What do you think?
Rate this book
The Plover
A compelling, marvelous novel by the acclaimed author of Mink River
Declan O Donnell has left Oregon aboard his boat, the Plover, to escape the life that’s so troubled him on land. He sets course west into the Pacific in search of solitude. Instead, he finds a crew, each in search of something themselves, and what at first seems a lonely sea voyage becomes a rapturous, heartfelt celebration of life’s surprising paths, planned and unplanned.
Declan O Donnell has left Oregon aboard his boat, the Plover, to escape the life that’s so troubled him on land. He sets course west into the Pacific in search of solitude. Instead, he finds a crew, each in search of something themselves, and what at first seems a lonely sea voyage becomes a rapturous, heartfelt celebration of life’s surprising paths, planned and unplanned.
311 pages, Hardcover
First published April 8, 2014
290 people are currently reading
3757 people want to read
About the author
Brian Doyle
60 books727 followersDoyle's essays and poems have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, The American Scholar, Orion, Commonweal, and The Georgia Review, among other magazines and journals, and in The Times of London, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Kansas City Star, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Ottawa Citizen, and Newsday, among other newspapers. He was a book reviewer for The Oregonian and a contributing essayist to both Eureka Street magazine and The Age newspaper in Melbourne, Australia.
Doyle's essays have also been reprinted in:
* the Best American Essays anthologies of 1998, 1999, 2003, and 2005;
* in Best Spiritual Writing 1999, 2001, 2002, and 2005; and
* in Best Essays Northwest (2003);
* and in a dozen other anthologies and writing textbooks.
As for awards and honors, he had three startling children, an incomprehensible and fascinating marriage, and he was named to the 1983 Newton (Massachusetts) Men's Basketball League all-star team, and that was a really tough league.
Doyle delivered many dozens of peculiar and muttered speeches and lectures and rants about writing and stuttering grace at a variety of venues, among them Australian Catholic University and Xavier College (both in Melbourne, Australia), Aquinas Academy (in Sydney, Australia); Washington State, Seattle Pacific, Oregon, Utah State, Concordia, and Marylhurst universities; Boston, Lewis & Clark, and Linfield colleges; the universities of Utah, Oregon, Pittsburgh, and Portland; KBOO radio (Portland), ABC and 3AW radio (Australia); the College Theology Society; National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation," and in the PBS film Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero (2002).
Doyle was a native of New York, was fitfully educated at the University of Notre Dame, and was a magazine and newspaper journalist in Portland, Boston, and Chicago for more than twenty years. He was living in Portland, Oregon, with his family when died at age 60 from complications related to a brain tumor.
Doyle's essays have also been reprinted in:
* the Best American Essays anthologies of 1998, 1999, 2003, and 2005;
* in Best Spiritual Writing 1999, 2001, 2002, and 2005; and
* in Best Essays Northwest (2003);
* and in a dozen other anthologies and writing textbooks.
As for awards and honors, he had three startling children, an incomprehensible and fascinating marriage, and he was named to the 1983 Newton (Massachusetts) Men's Basketball League all-star team, and that was a really tough league.
Doyle delivered many dozens of peculiar and muttered speeches and lectures and rants about writing and stuttering grace at a variety of venues, among them Australian Catholic University and Xavier College (both in Melbourne, Australia), Aquinas Academy (in Sydney, Australia); Washington State, Seattle Pacific, Oregon, Utah State, Concordia, and Marylhurst universities; Boston, Lewis & Clark, and Linfield colleges; the universities of Utah, Oregon, Pittsburgh, and Portland; KBOO radio (Portland), ABC and 3AW radio (Australia); the College Theology Society; National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation," and in the PBS film Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero (2002).
Doyle was a native of New York, was fitfully educated at the University of Notre Dame, and was a magazine and newspaper journalist in Portland, Boston, and Chicago for more than twenty years. He was living in Portland, Oregon, with his family when died at age 60 from complications related to a brain tumor.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 512 reviews
April 19, 2017
In my 20's, I read several books by an author named Tom Robbins, who wrote wonderful novels populated by strange and wonderful characters, most of them with something that made them just a little different. This book reminds me of those novels in the same way: however fantastical the story, however unrealistic the situation, the writing is so good that I will follow those characters to the ends of the earth with no questions. And the ends of the earth is very nearly where we go aboard Declan O'Connell 's little boat,the Plover.
He starts out on the coast of Oregon, determined to sail alone due west to find solitude and peace, and escape from all the problems of civilization. He ends up in the Hawaiian Islands with an entourage of 4 men, 1 woman, 1 child, and a bevy of birds. There is magic along the way, and miracles, and love and friendship, not to mention the wisdom and the humor and knowledge and courage of the people on board.
I started this book because I needed a peaceful, quiet read for a few days, just like Declan needed to get away from the world of men when he set sail. Declan and I both realized that the world is a vast and magnificent place encompassing more than we will ever know, but you have to be open to the possibility of change and growth to let it in. A truly great read, and I'm a Brian Doyle fan for sure.
He starts out on the coast of Oregon, determined to sail alone due west to find solitude and peace, and escape from all the problems of civilization. He ends up in the Hawaiian Islands with an entourage of 4 men, 1 woman, 1 child, and a bevy of birds. There is magic along the way, and miracles, and love and friendship, not to mention the wisdom and the humor and knowledge and courage of the people on board.
I started this book because I needed a peaceful, quiet read for a few days, just like Declan needed to get away from the world of men when he set sail. Declan and I both realized that the world is a vast and magnificent place encompassing more than we will ever know, but you have to be open to the possibility of change and growth to let it in. A truly great read, and I'm a Brian Doyle fan for sure.
May 24, 2014
A magical, wonderful sea adventure-coming of middle age-fantasy-exploration-ode to the watery world-hard to describe but must read. I now know I must get to my copy of Mink River and the Brian Doyle back catalogue. This was not even on my agenda to read until I happened to see it on the new release table at the library and read a few paragraphs. I was caught.
There is science, environmental science.
consider, for a moment, that the longest chain of
mountains and volcanoes and hills and guyots and cliffs
and sheering walls on the face of the earth is invisible
to the eye, unless you are plunged into the blue realm of
Pacifica, which houses the Emperor Seamounts, which stretch
nearly four thousand miles across the wild ocean like the
longest grin there is; and consider further that only the
very tail of this endless ridge, this vast vaulting, peers
above the surface, and it is christened Hawaii....
(p 18)
One Declan O'Donnell has taken to sea, aboard his ship, The Plover, sailing west out of Oregon, with no port in mind and no companion save a gull who seems to be flying along. There are adventures to come, places to see, perhaps people to meet, but I'm not going to say because I don't want to spoil the magic of those moments. They are meant to be encountered as you read, not from reviews. But the past is probably OK.
And thinking of Christmas Declan suddenly got a wash
of old old memory from when he was maybe ten years old
and his sister Grace was maybe eight and the boys were
little crawlers, this was before their mom left dragging
her suitcase down the driveway and never came back, before
the old man froze up inside totally and hated everyone and
everything, and he was sitting by the fire....No tree, no
presents, no special dinner, but no punching or screaming
or cursing either; and everyone together. Best Christmas
ever. (pp60-61)
And more ocean beauty:
Another time flying fish flew over the boat east to west
in such numbers that it seemed the Plover was covered with
a silver sheen, silver snow, a living shroud, a moist
blanket, a shivering roof. Another time the sky was so
stuffed with stars and so many of them shooting stars that
you would swear the stars were plummeting into the sea
faster than the sea could drink them. (p 149)
And one last quote that made me smile and made me happy for my dreams:
Certainly so, certainly so says the minister. But if
we do not dream, then I think perhaps we are misusing our
heads. They are not put on our shoulders only to be farms
for hair. (p 259)
I'll leave it to you to find out who the minister is and what his dreams are :)
Very highly recommended
There is science, environmental science.
consider, for a moment, that the longest chain of
mountains and volcanoes and hills and guyots and cliffs
and sheering walls on the face of the earth is invisible
to the eye, unless you are plunged into the blue realm of
Pacifica, which houses the Emperor Seamounts, which stretch
nearly four thousand miles across the wild ocean like the
longest grin there is; and consider further that only the
very tail of this endless ridge, this vast vaulting, peers
above the surface, and it is christened Hawaii....
(p 18)
One Declan O'Donnell has taken to sea, aboard his ship, The Plover, sailing west out of Oregon, with no port in mind and no companion save a gull who seems to be flying along. There are adventures to come, places to see, perhaps people to meet, but I'm not going to say because I don't want to spoil the magic of those moments. They are meant to be encountered as you read, not from reviews. But the past is probably OK.
And thinking of Christmas Declan suddenly got a wash
of old old memory from when he was maybe ten years old
and his sister Grace was maybe eight and the boys were
little crawlers, this was before their mom left dragging
her suitcase down the driveway and never came back, before
the old man froze up inside totally and hated everyone and
everything, and he was sitting by the fire....No tree, no
presents, no special dinner, but no punching or screaming
or cursing either; and everyone together. Best Christmas
ever. (pp60-61)
And more ocean beauty:
Another time flying fish flew over the boat east to west
in such numbers that it seemed the Plover was covered with
a silver sheen, silver snow, a living shroud, a moist
blanket, a shivering roof. Another time the sky was so
stuffed with stars and so many of them shooting stars that
you would swear the stars were plummeting into the sea
faster than the sea could drink them. (p 149)
And one last quote that made me smile and made me happy for my dreams:
Certainly so, certainly so says the minister. But if
we do not dream, then I think perhaps we are misusing our
heads. They are not put on our shoulders only to be farms
for hair. (p 259)
I'll leave it to you to find out who the minister is and what his dreams are :)
Very highly recommended
May 26, 2014
If you are drawn to words, Brian Doyle's Song to the Pacific will prove a delight. If you are drawn to the ocean, it will be even more so. His writing exuberance is evident from the first chapter as words leap over and over each other like porpoises plying the playful sea.
