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The Silent Land
The Silent Land [Paperback] Joyce, Graham
248 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2010
129 people are currently reading
5121 people want to read
About the author
Graham Joyce
73 books570 followersGraham Joyce (22 October 1954 – 9 September 2014) was an English writer of speculative fiction and the recipient of numerous awards for both his novels and short stories.
After receiving a B.Ed. from Bishop Lonsdale College in 1977 and a M.A. from the University of Leicester in 1980. Joyce worked as a youth officer for the National Association of Youth Clubs until 1988. He subsequently quit his position and moved to the Greek islands of Lesbos and Crete to write his first novel, Dreamside. After selling Dreamside to Pan Books in 1991, Joyce moved back to England to pursue a career as a full-time writer.
Graham Joyce resided in Leicester with his wife, Suzanne Johnsen, and their two children, Joseph and Ella. He taught Creative Writing to graduate students at Nottingham Trent University from 1996 until his death, and was made a Reader in Creative Writing.
Joyce died on 9 September 2014. He had been diagnosed with lymphoma in 2013.
After receiving a B.Ed. from Bishop Lonsdale College in 1977 and a M.A. from the University of Leicester in 1980. Joyce worked as a youth officer for the National Association of Youth Clubs until 1988. He subsequently quit his position and moved to the Greek islands of Lesbos and Crete to write his first novel, Dreamside. After selling Dreamside to Pan Books in 1991, Joyce moved back to England to pursue a career as a full-time writer.
Graham Joyce resided in Leicester with his wife, Suzanne Johnsen, and their two children, Joseph and Ella. He taught Creative Writing to graduate students at Nottingham Trent University from 1996 until his death, and was made a Reader in Creative Writing.
Joyce died on 9 September 2014. He had been diagnosed with lymphoma in 2013.
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February 27, 2025
True silence. The freezing of all sounds. It wasn’t possible in the modern world, to listen to the sound of true silence. Perhaps not even in the ancient world, either: there was wind in the desert; insects in the depths of the forest; wave activity in the middle of the ocean. Nature did not tolerate silence. Only death accepted silence; and there was silence here.In The Silent World, Graham Joyce’s eighteenth book and 2011 World Fantasy Award and British Fantasy Award nominee, a young couple, Zoe and Jake, on a skiing holiday in the Pyrenees, are caught in an avalanche. Jake frees himself and digs Zoe out. But when they make their way back to their hotel, on the outskirts of Saint-Bernard-en-Haut near the French-Spanish border, everyone is gone, from the slopes, from the hotel, from the town.
It does not take long to figure out the main underlying situation here. The author certainly offers plenty of clues. Thankfully, the characters in the story realize it as well in short order, and the rest is figuring out the details, the significance of the sundry events that occur, the meaning of symbols that appear, the messages that intrude into the bubble, the finer points of their dilemma, and how things will turn out for the couple.
Graham Joyce - image from Soundcloud
Where Stephen King used enforced isolation in Under the Dome to look at how a town full of people expose their true selves, Joyce employs a similar external device to contemplate deeper existential concerns with a man and a woman standing in for you and me. Zoe and Jake are in a place where their basic needs are well taken care of, and some exotic ones as well.
“I asked if you thought we’re trapped here, or if we’ve been freed here.”They face some crucial questions concerning who they are.
“Depends on which way you choose to see it.”
“Exactly. There isn’t a right answer, is there? It depends on how we choose to see it. If we choose to see it as if we’re trapped here then our situation is tragic. If we choose to see that we’ve been liberated here, then it’s the opposite.”
“Comic?”
“Comic isn’t the opposite of tragic.”
“No.”
“I mean to say. If we choose to see it the right way, we could have the most magical time here. You and me. Together and alone. We have warmth, shelter, food, the best wine, skiing on wonderful slopes together. It’s paradise: if we choose to accept it. If we choose to call it that.“
It was true that they had taken many skiing holidays together and after so many it did become difficult to distinguish some of them; but it disturbed her that he couldn’t remember any of it.Are we more than the sum of our memories? Do we cease to be who we are/were if/when those memories fade? As someone with a rather unreliable internal hard drive, that is a question with resonance. Am I less myself today because bits of my experience have been sloughed off like dry skin? Are you less yourself? Later, worried about Jake’s fade, Zoe offers an alternative.
“Where has it gone, that holiday?” he said. “How come I can remember others but not that one? I mean, it’s not like my memory is a DVD that fell behind the cupboard. It’s just gone.”
“Doesn’t matter,” she said.
“It damn well does matter. What are we if we’re not the sum of our memories?”
She was deeply worried about him, but she said, “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because everything you can see or touch or hear or smell has a story attached to it; a story I can tell you. If you say bacon, I can tell you a story. If you say snow, I can tell you a dozen different stories. This is what we are: a collection of stories that we share, in common. This is what we are to each other.”There is fun to be had with this book, and it is a fast read, particularly considering the core existential subject matter. What do the crows on the police car signify? How about the masked men that appear? Or the large black horses? This combination of serious content and surface gamesmanship made this a fascinating read. We may not spare a lot of time thinking about the things that Zoe and Jake confront but maybe we should, if only we could block out all that bloody noise.
Random items
I suppose one could look at the word Haut in the name of their town where Jane and Zoe stayed two ways. High-class, as in haute cuisine, and there is certainly some good life to be sampled where they are staying, or in the Germanic meaning of Haut, which is skin. In that case they were staying on the surface of things without penetrating to the meat. The St Bernard portion of the town name could relate, I suppose, to an ancient saint, but I prefer to think of it as having to do with rescue.
The author seems like a pretty interesting sort, a working class bloke from a mining family, he got a BA in 1977 and an MA in 1980. He worked as a youth officer, which I presume means some sort of social worker-cum-coach for a Youth organization for many years until he and his wife moved to Greece, where he wrote his first novel, Dreamside. It sold, and he became a full time writer from that point. His reputation is as a writer of fantasy and speculative fiction, whatever that means. Here is an item from the Wikipedia page on Joyce that informs us a bit on how fantasy might have come naturally to him
"My grandmother was one of these old women who used to have dreams and visions and messages arriving. She would fall asleep in a chair, there would be a knock on the door, she would go to the door, someone strange would come to the door and deliver a message. And then she would wake up again in her chair. Now my mother and my aunties told me these stories over and over again. But they just lived with it side by side. They didn't fight it as in a fantasy or horror film. They didn't have to overcome it. It didn't get worse and worse and worse. They just accepted this mystery and then they cooked the dinner."Lest one imagine a contemplative nerd, GJ still played goal for the England Writers Football team into his fifties. He passed away from cancer at 59, in 2014.
=============================EXTRA STUFF
The Wikipedia page for GJ
Joyce’s personal site is still active, with blog entries from the last three years of his life.
May 19, 2024
UPD: The sadness still permeates my memories of this book. It does not get any sweeter with time. After all this time. Amen. I'm not sure why this one touched my this deeply? What's so extremely cutting about it? Not sure. Still, it's a great read, one that will stay with the reader forevermore.
Maybe this is what this life is about, after all?
______
A heart-breaking story. My first acquaintance with speculative fiction. Read ages before and still memorable as if I picked it up just yesterday.
As usual I miss my happy end. This was beyond sadness distilled.
Q: And when the mountain horn seemed to nod and sigh back at her, she almost thought she could die in that place, and happily. If there are few moments in life that come as clear and as pure as ice, when the mountain breathed back at her, Zoe knew that she had trapped one such moment and that it could never be taken away. (c)
Q:
Snow and silence; the complete arrest of life; a rehearsal and a pre-echo of death. (c)
Q:
I am alive. I am an eagle. (c)
Q:
You’re in a snow tomb, be calm.
She breathed gently. Her heart stopped banging.A snow tomb? You think that’s good?
(c)
Q:
… do you think we’re trapped here? Or have we been released here?’ (c)
Q:
‘It means time is running, but at a different speed from… our speed.’ (c)
Q:
Nurses and soldiers, thought Jake. They see it all, and pretend they’ve seen nothing. (c)
Q:
Peter had been a soldier on Special Operations in the war. An officer in the elite SAS force, he had commanded Operation Pepino behind enemy lines in the mountains of northern Italy during the winter of 1944–45. Thirty-two men were parachuted in in broad daylight. Their instructions were to make themselves highly visible and simulate the actions of a much larger company to divert enemy troops who were preventing an Allied advance. The operation was successful and the Germans unwittingly diverted thousands of troops.
It was a fierce winter and there was close-combat fighting with both Italian blackshirts and German troops. Peter brought back eighteen of the thirty-two men, or, as he always put it another way—lost fourteen good men. Somehow, he was back there now, in the snow-covered Italian mountains. (c)
Q:
‘Why aren’t you afraid, Jake? This place terrifies me.
I want to know what’s going to happen to us; to our baby.’
‘I can’t explain why I’m not scared. I only know that my job is to look after you.’ (c)
Q:
‘We’re in a place beyond harm.’ (c)
Q:
‘You see, we cheated death.’
‘We did?’
‘Yes.’
‘Does that mean we’re safe?’
‘We were always safe. But we cheated death, and because we couldn’t let each other go we found some extra time.’
‘No.’
‘Yes. We found some extra time. The dream of the present moment was interrupted for us. We’re watching all of this through the seams between life and death.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘Our love. It gave us extra time. It cheated death.’
