I had bought The Light Between Oceans by M.L.Stedman before spotting the leaflet in the library announcing that it was to be The Devon Book for Summer 2013. Several of you had recommended it, plus the Endsleigh Salon theme for September was 'A Book That Made You Cry' and the blurb suggested that this would be at least a three tissue book....
'A moving tale...prepare to weep...'
'It will make you cry...'
'A debut that tears at the heart...'
Someone had sensibly bought a box of tissues along to the gathering, which I had also bolstered with home-made cake (given that before we meet again I shall be in possession of my Senior Railcard etc) and we really did need every ounce of fortitude to see ourselves through one of our more challenging evenings. Next month's theme of Scandinavia, even with every dead body that ScandiCrime can dig up, will be nothing like as dismal or emotional by comparison.
'Who on earth chose this theme...' I asked, as we laboured from one emotional morrass to the next.
Two of us had read The Light Between Oceans, so we joined forces with our presentation...
Post-war 1920s Australia, and trenches survivor Tom Sherbourne, inwardly scarred but outwardly whole, applies for the post of lighthouse keeper on the distant Janus Rock off the west coast of the country. After a six month trial at Byron Bay Tom has decided this is where he belongs, miles from civilisation. Janus Rock so remote that it..
'dangled off the edge of the cloth like a loose button.'
Solitude and isolation Tom's therapies of choice as he learns to live with the memories of the unsayable atrocities that he has witnessed, and doubtless been forced to commit, during the Great War...
'To make sense of it - that's the challenge. To bear witness to the death without being broken by the wight of it...'
Death may 'have had no appetite for him,' but this living death is something else entirely.
Of course Tom doesn't bargain on finding love whilst on shore leave in the shape of young Isobel Graysmark, but married they are and soon settling down to life together on this remote outpost. It has all the makings of an idyllic start to their life together, they are happy in each other's company and for all Tom's unwillingness to discuss his past, Isobel develops an understanding and they seem like the perfect couple. A succession of miscarriages followed by a stillbirth test Tom and Isobel to the limits, and when a boat washes ashore, with a dead man and a crying baby on board, I had an inkling... a sense of foreboding, and one that was to fill me for the rest of the book, took root.
The baby arrives at a crucial time, the clothes and the crib and the book of names waiting. Inevitably 'Lucy' won't settle and inevitably Isobel, her breasts still full of milk following her own loss, feeds the baby... just this once. Tom is persuaded against his better judgement not to log the arrival of the boat... then not to report it... then to bury the dead man... and then to name and keep the baby and pass her off as their own, whilst knowing deep down that a mother somewhere has lost her baby.
That's enough...I don't want to give away any more of the plot, but it was at this point in the book that I realised that happy endings might be a bit elusive, and that to the final page I was going to be awash with unease. Nor could I possibly imagine what the least unhappy ending might be.
So much powerful imagery surrounding lighthouses pervades the book and is utilised to the full by M.L.Stedman, and in the midst of reading The Light Between Oceans someone very kindly sent me this card which instantly became my bookmark. Not quite Janus Rock, more Beachy Head by Eric Ravilious, but isn't it magical...
The lighthouse warning of peril and keeping safe from danger...
The beam of light illuminating the distance whilst keeping the nearby in shadow...
'A lighthouse is for others; powerless to iluminate the space closest to it.'
...and all I could think of was the light that would have to be shed on Tom and Isobel's deception sometime in the distant future.
M.L. Stedman elaborates on this in those notes at the end of a book which I 'don't like' but always end up reading eventually. It's something silly about being told, when I'd rather think it out for myself, it's just me...
'As symbols they are dynamic, offering binary concepts... light and dark, safety and danger, journey and stability, isolation and communication, clarity and mystery. Lighthouses are one technology that allows us to take risks, explore and discover.'
And then the whole notion of Oceans (sorry)
A drop in the ocean..
Oceans apart...
The hidden depths...
I remember, on that Caribbean cruise many years ago (one of the Tinker's friends had dropped out at the last minute so I dropped in) as we sailed between Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, the Captain piped up on the tannoy one evening to tell us that we were sailing across an ocean trench that was six miles deep. Six miles...that's the distance from home to town, it was enough to keep anyone awake. No matter how many fathoms that is, it was unfathomable to my finite mind.
Something else struck me too, about M.L.Stedman's writing...
I seem to pick up and start, and then stop reading a lot of books these days that are almost trying too hard. That is the best way I can describe a narrative that wants to draw attention to itself rather than letting the story flow. I'm not sure that will make much sense to anyone else, but this book felt effortless, and that is not to deny the effort that M.L.Stedman clearly put in, it is beautifully written .
So...did I weep ??
Well, despite feeling torn apart by all the dilemmas, and the thought of a child in the middle, the answer is no I didn't. It is rare for a novel to bring me to actual tears nowadays. I can think of one that did many years ago, Skallagrig by William Horwood, at about page 629 or something, but it might have been in those years of small children when emotions were so near the surface it only took the smallest thing. More frequently these days there may be a degree of lip-biting (though there is a book of poetry coming up soon that took me beyond that) so I am wondering about all of you..
Is it more about the mood or emotional state we are in when we read that will make us more susceptible to tears ...
Do books make you cry...
If so which ones...
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