Neil Mach's Blog - Posts Tagged "manchester"

The Lighthouse by Alison Moore

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The Lighthouse

I enjoyed reading the Lighthouse and I started it after I was lucky enough to meet the novelist at a conference of writers I attended earlier this year. Alison is perhaps best known for her short stories, so this is a thin volume [183 pages] and is full of small yet powerful vignettes.

The main character, Futh, is not a particularly loving or winning guy, so this book feels oddly glum.

His miserable existence is gradually explored and the story of his unpleasant, fatalistic beginnings is rolled out like a length of loo paper. He seems resigned to the whims of a host of browbeating characters — the only exemplar being his mother. All other characters manipulate him and bully, even though he doesn't seem to mind.

He works as a perfumer and so smells play a big part in this story — camphor, rain, violets, the scent from the lighthouse. I also liked the way the lighthouse, a leading light, can be experienced as an aroma.



 
I found I could dip into it easily enough but didn't get drawn back to to the book for days. And, without giving too much away, there's a feeling of imminent failure that never quite goes go away.

Incidentally, the author says she visited the Rhineland to research the sense of place — but it's not richly drawn, just a bunch of fairly humdrum scenes dotted by sad feet and an empty belly.

Probably, exploring the inner disturbance of this character is the best feature of the novel, but the banality of his life made the encounter an uncomfortable read.



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