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The North Water de Ian McGuire

The North Water

Autor Ian McGuire
en Limba Engleză Paperback – 14 mar 2017

La prima vedere, The North Water pare a fi un alt roman de aventuri maritime în tradiția clasică, însă cititorul descoperă rapid o explorare viscerală a depravării umane, unde gheața Arcticii este mai blândă decât natura celor de la bord. Ne-a atras atenția modul în care Ian McGuire refuză orice urmă de romantism specific epocii victoriene, înlocuindu-l cu un realism brutal, aproape tactil. Găsim în această carte o confruntare arhetipală între Patrick Sumner, un medic militar bântuit de traumele asediului Delhi-ului, și Henry Drax, un harponier a cărui amoralitate pare o forță a naturii. Atmosfera te trimite cu gândul la The Terror de Dan Simmons, deși Ian McGuire renunță la elementele supranaturale în favoarea unei orori psihologice mult mai ancorate în realitatea istorică. Notăm cu interes cum autorul folosește contextul vânătorii de balene nu doar ca fundal, ci ca o metaforă pentru supraviețuirea în condiții extreme, unde instinctul primează în fața legii. Față de o altă lucrare a sa, The Abstainer, care explorează obsesia și răzbunarea în Manchester-ul secolului al XIX-lea, în The North Water, McGuire izolează aceste teme într-un spațiu claustrofobic, înconjurat de întunericul înghețat. Ritmul este implacabil, susținut de o proză tăioasă care redă cu precizie mizeria, frigul și fragilitatea condiției umane în fața unui peisaj indiferent. Este o lectură densă, premiată și recunoscută internațional, care redefinește ficțiunea istorică prin onestitatea sa crudă.

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Specificații

ISBN-13: 9781250118141
ISBN-10: 125011814X
Pagini: 272
Dimensiuni: 139 x 211 x 22 mm
Greutate: 0.23 kg
Editura: Henry Holt & Company

De ce să citești această carte

Pentru cititorii care apreciază ficțiunea istorică fără menajamente și atmosferele tensionate. Veți câștiga o perspectivă fascinantă, deși sumbră, asupra vieții pe o balenieră în secolul al XIX-lea, într-o poveste despre moralitate și supraviețuire. Este recomandarea ideală dacă v-au plăcut producțiile cinematografice de tip „survival” sau romanele care explorează limitele rezilienței umane în medii ostile.

Despre autor

Ian McGuire a crescut lângă Hull, Anglia, un oraș cu o bogată istorie maritimă, element care se reflectă profund în opera sa. A studiat la Universitatea din Manchester și la Universitatea din Virginia, devenind ulterior cofondator și director al Centrului pentru Scriere Nouă de la Universitatea din Manchester. Experiența sa academică și critică este vizibilă în precizia stilistică a scrierilor sale. McGuire este un autor care pendulează între critică literară și beletristică, prozele sale scurte fiind publicate în reviste de prestigiu precum „The Paris Review”. Prin romanele sale, el reușește să revitalizeze genul istoric, aducând o profunzime psihologică modernă unor cadre temporale riguros documentate.

Descriere scurtă

"A fast-paced, gripping story set in a world of gruesome violence and perversity, where 'why?' is not a question and murder happens on a whim: but where a very faint ray of grace and hope lights up the landscape of salt and blood and ice. A tour de force of narrative tension and a masterful reconstruction of a lost world that seems to exist at the limits of the human imagination." --Hilary Mantel
This is a novel that takes us to the limits of flesh and blood. Utterly convincing and compelling, remorselessly vivid, and insidiously witty, "The North Water" is a startling achievement. --Martin Amis
A nineteenth-century whaling ship sets sail for the Arctic with a killer aboard in this dark, sharp, and highly original tale that grips like a thriller.
Behold the man: stinking, drunk, and brutal. Henry Drax is a harpooner on the "Volunteer," a Yorkshire whaler bound for the rich hunting waters of the arctic circle. Also aboard for the first time is Patrick Sumner, an ex-army surgeon with a shattered reputation, no money, and no better option than to sail as the ship's medic on this violent, filthy, and ill-fated voyage.
In India, during the Siege of Delhi, Sumner thought he had experienced the depths to which man can stoop. He had hoped to find temporary respite on the "Volunteer," but rest proves impossible with Drax on board. The discovery of something evil in the hold rouses Sumner to action. And as the confrontation between the two men plays out amid the freezing darkness of an arctic winter, the fateful question arises: who will survive until spring?
With savage, unstoppable momentum and the blackest wit, Ian McGuire's "The North Water" weaves a superlative story of humanity under the most extreme conditions."

Notă biografică

Ian McGuire grew up near Hull and studied at the University of Manchester and the University of Virginia, USA. In 2007 he co-founded the University of Manchester's Centre for New Writing. He is the author of Incredible Bodies, the 2016 Man Booker-longlisted novel The North Water for which he won the Royal Society of Literature's Encore Award, and The Abstainer. White River Crossing is his latest novel.

