Spill Simmer Falter Wither

by Sara Baume

You find me on a Tuesday, on my Tuesday trip to town. A note sellotaped to the inside of the jumble-shop window: COMPASSIONATE & TOLERANT OWNER. A PERSON WITHOUT OTHER PETS & WITHOUT CHILDREN UNDER FOUR.

A misfit man finds a misfit dog. Ray, aged fifty-seven, ‘too old for starting over, too young for giving up’, and One Eye, a vicious little bugger, smaller than expected, a good ratter. Both are accustomed to being alone, unloved, outcast – but they quickly find in each other a strange companionship of sorts. As spring turns to summer, their relationship grows and intensifies, until a savage act forces them to abandon the precarious life they’d established, and take to the road.

Spill Simmer Falter Wither is a wholly different kind of love story: a devastating portrait of loneliness, loss and friendship, and of the scars that are more than skin-deep. Written with tremendous empathy and insight, in lyrical language that surprises and delights, this is an extraordinary and heartbreaking debut by a major new talent

Genres: Fiction, Animals, Ireland, Dogs, Literary Fiction, Irish Literature, Contemporary

278 pages, Paperback

First published October 23, 2015

About the author

Sara Baume is an Irish novelist.
Her father is of English descent while her mother is of Irish descent. As her parents travelled around in a caravan, Sara Baume was born "on the road to Wigan Pier". When she was 4, they moved to County Cork, Ireland. She studied fine art at Dun Laoghaire College of Art and Design and creative writing at Trinity College, Dublin from where she was awarded her MPhil. She has received a Literary Fellowship from the Lannan Foundation in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Her books are published by Tramp Press in Ireland and Heinemann in Britain.
In 2015, she participated in the International Writing Program's Fall Residency at the University of Iowa, in Iowa City, IA.

Reviews

[Will Byrnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

You’re Sellotaped to the inside pane of the jumble shop window. A photograph of your mangled face and underneath an appeal for a COMPASSIONATE & TOLERANT OWNER. A PERSON WITHOUT OTHER PETS & WITHOUT CHILDREN UNDER FOUR. The notice shares street-facing space with a sheepskin overcoat, a rubberwood tambourine, a stiffed wigeon and a calligraphy set. The overcoat’s sagged and the tambourine’s punctured. The wigeon’s trickling sawdust and the calligraphy set’s likely to be missing inks or nibs or paper, almost certainly the instruction leaflet. There’s something sad about the jumble shop, but I like it. I like how it’s a tiny refuge of imperfection. I always stop to gawp at the window display and it always makes me feel a little less horrible, less strange.

You are unsettled tonight, Mouse. I wonder why that is. Come, let me wrap my arm around you and scratch your tiny head. No? Not ready for that? OK. Well, how about I tell you about this book I just read? Go ahead, hop down to the floor. It’s ok. You’re not ready for holding just now. As for this book, there’s a man, Ray. He’s 57. Too old for starting over, too young to give up, he says. He has had a very sad life. His mother died when he was a baby, so he never knew it was usual to have two parents. He had only his factory-worker Da, who not only raised him alone, he raised Ray away from other children. Practically as a shut-in. Children in this rustic waterfront part of Ireland were cruel to Ray, teased him, tormented him. I guess his father thought that Ray, who was not the sharpest tool in the shed, would manage better at home than hassled at school. But it was a lonely life.


Sara Baume - image from The Irish Times

Are you listening, Mouse? I see your ears are still pointing up and forward, so I suppose you are. Ready to come back up? No? not yet? Ok. I will try to tell you about this in as soft a voice as I can. So, one day Ray is out in town and sees a sign in a store window with a photograph of a dog in need of a home. Do you remember when you used to live on the street? It was only for a short time. We found you when you were soooo tiny. But this dog that Ray found was not a baby like you were. He was a full-grown pooch, who had seen some difficult times. He might have been a young aggressive dog, but he could have been an old one too. We don’t really know. He had even lost an eye. Ray thinks he had been trained to go after badgers, and that a badger had gotten the better of him. But Ray sees something of himself in the dog, something less than beautiful, not like you, Mouse. You are soft and gorgeous. So he brings him home and calls him One Eye. It gives him someone to talk to, at least. And maybe something more.

People talk to their pets for all sorts of reasons. But Ray talked to One Eye because he had no one else. In this book, Ray tells One Eye all about his life, how he had lived with his father for most of it, and alone ever since his father passed. It is a pretty unusual thing in a novel, Mouse, for someone to spend all, or most of the book anyway, talking to someone else. Quite the challenge. But it works pretty well here, I thought. Of course, One Eye may be a good companion, but, like Ray, he was not the best schooled. Has issues with attacking. You don’t know about that sort of attacking, Mouse. When you pounce on and wrestle with your brother, Dash, biting and clawing, wrestling, and rolling over each other, it is all in fun. Not with One Eye. He does not seem to know how to behave around others. This makes things a bit tough for Ray. People tend to get upset when dogs are not well trained.

Ray does not think much of himself. He thinks he looks like a troll. Here is how he describes himself. I’ll try to read it to you in an Irish accent.

I’m a boulder of a man. Shabbily dressed and sketchily bearded. Steamrolled features and iron-filing stubble. When I stand still, I stoop, weighted down by my own lump of fear. When I move, my clodhopper feet and mismeasured legs make me pitch and clump. My callused kneecaps pop in and out of my shredded jeans and my hands flail gracelessly, stupidly.

Oh, that is such a big yawn. Are you ready to come up? Yes? Great. Here, I will cross my skinny legs and make a lap for you. I’ve already told you the story, or at least as much as I can without giving too much away. Did I tell you that the story takes place in Ireland? I did? Oh, ok. The lady who wrote it, Sara Baume, is half Irish. Her father is English. And her mother is Irish. They met while he was working in Ireland. The family moved back and forth, but Ms. Baume knows the place.

I like talking to you, Mouse. But not because I am lonely. I have my Sweetie and all your brothers and sisters. I even get out of the house once in a while. And there are scads of people I can talk to through the computer or on the phone. But I do enjoy your attention. I like the way you watch my face while I talk to you. And I love the way your eyelids slowly droop until you are asleep. It reminds me of when I used to read to my human children at night. I wonder what thoughts scamper through your tiny brain. I bet if you lived outside you would take in all the sights and scents in the world you lived in. Ray does this as well. He does get outside, goes to town, to shops, to the beach. He may not be well educated, but he is not without his interests. He was taught to read by a neighbor, and developed a fondness for flora. He can rattle off the names of every sort of plant you could see in that part of the world. Ray marks the seasons by noting what plants are doing, which ones are blooming, wilting, changing shape and color. It is a remarkable skill and he tells us what he sees of nature all through the book. Here is an example:

See the signs of summer, of the tepid seasons starting their handover with subtle ceremony. Now the forest floor is swamped by bluebells, the celandine squeezed from sight. See how the bells hover above the ground, like an earth-hugging lilac mist. Now the oak, ash, hazle and birch are bulked with newly born leaves, still moist and creased from the crush of their buds. The barley is up to my kneecaps and already it’s outgrown you. As we crest the brow of the hill each day, you are shrouded in green blades.

It occurs to me, Mouse, that you have been living with us for about a year which is a lovely coincidence, as Ms. Baume’s story about Ray and One Eye covers a single year too. She made up names for the seasons, and used those as the title for the book, and a way to divvy the book up into four parts. Throughout it all, Ray describes the seasonal changes he sees.

