Afbeelding van de auteur.

Elizabeth Lowry

Auteur van The Bellini Madonna

6+ Werken 158 Leden 8 Besprekingen

Werken van Elizabeth Lowry

Gerelateerde werken

Tagged

Algemene kennis

Geboortedatum
20th Century
Geslacht
female
Geboorteplaats
Washington, D.C., USA
Woonplaatsen
UK
Oxford, Oxfordshire, UK

Leden

Besprekingen

When I’m reading a book, I generally have quite a clear idea of what I like and don’t like about it. However, I must admit Elizabeth Lowry’s Dark Water flummoxed me. It was a novel I lapped up, a real literary page-turner. Yet, throughout, I had this nagging feeling that something wasn’t quite convincing me. Perhaps, by the end of this review, I’ll manage to sort my thoughts out.

The marketing blurbs describe Dark Water as a Gothic novel, whilst comparing it to “Moby Dick” or “Heart of Darkness”. That is, I think, a good place to start. I must say that I was also reminded of the “sea stories” of [a:William Hope Hodgson|51422|William Hope Hodgson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1246727581p2/51422.jpg]. Admittedly, no phantom pirates haunt these pages but there are other terrors aplenty...ooh, yes, there are! And there’s the same sense of claustrophobia which, ironically, can clutch travellers on the open sea and which both Hodgson and Lowry portray so effectively. Lovers of opera will also catch more than a briny whiff of Britten’s marine masterpieces “Billy Budd” or “Peter Grimes”: the latter, especially, in the final part of the novel.

Dark Water, however, also references what I would call the “asylum Gothic”, made popular in Victorian ‘sensation fiction’ and reprised in contemporary novels (Alison Littlewood’s recent [b:The Crow Garden|35550571|The Crow Garden|Alison Littlewood|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1503503465l/35550571._SY75_.jpg|56973925] comes to mind).

The link between these two Gothic environments lies in the main characters. In the first half of the 19th Century, as a newly-qualified physician, narrator Hiram Carver joins the crew of the USS Orbis for a journey from Boston south towards Cape Horn. Aboard ship he befriends William Borden. Though barely older than Hiram, Borden already has a reputation in the seafaring world as the “Hero of the Providence”. Years before, aboard the said ship, Borden negotiated with a group of mutineers for the life of the Captain and a group of sailors, and then led them to safety across the Pacific aboard a fragile dinghy. He’s a living legend, no less. Yet, something seems to trouble the man, and a violent episode on the Orbis threatens to bring his career to a premature end.

Back on the terra firma, Hiram puts his marine adventure behind him and takes up a position at Boston’s Asylum for the Insane. And so, he tells us,

I began to exist on intimate terms with all that is pitiful, misshapen, and unresolved in the human heart

At the asylum, he meets Borden again, this time as a patient. For the sake of their previous friendship, Carver is determined to cure Borden, using a new technique which he has developed, at odds with traditional, less humane, approaches. Carver, in fact, believes that psychological illnesses can be addressed by confronting head-on submerged memories - unwelcome recollections which we tend to bury in our mental “dark water” or, in other words, the “subconscious”. But memory and truth are uncomfortable bedfellows and perhaps, raking up the past is not always a great idea.

Lowry exploits the Gothic possibilities of the plot and, for good measure, provides the reader with some impressive set-pieces which further emphasize the novel’s association with the genre. There is a particularly striking episode in which Carver visits a maimed cousin who lives in a dark mansion,

...so exactly like a house of nightmare: a crooked mausoleum hidden away in a waste land of struggling trees, marooned on scant acres of blasted grass.

The meeting takes place in a room with drawn curtains, where the host quaffs absinthe in a bid for oblivion. There are other memorable scenes set against the wintry backdrop of the bleak Nantucket coastline.

In other words, this is all so very much up my alley. So why my reservations? I guess part of my problem lies with the character of the narrator. He first struck me as an interesting and complex figure, especially in his relationships with the rest of the crew and –on land – with his overbearing father and doting sister. However, as the novel proceeds, so many contradictions surface that, for me at least, he did not remain particularly convincing. He is often weak but, when required, breathtakingly ruthless. He can be patient with his patients, yet brusque and callous with the people closest to him. He is sometimes indolent, sometimes overbearingly ambitious. He can be perceptive and sharp, yet incredibly naive. He’s conflicted about his sexuality. As a psychological study, he’s just too good to be true.

