Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain

by Barney Norris

One quiet evening in Salisbury, the peace is shattered by a serious car crash. At that moment, five lives collide – a flower seller, a schoolboy, an army wife, a security guard, a widower – all facing their own personal disasters.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Book Club, Literary Fiction, British Literature, Novels, Romance

288 pages, Hardcover

First published April 21, 2016

About the author

Barney Norris is a playwright and novelist. His work has received awards from the International Theatre Institute, the Critics' Circle, the Evening Standard, the Society of Authors and the South Bank Sky Arts Times Breakthrough Awards, among others, and been translated into eight languages. His plays include Visitors, Nightfall and an acclaimed adaptation of Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day; his novels include Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain.

Reviews

[BlackOxford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonted for Wiltshire

According to the Eastern Orthodox Church’s theory of icons, what distinguishes an icon from an idol is its ability to lead beyond itself and to allow the observer access to another reality. For Norris, the spire of Salisbury Cathedral is such an icon. But the cathedral, rather than pointing to God, reflects those who see it back to themselves. Mysteriously it provokes profound introspection among a diverse group of local residents, and through them, perhaps even in the reader who can appreciate their unique voices.

The lyrical voice of the narrator as he describes the spiritual pre-history of the cathedral is immediately captivating: “The startled world, stirred by this confluence of riverways, started to sing bright notes into the blue air. A great chord rang out in the deep heart of England, and feeling welled up through the skin of the water like a shaft of light that breaks through cloud. The earth was awake and alive and amazed by every sensation it experienced.” Indeed, as one character has it,“Folk in Wiltshire don’t half look backward sometimes.”

Such lyricism anticipates the very different voices of five people: The unfortunate semi-prostitute, part time drug dealer and flower seller, who says “I hate the red eye [the aircraft warning light] of that spire. Staring into you like Lord of the Rings.” The love-struck, high-testosterone teenager who has yet to find any voice at all but for whom the spire is the centre of his deteriorating childhood world, “jutting like a plug from the navel of the city” and through which he is able to appreciate the “miracle of ritual.” The grieving old farmer who experiences his despair through the fabric of the cathedral building itself, “I looked up at it, and it didn’t seem to care about me at all.” The soldier’s wife and would-be actress (writing in what looks like the second person to her husband, but isn’t: Dear Diary constitutes a memoir not a letter), reassuring herself that she is something other than being a now-superfluous parent, and for whom Salisbury inspires hope. A somewhat confused young man who, although born in the city, takes the icon quite literally as a sign that he should move on to greater things, or at least to other people.

Each voice is alternately experiential and reflective, in the first and third person. The voices only exist when they are narrating, so suggesting that it is necessary to live one’s life as a narrative, to “try to tell it like a story, make a shape of experience [one] can control, find a way to understand it, make a moral out of random experience and live by that.” This, lest we become nothing more than “fucking suitcases buffeting our way through lost luggage.”

Of course the narratives intersect and flow into one another, as they must do in life as well as literature. They modify each other as they all get told. The effect of Norris’s prose on me is eerie. It’s as if the stories create a new voice as they touch one another. This is a voice neither in first or third, but in the second person. ‘You’, the reader are not just being addressed implicitly but explicitly brought into the whole through personal history, emotion, and a bit of sentimental nostalgia. I find it intriguing as a technique and satisfying as a literary experience even if it is largely dominated by sex, booze, drugs and death. There’s clearly a lot going on in Wiltshire.

[Bianca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unequivocal 5 stars

Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain is the debut novel of playwright Barney Norris. These rivers meet in Salisbury, England, where the five characters of this novel live.

The beginning is beautifully lyrical. I had no idea what I was in for, as I hadn’t bothered to read the blurb.

Five ordinary people are impacted by a car accident, either as observers or participants.

One by one, we get to meet each of them through first person narrations.

First, we meet Rita, middle-aged, flower seller in the market and small-time drug seller on the side. Rita is a simple woman who’s made some bad choices. Now she finds herself alone and lonely and estranged from her only child. She doesn’t blame anyone for her failures. Rita comes through very realistically, her narration was so well done. I never judged her, I actually felt very sorry for her.

The next character we get to meet is Sam, a high school boy, who’s a bit shy but somehow manages to find love. Unfortunately, his kind and unassuming father is dying of lung cancer. This personal tragedy throws Sam’s world upside down. Sam’s anxieties and struggles to find his identity are more or less universal. Again, Norris did a fantastic job with this character as well.

The old farmer George Street is driving his car coming from the hospital where his wife of many decades had succumbed to cancer. I was deeply touched by farmer George’s story, by his love for his wife. His thoughts on love and marriage, children or better said lack of children, regrets and especially on memory made me shed a few tears.

One of the better-realised characters was Alison. She’s the wife of an army man, so they've moved around a lot. Their only child goes to a boarding school, so Alison finds herself desperately lonely, depressed, without any friends and purpose. She’s hopelessly anxious and tries hard “to pull herself together”. She’s got a bit of an addiction to pills and the occasional drink “to take the edge off”. A very familiar story. Again, I was impressed with Norris’s ability to create such a complex and layered female character. I’ve looked Norris up, he was in his late twenties when he wrote this, so, I can't help but be impressed.

