User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
A beautiful book.
I must confess I adore books which eulogise a lost, perfect Summer.
'The Offing' contained echoes of 'A Month in the Country' by J.L. Carr, and 'The Go-Between' by L.P. Hartley, which, as you probably already know, is a very good portent.
This particular Summer is shortly after the end of World War Two, and Robert Appleyard leaves his mining village to explore the world before following his father down the coalmine. When he arrives at Robin Hood's Bay in North Yorkshire he meet an old woman called Dulcie Piper. Beyond that, the less you know about the plot the better.
There's so much to enjoy in this book that I raced through it. I intend to read it again more slowly. By the end I had a tear in my eye and a lump in my throat.
Wonderful.
5/5
Rating: really liked it
The writing in this was so beautiful that I'm tempted to award five stars, but I can't get past the fact that the fate of Dulcie's lover - so obvious from the early chapters - was kept a 'secret' until around two-thirds into the book. This had a roll-on effect on the book's pacing and the story as a whole, and was unfortunate as - without this problem - I'd have judged the book to be near-perfect.
Rating: really liked it
This is one of those novels that evokes a time and has someone looking back to that time. It bears comparison to Carr’s A Month in the Country and The Go-Between by Hartley. It is set just after the Second World War. Sixteen year old Robert Appleyard lives in a mining village in the north east England, near Durham. He decides to set off on foot to walk and have adventures and explore the coast before settling to work. He works for board and lodging on farms and smallholdings; places where the men have not returned, “or seen them return depleted, decrepit or broken, parts of them missing like second-hand jigsaw puzzles”.
Near Robin Hoods Bay he chances upon what seems like a fairy tale cottage in which lives Dulcie Piper. She is a bohemian free spirit. Her age is never specified but the sense is that she is in her late 50s or 60s. She lives alone and the reader discovers that at the beginning of the war her German poet and lover (Romy Landau) had drowned herself. There is a run-down studio in the meadow and a good deal of overgrownness. In return for being fed Robert stays for a while and restores the studio and tidies up the grounds. As the studio is renovated Robert discovers some work by Landau and Dulcie starts to come to terms with her loss. Robert tells the story looking back in old age.
The novel is about friendship, the beauty of nature, art, good food, wine and not forgetting a dog called Butler. There is very much a sense of living in the present, close to nature:
“At times like this, or when hoeing soil or sanding wood, or just sitting on a bench with my face turned to the sun, I appeared to slip out of the moment so entirely — or, conversely, perhaps was so deeply immersed in the here and now — that I forgot who I was. The slate of self was wiped. Gone were all thoughts of past and present, of the stale air of classrooms and of looming exam results, coal boards and pitheads and pension plans, as all worries and concerns were diluted away to nothingness and I drifted in and out of the day, brought back into being only when either the sky or my stomach rumbled, or birdsong broke the silence.
These were the lingering states in which I was happy to revel, as night replaced day and day replaced night, and time became not a linear thing but something more elastic, stretching and contracting at will, one minute expanding into a day, one week gone in the blink of an eye. Petals unfolded, willow blossom took to the breeze and hogweed stems grew towering in the shaded dell at the bottom of the meadow, and time itself was measured only by the clock of green growth, and marked out by the simple routine of working, eating, swimming, sleeping.”
The writing is beautiful and evocative describing a summer long gone but always remembered. The character of Dulcie is memorable and refreshingly open and non-judgemental.
This is a wonderful novel. The only real niggle is that Myers is required to write some poetry written by Romy Landau who was supposedly a poet of genius. Now Myers is a good poet, a very good poet even; but a poet of genius? But that’s a minor point.
“That distant stretch of sea where sky and water merge. It’s called the offing.”
Rating: really liked it
I wanted very much to enjoy this book, to really sink into it. It seemed like a good moment to read a heartwarming tale of a golden summer and life lessons learned between an older woman and a teenage boy. I have been craving depictions of the natural world, and I spent most of my childhood holidays just a few miles from where this book it set. I’ve heard great things about the writer, and I appreciated that it was a northern writer.
I was very disappointed once I started to read however. It started with the writing, in a style I found very unconvincing for a supposedly teenage narrator from a mining village. Within the first few chapters we have “a glissando of birdsong” and “unctuous water.” The author has framed the story as one told back by an old man, so there may be some justification for the over-the-top language, but I felt that the narrator was generally portrayed as speaking in real time – at best the perceived age of the narrator wandered.