And then there’s Borden. He’s described as a sort of demigod, a supernatural figure. Now I do appreciate that we’re perceiving borden from Carver’s perspective, but the “elevated” language in which he’s consistently presented becomes rather over the top.

This brings me precisely to the distinctive aspect of Dark Water which, I suspect, will also be its most divisive one. Throughout the book, there are several extended metaphors which invite a symbolic or mythical interpretation of the novel. There are, of course, the pervasive ‘marine’ metaphors, not least the evocative image of the “dark water” of our minds. But there are also recurring references to “food”, “hunger”, “thinness” and “leanness”. Hiram’s superior at the asylum nicknames him Cassius because, like the eponymous character in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, he has a “lean and hungry look”. Hunger, or the lack of it, is often indicative of a character’s state of mind.

From there it’s but a brief step to imagery of a religious, theological, dare I say ‘sacramental’ nature. Suffice it to mention, without revealing too much, that certain key episodes in the plot are imbued with ritualistic significance, although it’s not clear whether Lowry’s intention is merely to harness the power of religious associations or to present us with a grotesque parody of holy ceremonies. For me, “Dark Water” worked brilliantly enough as a dark historical novel with psychological undercurrents. This ‘mythical’ element was hardly necessary. But I’m just as sure that others will find that it is precisely this added layer of meaning which gives this novel the edge over other neo-Victorian novels. Anyone with even a passing interest in the Gothic should read this.

***

I have also posted this review at https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2018/08/we-sail-gothic-seas-elizabeth-lowrys.... where it's accompanied by some sea-inspired music.
… (meer)
 
Gemarkeerd
JosephCamilleri | 2 andere besprekingen | Feb 21, 2023 |
A new novel by Elizabeth Lowry has to be an event of some note, the anticipation is palpable.
If her previous two books could be categorised by an extravagance of language, expansive prose, vivid imagery that makes your heart sing then The Chosen is subtly different. The language is there but pared down so that the impact of the book seems to be extracted from the spaces in between the words, the silences following a sentence, what is unspoken rather than what is. A peculiar paradox maybe but how clever!? How skilful is the writer who can achieve such a thing?

Ostensibly the novel examines the aftermath of Thomas Hardy losing his wife, Emma. An unexpected loss that shakes Hardy to his core. The progress of the novel follows the days following her death. Hardy finds some letters and diaries from his late wife that exposes the fractures within their marriage.

Hardy’s confusion is palpable as he meanders his way through the days following his loss. He resorts to much soul-searching of his self and his art. He dreams and one senses at times that he finds his waking life dreamlike as he discovers how much he misses Emma, how often he believes he sees her, discerns her ghostly presence, There is a sense of the languid in the narrative. Ms Lowry has effectively captured those dolorous, wading through treacle, type sensations experienced after an unexpected death that throws your life into slow motion.

The historical research is, as ever, impeccable. It’s palpable. You can almost hear the creak of the stairs and smell the woodwork at Max Gate, Hardy’s house. The attention to detail is perfection. But again that’s part of telling a story. And somehow the everyday details of life add to the funereal mind set that Hardy is engulfed in. But this wouldn’t be an Elizabeth Lowry book if it didn’t have more to say than merely telling us a story! This book has much to say memory and motivation, about life and art, about writing and the life of a writer. The effect of that profession on relationships and, in particular, marriage.I would go so far as to say it returns to some themes explored in Dark Water, concerning freedom.

I couldn’t help but compare this passage…..

“Sometimes I think the whole of literature is a prison, erected on vanity & illusion. It has a thousand gaudy rooms & a million turrets & a grand front to lure the gullible, but it’s a prison all the same, prison that takes constant shoring up and tending.“

…..with this one from Dark Water and wondering whether literature is a freedom disguised as a prison.

