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Beside the Ocean of Time
WITH A NEW FOREWORD BY AMY LIPTROT
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 1994
WINNER OF THE SALTIRE SOCIETY LITERARY AWARD 1994
'Intimate, humorous, effortlessly combining the strands of history and folklore, the past and the present, this is a deceptively simple book, like a tale told to a child. But its echoes sound on unforgettably. A whole universe is created from a grain of Orkney sand' Independent
In this novel set on the fictitious island of Norday in the Orkneys, George Mackay Brown beckons us into the imaginary world of the young Thorfinn Ragnarson, the son of a crofter. In his day-dreams he relives the history of this island people, travelling back in time to join Viking adventurers at the court of the Byzantine Emperor in Constantinople, then accompanying a Falstaffian knight to the battle of Bannockburn.
Thorfinn wakes to the twentieth century and a community whose way of life, steeped in legend and tradition, has remained unchanged for centuries. But as the boy grows up - and falls in love with a vivacious and mysterious stranger - the transforming effect of modern civilization brings momentous and irreversible changes to the island. During the Second World War Thorfinn finds himself in a German prisoner-of-war camp, and it is here that he discovers his gifts as a writer.
Long afterwards he returns, now a successful novelist, to a deserted and battle-scarred island. Searching for the peace and freedom of mind he had in abundance as a child, he finds instead something he didn't even know he was looking for.
George Mackay Brown intertwines myth and reality to create a novel of deceptive simplicity. The story of Thorfinn and the island of Norday is a universal and profound one, rooted in the timeless landscape of the Orkneys, the inspiration of all his writing.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 1994
WINNER OF THE SALTIRE SOCIETY LITERARY AWARD 1994
'Intimate, humorous, effortlessly combining the strands of history and folklore, the past and the present, this is a deceptively simple book, like a tale told to a child. But its echoes sound on unforgettably. A whole universe is created from a grain of Orkney sand' Independent
In this novel set on the fictitious island of Norday in the Orkneys, George Mackay Brown beckons us into the imaginary world of the young Thorfinn Ragnarson, the son of a crofter. In his day-dreams he relives the history of this island people, travelling back in time to join Viking adventurers at the court of the Byzantine Emperor in Constantinople, then accompanying a Falstaffian knight to the battle of Bannockburn.
Thorfinn wakes to the twentieth century and a community whose way of life, steeped in legend and tradition, has remained unchanged for centuries. But as the boy grows up - and falls in love with a vivacious and mysterious stranger - the transforming effect of modern civilization brings momentous and irreversible changes to the island. During the Second World War Thorfinn finds himself in a German prisoner-of-war camp, and it is here that he discovers his gifts as a writer.
Long afterwards he returns, now a successful novelist, to a deserted and battle-scarred island. Searching for the peace and freedom of mind he had in abundance as a child, he finds instead something he didn't even know he was looking for.
George Mackay Brown intertwines myth and reality to create a novel of deceptive simplicity. The story of Thorfinn and the island of Norday is a universal and profound one, rooted in the timeless landscape of the Orkneys, the inspiration of all his writing.
238 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1994
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About the author
George Mackay Brown
183 books100 followersGeorge Mackay Brown, the poet, novelist and dramatist, spent his life living in and documenting the Orkney Isles.
A bout of severe measles at the age of 12 became the basis for recurring health problems throughout his life. Uncertain as to his future, he remained in education until 1940, a year which brought with it a growing reality of the war, and the unexpected death of his father. The following year he was diagnosed with (then incurable) Pulmonary Tuberculosis and spent six months in hospital in Kirkwall, Orkney's main town.
Around this time, he began writing poetry, and also prose for the Orkney Herald for which he became Stromness Correspondent, reporting events such as the switching on of the electricity grid in 1947. In 1950 he met the poet Edwin Muir, a fellow Orcadian, who recognised Mackay Brown's talent for writing, and would become his literary tutor and mentor at Newbattle Abbey College, in Midlothian, which he attended in 1951-2. Recurring TB forced Mackay Brown to spend the following year in hospital, but his experience at Newbattle spurred him to apply to Edinburgh University, to read English Literature, returning to do post-graduate work on Gerard Manley Hopkins.
In later life Mackay Brown rarely left Orkney. He turned to writing full-time, publishing his first collection of poetry, The Storm, in 1954. His writing explored life on Orkney, and the history and traditions which make up Orkney's distinct cultural identity. Many of his works are concerned with protecting Orkney's cultural heritage from the relentless march of progress and the loss of myth and archaic ritual in the modern world. Reflecting this, his best known work is Greenvoe (1972), in which the permanence of island life is threatened by 'Black Star', a mysterious nuclear development.