‘But that’s a good thing. Isn’t it? Isn’t that a good thing, Jake?’
‘Yes. Yes it is.’ (c)
Q:
‘Listen to me. Everything we are we have built from every thing we have done together. If we drank a glass of wine and we said it tasted like this or that, then that’s how it tasted. One has to help remember it for the other.' (c)
Q:
‘All you have to do is refuse to forget.’… ‘You know how to do that, don’t you, Zoe? You know how to refuse to forget?’ ... ‘You just keep this eye open. And you’ll see me everywhere. Just everywhere.’ © Okay, it's heartbreaking.
Q:
Just snowflakes. The snowflakes are in my ears, in my mouth, in my nose, like cocaine. I tried it once. You can keep it for your mother: it’s not a patch on where being in love can get you. The blood in my veins is frozen but it sings of love. (c)
Q:
I can hear the sword of an angel scything through the air. (c)
Q:
I am afraid to open it. But with trembling fingers I tear it open and I reach inside. But there is nothing. Or not exactly nothing, but what there is is nothing more than a card. It is a kind of Tarot card, but not like any Tarot card I know. It depicts a tree. The words at the bottom say ‘L’arbre de Vie’. Tree of life, I know. But it is not like any tree of life I have seen. It is more like a Christmas tree, decorated with curious objects and impossible fruit. (c)
Q:
All of them, everyone, everything. All are gone. (c)
Q:
He says he heard your phone ringing under the snow. But it kept stopping and he was praying to let it ring.’
‘Laissez sonner.’
‘Oui. Laissez sonner,’ said the old man.
She knew his voice. But it wasn’t possible that, buried under snow, she could have answered her phone.
Then he handed her a card. It was wet, almost disintegrating, and it was the size of a large playing card. On one side was a picture of a Christmas tree, decorated with gifts. She had seen it before. But this time there were no words on the card.
‘What’s this?’
The man spoke and the doctor translated. ‘He said it was in your fist.’(c)
Q:
She wondered if Jake had made a deal in some dark place; a trade wherein he had not abandoned her at all, but had saved her; and if such a thing were possible. (c)
Maybe this is what this life is about, after all?
______
A heart-breaking story. My first acquaintance with speculative fiction. Read ages before and still memorable as if I picked it up just yesterday.
As usual I miss my happy end. This was beyond sadness distilled.
Q: And when the mountain horn seemed to nod and sigh back at her, she almost thought she could die in that place, and happily. If there are few moments in life that come as clear and as pure as ice, when the mountain breathed back at her, Zoe knew that she had trapped one such moment and that it could never be taken away. (c)
Q:
Snow and silence; the complete arrest of life; a rehearsal and a pre-echo of death. (c)
Q:
I am alive. I am an eagle. (c)
Q:
You’re in a snow tomb, be calm.
She breathed gently. Her heart stopped banging.A snow tomb? You think that’s good?
(c)
Q:
… do you think we’re trapped here? Or have we been released here?’ (c)
Q:
‘It means time is running, but at a different speed from… our speed.’ (c)
Q:
Nurses and soldiers, thought Jake. They see it all, and pretend they’ve seen nothing. (c)
Q:
Peter had been a soldier on Special Operations in the war. An officer in the elite SAS force, he had commanded Operation Pepino behind enemy lines in the mountains of northern Italy during the winter of 1944–45. Thirty-two men were parachuted in in broad daylight. Their instructions were to make themselves highly visible and simulate the actions of a much larger company to divert enemy troops who were preventing an Allied advance. The operation was successful and the Germans unwittingly diverted thousands of troops.
It was a fierce winter and there was close-combat fighting with both Italian blackshirts and German troops. Peter brought back eighteen of the thirty-two men, or, as he always put it another way—lost fourteen good men. Somehow, he was back there now, in the snow-covered Italian mountains. (c)
Q:
‘Why aren’t you afraid, Jake? This place terrifies me.
I want to know what’s going to happen to us; to our baby.’
‘I can’t explain why I’m not scared. I only know that my job is to look after you.’ (c)
Q:
‘We’re in a place beyond harm.’ (c)
Q:
‘You see, we cheated death.’
‘We did?’
‘Yes.’
‘Does that mean we’re safe?’
‘We were always safe. But we cheated death, and because we couldn’t let each other go we found some extra time.’
‘No.’
‘Yes. We found some extra time. The dream of the present moment was interrupted for us. We’re watching all of this through the seams between life and death.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘Our love. It gave us extra time. It cheated death.’
‘But that’s a good thing. Isn’t it? Isn’t that a good thing, Jake?’
‘Yes. Yes it is.’ (c)
Q:
‘Listen to me. Everything we are we have built from every thing we have done together. If we drank a glass of wine and we said it tasted like this or that, then that’s how it tasted. One has to help remember it for the other.' (c)
Q:
‘All you have to do is refuse to forget.’… ‘You know how to do that, don’t you, Zoe? You know how to refuse to forget?’ ... ‘You just keep this eye open. And you’ll see me everywhere. Just everywhere.’ © Okay, it's heartbreaking.
Q:
Just snowflakes. The snowflakes are in my ears, in my mouth, in my nose, like cocaine. I tried it once. You can keep it for your mother: it’s not a patch on where being in love can get you. The blood in my veins is frozen but it sings of love. (c)
Q:
I can hear the sword of an angel scything through the air. (c)
Q:
I am afraid to open it. But with trembling fingers I tear it open and I reach inside. But there is nothing. Or not exactly nothing, but what there is is nothing more than a card. It is a kind of Tarot card, but not like any Tarot card I know. It depicts a tree. The words at the bottom say ‘L’arbre de Vie’. Tree of life, I know. But it is not like any tree of life I have seen. It is more like a Christmas tree, decorated with curious objects and impossible fruit. (c)
Q:
All of them, everyone, everything. All are gone. (c)
Q:
He says he heard your phone ringing under the snow. But it kept stopping and he was praying to let it ring.’
‘Laissez sonner.’
‘Oui. Laissez sonner,’ said the old man.
She knew his voice. But it wasn’t possible that, buried under snow, she could have answered her phone.
Then he handed her a card. It was wet, almost disintegrating, and it was the size of a large playing card. On one side was a picture of a Christmas tree, decorated with gifts. She had seen it before. But this time there were no words on the card.
‘What’s this?’
The man spoke and the doctor translated. ‘He said it was in your fist.’(c)
Q:
She wondered if Jake had made a deal in some dark place; a trade wherein he had not abandoned her at all, but had saved her; and if such a thing were possible. (c)
July 21, 2023
Una pareja de vacaciones en un resort de nieve decide madrugar para tener las pistas para su disfrute particular. De repente, les sorprende una avalancha. Parece que es el final, pero, milagrosamente, sobreviven. Con gran dificultad, consiguen regresar al hotel. Sin embargo, el hotel, el resort turístico, las tiendas, absolutamente todo ha sido evacuado, y han quedado atrapados en el lugar, aunque suponen que muy pronto llegará ayuda, en cuanto se den cuenta de su ausencia. Por lo pronto, deciden disfrutar de la soledad que el entorno les proporciona. Pero pronto se darán cuenta de que la ayuda tarda demasiado en llegar. ¿Qué ha ocurrido realmente? ¿Dónde está todo el mundo? ¿Porqué no pueden contactar telefónicamente con nadie ni obtener acceso a internet?
Una historia memorable y muy bien contada, con un reparto de personajes minimalista. La ambientación atmosférica es extraordinaria: puedes sentir el frío de la nieve, la niebla te absorbe, la soledad te acongoja.
Acompañar a Zoe y a Jake durante este breve recorrido literario ha sido un placer. Es una lectura más que recomendable para tardes de invierno rodeado de nieve y junto al fuego de una chimenea, y, contrariamente a lo que percibo en otros lectores, a mí el final me ha encantado. Lectura fantasiosa, pero muy poética. Todo en su justa medida.
5 🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞
Una historia memorable y muy bien contada, con un reparto de personajes minimalista. La ambientación atmosférica es extraordinaria: puedes sentir el frío de la nieve, la niebla te absorbe, la soledad te acongoja.
Acompañar a Zoe y a Jake durante este breve recorrido literario ha sido un placer. Es una lectura más que recomendable para tardes de invierno rodeado de nieve y junto al fuego de una chimenea, y, contrariamente a lo que percibo en otros lectores, a mí el final me ha encantado. Lectura fantasiosa, pero muy poética. Todo en su justa medida.
