found examples where her contemporaries made similar choices, suggesting this represents style or usage of the era.
Set in a future yet unspecified time, it is classed loosely as a ‘science fantasy’. Written in the mid-1960’s it is firmly in the center of the ‘New Age’ of Science Fiction where the disillusionment with society, politics, government and industry produced a stream of dystopian novels. While many of these were intended to educate or shock or to simply make money, this novel is more revealing of the impact to a small set of people struggling to balance loss with hope. Reading it brought to mind refugees escaping from Nazi Germany in the 1930’s; Europeans trying to escape Shanghai and Singapore in 1941-2; and the evacuation of Saigon in 1975. The themes of disaffection, youth-dominated culture, breaking with the past, the power of mass-movements and the shunting aside of those outside the norm either through neglect or aggression make this novel interesting reading today.
Set in a future yet unspecified time, it is classed loosely as a ‘science fantasy’. Written in the mid-1960’s it is firmly in the center of the ‘New Age’ of Science Fiction where the disillusionment with society, politics, government and industry produced a stream of dystopian novels. While many of these were intended to educate or shock or to simply make money, this novel is more revealing of the impact to a small set of people struggling to balance loss with hope. Reading it brought to mind refugees escaping from Nazi Germany in the 1930’s; Europeans trying to escape Shanghai and Singapore in 1941-2; and the evacuation of Saigon in 1975. The themes of disaffection, youth-dominated culture, breaking with the past, the power of mass-movements and the shunting aside of those outside the norm either through neglect or aggression make this novel interesting reading today.
November 9, 2011
how did i not love thee? let me count the sentences...
"There was a climbing rose over the porch but it had already flowered and the only one of her sons left at home had a patch of potatoes at the back of the cottage."
i know three-year-olds who speak like this, but as yet none of them has a book in print.
"There was just a glimpse to be seen of rough waves racing like little puppies between the old houses and the sheds."
rough waves? little puppies? and is there a flood? oh, no, it's the glimpse that's between the houses &c, not the waves themselves.
"The things that his mind needed in order that it could live were being abolished by the new pattern being pressed upon the national life."
huh?
and then people, entirely out of the blue, say things like:
"The Movement appeals to the residue of the barbarian in man that the intellectuals despise but have never tried to divert into channels where it would not be harmful."
note to self: never, never, never buy another book with polemics right there on the back cover. even if it's by an author i adore. never never never.
i'm going to go wash my keyboard now.
"There was a climbing rose over the porch but it had already flowered and the only one of her sons left at home had a patch of potatoes at the back of the cottage."
i know three-year-olds who speak like this, but as yet none of them has a book in print.
"There was just a glimpse to be seen of rough waves racing like little puppies between the old houses and the sheds."
rough waves? little puppies? and is there a flood? oh, no, it's the glimpse that's between the houses &c, not the waves themselves.
"The things that his mind needed in order that it could live were being abolished by the new pattern being pressed upon the national life."
huh?
and then people, entirely out of the blue, say things like:
"The Movement appeals to the residue of the barbarian in man that the intellectuals despise but have never tried to divert into channels where it would not be harmful."
note to self: never, never, never buy another book with polemics right there on the back cover. even if it's by an author i adore. never never never.
i'm going to go wash my keyboard now.
Want to read
January 23, 2021Referenced in Margaret Atwood’s collection of essays, In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination so naturally I want to pick this up
August 6, 2021
It took me three starts to get interested in it, but then it was a brisk one-sitting read. Billed as a dystopian novel, but that is misleading. It is a short novel about a small group of people attempting to leave their home country, as the nation clamps down and exit routes close. But the politics and such are not illuminated. For what it is often expected to be, I'd give it 2 stars. For what it really is, I give it 3 1/2 stars.
December 30, 2020
Although the name Bryher was familiar to me, I had never read anything by her prior to chancing on this book in a secondhand bookstore, so I was greatly excited by the find. However, it didn't quite deliver all that the introduction and blurbs promised. The story follows a small group of people who abruptly choose to emigrate to Avalon when a totalitarian regime takes over their country. It starts with Robinson enjoying a lovely day of fishing in the idyllic village where he has chosen to retire, and ends with the party making a difficult landing in Avalon. The bulk of the narrative is devoted to the fraught and hasty moves Robinson, his landlady Lilian Blunt and 2 employees of the Avalon Embassy, Alex and Sheila, have to make in order to pack up, secure visas and reach the airport while a massive and frightening demonstration threatens to cut off their escape. Bryher generates more than enough suspense to sustain the narrative momentum, but what I expected was a more thoughtful analysis of why and how the principals turned a blind eye to the worrying political situation for so long. Bryher attributes the tardy reaction of her characters to "apathy", without actually taking the time to delineate what they could or should have done to fight for their values and their rights. In other words, this is a great idea for a book, except that it doesn't quite rise to the challenge it set for itself.