Mackay Brown's literary reputation grew steadily. He received an OBE in 1974 and was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1977, in addition to gaining several honorary degrees. His final novel, Beside the Ocean of Time (1994) was Booker Prize shortlisted and judged Scottish Book of the Year by the Saltire Society. Mackay Brown died in his home town of Stromness on 13th April 1996.
He produced several poetry collections, five novels, eight collections of short stories and two poem-plays, as well as non-fiction portraits of Orkney, an autobiography, For the Islands I Sing (1997), and published journalism.
Read more at:
http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org....
A bout of severe measles at the age of 12 became the basis for recurring health problems throughout his life. Uncertain as to his future, he remained in education until 1940, a year which brought with it a growing reality of the war, and the unexpected death of his father. The following year he was diagnosed with (then incurable) Pulmonary Tuberculosis and spent six months in hospital in Kirkwall, Orkney's main town.
Around this time, he began writing poetry, and also prose for the Orkney Herald for which he became Stromness Correspondent, reporting events such as the switching on of the electricity grid in 1947. In 1950 he met the poet Edwin Muir, a fellow Orcadian, who recognised Mackay Brown's talent for writing, and would become his literary tutor and mentor at Newbattle Abbey College, in Midlothian, which he attended in 1951-2. Recurring TB forced Mackay Brown to spend the following year in hospital, but his experience at Newbattle spurred him to apply to Edinburgh University, to read English Literature, returning to do post-graduate work on Gerard Manley Hopkins.
In later life Mackay Brown rarely left Orkney. He turned to writing full-time, publishing his first collection of poetry, The Storm, in 1954. His writing explored life on Orkney, and the history and traditions which make up Orkney's distinct cultural identity. Many of his works are concerned with protecting Orkney's cultural heritage from the relentless march of progress and the loss of myth and archaic ritual in the modern world. Reflecting this, his best known work is Greenvoe (1972), in which the permanence of island life is threatened by 'Black Star', a mysterious nuclear development.
Mackay Brown's literary reputation grew steadily. He received an OBE in 1974 and was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1977, in addition to gaining several honorary degrees. His final novel, Beside the Ocean of Time (1994) was Booker Prize shortlisted and judged Scottish Book of the Year by the Saltire Society. Mackay Brown died in his home town of Stromness on 13th April 1996.
He produced several poetry collections, five novels, eight collections of short stories and two poem-plays, as well as non-fiction portraits of Orkney, an autobiography, For the Islands I Sing (1997), and published journalism.
Read more at:
http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org....
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 97 reviews
May 6, 2024
A richly conceptualised and evocative journey that enchants and inspires at every page.
‘Beside the Ocean of Time’ is a beautifully crafted collection of interwoven stories set on the fictional Orcadian island of Norday, where young Thorfinn Ragnarson recreates the island’s long past through his imagination and dreams.
Bittersweet and magical.
‘Beside the Ocean of Time’ is a beautifully crafted collection of interwoven stories set on the fictional Orcadian island of Norday, where young Thorfinn Ragnarson recreates the island’s long past through his imagination and dreams.
Bittersweet and magical.
April 9, 2020
Time haunts this beautiful novel, in the form of linked short stories, of the struggle of human life to survive in Orkney down through the centuries. Though it is exquisitely of its own Scottish place, the book evoked for me Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology, Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, and Thornton Wilder's Our Town.
Thorfinn Ragnarson reluctantly attends school on the fictional island of Norday in the years leading up to World War II, but his daydreams reach back to when the island's earliest Norse settlers build a broch, a circular tower made of stone, so they can defend themselves from invaders from the sea. As Thorfinn grows up, his daydreams of seafaring in the Baltics and Byzantium and fighting at Bannockburn for Bonnie Prince Charlie are replaced with descriptions of 20th century life on the island. The construction of an air base to defend the Scapa fleet from German bombers poses the greatest threat yet to an ancient fishing and farming way of life on Norday.
I particularly like the story "A Man's Life", which recounts Jacob Olafson's journey, from his setting out "in his little ship of time, his cradle," through returning to Norday with a Cree wife after a decade's adventure in Canada, to his final voyage in "a coffin, Jacob Olafson's death-ship".
This is one of the best books I've read in a while and I hope to read more of George Mackay Brown's work down the road.