At first you think it will be the story of a lone sailor, Declan, moving philosophically around the lonely Pacific on his 30-foot home-with-a-hull, the Plover, but soon you realize that this is a story about humanity as much as a single man and the briny.
Thus, Doyle introduces us to a biologist friend, Piko, and his traumatized and speechless daughter, Pipa. Then there's the resident gull. And stowaway tern. And two rogue rats.
That's not all, either. Before the end, the boat will be packed to the gunwales with the flotsam and jetsam of human life that fall the boat's way during its many mild adventures (no over-the-top here, thank you). Together they become a microcosm for all that is good and hopeful and joyous in life.
I could easily criticize the book for a leaky plot, but who needs a plot with such writing as this? Doyle is not afraid to make up words; to indulge in bouts of Realism, Romanticism, or Magical Realism if it suits his writing mood; to have birds, animals, and fish talk; to wonder about life and death and the meaning of our short cosmic streak across the heavens; to do, in short, as he pleases without worrying about formulas and conventions and reviewers and, who knows, book royalties and such. Nope. Just Declan and his favorite, memorized Edmund Burke speeches, thinking and talking and piloting as they see fit.
A typical reverie: "One time when the wind was high and all sail set Piko tied himself to a longline and tied his feet to cedar planks and surfed behind the boat until the rope snapped and he described a somersault very nearly landing back on his feet again in the water but not quite. Another time a pod of whales swam right at the boat their massive foreheads like seething walls in the water but at the last possible second they split into two lines and slid past the boat making booming sounds so deep and thorough and amused that Pipa mewled happily for an hour afterward. Another time a shark circled the boat for an hour until a leap of porpoises shot past and hammered the shark mercilessly until it fled. Another time flying fish flew over the boat east to west in such numbers that it seemed the Plover was covered with a silver sheen, silver snow, a living shroud, a moist blanket, a shivering roof. Another time the sky was so stuffed with stars and so many of them shooting stars that you would swear the stars were plummeting into the sea faster than the sea could drink them."
Like so. Run-on poetry with sparse punctuation. A long-noted song. And such characterization and description that you will briefly forget that the literary world hawked such things as plots and say you wish you could continue the voyage when this particular one comes to port as all must.
Recommended to poets, sailors, Melville fans, writer's writers, literary readers, freedom lovers, part-time philosophers, and those on the edge of despair with the land-lubbing world.
At first you think it will be the story of a lone sailor, Declan, moving philosophically around the lonely Pacific on his 30-foot home-with-a-hull, the Plover, but soon you realize that this is a story about humanity as much as a single man and the briny.
Thus, Doyle introduces us to a biologist friend, Piko, and his traumatized and speechless daughter, Pipa. Then there's the resident gull. And stowaway tern. And two rogue rats.
That's not all, either. Before the end, the boat will be packed to the gunwales with the flotsam and jetsam of human life that fall the boat's way during its many mild adventures (no over-the-top here, thank you). Together they become a microcosm for all that is good and hopeful and joyous in life.
I could easily criticize the book for a leaky plot, but who needs a plot with such writing as this? Doyle is not afraid to make up words; to indulge in bouts of Realism, Romanticism, or Magical Realism if it suits his writing mood; to have birds, animals, and fish talk; to wonder about life and death and the meaning of our short cosmic streak across the heavens; to do, in short, as he pleases without worrying about formulas and conventions and reviewers and, who knows, book royalties and such. Nope. Just Declan and his favorite, memorized Edmund Burke speeches, thinking and talking and piloting as they see fit.
A typical reverie: "One time when the wind was high and all sail set Piko tied himself to a longline and tied his feet to cedar planks and surfed behind the boat until the rope snapped and he described a somersault very nearly landing back on his feet again in the water but not quite. Another time a pod of whales swam right at the boat their massive foreheads like seething walls in the water but at the last possible second they split into two lines and slid past the boat making booming sounds so deep and thorough and amused that Pipa mewled happily for an hour afterward. Another time a shark circled the boat for an hour until a leap of porpoises shot past and hammered the shark mercilessly until it fled. Another time flying fish flew over the boat east to west in such numbers that it seemed the Plover was covered with a silver sheen, silver snow, a living shroud, a moist blanket, a shivering roof. Another time the sky was so stuffed with stars and so many of them shooting stars that you would swear the stars were plummeting into the sea faster than the sea could drink them."
Like so. Run-on poetry with sparse punctuation. A long-noted song. And such characterization and description that you will briefly forget that the literary world hawked such things as plots and say you wish you could continue the voyage when this particular one comes to port as all must.
Recommended to poets, sailors, Melville fans, writer's writers, literary readers, freedom lovers, part-time philosophers, and those on the edge of despair with the land-lubbing world.
October 13, 2019
Lyricism; humor; an expansive worldview; a sort of magical realism (as I said of his Mink River); a guardian gull; and a twist on Moby-Dick or, The Whale (There’s no whale and that’s not the twist.): I enjoyed this immensely, though I think I enjoyed Mink River just a bit more, but perhaps that’s because I read it first.
I’d been meaning to read another book by Doyle for awhile now and decided to read this right away after hearing of his recent death. His final words at the end of his ‘Thanks & Notes’ are rendered even more poignant by a too-soon death: …I am the luckiest ship ever.
I’d been meaning to read another book by Doyle for awhile now and decided to read this right away after hearing of his recent death. His final words at the end of his ‘Thanks & Notes’ are rendered even more poignant by a too-soon death: …I am the luckiest ship ever.
April 28, 2024
Rating: 5++
Yet another masterful work of literary fiction, Brian Doyle takes the reader on a Pacific journey on 'The Plover' along with its owner, Declan O'Donnell, a character from Mink River. Having fallen in love with Doyle's creativity, lyrical narrative and blend of quirky characters and plot, this story is equal in all respects.
As mentioned in the "Mink" review, it takes an appreciation for non-traditional creative storytelling, blends of 'fantasy' and reality along with themes of love, family, redemption and adventure. For example, "..Maybe the ocean thinks. How do we know? Maybe the ocean licks its islands every night like mothers lick their cubs. This could be. Maybe it chants their names in its many languages in the morning and makes them rise again toward the sun.."
The story begins when Declan grows frustrated with his family, loads the 20' boat with supplies and heads out into the largest ocean in the world to 'find himself'. Passion for the ocean's wonder along with comfort being alone Declan finds solace until an unexpected encounter with a rogue vessel named "Tanets". The Eastern European trawler is owned by Enrique, a demanding, angry soul. He lost his pilot, 'Something Somethingivic' during a storm. When he anchors off an island, Piko an old friend of Declan's becomes the replacement much to his dislike.
Having survived the vicious storm, Declan finds safe harbor on a Pacific island where he learns of Piko and Pipa's kidnapping. Angered, he hunts down the Tanet and manages to capture his old friend and daughter offering them safety aboard the Plover which delights him to no end. An oceanographer, devoted father and friend Piko is eager to make it back to Mahala in the South Pacific where he can continue with emotional healing, research and return to his friends. Pipa was traumatized from an accident with her mother Elly, is paralyzed from the waist down and 'chirps' like a bird since they're drawn to her. The love between father and daughter is the sort dreams are made from. Enrique is the take no prisoners type and is eager to settle the score. This sets up what would normally be the protagonist/antagonist theme, but we must remember the author is anything but traditional.
Told with the same lyrical narrative used with "Mink", the additional cast includes Taromauri, a native Pacific island woman who's joi de vivre is unrivaled; Danilo, a former crew member of the Tanets; the minister of fisheries; a talking sea gull along with some stow away terns. As one might imagine, the journey is an adventure unlike others.
Immersive, unique and unusual, the author's creativity, style and approach are nothing short of magnificent. An outlier, he's part of a special group of authors I enjoy that include Percival Everett, Matthew Quick, James McBride and Richard Powers who like Doyle, are unique, creative and defy genre.
If you seek a break from mystery, horror, crime or romance I URGE you to delve into the mind of Brian Doyle, who we lost in 2017 due to brain cancer. Regardless, you won't find another author with his style, approach or skill, rest assured.
Yet another masterful work of literary fiction, Brian Doyle takes the reader on a Pacific journey on 'The Plover' along with its owner, Declan O'Donnell, a character from Mink River. Having fallen in love with Doyle's creativity, lyrical narrative and blend of quirky characters and plot, this story is equal in all respects.
As mentioned in the "Mink" review, it takes an appreciation for non-traditional creative storytelling, blends of 'fantasy' and reality along with themes of love, family, redemption and adventure. For example, "..Maybe the ocean thinks. How do we know? Maybe the ocean licks its islands every night like mothers lick their cubs. This could be. Maybe it chants their names in its many languages in the morning and makes them rise again toward the sun.."
The story begins when Declan grows frustrated with his family, loads the 20' boat with supplies and heads out into the largest ocean in the world to 'find himself'. Passion for the ocean's wonder along with comfort being alone Declan finds solace until an unexpected encounter with a rogue vessel named "Tanets". The Eastern European trawler is owned by Enrique, a demanding, angry soul. He lost his pilot, 'Something Somethingivic' during a storm. When he anchors off an island, Piko an old friend of Declan's becomes the replacement much to his dislike.