June 27, 2024
(18 June, 2024)
Revolution is in the air, some want nothing to do with it and decide to leave the country.
Change does not always equate progress, the Movement is full of crap but most people are to stupid to realise it. What can one do before it's too late? If one is an island of reason in a sea of ignorance, the answer is: nothing at all. As is made clear by the author, people are too eager to follow whatever makes sense to their tiny, uncritical minds (in the real world, most are actually proud to be [Facebook, X, Instagram et alia] followers, it's nuts!). Bryher makes this explicit when she states:
Bryher's view of Communism might seem fanciful here but it is possible she means real Communism, not the corrupt, elitist versions of past and present.
Great in concept but it's too bad this is not more engaging, there are genuinely interesting topics but it's mostly glossed over with short remarks or simply ignored, grander themes are not discussed. With such a short novel, surely there's room for more comments on the Movement and their followers and more introspection from all involved (above the usual questions of how it affects them now).
Admittedly, this is the rare 2 star novel which will be on my mind for a while... but still 2 stars.
Revolution is in the air, some want nothing to do with it and decide to leave the country.
Change does not always equate progress, the Movement is full of crap but most people are to stupid to realise it. What can one do before it's too late? If one is an island of reason in a sea of ignorance, the answer is: nothing at all. As is made clear by the author, people are too eager to follow whatever makes sense to their tiny, uncritical minds (in the real world, most are actually proud to be [Facebook, X, Instagram et alia] followers, it's nuts!). Bryher makes this explicit when she states:
"To be free was to be responsible but the people who were driving Lilian and himself into exile, dreaded personal decisions more than slavery."
Bryher's view of Communism might seem fanciful here but it is possible she means real Communism, not the corrupt, elitist versions of past and present.
Great in concept but it's too bad this is not more engaging, there are genuinely interesting topics but it's mostly glossed over with short remarks or simply ignored, grander themes are not discussed. With such a short novel, surely there's room for more comments on the Movement and their followers and more introspection from all involved (above the usual questions of how it affects them now).
Admittedly, this is the rare 2 star novel which will be on my mind for a while... but still 2 stars.
July 16, 2023
I think I would've liked Visa for Avalon more if it had been less vague. Five people try to leave an unnamed country during an unnamed time from a political coup that remains largely undescribed. I wanted just a little more detail to give the book some urgency.
December 20, 2019
The act of departure during an uprising, perfectly rendered. The final chapter brought me to tears by the beauty of the writing alone.
January 27, 2022
reminiscent of a mix of Anna Seghers and JG Ballard....
March 27, 2015
4.5 stars
Your world is just beginning to descend into turmoil, you see the signs and you want out. Visa for Avalon starts with two retirees, Lillian and her lodger Robinson, in a small country town, and but quickly changes when the government declares they are going to tear down Lillian’s house to build an expressway. They spend a day or so trying to figure out if there’s anything they can do, but when they realize they can’t they decide to emigrate to Avalon. There are only a few visas given each year, and the rest of the book takes place in the following week of political and civic turmoil as they travel to the City desperately hoping for those visas.
This novel fell out of print until 2004 when it was rescued from used-bookstore obscurity by Paris Press; and I first heard about this novel in Margaret Atwood’s In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination. I also recently read The Handmaid's Tale and it was fascinating to read that dystopia and then immediately read a different dystopia-in-progress. When the novel takes place, in an unnamed future in an unnamed country, you can see fanaticism taking root but it’s definitely not there yet. There are mobs and protests and crackdowns, but, for most citizens living in places outside The City, the status quo is relatively uninterrupted.
The interplay between rushing and waiting is a particularly effective aspect tension-builder. Bryher plays on everyday life and everyday stresses and fears (like being stuck in traffic) to generate that feeling of restlessness. Perhaps this worked so well on me because of my anxious nature, but I found myself reading faster and faster as the characters are kept on tenterhooks waiting for a visa, for traffic, for their departure time. “Waiting is a form of death, waiting is a form of death, Robinson repeated the sentence as if, like a child running downhill too fast, he could not stop himself.”