The last character we meet is Liam, who’s a security guard at at Old Sarum hill. His story is the shortest but that’s not to say it’s not well done.

As it’s the case with many literary fiction novels, this is about the characters and their stories, not so much about the plot, although I loved how the characters and their stories interweaved. The little details and coincidences are exquisite. Even the title is beautiful and meaningful.

Despite being a small novel, its themes are big: the meaning of life, regrets, choice, purpose, belonging, love, loneliness, loss, and grief.

Besides the beautiful writing and the terrific characterisations, the humanity and kindness that transpired made me appreciate this novel so much.

Bravo, Barney Norris. Looking forward to your next novel.

Highly recommended

I’ve received this novel via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to Random House UK, Transworld Publishers for the opportunity to read and review this terrific novel.

[Laura F-W · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has a nice concept at its core but unfortunately the self-consciously “literary” tone and excessive amounts of exposition (as opposed to dialogue or action) killed it for me.

I had misgivings from the beginning. The prologue is very florid, containing all kinds of confusing metaphors. There were sentences in there which I had to read two or three times to try and work out what they meant, sometimes just giving it up as a bad job. There was also some weird grandiosity in the mix (eg, the unknown narrator claiming that the spire of Salisbury Cathedral is the purest picture of the human heart (s)he had ever seen).

Overall, I would describe the book as uneven. It’s split into five parts, each written from the perspective of different people in Salisbury, and some of these chapters are far more engaging than others. The ones I found most readable were Rita and the soldier’s wife - these were also the chapters in which the language was less flowery and the characters and plot more meaty. In general, it felt like the author wanted to write with ‘beautiful language’ but actually didn’t have a great deal to say. There was very little action throughout. When action did occur ie, when the actual car crash happened the writing was a bit garbled and it was unclear what was going on.

Because it was so uneven I’m going to give a breakdown of my thoughts on each chapter (no spoilers).

1. Rita the flower-seller I enjoyed this. Rita had a strong voice (very strong actually - there’s a lot of swearing) and I cared about her.

2. The teenage boy in love I found this chapter really dull. There was an awful lot of him explaining his life in minute detail and little actually happened. Also, there were parts in italics always beginning ‘There was once…’ , which contained some real Carrie Bradshaw-esque faux philosophy (eg, The boy wondered what you flew too close to when there was no sun in the sky).

3. The old farmer Again, this chapter didn’t grab me. The guy’s wife had just died of cancer but his wife wasn’t given much of a personality so I found it difficult to care that deeply. He describes the time they first met but it’s a real case of instalove, ie, no real indication of why he fell for her other than that she had auburn hair and was wearing a blue scarf.

4. The soldier’s wife This was by far and away the strongest chapter. Written as a diary, the character’s isolation and anxiety came across very well and it raises some interesting issues around mental health and loneliness.

5. Liam the observer The denouement, when we see how the characters’ lives all fit together, was a bit of a disappointment. The final chapter is a kind of stream of consciousness from the perspective of a young, self-absorbed guy who moved to London after university, joined a digital agency and ended up with a semi-serious girlfriend who dumped him. He’s having a quarter-life crisis which I’m sure some people might relate to but the ideas weren’t properly aired. The ending left me feeling cold.

Some people will really enjoy this book and like the way it’s written. Unfortunately it wasn’t for me.

With thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for giving me an ARC in return for an honest review

[CanadianReader · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel focuses on the intersecting lives of five people, all of whom are present at a car accident one evening in Salisbury, Wiltshire. One character is the driver of the car; another is the badly injured victim; the other three are witnesses to the crash. Norris gives us the characters’ individual stories, each in his or her own first-person voice.

There are flaws in the novel: the voice of the youngest character, Sam, is perhaps too sophisticated for a fifteen-year-old, and the military wife’s section is repetitive and overly long. In general, the writing could have been trimmed and tightened up as well. However, there is a heart beating at the novel’s core, and a questioning sensibility informs the work: Why are we here and what is the meaning of our lives?

For me, it was the driver and the victim whose voices were strongest and most convincing. Norris’s is an emotionally resonant work, which I found absorbing and satisfying.
3.5, rounded up.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Barney Norris is a playwright in his twenties, so it’s no surprise that there’s something a little staged to his debut novel. The lives of the book’s five narrators collide one night when a car hits a moped in Salisbury town center. We hear from each protagonist in turn as they reflect on their losses and wonder whether religion – represented by Salisbury Cathedral and the scripture and rituals of Christianity – might be able to help. Rita is the liveliest and most engaging character in the novel, difficult as her expletive-strewn narrative might be to traverse. Like David Nicholls, Norris prizes emotional connection and delivers a theatrical plot. If he can avoid the more clichéd aspects of a novel like One Day, he could have a long career in fiction ahead of him.

Full review in the final issue of Third Way magazine, April 2016.

[Joanne Harris]

This is a spectacular book; unusual, sad, poetic, and gorgeously-written. Five intersecting stories in five very different voices, all set in the shadow of Salisbury Cathedral and the context of a single incident reveal how closely we co-exist; how fragile our lives can often be and how beautiful the small human connections that we make on a daily basis can be, when revealed in just the right kind of light.