Having survived the vicious storm, Declan finds safe harbor on a Pacific island where he learns of Piko and Pipa's kidnapping. Angered, he hunts down the Tanet and manages to capture his old friend and daughter offering them safety aboard the Plover which delights him to no end. An oceanographer, devoted father and friend Piko is eager to make it back to Mahala in the South Pacific where he can continue with emotional healing, research and return to his friends. Pipa was traumatized from an accident with her mother Elly, is paralyzed from the waist down and 'chirps' like a bird since they're drawn to her. The love between father and daughter is the sort dreams are made from. Enrique is the take no prisoners type and is eager to settle the score. This sets up what would normally be the protagonist/antagonist theme, but we must remember the author is anything but traditional.
Told with the same lyrical narrative used with "Mink", the additional cast includes Taromauri, a native Pacific island woman who's joi de vivre is unrivaled; Danilo, a former crew member of the Tanets; the minister of fisheries; a talking sea gull along with some stow away terns. As one might imagine, the journey is an adventure unlike others.
Immersive, unique and unusual, the author's creativity, style and approach are nothing short of magnificent. An outlier, he's part of a special group of authors I enjoy that include Percival Everett, Matthew Quick, James McBride and Richard Powers who like Doyle, are unique, creative and defy genre.
If you seek a break from mystery, horror, crime or romance I URGE you to delve into the mind of Brian Doyle, who we lost in 2017 due to brain cancer. Regardless, you won't find another author with his style, approach or skill, rest assured.
February 10, 2014
I loved "Mink River," which made it into my Top Ten. "The Plover" is equally wonderful. Brian Doyle is a writer's writer who respects and trusts the reader. He is not only a treasure to Portland, Oregon, he is a treasure to the broad world of literature. I'll stop now, before I gush all over myself.
November 17, 2013
The Plover is not exactly a sequel to Mink River -- more of a companion piece -- but fans of the latter will be thrilled to find out what happened to one of the most beloved characters. After sailing his little boat off the final pages of Mink River, the story of Declan O'Donnell continues in The Plover. Declan is a man of serious solitude and he is pleased to be starting a journey of peace and quiet. But, there is no quiet in Brian Doyle's head -- it is full of magic, mutterings and musings, and once these things are in motion, there is no stopping them.
Before Declan knows what has hit him, he has a boat full of bodies -- both human and otherwise -- along for the ride; “…ranging in size from [enormous] to an infinitesimal acorn barnacle, just born as this sentence began, and no bigger than the period which is about to arrive, here.” No, there will be no solitude for Declan -- and how lucky for us. The Plover is a rambling, charming sea voyage, full of thrills, danger and narrow escapes.
It’s also an excellent observation on the nature of things unseen: on what may be, on ideas, on imaginings, aspirations, and dreams. There is so much substance underneath Doyle’s dazzling, rich language, I just wanted to read each sentence over and over until every whisper of nuance was absorbed, recognized, and experienced. Reading Doyle's writing is an enchanting discovery of how shattering and awe-inspiring language can be, and his literary contortions are both improbable and captivating at the same time.
Remember the first book you loved as a child? Remember how you wished so hard you lived in that book? That feeling is Doyle's "normal" and we should all be so lucky to live in his world.
Before Declan knows what has hit him, he has a boat full of bodies -- both human and otherwise -- along for the ride; “…ranging in size from [enormous] to an infinitesimal acorn barnacle, just born as this sentence began, and no bigger than the period which is about to arrive, here.” No, there will be no solitude for Declan -- and how lucky for us. The Plover is a rambling, charming sea voyage, full of thrills, danger and narrow escapes.
It’s also an excellent observation on the nature of things unseen: on what may be, on ideas, on imaginings, aspirations, and dreams. There is so much substance underneath Doyle’s dazzling, rich language, I just wanted to read each sentence over and over until every whisper of nuance was absorbed, recognized, and experienced. Reading Doyle's writing is an enchanting discovery of how shattering and awe-inspiring language can be, and his literary contortions are both improbable and captivating at the same time.
Remember the first book you loved as a child? Remember how you wished so hard you lived in that book? That feeling is Doyle's "normal" and we should all be so lucky to live in his world.
May 12, 2022
This Plover Is Not a Bird
Due to my current lack of reading comprehension which began when I was in grade school, I am going to do a continuing review of this book which may end up in its being dfed. And if I recall correctly this author is a nature writer, which is why I thought this book was about a plover, which bird I love.
I used to see plovers on the beach in Morro Bay, CA. Little birds with long thin legs that ran up and down the beach looking for bugs or whatever it was that they ate.
But, alas, the plover is the name of a boat. Maybe a sailboat. Whatever the type of boat, it was ocean worthy. And the author, or the main character, had a pet bird, a seagull named Herring. They talked to each other everyday, the gull from the sky as he was hovering over the boat, and the man below. The man told him that he better not steal anything onboard, and the gull said, "Ha,ha, ha, ha. (I at least looked up seagull sounds.) Then after a feew days, his seagull flew away. Birds don't like being pets.
So, then the main character was met by another boat whose man, Enreque, threatened to kill him. But he decided to leave him alone. The man wondered what a Spanish man was doing on a Russian boat. Hmm. Maybe he stole it. Maybe he was a pirate. I am clever to think of this.
And now he has picked up two passengers, a man and his daughter. And they go through a bad storm and the daughter falls into the ocean but is saved.
But I am bored with this book and the man's silliness, just as you may be with mine own silliness. Tune in to see if I found
this book readable.
Later, This writer also makes a list of all the sea books that he has read, So I put them on my to read list and hope they're better than this book. Next he was listing all the items he took on his boat and he had 5 fishing rods. I remember the rods because he did not know why he had so many. Then he talked about the items that were floating on the ocean. A seal skull Wrapped up in a net. Women's items that you can find in a restroom. I imagined a plane flying over and opening up the trap door in the bathroom.
Then in time after all of his rattling on, I, like the seagull, flew away.
Due to my current lack of reading comprehension which began when I was in grade school, I am going to do a continuing review of this book which may end up in its being dfed. And if I recall correctly this author is a nature writer, which is why I thought this book was about a plover, which bird I love.
I used to see plovers on the beach in Morro Bay, CA. Little birds with long thin legs that ran up and down the beach looking for bugs or whatever it was that they ate.
But, alas, the plover is the name of a boat. Maybe a sailboat. Whatever the type of boat, it was ocean worthy. And the author, or the main character, had a pet bird, a seagull named Herring. They talked to each other everyday, the gull from the sky as he was hovering over the boat, and the man below. The man told him that he better not steal anything onboard, and the gull said, "Ha,ha, ha, ha. (I at least looked up seagull sounds.) Then after a feew days, his seagull flew away. Birds don't like being pets.
So, then the main character was met by another boat whose man, Enreque, threatened to kill him. But he decided to leave him alone. The man wondered what a Spanish man was doing on a Russian boat. Hmm. Maybe he stole it. Maybe he was a pirate. I am clever to think of this.
And now he has picked up two passengers, a man and his daughter. And they go through a bad storm and the daughter falls into the ocean but is saved.
But I am bored with this book and the man's silliness, just as you may be with mine own silliness. Tune in to see if I found
this book readable.
Later, This writer also makes a list of all the sea books that he has read, So I put them on my to read list and hope they're better than this book. Next he was listing all the items he took on his boat and he had 5 fishing rods. I remember the rods because he did not know why he had so many. Then he talked about the items that were floating on the ocean. A seal skull Wrapped up in a net. Women's items that you can find in a restroom. I imagined a plane flying over and opening up the trap door in the bathroom.
Then in time after all of his rattling on, I, like the seagull, flew away.
August 8, 2018
Declan O Donnell seeks solitude and anonymity and so sets sail alone from Defoe Bay, Oregon into the vast Pacific Ocean in a tiny boat called The Plover with no agenda, except not sinking, and no destination, except west and then west. A set of Edmund Burke’s speeches is his only reading material, and oh how perfectly Burke’s words are quoted here. Of course Declan’s simple plan goes awry, and suddenly the most unconventional characters ever begin to inhabit his solitary world.
Declan is first introduced to readers in Doyle’s debut novel ‘Mink River’ (a 5-star read for me), and it would be helpful to understand the circumstances that drive him toward this journey, but ‘The Plover’ works fine as a stand-alone. I loved Declan and his ocean and his boat and his refugees. I chuckled and worried and cheered and reflected for 300+ beautiful pages. This is a book that should not be rushed - it ebbs and flows and dips and swells, just like the Pacific Ocean, and you have to slow down in order to appreciate fully the meditative prose, the rich descriptions of animals and environment, and the magical realism here. What a tremendous loss to the world of words that Brian Doyle passed away last year at age 60. He was an incredibly gifted writer and an author I highly recommend to all. 4.5 stars, and one small sample of the thought-provoking writing you can expect in this novel:
“Can a man who has often and pointedly claimed independence from all constraint and relationship continue on such a course for his entire lifetime . . . without finally arriving not at a welcome solitude but at a fearsome loneliness and desiccation of the soul?”
~ Declan O Donnell, musing aboard The Plover
Declan is first introduced to readers in Doyle’s debut novel ‘Mink River’ (a 5-star read for me), and it would be helpful to understand the circumstances that drive him toward this journey, but ‘The Plover’ works fine as a stand-alone. I loved Declan and his ocean and his boat and his refugees. I chuckled and worried and cheered and reflected for 300+ beautiful pages. This is a book that should not be rushed - it ebbs and flows and dips and swells, just like the Pacific Ocean, and you have to slow down in order to appreciate fully the meditative prose, the rich descriptions of animals and environment, and the magical realism here. What a tremendous loss to the world of words that Brian Doyle passed away last year at age 60. He was an incredibly gifted writer and an author I highly recommend to all. 4.5 stars, and one small sample of the thought-provoking writing you can expect in this novel:
“Can a man who has often and pointedly claimed independence from all constraint and relationship continue on such a course for his entire lifetime . . . without finally arriving not at a welcome solitude but at a fearsome loneliness and desiccation of the soul?”