We get to see Ray long enough to get a sense of what sort of person he is. He is far from perfect, even in what seems like his innocence. So, like a lot of us. Even you, Mouse, I see you sometimes lurking on a chair, the better to swat at brothers and sisters who might be passing below. I have seen you be unkind to siblings who joined the family after you. One Eye has some issues as well, more dramatic ones than you. Ray can be unkind, as well. But mostly he is sad, and fearful.

There is a bit of mystery going on here as well. Just how did Ray’s Da die? And how was that handled by local officials? Also, we wonder what happened to Ray’s mother. Did she die in childbirth? What secrets are kept in rooms of the house that Ray never enters? How did it come to be that Ray’s father was raising him alone?

Overall, though, Mouse, this is a bit of a love story. Two lost souls finding and binding with each other, struggling to make ends meet, to survive, but feeling a closeness neither had experienced for a very long time, if ever. Oh, you are almost asleep. One last stretch. Spread those claws, Go ahead now, curl up, right there in the crook of my left arm. You fit there as if you had been custom-designed for the space. There was one thing I thought was not really successful in the book. Ms. Baume tries to tell us about One Eye’s take on things by giving Ray dreams in which he imagines himself as One Eye. It just seemed forced, and not needed. Even Ms. Baume has admitted she’s had second thoughts about including those parts.

Before you are totally asleep, Mouse, I need to let you know that Ms Baume trained to be an artist, and it was a bit of a surprise that she wound up writing a novel. But one thing about artists who write is that they bring an amazing visual sense to their writing, and she does that here. It reminded me of another book by an author who is mostly a visual artist, The Night Circus. Totally different content, of course, but very strong visual sense.

If you could not already tell, my little sweet, I quite loved this book. It has a lot of pain and a lot of sadness in it. It is both funny at times and heartbreaking. But like another book that shows a very dark time, The Road, it lets us in on the love, the connection between two spirits. If any reader is not moved by this book, they must be bolted in place. I cried at the end. It is simply a beautiful, beautiful book. Not as beautiful as you, Mouse, but then, what could be?

Review first posted – 10/27/2017

Published – 2/1/2015


=============================EXTRA STUFF

If Sara Baume can be reached directly on-line it is news to me.

Interviews

-----The Guardian – 2/18/17 - Sara Baume: ‘I always wanted to be an art monster’ - by Alex Clark

she hit upon the character of Ray, in Spill Simmer Falter Wither, as a way of avoiding dialogue, because, she says, she didn’t want to get the voices of Irish people wrong. “I’m like, I need someone who’s not going to talk much, and who’s going to live very much in his own head. And so the way he speaks comes about from the radio and from the television and from the book.” Her caution at depicting “Irish voices” is striking, and derives from her dual heritage. Her English father came to Ireland to lay gas pipelines, and met her mother, an archaeologist, while “they were both in the ground”. They moved to England for a while, doing the same work, moving around a lot and living in a caravan; her elder sister was born in Surrey and she was born in Wigan, because “that just happened to be where the caravan was parked”. The family moved back to west Cork when Baume was a baby, but a sense of being from two places has persisted.

-----The Irish Times – 2/12/15 - Sara Baume: ‘I actually hate writing. It’s really hard’ - by Sinead Gleesopn

The dog was the starting point . . . the dog in the book is my dog, who is a rescue dog with one eye and he’s a real last-chance-saloon dog. He has caused us a lot of trouble; he’s bitten people and I’ve paid them off to stop him being put down. With the narrator, I wanted him to be an older man, and to be afraid of innocuous things, so he’s frightened of children and he doesn’t have normal social skills. He’s slightly based on a man who I see where I live, who walks up and down the seashore. I wanted to create a character who wasn’t fully me, but partially me, who encapsulated things that I felt.

-----NPR - 3/17/16 For A Young Irish Artist And Author, Words Are Anchored In Images - by Lynn Neary

Before she was a writer, Sara Baume set out to be a visual artist. "First and foremost I see; I see the world and then I describe it ..." she says. "I don't know another way to write. I always anchor everything in an image."

-----The Times Literary Supplement – 2/13/17 - Twenty Questions with Sara Baume

For any interested in a visual of Mouse, you might check here. Try to ignore the troll seated behind her.

[Doug H · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beware of Novel

If you’re looking for a feel-good man and dog love story, back away slowly and keep on looking. On the other hand, if you’re looking for a quiet character study that is dense with poetic language, detailed imagery and a feeling of slowly snowballing dread, look no further. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, though. This one might just bite your heart out.

I knew going in that this novel might destroy me because our beautiful furkid Sara (an extremely smart Sheltie/Border Collie with more than a few social issues and with whom I was almost literally attached at the hip) died a few months ago and I’m still greiving. So, I put on my best emotional armor before I began reading. I looked for faults with the writing and the story as I went along in order to steel myself against further grief. And, I did find a few faults. Not many, but enough to keep me feeling fairly strong for the first two sections.

The entire story is presented in the voice of the (borderline autistic?) narrator talking at his dog and this second person POV got on my nerves a bit in the beginning. However, I quickly adjusted to it and grew to like it quite a lot.

"Now you know the slightest of sights and sounds which indicate I’m preparing to eat. Your know the curt compression of air which signals the opening of the fridge, the click of the cupboard’s magnet,the whirr of the spring loaded drawer. You know the screech of spatula against the base of a margarine carton, and you know this means it’s ready for you to slather out. You know, when I eat an apple with a pairing knife, the exact angle my hand takes when I pare a piece especially to toss to you."

Also, the writing is so lyric, so fully laden with alliteration and lilting prosody that it almost became too much for me. Almost. Most of the time I fully admired it for its very unique and very Irish sing-songishness.

"My thoughts are rancorous, ruinous. They throng through me like a shoal of sharp, silver sprat whenever the outer noises aren’t loud or plenty enough to keep them at bay, to keep them out of the bay, the bay of my brain."

Long story short: my armor totally failed me. I stopped searching for faults and became fully invested. I let this beautiful novel sink its sad teeth into me. And yes, it hurt. A lot. I’ve cried over books before, but I think wailing out loud might be a first for me. I sure hope our neighbors were still sleeping when I finished it this morning.

I’d especially recommend this to fans of The Curious Incident of The Dog in The Nighttime and The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. It’s not directly related, but there are some similarities character-wise in the former and plot-wise in the latter. You’ll know what I mean if you’ve read all three. I’d also recommend it to dog lovers in general.

What a ballsy and beautiful debut!

5 stars.

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very sad dark story.....with gorgeous descriptive writing.
A man, (Ray), and a dog (One Eye), have both been abused.
They both have disabilities.
They both are angry.
They both are lonely.
They both live with fear
They are each other's whole world - their only companion.....there are circumstances for this.

Until 'One Eye' ( a stray dog with only one eye who stumbles and falls - as balance has affected his sight), Ray - age 57- had never had a pet his entire life bigger than a Kiwi fruit.
Ray talks, talks and talks to 'One Eye' describing the bird walk, the flowerbeds, the picnic benches, the ponds, the weeds, the hornets, the local residents, the High and low sea tides, etc. He is aware that his dog isn't exactly obedient....and doesn't always listen.
Sometimes Ray asks his dog questions, but mostly it's a one-way conversation.
Ray shares about his childhood. Oh - it's sad!
He talks about his father. Its even sadder. It's a good time for readers to contemplate- pause - let our own minds digest the 'input'....... fill in our own thoughts. For example - Ray's father only acknowledged one Birthday- when Ray was turning 10. They went to the Zoo in the rain. There is nothing sadder than a rainy Zoo, or Wildlife park. Also Ray's father didn't teach him to drive until he was 40 years of age. As the reader - I needed time to 'think' about 'all' Ray was telling us about his father and just how bad things were.
Ray shares about his dreams throughout this story -some were disturbing
and violent. --- I literally cringed over a dream about a badger's.

