The River Is the River

by Jonathan Buckley (Artist)

A woman named Naomi arrives at her sister's house, intending, it seems, to say goodbye. She is abandoning her city life for a remote Scottish retreat, which she will share with a man called Bernát, whom she considers some kind of visionary. In a sequence of stories filtered through multiple re-tellings, she illuminates the character of this elusive individual. One story seems of special significance: about Afonso, an Amazon boatman, who could be the last speaker of his mother tongue, a language of apparently unique simplicity and precision. Bernat and Naomi are not, however, the only storytellers here. Naomi's sister, Kate, is herself working on a novel that begins as a ghost story, but ends up as something rather different: The river is the river.

288 pages, Hardcover

First published May 28, 2015

About the author

Jonathan Buckley was born in Birmingham, grew up in Dudley, and studied English Literature at Sussex University, where he stayed on to take an MA. From there he moved to King’s College, London, where he researched the work of the Scottish poet/artist Ian Hamilton Finlay. After working as a university tutor, stage hand, maker of theatrical sets and props, bookshop manager, decorator and builder, he was commissioned in 1987 to write the Rough Guide to Venice & the Veneto.

He went on to become an editorial director at Rough Guides, and to write further guidebooks on Tuscany & Umbria and Florence, as well as contributing to the Rough Guide to Classical Music and Rough Guide to Opera.

His first novel, The Biography of Thomas Lang, was published by Fourth Estate in 1997. It was followed by Xerxes (1999), Ghost MacIndoe (2001), Invisible (2004), So He Takes The Dog (2006), Contact (2010) and Telescope (2011). His eighth novel, Nostalgia, was published in 2013.

From 2003 to 2005 he held a Royal Literary Fund fellowship at the University of Sussex, and from 2007 to 2011 was an Advisory Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund, for whom he convenes a reading group in Brighton.

Reviews

[Robert Wechsler · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the third Jonathan Buckley novel I have read, and it supports my feeling that he is one of the best practically unknown writers writing in English today. River is about the telling of stories, with stories told at various removes, for example, a story told to someone who tells it in the novel’s context, which allows the novel to travel far while primarily sitting in a room. Sort of like reading.

There’s also bits about language, dying languages, former languages, learning and translating languages. Language, like storytelling, can both broaden and narrow life, as the novel’s title suggests (in context). The only negative in the novel was the last section, which simply didn’t interest me. A 4.5.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

If Buckley's previous novel, Nostalgia, could be described as a cabinet of curiosities (the plot is littered with digressions on the history, folklore, flora and fauna of the fictional Italian hill town in which it is set), then 'The River is the River' might be described as a hall of mirrors. Here we have layer upon layer of storytelling - Naomi arrives at her sister Kate's house, on the way to a self-imposed exile in Scotland, with stories to tell. Stories of her new friend Bernát who has told her stories of his brother Oszkár, who in turn has heard stories from Afonso, a boatman on the Amazon and the last speaker of his mother's language. Stories are filtered through multiple retellings and everyone encountered has a story to tell.

The sister, Kate, is herself a successful novelist, struggling with a new work that might be a ghost story set in Prague, or may end up being something else entirely. And as if that weren't enough, we are told in the first sentence that "Kate" and "Naomi" are themselves characters in a story being written by another Kate who resembles fictional "Kate" in many ways despite having a different surname (and if you want to get even more metafictional about it, Kate and "Kate" are both characters being written by Jonathan Buckley). A self-contained final twenty-odd pages offer yet another layer to all this, containing echoes and reflections of images and phrases from throughout the book, and providing a subtle twist that confirms just how clever Buckley has been.

There is also plenty here about language - Afonso the boatman, but also Bernát who was born in Hungary but now feels like a Hungarian in England and an Englishman in Hungary; and Kate and Naomi, whose mother is Portuguese, but whose language they don't speak so that although they met their grandparents in childhood they don't feel they really knew them; and there is also music as a language expressive of culture (whether that be a classical concert or an X-Factor style TV show). All of this, the storytelling, the language, is inextricably linked to the way we understand who we are, how we express that and pass it on, and the things that - quite literally - get lost in translation.

This is a novel rich in ideas and Buckley, as he has proved in novel after novel, again shows himself to be not only a gifted craftsman but a fantastic storyteller: you hang on his every word. The mystery is why his name isn't routinely rattled off in that list of the foremost writers of English fiction that typically includes the likes of McEwan, Ishiguro, Mantel, Mitchell, Barnes etc. He really is that good.

[Snoakes · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I enjoyed reading this, I have no idea what to make of it.

The majority of the book is taken up with Naomi's visit to her sister Kate, a novelist. During this short visit Naomi informs Kate that she is going to live on a remote Scottish island with a man called Bernát. Over the few days of her visit she regales Kate with stories of this Bernát whom Naomi seems to regard as some kind of guru. The tension between the two sisters is palpable - Naomi has obviously suffered mental health issues in the past and it is clear that Kate is very worried about her. They have also had a recent big falling out and Kate seems to be continuously biting her tongue in order to keep the peace. we also get to see glimpses of Kate's work in progress and her writing process which is fascinating.

The story following the visit feels rushed and the end of the book is almost like an appendix. Overall it's well written, beautifully descriptive and the two main characters are very well-developed - it just doesn't seem to go anywhere.

[Alex Clare · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing is the sort of easy style which is very difficult to do but I did not feel rewarded for reading this book as nothing happened, nothing really changed and a lot of elements which might have signified something turned out to mean nothing.

[Ruth Ropper · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although I day 'read' I actually didn't finish reading this book, couldn't get into it and couldn't engage with the characters, was maybe a book for when you can give it your full attention, but I have learnt that I don't have to finsih books!

[Cheryl Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a 3 because I enjoyed the writing and the story. And then I just lost interest, so never finished it. I wanted to find out what happened but from reading accounts here it seemed that noting was going to.

Pity. I had hopes.

[Natalie O'Donnell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I really like this book but I feel like I need help understanding what I read

[Brpickering · Rating 2 out of 5]

Beautifully descriptive but lacked substance.

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful and subtle.