“Ma’am, I sense terror in the everyday. And I don’t believe we’ve solved the problem of how to live.We’ve made that terror safe, merely by going along with the old ways and the old forms. We should be free to question, we should be free to reinvent, we should be free to feel that terror, the terrible freedom of being uncertain - but we aren’t; we cling to our false certainty and call it freedom and we can’t see what we’ve really created out of freedom is a prison.”

As I found with the author’s previous books there are so many quotable maxims that seem to hit the nail on the head and offer the reader so much food for thought.

“ He understands, now, that the past hasn’t ended. It lies all around him, of a piece with the present, concealed behind the most innocent things.“

“ Art is just the secret of knowing how to use a false thing to create the effect of a true one.”

“ He’s trying to write books in which the world can shelter, books that have the same red-brick solidity as his house, but all he seems to manage ida lean-to or a hut.“

The imagery, too, is magnificent. They stand well alone but taken in context they are perfection.

‘A cobweb shivers from the banister, brilliant and fresh.‘
‘ His study is chill, but trembling with a shy radiance.‘

‘The house is always hungry.’

But if this seems as if it might be a little too sombre then rest assured for this author’s wit, which is evident in all of her novels, is always present. Sometimes it’s direct, sometimes tongue in cheek, at other times it’s nestling in the spaces between words.

‘Everyone likes to read novels, but I doubt they quite know what to think about novelists.‘

There is an element of risk I imagine, when you base an entire fiction on real people. Thomas Hardy is “recent’ enough for there to be a wealth of information, written and pictorial, about him. The characterisation in this book is just exactly how you would imagine Hardy to be. I love the interaction between Hardy and both his sisters, it was so believable it felt as if I was actually eavesdropping upon their conversations.

This is a book of superior quality. Writing of the highest calibre and astute observations about marriage, relationships, literature, art, regrets, reminiscences all neatly expressed in a fiction about one of English literature’s most revered writers.

Elizabeth Lowry doesn’t ‘just’ write books, she writes literature.

My thanks to Ana McLaughlin at riverrun for a gifted proof.
… (meer)
 
Gemarkeerd
shizz | Apr 20, 2022 |
When I’m reading a book, I generally have quite a clear idea of what I like and don’t like about it. However, I must admit Elizabeth Lowry’s Dark Water flummoxed me. It was a novel I lapped up, a real literary page-turner. Yet, throughout, I had this nagging feeling that something wasn’t quite convincing me. Perhaps, by the end of this review, I’ll manage to sort my thoughts out.

The marketing blurbs describe Dark Water as a Gothic novel, whilst comparing it to “Moby Dick” or “Heart of Darkness”. That is, I think, a good place to start. I must say that I was also reminded of the “sea stories” of [a:William Hope Hodgson|51422|William Hope Hodgson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1246727581p2/51422.jpg]. Admittedly, no phantom pirates haunt these pages but there are other terrors aplenty...ooh, yes, there are! And there’s the same sense of claustrophobia which, ironically, can clutch travellers on the open sea and which both Hodgson and Lowry portray so effectively. Lovers of opera will also catch more than a briny whiff of Britten’s marine masterpieces “Billy Budd” or “Peter Grimes”: the latter, especially, in the final part of the novel.

Dark Water, however, also references what I would call the “asylum Gothic”, made popular in Victorian ‘sensation fiction’ and reprised in contemporary novels (Alison Littlewood’s recent [b:The Crow Garden|35550571|The Crow Garden|Alison Littlewood|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1503503465l/35550571._SY75_.jpg|56973925] comes to mind).

The link between these two Gothic environments lies in the main characters. In the first half of the 19th Century, as a newly-qualified physician, narrator Hiram Carver joins the crew of the USS Orbis for a journey from Boston south towards Cape Horn. Aboard ship he befriends William Borden. Though barely older than Hiram, Borden already has a reputation in the seafaring world as the “Hero of the Providence”. Years before, aboard the said ship, Borden negotiated with a group of mutineers for the life of the Captain and a group of sailors, and then led them to safety across the Pacific aboard a fragile dinghy. He’s a living legend, no less. Yet, something seems to trouble the man, and a violent episode on the Orbis threatens to bring his career to a premature end.