........at times THE PROSE PULLED ME IN --TO RE-READ PHRASES--as they were STUNNING!

........RAY LOVED 'One Eye'. 'One Eye' loved Ray! ......everything else .....just might be
Cowboys and Indians!

The blurb says 'just enough'....sharing how on a routine drive to town Ray and One Eye come to be together. Truthfully it's enough to know if you want to read this book!

There are many outstanding reviews -- I read A DOZEN. They are each deeply touching... I can't recommend them each highly enough! They added to my reading experience.
These are the twelve reviews by other community members which moved me:
Carol, Cheri, Diane Barnes, Emer, Rebecca, Jill, Bonnie Brody, Roger Brunyate, Peter Boyle, Mike W, Robert Blumenthal, and Kasa Cotugno
THERE ARE MORE!! -- but thank you to the above people!!! Lovely reviews!!!

The title of this book represents the seasons:
Spill - Spring
Simmer - Summer
Falter - Fall
Wither - Winter

Last......and this may be silly --- but a few times while reading this book I started to hum a song ( it started after Ray shared about his father humming when he was a child)

The song I was humming was Joni Mitchell's "The Circle Game" Hum or Sing along
And the seasons they go round and
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

[Always Pouting · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ray has grown old, and hasn't had an easy life. He ends up taking in a dog, One Eye, who like him is old and worn down, both abused and angry at life. Ray who is lonely and isolated begins to confide in One Eye about his life, and feels that the dog can understand him, both of them having been disregarded by others, looking for a place where they can feel safe and loved. The writing was a little bit disorienting to get into but after I got into the rhythm of the book it worked pretty well. The story is one that really heart wrenching and it did get to me, I totally cried because I can't stand people being treated badly. I just had slight reservations about the book because I feel like it was just balancing on the edge of trying to hard because of the way it's written and the story line. I just can't exactly explain why but it left me with a feeling like the author was trying to manipulate me emotionally and it worked out but it just as easily could've made me irritated more than anything else.

[Cheri · Rating 5 out of 5]

At fifty-seven, Ray is an outsider, mostly unseen by the people who dwell in his small town. He has a bit of a hump on his back, and an uneven gate, can manage to get by on his own most days in most ways, but he’s really an innocent when it comes to life-skills, other than perhaps reading. He reads, books in his father’s house, books from the bookmobile when he feels he can safely enter and be left alone. Books are his friends, his conversations on a somewhat daily basis limited to basic pleasantries uttered by the local shopkeepers. Better those than the looks he receives from others. His father is gone now, and Ray has always thought of his father’s house as his mother, he has known no other.

On a Tuesday, Ray finds a photograph of a dog with his face mangled taped to the window with a plea for a new owner, someone who is compassionate and tolerant, with no other pets or young children. And so Ray brings this new companion home christens him OneEye or ONEEYE as his tag reads, and they begin their new life together in this tired seaside town. Two outcasts bonded. As their bond deepens, and after several mishaps, they set out on the road, driven away from home by those that perceive them as a threat, and haven’t the compassion to see the calamities and misfortunes that have plagued them.

They both seek a place in this world without fear, a home where they are not shunned, teased or tormented, and together they wander on their journey, and find a kind of peace, and more. Their isolation throughout this journey is tangible, and though the tale often seems darkly desperate, as their bond grows as though their souls were one. As their journey goes on, days, weeks, months spent eating, sleeping, driving from place to place in their car, Ray shares his stories with his dog, until every secret is slowly unveiled.

Beautifully told, lovely prose. I loved this book, and I love my dogs, but this is not a book that I would classify as a “dog book” or a book for “dog lovers,” per se. It’s about two rejected souls who find each other, and in finding each other, find peace, at last.

My thanks to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, NetGalley and especially to Sara Baume for providing me with an Advanced Copy to read.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written debut novel about two social outcasts…a man and his one-eyed dog. I’m a YUUUGE dog lover, and I usually avoid dog stories. Most often they break my heart. This elegant story was melancholy, pensive and at times, certainly heart-wrenching. Even so, I loved this sad tale that confirmed (for me) the significance of our cherished pets.

There are already many lovely reviews of this story on Goodreads. I would only be repetitious. I will just encourage you to read this moving, Irish book. It has been nominated for several awards including, the Costa First Novel Award (2015) and the Guardian First Book Award (2015).

[Hugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sara Baume is another talented and original young Irish writer. Her second novel A Line Made by Walking, which was nominated for the Goldsmiths Prize, was one of my favourite books of the year, and this one is almost as good, and a very impressive first novel. I must admit that I approached it with a little trepidation - books about lonely people's relationships with their dogs can easily become syrupy and sentimental, but there is no danger of that here - if anything my only criticism is that it is too bleak, particularly in the relentless final section Wither.

The book splits neatly into four sections that reflect the seasons. In the first, Spill, the narrator takes an unwanted and sometimes vicious dog from a rescue centre. The dog is scarred by its previous experiences being used in badger baiting, and the narrator names it One Eye for obvious reasons. It is soon apparent that the narrator is also a disturbed loner, whose only human relationship in adulthood was with his now deceased father, whose house he still inhabits.

The narrator is never named, except by inference from his early introduction: "I'm fifty-seven. Too old for starting over, too young for giving up. And my name is the same word as for sun beams, as for winged and boneless sharks."

At first they bond and appear to be heading for some form of redemption, but One Eye has an uncontrollable instinct to attack other dogs on sight. By the end of the second section Simmer, they are forced to flee on a desperate road trip to avoid the prospect of One Eye being destroyed by the authorities.

What spares this from being desperately bleak is the quality of the language, the nuanced portraits of both the human and the canine characters, its dark humour, and Baume's eye for natural detail (though like A Line Made By Walking this book dwells on road-kill).

Highly recommended, but be warned, this is no romantic feel-good story and is not a book for the faint-hearted.

[Nat K · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite simply, this book broke my heart.

[Jaline · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a story; yet it is more of a journey. It is a journey that will make you pause, over and over again, to contemplate the perceptions that are laid out like little gifts overflowing onto the pages from a Christmas stocking too small to hold them all.

This book is not for speed-reading and if you cannot savor the pace of watching leaves unfolding on deciduous trees on the first sunny day after a cool Spring, this book will not work for you.

The man sees an ad in a window for a one-eyed dog and after picking him up, he names him Oneeye. He tells the dog that his own name means a sun beam but he doesn’t feel he deserves it and says it isn’t important. Ray is fifty-seven and he introduces Oneeye to the home he shared with his father until his father died. Throughout the book, he relays to Oneeye his stories, his ideas, and gives voice to all the things they see and experience together.

“And now I address it all to you. You who never spoke anyway. You who misunderstands almost everything. I describe the things we pass even though nothing is interesting, even though I’ve already mentioned it several times over, even though I know now I sound like the imbecile.”

Ray recalls reading a fairy story about goats and a troll under the bridge. He describes to Oneeye the picture showing the troll and how, at that moment of looking, he saw himself and felt kinship with the troll. He becomes aware that his own sense of social isolation and fear are exacerbated by Oneeye’s presence because Oneeye has his own memories of cruelty and what he must do to prevent pain: and that is to hunt and kill. He was never taught to differentiate between prey and not-prey so except for his human, his attack instinct is always near the surface.

This leads to an incident where Ray’s fears become a reality he cannot allow to happen and they run away with the car carrying extra gas, drums of water for cleaning, and other necessities that Ray has listed in his mind. As they travel, Ray continues his monologue of stories from the past and observations of where they are in the present.

