You've finished the book. Now say what you feel. Don't hold back! This is the place to include spoilers and engage in debate.****WARNING: THIS PAGE CONTAINS SPOILERS! IF YOU HAVE NOT FINISHED THE BOOK, GO BACK TO THE HOME PAGE TO MAKE YOUR COMMENTS*******
Just click on Comments below and off we go. Enjoy. :)
I must be wrong in my assumption that we HAVE to write something on this page when we've finished a book. I can't believe I'm the only one who's finished this book - in fact I know I'm not. I was very impatient with all the characters except Nina and of course she's the only one with an afterword (2011). Why did Isabel need to ask Kitty to give her an excuse to leave Joe? Hadn't she left him years ago with Nina to bring up? Can't she just leave? The comments at the beginning of the book were total overkill - I found them really off putting and intimidating - 'you must find this book brilliant or you are not an intelligent and perceptive reader'. Guilty I guess.
ReplyDeleteEllen,
DeleteLooks like t will be one of the last that gets to me, out in the backwaters :-)
Yes! I feel much happier about this now I realise that its fiction,
ReplyDeleteand Kitty is a MERMAID.
Kitty is at the coast, she needs to be near water - the swimming pool. She can stay underwater for an abnormally long time. She has very long hair, green varnished fingernails, obscuring fish scales? She does not enjoy clothing close to her skin and wears only natural fabrics.
She stammers when trying to speak (mermaids lost the ability to sing/speak in exchange for land legs) Kitty can communicate by telepathy. In the olden days she would have been a herbalist (witch) In the 20th century she is a Botanist. Kitty has left the sea, as all mermaids do, in search of a human man (preferably a Prince, but a Poet will do. In British folklore mermaids can be a 'femme fatale' and Kitty was certainly that.
Nicole
Thanks Nicole, I like that interpretation (bit beyond me to think of all that!).
DeleteMakes sense that it was Joe and not Kitty now.
But why was she still around at the end, having accomplished her task?
Clare
You don't HAVE to write something on the page when you've finished, but it would be so NICE if everyone would. Please encourage your Super Reader sisters and brothers to join in!! Esp the ones you know have read the book already!!
ReplyDeleteBit behind everyone else - ohhps!
ReplyDeleteAnd obviously picked the easiest one first.
When I started Swimming Home, I felt that Deborah was trying too hard with description and random-ness. But as I got into it, I liked the style and in a funny way the characters.
Some of it was challenging on a personal level, p32 'If she knew that to be forceful was not the same as being powerful and to be gentle was not the same as being fragile, she did not know how to use this knowledge in her own life...' and raised some interesting questions, but in my sleep deprived state, I can't think of them now!
In the end did it play out to what they all subliminally wanted? Were they all released from Joe's depression? Isabel was not only free, but gained a daughter, rather than losing her totally.
I think I would re-read it, if I had time. And it's definitely a good one for book groups to discuss, but it's not going to hang up there with my favourites.
Clare
Yes, I think I would agree with you Clare, it is a good one for book groups to discuss and would probably stand being read again, but at this stage I don't think it is going to be my favourite - too many unanswered questions.
ReplyDeleteI see what Nicole means about Kitty being a mermaid. I had actually thought of her as being a lorelei or a siren - a water maiden who lures men to their deaths by their song (in her case, her poem). She also made me think of Hilde Wangel in Ibsen's The Master Builder - the strange young woman who intrudes on a strained marriage and tempts a man to his death.
ReplyDeleteIt's my second favourite so far (after Bring up the Bodies) and I agree with Clare and Psauline about rereading - though not just yet!
Is there a point to this book? Is Kitty REALLY a mermaid? Or just odd? The story seemed to centre arounda dysfunctional family, certainly, but clues were a little widely spaced as to what was going on. Was there a hint of a suicide pact toward the end between Kitty and Joe? I did like the humour and the mental agility required to track the sentences as they leapt around kept me on my toes.
ReplyDeleteNot for me.
Reading through comments here my feeling was that Kitty is quite an eccentric young woman and was mermaid/siren-like rather than being an actual mermaid. I have a fair amount of background in stories about mer-folk and fairies who end up interacting with humans and while Levy draws on some of these influences, I feel she was rooting her story in reality.
ReplyDeleteI found myself a little confused about the ending and it is a novel that I feel I need to read again to get a better handle on it.