Once more I discover that a book being on the Booker Prize short-list is no guarantee of a good read. Perhaps its because I’ve read so many other books about “blokes on a walk” that it was always going to be difficult for ne to feel that Alison Moore’s The Lighthouse was going to offer anything new.
Last year one of my favourite reads was Pub Walks in Underhill Country by Nat Segnit, in which Graham Underhill wander around rural Worcestershire while his marriage is breaking up. Then this spring we had the excellent The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce in which Harold starts walking the length of the country and is transformed by the experience. When compared to these two predecessors, The Lighthouse just doesn’t cut it: I found it to be dull, I didn’t take to the main character. On the whole I felt that it contained too little narrative interest and that the ending was too hurried.
The book focuses on a middle-aged man with the unusual name of Futh. We meet him while he is on a ferry sailing across the North Sea on which he is travelling to a short, solitary walking holiday in the Rhine Valley. There is something not quite right about him – he is over-trusting, disconnected from normal sociability and introverted. Perhaps he has Asperger’s Syndrome or something along those lines. He spends his first night in a small hotel in the fictional town of Hellhaus but is struck by the odd behaviour of the landlady’s husband.
The Rhine Valley
Over the next few days, Futh reflects on his childhood, his relationship with his father and his own failed marriage. His mother left home for good to emigrate to America when Futh was a child. He has never been able to come to terms with this, and his subsequent relationship with his father was coloured by his father’s many sexual encounters with women including his next-door neighbour Gloria.
In parallel with Futh’s story we read of the landlady of the hotel in Hellhaus where Futh spends his first night. Ester has a non-existent relationship with her husband and indulges in occasional dalliances with guests. She spends much of her time drinking gin at the bar and has an obsession with Mills and Boon novels (are these popular in Germany? apparently the answer is a definite yes!).
The problem I had with this book is around my lack of engagement with the characters. I found Futh to be one of the dullest characters in fiction. He had had a troubled childhood but despite his mother’s abandonment of him, I wondered whether it would really obsess him at the level it does when he has reached his mid-forties. Futh seems completely handicapped by these events and his obsessive thinking about them soon becomes tedious. He even carries a small token of his childhood – a perfume bottle which his mother had owned in the shape of a lighthouse – surely one of the flimsiest reasons for giving a title to a book.
In addition, the lack of descriptive writing is a bit of a problem. Futh was walking in a part of Germany with dramatic scenery, but it could just as well have been rural Leicestershire – apart from a few occasions when Futh gets lost, we read nothing of his walking experiences and nothing interesting seems to happen to him. He takes an entirely interior journey with no reference to the outside world apart from when it breaks in on him during his nightly stays in small hotels.
As well as the lighthouse, Futh carries a spork in his bag!
As I said earlier, I was left wondering whether it was at all likely that Futh could have been so permanently handicapped in adult life by his mother leaving him at the age of ten. Most of us achieve at least a semblance of normality despite the problems of our childhood.
Overall, I don’t understand how this book made it to the Booker short-list. But then I’ve never really been one to follow literary prizes. They create a bit of a splash in the media for the benefit of the publishing industry but I rarely find them a reliable guide to my reading.
I thank James Horsham for adding a couple of comments to this post which add some illumination to the author’s use of the lighthouse as the book’s title.
Oh well at least you tried, right? I’m not much for prize winners as I think the fianl choices often make no sense at all
Guy – I’m going to get the new 1001 books to read before you die on review soon. The compiler is an Eng Lit professor at Sussex Uni. It’ll be interesting to read another take on best books, albeit historic ones in this case.
I was quite a fan of this one – horses for courses I guess! A note on the title – the lighthouse is important to the story in a number of ways – it’s the trinket he obsessively carries with him to remind him of his mother, which ultimately leads to his unpleasant fate in the bathroom, there was a lighthouse in the picnic scene where he witnessed his father hit his mother, just prior to her leaving, and it’s also been interpreted as a structural element (the beam of the story circling round to the picnic/lighthouse scene illuminating more each time).
Actually – not to mention the hotel itself, whose translation is similar to (although not the same as) lighthouse, and is itself a very bright house, which is superficially a place of welcome but should really be avoided at all costs. Probably more – it’s quite a dense little book.
Thanks James – very useful. I will put a note on the post directing people to read your comments!
Very helpful James – I forgot about the lighthouse at the picnic scene. It still sounds a little tenuous to me but I expect its this sort of thing which the Booker panel go for
I have a look at the book in the library last weekend. Didn’t interest me. Glad you said the same. but Spork! I like to have one of that too, the problem is I’ll risk poking my mouth with that sharp edges if I attempt to drink soup with this.
Jovenus – I don’t know why the author dropped the word “spork” into the book. I hadn’t a clue what it was until I looked it up. Then all was clear! Dreadful implements though.
It’s an interesting read, but like you I was getting a bit fed up with ‘journey’ novels. They are as formulaic as crime stories: life crisis, journey, transformation. The whole Booker prize thing is a bit silly, especially given the diversity of what has been short (and long) listed. All are worth reading but for different reasons, so you have to follow your own interests and let them guide you, not some panel of judges.
acorn – thanks for visiting. I agree with what you say about the Booker and other prizes. Life is too short to just take other people’s recommendations slavishly. Best to plough your own furrow!
Ah, shame – I’d heard good things about this one. Still, at least I’ve added a new word to my vocabulary!
Now this may be a shallow comment but I started reading this in a book shop and I couldn’t, simply couldn’t go on reading a novel in which the main character is called Futh. It’s bland turned into a name, no sound, no resonance. I was afraid the whole writing would sound similarly flat. I didn’t buy it.
Caroline – I should have mentioned in my review, the extreme annoyance the name Futh gave me as I read through the book. Thanks for reminding me – its a totally stupid name, which is never explained in the book
Andrew – its getting very mixed reviews – some people seem to like it but there are enough people like me who found it annoying, to make me question how it ever got through to the shortlist. Thanks for visiting
The press reaction doesn’t seem too mixed:
http://www.theomnivore.co.uk/Book/8525-The_Lighthouse/default.aspx
Lighthouse, moths – is Futh Mr Dalloway?
Helen – now that’s interesting thought!
Sarah – thanks for the link. That’s a useful website isn’t it. Perhaps I’m missing something in my review of the book however!
Can’t say this appeals. I do quite like literary prize longlists: I consider them worthwhile if they direct me towards two or three exciting new reads – but, like you, I increasingly find the shortlist choices, and especially the choice of eventual winner, baffling. For what it’s worth, I think Narcopolis should win this year. Which means it absolutely, definitely won’t. ; )
Mark – thanks for visiting – you have a great website which I haven’t seen before. I’ve not read Narcopolis but will have a look at it. I’ll put a link to your site on my list of links.
I loved this book- the stripped back prose, the sense of foreboding, the strangeness of Futh and Ester were all brilliant. Reminded me of Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Unconsoled.
Hi Tammi – thanks for visiting. Well, you’re not alone in liking it – thus the Booker Shortlist. It didn’t do much for me, but I acknowledge that many fine critics disagree with me
OP seems to have entirely missed the point on several occasions. Futh is locked in the past, which is why he barely notices his holiday. The lighthouse is interwoven through the story in many layers (which I admit I partially missed). Futh isn’t boring, he’s incapable. The narrative mixes his austere internal world in the present with his obsessive, emotive past. Without the superficial blandness, there wouldn’t really be a story. This reminded me of ‘the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime ‘ with its innocent description of bafflement. The taut prose is reminiscent of ‘Indian Camp ‘. I’m going to struggle to give it away, even having finished it. One for the putative kids.
Thanks for the additional thoughts Andrew.
Best book I have read for eons. Agree totally with Tammi (and I love Ishiguro’s work) and with Andrew. The rest of you – please try harder!
Felicity – thanks for visiting. It’s funny how people’s views can vary so much isn’t it. I’ve not been getting a lot of thanks for my review of The Lighthouse!
Hi all,
I have written quite a substantial review of this book, about which I had very mixed feelings, on my blog http://www.the-night-owl.co.uk.
I found it fascinating that we both felt the autistic spectrum element in the main character.
It was at times a page-turner, but it failed for me on a lot of counts.
I am enjoying exploring your blog! Mine is written on borrowed time, but I really enjoy communicating my reading experiences when I can.
Emma
Emma – thanks for visiting. I will go across and read your review. I’ll add your website to my links list.
Well I found this book to be a total waste of a Saturday afternoon, I was waiting for it to kick in, or at least have a fab’ denouement , alas it was just another disappointment from a panel of judges, or in my case the selection by a fellow book club member. Futh was a dreary not particularly interesting main character, his penchant for perfumes was handled so much better by Patrick Suskind in his novel of that name. The supposed autism, unlike ‘The curious case of …’ made him appear a bit of a dick, instead it of being part & parcel of his being and leading us into insights on him , & arguably his condition. Apart from him buying ‘a five hundred page handbook on ice climbing’ this was not good enough. N.B. I suppose Amazon might be able to provide said five hundred page handbook on ice climbing, rather that than this…
Joseph – thanks for visiting. You give me further confirmation that I’m not the only one to be hugely disappointed with this book. I don’t have any faith in panels of literary judges and this is not the first time I have totally disagreed with the Booker panel about their selections. I agree that the 500 page book on ice climbing may be a better read!
Just finished this and felt very unsettled – and now realise that it worked with me. Last night when I started it I felt v disappointed with it. Now it just leaves me with shivers and some of the things I missed (and learnt through this blog!)made them feel like waves of unhappiness it’ll take a time to erase. I initially thought it was a tedious trifle but don’t now. Impressive.
Marian – thanks for visiting. Your perceptive comment shows how powerful literature can be in our lives. I hope you feel better soon!
A sad book, fairly easy to read but quite unrelenting in its loneliness. Personally I have yet to find the “prizewinner” that lives up to the hype. My husband bought this one for me as a chrstmas present so I don”t think I would have been drawn to it in a library or shop. I am glad I read it although as Marian says it leaves you feeling unsettled.
All in all a good read but personally I prefer something with a bit more hope and happiness
Caroline – sorry for the delay in replying – I’ve been away. Yes, an immensely sad read but very well done I think