“Now, I’m gabbling, I’m sorry. I catch sight of you in the rearview mirror. You’re watching the side of my face as I speak. Head tilted left, you look perplexed. I know you don’t understand, and so I bellow a sentence made up entirely of your words.”

The incidents they encounter on their months-long journey are mostly mundane, but they are made magical in the way Ray sees things and explains them to Oneeye. There are also times when people have tried to get too close or have attempted to reach out, but Ray’s fear of people and of perhaps losing Oneeye prevent him from being able to meet them half-way.

“’SSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHH,’ I tell you, even though I know you can’t grasp what form of command this reptilian hissing is supposed to be. You throw me a glance and I wonder if you’re checking to see if I’m punctured.”

Thus, their isolation continues – and yet the world of Ray’s mind is so rich and full of knowledge and his own special way of looking at things that you keep hoping that someone will find their way through. At one point, Ray recognizes that he would love to have human companionship again and begins to imagine it out loud to Oneeye.

“But it’s too late, I’m sorry. Now I have no idea how things begin, nor how to know that they are safe, nor how to show strangers that we are safe, too.”

This is a story that can set fire to complacency, to bigotry, and to concepts of some people being better than other people or worse than other people. It is a story that can help us to change our ideas about what goes on in someone else’s head based on how they look or smell.

This is a story that can help us open our hearts to more compassion toward those who are different. Ray was not an angel, but for all we know he could have been – and who would be foolish enough to turn their back on an angel just because they looked like a troll?

[Sandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I'm afraid, I think more than anything, of losing you."

Here is a book that made me shed a tear. Or two.
I kept thinking about my dog who passed away seven months ago. He was my baby, as far as you can call a 100 lbs dog one, who followed me everywhere. Just like One Eye is inseparable from Ray.
And I still miss him terribly. But I digress...

"Sometimes I see the sadness in you, the same sadness that's in me. It's in the way you sigh and stare and hang your head. It's in the way you never wholly let your guard down and take the world I've given you for granted. My sadness isn't a way I feel but a thing trapped inside the walls of my flesh, like a smog. It takes the sheen off everything. It rolls the world in soot. It saps the power from my limbs and presses my back into a stoop."

Ray is an outcast of society, who one day stumbles upon a notice from a dog shelter and decides to adopt the dog after seeing its mangled face on the photo. One Eye lost his left eye in a fight with a badger and isn't very sociable either. But these two have found their match and soon develop a special bond. And as Ray will do everything he can to keep the two of them together, they embark on a journey that will take them to places far away. We follow along through Ray's narration to the dog, as he gives his thoughts on the world around them and shares how his life came to be.

"Where were you last winter? I find it hard to picture a time when we were simultaneously alive, yet separate. Now you are like a bonus limb. Now you are my third leg, an unlimping leg, and I am the eye you lost."

Beautifully and exquisitely written, you cannot help but fall in love with these two damaged souls and the Irish landscape they travel through. Baume uses alliteration and patterns throughout and the sentences turn mellifluous and lyrical. You'll follow along with the rhythm of the prose, where you will hear the rolling of the waves and the shrieking of the birds, where you will smell the sea, and taste the salty air. And in the end you'll come out all shaken and transformed.

"He is running, running, running.
And it's like no kind of running he's ever run before. He's the surge that burst the dam and he's pouring down the hillslope, channelling through the grass to the width of his widest part. He's tripping into hoof-rucks. He's slapping groundsel stems down dead. Dandelions and chickweed, nettles and dock."

This story is about true friendship, and the devotion between two beings. A wonderful debut by Baume and I cannot wait to see what will be next.

"And in this way, the years passed and passed and passed, just the old man and me and then just me and then you, and now us."

Review copy supplied by publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a rating and/or review.

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although barely revealed in the beginning, Ray is a broken man. In many ways he is like a child. He lives by the shore in a place full of people, but his view is really like a picture seen through a window. Isolated could not begin to describe his life. By his own description, he is an ogre. Maybe troll is the better word. At one point he looks at his favorite picture “Three Billy Goats Gruff”, and tells his new friend, One Eye, that the troll sitting under the bridge is like himself. One Eye is very much the same. They are two who have found one another. The bond is quick and it is sure, but when an incident means the loss of his friend, Ray takes to the road, leaving most everything behind, excepting his friend who has become his existence.

“I’m afraid of losing you, I never expected I could be so stupidly afraid of losing you.”

I was torn by the end of this novel because I was left with a feeling of despair. In that moment, I toyed with a rating of three stars. There’s a reason why I changed my mind. A book that leaves me thinking about it for days deserves more. From the moment Ray rescues One Eye, he talks to him. That’s what this book is. It is Ray describing the present in everything they encounter and experience; describing his past in small pieces that slowly and inevitably reveal him. If the wording were not often beautiful, that continuous description could have been overload. The writing is also indirect, like Ray’s name which is left to intuit by the reader. After finishing, a full day passed before I really came to terms with the story, with what it was telling me. Then, I went back and read the last of it again. Doing so helped me to understand. I guess we just need to do that with some books.

[Fionnuala]

The dog in this story spills onto the first page in a burst of movement that propels him into the main character's life, until then, a lonely and secretive one, and which opens up thanks to the energy of the dog's arrival.

Their lives simmer on in peaceful coexistence for a time, but the dog has a history, and it begins to threaten the peace of both.

Their steps falter for a bit until a new mode of living is adopted, one that allows the man to move away from his own troubled history, and them both to roam the countryside like the pair of truly wild creatures they would like to be.

But whether the winter and its weather, or whether his history and its burdens, the man's will eventually withers just as the dog's past begins to call to him, and he, the taut coil of energy at the heart of this story, spills out of the final page into a new season with all the vitality he carried onto the first page.

Epilogue: No cycle of the Seasons was ever as restless and untamed as this one.

[Diane Barnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Words fail me when I think of how to review this book. It is a stunning look into the mind of a sweet, lonely misfit, whose only friend is a one-eyed dog he rescued from the shelter.

Ray needs a damaged dog because he is a damaged man. Raised by a father who neither loved nor wanted him, not allowed to go to school or have friends or any semblance of a normal life, he identifies with the Troll under the bridge in the fairy tale of The Three Billy Goats Gruff. He more or less teaches himself to read with the help of a neighbor, and books and television are his only way to connect with the world.

At the age of 57, One-eye is the only thing he has ever loved. He tells him everything, and we get his story as he talks to his dog. This story is layered, and the things we learn little by little bring a sense of horror. I will say that this may be the only time I wanted to kill a man who had been dead for a year and a half when the story opens. But he got his just ending, Oh yes he did!

Ray may be the lonliest man I've ever met in the pages of a book, but he gets my vote as the most courageous too. Because he kept on trying. Because he loved his dog. Because he was smarter than he thought he was. Just because.

[Laysee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spill Simmer Falter Wither is a very sad book to read at the close of an old year and the beginning of a new year. I should have known this just by the disjointed phrasing of the book title. It connotes a slow but sure movement toward disintegration.

Ray, a 57-year-old man who lives alone in a coastal Irish village, adopts One Eye, a traumatized dog from an animal shelter. The man was described as ’too old for starting over, too young for giving up’. He is socially anxious and dysfunctional, going into town only once a week for groceries. A recluse, he confines himself to an unkempt sty of a house that belonged to his deceased father. The dog, attacked by a badger, has a gaudy scar on his face where his left eye used to be. What they share in common is the ’great lump of fear’ they each carry in their beleaguered lives. As one would expect, Ray and One Eye become inseparable. It is moving to read of the unconditional love a social outcast finds in an irascible dog that everyone fears.

