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Originally Posted by DiapDealer
Currently reading The North Water by Ian McGuire. Longlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize.
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A nineteenth-century whaling ship sets sail for the Arctic with a killer aboard in this dark, sharp, and highly original tale that grips like a thriller.
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It's a bit more seedy than I would have liked, but we'll see how it turns out. A very short novel. |
A talented author--no doubt. But wow! That's some of the darkest, foulest, bleakest, misanthropic stuff I've ever read. Not a single redeemable character; not a single ray of sunshine to be found. This was not a thriller set aboard a whaling vessel. It was not "Jack London on Crack." It was
Black. Pitch. Freaking.
Black.
Don't get me wrong: "Black" may have been exactly what the author was going for. Kudos if so--he nailed it. And he didn't do anything "wrong" (in fact I think his command of the language is vast). He just wrote a story that I couldn't take
anything positive away from for myself. That doesn't happen very often.
Perhaps the Man Booker judges will love it. Good on Mr. McGuire, if so.