5 🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞
April 15, 2020
i have always called graham joyce "jonathan carroll-lite." and there is nothing wrong with graham joyce - i keep reading his books, don't i? but they are always seem to take place in the same neighborhood as one of jc's tales, just missing a certain je ne sais quoi that jonathan carroll would have supplied. but this book is just ripped out of jonathan carroll's diary, man. this is like dean koontz trying to write a horror novel set in maine. you are setting yourself up for judgment, my friend, and to me, jonathan carroll will always win. i have never wished more that authors could cover other people's books the way musicians get to cover and improve other people's songs.
elvis costello > christina aguilera
ben gibbard > avril lavigne
and my very favorite:
richard thompson > britney spears
old(er) men just do pop tarts' songs better. and this book just screams out for jonathan carroll's touch. LGM. this is his realm: . or, as joyce phrases it: the place where the laws of physics and the laws of dreaming meet. and there is absolutely nothing wrong with this book - it is a fast-paced and spooky story of a couple alone in a timeless world of snow, with no way to escape, and with only each other to lean on as they try to figure out what is happening.
as a love story, this is pretty wonderful. people are always asking me for love stories at work, and i always always blank, because the only ones i can ever think of are sad love stories, but you can't mention that to people without it being a big fat spoiler. of course, if you ask them, "does it need to be happy??" then you are also giving a spoiler with your suggestion. it is a no-win situation. and i am not going to say whether this one is a sad or a happy story, only that this relationship feels real - with its ups and downs and pettiness and silent resentments and confessions but also silent courtesies and deep and committed appreciation. it is really quite lovely, this relationship, and i think i shall suggest it in the future to those people looking for love stories, even though i am pretty sure some of them will be baffled by the rest of the book.
the flashback scenes involving the couple's relationships with their own parents was also very nicely done, and set up a lot of good mood-foreshadowing.
so i don't know what about this is making me not bump it up to the four-star realm, except the knowledge that this is jonathan carroll territory, and if you want to come to this party, you better be wearing your sunday best.
but as a fast-moving spooky twilight zone-y sort of book - i do recommend this one.
sorry my reviews have been poop lately - my head is exploding with strange fluids and aches and what feels like doozers hard at work, rebuilding.
please pardon our appearance while we renovate.
come to my blog!
elvis costello > christina aguilera
ben gibbard > avril lavigne
and my very favorite:
richard thompson > britney spears
old(er) men just do pop tarts' songs better. and this book just screams out for jonathan carroll's touch. LGM. this is his realm: . or, as joyce phrases it: the place where the laws of physics and the laws of dreaming meet. and there is absolutely nothing wrong with this book - it is a fast-paced and spooky story of a couple alone in a timeless world of snow, with no way to escape, and with only each other to lean on as they try to figure out what is happening.
as a love story, this is pretty wonderful. people are always asking me for love stories at work, and i always always blank, because the only ones i can ever think of are sad love stories, but you can't mention that to people without it being a big fat spoiler. of course, if you ask them, "does it need to be happy??" then you are also giving a spoiler with your suggestion. it is a no-win situation. and i am not going to say whether this one is a sad or a happy story, only that this relationship feels real - with its ups and downs and pettiness and silent resentments and confessions but also silent courtesies and deep and committed appreciation. it is really quite lovely, this relationship, and i think i shall suggest it in the future to those people looking for love stories, even though i am pretty sure some of them will be baffled by the rest of the book.
the flashback scenes involving the couple's relationships with their own parents was also very nicely done, and set up a lot of good mood-foreshadowing.
so i don't know what about this is making me not bump it up to the four-star realm, except the knowledge that this is jonathan carroll territory, and if you want to come to this party, you better be wearing your sunday best.
but as a fast-moving spooky twilight zone-y sort of book - i do recommend this one.
sorry my reviews have been poop lately - my head is exploding with strange fluids and aches and what feels like doozers hard at work, rebuilding.
please pardon our appearance while we renovate.
come to my blog!
April 2, 2015
It was snowing again. Gentle six-pointed flakes from a picture book, settling on her jacket sleeve. The mountain air prickled with the ice and the savour of pine resin. Zoe pulled the air into her lungs, feeling the cracking cold of it before letting go. And when the mountain horn seemed to nod and sigh back at her, she almost thought she could die in that place, and happily.
Jake and Zoe are celebrating their tenth anniversary at the ski resort where they first met- Saint-Bernard-en-Haut. While skiing in the early morning- an avalanche hits- burying Zoe alive.
After some very tense moments, Jake finds her and digs her out- and they head back to the safety of the resort...but there is no one there...
...No one anywhere. The slopes are silent, the lifts empty, and the hotel abandoned. No staff...no guests.
At first they think everyone has been evacuated, but when they try to leave- something always happens to bring them right back. Every phone call they try to place to friends and family- just ring and ring- unanswered. Candles don't burn out...food doesn't spoil. And as the days go by, Jake and Zoe- narrow down the possibilities of what is happening to them, to only one.
THE SILENT LAND is beautifully written- I could have made my review consist of just quotes- and had such a hard time picking ONE to place at the beginning of my review. This is a dreamy, eerie, emotional love story/fantasy/mystery. A perfect winter read!!!
For those of you that don't have a weird need (like I do) to read books during the seasons they take place in...whenever possible- you can enjoy it in the spring too.
May 1, 2014
youngish married couple go on a ski trip. avalanche! when they extricate themselves from the snow they find that everyone at their ski village has disappeared and that time now moves differently. what the hell?
here's aclue spoiler:
fortunately, guessing the (entirely predictable) twists that come at the halfway and end points should not ruin the experience of reading this lovely and affecting book. unless you are the sort of reader whose experience rises and falls on the twists and turns and purely narrative pleasures of a book. if so, stay away. if not, then there is a lot to enjoy in The Silent Land - a minor note but very thoughtful, very sweet (but not saccharine) experience.
it is a chamber piece, of sorts: two primary characters; one POV - a wife contemplating her feelings about her husband and their future together. I say of sorts because, surprisingly, the married couple are not particularly well-developed or given the sort of rich, deep characterization that you'd expect to find in a novel with such a small cast and such intimate concerns. they are real people, certainly, but the context behind their actions and the lifetimes behind them that helped make them who they are... not so much of that, not really. there is a dog that gives some context (context that actually made me tear up a little bit, but I'm a sucker for sentimental stuff around animals)... and there are two wonderful chapters that are concerned with the impact that death has had on each of their fathers. those two chapters were insightful and the fathers are depicted with both clarity and warmth. very, very moving chapters - but they are anomalies in the novel. what is mainly present are the thought processes of the wife and husband, how they think, what they think, how and what they think about each other. the book is very Here & Now & What Comes Next. I thought this was a really interesting and atypical approach, and helped an already dreamlike (sometimes even nightmarish) landscape become even more dreamy.
the prose is also quite dreamy. rather spare, rather elegant, subtle, careful, with the occasional dash of idiosyncrasy to spice things up now and again. the atmosphere moves between eerie and ominous and even strangely enchanting... again, dreamlike.
naturally there is a lot of sex. I assume that most couples stranded by themselves in fairly luxurious quarters, who don't have much to do and who are still deeply attracted to each other on both an emotional and a physical level... yeah, there will probably be a lot of fucking going on. and hey, some making love too. all mixed up together.
anyway, the book is about love. how we live with it, how it is a magical thing yet also an everyday sort of thing, how it exists beyond the here and now, how it can stay with us and all the myriad ways it can take shape.
it also has a Christmas tree that is adorned with memories rather than ornaments. awesome idea!
here's a
fortunately, guessing the (entirely predictable) twists that come at the halfway and end points should not ruin the experience of reading this lovely and affecting book. unless you are the sort of reader whose experience rises and falls on the twists and turns and purely narrative pleasures of a book. if so, stay away. if not, then there is a lot to enjoy in The Silent Land - a minor note but very thoughtful, very sweet (but not saccharine) experience.
it is a chamber piece, of sorts: two primary characters; one POV - a wife contemplating her feelings about her husband and their future together. I say of sorts because, surprisingly, the married couple are not particularly well-developed or given the sort of rich, deep characterization that you'd expect to find in a novel with such a small cast and such intimate concerns. they are real people, certainly, but the context behind their actions and the lifetimes behind them that helped make them who they are... not so much of that, not really. there is a dog that gives some context (context that actually made me tear up a little bit, but I'm a sucker for sentimental stuff around animals)... and there are two wonderful chapters that are concerned with the impact that death has had on each of their fathers. those two chapters were insightful and the fathers are depicted with both clarity and warmth. very, very moving chapters - but they are anomalies in the novel. what is mainly present are the thought processes of the wife and husband, how they think, what they think, how and what they think about each other. the book is very Here & Now & What Comes Next. I thought this was a really interesting and atypical approach, and helped an already dreamlike (sometimes even nightmarish) landscape become even more dreamy.
the prose is also quite dreamy. rather spare, rather elegant, subtle, careful, with the occasional dash of idiosyncrasy to spice things up now and again. the atmosphere moves between eerie and ominous and even strangely enchanting... again, dreamlike.
naturally there is a lot of sex. I assume that most couples stranded by themselves in fairly luxurious quarters, who don't have much to do and who are still deeply attracted to each other on both an emotional and a physical level... yeah, there will probably be a lot of fucking going on. and hey, some making love too. all mixed up together.
anyway, the book is about love. how we live with it, how it is a magical thing yet also an everyday sort of thing, how it exists beyond the here and now, how it can stay with us and all the myriad ways it can take shape.
it also has a Christmas tree that is adorned with memories rather than ornaments. awesome idea!
August 2, 2012
An engrossing story that starts with a married couple caught up in an avalanche. From the cover and title you get the impression this is a post apocalyptic story, the only similarity to being that kind of story is that they are the only ones who seem to survive an incident in the whole village. All the holiday reps and tourists gone but everything seems eerie and strange. One strange occurrence is that there is an abundant supply of food in the stores and the meat does not go off. They try to ski and find help from outside the area but find themselves traveling in circles like they are in some sort of prison. With loads of shops stocking all you desire and free to take within reach what else is there to do except enjoy your stay drink and love. It turns out to be a period of time that they enjoy but soon the cracks show and things fall from their reach. The only contact they make is with a French man who calls her mobile and just gets to say a few words and then the mobile cuts off. Slowly as her mobile battery dies down chances of reaching help seem to become even more thin. The whole driving questions of the story are, how will it end? what will happen to them?