In poetic prose, Baume brings to light the darkness in Ray’s interior world and the great sadness that has been his life since childhood. The story takes the form of second person narration in which Ray talks to his dog. The conversation is often tender and heartbreaking at the same time. To One Eye, he said, “Sometimes I see the sadness in you, the same sadness that’s in me.... My sadness isn’t a way I feel but a thing trapped inside the walls of my flesh, like a smog. It takes the sheen off everything. It rolls the world in soot. It saps the power from my limbs and presses my back into a stoop.” As though reflecting the change in seasons from spring when the story began to winter when it ended, the backstory of Ray’s life with his father becomes increasingly darker and more and more chilling. His life with One Eye too gets harder when an unfortunate incident on the beach forces them to quit the safety of their home.

What makes this work shine is the author’s deep empathy for both the man and dog who do not belong anywhere. This is, however, a difficult book to read. There is much beauty when Ray describes the sea, plants, insects, and birds to his visually impaired dog. However, writing focused on delivering a vivid sense of place and time, especially when done well, ironically demands much patience and concentration from the reader. It can plod when there is little plot. But what is hardest for me is this – the darkness does not lift. The ambiguous ending only adds to that sense of futility and despair.

Spill Simmer Falter Wither is perhaps not for everyone even if you are an animal lover. For a debut work, it is impressive and beautifully written. It is best read when your heart is light and strong.

[Aditi · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring--it was peace.”

----Milan Kundera


Sara Baume, an English author, has penned a life-altering and extremely encouraging story about a man and his pet dog in her debut book, Spill Simmer Falter Wither that unfolds an unusual cord of friendship between a lonely aged man and a badger-baiting trained dog set against the quaint backdrop of an almost secluded island somewhere in the Irish Midlands near the sea. And I will suggest, right at the beginning of my review, to grab a copy of this book which is so much rich in detail and the story that is so much fulfilling. In our everyday daily busy lives, we definitely need a book that will not only be an escape to somewhere exotic or somewhere peaceful but also to be something that can enlighten us with the meaning of life and its importance and as this book fulfills the above criteria, so each and every human soul must READ this book.


Synopsis:

You find me on a Tuesday, on my Tuesday trip to town. A note sellotaped to the inside of the jumble-shop window: COMPASSIONATE & TOLERANT OWNER. A PERSON WITHOUT OTHER PETS & WITHOUT CHILDREN UNDER FOUR.

A misfit man finds a misfit dog. Ray, aged fifty-seven, ‘too old for starting over, too young for giving up’, and One Eye, a vicious little bugger, smaller than expected, a good ratter. Both are accustomed to being alone, unloved, outcast – but they quickly find in each other a strange companionship of sorts. As spring turns to summer, their relationship grows and intensifies, until a savage act forces them to abandon the precarious life they’d established, and take to the road.


Spill Simmer Falter Wither is a wholly different kind of love story: a devastating portrait of loneliness, loss and friendship, and of the scars that are more than skin-deep. Written with tremendous empathy and insight, in lyrical language that surprises and delights, this is an extraordinary and heartbreaking debut by a major new talent.


Ray is a physically as well as slightly mentally disabled fifty-seven year old man who lives in his father's dilapidated house in complete isolation somewhere in a nameless island town off the coast of Tawny Bay in Ireland. Every Tuesday, Ray tales a trip don to the town post office and the grocery store, but one day on his trip, he finds a dog, which is trained in catching and biting badgers an injured eye, and Ray instantly adopts the dog thereby naming it "One Eye". And there begins their strange companionship where Ray treats his pet dog like a friend as he narrates him about his life, both past and current through the four seasons of Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter, as they together tread a journey where not only they find each other but also faces a lot of challenges that threaten them to separate from one another, but to learn about the climax, you need to pick a copy of this book now.

In the beginning, I could not believe my own eyes that this is Sara Baume's debut book, as I could not adhere to the style of the author's writing style or the prose or even the story as all those above factors are so well polished or well structured through out the story, and not even once the author falters from her style of unfolding this story. At this point, readers of this review must be wondering what the book's title mean, very well, it means as follows:

Spill defines "Spring", Simmer defines "Summer", Falter defines "Fall" and Wither defines "Winter"

And the author has smartly titled her book that justifies the story within where her protagonist along with the dog spend the four main seasons in the Irish coastal town through ups and downs with loneliness, challenges and troubles.

The author's writing style is exquisite and to be fair, I've never before read such a story where the prose is so melodic or well tuned with recurring words, and the result of which made me lose myself into the beauty of the author's eloquent as well as expressive words. The writing is not only lyrical or poetic but also properly synced with some deep, evocative emotions that at times tortured me with its depth of pain and most of the times, it made my heart to be filled with empathy until the very sorrowful yet empowering climax. The pacing of the story is very swift as I swayed smoothly with the progress of the story line.

The main protagonist is portrayed so well into the story as the author projects this giant man as an outcast in the society who walks with a limp and has a mental illness as he spends his life in his father's house away from the prying eyes from his judgmental neighbors. In contrast to what Ray looks like, he is a very gently man who loves to read and ponder about his dead mother and his childhood days. And when One Eye enters his life, it seems like his life changes for the good, as he looks happy-ish when he goes on long drive to the sea beach where he trains and walks his dog. Eventually, this strong bond of trust turns into something inseparable as the protagonist narrates the whole story like he is talking directly to his pet dog, yet the readers will feel the warmth and can easily sympathize with these two lonely souls trying to hold onto each other through thick and thin.

The friendship between the dog and the main is something really special and unbreakable as the author paints their relationship with passion, trust and lots of emotions. The background of this book is equally vivid that instantly transferred me to the very same spots where the scenes are unfolding. The author has strikingly captured the flora, topography, weather and the idyllic landscape of this Irish coastal town filled with pubs and cobbled roads into her book, as while reading, I could feel that salty breeze and could smell the sea easily. In short, this location evokes PEACE in capital letters which can be easily found in the book if one read it with their heart and mind.

The narrative of the book is not only unique and stands apart in the sea of so many literary novels, but is also very rich with local dialect hence the readers can easily sense that Irish charm and flair through the dialogues of this book. So in a nutshell, this very wintery and very, very Irish tale of a man and his dog is a must read as it will enrich the lives of those who give it a read!

And many, many thanks to the author for adding such a lovely note inside the book. Yes, that's true, this book gave me some sort of solace with its cold and chilled Irish weather as it made me beat the unbearable heat of Kolkata with my mind and heart while reading. And not only that, I was in an utter emotional turmoil after the end of this book, so thanks to the author, for giving me a book hangover with the story of Ray and One Eye.

Verdict: An absolutely stunning, compelling yet poignant tale of true friendship.

Courtesy: Thanks to the author, Sara Baume, for giving me an opportunity to read and review her book.

[Roger Brunyate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unbearably Beautiful

"Unbearably poignant and beautifully told" writes Eimear McBride on the cover of this debut novel by fellow Irish writer Sara Baume. And she is right. This is a terribly sad book, yet the sheer beauty of its voice makes every page seem like a living miracle. Normally, I am a fast reader, yet I wanted to linger with this, to pause after each of the seasons indicated by the punning title—spring, summer, then fall—not just because I dreaded the slow unraveling that the words suggest, but because I could not bear to let such loveliness simply fade into the past.

It is the story of a man and a dog. The man is in his middle fifties, "too old for starting over, too young for giving up." He is an oddball hermit, a long-haired troll living in a cottage on the south coast of Ireland, keeping himself to himself because of his pathological fear of strangers. The dog is a beat-up old thing who has lost one eye to a badger, and who was scheduled to be put down on the day he is rescued from the shelter. He is fierce but intensely loyal. Most of the narrative is the man speaking to the dog as though he understands, as perhaps he does. Soon it is clear that each has become the other's chief reason for existence.