Thorfinn Ragnarson reluctantly attends school on the fictional island of Norday in the years leading up to World War II, but his daydreams reach back to when the island's earliest Norse settlers build a broch, a circular tower made of stone, so they can defend themselves from invaders from the sea. As Thorfinn grows up, his daydreams of seafaring in the Baltics and Byzantium and fighting at Bannockburn for Bonnie Prince Charlie are replaced with descriptions of 20th century life on the island. The construction of an air base to defend the Scapa fleet from German bombers poses the greatest threat yet to an ancient fishing and farming way of life on Norday.
I particularly like the story "A Man's Life", which recounts Jacob Olafson's journey, from his setting out "in his little ship of time, his cradle," through returning to Norday with a Cree wife after a decade's adventure in Canada, to his final voyage in "a coffin, Jacob Olafson's death-ship".
This is one of the best books I've read in a while and I hope to read more of George Mackay Brown's work down the road.
April 30, 2024
George Mackay Brown's brilliant swansong reached the Booker shortlist in 1994, raining so much unwanted attention upon this poet and storyteller who rarely left the Orkney Islands that he needed antidepressants. The book is a marvel and might have bagged the unwelcome prize, had not another Scottish masterpiece appeared the same year, James Kelman's How Late it Was, How Late. Considering it weighs in at just over 200 pages, the breadth of Brown's novel is staggering: in his daydreams the young crofter's son, Thorfinn Ragnarson, relives the history of the Orkney's, travelling back in time to join Viking adventurers at the court of the Byzantine emperor in Constantinople, then accompanying a Falstaffian knight to the battle of Bannockburn. During the Second World War, as Thorfinn finds himself in a German prisoner-of-war camp, these vivid reveries turn into books hammered into shape on a Nazi typewriter. Meanwhile, in Thorfinn's absence, his island home changes beyond recognition, most likely forever. Despite its sophistication, however, this novel is often underestimated. It can be read in a single sitting (although it amply repays repeat visits) and is deceptively simple. In this, I often pair Beside the Ocean with The Seventh Seal, Ingmar Bergman's film set in the middle of the fourteenth century, with a Knight and his Squire, after long years as Crusaders in the Holy Land, returning at last to their native Sweden, a land ravaged by the Black Death. Bergman's film grew out of a play he had written some years earlier, A Painting on Wood, which was very much influenced by medieval frescoes he had seen as murals in Swedish churches. At about the time the Swede was filming his strange masterpiece, Mackay Brown's vision was being shaped by Norse sagas and old Scottish ballads; from them he was learning about economy of expression and the importance of uncluttered narrative; how to combine a laconic Viking style with some dead-pan Viking humour. Clearness is perhaps the major element that makes The Seventh Seal such a satisfying film, one which is so easy to return to and remember: that each scene is at once so simple and so charged and layered that it catches us again and again. The pictures appear and indeed are almost elementary, the stuff of early illustrated books, of woodcuts and church paintings; the arguments too are uncomplicated, as are the characters, their nature and their journeys clearly etched out. The same qualities make Beside the Ocean of Time such a special novel; a book from which you can pluck any sentence at random at any time and feel the pulse of something living.
June 3, 2015
This is a beautiful novel. I found it slow to begin with but it is worth while persisting. The story centres around the inhabitants of the isle of Norday is the North of Scotland in the early 20th century. The protagonist Thorfinn Ragnarson is a bit of a daydreamer and his thoughts and dreams are narrated within the novel. This allows Brown to explore a rich and sentimental Scottish history whilst capturing the beauty and untouched lives of these rural Scottish farmers. Furthermore, the novel explores the effects of the Second World War and its devastation on these simple folks. Lovely.
September 10, 2017
Due to work and family this took a little longer than usual to read, but the small chance to read a few pages was a delight.
This book defies description as to the pleasure the escapism gave. A beautifully crafted book that hits the spot. Best read with Allegaris' Miserere and similar music playing.
This book defies description as to the pleasure the escapism gave. A beautifully crafted book that hits the spot. Best read with Allegaris' Miserere and similar music playing.
June 10, 2009
Thorfinn Ragnarson is well-known on the Orkney island of Norday as a lazy, idle and useless boy, who spends his time day-dreaming. But in fact, Thorfinn is imagining the history and future of his island and its people in this lovely book that dips engagingly between the more recent past (the 1930s of Thorfinn’s journey to adulthood) and the distant past that encompasses a Viking voyage to Byzantium. Like Vinland, Beside the Ocean of Time is suffused with George Mackay Brown’s love for and close observation of his home, the Orkney Islands north of Scotland. Beside the Ocean of Time was, for me, a slighter and less absorbing novel than Vinland but I still liked it a great deal, and its solidified my desire to visit Orkney some day!