~ Declan O Donnell, musing aboard The Plover
September 3, 2025
A lovely little book with big heart and big ideas about memory, motivations, connections between people and other beings, purpose, and life on and under the Pacific, mother of all seas.
The captain, Declan, philosophizes aloud to his audience, which at times is only a bird (very special and important), and references misneach often. From the Gaelic, it means courage, hopefulness, and fortitude, but also embodies the choice to live with integrity and to keep on keeping on.
A book to prize and reread.
The captain, Declan, philosophizes aloud to his audience, which at times is only a bird (very special and important), and references misneach often. From the Gaelic, it means courage, hopefulness, and fortitude, but also embodies the choice to live with integrity and to keep on keeping on.
A book to prize and reread.
July 11, 2016
I loved it. Just loved it.
A few years ago I read a completely different book that had a quote that somehow applies to The Plover & to my reading of it. “Sometimes when she told stories about the past her eyes would get teary from all the memories she had, but they weren't tears. She wasn't crying. They were just the memories, leaking out.” (The quote is from A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki.) The Plover is not my book. Not my story. It doesn't hold my memories. But when the tears leaked out of my eyes while reading, that quote is exactly what I thought of. It doesn't even make sense in a way, yet it does somehow. The Plover touched my heart & mind in so many ways. This story is well- & beautifully-told, a mix of reality & magic (not magical realism, more the magic of wonder & awe of the world we live in & with); true characters full of flaws, & wonder, & hope. A book that gave me some tears, smiles, & hope in our world. Gorgeous.
(Editing to add.... I said it's not magical realism. Yet, there are some touches there too. To me, though, they were so natural to the story that I see it more as an honoring of traditions or beliefs that all living things communicate, be they human, or animal, or plant. In my world, talking animals or plants are normal in some stories, but may be categorized differently by other readers. To each his own.)
A few years ago I read a completely different book that had a quote that somehow applies to The Plover & to my reading of it. “Sometimes when she told stories about the past her eyes would get teary from all the memories she had, but they weren't tears. She wasn't crying. They were just the memories, leaking out.” (The quote is from A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki.) The Plover is not my book. Not my story. It doesn't hold my memories. But when the tears leaked out of my eyes while reading, that quote is exactly what I thought of. It doesn't even make sense in a way, yet it does somehow. The Plover touched my heart & mind in so many ways. This story is well- & beautifully-told, a mix of reality & magic (not magical realism, more the magic of wonder & awe of the world we live in & with); true characters full of flaws, & wonder, & hope. A book that gave me some tears, smiles, & hope in our world. Gorgeous.
(Editing to add.... I said it's not magical realism. Yet, there are some touches there too. To me, though, they were so natural to the story that I see it more as an honoring of traditions or beliefs that all living things communicate, be they human, or animal, or plant. In my world, talking animals or plants are normal in some stories, but may be categorized differently by other readers. To each his own.)
June 29, 2014
I checked this out based on the glowing review of my favorite bookseller, waxing poetic about Doyle's prose. I HATE his prose.
Note to author:
1. If you have more than one semicolon in a sentence and it isn't providing a list of phrases, you need to seriously think about the use of periods. Reading your text is exhausting.
2. IF you were attempting to record the protagonist's stream of conscious thoughts by the multiple semicolons and commas that lead the reader along a crooked path, the technique failed.
3. The use of the f-word -- even when you replace the "u" with an "e" serves no purpose other than to illustrate your lack of command over the English language. It is trite and superfluous.
Note to author:
1. If you have more than one semicolon in a sentence and it isn't providing a list of phrases, you need to seriously think about the use of periods. Reading your text is exhausting.
2. IF you were attempting to record the protagonist's stream of conscious thoughts by the multiple semicolons and commas that lead the reader along a crooked path, the technique failed.
3. The use of the f-word -- even when you replace the "u" with an "e" serves no purpose other than to illustrate your lack of command over the English language. It is trite and superfluous.
March 9, 2014
Take a bow, Mr. Doyle, and publisher Thomas Dunne, too! A book like The Plover has becoming such a rarity lately, your work shines like a star breaking through the clouds. Now, I can see how the run-on sentences and dancing viewpoints might daunt some readers; but as a sailor with close to forty years on the water, I found the cadence of the main character’s almost steady chants of self-deprecation and fix-it preoccupations very familiar. This is not a book for every reader; but rather, for those who love the sea, love boats, and have a glimmer that there is much hidden in plain sight in our world. Having known the feeling of shore-legs is also a definite plus for readers of this heaving, liquid prose.
The Plover is the last remaining love of a man who wants to free himself from expectations and involvement with others. He’s chosen an ungainly cedar planked fishing trawler jury-fitted with a mast and sailing gear. He’s named her for a small but plucky shore bird and launched himself into the immensity of the Pacific with only a single idea of course: West. His carefully constructed solitude is broken almost immediately by a friendly gull and an odd rag-tag passenger list that seems to grow with every landfall despite his best intentions to keep it simple.
Within these sometimes hilarious, sometime frightening and regularly mysterious pages, he discovers that he can love other people as much as he loves his little boat. Mr. Doyle has crafted some of the most beautiful descriptive passages I’ve read and some of the most harrowing action, too. His characters are all much deeper than I initially expected. To think that someone this driven to deny his humanity could find redemption in the loving grace of an afflicted young child, the easy humor of a close friend, the deeply spiritual grasp of an almost silent Island woman and the evolving, miraculous worldview of a former politician, is incredible. Fighting storms and a maniacal ship’s captain on the open seas, adds just the right amount of accessible conflict, but in the tradition of the fantasy writing of Yann Martel, the incredible can still be deeply moving. For me, the story of the seemingly aimless voyage of The Plover, found a landfall right in my heart.
The Plover is the last remaining love of a man who wants to free himself from expectations and involvement with others. He’s chosen an ungainly cedar planked fishing trawler jury-fitted with a mast and sailing gear. He’s named her for a small but plucky shore bird and launched himself into the immensity of the Pacific with only a single idea of course: West. His carefully constructed solitude is broken almost immediately by a friendly gull and an odd rag-tag passenger list that seems to grow with every landfall despite his best intentions to keep it simple.
Within these sometimes hilarious, sometime frightening and regularly mysterious pages, he discovers that he can love other people as much as he loves his little boat. Mr. Doyle has crafted some of the most beautiful descriptive passages I’ve read and some of the most harrowing action, too. His characters are all much deeper than I initially expected. To think that someone this driven to deny his humanity could find redemption in the loving grace of an afflicted young child, the easy humor of a close friend, the deeply spiritual grasp of an almost silent Island woman and the evolving, miraculous worldview of a former politician, is incredible. Fighting storms and a maniacal ship’s captain on the open seas, adds just the right amount of accessible conflict, but in the tradition of the fantasy writing of Yann Martel, the incredible can still be deeply moving. For me, the story of the seemingly aimless voyage of The Plover, found a landfall right in my heart.
March 31, 2014
I can't believe that I put this book off for so long! On the bright side however, discovering an fortuitously great book brings the same gleeful joy as finding cash in your couch. And boy did I ever hit the jackpot with this gem.
I will admit that it took me a while to get into this book but once I did it was hard to put down. I found myself thinking about it all day and dreaming about it all night. I loved all the characters in this story and the writing is smooth and magical and wise. So wise! There is a heaviness to this book but also a lightness. The adventure was wonderful and I found myself at the edge of my seat when reading about the villain. I greedily gobbled up this amazing book and now I sit, full and satisfied and happy, for having experienced this book. 4.5/5
I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.
April 6, 2014
Original review found at http://kristineandterri.blogspot.ca/2...
I received an advanced readers copy of this book through a Goodreads giveaway in exchange for an honest review. The expected publication date is April 8, 2014.
I had very high expectations for this book after seeing all of the positive reviews on Goodreads. I couldn't wait to dive into it and see for myself.
Unfortunately this book fell short for me. I struggled to get through it and found that I could only read a little bit at a time, often putting it down to read something else. The characters were unique but I found I couldn't connect with them and because of that the story was quite dull. There was a lot of talking in circles and if I heard "feck" one more "fecking" time I thought I would scream!
I'm going to keep this short because it was obviously not for me. It is apparent that this style of writing is not my cup of tea but if it sounds like an interesting read I would encourage you to read it as it appears that numerous people really enjoyed it.
I received an advanced readers copy of this book through a Goodreads giveaway in exchange for an honest review. The expected publication date is April 8, 2014.
I had very high expectations for this book after seeing all of the positive reviews on Goodreads. I couldn't wait to dive into it and see for myself.
Unfortunately this book fell short for me. I struggled to get through it and found that I could only read a little bit at a time, often putting it down to read something else. The characters were unique but I found I couldn't connect with them and because of that the story was quite dull. There was a lot of talking in circles and if I heard "feck" one more "fecking" time I thought I would scream!
I'm going to keep this short because it was obviously not for me. It is apparent that this style of writing is not my cup of tea but if it sounds like an interesting read I would encourage you to read it as it appears that numerous people really enjoyed it.
March 1, 2018
Lots of people love this book. I read a few pages, gave up, and then toughed it out. For me, Brian Doyle's chaotic, stream of conscious writing style overshadowed some memorable characters. One reader summarized by saying "seemingly-mismatched puzzle pieces slowly aligning themselves to form a powerful tapestry ... [but it] never feels as complete. It's a modern art approach to writing where the goal isn't always a specific image but rather a mood." Declan decides to set off on an adventure across the Pacific Ocean in a small boat, and picks up stragglers along the way. There were two unforgettable characters: one who wanted to create a country called Pacifica to create a country integrating all of the hundreds of islands, cultures and resources of the Pacific Ocean, and the Pipster, a young girl who suffered a horrific accident, but seems to understand more of the world around her than her shipmates.