Back on the terra firma, Hiram puts his marine adventure behind him and takes up a position at Boston’s Asylum for the Insane. And so, he tells us,

I began to exist on intimate terms with all that is pitiful, misshapen, and unresolved in the human heart

At the asylum, he meets Borden again, this time as a patient. For the sake of their previous friendship, Carver is determined to cure Borden, using a new technique which he has developed, at odds with traditional, less humane, approaches. Carver, in fact, believes that psychological illnesses can be addressed by confronting head-on submerged memories - unwelcome recollections which we tend to bury in our mental “dark water” or, in other words, the “subconscious”. But memory and truth are uncomfortable bedfellows and perhaps, raking up the past is not always a great idea.

Lowry exploits the Gothic possibilities of the plot and, for good measure, provides the reader with some impressive set-pieces which further emphasize the novel’s association with the genre. There is a particularly striking episode in which Carver visits a maimed cousin who lives in a dark mansion,

...so exactly like a house of nightmare: a crooked mausoleum hidden away in a waste land of struggling trees, marooned on scant acres of blasted grass.

The meeting takes place in a room with drawn curtains, where the host quaffs absinthe in a bid for oblivion. There are other memorable scenes set against the wintry backdrop of the bleak Nantucket coastline.

In other words, this is all so very much up my alley. So why my reservations? I guess part of my problem lies with the character of the narrator. He first struck me as an interesting and complex figure, especially in his relationships with the rest of the crew and –on land – with his overbearing father and doting sister. However, as the novel proceeds, so many contradictions surface that, for me at least, he did not remain particularly convincing. He is often weak but, when required, breathtakingly ruthless. He can be patient with his patients, yet brusque and callous with the people closest to him. He is sometimes indolent, sometimes overbearingly ambitious. He can be perceptive and sharp, yet incredibly naive. He’s conflicted about his sexuality. As a psychological study, he’s just too good to be true.

And then there’s Borden. He’s described as a sort of demigod, a supernatural figure. Now I do appreciate that we’re perceiving borden from Carver’s perspective, but the “elevated” language in which he’s consistently presented becomes rather over the top.

This brings me precisely to the distinctive aspect of Dark Water which, I suspect, will also be its most divisive one. Throughout the book, there are several extended metaphors which invite a symbolic or mythical interpretation of the novel. There are, of course, the pervasive ‘marine’ metaphors, not least the evocative image of the “dark water” of our minds. But there are also recurring references to “food”, “hunger”, “thinness” and “leanness”. Hiram’s superior at the asylum nicknames him Cassius because, like the eponymous character in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, he has a “lean and hungry look”. Hunger, or the lack of it, is often indicative of a character’s state of mind.

From there it’s but a brief step to imagery of a religious, theological, dare I say ‘sacramental’ nature. Suffice it to mention, without revealing too much, that certain key episodes in the plot are imbued with ritualistic significance, although it’s not clear whether Lowry’s intention is merely to harness the power of religious associations or to present us with a grotesque parody of holy ceremonies. For me, “Dark Water” worked brilliantly enough as a dark historical novel with psychological undercurrents. This ‘mythical’ element was hardly necessary. But I’m just as sure that others will find that it is precisely this added layer of meaning which gives this novel the edge over other neo-Victorian novels. Anyone with even a passing interest in the Gothic should read this.

***

I have also posted this review at https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2018/08/we-sail-gothic-seas-elizabeth-lowrys.... where it's accompanied by some sea-inspired music.
… (meer)
 
Gemarkeerd
JosephCamilleri | 2 andere besprekingen | Jan 1, 2022 |
Exhausting!
½
 
Gemarkeerd
bookenthusiast100 | 2 andere besprekingen | Dec 10, 2018 |

Prijzen

Misschien vindt je deze ook leuk

Gerelateerde auteurs

Statistieken

Werken
6
Ook door
3
Leden
158
Populariteit
#133,026
Waardering
½ 3.4
Besprekingen
8
ISBNs
17
Talen
1

Tabellen & Grafieken