Things are not what they seem and there is greater forces at work in this story. This is a very well plotted story of love and destiny. My first read from this author which is an impressive example of story telling. With a story consisting of only a few characters the writer has done well in crafting a memorable story.
Review also here.
Things are not what they seem and there is greater forces at work in this story. This is a very well plotted story of love and destiny. My first read from this author which is an impressive example of story telling. With a story consisting of only a few characters the writer has done well in crafting a memorable story.
Review also here.
January 7, 2018
"I asked you if you thought we're trapped here, or if we've been freed here."
"Depends while way you choose to see it."
"Exactly. There isn't a right answer, is there? It depends on how we choose to see it. If we choose to see it as if we're trapped here, then our situation is tragic. If we choose to see that we're liberated here, then it's the opposite."
"Comic?"
"Comic isn't the opposite of tragic."
"No."
"I mean to say, if we choose to see it the right way, we could have the most magical time here. You and me. Together and alone."
I have nothing more to add, except that I cried my eyes out in the end.
"Depends while way you choose to see it."
"Exactly. There isn't a right answer, is there? It depends on how we choose to see it. If we choose to see it as if we're trapped here, then our situation is tragic. If we choose to see that we're liberated here, then it's the opposite."
"Comic?"
"Comic isn't the opposite of tragic."
"No."
"I mean to say, if we choose to see it the right way, we could have the most magical time here. You and me. Together and alone."
I have nothing more to add, except that I cried my eyes out in the end.
September 20, 2019
Can reading a book like this be considered walking (or skiing) a well-known path when it is, in fact, covered in snow?
White, delicious snow that bruises, locks-in, and blankets you in sweet, sweet comfort just before it kills you?
The answer? Yes. The nature of snow is still the nature of snow and the nature of this story, how well-worn, is still a thing of beauty.
So where am I going with all this? It's simple. It's atmosphere, baby. It's characters. It's going on vacation and finding that time and all other people in the world has gone away. It's about love... and the other thing. :)
White, delicious snow that bruises, locks-in, and blankets you in sweet, sweet comfort just before it kills you?
The answer? Yes. The nature of snow is still the nature of snow and the nature of this story, how well-worn, is still a thing of beauty.
So where am I going with all this? It's simple. It's atmosphere, baby. It's characters. It's going on vacation and finding that time and all other people in the world has gone away. It's about love... and the other thing. :)
May 2, 2013
Terrible terrible book. A couple on their holiday retreat gets caught in an avalanche while skiing which they survive. When they return to their hotel, it’s deserted. The whole village is empty. They are alone. After some failed attempts to contact the outside world and some tries to get out by a car themselves, they decide that there is nothing else to do, so they ski, then they eat and have sex then ski again then ski some more and have more sex then ski ski ski ski... I have now decided that I hate skiing and I hate reading about skiing even more.
When you read this sort of book, you know that there is always something more to the story than meets the eye. You just hope that it would not be a clichéd something. Less than halfway through, I, my dog and even my dog’s dog knew where this story was headed but we all hoped that it would not go there. It did. The ending was mother of all clichés.
I, my dog and my dog’s dog don’t recommend this book.
ski ski ski ski ski ski... whee… wheeee…
When you read this sort of book, you know that there is always something more to the story than meets the eye. You just hope that it would not be a clichéd something. Less than halfway through, I, my dog and even my dog’s dog knew where this story was headed but we all hoped that it would not go there. It did. The ending was mother of all clichés.
I, my dog and my dog’s dog don’t recommend this book.
ski ski ski ski ski ski... whee… wheeee…
June 27, 2022
Aunque no es lo que esperaba se lee rápido y tampoco está mal. Lo recomiendo para leer entre sagas o para echar una tarde de piscina.
July 13, 2015
Zoe and Jake were the first ones on the slopes at a ski resort in the French Pyrenees when they heard a deep rumble. As they headed toward the trees, an avalanche buried them in the snow. Fortunately they were able to dig themselves out and get down the mountain to their hotel, but found a strange silent world awaited them. They were unable to communicate to the outside world, and they only had each other. Time was playing mysterious tricks on them.
This is a fantasy novel that has frightening moments of horror, musings on memory, death, and existence, and emotional times of deep love. The book has wonderful atmospheric descriptions of the snow, the mist, and the cold. I read The Silent Land in one evening because the book was impossible to put down.
This is a fantasy novel that has frightening moments of horror, musings on memory, death, and existence, and emotional times of deep love. The book has wonderful atmospheric descriptions of the snow, the mist, and the cold. I read The Silent Land in one evening because the book was impossible to put down.
July 31, 2014
Would've been a 5 star, but the ending ruined everything.
The plot was simplistic at best, but the only bad thing about this novel was the ending. Sometimes simplicity works for some authors, but bad endings never will. If the author didn't make the ending as cliche as it was, I would've loved this novel. Such a shame, it was an enjoyable ride.
The characters were well developed for me . Zoe and Jake were really fun to read, so no problems with the characters. I'll be honest and say that everything that I expected happened, but I don't think I would consider that as a negative attribute of this novel. Like I said, the only bad thing would be the ending.
I'm not going to go into details with the plot, because anything I say about it would lead to spoilers. I believe that this is one of those novels that you have to read without really knowing much of the plot. Just read the short synopsis and decide then if you want to read this or not. You don't really have to know anything else aside from that short but good synopsis.
I'm not going to recommend this to everyone because I'm aware that most people hated this novel so much. For me though, it was a good short novel with a simplistic plot. Ending aside, this was a really good novel. For mystery lovers, this is a good short read for you guys (minus the ending). If you're looking for a short read, then this is for you, but don't expect much, because I'm shocked myself that I ended up liking this novel despite the predictability.
The plot was simplistic at best, but the only bad thing about this novel was the ending. Sometimes simplicity works for some authors, but bad endings never will. If the author didn't make the ending as cliche as it was, I would've loved this novel. Such a shame, it was an enjoyable ride.
The characters were well developed for me . Zoe and Jake were really fun to read, so no problems with the characters. I'll be honest and say that everything that I expected happened, but I don't think I would consider that as a negative attribute of this novel. Like I said, the only bad thing would be the ending.
I'm not going to go into details with the plot, because anything I say about it would lead to spoilers. I believe that this is one of those novels that you have to read without really knowing much of the plot. Just read the short synopsis and decide then if you want to read this or not. You don't really have to know anything else aside from that short but good synopsis.
I'm not going to recommend this to everyone because I'm aware that most people hated this novel so much. For me though, it was a good short novel with a simplistic plot. Ending aside, this was a really good novel. For mystery lovers, this is a good short read for you guys (minus the ending). If you're looking for a short read, then this is for you, but don't expect much, because I'm shocked myself that I ended up liking this novel despite the predictability.
September 5, 2011
This book was unbelievable. I was so uncomfortable reading it, it was so eerie and spooky. I tried to make it last because the whole mood of the book was incredible. My advice is to not try to predict where it's going, just let yourself be taken for the ride. This was probably the best book I've read this year.
July 29, 2021
***SPOILERS HIDDEN***
It sounds almost post-apocalyptic according to its summary: A married couple discovers they’re the only two people--and seemingly the only living creatures--remaining after an avalanche strikes the ski resort where they’re vacationing. Phone calls go unanswered; the internet doesn’t connect; and the city’s boundaries may as well be electrified for all the luck they’re having trying to leave. All is so unfathomably quiet that they can practically hear each snowflake land.
Joyce’s basic premise seems to hint at a deep, layered story; however, although the story has plenty of surprises that kept me guessing, there's nothing particularly meaningful about The Silent Land. There's room here for some thought-provoking exploration about the meaning of life and death, but this is just a nice story written in a mostly bare-bones, dialogue-heavy style.
The ending redeems the story somewhat for no other reason than because it’s so heartbreaking. The many loose ends also tie up very neatly. Shortly after starting, I was worried that I'd figured out what had really happened----and was in store for a predictable story, but Joyce addressed those hunches head on in chapter five. Toward the end, it's maybe too obvious that ; however, getting definitive answers to the book’s other, stranger enigmas is highly satisfying. Joyce also maintained the suspense until about the last five pages, when suddenly all pieces to the puzzle lock snugly into place.
I was unimpressed by the simplistic writing style; however, a few passages here and there stand out as striking, especially considering the unchanging setting. This takes place entirely in a winter wonderland where it snows almost constantly, yet Joyce’s description remained original throughout all 262 pages. To cite just one example:
It sounds almost post-apocalyptic according to its summary: A married couple discovers they’re the only two people--and seemingly the only living creatures--remaining after an avalanche strikes the ski resort where they’re vacationing. Phone calls go unanswered; the internet doesn’t connect; and the city’s boundaries may as well be electrified for all the luck they’re having trying to leave. All is so unfathomably quiet that they can practically hear each snowflake land.
Joyce’s basic premise seems to hint at a deep, layered story; however, although the story has plenty of surprises that kept me guessing, there's nothing particularly meaningful about The Silent Land. There's room here for some thought-provoking exploration about the meaning of life and death, but this is just a nice story written in a mostly bare-bones, dialogue-heavy style.