May 1, 2014
I finished ‘The Plover’ several days ago and am only now writing this review. I was tired when I finished and I thought to myself, I will do this later. I have to let the words sit.
The words have sat.
In the meantime I have taken in many more words, but different kinds of words. I read an anthropology book, a fairy tale, a history book, a book in translation from Spanish with short, choppy words. The way those words stayed inside of me is very different from how Brian’s words now stay inside me.
I’m reading a book by Faulkner and another by Joyce now and while reading I have been struck by the way Faulkner made his sentences long, focused on the stream of mind poetics. Joyce turned his sentences inside out and wore them like that, inside-out, the strings on the hem showing and hanging down, like he’s making a joke out of all the seriousness of words but in a nice way, the way I make a joke about someone I love when they are being themselves and they are being so very them and I’m filled with love for them and have to point out that inside-out shirt, the strings that are left hanging and snagging, because that’s part of who they are. That’s the big joke that makes the big love inside of me or the love made the joke, I’m not sure.
Brian's words and books do the same thing as Faulkner and Joyce. They hit me that way.
One of the things about Brian’s writing is how he tears words apart and bends them to make them fit together. It kind of reminds me of doing puzzles with my mother. My mom had a great deal of brain damage and she needs to be taken care of now. I do many puzzles with her to pass the time. She enjoys it but she doesn’t do them like she used to. She’ll take a puzzle piece and tear it if she thinks the piece ought to go somewhere and she doesn’t like it. I try to stop her. I tell her it’s not right. She won’t listen. She puts the puzzle together the way she wants. What comes out sometimes is all her. Definitely not what the box advertised. A shaken up image, a word Picasso. A puzzle poem.
Brian puts the word-pieces together how he wants, when he wants, like every poet I love. Watching that in prose in the fiction world is really something. Like reading Rilke. Dense and imagistic. It takes me into it, almost, instead of me taking the words into myself.
So I should probably say that I know Brian. I don’t know him super well but he’s been around at some of the darkest points of my life. We’ve mostly written letters. I sent a couple of stories in to him and he rejected all of them but said he likes my work and knows he’ll print something of mine someday. (Kind man.)
The first book I read from him was “the wet engine.” It’s about hearts and he goes on about them, the pain and necessity and beauty of ‘that red pump.’ His son has a congenital heart defect. I had one too, not nearly as serious as his son’s, but being older than his son with not as much science available when my heart surgery happened, there was the fear of dying. I watched my brother’s roommate at the hospital die at a young age from the same thing. My father and I were both operated on by the same doctor (Dr. Albert Starr) as his son. (He had another main doctor but Starr was involved.) My cousins were all operated on and all but one died on the operating table, also operated on by Starr. I was operated on in the same building as his son. There were so many similarities.
Reading his book 8 years ago, holding that little book in my hand and knowing the experience and the determination that, no matter what, to live densely, beautifully, gracefully, fully, in the small amount of time we have, is the best. To see that beauty. That’s what I really see Brian is all about in the way he molds his words, sentences, paragraphs. He has so much to say, like his character Pipp, that he doesn’t give himself or his readers much time to breathe, he’s that passionate and that dense. He doesn’t want to miss anything.
He’s like fire turned into words and reading him is eating fire.
I love how he loves books, how he’ll pass his magazine out for free so everyone has the stories and makes fun of himself for being nominated so many times for various awards and never winning. (He’ll win one day, anyone who has followed him must realize that.) I love him for being out of print in a couple of his beautiful books and still living strong and writing strong.
Brian is an optimist and I am not. I’d like to be, I’d really like to be, but I don’t think it’s realistic. I guess my life has been dark enough that sometimes I read Brian’s stuff and think, “well, this is a novel. But I don’t think that would happen.” I don’t think that Declan would really live happily ever after, not with a hell of a story more and a lot of pain. My main criticism about “The Plover” is that we don’t know too much about Declan at the end of the book except that he’s hard on the outside and soft on the inside. With Declan’s abandonment and abuse issues I don’t think it would be as simple as (SPOILER)
Him turning around a boat and going towards people and land instead of out to sea. People don’t heal from that. They start to heal from that,it's a start, but then I’d say that the book really ended where the book should begin--where he decides he wants help and love. That decision is gonna help us readers know Declan. Brian himself wrote the words, “how we struggle is who we are.” We don’t see Declan struggle a whole lot, we see him running and be put-upon by other people and we don’t see what is going on in his head, the real meat of why he’s running and cold and out to sea. I also think there'd be rivers of hardness inside of Declan, rivers of stubborn pain. It just wouldn't be an inside/outside, hard/soft dichotomy, it would be mixed together, like salt water.
One main thing with Brian’s writing that I have difficulties getting past is about religious community and how we have different experiences in that realm. Everything is hued with Catholicism and mysticism. Used in the way he uses it it’s as if it’s normal and an aspect of humanity instead of a cultural construct that not everyone accepts and sees well. He combines Catholicism with spiritual experiences and I don’t experience that personally and feel the exact opposite when he evokes religious community. When he writes something about religious communities, instead of being drawn closer, I put his essay/book down and don’t pick it up for awhile. He sometimes uses language and ideas he assumes to be universally felt in one way but is felt directly the opposite for people like me.
I’m so wary of being public and talking about religion and mysticism, especially in the format Brian does. Sometimes I read Brian’s religious characters and think, “Okay. I don’t live in that world. I would never be accepted so I don’t know if I can finish.” The character he’s written that I get the most was Grace in ‘Mink River’ who is Declan’s sister.
I wonder what would make me and people like me feel more a part of what he’s writing? Am I the only one who feels this way? I don’t know. I just know it’s true for me. I haven’t told him yet, and I’m sending this review to him, so he’ll see it.
He asked me to tell him what was different about his two books in this Mink River universe, and what worked for me. I think the main part, for me, was the way he made that mystical experience more universal in ‘The Plover.’ I could identify with it more.
Is there a way to write religious community in a universal way? I don’t know. I think one way to get to something like that is to rely more on individual personalities and how they relate to each other as individuals instead of how they relate to each other based on the shared experience of Catholicism and religious experience.
I liked ‘Mink River’ but I liked ‘The Plover’ more. I understood and got Declan more than I got the religious protagonists of ‘Mink River.’ As much as I might envy the close-knit community of Mink River, I’d never be accepted. I’d be on the outskirts. I’d be whispered about. I think they’d pray for me, that I’d ‘get better’ or ‘find my way.’ They’d always give me sympathy and not the respect that my fighting to be alive really deserves. There would be an ultimate ideal they’d want for me and because I wasn’t living that and am still not living that, will probably not ever live that, I’d never be a part of ‘Mink River.’
I’d take a book and a boat and sail away, hunt for people to love elsewhere. And it would always be a sort of pain that I’d never be a real part of ‘Mink River.’ I’m glad I get that voice, that I get a new home in Brian’s writing world. I’d like to see that more from Brian. I love his work quite a bit and I get so frustrated when the religion stuff gets in the way of my being able to read him with my heart open and asking.
So that’s where I’m coming from, those are my very emotional, experience-based responses to ‘The Plover.’
I loved this book. I fully recommend it. Brian is in love with books and words and anybody who loves books and words should go out and read this book.
Thanks for this beautiful book.
The words have sat.
In the meantime I have taken in many more words, but different kinds of words. I read an anthropology book, a fairy tale, a history book, a book in translation from Spanish with short, choppy words. The way those words stayed inside of me is very different from how Brian’s words now stay inside me.
I’m reading a book by Faulkner and another by Joyce now and while reading I have been struck by the way Faulkner made his sentences long, focused on the stream of mind poetics. Joyce turned his sentences inside out and wore them like that, inside-out, the strings on the hem showing and hanging down, like he’s making a joke out of all the seriousness of words but in a nice way, the way I make a joke about someone I love when they are being themselves and they are being so very them and I’m filled with love for them and have to point out that inside-out shirt, the strings that are left hanging and snagging, because that’s part of who they are. That’s the big joke that makes the big love inside of me or the love made the joke, I’m not sure.
Brian's words and books do the same thing as Faulkner and Joyce. They hit me that way.
One of the things about Brian’s writing is how he tears words apart and bends them to make them fit together. It kind of reminds me of doing puzzles with my mother. My mom had a great deal of brain damage and she needs to be taken care of now. I do many puzzles with her to pass the time. She enjoys it but she doesn’t do them like she used to. She’ll take a puzzle piece and tear it if she thinks the piece ought to go somewhere and she doesn’t like it. I try to stop her. I tell her it’s not right. She won’t listen. She puts the puzzle together the way she wants. What comes out sometimes is all her. Definitely not what the box advertised. A shaken up image, a word Picasso. A puzzle poem.
Brian puts the word-pieces together how he wants, when he wants, like every poet I love. Watching that in prose in the fiction world is really something. Like reading Rilke. Dense and imagistic. It takes me into it, almost, instead of me taking the words into myself.
So I should probably say that I know Brian. I don’t know him super well but he’s been around at some of the darkest points of my life. We’ve mostly written letters. I sent a couple of stories in to him and he rejected all of them but said he likes my work and knows he’ll print something of mine someday. (Kind man.)
The first book I read from him was “the wet engine.” It’s about hearts and he goes on about them, the pain and necessity and beauty of ‘that red pump.’ His son has a congenital heart defect. I had one too, not nearly as serious as his son’s, but being older than his son with not as much science available when my heart surgery happened, there was the fear of dying. I watched my brother’s roommate at the hospital die at a young age from the same thing. My father and I were both operated on by the same doctor (Dr. Albert Starr) as his son. (He had another main doctor but Starr was involved.) My cousins were all operated on and all but one died on the operating table, also operated on by Starr. I was operated on in the same building as his son. There were so many similarities.
