Joseph O'Connor, Star of the Sea
Value For Money
Joseph O'Connor, Star of the Sea
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User Reviews
Value For Money
I Only Started Reading Joseph O'connor, Star Of Th
I only started reading Joseph O'Connor, Star of the Sea this evening and have had to force myself to put it down to get on with other things (= page-turner). I looked up the book on the internet to find out if the heart-rending snippets from the letters at the end of each chapter were from real people (haven't found out yet) but I was so annoyed with other 'reviewers' for giving away things which happen that I felt compelled to write this 'review' for people who haven't yet read the book. Part of the joy of this (any!) book is looking forward to the unravelling of the stories of the principal characters, so I'm not reading any more reviews until I finish the book.
So that's the page-turning element. There is no list of chapter headings, although the book is divided into over 30 short chapters, each concentrating on a part of the story (funnily enough). Unless you flick through the book for the chapter headings, you don't know what's going to happen. Ain't that the point of a good read? And when you do come to a new chapter, the sub-heading is replete with '... in which a Certain Incident causes Consternation ...' (but put much better) which I like.
O'Connor brings alive the contrast between the conditions of the hundreds of starving people in steerage class and the fifteen passengers in champagne class - the 'steeries' wondering how the cream is kept fresh for the first-class passengers when they survive on water and something basic I've never heard of.
O'Connor intertwines the personal stories very skilfully with a 'history lesson', beautifully managed through the use of various authors - the log of the ship's captain (a compassionate Quaker), the American journalist ('nascent socialist' - who doesn't seem to have a problem sitting down to dinner under silk awnings and lambasting the aristocrat opposite, while aware of the rankness of conditions below). The aristocrat doesn't like him, assuming 'he was the kind of radical who is secretly relieved that injustices exist; morality being so easily attainable by saying you found them outrageous'.
And how will the murder take place? (It's made clear early on that a murder will take place).
And who is the Majarajah?
The beauty of the language and the characterisation is what makes me love a book, and so far this has me hooked.
For any new reader, I hope I haven't given too much away. I can't wait to finish it.
I got this out the library (30 people before me had ordered it, thanks to it being recommended by Richard and Judy's book club)so I have only paid a 60p reservation fee.
I have now finished the book and I thought I could therefore add to what I've already written but what I've said stands for the whole book. What I perhaps can add is that it's a beautiful tapestry, interweaving the lives of the protagonists in a truly painful way. You feel anguish for all of them (except the American journalist - but he has the last word.)
If you were a student doing English Literature then you'd be encouraged (nay, obliged!) to see the protagonists as representative of various idealogies and circumstances. I've never been a fan of that kind of interpretation, but it's of course possible. But what makes this novel so readable is O'Connor's faultless writing. Open the book at random and a beautiful, outstanding, sentence will be there. I've just opened it, and: "Well stop lazing, you pimple of mange, if he's so bloodied adamant. We all know you're never done annointing his a***." He uses the right words everywhere, all through. I can't find the actual page, now, but he describes two vagrants at night singing themselves to sleep while the rain softly falls. And then the horror of what happens afterwards - but described so subtly. Arresting images everwhere.
Afterwards, there are lots of reference books and periodicals mentioned. The most interesting are several papers about the connection between Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights and the Ireland of the time. I can't wait to read them!
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