The prose is very interesting too. Some of the imagery might be a little much for some, but there are many small details of everyday life that I find very alluring. You get these snippets of how people interact with their environs. Not just their house or nature, but their offices, cars, traffic, technology, etc. Since you don’t get many big details of where the unnamed country is located, you get a lot of small atmospheric details. While you don’t know a lot about the specifics of The Movement, you know they are rebelling against technology. In these glimpses of everyday life, you don’t see any threatening machines, but you do see the prevalence of plastics and other trappings of modern production. Those kinds of details are really what draw me in.
A lot of the novel deals with the characters examining their life in the aftermath of making a very quick decision to emigrate to Avalon. They think of their attachments – to place, to people, to things – and reflect on their situation. They don’t know what their new lives are going to be like, they just decided to pick up and go. In their rush to get out of the country, there are periods of waiting wherein the characters are left with only their thoughts. Reading their internal reflections forces you to look to your own internal life. How quickly could you leave? Would you? What would you take? Who would you tell? I doubt I would do very well, and I doubt I would be able to handle the stress.
Your world is just beginning to descend into turmoil, you see the signs and you want out. Visa for Avalon starts with two retirees, Lillian and her lodger Robinson, in a small country town, and but quickly changes when the government declares they are going to tear down Lillian’s house to build an expressway. They spend a day or so trying to figure out if there’s anything they can do, but when they realize they can’t they decide to emigrate to Avalon. There are only a few visas given each year, and the rest of the book takes place in the following week of political and civic turmoil as they travel to the City desperately hoping for those visas.
This novel fell out of print until 2004 when it was rescued from used-bookstore obscurity by Paris Press; and I first heard about this novel in Margaret Atwood’s In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination. I also recently read The Handmaid's Tale and it was fascinating to read that dystopia and then immediately read a different dystopia-in-progress. When the novel takes place, in an unnamed future in an unnamed country, you can see fanaticism taking root but it’s definitely not there yet. There are mobs and protests and crackdowns, but, for most citizens living in places outside The City, the status quo is relatively uninterrupted.
The interplay between rushing and waiting is a particularly effective aspect tension-builder. Bryher plays on everyday life and everyday stresses and fears (like being stuck in traffic) to generate that feeling of restlessness. Perhaps this worked so well on me because of my anxious nature, but I found myself reading faster and faster as the characters are kept on tenterhooks waiting for a visa, for traffic, for their departure time. “Waiting is a form of death, waiting is a form of death, Robinson repeated the sentence as if, like a child running downhill too fast, he could not stop himself.”
The prose is very interesting too. Some of the imagery might be a little much for some, but there are many small details of everyday life that I find very alluring. You get these snippets of how people interact with their environs. Not just their house or nature, but their offices, cars, traffic, technology, etc. Since you don’t get many big details of where the unnamed country is located, you get a lot of small atmospheric details. While you don’t know a lot about the specifics of The Movement, you know they are rebelling against technology. In these glimpses of everyday life, you don’t see any threatening machines, but you do see the prevalence of plastics and other trappings of modern production. Those kinds of details are really what draw me in.
A lot of the novel deals with the characters examining their life in the aftermath of making a very quick decision to emigrate to Avalon. They think of their attachments – to place, to people, to things – and reflect on their situation. They don’t know what their new lives are going to be like, they just decided to pick up and go. In their rush to get out of the country, there are periods of waiting wherein the characters are left with only their thoughts. Reading their internal reflections forces you to look to your own internal life. How quickly could you leave? Would you? What would you take? Who would you tell? I doubt I would do very well, and I doubt I would be able to handle the stress.
Read
April 19, 2014Visa For Avalon (1965) by Bryher
(Mild spoilers follow)
I found my expectation exceeded my experience with this short book. I had expected from it's category as 'a dystopian novel' something that examined more of the origins and conditions of a society and nation turning to oppression and coercion. This was kept mostly hidden and is little examined here. The events that precipitate the decision of the main characters to emmigrate -- beyond the rumor or a diffuse general description of a mass revolt that somewhat resembles the cultural revolution present in China when this book was written -- was the administrative, and remunerated taking of land, for cause, that while appeallable was fait accompli from it's declaration. There was one single individual case of 'legalized' property taking in this book. Nothing that extraordinary -- it is the sort of conflict common (sadly so perhaps) between individual and societal priorities, all within mandate of law. I think we're quite familiar with this and even though we may disapprove, would not take it as a sign of totalitarianism, or of mass control.
