- Hardcover: 232 pages
- Publisher: John Murray Publishers Ltd; illustrated edition edition (16 July 1992)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0719551498
- ISBN-13: 978-0719551499
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16.2 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,359,287 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Review
‘whether he is describing the perils of crossing the Atlantic with nothing to steer by but the moon and the stars, or the fascination felt by a young Orcadian boy at the sumptuous choice of cheeses at the Norwegian court, Mackay Brown enters instinctively into the lives of his characters with exhilarating sureness of touch. A fascinating emotional odyssey, a novel with tone and integrity which cuts surprisingly deep.’
David Robson, Sunday Telegraph
‘Abundant knowledge of lore and legend, skills of seamanship and husbandry weave through the text ,like strands in a magic carpet. Entirely delightful. Mackay Brown writes from the inside, in prose as poised as his tale is fresh and entirely delightful. No writer alive is more refreshing or entertaining than George Mackay Brown at his vintage best.’
Tom Adair, Scotland on Sunday
‘A precise, poetic and dazzling writer’
Guardian
Product Description
This novel of the North Atlantic in the Viking age tells the story of Ranald Sigmundson, who turns his back on a successful life of political intrigues and battles to design a ship to take him on a journey even greater than the first great voyage of his life, the one to Vinland.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
23 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
George Mackay Brown's fourth novel Vinland is the story of Ranald, son of Sigmund Firemouth, who sets sail from his native Orkney to ply trade with Greenland, Norway and Iceland as his forefathers did before him. Through a stroke of fate young Ranald stows away on Leif Ericson's ship the Westseeker, finally to step ashore in America, which Ericson calls Vinland. There the Viking crew encounter an American Indian tribe, calling them the 'skraelings' ('savages'). Young Ranald befriends a skraeling boy, but through a terrible misunderstanding, friendship turns to hatred and the crew of the Westseeker must leave the shores of Vinland.
Thus begins the epic saga of Ranald Sigmund, of his travels in Norway and Ireland, and of his eventual return to Orkney to reclaim the farm of his ancestors. Along the way we meet kings and poets, monks and warriors, we hear the magical tale of St. Brandon and the Isle of the Blessed, and we find ourselves midst the bloody battle of Clontarf in Ireland.
It has been said of Mackay Brown's work that it possesses "a strangeness and magic rare anywhere in literature today", and after reading this short novel you will be convinced of the truth of this. If it were not for the fact that the author hails from Orkney rather than South America, he would have been acknowledged as a master of 'magic realism' long ago. There is a poetic intensity and a visionary quality about his prose that makes you realise that you are reading the work of a contemporary bard or 'skald' as the Vikings would have called him.
The description of the battle of Clontarf and the carrying of the raven banner is one of the most frightening and incandescent descriptions of pitched battle that I have ever read. Few writers today could take you to the heart of a bloody confrontation - fought only with axes, swords and arrows - and simultaneously describe both the horror and the ecstasy experienced by the warriors on the battlefield.
Neither you nor I will ever be able to visit the Dark Ages of the north, but reading Vinland is as good as first-class ticket to the time of the Vikings, when Christianity and the Old Gods vied for the souls and flesh of crofters and warriors alike.George Mackay Brown evokes the sights, the sounds, the smells, even the very tastes of the times in a way that few writers today seem capable of.
If you have ever dreamed of being transported back in time, and if you want to be utterly spellbound by the journey, you cannot afford not to read this book.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a wonderful novel, suffused with an aching melancholy for what might have been. As in all of George Mackay Brown's prose, the greatness of the author is shown by the wealth of meaning which inhabits what is, on the surface, a simply told, straightforward tale.
Format:Paperback
There's no intricate plot here- so not much of a spoiler when I say this is an historical novel set around the time of Macbeth, in which the protagonist visits Vinland in his youth, returns to Orkney, gets married and grows old. But it's the sensitivity and the use of language that makes this really stand out. It's short and beautifully written and you won't want it to end.
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