I’m often wary of “poetic prose” but don’t mind it if truly well done. There were some nice moments:
It was desire, and young manhood was undoubtedly within me like a benevolent parasite. It had taken residence and was slowly altering me from the inside, and I was merely a passive host…”But other bits (most bits) are clearly and painfully overwritten:
The badgers’ latrine, it was host to a smattering of deposits polished deep in the innards of this indigenous dawn-stalker as enduring and English as the single oak tree or the scurrying hedgehog.To quote Manuel from the enduring and English Fawlty Towers,
¿Qué?Aside from this, I was disappointed that a book by a northerner about the north gives all the best lines to a stereotyped portrayal of a progressive southern toff. It seemed unnecessary, particularly when North Yorkshire has no shortage of strong characters.
The teenager, Robert, was on some levels an appealing character, modelled, I imagine, on Laurie Lee. But the contrast between his poetic inner voice and his limited dialogue – which made it unbelievable for me that Dulcie would take such an interest in him from the get-go – is never really bridged.
And well, to sum up, the story is trite. I didn’t believe it for a second. An unbelievable story isn’t always a problem (see much of great literature), but combined with overwritten prose, unconvincing characters, gratuitous shoehorning in of historical lessons on the eve of Brexit and historical inaccuracies, it became one.
Rating: really liked it
For such a prolific writer, Myers sets very high standards. His last novel before this one was the wonderful The Gallows Pole, and between them he also published a beautiful non-fiction book about his adopted home in the Calder Valley, Under the Rock: The Poetry of a Place. So this one had a lot to live up to, and for the most part it succeeds in meeting these very high expectations.
Like The Gallows Pole this one has a historical setting, but a more recent one, in the aftermath of the Second World War. Its narrator Robert Appleyard, as an old man, recalls a summer he spent as a 16 year old from a mining village near Durham.
Before meeting his family's expectations of a job in the pit, he sets off alone on foot to explore the nearby country, sleeping rough and taking casual agricultural work. His travels take him out to the moors, then south and east to the Cleveland coast and Robin Hood's Bay. Here he stumbles on the remote cottage where he meets its owner Dulcie, a forty-something eccentric heiress who lives there alone surrounded by an increasingly wild garden.
In return for food and nettle tea, Robert starts to clear the garden and discovers an overgrown shack, which he clears, moves into and renovates. Dulcie sees a natural intelligence in him and introduces him to poetry and some of her favourite books. Much of the plot contains the gradual revelation of the story of the shack's previous occupant Romy Landau, a German poet (view spoiler)
[who killed herself at the start of the war, leaving a final collection which explains her final suicidal act (hide spoiler)].
As always, Myers writes beautifully about nature and mixes the personal and the political, and the book is ultimately very moving. I was slightly sceptical of a couple of minor points of agricultural history (at one point on his travels Robert encounters an alpaca), but overall I can't resist giving it five stars for sheer enjoyment.
Rating: really liked it
With our current political preoccupations concerning citizenship, immigration and nationality there’s a lot of talk about borders. (What borders will be formed between the UK and Europe?) But in Benjamin Myers’ recent novel “The Offing” the borders directly referenced are invisible lines in the natural environment. The title refers to “That distant stretch of sea where sky and water merge. It’s called the offing.” These are borders that we only imagine exist because of our subjective point of view. And the novel begins with 16 year old Robert Appleyard stepping out of the borders of his small Northern coal mining town, the place where he’s been raised to believe he should spend his life working in the pits that men in his family have toiled in for generations. But he’s determined to see something of the world first. What he discovers is a point of view and way of seeing which is very different from what he’s known in his circumscribed existence. During his journey he meets and befriends Dulcie, a reclusive and highly-cultured older woman who doesn’t play by society’s rules. Myers presents in this beautiful tale conversations which cross borders of class, gender, sexuality and nationality to speak about the importance of preserving our individual voice and creative spirit – especially during times of political strife.
Read my full review of The Offing by Benjamin Myers on LonesomeReader
Rating: really liked it
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“That distant stretch of sea where sky and water merge. It’s called the offing.”
Written in a verdant prose Benjamin Myers’ novel is an ode to nature.
The Offing is narrated by the son of a miner from Durham, Robert Appleyard, who, in his old age, finds himself looking back to the summer which shaped the rest of his life. In the aftermath of the Second World War a
sixteen year old Robert is restless for change.
Afflicted by a restless desire to lose himself and both to leave behind the constraints of his normal life and to postpone his future as a miner, Robert takes up and travels across
the northern countryside.
“I was sixteen and free, and hungry. Hungry for food, as we all were – the shortage continued for many years – yet my appetite was for more than the merely edible.”