The ending redeems the story somewhat for no other reason than because it’s so heartbreaking. The many loose ends also tie up very neatly. Shortly after starting, I was worried that I'd figured out what had really happened----and was in store for a predictable story, but Joyce addressed those hunches head on in chapter five. Toward the end, it's maybe too obvious that ; however, getting definitive answers to the book’s other, stranger enigmas is highly satisfying. Joyce also maintained the suspense until about the last five pages, when suddenly all pieces to the puzzle lock snugly into place.
I was unimpressed by the simplistic writing style; however, a few passages here and there stand out as striking, especially considering the unchanging setting. This takes place entirely in a winter wonderland where it snows almost constantly, yet Joyce’s description remained original throughout all 262 pages. To cite just one example:
The gray, pregnant clouds lowered above them, but there were blue smudges in the sky. A transforming power had breathed over the land and turned it into a perfect wedding cake, and the two of them were now perched on the top like a marzipan bride and groom.Descriptive gems like these are a welcome break from all the dialogue. If only every sentence were a gem and every paragraph meaningful. The Silent Land definitely has a unique premise, but ultimately, it's just another quick suspense read.
January 13, 2016
Actual 4.5
This is only my second Graham Joyce novel, but I am becoming a fan.
Having experienced 'near death' myself, I am very attuned to perspective when it comes to living. Without giving any spoilers I will just say that I thought this was a very deep journey into the mysteries of our meaning. Who are we, why are we, how does our past influence our presence, our future?
The book captured and held my interest from beginning to end. This is one of those that doesn't have a lot of action and climactic events but does just fine without them. This one makes you think...makes you wonder.
August 5, 2016
Not long after reading Some Kind Of Fairy Tale, I was at my local library branch and checked to see what else they might have by Mr. Joyce. This was it, and even with no blurb on its inner cover to give me a clue as to what it's about, I plucked it off the shelf. I was as unknowing of this novel's world as is the story's married couple after the first few pages. I suppose that added to the suspense, though I was able to figure out rather quickly where it was going.
As with Some Kind Of Fairy Tale, the landscape is rendered vividly in both its beauty and its danger. The characters are intelligent if rather flat; you feel as if you are always one small step ahead of them: almost as soon as you figure something out, they are wondering about the same thing. Some of the descriptions of their activities -- skiing, eating, drinking -- start to feel repetitive in a book that's not that long. (I was happy when the husband said he was done with skiing.) As Tara L. Masih noted of Some Kind Of Fairy Tale, there's a bit of male fantasy in an aspect of this story too.
Except for one word used by the father of one of the characters, much of the "British-ness" that I loved in Some Kind Of Fairy Tale is missing. Perhaps it's because the couple (who sound as if they could be Americans, though they're not) is vacationing in the Pyrenees, but I fear it's because the American publisher 'standardized' the text. (When will they realize 'real' readers hate that?)
A Stephen King/The Shining-feel hovers over some of this novel in a collective consciousness kind of way, especially in the beginning; but at least for my taste, I'm glad it's not that kind of "horror." Similar to King though, this author's imagination is a marvel.
As with Some Kind Of Fairy Tale, the landscape is rendered vividly in both its beauty and its danger. The characters are intelligent if rather flat; you feel as if you are always one small step ahead of them: almost as soon as you figure something out, they are wondering about the same thing. Some of the descriptions of their activities -- skiing, eating, drinking -- start to feel repetitive in a book that's not that long. (I was happy when the husband said he was done with skiing.) As Tara L. Masih noted of Some Kind Of Fairy Tale, there's a bit of male fantasy in an aspect of this story too.
Except for one word used by the father of one of the characters, much of the "British-ness" that I loved in Some Kind Of Fairy Tale is missing. Perhaps it's because the couple (who sound as if they could be Americans, though they're not) is vacationing in the Pyrenees, but I fear it's because the American publisher 'standardized' the text. (When will they realize 'real' readers hate that?)
A Stephen King/The Shining-feel hovers over some of this novel in a collective consciousness kind of way, especially in the beginning; but at least for my taste, I'm glad it's not that kind of "horror." Similar to King though, this author's imagination is a marvel.
January 14, 2015
After a devastating avalanche, Jake and a pregnant Zoe amazingly dig their way out only to find they are literally all alone at a French Alps ski resort.
After the disaster, this book turns creepy and frightening with a touching romance story and a surprise ending!
LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT!
January 6, 2021
No one does magical realism like Graham Joyce in my view and that is one of the reasons why I am such a huge fan of his writing. I have yet to read a story of his that I did not like. I love the easy flow of his prose, his gentle pacing and how he can evoke such vivid, tangible scenes with only a few carefully picked words. Most of Joyce’s novels are character studies. Ordinary characters are depicted in a realistic setting, but with some magical or supernatural aspect added to it.
The Silent Land is an atmospheric and emotionally engaging tale about Zoe and Jake, a husband and wife who get caught in an avalanche while on a skiing holiday.
The Silent Land is an atmospheric and emotionally engaging tale about Zoe and Jake, a husband and wife who get caught in an avalanche while on a skiing holiday.
May 5, 2014
I enjoyed Some Kind Of Fairy Tale very much and wanted to read more of Joyce. The plot of Silent Land appealed to me: a married couple buried in an avalanche in the French Pyrenees, their escape and then their surreal survival story in the abandoned resort village. It took me some time, however, to warm up to the book. Even for me, it dragged at the start, and I missed the quality of prose writing and characterization I'd found in Fairy Tale. The plot was relatively easy to guess, and even though I suspected where it was going, I got caught up in the journey as the fantastical nature of the village began to wind down and the cracks and "devils" started to show.
Once again, I admired Joyce's ability to create a setting. And there is quiet wisdom in his exploration of long-term love. How much memory plays a part, how we don't really have a relationship if we can't remember shared events and smells and tastes and what brought us together in the first place.
I don't want to spoil the ending. But when one spouse asks the other: "What are we if not the sum of our memories?" and the other spouse answers: "You're forgetting about what we might become. Isn't that more important?" as the reader, Joyce forces you to question this yin and yang issue as well. So while it did not have the strength overall that Fairy Tale had for me, it made me think more about relationships of all kinds and what holds them together or tears them apart.
Once again, I admired Joyce's ability to create a setting. And there is quiet wisdom in his exploration of long-term love. How much memory plays a part, how we don't really have a relationship if we can't remember shared events and smells and tastes and what brought us together in the first place.
I don't want to spoil the ending. But when one spouse asks the other: "What are we if not the sum of our memories?" and the other spouse answers: "You're forgetting about what we might become. Isn't that more important?" as the reader, Joyce forces you to question this yin and yang issue as well. So while it did not have the strength overall that Fairy Tale had for me, it made me think more about relationships of all kinds and what holds them together or tears them apart.
November 25, 2024
Como que desde el inicio había adivinado más o menos de qué iba el libro, pero me gustó ese ambiente opresivo que se va creando conforme avanza la historia.
Ha estado bien, y el final me ha parecido adecuado, pero me ha gustado sin más, por eso le dejo tres estrellas.
Ha estado bien, y el final me ha parecido adecuado, pero me ha gustado sin más, por eso le dejo tres estrellas.
September 17, 2020
This book will definitely make you feel like you are out in the cold and snow. I liked the premise of this book even though I knew where Joyce was taking me along the way. I wasn't surprised at the ending, but still thought it was very well done. Some of the dialogue I thought was "clunky" in a few places and that all combined had me just give this 4 stars.
"The Silent Land" follows married couple Jake and Zoe. The two of them have been together for 10 years and are happy. They are on vacation in the French Pyrenees to enjoy a skiing holiday. Getting up early to go ski before everyone at their hotel descends on the mountain the two of them are then caught in an avalanche. They manage to dig themselves out, but return to their hotel and realize that the world around them has gone misty and silent. The book follows them as they try to figure out what has happened and what does it all mean.
Joyce primarily sticks us with Zoe's third person point of view throughout the book. A few times we shift over to Jake, but it's mostly Zoe's story. Through them we get to "see" each other and you definitely get why they love each other. And you can see their frustrations start to build up in their situation and they do things that many of us would do (hey if no one is around why not drink all the expensive champagne). But we get to see the secrets they have held from each other even though the other one seemed to always know. They are definitely two halves of each other or at least that is what Joyce wants to show us via this marriage.
I thought that the writing in parts was quite beautiful. Joyce shows us both Jake and Zoe's reactions to the deaths of their parents. Both scenes/dialogue that we get will touch you and break your heart. And the two of them trying to say everything that they have ever wanted to say and even break each other's hearts a few times gets you. I thought the symbolism of some of the things that were happening and they were seeing were a bit heavy-handed, but it worked.
The flow was good I thought. You definitely want to keep reading more. As I said, as a reader I already got to where Jake and Zoe were way earlier, so I felt a bit at times I was waiting for them to catch on already.
The setting of the French Pyrenees leaves you feeling isolating and alone. With Jake and Zoe alone in this mysterious world/land where they get to see virgin snow everyday begins to feel hostile after a while. When the two of them realize they are unable to leave the area they are at (hotel) and surrounding village you start to feel the same menace that seems to be stalking Zoe.
The ending I thought was well done but as I said, I saw it coming.
I read this for "Stone Cold Horror."