But One Eye, as he calls the dog, cannot so easily tame his aggressive instincts. One too many encounters with somebody's pampered pet on the seaside promenade gets his master into trouble, forcing him to leave his home. By the middle of the book, the two of them are driving around the middle of Ireland, parking in farm gateways and sleeping in their aging car. Although observed in the most minute detail, there is something mythic about their Odyssean wanderings. Ireland is a small country, and there is no way the journey could take so long when they finally decide to head back south for home. The final section, "wither," is the saddest, but also the most beautiful. Returning now to the secluded bay where man and dog had spent so many summer hours exploring is not just a matter of saying goodbye to old haunts, but also facing the long-buried story of why the man is the way he is.

Baume writes with the lightest touch. There are revelations to come, certainly, even some things that will chill your blood. But she leaves most of it unsaid. Just enough to suggest why a man whom everybody regards as a simpleton should be such an alchemist with words, writing with a voice steeped in the Irish tradition from James Joyce to John Banville, but with a simplicity and directness that is all his own:

With such little sign of a change in season, how do the plants know it's the right time to flower? Because plants are smart in a way people aren't, never questioning the things they know nor searching for ways to disprove them. All along the road through the forest to the refinery, see how foxgloves split from their buds and tremble over the ditches. And when the weight of their waterlogged bonnets is too much, they keel into the road and their heads are crushed by cargo lorries to a pretty pink pulp.

And that voice is Sara Baume's miracle, her gift to the sad world. No wonder that her novel has already been listed for several prizes; there will be many more. This is writing on a par with Marilynne Robinson or John Steinbeck, authors who can write about simplicity in language whose own simplicity is yet astonishingly rich. Sara Baume's character may also be ungainly and shy, but don't think too much of Lennie in Of Mice and Men. For this gentle giant has the gift of words. And words make all the difference.

[❀Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Based on all the glowing reviews, it's not the book, it's me. I won't spill the beans but what it simmers down to is the story faltered and my interest withered.

[Snotchocheez · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars

Despite some raves from my friends (Irish guru Peter and Elyse among two, and sorry my HTML skills suck or I'd give y'all the link you deserve) I was really 'yeah, whatever' about another feel-good book about a dog and its owner.

Trust me, folks, this is not at all a conventional novel, and almost nothing heart-warming about it. It almost certainly will stick in your midriff like angina (whether you're a dog-lover or cynophobe; I tend toward the latter as I'll forever be a cat person). Spill Simmer Falter Wither does herald the arrival of yet another remarkably talented woman at the forefront of the Irish literary scene, Sara Baume (following the likes of Lisa McInerney and Eimear McBride, who I promise to someday read as well).

To enjoy this strange novel, it doesn't really matter where your allegiance toward dogs lies, as this is Ray's story: a 57 year-old anthropophobic man who has lived most of of his life doing nothing more than avoiding people and collecting detritus from the Tawny Bay beach seaside village and holing up in his father's salmon-colored flat adjacent to said beach (and a beauty salon), reading hundreds of back issues of National Geographic and pretending to enjoy being a guinea pig player of his retired-confection-factory-working father's endless board game inventions. When Ray's father 'kicks the bucket', Ray does what any anthropophobic soul would do (besides stare out the window at all the indolent hoodlums and townfolk getting their hair done at the salon): he goes to the local animal shelter and picks out the mangiest woebegone cur of the lot (with "maggoty nose" and one eye destroyed by "badgers") and, predictably, becomes fast friends with the mongrel (unimaginatively named "ONEEYE" by Ray, like an African tribal chieftain).

And, yet, Ray's new-found canine love isn't really the focus of this near-plotless novel. Much of the goings-on (as narrated by Ray, in a sort of bizarre fashion, with one-way convos with his dog and himself, which I guess would be deemed "second person" narration) really serve as character study for the layabout Ray, and why he's so afraid of people, and why he feels so completely incapable of doing anything. (There are reasons divulged, in scattershot manner, why Ray's so afraid of people, why he's (I'm presuming) never had a job, or a love interest, or had lived with his father for 50-some-odd years. Some of those reasons are very unexpected, and very disturbing (at times almost rendering the relationship between Ray and his new canine friend irrelevant).

This year-long tale of self-discovery (as intimated by the wry 4-season-ish title) was an unexpected delight (and absolutely not in a gooey "Marley and Me" manner). Though I think my own situation (hurtling headlong into my Fifties, awaiting disability adjudication from the SSA, living in a place where almost no one shares my political beliefs) really enhanced my enjoyment of this novel, I think anyone (dog owner or no, eremite or no) will be able to not only empathize with the strange protagonist Ray's plight, but also recognize the talent of Sara Baume, an author on her way to becoming a household name. (And to prove that, her new novel A Line Made by Walking was just published. I can't wait to read it.)

------------------------

(Apologies and condolences to Jenna for the bad timing of my review, and for your loss.)

[Margaret Madden · Rating 5 out of 5]

One man and his dog. Not an original idea, but this is no ordinary novel.
This is my favourite novel of the decade.

This debut comes from the winner of 2014 Davy Byrnes Award, so I had a sneaky suspicion that I was starting to read something special. It took me about thirty seconds of reading to know, rather than suspect, that this was a novel to be savoured. From the prologue, to each individual chapter (each attributed to a season) and from paragraph to line, I slowly inhaled the story and let it take over. I was transported from a cold bedroom in Co. Louth to the rural villages of the Irish Midlands, stopping off in the odd coastal village The potholed roads, the long twisting laneways, the silent main streets and the family run pubs and petrol stations. What a change from the usual dual carriageways of our daily lives. As I turned the pages, I was reluctant to do so. The knowledge that I had to finish this book was something that I was ignoring, instead choosing to place my bookmark in with hesitation and delaying the inevitable. I would place the book at arms length, glance at it, close my eyes and re-read the latest pages in my mind. Now, I am aware that that this makes me sound slightly deranged, but those who know me can surely picture it. Eventually, I could hold off no more. The bookmark was removed for the last time and I faced the final pages. I felt like I was losing a friend. I was almost certain how the ending was going to shape up, and I was in denial. A big deep breath and it was over.
I am still a bit bereft.

The protagonist in this tale is not named, however the mystery of his name is easily solved. He has a diminished mental capacity which makes him the same level as a child of approximately nine years old. The reader is left to imagine this gentle giant with an abundance of innocence and years of loneliness and isolation. He adopts an ex-badger baiting dog, who he christens OneEye, and here begins an incomprehensible story of devotion.

Sara Baume has taken the concept of friendship to a new level, in my opinion. The 'companionship' concept does not come close to the depth of feeling described in this novel. A child may feel this way about a special blanket, sobbing uncontrollably when parted from it. A recently widowed man may have a shadow of this feeling visible across his face. A mother may feel this as she watches her son head off to war. Such is the depth of the friendship between Ray and OneEye. Each chapter is sprinkled with seasonal sensations and each line is written with the most sensual prose I have encountered from a contemporary author. The mood, the tempo, the minimal dialogue and the outstanding descriptive passages made for an emotional journey, albeit on a small island with basically just one character. I could go on to reveal more plot line and quote some of the poetic verses contained within the narrative, but I am going to leave that to the lucky person who is reading this novel for the first time. I can never have that honour again, but will certainly enjoy my re-reads.

A massive congratulations to Sara Baume and Tramp Press. You have raised the bar for Irish, and International, fiction...

