The Light Between 2 Oceans Stedman Book Review Questiojs

The Light Between Oceans is, I discovered when I'd finished reading it for Book Gild, a debut novel.  I wish I had known that when I began – but more of that afterwards.  For diverse reasons we were a somewhat depleted grouping when we met to discuss the book, and there wasn't a human being in sight.  Without exception, we thoroughly enjoyed what we'd read, but all agreed that it was a story for women rather than for men.

Hook

The story begins with an splendid hook: on the day of the miracle.  What could have happened, we wanted to know, to make this and then special a day?  What was information technology that the protagonist, Isabel, had experienced for her to brand this statement?   As readers, nosotros felt compelled to read on to find out.

THEME

The theme, too, was admirably set out on the get-go page: 'atomic number 82 u.s.a. not into temptation . . . deliver u.s. from evil' Isabel prayed beside the small, newly made grave at which she was kneeling.

Information technology was on that prayer, and the book's championship, that the whole ethos of the story hinged.  And what a clever premise it was!  For Isabel – Issy – and her married man, Tom, are led into temptation; they are non delivered from evil.  But unlike the conflict in almost stories, there was no clear-cut skillful and evil.  No coercion to take ane side or the other.

STORY

In the book, Janus is an island off the coast of Australia.  Remote and rocky, it is set betwixt two oceans, treacherous waters that require a lighthouse to warn the aircraft of its dangers.  Tom, who has served in the Get-go World War and wants, now, to escape the rigours of ordinary life, takes on the job of lighthouse keeper.  Married, eventually, to Issy, the 2 endure the tragic loss of not one, just three, babies.  With splendid depictions of both the trauma of war and death, who tin arraign them for the decisions they have on the day of the miracle?

Faced with a boat that has washed up on shore, carrying a human being who is deceased and a baby (his daughter?) who is live but distraught, what would you do?  Just a fortnight afterward the loss of her own babe, Issy suckles the child, bonds with her, and persuades her married man that this is God's provision – not only for them, merely for the orphaned child besides.

Simply the baby is not an orphan.  And herein lies the dilemma; the conflict; the coercion to read on.

Disharmonize

For just equally the mythological Janus is a Roman god of beginnings and endings, whose double confront looks both means, so, as well, is the reader baffled as to which side to look to for right or wrong.  And just as the lighthouse on the island served the sailors on two conflicting oceans, where they met in turmoil, then too, did our sense of moral obligation meet in turmoil with our emotions.  At that place were, nosotros all agreed, no easy answers here.

STRENGTHS

Stedman's strengths are many.  The losses of state of war are likened to the holes in Swiss cheese.  The churning seas are likened to 'white paint, milky thick, the foam occasionally scraped off long plenty to reveal a deep blue undercoat.'  And of the protocol demanded of him in his job, Tom acknowledges that 'yous could kill a man with rules . . . yet sometimes they were what stood between a human and savagery.'  Lines similar: 'no one is just the worst affair they always did,' or 'putting down the brunt of a prevarication meant giving upwardly the freedom of the dream' are profound, and designed to get us thinking.

WEAKNESSES

Fortunately, the strengths far outweighed the weaknesses.  For me, every bit an author, however, the book began with too much Tell and not enough Bear witness.  Changes of tense and viewpoint also slowed downwardly the story as far as I was concerned.  And then much so that I gave up on my get-go reading a year or and so agone.  Thank goodness, though, that one of my Volume Guild members chose this volume, and thus forced my hand.  The narrative, and the truths of pity and mercy information technology conveyed, will long alive on in my memory.

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Author of a number of books, one a Lord's day Times No iv Bestseller, Mel Menzies runs an Online Book Gild and is too an experienced Speaker at live events, as well equally on Radio and TV. This article, in its original form, can exist found at http://www.melmenzies.co.u.k.

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