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

Really excellent debut novel.

The book has a strong sense of place – set in and around Salisbury, the cathedral, Old Sarum, Stonehenge and the wooded flood plain where five rivers meet.

The book starts with a pastoral, image filled description of this landscape and the “song” of the countryside and rivers and then follows five separate characters whose lives intersect around a single incident (a car crash) but we (and they) discover have a series of earlier connections.

Each character has a section written in the first person

Rita a foul mouthed drug dealer and flower seller, whose addictions and lifestyle have alienated her from her ex-husband and more hurtingly her son (and grandson).

Sam – a painfully self-conscious, timid and untrendy 15-16 year old who starts his first relationship (with a girl who sings in the same choir) just as his father is dying of cancer.

George whose happy (albeit tinged with strong melancholy due to the lack of any children) marriage ends when his wife dies.

The wife of a soldier in Afghanistan, her life consumed by anxiety and a sense of worthlessness and the absence of her husband and also her son (at Boarding school and growing increasingly distant) – her thoughts are set out in a diary.

A security guard Liam who grew up locally but returned to the scene of his upbringing in an attempt to find a way in life after his girlfriend split with him and his divorced parents both remarried

Liam’s section returns explicitly to the themes of the prologue and the intersection of rivers and Liam himself is far more aware of the links of the five characters and muses on the similarity of their intersection lives to the intersection of the rivers.

There are some flaws in the book: the character of Sam is too precociously aware (he writes at times looking back – but is writing when he is 16 on how he felt when he is 15), the diary method of recording the army wife’s thoughts is clumsy, the intersections of lives (while the whole theme of the book) are reminiscent of early Kate Atkinson and at times are too frequent as well as too first hand (at times the reader yearns for a weaker link and less coincidences).

However overall a really strong read – the author remarkably captures and conveys the lives and characters of five normal people and the longing, regret and melancholy (as well as the gentle happiness and grief) at the heart of their lives – each section leaves the reader both moved and feeling slightly bereft when it finishes.

[Siv30 · Rating 5 out of 5]

לסקירה מפורטת בעברית, קישור לבלוג שלי -

https://sivi-the-avid-reader.com/חמיש...

[Buchdoktor]

Salisbury (Old Sarum) ist der Ort, an dem auf einer bewaldeten Ebene fünf Flüsse in den Avon fließen. Stonehenge ist nur wenige Kilometer von hier entfernt. Als in der Stadt ein Unfall zwischen einem PKw und einem Motorrad passiert, treffen die Lebenslinien der Beteiligten ähnlich aufeinander wie die Zuflüsse des Avon. Außer den Beteiligten des Unfalls gibt es Zeugen und Familienangehörige, aus deren Sicht auf die Ereignisse wie in einem Puzzle mit verdeckten Teilen erst am Ende der Geschichte ein Bild entsteht. Die Personen, die sich früher bereits in diversen Paarungen getroffen haben, erzählen in der Ichform. Nicht immer war mir sofort die Zeitebene klar, ob z. B. „der Junge“ einen heute Jugendlichen meinte oder aus der Jugend einer heute alten Figur erzählte.

Betroffen von den Ereignissen sind George, der alte Farmer, der nicht mehr allein leben kann, Rita, die Blumenhändlerin, die früher mit Drogen dealte, Sam, der vom nahenden Krebstod seines Vaters überrascht wird, Alison, deren Mann in irgendeinem Auslandseinsatz der Britischen Armee ist und von dem noch nicht klar ist, ob er die Tagebuch-Aufzeichnungen seiner Frau je zu sehen bekommen wird. Den Rahmen liefert die Erzählerstimme des Romans, ein Mann, der seine Heimatstadt verließ, als Journalist in London nie Fuß fasste und gerade wieder nach Salisbury zurückgekehrt ist. Die Berichte der Figuren sind unterschiedlich gewichtet, abhängig davon, wie viel der Einzelne schon erlebt hat oder was die Person für erzählenswert hält. Subjektiv fand ich, dass Alisons Gedanken sehr viel Raum eingeräumt wurde, denkbar ist jedoch auch, dass die Größe der Puzzlesteine für das Gesamtbild unerheblich ist. Von den Beziehungen zwischen den Erzählenden bewegt sich der Roman in jedem Kapitel zur Betrachtung des Lebens an sich. Es geht um Einsamkeit, die erst auf den zweiten Blick sichtbar wird, um Versäumtes, das nicht mehr veränderbar ist, und immer wieder um die Stadt Salisbury als Bühne für Einzelne, Paare und Familien. Im letzten Kapitel kann man als Leser förmlich mit dem zurückgekehrten Journalisten vom Hügel aus über die Stadt blicken und eigenen Gedanken nachhängen.