"The Silent Land" follows married couple Jake and Zoe. The two of them have been together for 10 years and are happy. They are on vacation in the French Pyrenees to enjoy a skiing holiday. Getting up early to go ski before everyone at their hotel descends on the mountain the two of them are then caught in an avalanche. They manage to dig themselves out, but return to their hotel and realize that the world around them has gone misty and silent. The book follows them as they try to figure out what has happened and what does it all mean.
Joyce primarily sticks us with Zoe's third person point of view throughout the book. A few times we shift over to Jake, but it's mostly Zoe's story. Through them we get to "see" each other and you definitely get why they love each other. And you can see their frustrations start to build up in their situation and they do things that many of us would do (hey if no one is around why not drink all the expensive champagne). But we get to see the secrets they have held from each other even though the other one seemed to always know. They are definitely two halves of each other or at least that is what Joyce wants to show us via this marriage.
I thought that the writing in parts was quite beautiful. Joyce shows us both Jake and Zoe's reactions to the deaths of their parents. Both scenes/dialogue that we get will touch you and break your heart. And the two of them trying to say everything that they have ever wanted to say and even break each other's hearts a few times gets you. I thought the symbolism of some of the things that were happening and they were seeing were a bit heavy-handed, but it worked.
The flow was good I thought. You definitely want to keep reading more. As I said, as a reader I already got to where Jake and Zoe were way earlier, so I felt a bit at times I was waiting for them to catch on already.
The setting of the French Pyrenees leaves you feeling isolating and alone. With Jake and Zoe alone in this mysterious world/land where they get to see virgin snow everyday begins to feel hostile after a while. When the two of them realize they are unable to leave the area they are at (hotel) and surrounding village you start to feel the same menace that seems to be stalking Zoe.
The ending I thought was well done but as I said, I saw it coming.
I read this for "Stone Cold Horror."
January 17, 2012
Ugh, I had such high hopes for this. Basically, what happens is two people are caught in an avalanche, and when they get themselves out, they find that everyone else has diasappeared, and they can't contact anyone outside the mountain village where they're staying.
Well, that sounded cool. Maybe there was an alien invasion! or a zombie epidemic! Or even maybe they're dead and it's the afterlife?
Nope, it's just that
Other things that were not awesome about this book:
--There is almost zero character development beyond the fact that they like to ski.
--There are several cringeworthy sex scenes.
--The writing is painfully bad. Some of my "favorite" bits:
"Jake had close-cropped black hair and baby-blue peepers"
PEEPERS. Really.
"His skin was like parchment in this light, she decided, holy parchment, and his glittering blue eyes and his nut-brown eyebrows and the hint of crimson of his lips were like a monk’s illustrations on a sacred manuscript."
Then about two pages later, she addresses this holy parchment with the remark, "Your eyes look like pissholes in the snow."
Well, that sounded cool. Maybe there was an alien invasion! or a zombie epidemic! Or even maybe they're dead and it's the afterlife?
Nope, it's just that
Other things that were not awesome about this book:
--There is almost zero character development beyond the fact that they like to ski.
--There are several cringeworthy sex scenes.
--The writing is painfully bad. Some of my "favorite" bits:
"Jake had close-cropped black hair and baby-blue peepers"
PEEPERS. Really.
"His skin was like parchment in this light, she decided, holy parchment, and his glittering blue eyes and his nut-brown eyebrows and the hint of crimson of his lips were like a monk’s illustrations on a sacred manuscript."
Then about two pages later, she addresses this holy parchment with the remark, "Your eyes look like pissholes in the snow."
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 5, 2011
Simply a stunning book to me. It so reminded me of a great Murakami novel. This novel stole me away, it is not often that I read a book in a sitting, let alone give up precious sleep to do so. This is an amazing story about love, life, perspective, and dreams. I was moved from the first word until the last. Jake and Zoe are very likable and their love for each other seemed to be nearly tangible. I loved the unfolding of the mysteries of the setting and the fact that much of this novel power comes from the story itself. Refusing to forget. The book starts right off fast paced, tragic, and mysterious. Tension builds from there and the plot only slows down for one digression. Then just like that it is over... But, that is when the real fun begins as this is a story that gets better as you the reader go through your memories of it. Truly an original fantastical piece of fiction that is sure to be loved by all literary lovers.
October 17, 2012
Excellent!!! Both extremely effective and affecting. Graham Joyce's writing is compulsively readable.
January 20, 2023
The Silent Land is only my second Graham Joyce novel, but I'm loving the mystical storytelling and intend to read more of his work in the near future. My first introduction to Joyce was Some Kind of Fairy Tale, which I recently re-read and triggered a desire to seek out other works by the author.
Favorite Passages:
Saw it. That's right. Saw saw saw. Good girl. Saw your way out of this coffin.
_______
She felt a sensation of revulsion and with it a flutter of fear.
_______
The open maw of the bird was like a small cavern, and in the cavern was a silver river, threading away into darkness.
_______
"It's just random luck. Random together or random separate. We're still subject to randomness. I'd rather we face that random together."
There and then, in the deserted ski village, with the chairlift engine whistling over their heads and the empty, ice, snow-covered chairs proceeding up the snowy mountain one by one, they had an argument about randomness.
________
A transforming power had breathed over the land and turned it into a perfect wedding cake, and the two of them were now perched on the top like a marzipan bride and groom.
"Kiss me," Zoe said.
________
In the night she was awoken by a bright white disk hovering in the air close to her face. A voice clearly whispered her name:
"Zoe! Zoe! Approach the light! Come into the light."
________
"You were in your own world."
"I was. just for a minute I was a bird. So were you."
"Through the trees now?"
"Through the trees."
________
The sky was the blue of a prayer and the sun made it possible for them to leave off their coats.
________
"We have to remember things for each other. This life, whatever it is, we remake for each other."
________
"It's my dog! It's my dog!" Jake was laughing and crying simultaneously. "I haven't seen her in years and years, and I missed her, and she's back." With his knees deep in the snow and the dog licking the tears from his face, he looked up at Zoe, smiling. "She's back."
Zoe squatted down by the dog and her husband. "Jake . . . are you sure it's your dog?"
"Sadie, meet Zoe. Zoe, meet Sadie. I can't believe this day! I can't!"
________
"Because it's living on the gradient, where you have to stay focused, and you can't switch off or go to sleep for a second; but at the same time as you are the sum of all those lumbering forces trying to stay in control, you are nothing on the enormous mountain, a fleck, a speck of dust, a melting flake."
________
"You don't have to be on your knees to pray. This is me praying. This is me giving thanks, on the knee of the mountain. I'm a moving prayer."
________
"We're in a strange place in our heads right now."
________
Their basic existence in this place seemed like one giant hallucination, so how were they supposed to feel about hallucinatory bubbles inside the hallucinatory bubble?
________
Even in the few days that they'd been here she'd made herself adapt very quickly to the idea that they were alone together, and even to try to see that it might be something poetic and wonderful, an elevation of existence rather than a diminishing. It was like a personal Eden, or an anti-Eden. They were an end-of-days couple, not naked in a garden but wrapped in layers in a snow-covered landscape where there were no more apples on the trees and women would no longer have to take the blame because the old lie had been covered over by snow. But if this were the anti-Eden, she had been given strong evidence for the existence of an anti-serpent.
________
The ice stream was like a thin, twisted bolt of silk, mysterious and beautiful in the fairy-tale darkness under the snow-laden boughs of the trees.
________
True silence. The freezing of all sound. It wasn't possible, in the modern world, to listen to the sound of true silence. Perhaps not even in the ancient world, either: there was wind in the desert; insects in the depths of the forest; wave activity in the middle of the ocean. Nature did not tolerate silence. Only death accepted silence; and there was silence here.
But not even here, Zoe thought. Because when it gets this silent you can hear your blood in your veins. There is no silence.
________
"We're at the place where the laws of physics and laws of dreaming meet."
________
An almost full moon had emerged from behind the clouds to shine waxy, brilliant light onto the snow outside. It reminded her of her father. She lay there looking at the moon, as if it had secrets, as if it had knowledge.
________
Moments of ending and becoming, hanging on the branches.
It was a tree of life, in the real sense. And Archie was finding it harder to look at each year.
He stood watching her assemble the tree and shifted his hands from his hips to dig them deep into his trouser pockets. "Aye, we're just snowflakes on a griddle, lovely girl. Snowflakes on a griddle."
"You don't know what comes after," Zoe said, draping a bracelet on a branch of Norwegian blue spruce. "Nobody does."
"Nobody wants to know, you mean. Nobody likes to know. It's just a long dark ride with your eyes shut and your ears plugged. Anyway, it's not about where you're going. It's about what you leave behind. Now the Muslim, he - "
"You told me that, Dad."
Archie continued anyway. He always spoke about "the Muslim" as if there was only one. "Now the Muslim, he says you should dig a well for the generations that come after you. I like that. I do."
Archie had dug his wells. He had built bridges and been responsible for constructing two major dams in countries abroad. No one ever needed to tell Archie to roll up his sleeves.
"No one knows," Zoe persisted. "It's the great mystery."
"Ah, you say that, but."
Zoe waited for him to go on, though with Archie nothing ever came after the but.
Then he said, "See your mother? She didn't believe in it, either. See how people say they're haunted by a ghostie? Well, your mother made me a promise that if there was an afterlife she would never come back and haunt me. So if I saw her as a ghostie ever, then I would know it was in my head."
