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    Elemental
    Elemental
    Elemental
    Ebook484 pages8 hours

    Elemental

    By Amanda Curtin

    4.5/5

    ()

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    About this ebook

    It has taken a lifetime for me to see that the more afraid people are of the darkness, the further into it they will flee.

    Nearing the end of her life, Meggie Tulloch takes up her pen to write a story for her granddaughter. It begins in the first years of the twentieth century, in a place where howling winds spin salt and sleet sucked up from icefloes.

    A place where lives are ruled by men, and men by the witchy sea. A place where the only thing lower than a girl in the order of things is a clever girl with accursed red hair. A place schooled in keeping secrets.

    Moving from the north-east of Scotland, to the Shetland Isles, to Fremantle, Australia, Elemental is a novel about the life you make from the life you are given.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherScribe Publications
    Release dateFeb 11, 2016
    ISBN9781925307320
    Elemental
    Author

    Amanda Curtin

    Amanda Curtin is a critically acclaimed writer and book editor who lives in Perth, Western Australia.

    Read more from Amanda Curtin

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    4.5/5

    12 ratings3 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I can't recommend this book highly enough. Why it hasn't been shortlisted for any literary prize is quite beyond me. It's at least as good, if not better, than many of its competitors.Elemental tells the story of Maggie Duthie/Tulloch, now a grandmother aged 77. She is troubled by her life’s events, and decides to write down the story of her life for her granddaughter, Laura, whom she calls ‘lambsie’. Her memories are painful, and in writing down her story Maggie struggles between the impulse to conceal and the necessity to reveal the recurrent patterns of her life. The novel begins in 1890 and spans four generations. Geographically, it moves from the remote coast of western Scotland and to West Australia. The novel is structured in four parts with each section covering a different period, and each with its own symbol.The first two sections are excellent in terms of historical fiction. The setting and family relationships are so vividly realized and the voice of Meggie is so distinctive. 'Times were different then. Isn’t a child alive today who could have survived back then. I don’t mean the hardships of those days – the meanness of the food, the idea that children should work for their keep. Those are things that can be endured. The thing I venture would befuddle a child of today is this: in the scheme of the universe you were one notch north of a hindrance and two south of help. You would forever be the the last, the very very last, in a world where the words of men and the ways of shoalfish and the direction of the wind were what mattered.'The grandfather, Granda Jeemsie, is a very cruel man. He treats the women in the house so badly, hates Meggie for her red hair, and kills her beloved dog. Meggie’s beloved sister Kitta gets herself in the family way, has to leave home and eventually walks into the sea.The horrors of Meggies work life are vividly described – gutting herrings for long hours in fetid weather, at the rate of 60 fish a minute, hands freezing, wet, covered in salt, until her hands begin to rot – to the bone – and she loses part of her finger. I found the shift in the final section rather disrupting but by the time I got to the end I could see she was actually attempting something quite complex and had achieved it.The Scottish sections are full of amazing old Scottish words – quinie, bonxie, gansey, fulpie, clooties, limmer, muckle, selkie – and a glossary is provided. Obviously much research was undertaken to capture this dialect, but it rolls along well – and reminded me of The Year of Wonders.This novel offers many rich pleasures and I shall certainly seek out a copy of The Sinkings, Amanda Curtin's first novel.
    • 5/5
      First of all I need to tell you that this is not crime-fiction. It is part of my challenge to myself to occasionally read outside my comfort zone. I am grateful to Bernadette at Reactions to Reading for recommending it to me.Fish Meggie sets out to give a 21st birthday present to her grand daughter Laura - the story of her life, so that Laura will know her origins. She describes people and places that Laura has never heard of and a life so tough that it would be beyond Laura's wildest imaginings. It is a life that brings Meggie Tulloch from Scotland's northern islands to Fremantle in Western Australia.Laura doesn't get to read her Grunnie's journals, written in exercise books in a variety of coloured pens, until she is facing a crisis herself, and at last she understands things about Meggie, and her own mother Kathryn, that have always been a puzzle. Her grandfather, known only to her through photographs, comes to life.This story is a reminder of what those who lived through the 20th century went through, and how much life has been changed by technology, migration, and wars.
    • 5/5
      I love this book! A thoroughly engrossing read; beautifully crafted.

    Book preview

    Elemental - Amanda Curtin

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