Durch zwei Todesfälle, die unmittelbar um den Unfall herum stattfinden, habe ich die Handlung zunächst als sehr düster erlebt, Norris' Sprachmacht und die Stadt als Kulisse verknüpfter Einzelschicksale konnte mich dennoch überraschend fesseln.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

at times this book is depressing but liked how he linked 5 separate people and how one event effects them all in different ways

[Cindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Der Anfang des Buches, ist zu Beginn etwas "schwülstig". Aber der Autor schält sich immer tiefer in seine so unterschiedlichen Figuren hinein und das ganz ohne Pathos oder Kitsch.
Was mich besonders begeistert, ist (neben der ganz eigenen Melancholie, der dadurch so authentischen Stimmung dieser Kleinstadt und ihrer Bewohner und der vielen schönen Sätze), dass er jedem seiner fünf Erzähler eine ganz eigene Stimme gibt. Das drückt er auch in der jeweiligen ganz eigenen Sprache aus. Ich finde es ist ihm erstaunlich gut gelungen - angefangen vom pubertierenden Teenager bis hin zum alten Witwer - die dem Alter und den Lebensumständen geschuldeten, verschiedenen Denkweisen darzustellen. Der Autor selbst ist ja noch sehr jung für so viel "Lebensweisheit". Ein toller Debütroman (4,5 Sterne), von einem Autor, den ich im Blick behalten werde.

[Učitaj se! | Martina Štivičić · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ovaj roman pjesničkog naslova priča nam pet zasebnih priča o petero sasvim običnih ljudi, čije su se sudbine u jednom neočekivanom trenutku nakratko spojile, a taj je spoj za svakoga od petero uključenih imao drugačiji odjek na nastavak njihovih života.

Pet priča odraz je krajolika u koji su te priče smještene: gradić Salisbury, smješten u dolini u kojoj se susreće pet rijeka. I baš kao što je svaka rijeka različita i svaka slijedi svoju putanju, tako i pet ljudskih sudbina o kojima ovdje saznajemo jednako meandrira kroz dodijeljeni im život, tekući čas sporo, čas brzo, te se u nekom trenutku spajajući sa nekom drugom sudbinom koja teče u istom smjeru ili se s ovom sudara.

Petero ljudi o kojima je riječ - Rita, Sam, George, Alison i Liam - ne mogu jedno od drugoga biti drugačiji, a opet ih vežu neke iste osobine. Rita je ostarjela cvjećarica i dilerica droge, samohrana majka koju život nije mazio. Sam je usamljen i sramežljiv dječak koji se sprema iskusiti svoju prvu ljubav. George je osamljeni farmer kojem je zloćudna bolest oduzela ljubav njegovog života. Alison je žena čije aspiracije da postane kazališnom glumicom vječno ostaju neostvarene, a vrijeme krati pišući svom odsutnom suprugu vojniku. Liam je mladić koji je izgubio svoj životni cilj, baš kao i djevojku koju je volio, pa svoj put traži povratkom u rodni grad.

Ovih petero ljudi nije međusobno povezano ni na koji način, osim što će se u jednom određenom trenutku svih petero na naći na istom mjestu u isto vrijeme i svjedočiti prometnoj nesreći koja će im na neki način utjecati na daljnji život. Različiti i po dobi i po životnim aspiracijama i po skoro svemu drugome, ovih petero ljudi ipak dijele nešto zajedničko: svatko je od njih, na svoj način, pomalo izgubljen, izostavljen i osamljen, te svatko od njih, na svoj način, traga za određenim iskupljenjem i svrhom svoga postojanja.

Pet priča o ovih pet ljudi ispisano je na najljepši mogući način, lirski, pomalo pjesnički, pomalo alegorijski, i s nekim neodređenim ritmom koji kao da savršeno prati svaku priču. Ove priče nisu ispunjene događajima i nemaju nikakav razrađeni zaplet, one su jednostavno priče o ljudskim životima i ljudskim sudbinama, usmjerene na likove i njihova unutarnja razmišljanja i kontemplacije. Svaka priča na svoj je način posebna, ispunjena simbolima, značenjima i osjećajima koji će svakog čitatelja dotaknuti na drugačiji način.

Posebno mi se svidio taj poseban, rekla bih, lirski stil pisanja i sjajan spoj priča i krajolika u kojima se ove priče odvijaju. Svaki put kad spomene rijeku, Norris to čini kao da pokušava ispjevati neku neodređenu pjesmu, koju krajolik oko nas čitavo vrijeme pjeva, ali mi to ponekad nismo u stanju čuti.

Osjećajnost koja izlazi iz napisanih riječi prisutna je u čitavom romanu. Budući da je i sam autor odrastao u gradiću u koji je smjestio radnju svog romana, nije ni čudno što čitavu priči prati toliko osjećaja. Možda je baš to ono što joj daje tu dodatnu posebnost.

Ovo nije knjiga na kakvu ćete često naići. Ovo je pravi mali dragulj lijepe književnosti, koji vas je u stanju dirnuti već samim stilom pisanja, a tek potom i pričama koje sadrži. Kad bi pjesma bila roman (koliko god to možda blesavo zvuči), ova bi knjiga bila ta pjesma. Poslušajte što vam ima za ispjevati.