November 30, 2018
I just read this book for the second time. The first time through I had enjoyed its air of another world, its characters, and its wry and lyrical prose. The memory of that stuck with me, and kept calling me back to read the book again, as if it were my childhood memory of a former life. It was even better than I remember it.
July 24, 2016
A beautiful, quietly moving book that tells a deceptively simple story but carries much beneath it. Set on the fictional Island of Norday in Orkney, GMB acts as the storyteller telling us about the 'Lazy' Thorfin and his fantasies. But the story draws beautifully the people and the feel of the land sometimes with gently mocking humour, but alway with warmth. Living in Orkney I recognise his characters, the small 'Orcadian' attributes which add to the magic of this wonderful place. Harsh realities of the changes which affected the outer Islands are there and the reader cares for them and is left with a soft aching for somewhere almost, but not quite lost. A beautiful book. Should you ever think of visiting Orkney, read this first to get a deeper feel for the place beyond the tourist information brochure.
December 13, 2020
I've never read a book with a structure quite like this one's: multiple stories, and stories-within-stories, set on the same (fictitious) island in the (quite real) Orkney Islands of Scotland, spread over many centuries, but featuring the same protagonist! It's a feat that maybe only a renowned literary light such as poet George Mackay Brown could pull off. He knows his native Orkney as well as anyone could know their home, and portrays it with such affection that the reader can't help but share in it.
September 14, 2018
Other Goodreads reviewers have written excellent comments on this book, so I don't really need to. I very much agree with phrases like "deceptively simple," "richly observed," "economy of expression," and "uncluttered narrative." I thought at first the book was another collection of Brown's beautiful and evocative short stories, but it turns out to be a novel of sorts, built out of the reveries of one character, who imagines events covering the history of the Orkneys, from pre-celtic builders of a broch (a fortified tower), through somewhat romanticized versions of a Viking trip to Constantinople and of the Battle of Bannockburn, through the press-gangs of "good" King George III, when all the young men of the island mysteriously disappeared for a few days. It merges into the otherworldly with the story of a man who captures a selkie by stealing her seal-skin and marries her. They have children together, but adventures with the selkies, however lovely they might be, never turn out happily. An airfield is built on the island in 1938-39 and almost destroys everything beautiful. We find out towards the end that the stories we've been reading were ostensibly written while the character was a POW in a stalag in 1944. At the very end he returns to the now (almost) completely deserted island with surprising results. Short-listed for the Booker prize and well deserves it.
April 26, 2025
I thoroughly enjoyed this delightful book by Orcadian native George MacKay Brown, shortlisted for the 1994 Booker Prize, which I only realised after I had purchased it for Xmas for my husband in advance of our upcoming holiday island hopping across Orkney and Shetland. It was an interesting collection of different historical episodes on the island through the eyes of a mid 20th century island boy Thorfin Ragnarson, from the Vikings and Scandinavian settlers and plunderers to imagined seafaring in the Baltic and beyond to Constantinople to the escape of Bonnie Prince Charlie from Bannockburn to the destruction of the crofts at the start of WW2 in order to develop air defences against German bombardment around Scapa Flow. The final section is quite emotional as Thorfinn, now in his 60s returns to the now abandoned island, in an attempt to return to his roots as a poet and writer.
Overall a very enjoyable and immersive book.
Overall a very enjoyable and immersive book.
February 25, 2025
I loved this beautiful and different book that was nominated for the Booker years ago. Read for a course; we had an excellent session with half the usual number of students. We discussed whether it was as a novel (which seemed obvious to me) the matrifocal society, witnessing events, technology and change, the intrusion of the outside world, was the lifestyle idealised, nature writing, poetic prose, community, myth, humour, environment, religion, patterning and whether it was a Bildungsroman. The key chapter is ‘the muse’ and Persephone/Sophie is a symbol of growth as befits the meaning of her name.
January 29, 2019
Thorfinn is a daydreamer. He loses attention easily in class and his mind wanders to great historical adventures in which of course he is involved.
Home is a tiny village on the Orkney island of Norday. Brown’s classic novel takes us through Thorfinn’s daydreaming, as well as giving us an insight into the island life, especially it’s characters, in the years either side of the Second World War. But this absolutely isn’t a war novel, in fact, anything but. It’s a ‘feel good’ story about Orkney life with beautiful descriptive and yet simple prose.
It is intimate and humourous, and effortlessly combines the strands of history with folklore, and the past with the present. It is a deceptively simple book, like a tale told to a child, but it reveborates on unforgettably.
Of all the lazy useless boys who ever went to the Norday school..the novel begins.