[Archit · Rating 5 out of 5]

“A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself.”
― Josh Billings



A heartbreaking story about two outcasts, Ray, an old man and a dog named "One Eye". Both of them find a friend in each other. Life is hard when you don't have any friends to turn to and when you meet someone similar, you want them to keep holding to you.

Their friendship knew no bounds. It grew and grew, immensely. Having a dog as a pet, Spill Simmer Falter Wither (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter) makes more sense.

Books with dogs are the best kind of books.

But Be warned! It will not serve you a happy-dog-and-man story. It breaks your heart into pieces and you're left invested in it for weeks. It garners your attention and nourishes your thoughts. Pensive, Heart-wrenching and melancholic.

Spill Simmer Falter Wither captured my attention since the beginning. It doesn't feel like a debut. With this masterpiece, Sara Baume has proved that an author can move even the stone-hearted people. Adorable narration, poignant plot, honest story and lyrical writing style captivates the heart.

True friendship and devotion came to life. If you've a pet, be aware before reading it. Courageous, lonely and one of the most exceptional books.

I cannot encourage you enough to read this Irish work.

[Natalie Richards · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many others have reviewed this book far more eloquently than I can. What I can say is that it is a book of hurt; a damaged man and a damaged dog, physically and emotionally. Very vivid prose that completely pulled me in, I could picture man and dog so clearly. A really beautiful, but sad story.

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m of two minds about this book; I’m caught between the too wordy details of scenery, flora, and fauna on one side, and the perceptive infiltration of this isolated, lonely character’s psyche on the other. I don’t like to use 3 stars because it feels like a copout, but sometimes that’s just exactly where it lands.

“I’m not the kind of person who is able to do things.”

That right there is where the hook penetrated and I immediately cared about the narrator, Ray. I can’t count how many times I have felt that same way, and never actually put it into words. Sometimes the world feels impossible. Although I’m not like him in most ways, to this I could relate.

The story of Ray and his dog One-Eye is written in four seasons, each of which has it’s own atmosphere of feeling. There’s tentative hope in Spill season, as they become acquainted with each other and form their routine. By Wither season, Ray’s voice is considerably more haunted, desperate, as his options become limited. The shift in tone is subtle but felt.

I think this particular quote speaks very well to the kind of existence Ray has been been leading, and to the seasons of their story…

“Now everything holds a diaphanous kind of potential. Now everything is so quiet and so nice and I feel ever so faintly less strange, less horrible. It makes me uneasy. It reminds me how I must remember to be distrustful of good fortune."

I didn’t love this book, but it affected me. Anytime I’m so invested in a character’s welfare, I consider it a worthwhile read. Be warned that this is not the “celebration of the wonders of this earth that will leave you breathless with hope and expanded in spirit” that is marketed on the jacket summary. Not even a little.

[Wyndy · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 tragic, beautiful, hard-to-categorize stars, and one of the most difficult books I’ve ever tried to review. It’s sad. It’s joyful. It’s painful and poetic. Every sentence and every scene is an emotional zinger. Every passing season is an affirmation of the majesty of nature. Every memory is a scab picked and picked and picked until nothing is left but a scar. I loved the way Baume brought the story full circle through her Prologue and Epilogue - a literary technique I typically do not like. But here, it’s perfectly executed. My advice is to read this in small doses because the journey of this man named Ray and this dog named One Eye will wring you out. I’ll step away now and let Ray speak for himself.

“Sometimes I see the sadness in you, the same sadness that’s in me. It’s in the way you sigh and stare and hang your head. It’s in the way you never wholly let your guard down and take the world I’ve given you for granted. My sadness isn’t a way I feel but a thing trapped inside the walls of my flesh, like a smog. It takes the sheen off everything. It rolls the world in soot. It saps the power from my limbs and presses my back into a stoop.”

“I haven’t lived high or full, still I want to believe I’ve lived intensely, that I’ve questioned and contemplated my squat, vacant life, and sometimes even understood. I’ve always noticed the smallest, quietest things.”

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the most devastatingly beautiful novel I’ve read in a long time. Its beauty is in what is inferred, somewhat akin to poetry. In fact, the prose is lyrical and sparse. It’s a heart-wrenching story, one that leaves the reader speechless and contemplative.

That said, it did take me a bit to get into the rhythm of author Sara Baume’s writing style. Only because this novel has garnered so many awards and notices, did I continue to read. For those who might find it similar, don’t abandon! You will miss a novel that will leave you reeling.

Without giving the story away, it’s about a “misfit” man adopting a “misfit” dog. The story is told in a rambling, contemplative narrative of the man (who the reader infers is named Ray) to his dog, In the narration, Ray explains that he (Ray) is hideous, ugly, unlovable, stupid….all horrible and cruel adjectives. The reader is never directly told why Ray describes himself as such; it is inferred. It’s a sad story that the reader pieces together as Ray and the dog go on an adventure after an unfortunate incident involving another dog.

Each part is told during the seasons: spill (Spring) simmer (summer) falter (fall) wither(winter). I found Baume’s best meditative work in “falter”. Why do people care more about a swan dying than a squirrel? “….the perplexing way in which people measure life…” Ray also asks the dog, “do you ever wonder, what exactly people do all day long, every day?”

The story is bleak with a sparse of humor for measure. It’s meditative which leads the reader to realize that Ray is insightful and full of wonder. The novel forces the reader to reflect on the way society treats misfits.

This is a quiet novel that delivers an emotional punch. It’s a great read. I highly recommend it.

[Paltia · Rating 5 out of 5]

“...as much as I crave the sea l crave it’s openness. I need to know that even though I’m small and land bound, right in front of my face it’s enormous, endless. Can you smell it, can you smell the endlessness?” This is a story that is nearly impossible for me to review. A truly cathartic experience. Ray and One Eye, are creatures no one else wants. One Eye comes into Ray’s life at first without choice and later attracted to stay near through Ray’s care and kindness. He shares his secrets with One Eye and I defy anyone who believes that One Eye isn’t listening. Not only does Ray share his inner most turmoil but also his observations of the world around them. What is left but paw prints in the sand? Ray has never been a part of a family or community that valued him. These times with One Eye bring him temporary respite and companionship without the brutal intervention of humankind. It is as if they decide together, united by their wild essence, that they both want the same thing and they will that freedom to make it so. May One Eye carry on running, running running where the humans seldom go. And, may Ray find peace in the endlessness of the sea outside of his earthly self. This is beautiful sorrow at it’s finest.

[Lorcan McNamee · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first thing to say about this book is that it is beautifully written, as other reviewers have said. Sara Baume has a light touch with language, and chooses images and descriptions that make everyday things come alive in unexpected ways.

But this, for me, was not enough to make this book satisfying. The fact is, almost nothing happens in its 216 pages. It would be possible to write the whole plot in about four lines. The central character, the only human character, is Ray, a 57 year old man who, by his own admission is "not a person who knows how to do things." He has lived with his father all of his life, and, once his father dies, he adopts a one-eyed dog who he calls One Eye.

There is little more to the novel than that. In fact, calling it a novel is a stretch, the writer began as a short story writer, and this has the feeling of an extended short story. Ray is not an engaging character, he is sad and dejected and socially awkward, possibly on the autistic spectrum, and the litany of failure and wrong turns that constitutes his life makes for a melancholy story, a story with few shafts of light.

The beauty of the writing does not make up for the lack of substance in the novel. Disappointing.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes I see the sadness in you, the same sadness that’s in me. It’s in the way you sigh and scare and hang your head. It’s in the way you never wholly let down your guard and take the world I’ve given you for granted. My sadness isn’t a way I feel but a thing trapped inside the walls of my flesh, like a smog. It takes the sheen of everything. It rolls the world in soot. It saps the power from my limbs and presses my back into a stoop.