[Katherine Sunderland · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Five rivers ran together and the earth sang in celebration at the top of it's voice, a music hidden in the details of everyday, in footfalls of thousands of locals, ringing of cash registers and the great soaring dream of the spire,"........"the ideas and dreams encased in the buildings is what makes them beautiful."

And so begins a novel in love with stories and dreams, thoughts, silences and words. And Salisbury. Here in this city is where "Five rivers flow ....to make a single voice of the Avon." This is Norris's inspiration for his first book. Five stories, from five very different people, whose voices weave into one another as their lives become intertwined through an horrific car accident. The rivers and their free flow through an ancient city, gathering extra "phrases" and "clauses" along the way and pouring into the "mouths of women and men" is an exceptionally strong metaphor for how stories work too and a lot of this tale is a mediation on the written word and the art of story telling. The opening, which picks up the reader and carries them along on the current, reminded me of Graham Swift's "Waterland" which also reflects on the similarities between rivers and people's lives. Or perhaps some of Joanna Harris's novels which use nature as metaphors for love and life, and reality is often mixed in a lyrical song of magic and fairy tale.

My favourite story was "A River Curling Like Smoke" and focused on sixteen year old Sam. For quiet and shy Sam, "talking isn't natural at home"and "we ate guilt and silence for supper". His section is about coming of age, anguish, first love and fitting in as "people don't know they're weird if you don't tell them." For Sam, stories are an escape into another world; a chance to make sense of the world and a way to process life and emotions."A story lay within him and he would not sleep until he spoke it." Italics are used for the "story telling" sections which at first feel like fairy tales but then become more real as Sam's emotional journey of self discovery continues. For me, this was the most amazing section of the book and I could fill five more posts quoting the stunningly mesmerising prose. It is sad, moving and captivating.

The final story contemplates the role of the theatre. Norris is an acclaimed playwright so his musings here are interesting and pertinent. The fifth voice explains that theatre is a way of people "telling stories to each other, sharing their lives and caring about each other." Music is described as a "ritual", a place where "poems play themselves out" and the brain has to switch off and listen in order to process or solve its concerns. There is however a sense of sadness and emptiness in many of the segments - a sense of needing to search for deeper meanings or fill the loneliness and emptiness many of us carry around with us. People will listen to something "mediocre that someone else invented just to fill the silence of their lives." But, "every bar in the score of ourselves is receding already into memory, into imagination....might as well listen." I loved the statement "we grow into our little neuroses ....the little unhappiness at the heart of us."

In a sense it is a spiritual novel. The cathedral features in all the stories, towering above them, rising to the sky; it feels very symbolic and as if it holds some magical power over the city. There is no religion in this novel but are the stories themselves some expression of faith? As one voice admits, "My life is so small and unenlightened....If I were in a story...." Stories are escapism, a fantasy, an alternative.... a place of hope and dreams.

Norris conjures images and poetic metaphors with immense skill, lyricism, power and beauty. His writing is outstanding. The five characters are all different; all suffering, all flawed, all insightful, all immersed in their own journey and story. This book is so multilayered I could write a dissertation on it and it truly shows the power and capability of our language when it is in the hands of a gifted writer. Norris is clearly passionate about language, poetry and mesmerising power of storytelling.

My favourite line in the whole novel was:
"The imaginary world. It will always be a beautifully dangerous place to visit."

Surely this quote deserves to become as over quoted and referenced as some of the other famous lines in literature such as LP Hartley's "the past is a foreign country..." and of course the thousands from Shakespeare. I will be absolutely guilty of using it every time I come across a stunning story or want to entice someone into reading.

In "The Bookseller" Magazine (12/2/16) Norris explained that he wanted to "draw a map of the Salisbury through people" and"evoke what is extraordinary about the ordinary," how "the hidden currents of life draw together into something symphonic no matter how random they seem." This is an outstanding debut of great literary accomplishment. If you love words, stories, people and Salisbury - read this!

Thank you so much to NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book in return for a fair and honest review.

[Sid Nuncius · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was an excellent book. Barney Norris writes with clear-eyed, unflinching insight into the human condition, but with real compassion and a redemptive note of hope which makes this something quite special.

Five Rivers Met On A Wooded Plain is a sequence of five stories, each narrated in the first person by a variety of characters all of whom live in or near Salisbury. It becomes clear eventually that their stories are related to a greater or lesser extent, but each is an individual tale. It's hard to give an idea of "plot" because these are chiefly character studies and the point of the book is their individual stories and the light they shed on what it is to live and to love, and how we can sometimes end up somewhere wholly other, and sometimes as someone else entirely, from what we planned or expected. There is the ex-wild-child florist and part-time drug dealer, the adolescent falling in love for the first time just as his father becomes gravely ill, the old man whose wife dies after a contented life together, the desperately lonely, depressed army wife and the young man returning "home" to Salisbury after heartbreak in London. It's a very disparate cast, which Norris paints with exceptional perception and skill so all of them seemed absolutely real and recognisable to me, and all of them had something important to say.

Just as examples, Sam is fifteen and falling in love. It's a very well-worn theme, but I thought it exceptionally well done and incredibly poignant. Norris brilliantly captures the mixture of excitement, delight and terror, and that sense that no-one, especially such a wonder as the girl you admire so, could possibly be interested in you. I was very moved by his story, and by the others.