Home is a tiny village on the Orkney island of Norday. Brown’s classic novel takes us through Thorfinn’s daydreaming, as well as giving us an insight into the island life, especially it’s characters, in the years either side of the Second World War. But this absolutely isn’t a war novel, in fact, anything but. It’s a ‘feel good’ story about Orkney life with beautiful descriptive and yet simple prose.
It is intimate and humourous, and effortlessly combines the strands of history with folklore, and the past with the present. It is a deceptively simple book, like a tale told to a child, but it reveborates on unforgettably.
January 25, 2022
it took me a good couple of chapters before i started to appreciate the style, which i found a tiny bit wearing to begin with. and while the final chapter tied the story together nicely, it felt a bit too introspective.
as a whole though it's beautifully written, an evocative mixture of history, myth and scenes from everyday island life in the 1930s.
as a whole though it's beautifully written, an evocative mixture of history, myth and scenes from everyday island life in the 1930s.
September 18, 2025
Yes, I am alive. And I finished a book!
It's fair to say that I have been facing the end game boss of all reading slumps this year having tried fiction, non fiction, short stories and graphic novels to lift me out all to no avail. Until this little beauty came along.
Beside The Ocean of Time tells the story of a small island community in the Orkney's during the 1930s. It also tells many more stories due to the fact that the protagonist, Thorfinn Ragnarson is quite the day dreamer. The novel propels forwards at all time flitting between the fictions of Thorfinn's mind and the realities and traditions of island life in a small community.
The language used is extremely evocative. It will only take a few pages to transport you to the sea battered island of Norday and before long it will feel as if you've been breathing in the chilly sea air and walking along the ocean shore yourself. Likewise, the community of the island comes to life almost instantly. It lends a comforting feel harking back to a simpler way of life. Each of the islanders have their own distinct way of being whilst all of them tie into the traditions of the community. In addition to this Thorfinn's dreams and day dreams alike help to both break up what could be a monotonous tale with flights of fancy and also explore key moments from Scottish history and folklore without ever feeling a detriment to the plot.
This book is a beautiful, humble story that transports you to a simpler way of living whilst also exploring a multitude of themes and events, history and folklore. A comforting, compelling and potentially transformative read.
It's fair to say that I have been facing the end game boss of all reading slumps this year having tried fiction, non fiction, short stories and graphic novels to lift me out all to no avail. Until this little beauty came along.
Beside The Ocean of Time tells the story of a small island community in the Orkney's during the 1930s. It also tells many more stories due to the fact that the protagonist, Thorfinn Ragnarson is quite the day dreamer. The novel propels forwards at all time flitting between the fictions of Thorfinn's mind and the realities and traditions of island life in a small community.
The language used is extremely evocative. It will only take a few pages to transport you to the sea battered island of Norday and before long it will feel as if you've been breathing in the chilly sea air and walking along the ocean shore yourself. Likewise, the community of the island comes to life almost instantly. It lends a comforting feel harking back to a simpler way of life. Each of the islanders have their own distinct way of being whilst all of them tie into the traditions of the community. In addition to this Thorfinn's dreams and day dreams alike help to both break up what could be a monotonous tale with flights of fancy and also explore key moments from Scottish history and folklore without ever feeling a detriment to the plot.
This book is a beautiful, humble story that transports you to a simpler way of living whilst also exploring a multitude of themes and events, history and folklore. A comforting, compelling and potentially transformative read.
May 7, 2018
This book blurs the lines between novel and short-story collection, but being such a strong writer of short stories, Brown manages to root them all in the daydreams of young Thorfinn and the life and history of the Orkney island he calls home. For this book is truly not just the story of Thorfinn, but the story of the island culture itself, long unchanging over generations of crofters and fishermen, but subject to sudden disruption when the modern world intrudes.
This book introduced me to George Mackay Brown back in the mid-90s, and I've never been disappointed in any of his works. His voice is so wonderfully evocative of the islands that you cannot help feeling you are there alongside his characters, watching a fishing boat returning with a long line of gulls trailing it, seeing the wind move across a field of oats, or sitting on the smithy's bench in the evening talking politics. Just as Thorfinn returns to the empty island in his maturity, I am left with my own daydreams of finding peace in such a place.
This book introduced me to George Mackay Brown back in the mid-90s, and I've never been disappointed in any of his works. His voice is so wonderfully evocative of the islands that you cannot help feeling you are there alongside his characters, watching a fishing boat returning with a long line of gulls trailing it, seeing the wind move across a field of oats, or sitting on the smithy's bench in the evening talking politics. Just as Thorfinn returns to the empty island in his maturity, I am left with my own daydreams of finding peace in such a place.