"And did you see her?"
Archie sighed and sat down in his favorite chair. He settled back, spread his legs wide, and seemed to stare at a spot on the wall. After a while, he said, "Everywhere."
_______
. . . someone said that thirty was a significant birthday, and everyone around the table agreed. Some else said it was the first time you heard the bell.
What bell? someone asked.
But they all knew what bell. It was like you'd already completed a few laps, observed another, but this was the first time you'd properly heard the bell. There had been one at seven but you hadn't heard it because you were so young; and then one at fourteen but you hadn't heard it because you were so busy looking over your shoulder; then another at twenty-one but you hadn't heard it because you were too busy talking; and then one at twenty-eight which for some reason took two years before you heard it. But they all agreed you did hear that one, eventually.
Your lousy career, said one guest. Babies, said one of the women. Lovers, friends, travel, said another. Parents aging. Bong. All the things you hadn't done. Might not do. Bong.
And in the silence that came after the bell someone said, "Happy Birthday, Zoe, 'cos you're one of the best."
"Yes, happy birthday."
"Happy birthday."
_______
She looked down the slope. Her shadow stretched ahead of her for maybe twelve meters. Then she noticed a movement, a faint twitch at the periphery of her vision.
Next to her own shadow, there were others.
On her right-hand side was a cluster of shadows, roughly human in form, swaying gently. The dark shapes were clearly imprinted on the snow ahead of her. She stopped breathing. She dared not turn her head to look behind her. There she could feel the presence of several beings. Perhaps they were people. Perhaps not.
________
It was like a creature from the origins of the universe.
________
. . . it rippled with iridescent light. It sparkled. It shimmered blue, green, red, and violet, swirling with its own light.
"Are we dreaming?" Zoe said. "Is it a trick of the light?"
"It's not."
_______
". . . everything you can see or touch or hear or smell has a story attached to it; a story I can tell you. If you say bacon, I can tell you a story. If you say snow, I can tell you a dozen different stories. This is what we are: a collection of stories that we share, in common. This is what we are to each other."
_______
_______
Then the crystals change and start to run past my eyes like complex machine code on gray computer screen. No, it's DNA. Strings of DNA running by, swimming by. No, it's complex mathematical formulae, tiny numerals spinning before my eyes. Now it's white cotton seed borne by a breeze, but in incredible slow motion. It's a tiny current, and eddy in Time. There: it's snowflakes again.
Just snowflakes.
Favorite Passages:
Saw it. That's right. Saw saw saw. Good girl. Saw your way out of this coffin.
_______
She felt a sensation of revulsion and with it a flutter of fear.
_______
The open maw of the bird was like a small cavern, and in the cavern was a silver river, threading away into darkness.
_______
"It's just random luck. Random together or random separate. We're still subject to randomness. I'd rather we face that random together."
There and then, in the deserted ski village, with the chairlift engine whistling over their heads and the empty, ice, snow-covered chairs proceeding up the snowy mountain one by one, they had an argument about randomness.
________
A transforming power had breathed over the land and turned it into a perfect wedding cake, and the two of them were now perched on the top like a marzipan bride and groom.
"Kiss me," Zoe said.
________
In the night she was awoken by a bright white disk hovering in the air close to her face. A voice clearly whispered her name:
"Zoe! Zoe! Approach the light! Come into the light."
________
"You were in your own world."
"I was. just for a minute I was a bird. So were you."
"Through the trees now?"
"Through the trees."
________
The sky was the blue of a prayer and the sun made it possible for them to leave off their coats.
________
"We have to remember things for each other. This life, whatever it is, we remake for each other."
________
"It's my dog! It's my dog!" Jake was laughing and crying simultaneously. "I haven't seen her in years and years, and I missed her, and she's back." With his knees deep in the snow and the dog licking the tears from his face, he looked up at Zoe, smiling. "She's back."
Zoe squatted down by the dog and her husband. "Jake . . . are you sure it's your dog?"
"Sadie, meet Zoe. Zoe, meet Sadie. I can't believe this day! I can't!"
________
"Because it's living on the gradient, where you have to stay focused, and you can't switch off or go to sleep for a second; but at the same time as you are the sum of all those lumbering forces trying to stay in control, you are nothing on the enormous mountain, a fleck, a speck of dust, a melting flake."
________
"You don't have to be on your knees to pray. This is me praying. This is me giving thanks, on the knee of the mountain. I'm a moving prayer."
________
"We're in a strange place in our heads right now."
________
Their basic existence in this place seemed like one giant hallucination, so how were they supposed to feel about hallucinatory bubbles inside the hallucinatory bubble?
________
Even in the few days that they'd been here she'd made herself adapt very quickly to the idea that they were alone together, and even to try to see that it might be something poetic and wonderful, an elevation of existence rather than a diminishing. It was like a personal Eden, or an anti-Eden. They were an end-of-days couple, not naked in a garden but wrapped in layers in a snow-covered landscape where there were no more apples on the trees and women would no longer have to take the blame because the old lie had been covered over by snow. But if this were the anti-Eden, she had been given strong evidence for the existence of an anti-serpent.
________
The ice stream was like a thin, twisted bolt of silk, mysterious and beautiful in the fairy-tale darkness under the snow-laden boughs of the trees.
________
True silence. The freezing of all sound. It wasn't possible, in the modern world, to listen to the sound of true silence. Perhaps not even in the ancient world, either: there was wind in the desert; insects in the depths of the forest; wave activity in the middle of the ocean. Nature did not tolerate silence. Only death accepted silence; and there was silence here.
But not even here, Zoe thought. Because when it gets this silent you can hear your blood in your veins. There is no silence.
________
"We're at the place where the laws of physics and laws of dreaming meet."
________
An almost full moon had emerged from behind the clouds to shine waxy, brilliant light onto the snow outside. It reminded her of her father. She lay there looking at the moon, as if it had secrets, as if it had knowledge.
________
Moments of ending and becoming, hanging on the branches.
It was a tree of life, in the real sense. And Archie was finding it harder to look at each year.
He stood watching her assemble the tree and shifted his hands from his hips to dig them deep into his trouser pockets. "Aye, we're just snowflakes on a griddle, lovely girl. Snowflakes on a griddle."
"You don't know what comes after," Zoe said, draping a bracelet on a branch of Norwegian blue spruce. "Nobody does."
"Nobody wants to know, you mean. Nobody likes to know. It's just a long dark ride with your eyes shut and your ears plugged. Anyway, it's not about where you're going. It's about what you leave behind. Now the Muslim, he - "
"You told me that, Dad."
Archie continued anyway. He always spoke about "the Muslim" as if there was only one. "Now the Muslim, he says you should dig a well for the generations that come after you. I like that. I do."
Archie had dug his wells. He had built bridges and been responsible for constructing two major dams in countries abroad. No one ever needed to tell Archie to roll up his sleeves.
"No one knows," Zoe persisted. "It's the great mystery."
"Ah, you say that, but."
Zoe waited for him to go on, though with Archie nothing ever came after the but.
Then he said, "See your mother? She didn't believe in it, either. See how people say they're haunted by a ghostie? Well, your mother made me a promise that if there was an afterlife she would never come back and haunt me. So if I saw her as a ghostie ever, then I would know it was in my head."
"And did you see her?"
Archie sighed and sat down in his favorite chair. He settled back, spread his legs wide, and seemed to stare at a spot on the wall. After a while, he said, "Everywhere."
_______
. . . someone said that thirty was a significant birthday, and everyone around the table agreed. Some else said it was the first time you heard the bell.
What bell? someone asked.
But they all knew what bell. It was like you'd already completed a few laps, observed another, but this was the first time you'd properly heard the bell. There had been one at seven but you hadn't heard it because you were so young; and then one at fourteen but you hadn't heard it because you were so busy looking over your shoulder; then another at twenty-one but you hadn't heard it because you were too busy talking; and then one at twenty-eight which for some reason took two years before you heard it. But they all agreed you did hear that one, eventually.
Your lousy career, said one guest. Babies, said one of the women. Lovers, friends, travel, said another. Parents aging. Bong. All the things you hadn't done. Might not do. Bong.
And in the silence that came after the bell someone said, "Happy Birthday, Zoe, 'cos you're one of the best."
"Yes, happy birthday."
"Happy birthday."
_______
She looked down the slope. Her shadow stretched ahead of her for maybe twelve meters. Then she noticed a movement, a faint twitch at the periphery of her vision.
Next to her own shadow, there were others.
On her right-hand side was a cluster of shadows, roughly human in form, swaying gently. The dark shapes were clearly imprinted on the snow ahead of her. She stopped breathing. She dared not turn her head to look behind her. There she could feel the presence of several beings. Perhaps they were people. Perhaps not.
________
It was like a creature from the origins of the universe.
________
. . . it rippled with iridescent light. It sparkled. It shimmered blue, green, red, and violet, swirling with its own light.
"Are we dreaming?" Zoe said. "Is it a trick of the light?"
"It's not."
_______
". . . everything you can see or touch or hear or smell has a story attached to it; a story I can tell you. If you say bacon, I can tell you a story. If you say snow, I can tell you a dozen different stories. This is what we are: a collection of stories that we share, in common. This is what we are to each other."