Reading his book 8 years ago, holding that little book in my hand and knowing the experience and the determination that, no matter what, to live densely, beautifully, gracefully, fully, in the small amount of time we have, is the best. To see that beauty. That’s what I really see Brian is all about in the way he molds his words, sentences, paragraphs. He has so much to say, like his character Pipp, that he doesn’t give himself or his readers much time to breathe, he’s that passionate and that dense. He doesn’t want to miss anything.
He’s like fire turned into words and reading him is eating fire.
I love how he loves books, how he’ll pass his magazine out for free so everyone has the stories and makes fun of himself for being nominated so many times for various awards and never winning. (He’ll win one day, anyone who has followed him must realize that.) I love him for being out of print in a couple of his beautiful books and still living strong and writing strong.
Brian is an optimist and I am not. I’d like to be, I’d really like to be, but I don’t think it’s realistic. I guess my life has been dark enough that sometimes I read Brian’s stuff and think, “well, this is a novel. But I don’t think that would happen.” I don’t think that Declan would really live happily ever after, not with a hell of a story more and a lot of pain. My main criticism about “The Plover” is that we don’t know too much about Declan at the end of the book except that he’s hard on the outside and soft on the inside. With Declan’s abandonment and abuse issues I don’t think it would be as simple as (SPOILER)
Him turning around a boat and going towards people and land instead of out to sea. People don’t heal from that. They start to heal from that,it's a start, but then I’d say that the book really ended where the book should begin--where he decides he wants help and love. That decision is gonna help us readers know Declan. Brian himself wrote the words, “how we struggle is who we are.” We don’t see Declan struggle a whole lot, we see him running and be put-upon by other people and we don’t see what is going on in his head, the real meat of why he’s running and cold and out to sea. I also think there'd be rivers of hardness inside of Declan, rivers of stubborn pain. It just wouldn't be an inside/outside, hard/soft dichotomy, it would be mixed together, like salt water.
One main thing with Brian’s writing that I have difficulties getting past is about religious community and how we have different experiences in that realm. Everything is hued with Catholicism and mysticism. Used in the way he uses it it’s as if it’s normal and an aspect of humanity instead of a cultural construct that not everyone accepts and sees well. He combines Catholicism with spiritual experiences and I don’t experience that personally and feel the exact opposite when he evokes religious community. When he writes something about religious communities, instead of being drawn closer, I put his essay/book down and don’t pick it up for awhile. He sometimes uses language and ideas he assumes to be universally felt in one way but is felt directly the opposite for people like me.
I’m so wary of being public and talking about religion and mysticism, especially in the format Brian does. Sometimes I read Brian’s religious characters and think, “Okay. I don’t live in that world. I would never be accepted so I don’t know if I can finish.” The character he’s written that I get the most was Grace in ‘Mink River’ who is Declan’s sister.
I wonder what would make me and people like me feel more a part of what he’s writing? Am I the only one who feels this way? I don’t know. I just know it’s true for me. I haven’t told him yet, and I’m sending this review to him, so he’ll see it.
He asked me to tell him what was different about his two books in this Mink River universe, and what worked for me. I think the main part, for me, was the way he made that mystical experience more universal in ‘The Plover.’ I could identify with it more.
Is there a way to write religious community in a universal way? I don’t know. I think one way to get to something like that is to rely more on individual personalities and how they relate to each other as individuals instead of how they relate to each other based on the shared experience of Catholicism and religious experience.
I liked ‘Mink River’ but I liked ‘The Plover’ more. I understood and got Declan more than I got the religious protagonists of ‘Mink River.’ As much as I might envy the close-knit community of Mink River, I’d never be accepted. I’d be on the outskirts. I’d be whispered about. I think they’d pray for me, that I’d ‘get better’ or ‘find my way.’ They’d always give me sympathy and not the respect that my fighting to be alive really deserves. There would be an ultimate ideal they’d want for me and because I wasn’t living that and am still not living that, will probably not ever live that, I’d never be a part of ‘Mink River.’
I’d take a book and a boat and sail away, hunt for people to love elsewhere. And it would always be a sort of pain that I’d never be a real part of ‘Mink River.’ I’m glad I get that voice, that I get a new home in Brian’s writing world. I’d like to see that more from Brian. I love his work quite a bit and I get so frustrated when the religion stuff gets in the way of my being able to read him with my heart open and asking.
So that’s where I’m coming from, those are my very emotional, experience-based responses to ‘The Plover.’
I loved this book. I fully recommend it. Brian is in love with books and words and anybody who loves books and words should go out and read this book.
Thanks for this beautiful book.
December 4, 2013
Declan is a character I barely remembered from Mink River - his sister, Grace, was a bit more noteworthy. But as soon as he opened his mouth - as soon as that first "fecking feck" left his tongue - I suddenly had a jolt of recognition. Lost at sea - or so the citizens of Neawanaka assume when he sails one day and never returns. But that fate is far too simple for such a strong person as Declan O'Donnell. Turns out he had more in store than simply disappearing into the great unknown.
What gets me every time is Doyle's deft turn of phrase and lyrical prose. There were some parts that flowed so beautifully they begged to be read out loud. In his hands the extraordinary becomes even more sublime by the sheer ordinariness of it. Declan's best friend shows up on a remote island with his crippled daughter because he somehow knew that's where Declan was going to make port? Sure, absolutely. It's no more absurd than a little girl who can speak to birds, seagulls with sarcastic streaks, or a government official who dreams of uniting all of the Pacific Island countries into one nation.
I didn't give this book as many stars as Mink River simply because none of the characters had quite the same pull for me as Cedar did and the seagull never flat-out spoke the way Moses did, which I kept hoping would happen. Nothing is quite as thrilling as a talking bird. Still The Plover is a fantastic companion (or, if you haven't read Mink River, stand-alone) novel. I'll have to get my hands on my very own copy ASAP.
Preorder your copy from Powell's Books.
What gets me every time is Doyle's deft turn of phrase and lyrical prose. There were some parts that flowed so beautifully they begged to be read out loud. In his hands the extraordinary becomes even more sublime by the sheer ordinariness of it. Declan's best friend shows up on a remote island with his crippled daughter because he somehow knew that's where Declan was going to make port? Sure, absolutely. It's no more absurd than a little girl who can speak to birds, seagulls with sarcastic streaks, or a government official who dreams of uniting all of the Pacific Island countries into one nation.
I didn't give this book as many stars as Mink River simply because none of the characters had quite the same pull for me as Cedar did and the seagull never flat-out spoke the way Moses did, which I kept hoping would happen. Nothing is quite as thrilling as a talking bird. Still The Plover is a fantastic companion (or, if you haven't read Mink River, stand-alone) novel. I'll have to get my hands on my very own copy ASAP.
Preorder your copy from Powell's Books.
January 4, 2016
The list of features I'd include in "What It Takes to Make a Good Novel" is pretty short:
1) You've got a plot. Good guys, bad guys. A touch of danger. Multiple threads gradually coming together. In short, a story that I want to hear.
2) You've got characters. Diverse and deep. At one level, they feel just like people I've met in real life. At another level, they're fascinating in how unlike they are to anyone I've ever known.
3) Your characters speak like human beings. Oh, the books I've groaned my way through due to awful dialog.
4) You've got humor. I don't care how serious the topic of your story is. I can't think of any book I've ever loved that didn't make me laugh out loud at least a few times.
5) You've thought a little bit about life, the universe and everything, and you take a few opportunities in your novel to expound on that.
6) You know how to write a sentence. Do Items 1- 5 well, and you have something solid. Do them with language that makes the reader keep wanting to turn to the person next to them and say "Listen to this sentence," partly to share the beauty and partly for the joy of feeling that language on the lips and tongue -- do that and you have something magical.
Find me a book that hits all six of those and hits them hard, and I'll give it five stars.
Oh, look... "The Plover."
1) You've got a plot. Good guys, bad guys. A touch of danger. Multiple threads gradually coming together. In short, a story that I want to hear.
2) You've got characters. Diverse and deep. At one level, they feel just like people I've met in real life. At another level, they're fascinating in how unlike they are to anyone I've ever known.
3) Your characters speak like human beings. Oh, the books I've groaned my way through due to awful dialog.
4) You've got humor. I don't care how serious the topic of your story is. I can't think of any book I've ever loved that didn't make me laugh out loud at least a few times.
5) You've thought a little bit about life, the universe and everything, and you take a few opportunities in your novel to expound on that.
6) You know how to write a sentence. Do Items 1- 5 well, and you have something solid. Do them with language that makes the reader keep wanting to turn to the person next to them and say "Listen to this sentence," partly to share the beauty and partly for the joy of feeling that language on the lips and tongue -- do that and you have something magical.
Find me a book that hits all six of those and hits them hard, and I'll give it five stars.
Oh, look... "The Plover."
August 10, 2016
The Plover piqued my curiosity instantly. Firstly, because I had no idea what a plover was. (Its a bird, in case you don't know either) Secondly, because the small paper plaque that was posted under the book on the shelf at Powell's told me that it was about a man setting off from the Oregon Coast and heading west because he was tired of people and all their people problems. I love that idea. Sometimes, you pick up a book and you know, right then and there, that you have to read it. I started reading while in line to board my plane. Somewhere between Portland and San Diego, I became absolutely enamored with Dec and the gull who flew 9 feet above the stern of the Plover. This joyous, beautiful novel engaged all of my senses, I could see the green trawler with its tattered red sail, the blue water, the sunfish and its giant eye. I could hear the water lapping, Pipa pipping and the laughter of the crew members who came to The Plover for their own reasons and had their own unique stories. I could taste those desiccated almonds, smell the salty air, feel the sand between my toes. More importantly, This was my first time reading Brian Doyle. It most certainly will not be the last. In fact, Mink River is on its way to me now as I write this. Doyle's writing style is a wonder and a stream of consciousness that flows right into your mind and heart.