Nature, with its flora and fauna, provides Robert with a respite from his impoverished reality. The landscapes around him fills him with a renewed sense of hope. As he observes the trees and flowers around him, and glimpses the wildlife roaming free, his mind drifts away from his worries and from the repercussions of war.
“To those blessed with the gift of living, it seemed as if the present moment was a precious empty vessel waiting to be filled with experience.”
One day he comes across
an old lady named Dulcie whose direct no-nonsense manner is almost alien to him. Yet, it is by spending time in her company, doing the odd repair job for her, that Robert experiences a life very different to his old one.
Dulcie is quick to voice her distaste for nationalism and for idealising one’s country. Until this encounter Robert’s fairly ingenuous view of the world resulted in him having rather dichotomous view of war.
Dulcie however, in her refreshingly brazen manner, makes him challenge his own binary thinking. She also introduces him to authors and poets whose stories and verses further inspire a young Robert.
During their meals Dulcie almost retrains Robert’s relationship to food. Growing up with food shortages Robert had never developed an appetite. Yet,
with Dulcie he discovers that food can be sublime. From the inviting smells and appearances of a dish to its delicious taste.
In the course of this pivotal summer Robert’s mind and body develop.
Dulcie encourages him not to limit himself, not to view his future as preordained.
As time passes we also see the way in which Robert’s presence alleviates Dulcie’s loneliness. It is because of Robert that Dulcie decides to revisit of her own past, and so
she shares the most wonderful and heartbreaking moments of her life with him.
Benjamin Myers’ novel is
a richly rendered coming of age. Without limiting his language he evokes this fraught period of time in a vibrant manner.
Much of the narrative revolves around the narrator’s relationship to his environment. Myers’ writing style emphasises Robert’s senses and makes for a vivid reading experience.
There is also a timelessness to Robert and Dulcie’s discussions. I was completely mesmerised by Dulcie’s story and admired the frank way in which she would speak about her society.
War, freedom, nature, creativity, love, language. These are some of the things which occupy the minds and conversations of Robert and Dulcie.
A relevant and nostalgic tale of an unlikely friendship and of the different ways one can connect to another person as well as to nature. Robert’s reminiscences of his youth and the past present us with
seemingly quiet moments that are as moving as they are beautiful.
Brimming with luscious descriptions and a poetic language Myers’
The Offing is a spellbinding and thoughtful novel, one that will definitely appeal to nature lovers.
Some of my favourite quotes:
“The history books should not entirely be believed: Allied victory did not taste sweet and the winters that followed would be as frosted and unforgiving as any. Because although the elements care little for the madness of men, even the white virginal snow would now appear impure to those who had seen the first footage of barbed wire and body pits.
Yet viewed through the eyes of the young the conflict was an abstraction, a memory once removed and already fading. It wasn’t our war. It wouldn’t ruin our lives before they had even started.”
“On the contrary, it had awakened within me a sense of adventure, a wanderlust to step beyond the end of the street where the flagstones finally gave themselves to the fields, and industrial Northern England stretched away beneath the first warm haze of a coming season of growth, to explore whatever it was that lay beyond this shimmering mirage that turned the horizon into an undulating ocean of blossoming greens.”
“It’s not the books that really matter anyway, Robert. Books are just paper, but they contain within them revolutions. You’ll find that most dictators barely read beyond their own grubby hagiographies. That’s where they’re going wrong: not enough poetry in their lives.”
“I don’t think we are continually improving, if that’s what you mean. We may learn lessons, but we don’t apply them. It’s always one step forward, two steps back. Then a leap sideways. Then diagonally. Do you see what I mean?”
“What lessons were learned? Build bigger bombs and better bombs, that’s all. Hitler still happened, and there’ll be another angry little man along in due course. I sometimes think that in many ways we’re completely screwed, all the time. I suppose it’s a collective state of insanity. It must be, to keep repeating the same patterns of death and violence.”
“Others bore the names of past cultures – of further Viking settlements established by raiding parties: Staxton, Flixton – the language of the land joining to create a narrative through shifting epochs and changing rulers. Yet for those who tilled and turned the soil, and harvested the land’s bounty at summer’s end, here life had stayed relatively constant for centuries, with existence spare and closely tied to the changing seasons.”
Rating: really liked it
The Offing, by Benjamin Myers, is written in prose that is as mesmerising as poetry. The author conjures up a potent sense of place, rendering the beauty and power of nature alongside man’s small place in it. The tale is humbling but also uplifting. This is writing to be savoured.