_______
_______
Then the crystals change and start to run past my eyes like complex machine code on gray computer screen. No, it's DNA. Strings of DNA running by, swimming by. No, it's complex mathematical formulae, tiny numerals spinning before my eyes. Now it's white cotton seed borne by a breeze, but in incredible slow motion. It's a tiny current, and eddy in Time. There: it's snowflakes again.
Just snowflakes.
April 5, 2011
Goodreads First Reads Giveaway book.
The cover of this book is totally fantastic. If you slip the dust jacket off, you're left with different letters of the title on the book and different letters on the dust jacket. I puzzled over the letters on each for a while, hoping to find a word hidden, scrabble-like, in the letters, but even my scrabble dominating life couldn't find anything interesting.
As for the book itself - it had atmosphere, I'll give it that. Unfortunately, we're stuck in our atmospheric setting with two two-dimensional characters. You'd think that with only these two in the book we'd get them fleshed out a little more than they were, but what we get is a lot of them being scared and bickering. Which, fine, they're in a confusing, terrifying situation, but if I'm to care at all about the ending I need to care about the characters, and I didn't, really.
I did have a night, right in the middle of the book, where I was loathe to put it down. Things were finally happening! Creepy things, and I wanted more! Unfortunately, the book lost a little of its momentum in the latter third and came to a stumbling halt at the end, which was pretty predictable. I just wish it had had a little more oomph into the ending, rather than just dribbling away.
A minor pet peeve of mine was tweaked every page of this book. Dialogue with no indicators of who's speaking for lines. Sometimes, if you have two characters that are well drawn and different enough from one another, this works. But our protagonists aren't different at all, especially at the beginning, and several times I had to go back and count the lines off - him, her, him, her... Which, annoying.
Overall, I did enjoy this book and I might think to pass it along to someone if they mentioned they liked ghost stories. Other than that, I think it's going to be somewhat forgettable.
The cover of this book is totally fantastic. If you slip the dust jacket off, you're left with different letters of the title on the book and different letters on the dust jacket. I puzzled over the letters on each for a while, hoping to find a word hidden, scrabble-like, in the letters, but even my scrabble dominating life couldn't find anything interesting.
As for the book itself - it had atmosphere, I'll give it that. Unfortunately, we're stuck in our atmospheric setting with two two-dimensional characters. You'd think that with only these two in the book we'd get them fleshed out a little more than they were, but what we get is a lot of them being scared and bickering. Which, fine, they're in a confusing, terrifying situation, but if I'm to care at all about the ending I need to care about the characters, and I didn't, really.
I did have a night, right in the middle of the book, where I was loathe to put it down. Things were finally happening! Creepy things, and I wanted more! Unfortunately, the book lost a little of its momentum in the latter third and came to a stumbling halt at the end, which was pretty predictable. I just wish it had had a little more oomph into the ending, rather than just dribbling away.
A minor pet peeve of mine was tweaked every page of this book. Dialogue with no indicators of who's speaking for lines. Sometimes, if you have two characters that are well drawn and different enough from one another, this works. But our protagonists aren't different at all, especially at the beginning, and several times I had to go back and count the lines off - him, her, him, her... Which, annoying.
Overall, I did enjoy this book and I might think to pass it along to someone if they mentioned they liked ghost stories. Other than that, I think it's going to be somewhat forgettable.
May 20, 2011
I glad no one told me the ending or I wouldn't have read this. Even a hint of the ending would be a major spoiler so you will just have to take me at my word on this. Graham Joyce's forte is setting an eerie environment which he does so marvelously throughout this strange book. The best way to describe this work is "Couple with issues is trapped in situation defying logic and explanation". We are taken for the ride and I loved the way the author teased out various plot possibilities while keeping us interested in the couple's own personal dilemma. If the ending was a bit of a letdown for me it was because I expected a less mainstream resolution from the author that gave us The Tooth Fairy. Yet the writer's skills and the ensuring suspense of the novel keeps it at four stars.
June 2, 2011
one of those books that you wouldn't want to add or subtract any paragraph from it.
A well realised psychological thriller that reminded me of Hitchcock. It starts with an avalanche that isolates a couple in a suddenly desertes Pyrenees sky resort. And then things start to get weird, really weird.
I liked the main characters and the evocative language of the writer, the tight control over plot and pacing, but most of all the human interest beyong the paranormal elements. the author tackles a difficult subject - the sudden confrontation with one's mortality, and what it is that ultimately defines us as human beings.
Best scene: the Christams tree decorated not with tinsel, but with memories.
A well realised psychological thriller that reminded me of Hitchcock. It starts with an avalanche that isolates a couple in a suddenly desertes Pyrenees sky resort. And then things start to get weird, really weird.
I liked the main characters and the evocative language of the writer, the tight control over plot and pacing, but most of all the human interest beyong the paranormal elements. the author tackles a difficult subject - the sudden confrontation with one's mortality, and what it is that ultimately defines us as human beings.
Best scene: the Christams tree decorated not with tinsel, but with memories.
August 7, 2014
This novella came complete with a plot that sounded so up my street, it might have been created for me - after narrowly escaping an avalanche in a skiing resort, a young married couple return to their hotel to find not only it, but the entire town, apparently deserted. Not only are they unable to find another human being, but all lines of communication are cut off and no matter what they do to try and get away, they can't seem to escape the eerie 'silent land' in which they appear to have become trapped. The story then follows Jake and Zoe's fight to maintain their sanity and their relationship as they try to figure out what's going on and what they'll do next.
Despite being unfamiliar with the author's other work, I knew this was something I'd want to read as soon as I came across a summary of the storyline. With hints of a supernatural/ghostly element, the book blends intriguing, sinister details (candles that never go out, crowds of people who appear and disappear in the hotel lobby, shadowy half-human figures roaming the town at night) with a situation it's surprisingly easy to relate to. The protagonists are disturbed and scared by their predicament, but also enjoy being alone together and at times revel in the fact that they can go anywhere and do anything they want in a town that's become theirs alone.
Unfortunately, I really didn't like the main characters, which impeded my ability to enjoy the story hugely. Jake and Zoe are supposed to be deeply in love, but I couldn't find much evidence of this in the narrative; their relationship seems to consist of sex, insulting each other and not much else, and neither of them are particularly likeable people. A couple of anecdotes about their parents' deaths give them a little more depth, but these don't come until near the end and it's all a bit too-little-too-late. On top of this, the dialogue is bizarre and inconsistent. Because of the language, I assumed immediately that Jake and Zoe were American (would any British person describe their partner's eyes as 'baby-blue peepers', even in thought?) but it turns out they're supposed to be English. This is despite Americanisms like 'college' for university, 'kerbstone' for pavement, constant 'gonna's and 'will ya's; but English slang ('bollocks', 'twat' etc) is thrown in there too and there's even a dash of Northern dialect when Jake uses 'nowt' twice in one sentence (but never again). The fact that Joyce is actually English himself makes this even harder to understand - perhaps an editor changed some of the language to make it more palatable for American readers?
I enjoyed some of the book despite my reservations - the last few chapters (in which reality starts to fall away) and the ending are actually very good. I just couldn't help but think how much better this story would have been in the hands of a writer who could have given it likeable, realistic characters with a believable relationship, and a deeper exploration of the potential nature of the mysterious empty town. I kept imagining how good The Silent Land would have been if it was an F.G. Cottam book, and finding it lacking in comparison with novels of a similar theme I've read in the past. I loved the idea of this book but found the execution disappointing.
Despite being unfamiliar with the author's other work, I knew this was something I'd want to read as soon as I came across a summary of the storyline. With hints of a supernatural/ghostly element, the book blends intriguing, sinister details (candles that never go out, crowds of people who appear and disappear in the hotel lobby, shadowy half-human figures roaming the town at night) with a situation it's surprisingly easy to relate to. The protagonists are disturbed and scared by their predicament, but also enjoy being alone together and at times revel in the fact that they can go anywhere and do anything they want in a town that's become theirs alone.
Unfortunately, I really didn't like the main characters, which impeded my ability to enjoy the story hugely. Jake and Zoe are supposed to be deeply in love, but I couldn't find much evidence of this in the narrative; their relationship seems to consist of sex, insulting each other and not much else, and neither of them are particularly likeable people. A couple of anecdotes about their parents' deaths give them a little more depth, but these don't come until near the end and it's all a bit too-little-too-late. On top of this, the dialogue is bizarre and inconsistent. Because of the language, I assumed immediately that Jake and Zoe were American (would any British person describe their partner's eyes as 'baby-blue peepers', even in thought?) but it turns out they're supposed to be English. This is despite Americanisms like 'college' for university, 'kerbstone' for pavement, constant 'gonna's and 'will ya's; but English slang ('bollocks', 'twat' etc) is thrown in there too and there's even a dash of Northern dialect when Jake uses 'nowt' twice in one sentence (but never again). The fact that Joyce is actually English himself makes this even harder to understand - perhaps an editor changed some of the language to make it more palatable for American readers?
I enjoyed some of the book despite my reservations - the last few chapters (in which reality starts to fall away) and the ending are actually very good. I just couldn't help but think how much better this story would have been in the hands of a writer who could have given it likeable, realistic characters with a believable relationship, and a deeper exploration of the potential nature of the mysterious empty town. I kept imagining how good The Silent Land would have been if it was an F.G. Cottam book, and finding it lacking in comparison with novels of a similar theme I've read in the past. I loved the idea of this book but found the execution disappointing.
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