- Paperback: 304 pages
- Publisher: Picador USA; Reprint edition (Jan 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0312423322
- ISBN-13: 978-0312423322
- Product Dimensions: 14 x 21.3 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 3,478,975 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Alec Marquand never speaks. He never willingly communicates with another person. He is very old now, close to the end of his life, and incarcerated in a mental hospital. But it wasn't always like this. Once he was a young man, an archaeologist fresh out of college mapping the Stone Age in Scotland, and there, on the remote and much feared Island of Silence, he discovered a secret destined to haunt him the rest of his life -- a beautiful girl. Given time, their strange and fleeting relationship might have blossomed into something more, who knows? He never got to find out. WWI took him away, spit him out on a totally different sort of island under a rain of bullets, and baptized him in a carnage too horrible to remember. He has not spoken since, but he has never forgotten the girl.
Written from Alec's point of view in chapters alternating between his adventures as a young man and his life now as an old one, ISLANDS OF SILENCE is a strangely haunting novel. Although I found it slow going and in places was bored to the point of skipping whole paragraphs that seemingly had little to do with the plot, the prose was poetic, the details singularly perfect, and I worked my way through to the last page and was rewarded by an end satisfyingly appropriate for a story as mystical and sad as this one. Martin Booth has created here a horrific portrait of war, painting the devastation in chapters I will not soon forget. It would be hard to call ISLANDS OF SILENCE a love story; equally difficult to consider it a coming-of-age novel. Rather, it is a beautifully if sluggishly written account of one man's attempts to come to grips with a world that has hurt him too much.
Readers who enjoy complex, mystical tales of love and loss will most likely find ISLANDS OF SILENCE a brilliant addition to their collection.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
"Islands of Silence", by Martin Booth is one of the finest books I have read in quite some time. This work has been compared to some classics in the genre and while in most instances this type of comparison is empty hyperbole, this work is remarkable and the comparisons are legitimate.
The irony, of the eventual role men who refused to inflict violence against their fellow man would play, is that they would often face the same dangers and peril and do so unarmed. The young man who is at the center of this novel becomes a stretcher bearer in the trenches of World War I, a locale that ranks as one of the most miserable man-made atrocities of History and Literature.
Prior to the war our protagonist is a young archeologist working amongst the Islands of Scotland in search of the history they hold. During his work he meets a young woman who is at once the victim of ignorance and cruelty while she enjoys her life without the benefit and burden of knowing how she came to her existence. She represents an enigma that the author places at the center of Alec's life. As a result of his wartime experiences Alec chooses to remain mute, voluntarily adopting as a defense the same characteristic his island friend had thrust upon her.
Mr. Booth writes beautifully even when his prose takes on brutality that reminded me of Steinbeck. Like the author I mention he can take a placid afternoon moment, and in an instant shatter it and the persons unfortunate enough to be present. "Islands of Silence", is a wonderful work, enjoy.
The irony, of the eventual role men who refused to inflict violence against their fellow man would play, is that they would often face the same dangers and peril and do so unarmed. The young man who is at the center of this novel becomes a stretcher bearer in the trenches of World War I, a locale that ranks as one of the most miserable man-made atrocities of History and Literature.
Prior to the war our protagonist is a young archeologist working amongst the Islands of Scotland in search of the history they hold. During his work he meets a young woman who is at once the victim of ignorance and cruelty while she enjoys her life without the benefit and burden of knowing how she came to her existence. She represents an enigma that the author places at the center of Alec's life. As a result of his wartime experiences Alec chooses to remain mute, voluntarily adopting as a defense the same characteristic his island friend had thrust upon her.
Mr. Booth writes beautifully even when his prose takes on brutality that reminded me of Steinbeck. Like the author I mention he can take a placid afternoon moment, and in an instant shatter it and the persons unfortunate enough to be present. "Islands of Silence", is a wonderful work, enjoy.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I have more than once been sold a book by it's cover but this was one of the greats - it grabbed me as I walked past the the BHF charity shop in Tiverton and although I tried to walk past it wouldn't let me, it hauled me back and hence into the worlds of Martin Booth. You have to admit it's beautiful, this solemn enigmatic face suggests a man who knows that he is looking into the abyss and a more perfect image would have been hard to find - it suggests in its absolute stillness that this miraculous and unique human universe that exists in every one of us was about to be shattered into non-existence by the ever-repeating and uncaring callousness of governments about to go to war across a continent, and knew it.
The book itself could seem slight at first but it's a tale that won't let go of the reader and worms it way deeper as time passes. Alex's strangely logical reponse of a lifetime of silence when only one incident in all his long life tempts him to break that silence only to be lost by it's momentary nature, is oddly convincing.
I may have come to Martin Booth's fiction on the cheap but bought the rest of his output in quick succession. His autobiography of his childhood in Hong Kong is a marvel and his early death was a great loss to literature. He deserves to be more widely known.
"Gweilo" is probably the best of his books to start with and the novel "Hirosima Joe" is built on one of the characters he met in that Hong Kong childhood. The other favourite of mine is "A Very Private Gentleman". Although almost all the novels deal with ultimately unfulfilled or tragic lives they don't depress. They simply chronicle the fate that the world throws at some individuals and their frequent inability to recognise, in the split second available to some but not to others, their one chance of escape.
The book itself could seem slight at first but it's a tale that won't let go of the reader and worms it way deeper as time passes. Alex's strangely logical reponse of a lifetime of silence when only one incident in all his long life tempts him to break that silence only to be lost by it's momentary nature, is oddly convincing.
I may have come to Martin Booth's fiction on the cheap but bought the rest of his output in quick succession. His autobiography of his childhood in Hong Kong is a marvel and his early death was a great loss to literature. He deserves to be more widely known.
"Gweilo" is probably the best of his books to start with and the novel "Hirosima Joe" is built on one of the characters he met in that Hong Kong childhood. The other favourite of mine is "A Very Private Gentleman". Although almost all the novels deal with ultimately unfulfilled or tragic lives they don't depress. They simply chronicle the fate that the world throws at some individuals and their frequent inability to recognise, in the split second available to some but not to others, their one chance of escape.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Islands of Silence - Martin Booth
A superb and beautiful use of the English language to describe one man's private journey through life. Achingly poignant, and evocative of a period.
Published 11 months ago by Mrs. Philippa Hogan
A most incredible love story, and a rather sad tale
I thoroughly enjoyed Martin Booth's Island of Silence and unlike many of the other reviewers here I did find the book more of a love story rather than the horrific experiences of a... Read more
Published 21 months ago by Thomas Koetzsch
islands of silence
Martin Booth is a writer who deserves far greater recognition. This was the first book of his that I have read and it was wonderful. Read more
Published on 27 Sep 2009 by diane green
Moving and enigmatic: superb
Having read other books by Booth, Hiroshima Joe, Industry of souls, I was expecting a good read and I was not dissapointed, Booth seems to specialise ( used to that is ) in stories... Read more
Published on 10 April 2009 by Rynnem
Dont talk about it !
I enjoy Martin Booths novels. Worth the read, but not one of his best. Try Industry of Souls.
Published on 18 Mar 2009 by Paul at Bank
Gripping stuff
I've never been much of a book worm and have read loads of thrillers over the years, but Martin Booth is sheer class and has helped me appreciate good writing. Read more
Published on 14 Jun 2006 by R. J. Brown
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