October 31, 2021
What a discovery that you find yourself congratulating yourself over and feel compelled to spread the word about. I discovered this book while weeding our collection. Surprisingly it's only less than a year old and no one had read it. It's another hidden gem. It's like Life of Pi meet Kon Tiki meet The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner. It's got some great writing and lines like: "Maybe the ocean feels every boat like a scar on its skin and only permits them to pass so that its knowledge of men deepens"-page 128 or "Another time the sky was so stuffed with stars and so many of them shooting stars that you would swear the stars were plummeting into the sea faster than the sea could drink them"-page 149. It's an epic journey of man solo across the Pacific but not for long when friends and strangers join him for a meandering detour that's called life. It's real and surreal with the magic realism. There's a dreamer and there's a villain. There's revenge and redemption. There's solitude and community. It's a beautiful book that I didn't want to finish. It's about healing and finding yourself.
October 22, 2014
I first came across Declan O'Donnell in Brian Doyle's Mink River. A good place for the reader to begin if he/she has not yet done so. In our book discussion group regarding Mink River, Declan's name came up more than once - "What do you think happened to him? Did he commit suicide?" My thought was no, definitely not; and in the Plover, I was delighted to find that the author brings Declan front and center as he begins his journey west and then west, away from the small village of Neawanaka on the Oregon coast in a boat he has christened the Plover. Having dreamed of a footloose voyage on the ocean since he was a young boy and having read the likes of Jack London, Robert Louis Stevenson and Joseph Conrad among others, Declan embarks on just such a journey, picking up a most unlikely crew along the way.
I honestly thought that you couldn't get much better than Mink River, but Doyle once more rises to the occasion. Put yourself in the hands of a master storyteller and climb aboard for a tale of adventure unlike any other.
I honestly thought that you couldn't get much better than Mink River, but Doyle once more rises to the occasion. Put yourself in the hands of a master storyteller and climb aboard for a tale of adventure unlike any other.
March 22, 2014
I won this book from Goodreads, and with a number of other books I have won, am truly grateful. Based on the description of The Plover, I am not sure that I would have gone out to buy this book. But the writing is absolutely lovely and the characters are original and interesting. There is a bit of a surreal element to the story -- it's never clear where it takes place and the characters drift in and out of each other's lives as though the world is a tiny place. It's a book that breaks a few moulds and conventions to great effect. But it all works well given the quality of the writing and the great characters. I would love to find a copy of Bryan Doyle's first book, which features some of the same characters but am not sure it is available.
November 5, 2020
This was a lovely thing. Gently, beautifully evocative and spilling over with the glory of life itself.
October 11, 2025
An equally frustrating and moving character-driven yarn with such a unique voice that I could only attribute to Brian Doyle.
His storytelling style is quite different and replete with adjective filled sentences, waxing philosophical, and exploring side trails during the strangest moments (Which both helped and hindered the story at times, thus my frustration).
But he also wrote characters that sounded so real that I was sad to leave the story by the end since it felt like I had been on the Plover the whole time with them.
Overall, it's a really great story with complex characters and a simplistic Voyage of the Dawn Treader like story and a good deal of wit and humor.
- Listened on audiobook
His storytelling style is quite different and replete with adjective filled sentences, waxing philosophical, and exploring side trails during the strangest moments (Which both helped and hindered the story at times, thus my frustration).
But he also wrote characters that sounded so real that I was sad to leave the story by the end since it felt like I had been on the Plover the whole time with them.
Overall, it's a really great story with complex characters and a simplistic Voyage of the Dawn Treader like story and a good deal of wit and humor.
- Listened on audiobook
February 7, 2017
A literary disaster! I wanted to make an honest review, so I read every bit of this book. "The Plover" is poorly written. Forget that the author has forsaken the rules of English grammar. I can forgive that as something eccentric and artistic about the piece, though never will it be my preference.
On page 88, Doyle starts four sentences with "He, the minister." Why? No clue. Maybe he thinks he's being cute. By the third time, I'm rolling my eyes and looking for a stiff drink.
Infinitesimal is a good word - one of Doyle's favorites in this book, but its overuse is jarring on page 94. The author uses "infinitesimal" three times on one page! Did he not reread his writing?
I noted page 101 when the idea of "funds for the National Dreamer Bank" was introduced. That imprinted in my mind a picture of the person who might enjoy this book. Later in the book the main character, Declan, makes it known he thinks the minister's political ideas are a crock. It was not until then I felt any relief from the minister's idiocy.
There are brief moments of nice thoughts, like on page 127. Nice beginning to the chapter, but the nice thoughts end on page 128.
It was pages 148-149 when I decided enough was enough and stopped noting the poor edits of the novel. It's the worst example, and I put the book back down after reading just a couple pages. Doyle says "One time" twice and then switches to "Another time." He uses "Another time" seven times on these pages! On the same pages he writes "utterly totally sure" twice. This is not good writing.
I was actually prepared to credit this book with another star as I read from the middle to the end of this book. The story was fine, kind of sweet at times. Then Doyle introduces a brand new (connected to nothing) character at the end of the book that (inexplicably) manages to impact the main character.
I read eight or nine other books in the span it took me to finish this one. I am so glad it's over.
On page 88, Doyle starts four sentences with "He, the minister." Why? No clue. Maybe he thinks he's being cute. By the third time, I'm rolling my eyes and looking for a stiff drink.
Infinitesimal is a good word - one of Doyle's favorites in this book, but its overuse is jarring on page 94. The author uses "infinitesimal" three times on one page! Did he not reread his writing?
I noted page 101 when the idea of "funds for the National Dreamer Bank" was introduced. That imprinted in my mind a picture of the person who might enjoy this book. Later in the book the main character, Declan, makes it known he thinks the minister's political ideas are a crock. It was not until then I felt any relief from the minister's idiocy.
There are brief moments of nice thoughts, like on page 127. Nice beginning to the chapter, but the nice thoughts end on page 128.
It was pages 148-149 when I decided enough was enough and stopped noting the poor edits of the novel. It's the worst example, and I put the book back down after reading just a couple pages. Doyle says "One time" twice and then switches to "Another time." He uses "Another time" seven times on these pages! On the same pages he writes "utterly totally sure" twice. This is not good writing.
I was actually prepared to credit this book with another star as I read from the middle to the end of this book. The story was fine, kind of sweet at times. Then Doyle introduces a brand new (connected to nothing) character at the end of the book that (inexplicably) manages to impact the main character.
I read eight or nine other books in the span it took me to finish this one. I am so glad it's over.
January 7, 2016
The Plover by Brian Doyle is a unique kind of book. If you liked Mink River, this book is even better. Reading The Plover is kind of like having someone quietly whisper to your soul. Doyle writes with a stream-of-thought style, which makes you feel that you’re floating along with a vibrant and tangible dream, the best kind of dream, where you know if you try hard enough you can make yourself fly. This is one of those books that perfectly encapsulates why I love to read. It is a friendly voice who invites himself into your brain. You offer him a seat in a comfy armchair and bring him a warm cup of coffee in exchange for his story. And when the story is done, he will have to leave, and tears will fall down your face, but he will say it is the way it has to be, the way it has always been, and he will kiss you on the forehead and remind you, that really, he is not so far away, and goodbye is never forever. After he is gone, you will see his coffee cup resting on the side table, with the faint, tan stain of his lips, and you will know that his gentle voice is still a quiet whisper in your brain, if you really listen.
This book will make you miss not only the characters, who feel so real, and flawed, and beautiful, but you will miss hearing the author’s drifty, tumultuous voice, so much like the sea under a boat.
My only complaints would be his fatuitous love affair with the word infinitesimal and a few other repetitive words that seemed redundant rather than emphatic in nature.
I also wouldn't recommend this book to anyone who doesn't particularly want to think while they read. This book will require all of the beautiful and remote corners of your brain. If you let your mind wander, even for just a moment, you more than likely will have to reread a few sentences, because you will have completely lost your way.
This book will make you miss not only the characters, who feel so real, and flawed, and beautiful, but you will miss hearing the author’s drifty, tumultuous voice, so much like the sea under a boat.
My only complaints would be his fatuitous love affair with the word infinitesimal and a few other repetitive words that seemed redundant rather than emphatic in nature.
I also wouldn't recommend this book to anyone who doesn't particularly want to think while they read. This book will require all of the beautiful and remote corners of your brain. If you let your mind wander, even for just a moment, you more than likely will have to reread a few sentences, because you will have completely lost your way.
August 3, 2019
It's at least as good as the better works by Ray Bradbury... behind that beautiful play with language are provocative ideas and real heart. It's what Life of Pi failed to be. It's too engaging to read at the slower pace required to fully appreciate it, and so on to my to-reread list it goes!
Some of the specific things I like are the inclusion of the warbler and the wood rats as inhabitants of the boat, and the use of the word "fecking" instead of the more vulgar default choice, and the quotes from Edmund Burke, and misneach, and the bits of musical notation (though I don't know how to read music and don't know what they signify) and the bad guy is a real person rather than just an entity . And there's more.
I do recommend it and will look for more by the author.
Some of the specific things I like are the inclusion of the warbler and the wood rats as inhabitants of the boat, and the use of the word "fecking" instead of the more vulgar default choice, and the quotes from Edmund Burke, and misneach, and the bits of musical notation (though I don't know how to read music and don't know what they signify) and the bad guy is a real person rather than just an entity . And there's more.
