- Hardcover: 224 pages
- Publisher: John Murray Publishers Ltd; Reprint edition (24 Mar 1994)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0719553687
- ISBN-13: 978-0719553684
- Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 13.5 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 645,286 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
In this novel set on the fictitious island of Norday in the Orkneys, George Mackay Brown beckons us into the imaginary world of the young Thorfinn Ragnarson, the son of a crofter. In his day-dreams he relives the history of this island people, travelling back in time to join Viking adventurers at the court of the Byzantine Emperor in Constantinople, then accompanying a Falstaffian knight to the battle of Bannockburn.;Thorfinn wakes to the twentieth century and a community whose way of life, steeped in legend and tradition, has remained unchanged for centuries. But as the boy grows up - and falls in love with a vivacious and mysterious stranger - the transforming effect of modern civilization brings momentous and irreversible changes to the island. During the Second World War Thorfinn finds himself in a German prisoner-of-war camp, and it is here that he discovers his gifts as a writer. Long afterwards he returns, now a successful novelist, to a deserted and battle-scarred island. Searching for the peace and freedom of mind he had in abundance as a child, he finds instead something he didn't even know he was looking for.; George Mackay Brown intertwines myth and reality to create a novel of deceptive simplicity. The story of Thorfinn and the island of Norday is a universal and profound one, rooted in the timeless landscape of the Orkneys, the inspiration of all his writing.
From the Back Cover
Thorfinn, a crofter's son living on the remote island of Norday, is a dreamy boy ; 'idle and useless' according to his teachers. Bored by school, happier wandering the shores of his island home, he escapes into the limitless world of his imagination. Closing his eyes in the 1930s he dreams of crossing the 'fish-fraught' ocean with Viking raiders. Falling asleep to the monotonous tones of a history lesson he finds himself running from the press gang into the arms of a beautiful seal-maiden who longs to return to the sea. War and adventure, the struggles of great men and the everyday toil of the fisherfolk, Thorfinn dreams the sweep of Norday's history, its life and its inevitable death…
"His finest novel yet: we are reading this author at the height of his powers."
THE TIMES
"The great ocean of time has been more widely sailed and more deeply trawled by George Mackay Brown than by any other writer in Scottish literature. Rich in poetry, emblazoned with marvellous imagery…a millennial reach in which every heron and seal is the embodiment of all its predecessors, every fisherman a descendant of those who harvested the same waters before him."
GLASGOW HERALD
"…mythic stories that affirm the human spirit, clad in a prose of sinuous beauty. George Mackay Brown remains one of our truly inimitable novelists."
DAILY TELEGRAPH
"…richness and colour, wonderful prose and imagery, and through it all you breathe the peat smoke of the croft, the wip of the wind which beats up the spray of the northern seas. A Mackay Brown novel is an event to be savoured, to be read over and over again for its subtleties. It is a joy."
EDINBURGH EVENING NEWS
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
29 of 29 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This was the first George MacKay Brown book I ever read and since then I have managed to read everything in print by this great, under-rated author. He is one of those incredibly rare talents that could paint a picture with a word, descride a life in a page or the history of a people in a chapter. A true storyteller that brought the story of his people(the orcadians) to the world. This book centres on a young boy growing up on an Orkney island and how he see's his world steeped in myth and legend and coloured with characters from the past and present. The author takes the reader into another world of dreams and passions until the end of the book that comes all too quickly. Read this book and experience the lost art of storytelling.
25 of 25 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I have come to George Mackay Brown very late in life and find it rather fascinating that, once a fortnight, I flew over everything he writes of on my way to and from North Sea oil platforms situated north of the Shetlands. I am now too old and infirm to manage to travel to the Orkney Isles which he describes so well, so must content myself with seeking out his works in Amazon's lists. They are well worth the hunt. Anyone with an interest in such things as the sea, small communities, folk, and life in general should take a peek into his books. They are all great volumes to have at the bedside, especially for those interminable insomniac hours: never waste those hours again if you have his books to hand.
22 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A moving tale suffused with magic, poetry and a deep wisdom. From Orkney's greatest Bard, the pages reveal the life of an islander from birth to death, as straighforward and extraordinary as any life.
As with all GMB's work the language is remarkably simple and yet deeply symbolic. Shortlisted for the Booker prize, this work speaks as perfectly and poetically of our green islands as it does of the nature of man and his place in the universe.
This is the work of a truly great poet. Read it!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Beside the Ocean of Time
A refreshingly different book. The author was born and lived in the Orkney Islands and in this novel he writes in beautiful poetic language about the island of Norday and certain... Read more
Published 20 months ago by clayton
Delight!
A delight to read.
An amazing array of characters, all unique and yet bound together with their common environment. Read more
An amazing array of characters, all unique and yet bound together with their common environment. Read more
Published on 10 Feb 2009 by Jean C. Macbride
Truly magical
I read this book a couple of months ago and found it absolutely engrossing. I too thought it may have been written for younger people, but I think it will appeal to anyone who... Read more
Published on 15 Aug 2008 by Siblah
The Charm of the Orkneys
Like the previous reviewers, I have only just discovered G M Brown, and I certainly expect to read more of his work in the future. Read more
Published on 26 Mar 2008 by David
simply magificent
This is the first book by George Mackay Brown that I have read. It won't be the last. Superb storytelling, wonderful, lyrical language. Read more
Published on 21 Feb 2007 by Mr. Re Williams
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