The plot isn’t the draw, because it’s less traditional plot than it is setting a scenario in motion and letting the characters bounce off its walls. It’s a held-breath kind of book, where you need to know how it’s going to resolve more than anything, but you must resist flipping ahead, cheater! it's page after page of stubborn standoff and escalating tension and raising of stakes and questioning what's real and what's not and how does something like this end for anyone involved? it will get under your skin, i promise you that. not with excess gore or violence or anything like that. I think the whole point of this book is to make the reader squirm. enjoy!”īecause going any further into trying to describe the plot will a) make the reviewer sound insane and b) ruin the thrill of discovery for the reader. It’s pretty telling that the synopsis on here and the back-cover copy of the ARC is basically, “here are many specific details about what happens in the very very beginning, including pull quotes, which is never done, followed by a vague mini-paragraph about the rest of the book. Here’s the thing, ever since paul tremblay wrote A Head Full of Ghosts and slipped in a character named “karen brissette” whose voice sounded an awful lot like the inside of my own (ghostless) head, i’ve been pestering him with, “am i gonna be in the next book, huh? huh? huh? am i?"īut i am so glad to not be in this one because YEESH. Oooh, goodreads choice awards semifinalist for best horror 2018! what will happen? HAPPY PRIDE MONTH AND ALSO FATHER'S DAY!!
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The daily challenges of life should not stop you from doing what is necessary. Yes the seas are cold and dangerous, but the real message from the setting is that despite having odds against you, there are still things that need to be taken care of. You couldn’t walk alone between two sunrises and hustle the meat for your belly” The isolation from land shows that there is no escape from reality. The brutality of the sea shows the reality of life. The seas in The Sea Wolf serve as an isolated environment. The seas are mentally and physically exhausting as repeatedly stated by Hump. The men are out in the cold and brutal Alaskan seas hunting in the ocean in order to make a living. I feel like the best way to describe the setting of The Sea Wolf is to compare it to the popular show, Deadliest Catch, as mentioned in this blog post. The Ghost and Wolf Larsen meet these standards. To spend most of your life on the ocean requires a tough boat and a tough leader. Only few can truly survive the deep seas. Once, in a gust, the rail dipped under the sea, and the decks on that side were for the moment awash with water that made a couple of the hunters hastily lift their feet.” We were travelling faster, and heeled farther over. The sea had turned a dull leaden grey and grown rougher, and was now tossing foaming whitecaps to the sky. ” The wind had been momentarily increasing, and the sun, after a few angry gleams, had disappeared.
She is our way into the story, she maps out our way through it, and she judges us in the end. Duszejko is the heart, the essence, the meaning and the end of “Drive Your Plow”. Tokarczuk created a Character (with a big, bold, capital “C”) like no other. Duszejko isn’t a brooding sailor exposing the cruelty, corruption and foibles of upper-class French society, but she most definitely is woman in her 60s doing the same for the chauvinistic, cruel, corrupt, hunting neighbours around her. Now cast it all in fantastic prose, tie it to Blake, to Eastern European history, to morality plays and religious texts, and finally, to the ultimate revenge narrative, “The Count of Monte Cristo”. Now set it in a “Fargo” like setting, including the hostile weather, the small town, the eccentric people, and the quirky, pragmatic and deeply insightful main character (if this is ever made into a movie, Frances McDormand would make a perfect Mrs. Imagine an Agatha Christie like murder mystery (and that already is high praise, because Christie knew how to spin a murder mystery plot like few other writers do). “Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead” by Olga Tokarczuk (the Nobel prize in literature winner) is an astounding novel. |