The voices were completely convincing to me, and Norris has a skilled dramatist's way of placing events and ideas whose significance becomes clear later on, so it's very well structured, too. This book has an air of melancholy and loss, but also of hope and human fulfilment. I found it very readable, utterly absorbing and rather profound in places. I can recommend it very warmly.

[Len Northfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cannot recommend this book enough. The author's nuanced touch and deft handling of emotion and history and the beating heart of this part of the country, is magical. You won't regret this wonderful interweaving of five lives.

[Nick Davies · Rating 4 out of 5]

I possibly should have liked this impressive and ambitious novel by a young British author a little more - in truth I was unable to completely figure out where 'appreciative of it doing what it tries to do' ended and 'feeling a bit manipulated' began. I also think that I started the book expecting something a little different, and never escaped that.

The novel links five people in Salisbury, who witness or are involved in a crash between a car and moped - each narrating a chunk of the story. Three of the characters are particularly 'focussed on' in detail, and there is a lot of sadness and thought-provoking beautiful and incisive writing in these the three chapters devoted to them. Alas I found the opening section somewhat difficult (I was far less sympathetic to the narrator) and the final bit a little trite and neat. However, the majority of the book - sad and upsetting in places with people lonely and anxious in different ways - I did appreciate.

But yes, slightly contrived in places, how it all linked together and said something important about human nature. I was reminded of 'If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things' by Jon McGregor, and never escaped the feeling this could have been five writing exercises woven together by connecting strands later added.

[Bill Kupersmith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despire my hopes, this one simply didn't work for me. The characters' behaviour was not believable. I liked Alison best - her reader had a lovely voice - but that a woman in her late 30s who'd been married to a serving officer for nearly 20 years would be so immature seemed unlikely. Of course the teenaged Sam would have told his girlfriend that his father was dying of cancer & for someone so inarticulate his monologues were too poetic. And the farmer who accidentally hit the thoroughly nasty woman on the moped surely would have known he was not guilty of murder. Most of the characters are terrified of the prospect of death, especially from cancer (which they think of as the King of Terrors). In the old days folks feared dying unprepared but many today cannot appreciate advance warning. Basically, as in so many contemporary works of fiction that is supposed to be 'literary', these characters are dealing with spiritual issues they lack the formation to handle, tho' the presence of the magnificent cathedral serves as a reminder of what is absent in their lives. As for me, it's back to crime fiction, where moral choices have clear consequences.

[Berenike Flohr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dieses Buch war eine Umarmung für alle meine Gefühle, die während des Lesens in mir entstanden sind und von denen ich nicht wusste, dass ich sie überhaupt fühle.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 2 out of 5]

“I thought it was a coincidence and my English teacher said the whole point of novels is to write about coincidence, so I thought it might be a good start.”

Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain is Barney Norris's debut novel, being better known previously as a playwright and poet.

The novel is a paean to the Wiltshire countryside, home of Stonehenge, the ancient settlement of Old Sarum and the cathedral city of Salisbury and the plain on which the five rivers of the title meet.

There is certainly some very fine writing in this novel, evocative both of the area itself but also of the emotions that dominate life (grief, sadness, first loves, parent-child relationships).

However, the narrative device that he has chosen to narrate the novel - five lives colliding around a traffic accident - rather marred the novel for me.

The different sections are narrated in the first person by the different characters, but despite their differences (a flower-seller and part-time drug dealer, a 16 year old, an elderly farmer, an Army wife, a security guard) the narrative voices are too similar.

E.g. these two excerpts:
"If I could meet my younger self... I would tell him his life doesn't start when he leaves school; he's already in it. It has been passing since the day he was born, and everything he puts off, chooses not to do or say because he is hoarding experience for his real, adult life isn't a thing safeguarded but a treasure risked. The world is full of things put off for the wrong reasons, which can suddenly become impossible without any warning."

and

"I burn to tell men and women who are still young now how quickly it is going to get behind them, how fiercely they ought to love it while they can"

are apparently written by a 16-year old schoolboy (that section is perhaps the least convincing voice) and the elderly, widowed, farmer respectively.

And there are far too many artificial links between the different lives even before the car accident, some flagged in a rather clunky fashion e.g. characters that for no real reason mention the names of incidental characters ("I think his name was Luke, no it was Liam") just so the reader can think "ah, that must be the same Liam from chapter X [when his name was also randomly mentioned] - what a coincidence."

For me these flaws unfortunately spoiled my enjoyment of the book, and I do wonder if Norris's background as a playwright plays a part particularly on the rather contrived plot, but I suspect he will be a novelist to watch in future.

[Elite Group · Rating 4 out of 5]

Merrily Down The Stream

The opening chapter in this book belies what is to follow. And as I began the book I feared my interest would not be sustained throughout. For much as I admired the poetic prose in all its eloquence, at that point I couldn’t see where it was going or see how an entire novel could continue in this way.

But as the structure of the novel became apparent I appreciated the diversity of style. I liked the premise of the book which I guess is to say that we are all tributaries navigating into the great river of life.