The poorly defined uprising also described in this book, a general strike by "The Movement", seems more a stand-in-argument, a generalized distrust shown by an elite towards the mass.
Alex says to Robinson:
"That's the trouble. People are apathetic until it becomes too late. The Movement appeals to the residue of the barbarian in man that the intellectuals despise but have never tried to divert into channels where it would not be harmful."
Robinson has retired to Trelawney, overstaying a vacation defying expectation of returning to a more 'productive' urban life, content to spend his days fishing. Perhaps from this place of isolation and separateness we can come to an understanding of his perceptions of the uprising:
"... the picture of those girls on the quay, marching like a long green caterpillar with many legs and one rudimentary brain, after their leader."
So then the six individuals -- Lilian, Robinson, Alex, Mr. Lawson, Miss Willis, Owen, and the pilot Augier are the only ones who are somewhat capriciously given a chance to escape to the mystical Avalon. They are principally the only characters with an individual voice in the novel, separated from the mass, and in the elite.
Perhaps this is the point of the author. She is not really involved in writing a dystopian novel. She is more at examining the thoughts of those who set themselves apart and choose to escape.
The melodrama and over-heated action that makes up at least half this book are in my opinion, not that compelling. The author has at times, with intention i think, arranged her sentences and descriptions to be somewhat awkward. Subject and object sometimes get confused, which sometimes i liked, and at other times found annoying.
I would be interested in seeing the authors earlier historic fictions. She lived a remarkable life. This book gave me a taste, though unfulfilled.
Earlier books by Bryher:
The Fourteenth of October (1952)
The Player's Boy (1953)
Roman Wall (1954)
Gate to the Sea (1958)
Ruan (1960)
Heart to Artemis (1962)
Coin of Carthage (1963)
(Mild spoilers follow)
I found my expectation exceeded my experience with this short book. I had expected from it's category as 'a dystopian novel' something that examined more of the origins and conditions of a society and nation turning to oppression and coercion. This was kept mostly hidden and is little examined here. The events that precipitate the decision of the main characters to emmigrate -- beyond the rumor or a diffuse general description of a mass revolt that somewhat resembles the cultural revolution present in China when this book was written -- was the administrative, and remunerated taking of land, for cause, that while appeallable was fait accompli from it's declaration. There was one single individual case of 'legalized' property taking in this book. Nothing that extraordinary -- it is the sort of conflict common (sadly so perhaps) between individual and societal priorities, all within mandate of law. I think we're quite familiar with this and even though we may disapprove, would not take it as a sign of totalitarianism, or of mass control.
The poorly defined uprising also described in this book, a general strike by "The Movement", seems more a stand-in-argument, a generalized distrust shown by an elite towards the mass.
Alex says to Robinson:
"That's the trouble. People are apathetic until it becomes too late. The Movement appeals to the residue of the barbarian in man that the intellectuals despise but have never tried to divert into channels where it would not be harmful."
Robinson has retired to Trelawney, overstaying a vacation defying expectation of returning to a more 'productive' urban life, content to spend his days fishing. Perhaps from this place of isolation and separateness we can come to an understanding of his perceptions of the uprising:
"... the picture of those girls on the quay, marching like a long green caterpillar with many legs and one rudimentary brain, after their leader."
So then the six individuals -- Lilian, Robinson, Alex, Mr. Lawson, Miss Willis, Owen, and the pilot Augier are the only ones who are somewhat capriciously given a chance to escape to the mystical Avalon. They are principally the only characters with an individual voice in the novel, separated from the mass, and in the elite.
Perhaps this is the point of the author. She is not really involved in writing a dystopian novel. She is more at examining the thoughts of those who set themselves apart and choose to escape.
The melodrama and over-heated action that makes up at least half this book are in my opinion, not that compelling. The author has at times, with intention i think, arranged her sentences and descriptions to be somewhat awkward. Subject and object sometimes get confused, which sometimes i liked, and at other times found annoying.
I would be interested in seeing the authors earlier historic fictions. She lived a remarkable life. This book gave me a taste, though unfulfilled.
