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The Sea Bed
An intriguing, understated and beautiful narrative, this is the story of a Buddhist monk, who has to travel to a remote fishing village on a task of love and duty, and a young woman who is also returning to the village of her birth.
A novel of desire, duty and secrets, The Sea Bed follows the journey of a Buddhist monk who leaves the safe predictability of his mountain monastery and ventures into the world to carry out a fellow monk's dying request. When he encounters abalone diving women in a remote coastal village he is torn between dedication to his task and surrendering to desire. While the monk skirts around the edges of the sea women community, at its heart is Chicken, a young diver witnessing the extinction of a way of life that has been her family's for generations. If only her sister Lilli returned, perhaps somehow that would bring renewal. But the past and its secrets weigh heavily on Lilli and she had her own reasons for disappearing all those years ago. Each of these characters is locked in their own isolation, yet their stories are connected in deep and sometimes surprising ways.
A beautifully observed, lucid and evocative novel, The Sea Bed is an illuminating story of love, family and change. Utterly captivating.
A novel of desire, duty and secrets, The Sea Bed follows the journey of a Buddhist monk who leaves the safe predictability of his mountain monastery and ventures into the world to carry out a fellow monk's dying request. When he encounters abalone diving women in a remote coastal village he is torn between dedication to his task and surrendering to desire. While the monk skirts around the edges of the sea women community, at its heart is Chicken, a young diver witnessing the extinction of a way of life that has been her family's for generations. If only her sister Lilli returned, perhaps somehow that would bring renewal. But the past and its secrets weigh heavily on Lilli and she had her own reasons for disappearing all those years ago. Each of these characters is locked in their own isolation, yet their stories are connected in deep and sometimes surprising ways.
A beautifully observed, lucid and evocative novel, The Sea Bed is an illuminating story of love, family and change. Utterly captivating.
- GenresFiction
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
2 people are currently reading
43 people want to read
About the author
Marele Day
19 books29 followersDay was born in Sydney, and grew up in Pagewood, an industrial suburb. She attended Sydney Girls High School and Sydney Teachers' College and in 1973 obtained a degree from Sydney University. She has worked as a patent searcher and as a researcher and has also taught in elementary school during the 1980s.
Her Claudia Valentine series features a feminist Sydney-based private investigator but her breakthrough novel was Lambs of God which was a departure from the crime genre and features two nuns battling to save the island on which they live from developers; it became a bestseller.
She lives on the New South Wales North coast.
Marele Day's four book Claudia Valentine series has become a minor classic in Australian crime writing, but her Lambs of God (1998) was even more highly acclaimed as an original and provocative literary work, published in the US by Riverhead and in the UK by Sceptre. Her most recent novel was Mrs Cook, a rich portrayal of the life of a woman whose passion and intellect matched that of her celebrated husband.
Her Claudia Valentine series features a feminist Sydney-based private investigator but her breakthrough novel was Lambs of God which was a departure from the crime genre and features two nuns battling to save the island on which they live from developers; it became a bestseller.
She lives on the New South Wales North coast.
Marele Day's four book Claudia Valentine series has become a minor classic in Australian crime writing, but her Lambs of God (1998) was even more highly acclaimed as an original and provocative literary work, published in the US by Riverhead and in the UK by Sceptre. Her most recent novel was Mrs Cook, a rich portrayal of the life of a woman whose passion and intellect matched that of her celebrated husband.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
January 17, 2019
I'd read another book by Marele Day years ago and loved it, so I was hopeful going into reading this. I don't love this as much as the other, but I really like it. I like the way Day writes-- how she describes things, her word choices, the interesting things her characters do and think, and her subtle word play. It's easy to imagine what the characters see and feel. I love books about the sea. I'm fascinated by the diving women. I like the strong female presence and the talk about their family history and connections as women divers.
It's not clear where this takes place at first, though initially it seems European. It doesn't really matter, but eventually it seems more Asian. The acknowledgements in the back mention Japan. It makes sense that the story must take place in Japan. I like that Day doesn't tell us everything until and unless we need to know. I like that one of the main characters is a monk with a commitment to keep. He has the opportunity to learn about himself and the world away from his known life where everything is decided for him.
This book was not available from my library, so I purchased it. I'm glad I did.
It's not clear where this takes place at first, though initially it seems European. It doesn't really matter, but eventually it seems more Asian. The acknowledgements in the back mention Japan. It makes sense that the story must take place in Japan. I like that Day doesn't tell us everything until and unless we need to know. I like that one of the main characters is a monk with a commitment to keep. He has the opportunity to learn about himself and the world away from his known life where everything is decided for him.
This book was not available from my library, so I purchased it. I'm glad I did.
June 6, 2016
A gentle, wistful story with a central but not polarising theme: A monk leaves his temple to go wandering,as you follow his mindful, naive journey into the unknown wider world, we slowly discover his mission.
A young woman grown up with a powerful matriarchal tradition, that of 'sea women' the traditional abalone divers, independent strong and proud. We watch her as she tries to integrate her family, her role in the modern world and a culture in which young people drift away to the cities.
Those are the central themes, but the real beauty of the book is in its poetic yet vivid descriptions of the world in which they move. The slow unraveling of their movements and thoughts are the building blocks of the story; descriptions of the main characters and their roles only really obscure the reading experience. An example of this is that I was about a third of the way through before I ever stopped to wonder what country it was based in. Somewhere with Buddhists, obviously and an ocean.... Oh wait, the Pacific ocean, definitely... Instead of googling it I went along for the ride and incrementally became aware that it must be Japan. It is never stated though, only ever really implied.