I do recommend it and will look for more by the author.
August 26, 2016
If you haven't read Brian Doyle's novels, I urge you to start pronto, preferably with Mink River, the book to which The Plover is a related, chronologically subsequent narrative. Unlike MR, which offers many perspectives and multiple plotlines, The Plover focuses on Declan O'Donnell's sea voyage in the Pacific and the people he encounters on his journey. Gorgeous writing, unique characters, and a drop of the magic-real should enthrall and entertain most every soul.
December 23, 2015
*blinks*
*blinks harder*
sinks into a pile of conflicting emotions
some background: This summer, under an English professor at WashU, i read "The Greatest Nature Essay ever", a short essay that completely knocked me out of the water.
https://orionmagazine.org/contributor...
I then googled Brian Doyle and found that he had written a couple novels, of course which I had to get my hands on.
I think Doyle is better suited as a short story, poetry, essay writer. Although, who am I to say that I don't have any real credentials for making such a judgement.
When I first started this book, a week? half a week ago? I really couldn't get into it. The first few chapters were tedious, heavy, and chock filled with words and words and words. What happened last night was that my parents had the brilliant notion to confiscate all of our electronic playthings. So i found myself in bed at 10 with no intention of going to sleep. And i kinda had to force myself through the next few chapters
More background: Ever since i've competed in science olympiad, I've been in an event called Dynamic Planet which means I've had years and years of studying oceanography and water quality and such. Since this book was a "maritime mystery" according to the opening flap, I really loved, and got excited about the loads and loads of oceanography references. Panthalassa to atolls to all the different measurements of oxygen and waves. Loved it, its just one of those personal connections i made with this book.
Anyways, there are sentences and pages that are just Doyle's thoughts and musings that come off so brilliant in a flash but yet so slow and directionless too. Like each page/paragraphical section could be turned into a short story and it would be genius but strung together it didn't seem like it had the plot direction for a proper novel.
"So very many silences, and kinds of silences: chapels and churches and confessionals, glades and gorges, pregnant pauses and searing lovemaking; the stifling stifled brooding silence just before a thunderstorm unleashes itself wild on the world; the silence of space, the vast of vista; the crucial silences between notes, without which there could be no music,; no yes without no. Perhaps silence was the ocean and sounds be boats upon the deep, he thought. Perhaps silence was the mother and sounds her yearning children. Do we not yearn for silence at the deepest level, and merely distract ourselves with stammer and yammer? Isn't that why I am out in the middle of nowhere? The ceiling of the silent sea. The silent She."
Maybe Dorian Gray ruined my appreciation for empty prose, but I needed something to happen so I skimmed. I can't decide if Doyle isn't saying anything with his prose or if he's saying too much, if its there because it can be, or if there's just too many ideas he doesn't have room to explore. And there really are, so many fascinating ideas I wanted him to go into. And trust me, when I skim, I never miss stuff. But I kept on missing major plot occurrences hidden behind a sentence or two and had to keep on going back. It was quite a frustrating thing.
Where do his words come from? I feel like I know the words he uses but I don't at the same time:
sentenced to solipsism, incomprehensible designs and predilections, nature's profligacy, antic joy, the green dense wet redolence of the island, explanations and fulminations
Now characters. Declan, besides the name being brilliant, fell kinda meh for me. Pipa on the other hand vaulted up my list of favorite female characters above every YA heroine ever and landed somewhere between Clarissa McClellan and Anne Shirley. I wanted to just sit and listen to her endless string of questions and her big movable spirit and every how-did-you-create-her-o-brian-doyle aspect. My favorite exchanges though were between Declan and Piko, Pipa's father. Their relationship was so unnatural and odd and delightful. And then how all the other stories eventually tied, slightly messily but thoroughly satisfyingly into one. What does Taromauri look like? Danilo's probably hot. Although please, couldn't enrique have been fleshed out more? And AKIA. how dare you introduce her in the last two pages and then just end??
Its an endless internal monologue. Like this, listen to this
We take stars totally for granted, as Declan later said to Piko. Jesus blessed miracles, they are, and we casually look up and say stupid things like hey stars, when we should by rights be moaning and gibbering in wonder and fear that fecking nuclear furnaces are burning in the sky in numbers and distances we cannot even imagine let alone bless me calculate.
I need coffee, says Declan,. You want some coffee? I need coffee. You don't need any coffee. You are coffee. You want to help me make coffee? Yes?
that's exactly what i want to say about people if you substitute "God" for "stars" but anyway its like this continuous internal monologue of so many ideas, and where where do they come from doyle? The ocean is an assassin, the ocean thinks and licks the islands, the air is an ocean, the man has read the book so many times that the words are gone and he has to read the words back into the pages, where where, and burning everything according to Enrique, and talking gulls, and that one time Declan's broken arm started talking to him, where are these ideas coming from
you know what would match this book? becoming ocean by john luther adams, the symphonic piece
i was about to knock a star off for a slow plot, but further into the book, i loved the ambling meandering ambivalent attitude of the writing that I really don't care if nothing happens.
If Dorian Gray ruined my appreciation for prose, The Plover restored it.
*blinks harder*
sinks into a pile of conflicting emotions
some background: This summer, under an English professor at WashU, i read "The Greatest Nature Essay ever", a short essay that completely knocked me out of the water.
https://orionmagazine.org/contributor...
I then googled Brian Doyle and found that he had written a couple novels, of course which I had to get my hands on.
I think Doyle is better suited as a short story, poetry, essay writer. Although, who am I to say that I don't have any real credentials for making such a judgement.
When I first started this book, a week? half a week ago? I really couldn't get into it. The first few chapters were tedious, heavy, and chock filled with words and words and words. What happened last night was that my parents had the brilliant notion to confiscate all of our electronic playthings. So i found myself in bed at 10 with no intention of going to sleep. And i kinda had to force myself through the next few chapters
More background: Ever since i've competed in science olympiad, I've been in an event called Dynamic Planet which means I've had years and years of studying oceanography and water quality and such. Since this book was a "maritime mystery" according to the opening flap, I really loved, and got excited about the loads and loads of oceanography references. Panthalassa to atolls to all the different measurements of oxygen and waves. Loved it, its just one of those personal connections i made with this book.
Anyways, there are sentences and pages that are just Doyle's thoughts and musings that come off so brilliant in a flash but yet so slow and directionless too. Like each page/paragraphical section could be turned into a short story and it would be genius but strung together it didn't seem like it had the plot direction for a proper novel.
"So very many silences, and kinds of silences: chapels and churches and confessionals, glades and gorges, pregnant pauses and searing lovemaking; the stifling stifled brooding silence just before a thunderstorm unleashes itself wild on the world; the silence of space, the vast of vista; the crucial silences between notes, without which there could be no music,; no yes without no. Perhaps silence was the ocean and sounds be boats upon the deep, he thought. Perhaps silence was the mother and sounds her yearning children. Do we not yearn for silence at the deepest level, and merely distract ourselves with stammer and yammer? Isn't that why I am out in the middle of nowhere? The ceiling of the silent sea. The silent She."
Maybe Dorian Gray ruined my appreciation for empty prose, but I needed something to happen so I skimmed. I can't decide if Doyle isn't saying anything with his prose or if he's saying too much, if its there because it can be, or if there's just too many ideas he doesn't have room to explore. And there really are, so many fascinating ideas I wanted him to go into. And trust me, when I skim, I never miss stuff. But I kept on missing major plot occurrences hidden behind a sentence or two and had to keep on going back. It was quite a frustrating thing.
Where do his words come from? I feel like I know the words he uses but I don't at the same time:
sentenced to solipsism, incomprehensible designs and predilections, nature's profligacy, antic joy, the green dense wet redolence of the island, explanations and fulminations
Now characters. Declan, besides the name being brilliant, fell kinda meh for me. Pipa on the other hand vaulted up my list of favorite female characters above every YA heroine ever and landed somewhere between Clarissa McClellan and Anne Shirley. I wanted to just sit and listen to her endless string of questions and her big movable spirit and every how-did-you-create-her-o-brian-doyle aspect. My favorite exchanges though were between Declan and Piko, Pipa's father. Their relationship was so unnatural and odd and delightful. And then how all the other stories eventually tied, slightly messily but thoroughly satisfyingly into one. What does Taromauri look like? Danilo's probably hot. Although please, couldn't enrique have been fleshed out more? And AKIA. how dare you introduce her in the last two pages and then just end??
Its an endless internal monologue. Like this, listen to this
We take stars totally for granted, as Declan later said to Piko. Jesus blessed miracles, they are, and we casually look up and say stupid things like hey stars, when we should by rights be moaning and gibbering in wonder and fear that fecking nuclear furnaces are burning in the sky in numbers and distances we cannot even imagine let alone bless me calculate.
I need coffee, says Declan,. You want some coffee? I need coffee. You don't need any coffee. You are coffee. You want to help me make coffee? Yes?
that's exactly what i want to say about people if you substitute "God" for "stars" but anyway its like this continuous internal monologue of so many ideas, and where where do they come from doyle? The ocean is an assassin, the ocean thinks and licks the islands, the air is an ocean, the man has read the book so many times that the words are gone and he has to read the words back into the pages, where where, and burning everything according to Enrique, and talking gulls, and that one time Declan's broken arm started talking to him, where are these ideas coming from
you know what would match this book? becoming ocean by john luther adams, the symphonic piece
i was about to knock a star off for a slow plot, but further into the book, i loved the ambling meandering ambivalent attitude of the writing that I really don't care if nothing happens.
If Dorian Gray ruined my appreciation for prose, The Plover restored it.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 512 reviews