The stunning debut novel from Sara Baume, author of the brilliant Goldsmith listed A Line Made by Walking. As a number of commentators have remarked this book actually feels like a second novel and the heavily autobiographically inspired “A Line Made by Walking” perhaps more like her first novel – but both mark out Baume as a huge talent.

The book is narrated by a 57 year old man whose name we gather obliquely is Ray. He is living in the house of his (around 2 years ago) dead father in a small village over a part industrial, part bird sanctuary bay on the South Coast of Ireland, keeping his distance from society, a distance that is mutually enforced. Ray himself is deeply cautious and uncomprehending of much in society and more than anything wants to avoid interference in his life, while:

Everywhere I go it’s as though I’m wearing a spacesuit which buffers me from other people. A big, shiny, one-piece which obscures how small and dull I feel inside. I know you can’t see it, I can’t either, but when I pitch and clump and flail down the street, grown men step into the drain gully to avoid brushing against my invisible spacesuit. When I queue to pay at a supermarket, the cashier presses the backup bell and takes her toilet break. When I drive past a children’s playground, some au-pair makes a mental note of my registration

As a child, held back from school, implicitly lead to believe he was somehow guilty for the death of his mother, only really sharing the company of his ever more taciturn father, he was taught to read by a neighbour until around 9 and then left to fend for himself while his father worked on an industrial line in a sweet factory. Much of what he understood from the world he gained from second hand books his father bought back. A throwaway remark makes it clear his only really understanding of his father’s job via “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”. He was struck during his childhood by the image of the troll under the bridge in “Billy Goats Gruff” to whom he felt a sense of camaderie “as though I’d discovered my species” comparing the trolls vigil to his own sense of being simply an observer on the world, even as a child watching the other children going to school. Now older he returns to this image realising as an old man that he is physically resembling the troll also, but still remaining largely an outsider and observer on life.

I haven’t lived like the characters on television. I haven’t fought in any wars or fallen in love. I’ve never even punched a man or held a woman’s hand. I haven’t lived high or full, still I want to believe I’ve lived intensely, that I’ve questioned and contemplated my squat, vacant life, and sometimes, even understood …I’m not the kind of person who is able to do things, have I told you this already. I lie down and let life leave its footprints on me.

At the start of the book, Ray, looking for a ratter for reasons that are revealed at the end of the book (albeit largely obvious throughout) visits a dog sanctuary and gets a one-eyed dog, clearly abused by its traveller owners and used for badger baiting (where it obtained its injuries). The book is narrated first person by Ray but with lengthy section which almost serve as second-person discussion of the world of One-Eye (as well as intermittent dreams where Ray imagines aspects of One-Eye’s life).

spill simmer falter wither is set over four parts corresponding chronologically to Spring, Summer, Autumn/Fall, Winter, with the seasonal fluctuations (or in some cases lack of expected seasonal patterns due to a climate predictable only for its unpredictability) a key part of the book which has a heavy influence from nature.

Ray and the dog quickly bond, both equally cautious and scarred by life – Ray quickly comes to build his life around one-eye and struggles between wanting to let him roam freely and with the danger that his badger-baiting instincts bring: after managing to avoid some initial incidents, this culminates in One-Eye mauling a dog (and possibly its owner) and a council visit looking to take One Eye into custody (and presumably destroy it), at which point Ray (his every paranoia about interference in his life now made worse by the fear of losing the one thing that has given it meaning) abandons his home and sets out on a slow road trip around rural Ireland with One-Eye

Over time, Ray starts to alter as he observes the dog’s natural nose-lead sense of curiosity, and its baiting instincts and how both overcome One-Eye’s traumas and fears:

Today an expert [on the radio] is telling us how people choose pets they feel reflect the way they seem themselves, and in time, the person and pet grow to resemble one another ……….. I wonder have we grown to resemble one another … On the outside we are still as black and gnarled as nature made us. But on the inside I feel different somehow. I feel animalised. Now there’s a wildness inside me that kicked off with you.

Now all the ditch’s tiny celebrations and devastations penetrate me and fill me, buoy me and in this way, the fear subsides to some degree. I realise that you were not born with a predetermined capacity for wonder, as I’d believed. I realise that you fed it up yourself from tiny pieces of the world. I realise its up to me to follow your example and nurture my own wonder, morsel by morsel by morsel.

In an interesting foretaste of “A Line Made by Walking”, at one point during their road trip, the man reflects on various road kill that they pass

As the book concludes, Ray decides to return to his home, drawn by what he sees as unfinished business there, and the book itself ends ambiguously.

A deeply sad and immensely moving and beautifully written book – which is a remarkable debut novel.

[Kristīne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Līdz 220lpp - hmmm, īru Kalendārs mani sauc.

Beigas - ne tik ļoti, jālasa pašiem.

Skaista valoda, piesātināta, DABiska, ļoti piestāv gadalaiku maiņas posmam.
Ticiet, ja visi saka, ka šis ir skarbi, sāpīgi. Ir, ir, ir.

[switterbug (Betsey) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Too old for starting over, too young for giving up.

You can open to any page of this book, and to any sentence, and witness some of the most exquisite writing in contemporary fiction. I can’t believe that Baume is a debut novelist, as her talent for prose, setting, and character are outstanding. I could taste the salt in the air of this unnamed coastal town (somewhere in Ireland), feel the seasons as they change (Spill=spring, Simmer=summer, Falter=fall, Wither=winter), smell the “slightly singed fur…smouldering newsprint…faeces, disinfectant, the secreting fear glands of petrified animals,” and hear the seagulls barking and the night lorries rambling up the road near the refinery.

Ray is a fifty-seven-year-old misfit and outcast of the community, a boulder of a man with “mismeasured legs,“ and a stoop, “weighted down by my own lump of fear.” He lives alone, except for the unwelcome rats, in his dead father’s crumbling house, until he goes to the jumble shop to get a dog to solve that problem. He names him One-Eye--the other eye was lost to an attack by a badger. Ray talks to the dog, reads to him from books, and drives to the sea to walk with him. He bonds with him like no other creature or person up to this time. “I find it hard to picture a time when we were simultaneously alive, yet separate. Now you are like a bonus limb. Now you are my third leg, an unlimping leg, and I am the eye you lost.”

This elegiac story is a journey between man and dog, and how Ray and One-Eye form an inseparable bond. Ray steadily talks, reads, and shares secrets with One-Eye, easing the grim exile of his life. His somber heart unburdens, and the haunting shadow of his father is lightened bit by mournful bit.

“Sometimes I see the sadness in you, the same sadness that’s in me. It’s in the way you sigh and stare and hang your head. It’s in the way you never wholly let your guard down and take the world I’ve given you for granted. My sadness isn’t a way I feel but a thing trapped inside the walls of my flesh, like a smog….It rolls the world in soot. It saps the power from my limbs and presses my back into a stoop.”

I was reminded of Cormac McCarthy at times, by the unrelenting melancholy tone; the vivid description of a rejected dog; the outcast of misfits; exiled souls that never knew peace, engulfed in the filth of fugitive waste, in the violence behind walls of silence. In this largely contemplative book, with sparse action, a sea of meaning exists.

[☕Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. I can't say I "enjoyed" it per se, as it possessed an overriding tone of despair, but I "felt" each and every word of it. I saw what our narrator saw and heard what he heard and felt the presence of his canine companion, Oneeye, by my side. The connection between them was so accurately portrayed and felt so very real. This was a superbly written book.