I was impressed by how the seemingly disparate lives of five different people were linked through one event. And the narrative of each character was somehow constructed to convey the personality and temperament of that person. There is a certain skill in the rendering of fairly ordinary lives as interesting. These lives are cemented by an extraordinary event. I can say it’s a car crash as the blurb does detail the event so it’s not a spoiler. I liked the idea that the city of Salisbury was almost an additional character in the book.

For a debut novel this is a credible offering. This writer keenly observes people and their lives in a non-judgmental way with a detached yet empathic demeanour.

I note Mr. Norris is also a playwright but I will be interested to see how he develops as novelist. If this first book is anything to go by then we are in for a treat.

Whizz

Whizz received the book to review for Breakaway Reviewers.

[Mary Lou · Rating 3 out of 5]

Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain is a a great concept, lyrically executed.
The lives of five characters, whose stories unfold one by one, become co-incidentally connected by a car crash.
This novel gradually ran out of steam for me, and by the time we reached the army wife’s tale, I needed something to shock me back to attention. But it didn’t happen. Maybe a tighter structure and better worked through co-incidences would have shown off this lovely writing to its fullest advantage.

[Faroukh Naseem · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is expertly written!

Please watch my video review here :)

https://youtu.be/v9IBGnUyS5I

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars from HG Reads. 👏🏼

[Cleopatra Pullen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set in Salisbury where five rivers do indeed meet we first learn a little about its history, touching on the magnificent Stonehenge that is built upon Salisbury plain. So although this wasn’t part of the story it does the job of setting the scene in the present when an event causes the lives of five people to collide.

‘There exists in all of us a song waiting to be sung which is as heart-stopping and vertiginous as the peak of the cathedral. That is the meaning of this quiet city, where the spire soars into the blue, where rivers and stories weave into one another, where lives intertwine.’

This is a more literary book than I’m usually found reading, full of metaphors, poetic phrases and a strong theme of story-telling but it is terrifically well-written and avoided the pretension that easily accompanies such a book.
So we are in the city of Salisbury where we meet our first character, Rita a flower seller with a turn of phrase that was certainly unexpected, readers who are averse to bad language may well wonder what on earth Barney Norris is playing at but once you get past the obvious Rita’s story has hidden depths, some of which only become apparent later on, it is definitely worth moving onto Sam. Sam is a sixteen year old boy who lives in a house where talking isn’t normal. This story really touched me and I felt it was an accurate portrayal of a young man on the cusp of adulthood. The other stories, involve an elderly man a recent widower, a woman whose husband is serving in Afghanistan who is one lonely woman without roots, and finally Liam, who has returned to his hometown after the end of a relationship.

Each of these five stories is a portrait of a person at a certain point in their life and each and every one has elements that had me feeling empathy and even understanding for them, and yet these aren’t headline stories, what made the tales so delightful was that they examined the everyday happenings which dominate individual lives. One or a combination of these stories may well have happened to you, they certainly will have happened to someone close to you and yet the way the tales unfold was far from ordinary. In essence it reminded me that we all have stories to tell, some are just bigger than others.

The triumph of this book was the intersecting of these dissimilar characters, their troubles are their own, the way they deal with those problems are individual and yet there are threads criss-crossing Salisbury that connect them all, some in the past, all in the present. In the hands of a less accomplished writer it would be easy for these connections to feel false, to rely too much on coincidence and yet Barney Norris avoids any clunkiness, there is absolute authenticity in the device as well as the characters.

I can’t finish this review without mentioning the writing style which for all the poetic turns of phrase and strong metaphors didn’t fall over the line into pretentiousness, the real reason why I tend to avoid ‘literary books’ and it was far from an expedition which favoured style over substance. I won’t deny that one of the five stories was less compelling to read than the other four but perhaps because I didn’t connect with this one through my own experiences, but other readers will have their own favourites I’m sure, but even this one had enough links to the others to keep me hooked. If only all literary books were this accessible and enjoyable!

I’d like to say a huge thank you to the publishers Doubleday who gave me a copy of this book for review purposes, this unbiased review is my thank you to them. Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain, the debut novel by playwright Barney Norris was published on 21 April 2016.

[Amanda Brookfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every so often, without planning for it, reading can offer a wonderful package of one's own personal experience finding echoes and fresh insight through the prism of someone else's imagination. So it was when I opened 'Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain', a book handed to me by my excellent local bookshop owner as one that I might find 'interesting'. His recommendations seldom disappoint, but I had no idea that the themes of this unusual and beautifully constructed novel would catapult me back into my own childhood, since the part of England on which Barney Norris focuses is Salisbury, where I went to school for several years as a teenager.

'Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain' is one of those books that defies easy categorisation. It has the momentum and tight energy of poetry, but reads as smoothly as the most accessible fiction. It is about the lives of five people who do not know each other - a flower-seller, a schoolboy, an army wife, a security guard and a widower - who all live in and around the ancient environs of Salisbury. Barney Norris's descriptions of this part of the world - which he clearly knows and loves himself - are compelling. He takes us back to the converging of the five rivers all those thousands of years ago, to the town that sprang up on the plain as a result, and to the construction of the mighty cathedral, still the glorious focal point of the town today. It was a joy for me to be taken back and given new insights into a place I had once known so well, though the power of Norris's writing needs no familiarity for its magic to work.