May 1, 2018
In 'Beside the Ocean of Time' George Mackay Brown links together several short stories featuring day-dreaming Thorfinn Ragnarson. The seemingly semi-autobiographical novel about 1930s and 40s Orkney is typical of Brown's trademark style - prosaic and yet deeply lyrical. A technique that seems to be reminiscent of Nordic sagas: letting the actions of characters reveal something of their emotions rather than getting under their skin and describing their inner thoughts or motives.
November 5, 2021
This is a really beautiful book. The slips between time are done excellently & the ending to Thorfinn’s tale is perfect. It feels lighter than George Mackay Brown’s other story collections but retains the signature prose of the poet, with somw thinly veiled hints at autobiography.
May 22, 2020
What a joy to read Brown’s uncomplicated life-affirming novel. After having just finished most of the other 1994 Booker short-listed titles, some intense, over-wrought or self-indulgent, this seemed as clear and refreshing as a sea breeze around the Orkneys.
The book is a series of stories, told in a style akin to Norse sagas, in which Thorfinn Ragnarson, the ‘laziest and most useless’ boy on fictional Norday dreams adventures from the past 2,000 years of the islands.
He boards a Viking ship to Constantinople, follows Robert the Bruce and the Bonnie Prince, becomes Celtic balladeer and a sea-faring crofter who brings back an American squaw wife, and another who weds a girl from the seal folk.
Times are often hard, but the mood always affirmative, Thorfinn’s imagination fed by the history and geography of the land. He picks up ideas as a former Minister on the island would pick up detritus from ‘the shore of the great ocean of time.’
Brown is celebrated as one of Scotland’s greatest poets, and his creation too hopes to become one. In a brief moment of philosophical reflection Thorfinn concludes that man’s life ‘is a brief voyage with .. the many-voiced sea, all around’ while seen from on high, Norday resembles an ‘idyll of peace and absolute security.’
The language matches the landscape – simple and unadorned. The people too are uncomplicated, a first line of description or conversation is as far as we get in psychological analysis, but they are a varied and interesting bunch: the pub philosophers - nationalist, free-trader, idealist, Tory, socialist and Communist; the gossips – nosy, suspicious, generous, available.
One feels an affection for all of them, even the distiller of illegal whisky who would divert the taxman to pounce instead on his barleyman.
Of all the novels shortlisted for the Booker Prize that I have read, this is probably the first that I would imagine would be ideal also for young teenagers, especially boys. It may not be among the very greatest, but for me it was one of the most enjoyable.
The book is a series of stories, told in a style akin to Norse sagas, in which Thorfinn Ragnarson, the ‘laziest and most useless’ boy on fictional Norday dreams adventures from the past 2,000 years of the islands.
He boards a Viking ship to Constantinople, follows Robert the Bruce and the Bonnie Prince, becomes Celtic balladeer and a sea-faring crofter who brings back an American squaw wife, and another who weds a girl from the seal folk.
Times are often hard, but the mood always affirmative, Thorfinn’s imagination fed by the history and geography of the land. He picks up ideas as a former Minister on the island would pick up detritus from ‘the shore of the great ocean of time.’
Brown is celebrated as one of Scotland’s greatest poets, and his creation too hopes to become one. In a brief moment of philosophical reflection Thorfinn concludes that man’s life ‘is a brief voyage with .. the many-voiced sea, all around’ while seen from on high, Norday resembles an ‘idyll of peace and absolute security.’
The language matches the landscape – simple and unadorned. The people too are uncomplicated, a first line of description or conversation is as far as we get in psychological analysis, but they are a varied and interesting bunch: the pub philosophers - nationalist, free-trader, idealist, Tory, socialist and Communist; the gossips – nosy, suspicious, generous, available.
One feels an affection for all of them, even the distiller of illegal whisky who would divert the taxman to pounce instead on his barleyman.
Of all the novels shortlisted for the Booker Prize that I have read, this is probably the first that I would imagine would be ideal also for young teenagers, especially boys. It may not be among the very greatest, but for me it was one of the most enjoyable.
December 2, 2017
When the weather turns wintry, 'tis time to reach for the Orkney Bard. The brilliance of his islands, the rawness of his weather, the warmth of his words and his hearths - it's truly better than socks.
Everything GMB wrote is magical, from his poetry to his prose, but Beside the Ocean of Time is widely regarded as his masterpiece. I will always have a soft spot for Magnus, his brutal yet passionate and poignant history of the patron saint of Brown's beloved Orkney, but it'd be churlish to argue with the majority; Beside the Ocean of Time IS a masterpiece. I know of no other book that so effortlessly captures the magic of childhood fantasy and marries it with the hard, yet honest, life of crofting in the Isles; it's both a love letter to Orkney and its folk, and a wonderful, fantastical voyage through the history and mystery of those islands. If you have an ounce of soul in your body, this book will sing to it.