The story is narrated by Robert Appleyard, son of a miner working the pits around Durham. Now facing old age, Robert is looking back on a pivotal summer when he was sixteen and hungry for freedom. Growing up he understood that, once finished with school, the colliery beckoned as it had his father and grandfather. Before accepting this fate, he decides to satisfy a hunger for a different experience. The Second World War is not long over and the transience of life, the need not to waste what precious moments are granted, is seared into a mind still reeling from horrific images of mass graves.
“Wars continue long after the fighting has stopped, and the world felt then as if it were full of holes. It appeared to me scarred and shattered, a place made senseless by those in positions of power.”
“no one ever really wins a war: some just lose a little less than others.”
With a pack on his back, Robert sets out from home one morning to explore whatever is beyond the village where he has spent his life to date. He sleeps in outbuildings or under hedges, doing odd jobs to earn food along the way. Having felt cooped up in a classroom, where lessons dragged interminably, he relishes being outdoors, unknown and unconstrained. He walks from Durham across Cumbria and through North Yorkshire, to where the land meets the sea.
“This was agricultural rather than industrial terrain – of the earth rather than stained by it.”
“I experienced frequent and quite unexpected moments of exhilaration at the overwhelming sense of purposelessness that I now had. I could go anywhere, do anything. Be anyone.”
Although drinking in his newfound freedom, Robert’s outlook is still limited by the beliefs drummed into him about what someone like him can expect to achieve. He is therefore unprepared when he meets Dulcie Piper, a wealthy and eccentric older lady living in a rundown cottage above a remote bay. She recognises the potential in the boy and sets about inculcating an appreciation of literature. Amongst other pleasures, including fine cooking and wider thinking, she introduces him to poetry.
Dulcie is a fabulous creation with her disregard for rules, religion and those in authority.
“I have seen other wars. Read about plenty more too. And what I’ve learned is that they’re all much the same […] most people just want a quiet life. A nice meal, a little love. A late-night stroll. A lie-in on a Sunday. As I said before, don’t despise the Germans.”
“‘We’d be ruled by Nazis now if they had got their way,’ I said.
Dulcie shook her head, tutting. ‘Worse, Robert. Much worse. We would be ruled by those remaining English stiffs employed by the Nazis to do their bidding. Chinless wonders and lickspittles. There would be no room for the poets or the peacocks, the artists or the queens. Instead we’d be entirely driven by the very wettest of civil servants – even more so than we already are. A legion of pudgy middle managers would be the dreary midwives of England’s downfall.”
Dulcie tells Robert stories from a colourful history, lends him books, expresses opinions he has never before considered. Over the course of the coming weeks she awakens in him a deeper understanding of possibilities. Alongside their burgeoning friendship the verdant surroundings shares its bounty. Robert is enraptured by the sea, the land and its creatures. In time he learns why Dulcie, with her wealth and connections, has settled in this place.
Plot development is gentle. The joy of the book is the language: the rich descriptions of nature, the wit and wisdom of dialogue. Although set in a time that too many hark back to with nostalgia, it has contemporary relevance. Time is marked in the shape of the land more than the history of man’s repeated foolishness fuelled by ego.
“the Great War was the worst atrocity committed by humankind. What lessons were learned? Build bigger bombs and better bombs, that’s all. Hitler still happened, and there’ll be another angry little man along in due course. I sometimes think that in many ways we’re completely screwed, all the time. I suppose it’s a collective state of insanity. It must be, to keep repeating the same patterns of death and violence.”
Perhaps because of such sentiments, the life Dulcie has lived, and introduces Robert to, is one of making the most of every moment. She has taken pleasure wherever it may be found: nature and literature, food and wine, love and travel. A tragedy haunts her yet she retains an enthusiasm for life, eschewing societal strictures. She shows Robert that he has choices beyond family expectation.
I finished this novel both with tears in my eyes and feeling like punching the air with satisfaction. It made me want to go straight out and enjoy a long walk through the local fields to appreciate what matters in our still beautiful world. There may always be the endless bickering of dull men about: politics, loss of respect for some self-appointed hierarchy, the good old days. Of more import and value is the breathing in and out of the seasons. Nature renews and offers itself as a balm for those willing to engage. Perspectives in life need not be those imposed by oppressors.
I enjoyed this story, the power of its words and beauty of its language. The author has delivered something special. I recommend you read it.
Rating: really liked it
Exquisite. Myers is without doubt one of the greatest British writers at work today. This new novel is as close to perfect as you'll find.
