Play Book Tag discussion

And it's in my heart, when we're apart
And it stops and starts, and it's in my heart
Every single day it's always in my way
When I'm making hay, all I've got to say
Melancholia, melancholia, melancholia- by Van Morrison

Imagine staring out at the sea during low-tide when you are feeling an overwhelming sadness, that is what reading Donal Ryan's book From a Low and Quiet Sea is like. It is told in 4 chapters , the first 3 being about separate characters Farouk, Lampy and John, all of them unhappy for 3 separate reasons, all of them unable to fully engage in life.

Donal Ryan's voice is beautiful and it kept me reading this book. Such lovely and quiet writing:

Perhaps, he thought, this is the way it is for everybody, at times of terrible pressure: maybe every possible version of a person can be glimpsed at once, maybe every man’s true self is like a particle unobserved, assuming all possible shapes in any given moment, only fastening into one when it’s called upon to be, to do. And he put his hand on her cheek, and was relieved when she took it in hers, and kissed it, and held it against her lips awhile, and told him over and over that she loved him, that she’d only ever loved him

This voice rides like a needle on a vinyl album, in a hypnotic way until it is pushed and scratches across, when Lampy's grandfather interrupts the flow. He is truly foul and profane, but oh, how I loved him and wish I could imitate his filthy lips:

he knew his grandfather had only been practising the story, that he, Lampy, was the intended audience, and the feeling this knowledge gave him was not quite articulable, this strange thrill of pride. His grandfather was wicked; when he was in form his tongue could slice the world in two.

And then there is John who provides the presidential wisdom, that has sent our world off kilter:

It was from the experience of blackening that boy that I learned an important and valuable lesson: if you say something enough times, the repetition of it makes it true. Any notion you like, no matter how mad it seems, can be a fact’s chrysalis. Once you say it loud enough and often enough it becomes debatable. Debates change minds. Debate is the larval stage of truth. Constant, unflagging, loud repetition completes your notion’s metamorphosis into fact. The fact takes wing and flutters from place to place and mind to mind and makes a living, permanent thing of itself.

I wanted to love this book, but I didn't. That is my recommendation, perhaps you will love it.

I'm not sure about the book, but I love this review. Thanks.

Jgrace wrote: "I'm not sure about the book, but I love this review. Thanks."
I appreciate that. It is beautifully told and the grandpa really is a hoot.

Truthfully , I would have loved a book told from the perspective of Farouk and Lampy's mom.

In many ways , this book is very spare. There is so much left unsaid which the reader has to intuit.

If you love character studies, it is great.

The other side of it is that it is short and with the right reader it would be an awesome audio, especially if the reader could get the grandfather right. He is at times spit out your coffee funny.