Everything GMB wrote is magical, from his poetry to his prose, but Beside the Ocean of Time is widely regarded as his masterpiece. I will always have a soft spot for Magnus, his brutal yet passionate and poignant history of the patron saint of Brown's beloved Orkney, but it'd be churlish to argue with the majority; Beside the Ocean of Time IS a masterpiece. I know of no other book that so effortlessly captures the magic of childhood fantasy and marries it with the hard, yet honest, life of crofting in the Isles; it's both a love letter to Orkney and its folk, and a wonderful, fantastical voyage through the history and mystery of those islands. If you have an ounce of soul in your body, this book will sing to it.
October 3, 2019
A rewarding novel, but with quite a few chapters that are hard to get through. It does give you a good idea of what life was like in the pre-World War II Orkney Islands of Scotland, and how the war changed things.
The author centers the book around young Thorfinn Ragnarson, who daydreams about the past, including being on a Viking ship that travels to the Byzantine Empire and going to the Battle of Bannockburn with a knight who wants to fight with Robert the Bruce. He winds up in a German prisoner-of-war camp in World War II and becomes a writer. Much of this sounded interesting, so I purchased a copy of the book. The reality did not always come up to these expectations, even with some terrific moments during reading.
The author centers the book around young Thorfinn Ragnarson, who daydreams about the past, including being on a Viking ship that travels to the Byzantine Empire and going to the Battle of Bannockburn with a knight who wants to fight with Robert the Bruce. He winds up in a German prisoner-of-war camp in World War II and becomes a writer. Much of this sounded interesting, so I purchased a copy of the book. The reality did not always come up to these expectations, even with some terrific moments during reading.
July 28, 2024
[rating = C]
This book was hard to get into, mainly because the story took the form of mini-stories, but not until the end did I learn the meaning. The whole beginning is used to make a point that technology can be harmful and that old generations need to get used to things slowly. A dreamer, Thorfinn becomes a very stable, though poor, man who writes what he dreams. A point that becomes apparent with each new tale is that nothing will last, all is but a memory and will soon be forgotten. This hard reality is made when Thorfinn is unable to write his last book; he is unable to dream like when he was young. You are not a child forever.
This book was hard to get into, mainly because the story took the form of mini-stories, but not until the end did I learn the meaning. The whole beginning is used to make a point that technology can be harmful and that old generations need to get used to things slowly. A dreamer, Thorfinn becomes a very stable, though poor, man who writes what he dreams. A point that becomes apparent with each new tale is that nothing will last, all is but a memory and will soon be forgotten. This hard reality is made when Thorfinn is unable to write his last book; he is unable to dream like when he was young. You are not a child forever.
April 26, 2017
George Mackay Brown was a unique stylist. Like all of his books this is suffused with Orcadian folklore. This one tells the story of an idle dreamer through his historical reveries, which enable Brown to talk about many different periods in the history of the Orkneys and Scotland. A very enjoyable, unique book.
March 8, 2016
This book is beautifully written - full of poetic imagery. It weaves the dreams of Thorfinn with a portrait of life on a remote Orkney island. Some of Thorfinn's dreams entertained me more than others. Mostly I enjoyed the descriptions of the characters, landscapes, gossip and little incidents of Scottish crofting life.
August 10, 2016
A quick pleasant trip to outer Scotland but neither the characters nor the plot were particularly compelling or developed.
April 28, 2017
Effortlessly charming, beautifully written, and quietly profound.
September 5, 2024
A series of loosely connected short stories follow Thorfinn Ragnarson and the community of Norday as they face both comedy and tragedy on the eve of WW2. Throughout, Ragnarson finds himself transported through time where he daydreams of periods of Norday’s past, creating interesting parallels between the past and the present.
At its best, the prose was evocative and moving. The Orcadian region is finely wrought - much like Hardy’s Wessex or Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County, Brown’s Norday is representative of a larger regional culture while still having a life and rhythm uniquely its own.
I saw at least one reviewer compare it to Thornton Wilder’s Our Town - a comparison that at first made me bristle. And while I still see Brown’s focus here to be inherently different than Wilder’s, I can see some similar themes, particularly an examination of the transcendence of the human experience, even in the mundane. With that being said, this book doesn’t have the same artistry at work for me as Our Town. While Our Town does take place in an idealized past, it is not a play focused on history. The setting is simply meant to be one of inconspicuousness. While it is fully realized, its choice was somewhat arbitrary - the larger message of the play would work in any other setting.