Descriere

Descriere de la o altă ediție sau format:
A 19th-century whaling ship sets sail for the Arctic with a killer aboard in this dark, sharp and highly original novel, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2016

Recenzii

'A stunning novel that snares the reader from the outset and keeps the tightest grip until its bitter end'
'A novel that takes us to the limits of flesh and blood. Utterly convincing and compelling, remorselessly vivid and insidiously witty.'
'Horrifically gripping'
'Full of twists, turns, period detail and strong characters'
'The North Water has exceptional power and energy'
'Terrific – seamed with pitch-black humour and possessed of a momentum that's kept up to the final scene'
'A superbly compelling suspense narrative'
‘The North Water is brilliant. A fast paced gripping story set in a world where ‘why’ is not a question and murder happens on a whim; but where a faint ray of grace and hope lights up the landscape of salt and blood and ice’ – Hilary Mantel

‘Riveting and darkly brilliant . . . The North Water feels like the result of an encounter between Joseph Conrad and Cormac McCarthy in some run down port as they offer each other a long, sour nod of recognition. McGuire has an extraordinary talent’ - Colm Toibin, New York Times

‘The strength of The North Water lies in its well researched detail and persuasive descriptions of the cold, violence, cruelty and the raw, bloody business of whale killing. The Volunteer is rotten from the outset . . . The ship becomes a morally null universe, isolated on the north water. There are echoes here of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness’ - Helen Dunmore, The Guardian

‘McGuire delivers not only arresting depictions of bloody destruction, but moments of fine prose that recall Seamus Heaney's harsh music. For noirish thrills in an unusual setting, McGuire has the goods and the gore’ - Kirkus Reviews

'Blood, blubber and appalling human violence saturate a tale of a doomed 19th century whaling voyage to the Arctic' - Sunday Times

'Set in the late 19th century, this is the tale of Patrick Sumner, a former army surgeon who joins a whaler bound for the waters of the Arctic Circle. Why would he take on such a dangerous task? He has a secret to hide. Also worth noting is that Ian McGuire's vivid novel is full of the smells of Victorian Hull, which include the "morning piss stink of just emptied night jars", "the usual tavern stench farts and pipe smoke and spilled ale", "the roaring stench of excrement and decay"; the "residual smell of horse dung and butchery"...I could go on' - Times

'This terse and grisly novel about the last days of the whaling industry is joint favourite to win the Man Booker Prize' - Sunday Telegraph

‘Forget slick, cool, funny and topical, this is the kind of book that captures the imagination, this is what fiction is about – the power of story.’ - Irish Times

'McGuire approached the telling of his novel with a linguistic panache seldom seen in contemporary British fiction' - Irish Times

‘Powerful . . . A tale of startling brutality and violence. Undeniably gripping’ - Times Literary Supplement

'A stunning achievement, by turns great fun and shocking, thrilling and provocative. Behold: one of the finest books of the year' - James Kidd, Independent

'McGuire delivers one bravura set piece after another . . . The North Water has, in places, a Conrad–Melville undercurrent, but for the most part it is Dickens’s influence that is most keenly felt . . . This is a stunning novel, one that snares the reader from the outset and keeps the tightest grip until its bitter end' - Financial Times

'Horrifically gripping. Such fine writing might have been lifted from the pages of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick’ - Independent on Sunday

'Terrific, seamed with pitch black humour and possessed of a momentum that's kept up to the final, unexpected but resoundingly satisfying scene ... Inspired' - Stephanie Cross, Daily Mail

'This book is quite a ride . . . The powerful story and the riches of the setting do not romanticise the past' - Erica Wagner, New Statesman

'The North Water has exceptional power and energy' - Nick Rennison, Sunday Times
'A vivid read, full of twists, turns, period detail and strong characters . . . An enjoyable contrast to most literary fiction' - Robbie Millen, The Times

‘Death is the making of The North Water, Ian McGuire’s bloody, gripping novel set in the middle of the 19th century aboard the Volunteer . . . The language has a harsh, surprising beauty that contrasts the spectacular setting with the greedy, bankrupt men who force their way northward, armed with harpoons for slaughter . . . Powerful’ - New Statesman

‘Ian McGuire’s second novel is an unflinching look at what men do, in extreme circumstances, for money, to survive, or for no reason at all. It has quite a lot in common with TV shows like HBO’s Deadwood and its many descendants (including Peaky Blinders), and . . . it grips like a horror movie. The North Water is self consciously literary, thick with allusions to other books: Moby Dick, obviously; Conrad; Elizabeth Gaskell’s only historical novel, Sylvia’s Lovers; William Golding’s Rites of Passage trilogy; Frankenstein; Dracula; McGuire’s opening sentence is an ironic allusion to John’s gospel but it also recalls the beginning of the novel that The North Water most resembles, Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian’ - London Review of Books