Earlier books by Bryher:
The Fourteenth of October (1952)
The Player's Boy (1953)
Roman Wall (1954)
Gate to the Sea (1958)
Ruan (1960)
Heart to Artemis (1962)
Coin of Carthage (1963)
May 14, 2013
Bryher was a pivotal but overlooked member in the modernist literary community of ‘20s Paris and Europe. Almost all of her books are now out of print, but this novel was reissued in 2004, it was originally published in 1965, but the psychological fingerprints of WWII are all over it. I mostly came to read this book because of my curiosity of Bryher. I guess all her other novels are historical novels, so it is curious that she wrote this one futurist dystopia. Within the novel, it is never clear what the Movement – which threatens to disrupt society – is about or how it really intends to threaten the characters. Nor do we ever really learn about Avalon, where it is or what kind of place it is. There is much mystery alluded to in each of the characters’ pasts; especially the various employees of Avalon’s consulate. It seems that Bryher may have had a larger story but distilled it to this one point: the suspense of escape. And in reading it, I could not help but think of Bryher’s experience before WWII and all the escapes she must have gone through and the escapes she had facilitated. And this is what makes this book interesting, the psychology of escape: the pressure to come to the decision, the planning it takes, the obstacles, and the feeling of what it means leave everything behind.
November 19, 2014
http://www.parispress.org/shop/visa-f...
In this chilling dystopian novel, five men and women attempt to emigrate to “Avalon” after the Movement threatens the liberty and comforts they have taken for granted. Visa for Avalon takes place in an unnamed country and an unnamed time. As ordinary life comes to a standstill, escape is the only hope. But is Avalon truly the safe haven that it is rumored to be? A question readers must answer themselves.
Taught in secondary schools such as Deerfield Academy (MA), as an alternative to George Orwell’s 1984.
In this chilling dystopian novel, five men and women attempt to emigrate to “Avalon” after the Movement threatens the liberty and comforts they have taken for granted. Visa for Avalon takes place in an unnamed country and an unnamed time. As ordinary life comes to a standstill, escape is the only hope. But is Avalon truly the safe haven that it is rumored to be? A question readers must answer themselves.
Taught in secondary schools such as Deerfield Academy (MA), as an alternative to George Orwell’s 1984.
March 23, 2016
I was intrigued that poet Bryher had a second career writing "speculative fiction" or "science fantasy" so decided to check this out.
It's very much of its time (mid-60s) with a WWII flavor. The action is not anchored in a detailed milieu, though it's rather English-seeming.
The plot and characters gain impact from readers' knowledge of history more than from the force of the writing itself.
Eh, this wasn't terrible and it is engaging, but it's rather dated. It's an easy and enjoyable read (I think I finished in under 2 hours) but by no means a must-read.
It's very much of its time (mid-60s) with a WWII flavor. The action is not anchored in a detailed milieu, though it's rather English-seeming.
The plot and characters gain impact from readers' knowledge of history more than from the force of the writing itself.
Eh, this wasn't terrible and it is engaging, but it's rather dated. It's an easy and enjoyable read (I think I finished in under 2 hours) but by no means a must-read.
February 13, 2013
Rather dull book - her historical stuff makes for much better reading.
So amusing to read Susan McCabe lament the parallels of this story with the advent of the Patriot Act. It's an allusion to the Socialists destroying individual liberties shortly after World War 2. A better contemporary analogy she might want to consider is the Obama administration and their "you didn't build that" mentality along with their penchant for petty regulation.
So amusing to read Susan McCabe lament the parallels of this story with the advent of the Patriot Act. It's an allusion to the Socialists destroying individual liberties shortly after World War 2. A better contemporary analogy she might want to consider is the Obama administration and their "you didn't build that" mentality along with their penchant for petty regulation.
January 20, 2016
Bryher was an incredible woman. The About the Author was actually more interesting than the book itself, but I think it was a generational problem. Visa for Avalon was originally published in 1965, and I'm sure it was exciting and chilling at that time. Having grown up with 80s-90s-2000s media, the drama of the story just wasn't dramatic enough for me. I kept expecting more conflict, higher stakes, a twist.
July 5, 2014
A nightmare vision of our world here and now, where our very attempt to escape is in itself the worst horror of all. We can only imagine what Avalon may be... A chosen destination that offers no promise of safety and yet we find ourselves desperate to get there.
February 2, 2015
If you've never heard of this book, there's a good reason why. well but never delivers on it's promises. As far as dystopian novels go, this is pretty wimpy. The blurb and quotes from reviews make the book out to be far more entertaining than it was.
July 20, 2016
Just about the escape part from the "Movement," a 'new' social order. The thoughts and concerns of a variety of people fleeing.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews