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Time's Tide
“On a morning like this, it was hard to recall the dark, deep days of winter, the ice and wind and hunger; the months when inaction and confinement, the empty waiting between scant meals, had gnawed through the soul as much as the stomach.” A father and son struggle to overcome the distance between them. Each is drawn irresistibly to an unforgiving landscape, one that has been the scene of tragedy and loss. The son’s return to the northern shore he abandoned as a young man promises the chance to heal the rift. But is it too late? Árni left his remote corner of Iceland as soon as he could, seeking opportunities beyond winter and fishing. Married to an English woman, he builds a life as a successful scientist but can never quite escape the pull of the West Fjords and bleak landscape of his birth, nor shake the guilt he feels towards his distant father. When Eiríkur goes missing, he sets off to find him on a windswept spit of land lost in an angry ocean. Time's Tide is a compelling and beautifully wrriten story of loss, belonging and the silence between fathers and sons.
368 pages, Paperback
Published March 14, 2019
About the author
Adrian Harvey
4 books5 followersSince escaping the East Midlands to find his fortune in the big city, Adrian Harvey has combined a career in and around government with trying to see as much of the world as he can. He lives in North London, which he believes to be the finest corner of the world's greatest city.
Being Someone was his first novel, The Cursing Stone his second, then came Time's Tide. The Whirligig is his latest.
Being Someone was his first novel, The Cursing Stone his second, then came Time's Tide. The Whirligig is his latest.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 22, 2019
An interesting family saga set in ICELAND and CAMBRIDGE
A really interesting and extremely well written book. You are immersed in the uncompromising and dangerous life of the West Fjords of Iceland, and must contrast this with the somewhat more comfortable life of a Cambridge academic.
Time’s Tide is the story of three generations of the same Icelandic family. Einar, the grandfather, is born, raised and married on the remote Icelandic island of Hesteyri. Life there is so tough and unremitting that his whole village decides to uproot and and head for Bolungarvik, a town on the mainland – still pretty primitive but with electricity, television, and motor cars. He took with him his wife and son, Eirikur. His other son, Ólafur, had died of a fever before they moved, a death from which he never recovered. Eirikur grows up and gets married in Bolungarvik. He has a son Arni, who is an adventurous soul. Not content with life on the West Fjords, he goes to University in Reykjavik and moves on to a research job in Cambridge where he meets, and marries, Charlotte. Einar decides to return to Hesteyri at the end of his life.
The story is woven around the very different lives of the three men and their partners. How they interrelate and how, in particular, Arni manages his two separated lives – he part lives in the West Fjords, and part lives in Cambridge. He agonises that he has left his father behind.
The book has a pretty complex structure. Each chapter is headed with the year in which the events described in it take place. In order, the chapters are 1958, 2008, 1975, 2001, 1952, 1993, 1969, 1998, 1988, 2005, 1950, 2010, 1982, and 2012! I enjoyed the book greatly and made efforts to keep up – but I admit that I was, on occasion, a tad confused as to exactly where we were – and which events I had already read about came before and after what I was currently reading. In that sense it was not an easy read.
Time’s Tide is, though, an excellent book in TripFiction terms. The harsh environment of the West Fjords of Iceland comes through loud and clear – and contrasts beautifully with the somewhat more genteel surroundings of Cambridge.
A really interesting book. Recomended.
A really interesting and extremely well written book. You are immersed in the uncompromising and dangerous life of the West Fjords of Iceland, and must contrast this with the somewhat more comfortable life of a Cambridge academic.
Time’s Tide is the story of three generations of the same Icelandic family. Einar, the grandfather, is born, raised and married on the remote Icelandic island of Hesteyri. Life there is so tough and unremitting that his whole village decides to uproot and and head for Bolungarvik, a town on the mainland – still pretty primitive but with electricity, television, and motor cars. He took with him his wife and son, Eirikur. His other son, Ólafur, had died of a fever before they moved, a death from which he never recovered. Eirikur grows up and gets married in Bolungarvik. He has a son Arni, who is an adventurous soul. Not content with life on the West Fjords, he goes to University in Reykjavik and moves on to a research job in Cambridge where he meets, and marries, Charlotte. Einar decides to return to Hesteyri at the end of his life.
The story is woven around the very different lives of the three men and their partners. How they interrelate and how, in particular, Arni manages his two separated lives – he part lives in the West Fjords, and part lives in Cambridge. He agonises that he has left his father behind.
The book has a pretty complex structure. Each chapter is headed with the year in which the events described in it take place. In order, the chapters are 1958, 2008, 1975, 2001, 1952, 1993, 1969, 1998, 1988, 2005, 1950, 2010, 1982, and 2012! I enjoyed the book greatly and made efforts to keep up – but I admit that I was, on occasion, a tad confused as to exactly where we were – and which events I had already read about came before and after what I was currently reading. In that sense it was not an easy read.
Time’s Tide is, though, an excellent book in TripFiction terms. The harsh environment of the West Fjords of Iceland comes through loud and clear – and contrasts beautifully with the somewhat more genteel surroundings of Cambridge.
A really interesting book. Recomended.
January 27, 2022
The short time I took to read this book is testament to the sublime writing, which reminded me of ‘Where The Crawdads Sing’ in so much as the descriptive writing about the landscape, our relationship with it and its impact on our familial relationships and the choices we make, was utterly immersive. I am surprised this author is not better known! He absolutely deserves to be! This was not an easy read however; it took a couple of chapters for me to get in to a rhythm, some of the words confuddled me, and a family tree would’ve been useful indeed! Nonetheless, I enjoyed the themes that transversed both generations and decades, and the relatable observations about relationships of all kinds. The protagonist characters, particularly Arni, seemed to me to embody the qualities of their Icelandic homeland; unforgiving, yet redeemable. The ending was both unexpected and fitting. A truly wonderful read; I’m looking forward to exploring more by the same author.
May 19, 2019
Time's Tide is a beautifully written, moving story about the relationships between fathers and sons, and how these change both over their lives and between generations. The story weaves across three generations of a family living in a remote rural part of Iceland. (I've been to Hornstrandir, the area it's in part set in, and found the descriptions took me back there instantly.) Against this rugged and bleak setting the book begins by immersing you in the lives of the family during the 1950s. Each following chapter then darts back and forth between years, from the 1950s to 2012. Once I became familiar with the character's names I really liked this structure, as it slowly reveals the connections & patterns between generations. In fact Time's Tide really reminds me of Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude – a diagram of the family tree at the start of the book would be a useful addition!
Our relationship with where we're from is another big theme in the book, as the main character Arni leaves behind the small rural community he's from, and indeed his country, to find a new life. The book asks questions about how our sense of self is linked to where we're from, and how this has or might change in a more connected world.
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I read it in a matter of days. It's got some really thought provoking themes, and some very dramatic moments that had me dying to know what happened next. I'd recommend it to anyone who appreciates good writing or loves Iceland, and it's the perfect book to read if you're visiting that part of the world.
Our relationship with where we're from is another big theme in the book, as the main character Arni leaves behind the small rural community he's from, and indeed his country, to find a new life. The book asks questions about how our sense of self is linked to where we're from, and how this has or might change in a more connected world.
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I read it in a matter of days. It's got some really thought provoking themes, and some very dramatic moments that had me dying to know what happened next. I'd recommend it to anyone who appreciates good writing or loves Iceland, and it's the perfect book to read if you're visiting that part of the world.
January 2, 2020
Having read ‘Being Someone’ and ‘The Cursing Stone’ I also wanted to read Adrian’s ‘Time’s Tide’. This is a beautifully challenging novel that didn’t disappoint.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews