These paper boats of mine are meant to dance on the ripples of hours, and not reach any destination... Rabindranath Tagore

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past...F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby

We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom. We lived in the gaps between the stories.
+
On the way to the river are the old dormitories, used for something else now, with their fairy-tale turrets, painted white and gold and blue. When we think of the past it's the beautiful things we pick out. We want to believe it was all like that.
--from Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid's Tale

Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul.
- Joyce Carol Oates

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

Fireshadow...



Fireshadow (2004) - Anthony Eaton (1972- )


a lifetime
is more than a straight line
from A to B

there are colours
primary and secondary
growing and fading

there are bobbins and skeins and threads
that struggle to fit through
a needle's eye

there are stoic lands
with secrets
and all-knowing skies

and even a cleansing fire
flaunts deep shadows


GOODREADS REVIEW

 FireshadowFireshadow by Anthony Eaton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Fireshadow is a narrative which slowly winds and splits, reverses and twists.
You can feel ghosts,
Spirits of land, fire, sky,
POW camp 16 in Marinup in Western Australia caters for the ghosts of World War II and the living. Vinnie stumbles here seeking some alternative reality away from his nightmare involvement in his sister's death by fire. Erich, a young German POW, begrudgingly learns that there is a reality beyond war. And other role players seem to manoeuvre round and connect these two unlikely characters. Stereotypical WWII views of Germans, of POW camps and even stereotypical social attitudes to troubled teenagers are overturned and portrayed in new light. Perhaps, in the attempt, characters seem a little sketchy rather than rounded... which can be frustrating, even disappointing...but nevertheless, that 'weaknesses' urges the reader to keep travelling, to inquire and explore this unusual narrative journey of intersecting lifetimes.

View all my reviews
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...