As the five stories gather pace, it becomes apparent that the protagonists' very different lives are to be connected not just by this shared geography and history, but by the tragedy of a car accident, as unavoidable as the wending paths of the rivers round which they pursue their lives. The progression of the narrative to this dreadful climax is gripping. Yet Norris also manages to illuminate the hopes that can defy such catastrophe and despair. As the denouement unfolds, it is to the beauty and mystery that lie at the heart of every human endeavour that our eye is drawn. Even in the midst of great loss Norris helps us see the redeeming power of love and the envigorating prospect of what the future may yet hold. Best of all was how all the themes of the novel - water, life, human ingenuity and resilience - came together, fusing so beautifully that by the end it was impossible to separate them.

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

The five rivers mentioned in the title meet in the town of Salisbury, in southern England, and they are an allegory for the intertwined lives of the 5 main characters, whose stories coalesce when they are involved in, or are witnesses to, a road traffic accident.

The novel is structured into sections, with each of the main characters giving us a first person account of their life story. Each of the stories is told in a very reflective and inward looking way, with a great deal of musing on the subjects of life and death. Despite the focus on inner feelings, as the book progresses it becomes clear that the characters' lives have been brushing against each other for many years prior to the accident, even if they have not always been aware of the connections between them.

I thought the novel started promisingly. The first character we are introduced to has a number of unattractive traits, but she was believable and I found her life story interesting. However, the other characters really failed to get my attention and for me the format became repetitive. I found the novel dragging as it went on and thought my personal reaction would end up as no more than a 2 star rating. However the author did finish with a very effective last chapter, that caused me to take a more favourable view of the book as a whole. I should also acknowledge that the life story of one of the characters didn't turn out the way I thought it would, so credit to the author for that.

I'm not sorry I read it, but it didn't really grab me.

[Heena Rathore Rathore-Pardeshi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Five Rivers Met On A Wooded Plain by Norris Barney is a contemporary literary work with extensively loaded writing and exhaustive exposition.

As usual, I fell for the cover and blurb of this book on NetGalley and ended up requesting it and eventually reading it, but as is the case with many books on NetGalley these days, this one was not what I was expecting. Understandably, literary works are heavy in prose, but this book was far too detailed and full of unnecessary exposition. The prologue itself was full of 1 sentence paragraphs with 8-10 lines in every 2nd or 3rd sentence. So many times I had to re-read the paragraphs (which were mostly single sentences) that it sucked all the joy from reading. 

To b honest, I DNF'ed it right after I finished the prologue, after having read 3-4 sentences of the first chapter because I felt exhausted and tired and didn't have enough energy to go through with it.

I won't be recommending it to anyone but if you don't mind reading really loaded literary fiction that'll probably disorient all your senses with the sheer length of the sentences and the confusing phrases, then maybe you'll be able to read this book till the very end. If you're like me, preferring readable and enjoyable prose over pretentious writing and overly comprehensive exposition, then stay well away from this book.

You can also read this review at www.thereadingbud.com

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is an accident in the middle of Salisbury, a woman is knocked off her moped and lays critically injured in hospital. Rita, the victim, is a flower seller and part time drug dealer with a a trouble strewn past. Barred from seeing her son and grandchild is a desolate character who you feel has wasted and wandered aimlessly thorugh much of her life.
Three people witness the accident, George the driver of the car, who has just lost his wife, Alison, a lonely army wife and Sam, an anxious, teenager who has just lost his father to cancer.
The novel weaves around the characters each taking it in turns to tell their story.
I particularly loved Alison's story, told in the form of a diary as she struggles to pull herself from a deep depression having no real purpose to her life The writing is emotive and vividly portrays the mind set of the main protagonists, It is only as you progress that each of the characters are not only connected by the accident but have met in previous instances, which Norris deals with brilliantly.
An assured and very well done debut

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up

This is basically the 2004 movie Crash if it were set in Salisbury. Not sure what else to say about this other than that it was very enjoyable, and I think my favourite perspective of the five was the first one (the flower seller).

[Anna Yadgarov · Rating 3 out of 5]

כמו חמישה נהרות שנפגשים במישור מיוער ליד סולסברי, עיירה קטנה בדרום אנגליה, כך גם חמישה גורלות של אנשים פשוטים מאותה עיירה מתמזגים בעלילה ומבקשים להשמיע את שירם - מוכרת פרחים ודילרית סמים בזמנה הפנוי, נער שמגלה אהבה ראשונה ומתמודד עם מחלת אביו, אשתו של איש צבא שמוצב הרחק באפגניסטן, איכר זקן שאיבד את אשתו, ושומר, שמסכם את הסיפור כשנה לאחר מכן. ספר קריא ונחמד מאד, על גורל האנשים הפשוטים, שרק רוצים שיהיה להם משהו ששווה לאבד, מקסים וכתוב בכישרון, אבל יש לי תחושה שלא ישאר אצלי בזיכרון זמן רב.