- Hardcover: 208 pages
- Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd (6 Mar 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0224059343
- ISBN-13: 978-0224059343
- Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 14.2 x 2.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,120,305 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"There aren't many novelists whose latest offering would make me abandon everything, but Shena Mackay is one." -- "Mail on Sunday"
"She writes like an angel wielding a scalpel, dissecting her characters with sublime, sharp-edged prose." -- "Guardian"
"She writes like an angel wielding a scalpel, dissecting her characters with sublime, sharp-edged prose." -- "Guardian"
"From the Hardcover edition." --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Book Description
'A slender, intelligent fiction written in ravishing prose-If I read a better novel this year, I shall think myself lucky' Sunday Telegraph
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Heligoland is one of Shena Mackay's most accomplished novels and is a beautiful meditation on friendship, family and belonging. The characters are deftly drawn and the book is infused with a tender humour. Rightly shortlisted for the Whitbread and Orange prizes, Heligoland is one of my books of the year.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I had doubts about this novel. The opening pages just didn't make me warm to it and it took some persistence before I could really get into it an enjoy it. The theme of the story is quite distinctive. The main character is an unfortunate, a person who has no roots or family who has been made to go through life as a supplicant, being grateful for the meagre scraps that she has been given. It was interesting to read a story where the main character is the one constantly ill at ease with the confident people who surrounds her, feeling inadequate and unworthily of their company, not the sort of thing you might expect to be enjoyable reading or a make for an endearing main character. The writing did improve as the story unfolded and it became evident that Shena Mackay was skilful in writing her main character, avoiding writing a character that slips into petty resentment or self pitying. Similarly I was impressed with the ending. At first it might seem disjointed, but if you're the sort of person who believes the world and your place in it is how you see it and then the next moment you discover that it's not like that at all, the result will be a happily disjointed revelation.
Format:Paperback
Most of the characters in Shena Mackay's book are looking back with nostalgia on a past which is over and cannot be repeated. The main protagonist, Rowena Snow, has even more to regret. Orphaned twice (her parents died when she was a baby; her beloved aunt when she is a young child), she is sent to an overliberal boarding school run by an ineffectual married couple. Never given a chance to fulfil her potential or make friends, she joins the dying community at the Nautilus. Will she at last have an opportunity for happiness and belonging? Will her presence revive the community?
This is not an action driven plot, rather it is contemplative and beautifully written.
This is not an action driven plot, rather it is contemplative and beautifully written.
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