Sunday, February 17, 2013

Orkney - Amy Sackville

I missed Amy Sackville's first novel (lovely cover but the subject didn't quite grab me) I could not however resist something titled 'Orkney', especially as it's also set in Orkney and promised allusions to selkie myths. George Mackay Brown is probably the best known Orkney writer but he's by no means alone either in terms of being home grown talent or an inspired visitor - Orkney is rich in stories and history. When you visit the history is close to the surface be it in the form of the Italian Chapel, Maeshowe, or any and everything in-between - it's an invitation to story telling and myth making as is the sea - George Mackay Brown's 'ocean of time'.

Richard is an ageing professor; at 60 he's not quite elderly, but the signs are all over his body - joints ache, skin is papery, hair greying, toe nails horned and monstrous, and now there's a very young woman in his life. A brilliant student who seems to be interested in him. She has silver hair, pale skin, and slightly webbed hands and feet. Richard is quickly obsessed, trailing around in search of this creature who appears and disappears without seemingly without warning. Perhaps in an effort to pin her down he asks her to marry him and she agrees to it.    

Richard is also a Tennyson scholar, well aware of the poetic irony of falling for a woman 40 years his junior, and the folly of old men blinded by lust - but he remains powerless against his wife's charms - and so at her request they set off for a frequently in Orkney where she - we never learn her name - spends her days on the beach looking out to sea and he sits at the window watching her. 

Initially Richard's narration put me broadly in sympathy with him, he's so aware of his ageing, and how open to ridicule the situation makes him, but also so hopelessly infatuated that he seems just as hopelessly vulnerable. Slowly though his behaviour becomes more menacing, possessive, maybe even violent. There are odd moments as when for example he holds his wife under the water of her bath at her request, or a night when the sex sounds suspicously close to rape. Richard rather gloats over the sex and that again erodes sympathy. 

Word play is an integral part in this novel, Richard and his wife exchange strings of adjectives as a kind of game - some reviews see it as overwriting but I think it works in this context. It feels like a natural way for people who immerse themselves in literature to communicate, and also a natural way to describe a landscape like Orkney where sea, sky, and light are forever shifting - transforming a landscape which itself frequently melts into the rain or mist. Something else that I only really noticed about half way through is that when his wife speaks it's punctuated with inverted commas, Richards speech isn't marked at all which adds to a sense of dislocation from reality already created by the girls physical oddities and the couples relative isolation. 

It's possible that she is entirely a figment of his imagination - we only see her through his eyes but even so she constantly throws doubt on his reliability as a narrator. As Richard tries to tell back the story of their relationship she keeps correcting him. He describes first seeing her on an autumn day in a 'purple sweater, the colour of heather on the heath...' she denies ever owning a purple jumper but also states heather blooms in spring - which Richard accepts - but heather is a late summer flower. I don't think this is a mistake; neither character is reliable. 

I also think this is a book open to being the story you want it to be. This mysterious girl with a fascination for the sea could be a selkie child or more mermaid than woman; something otherworldly intent on seducing a human creature, equally she might be the victim of an older man's obsession, or again, and just as likely she might not exist at all and this is Richards reworking of all the stories he's worked with over his career. Or perhaps as in Edith Olivier's 'The Love Child' Richard has conjured a physical being from fantasy. 

The reviews I've read of 'Orkney' are mixed. I think it works, and would go as far as to say it's a remarkable achievement - but you'll have to judge for yourself what you make of it...   




13 comments:

  1. This sounds as though it would be an interesting follow-up to the book I'm reading at the moment, Graham Joyce's 'Some Kind of Fairy Tale' which also touches upon the traditional tales about the possible intersection between our world and that of a more mysterious existence. I haven't heard of Sackville. Is she part of the literary family?

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    1. I don't know about a family connection with other literary Sackville's. You might also like Alice Thomas Ellis if you don't already know her?

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    2. I haven't read her work for years but I do remember enjoying it. it might just be time for a return visit. Thanks for the memory jog.

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  2. I enjoyed Sackville's first novel, even if it was slightly overwritten (which it was). I treated myself to this one last week, but can't read it until April when my TBR pledge ends :( The is she? / isn't she? a selkie question intrigues me, and reminds me of 'The Snow Child'.

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    1. I thought the writing worked here - I like the idea of an empty landscape waiting to be filled with words, I also felt there was something of an homage to George Mackay Brown as well, and as he's a bit of a favourite I was won over early on. Look forward to seeing what you think.

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  3. I think this is a book to queue up via the library for me, I tried her first book but found it a little overwrought but I think I read it back to back with a short story collection which was never going to work as a segue. I always said I'd give Sackville another try. I love Orkney too, I went to both Orkney and Westray a couple of years ago and loved both. :)

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  4. I'll be interested to see what you make of it. Have you read any George Mackay Brown? (I should just go to your blog to look) If you haven't I'd say it was worth reading him at the same time.

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  5. I'm reading this now (halfway) and love it as I loved her first book. Did the style, with everything filtered through the narrator, remind you of Marilynne Robinson's Gilead and Home?

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    1. Confession time... I've not read her first book or any Marilynne Robinson (yet) though with this as a comparison I'll push her up the list of books to read. If you can find any I would also recommend having a look at some of George Mackay Brown's short stories as there is a definite homage to him in Orkney.

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    2. Yes, I love George Mackay Brown and I'd love to go to Orkney. I also love bloggers who reply to comments, thanks.

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    3. Aah, it's good to meet another GMB fan - even virtually. Orkney is fascinating but then I have a thing for Scottish islands so I guess I'm biased.

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  6. I've just realised you posted your review of 'Orkney' ages ago and I would find it impossible to remember much of a book I read so long ago, but even so (and I promise this will be my last comment or question on it) did you like the wife? I found her tiresome and thought, if she existed, that she was dead lucky to have such an indulgent husband. There's a book of Ronald Blythe's where he goes to visit GMB, it's my favourite chapter in the book.

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  7. There's a distinctly un-human feel about her, and I know we only really have his version of events but she didn't have to marry him, or have any relationship at all with him for that matter, and that's partly why I like to think of her as a selkie woman, because basically no - she didn't seem very likable. There are bits of the book I remember vividly but more of it that's a bit vague now. I'll look up Blythe.

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