About book The Inn At The Edge Of The World (2000)
As you'll imagine, it was the wonderful title that drew me to this book. The novel itself isn't, to be honest, quite as wonderful, but it's by no means a poor thing: I did like it, but it was a bit of a let-down after the title! Eric, an Englishman who's bought a cottage hotel on a remote Hebridean island in the hopes that the isolation will stop his wife from sleeping around, places an ad in the English papers suggesting his hostelry as the ideal place for an Escape Christmas holiday. Five disparate people seize on the idea, and travel separately to spend a few days in seclusion among the islanders . . . and, it seems, the selkies; the islander called Finlay and his unnamed sister-in-law seem to be beyond even selkiedom, to be archetypal beings of some unidentified kind. What follows is really a comedy -- or tragicomedy -- of manners with supernatural overtones: I grinned a lot, laughed aloud a couple of times. The narrative technique is interesting too: an almost aggressive use of multiple viewpoints which is quite unsettling (in a good sense). All in all, a well spent few hours.
This novel has such a wonderful title, but I was disappointed that I never really settled into the story. The novel isn't divided into traditional chapters and without the break of chapters, I felt like I was slogging through a novel heavy on interior dialogue and light on plot. I had reached somewhere around page 130 before I sensed that something might happen. Maybe. Like the novel's remote locale of a Scottish island, the story always seemed distant to me as if I were watching the characters with binoculars from the mainland.Five people, all attempting to escape Christmas assemble at the Inn at Edge of the World find that they can run, but they can't escape themselves. There are atmospheric moments, hints of mythical magic, and some witty discourse, but those things really couldn't save this slow novel for me. It probably would have been better had I been familiar with Celtic mythology of selkies, but really, I couldn't wait to escape the Inn at the Edge of the World.
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I am almost finished with this story of a bunch of misfits who decide to spend Christmas "away from it all" . No one is happy including the Innkeeper and his wife and not one bit of Christmas ever arrives in this story. I kept hoping that someone would relent, break down and put up a Christmas tree, sing a Carol, or something. No. Given all that, it still is very interesting. I cannot say that I don't like it. I do. I have about 20 pages or so to go and I do see hints of "the paranormal" but cannot figure the how or why it is IN the story at all. There is a part of me that wonders if this is a Brigadoon? Will write more when I am done.
—Anne
Bought this as it was recommended in Waterstones and had a Christmas theme and I thought it would get me in the spirit.I have only read one other book written by a woman (The Shipping News) not consciously. It was brought to my attention while watching the Tv book club and I checked my shelf to find an absolute collection of male writers. I am now on a quest to further my reading of female literature.Unfortunately I found this to the detriment of women who write maybe not due to a fault in this book but from me reading an Iain Banks book at the same time and no one can compete with Banks at the moment for me.Step up Dostoyevsky..
—Dan Mead
The 'edge of the world' in this case is a remote Hebridean island, off the coast of Scotland. Wanting to avoid Christmas and all its trappings, five people gather at the inn on this island - the proprietor also wanting to avoid the festive season, and drum up some sorely needed trade - to spend the weekend trying to forget what the rest of the country is up to, each for their own reasons.They don't know each other before they arrive, and since there's not much else to do on the island except take walks and sit around chatting they soon start to get the measure of each other - or so they think.It's an odd little tale about an odd group of people, and I quite enjoyed it.
—Wendy Howard