An ode to many things, among them poetry, the sea, the north, Britain, British literary history, Europe, and a life lived with open arms and an open heart.
In Dulcie he has created a character who embodies the complicated weave of Britain and its people. She is stubborn yet free, southern yet embodied by northern-ness, rich and yet humble.
It really is the most beautiful novel.
Rating: really liked it
An unrelentingly beautiful book, so gently glorious and gloriously gentle. I could not have predicted it from Ben Myers’ in a million years, but here it is: A Month in the Country remade, and John Clare resurrected. The golden summer song that balances against Myers’ usually brutal winter tunes. I read the last section aloud to myself in bed on Christmas Eve and cried softly for joy.
Very possibly my book of the year.
Rating: really liked it
With the Second World War only recently ended and nothing awaiting him apart from the coal mine where his father works, sixteen-year-old Robert Appleyard sets out on a journey. From his home in County Durham, he walks southeast, doing odd jobs along the way in exchange for food and lodgings. One day he wanders down a lane near Robin Hood’s Bay and gets a surprisingly warm welcome from a cottage owner, middle-aged Dulcie Piper, who invites him in for tea and elicits his story. Almost accidentally, he ends up staying for the rest of the summer, clearing scrub and renovating her garden studio.
Dulcie is tall, outspoken and unconventional – I pictured her as (Meryl Streep as) Julia Child in the movie
Julie & Julia. She introduces Robert to whole new ways of thinking: that not everyone believes in God, that Germans might not be all bad, that life can be about adventure and pleasure instead of duty. “The offing” is a term for the horizon, as well as the title of a set of poems Robert finds in the dilapidated studio, and both literature and ambition change his life forever. Bright, languid and unpredictable, the novel delights in everyday sensual pleasures like long walks with a dog, dips in the ocean and an abundance of good food. I can’t think of another book I’ve read that’s quite like it – how refreshing is that?
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
Rating: really liked it
I really enjoyed this - it was a deeply satisfying read. The writing was exceptional, very rich and with words in I had to look up - rare these days. Both Robert and Dulcie were great characters and their relationship was extremely well worked. It captured an atmosphere of England in 1945 well I thought with Dulcie a great counterpoint to that.
I laughed and shed a tear while I was reading this! I'll certainly explore more of Myers work when I can.
Rating: really liked it
This novel follows the classic "young boy goes on a journey, meets a Master/wise person and learns what life is really about" structure, only with some weird subplot about publishing poetry. The wise person in this case is an older woman who happens so have a hut for the teenager to live in, and although it's just after world war II she also happens to have a food chamber filled to the brim with exotic food and expensive liquor.
The writing is quite poetic and atmospheric when Myers describes nature and the surroundings, sometimes it's a little much, but overall these parts were enjoyable. The writing became more shaky the second Dulcie, the old wise and cursing woman, turns up. The dialogue is forced and reminded me of self-help books, Dulcie as far away from a real person as possible. The relationship between the characters didn't really develop, it was simply there. Now, until then, the book was still okay, however once the poetry-sub plot came about it really went down the drain. You have to be a certain writer to put poems into your novel and describe them as the best poems ever, the collection of which of course sell more copies than poetry ever does. The ending was abrupt and silly, and yes, amateurish.
Although this novel does have some positive aspects - mainly some of descriptions of nature and the beautiful cover - it's really not a good book overall.
Rating: really liked it
Oh, what a beautiful, beautiful, unexpectedly BEAUTIFUL novel !
I am not sure how I came across this novel, but I am so glad I did, and so wish I had someone to discuss it with……
It is a story of a young 16 yr old boy, set just after WW2 who sees his fate set before him, following his Dad and Granddad down the pit , coming from a family of Durham miners, where no other job would be considered. Robert knew he would not be able to carry out the wishes of his parents, so he decided to go for a “ wander”, he packed a small rucksack and walked away from his home village in search of adventure! However, this is not just Robert’s story but also Dulcie’s, a seemingly eccentric older woman living in a run down cottage in Yorkshire. The two meet and our story unfolds.
This is a beautifully written novel, for lovers of poetry, for readers looking for a rich tapestry of unconventional friendships, and for most of us readers who love what words can do !
I can strongly recommend this novel! ,
Wonderful language, descriptions of nature that evokes responses I didn’t know I had….. I simply can’t imagine anyone not being moved by it !
Rating: really liked it
Page 7 was as far as I could get. The writing made me want to retch. Laden with nouns laden with adjectives laden with adverbs. The gagworthiest prose I’ve read in a long long while.