I adored the descriptions, both romantic and positive, and modern gritty and sad of the oceans and the traditions that were slowly dying out under the pressure of modern life. I was fascinated by the confusion and mindfulness with which the Monk's quest was represented. I was intrigued and absorbed by the complex family connections slowly unwinding in the young woman's life and family. All these are the good bits and for the first three quarters of the novel this was a four star experience.
I was less than enraptured by the ending however, the last quarter of the book felt like it should be working up to a conclusion, but never doing so. The end was... really no end at all; it just stopped. The ephemeral connection between the individual stories was never developed into any point but rather it was left as a suggestion and I could have coped with that but there was no other conclusion to replace it.
It felt as if it was just submitted as is because the author could not think what to do next and that felt a bit like sex without an orgasm at the end. Now I am aware that this kind of non-ending is a literary feature in itself, especially in oriental style writing. While that can be the case and it can work it still needs a bit of a flourish to finish it off. This just trailed off into nothing. Would recommend it, if it is your sort of thing, just don't expect an actual climax.
A young woman grown up with a powerful matriarchal tradition, that of 'sea women' the traditional abalone divers, independent strong and proud. We watch her as she tries to integrate her family, her role in the modern world and a culture in which young people drift away to the cities.
Those are the central themes, but the real beauty of the book is in its poetic yet vivid descriptions of the world in which they move. The slow unraveling of their movements and thoughts are the building blocks of the story; descriptions of the main characters and their roles only really obscure the reading experience. An example of this is that I was about a third of the way through before I ever stopped to wonder what country it was based in. Somewhere with Buddhists, obviously and an ocean.... Oh wait, the Pacific ocean, definitely... Instead of googling it I went along for the ride and incrementally became aware that it must be Japan. It is never stated though, only ever really implied.
I adored the descriptions, both romantic and positive, and modern gritty and sad of the oceans and the traditions that were slowly dying out under the pressure of modern life. I was fascinated by the confusion and mindfulness with which the Monk's quest was represented. I was intrigued and absorbed by the complex family connections slowly unwinding in the young woman's life and family. All these are the good bits and for the first three quarters of the novel this was a four star experience.
I was less than enraptured by the ending however, the last quarter of the book felt like it should be working up to a conclusion, but never doing so. The end was... really no end at all; it just stopped. The ephemeral connection between the individual stories was never developed into any point but rather it was left as a suggestion and I could have coped with that but there was no other conclusion to replace it.
It felt as if it was just submitted as is because the author could not think what to do next and that felt a bit like sex without an orgasm at the end. Now I am aware that this kind of non-ending is a literary feature in itself, especially in oriental style writing. While that can be the case and it can work it still needs a bit of a flourish to finish it off. This just trailed off into nothing. Would recommend it, if it is your sort of thing, just don't expect an actual climax.
October 16, 2011
The Sea Bed is Marele Day’s 9th novel. The story is that of Yugen, a Buddhist monk who sets out from his mountain monastery into the world to fulfil his mentor’s dying request; and of Chicken, the granddaughter of an abalone diver, who worries that the way of life lived by generations of her family is becoming extinct; and of Lilli, the sister/cousin of Chicken, who escaped island life to live in the city. As each person’s story slowly unwinds, secrets are revealed and the connection between the monk and the diving women becomes apparent. The novel is part stream of consciousness, part memories, part tales of the past. It is beautifully written, filled with wonderful imagery, ultimately joyful, a pleasure to read.
May 31, 2011
The Sea Bed is told from the point of view of three people. Yugen is a buddhist monk on a mission to bury the ashes of his friend in the sea. Chicken is an abalone diver whose family have dived for generations and is seeing the end of this way of life. Lilli is Chicken's cousin and had left the island they grew up on years ago. While their stories are separate they are all converging to a point of interaction. This is a beautiful read, it slowly unwinds revealing secrets that are at the heart of a family that has grown apart. A book to slip slowly like a perfect cup of tea.
June 12, 2016
I felt that the book was only starting to hit its stride half way through, Very slow and very descriptive,
I would have liked to see more interaction between the three main characters and for their connections with one another to be stronger and expanded on.
I did like chickens chapters and the stories about the grandmothers, but Yugens story was boring and Lilis was frustrating.
A very slow read with some nice moments but overall quite boring and uneventful.
I would have liked to see more interaction between the three main characters and for their connections with one another to be stronger and expanded on.
I did like chickens chapters and the stories about the grandmothers, but Yugens story was boring and Lilis was frustrating.
A very slow read with some nice moments but overall quite boring and uneventful.
February 28, 2011
I loved this book, it came to a slow fulfilling climax and when it did I spontaneously burst into tears. I felt she wrote the book almost like a meditation, the visual imagery was wonderful it made me want to paint the words. I will read it again in a year or so and I'm sure I might love it even more. I went out and bought Lambs of God after this and loved it too.
Read
November 21, 2020I gave this a good try. I actually listened to the first CD three times and each time it failed to capture my interest. Perhaps it's one of those better read as a book.
I don't rate books I didn't finish.
I don't rate books I didn't finish.
Read
July 25, 2011This book started out slowly and i was a little discouraged but by about chapter 5 I was enjoying the novel and it's tempo changes as we switched between the two story lines. This is a gentle story and it is well written and I found the family story of the female abalone divers really fascinating.
August 15, 2009
I really wanted to like this a lot more. I did like the ending but I found this a little too slow on the whole.
March 31, 2010
A beautiful, delicate story whose ending I found highly satisfying. Yugen, the buddhist monk, and my favourite character, I willingly followed through a journey that led him away from the monastery.
December 20, 2013
A beautiful story interwoven with memories of the past and traditions. Told through the eyes of three characters, it finally culminates in a satisfying ending.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews