Remote and islanded

 

    I'd had Sarah Orne Jewett's The Country of the Pointed Firs in my sights for a while as so many visitors here had recommended it, and I'm not sure why I chose it as the first book for my Kindle except that it felt as though it would be a lovely way to begin a new reading experience, and so it proved to be.

    Less a novel and more a series of interlinked sketches of a fishing village on the Maine coast in the last years of the nineteenth century, its strengths seem to be in its author's heart and her feeling for what is inside a person: the inner life which may never be obvious but which informs so much. The unnamed narrator is a young woman who spends the summer in Dunnet Landing lodging with Mrs. Almira Todd, "landlady, herbgatherer and rustic philosopher", and through her she comes to know the small, isolated community and begins to hear the rhythms of its people's lives.

    This may sound a bit 'safe' and 'homely', for example, many events are remembered, referred to, not directly experienced within the narrative, so it's a book of recollections and observations, but the pen portraits of the people who feature show every line and mark of a life having been lived, and the stories told are every bit as affecting in their gentle, reminiscent style as if they'd been taking place, starkly, right in front of us.

     So we meet an elderly captain who had "overset his mind with too much reading" [a lesson to us all] whose voyage to the far north gives rise to strange experiences, and a widower fisherman who still mourns his wife but finds solace in his neat-as-a-pin home, and his off-season custom: "I lay in my winter's yarn an' set here where 'tis warm, and knit and take my comfort." There are others, too, who have grown to fit their lives, accepting, adapting and finding the peace that allows a settled existence.

     "In the life of each of us ... there is a place remote and islanded, and given to endless regret or secret happiness; we are each the uncompanioned hermit and recluse of an hour or a day; we understand our fellows of the cell to whatever age of history they may belong."

    Nostalgic, comforting, heartening, this is a book to savour and return to.

Comments

[Linda C.]

What a lovely review of my all time favorite book. The first time I read it, it took over two years because I didn't want it to end and savored every word until, nearing the end, I allotted myself a chapter a month! Little did I realize I would come back to the book and read it many times, over and over again. Thank you for giving it its due in your review.

[Cornflower]

Linda, I'm so glad you feel I've done the book justice - it is a delight!

[JoAnn]

Beautiful review - this has been on my tbr list for far too long!

[LizF]

I really want to read this book and thought that I had struck lucky when I spotted that the library had a single copy in its reserve. However when I requested it, it could not be found so it looks as though I am going to have to buy one if I can find one I can afford
(I'm still musing over whether to ask for a KIndle for Christmas!)

[Julie Fredericksen]

Looking at your profile, I'm guessing you are British??? Is there no interlibrary loan over there? Or a "state" library? I'm so lucky because the North Dakota State Library is just a few blocks from my house.

[Linda C.]

This book is available free online at several sources. Just Google "Country of the Pointed Firs." If you want a printed copy, it is widely available in very inexpensive paper copies, both new and used.

[LizF]

I shouldn't really complain about our library, Julie, as it is a very good facility and saves me a lot of money in the long run and from comments on other blogs about libraries, I think that we are pretty well served with the stock it has compared with others.
Our main library in Harrogate is currently closed until October 18 as they are moving from the temporary building where it has been based for the past two years, back to the 'proper' library building which has been modernised and extended - and I can't tell you how much I have missed it.
We do have inter library loan but at a cost and I don't use it all that often - if it is a book that I really want and not available from the county stocks, I tend to buy it unless the prices are silly and I think that that is what I will do with Country of the Pointed Firs!
You do seem to have a very good library system in the USA though - it sounds as though they provide really good service!

[Becky]

Yay, libraries! As a Mainer, I had to read various Jewett works (come to think of it, I have several Jewetts as students in my classes. Hmm. Have to ask about that!) in my early schooling, but I have neglected her since. Perhaps I will retry--maybe as an audiobook. Thanks for reminding me: she'd be quite a change from my current diet of Ian Carmichael reading Lord Peter!