However, Brown’s novel seems to understand the past, in all its iterations as being uniquely tied to the present. In one hand, present day events seem to simply be variations on a theme, making the experiences of lives lived part of a larger and continuous human experience. But on the other, the unique weaving of these narratives, create a culture and community that feels wholly unique.
But let’s move on to my experience of reading this novel. It was a slow start for me, and I found myself drawn to the stories of contemporary Norday, usually finding Ragnarson’s dives into the past disruptive. I feel like my issue is that there was a certain distance between the reader and Ragnarson - making him a difficult character to connect with. As a result, I found the larger community of Norday a more welcome focus than Ragnarson’s forays into imaginary time travel.
At its best, the prose was evocative and moving. The Orcadian region is finely wrought - much like Hardy’s Wessex or Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County, Brown’s Norday is representative of a larger regional culture while still having a life and rhythm uniquely its own.
I saw at least one reviewer compare it to Thornton Wilder’s Our Town - a comparison that at first made me bristle. And while I still see Brown’s focus here to be inherently different than Wilder’s, I can see some similar themes, particularly an examination of the transcendence of the human experience, even in the mundane. With that being said, this book doesn’t have the same artistry at work for me as Our Town. While Our Town does take place in an idealized past, it is not a play focused on history. The setting is simply meant to be one of inconspicuousness. While it is fully realized, its choice was somewhat arbitrary - the larger message of the play would work in any other setting.
However, Brown’s novel seems to understand the past, in all its iterations as being uniquely tied to the present. In one hand, present day events seem to simply be variations on a theme, making the experiences of lives lived part of a larger and continuous human experience. But on the other, the unique weaving of these narratives, create a culture and community that feels wholly unique.
But let’s move on to my experience of reading this novel. It was a slow start for me, and I found myself drawn to the stories of contemporary Norday, usually finding Ragnarson’s dives into the past disruptive. I feel like my issue is that there was a certain distance between the reader and Ragnarson - making him a difficult character to connect with. As a result, I found the larger community of Norday a more welcome focus than Ragnarson’s forays into imaginary time travel.
July 8, 2017
Why had I never heard of this brillian writer until setting foot in his native Scotland? He is a world renowned poet, who grew up on the Orkneys Island of Stromness, the basis for most of his writing, whether poet, prose, novels or other works. This book was listed for the Booker Prize, and it's easy to see why. It covers over 800 years of Orkney history through the daydreams and musings of an Orkney school boy, who is much chided for being "idle and lazy", while vividly reliving the dull history being taught in school. The boy becomes a man and makes much of his own life, as a writer and a part of the Orkney way of life as well. GMB is a story teller, in the finest sense. I would have loved to be in a darkened room listening to him read, with that room being in an inn in the Orkneys, where I visited while reading his marvelous work. I could imagine the crofters and the sheep (heck, I could see the darn sheep - they were everywhere!), and the outcroppings and the waves lashing the shore. He brought it to life, as well as the ruins of Vikings, Pict peoples and even the magical Neolithic sites whose origins are still unknown. Spell binding. I wll read more of his work.
September 12, 2018
George Mackay Brown is ever un-prepossessing. Here, he charts the course of a dream in waves of historical fantasies that ebb and flow the way the sea crashes and retreats from the store, and by the novel's conclusion he ties together the device - interwoven short stories - into a reflexive narrative about visions of these tales as novels, while containing the whole in a lovely capstone image of the narrator's position as someone able to tell these tales.
Among all the tales and their interlocking parts, Brown weaves together a gorgeous juxtaposition between a dreamy, hidden boy's life and the experience of the violence of history. It is this juxtaposition that drives the novel's continued passage between fixed immensities: the realities of the modern world's rapid change in remote areas, the hefty, swampy blocks of historical accumulations that constitute knowledge about the past in mutable but endlessly changing stories.
I always hesitate when picking up a Brown novel, but by the end, I am swept away into his vision. Beauty and violence alike find his capable translation equal to their tasks.
Among all the tales and their interlocking parts, Brown weaves together a gorgeous juxtaposition between a dreamy, hidden boy's life and the experience of the violence of history. It is this juxtaposition that drives the novel's continued passage between fixed immensities: the realities of the modern world's rapid change in remote areas, the hefty, swampy blocks of historical accumulations that constitute knowledge about the past in mutable but endlessly changing stories.
I always hesitate when picking up a Brown novel, but by the end, I am swept away into his vision. Beauty and violence alike find his capable translation equal to their tasks.
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