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eBook The Sea and the Silence download

by Peter Cunningham

ISBN: 1934848328
Author: Peter Cunningham
Publisher: GemmaMedia; First Edition edition (February 1, 2010)
Language: English
Pages: 256
ePub: 1647 kb
Fb2: 1920 kb
Rating: 4.2
Other formats: txt lit mbr lrf
Category: Literature
Subcategory: Genre Fiction

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Peter Cunningham grew up in Waterford, the city on which Monument, the town in The Sea and the Silence, is based. His previous work includes a number of thrillers, written both under his own name and under pseudonyms.

Peter Cunningham grew up in Waterford, the city on which Monument, the town in The Sea and the Silence, is based.

A book for your head and your heart. As she settles in to try and make her life by the ever restless sea, circumstances that have brought Iz to the town of Monument are shrouded in mystery. A powerful novel from one of Ireland’s best writers on the turbulent birth of a nation, and the lovers it divides. Young and beautiful, Iz begins a life on the south-east coast with her new husband. However, history, like the sea cannot stay silent for long.

Peter Cunningham is an Irish novelist. Cunningham's first novel, Noble Lord, was a thriller, written under the pseudonym Peter Lauder

Peter Cunningham is an Irish novelist. Cunningham's first novel, Noble Lord, was a thriller, written under the pseudonym Peter Lauder.

Perhaps Cunningham drew inspiration from that quintessential Dublin story. Cunningham's book gave me a new take on World War II and on the continuing conflicts between Protestants and Catholics in Ireland

Perhaps Cunningham drew inspiration from that quintessential Dublin story. However, in The Sea and the Silence, dialogue often mingles with dialogue tags, descriptors, and asides with no punctuation to delineate. This was somewhat confusing a One of the first things that struck me about this book, strangely, was a technical detail: the author sets dialogue apart from the text with M-dashes rather than quotation marks. Cunningham's book gave me a new take on World War II and on the continuing conflicts between Protestants and Catholics in Ireland. It also documents the life of a woman who was pressured by the expectations of her social status.

The Sea and the Silence. A book for your head and your heart

The Sea and the Silence. Author: Peter Cunningham. Publisher: Orchard Wall Publishing, 2013. A book for your head and your heart. As she settles in to try and make her life by the ever restless sea, circumstances that have brought Iz to the town of Monument are shrouded in mystery

A book for your head and your heart. Soaring across the decades that follow Ireland’s newly won independence, sweeping across the fierce class issues and battles over land ownership that once defined Irish society, The Sea and the Silence is an epic love story set inside the fading grandeur of the Anglo-Irish class. To read this book, upload an EPUB or FB2 file to Bookmate.

At such times, the nearby village seemed like an act of folly, its houses like barnacles on the cliffs. I had come to value the sight of her exercising a horse or walking down the causeway with a clump of birds in one hand, a gun in the other, or on a summer’s evening on an incoming tide, standing on an utmost rock, casting for sea bass

A powerful novel from one of Ireland's best writers on the turbulent birth of a nation, and the lovers it divides.

A powerful novel from one of Ireland's best writers on the turbulent birth of a nation, and the lovers it divides. Moving and hugely entertaining. Roddy Doyle Ireland 1945. As she settles in to try and make her life by the sea, circumstances that have brought Iz to Monument are shrouded in mystery.

Full recovery of all data can take up to 2 weeks! So we came to the decision at this time to double the download limits for all users until the problem is completely resolved. Thanks for your understanding! Progress: 7. 5% restored. Главная The Sea and the Silence. The Sea and the Silence.

Annotation: Peter Cunningham THE SEA AND THE SILENCE A NOVEL Carol IN GIRUM IMUS NOCTE ET CONSUMIMUR IGNI We go in circles by night and are consumed by fires -Anonymous PROLOGUE By ten in the morning, the fug from the river at low tide had already crept into the upstairs office in Mead Street. It is ever so in mid-August, thought Dick Coad, as he closed the window

A powerful novel from one of Ireland's best writers on the turbulent birth of a nation, and the lovers it divides. “A terrific novel. Moving and hugely entertaining.” - Roddy Doyle Ireland 1945. Young and beautiful, Iz begins a life on the south-east coast with her new husband. As she settles in to try and make her life by the sea, circumstances that have brought Iz to Monument are shrouded in mystery. The war in Europe is over, and change is about to brush away the old order. Soaring across the decades that follow Ireland’s newly won independence, sweeping across the fierce class issues and battles over land ownership that once defined Irish society, The Sea and the Silence is an epic love story set inside the fading grandeur of the Anglo-Irish class.

Comments: (7)

VizoRRR

The genius of this clever little novel is in its structure. Cunningham was a positive genius to come up with this and, since reading it, I can't help but think how other novels I have loved could have been done in the same way. My only problem with the story was the formatting style. Instead of using traditional quotation marks, there was an em-dash preceding all bits of dialog but none following it. Thus, unless there was an attribution like "he said" or "she whispered" I was never really sure what was dialog and what was exposition. Because of this I spent the first couple of chapters struggling to adjust to the odd format style. I think readers would find the story more accessible without that.

The story begins in the 1970s when a solicitor is administering the will of the recently departed "Ismay", also known as "Iz", an English woman who lived most of her life in Ireland. The solicitor, who had nursed a quiet, life-long love for Iz, has two envelopes with the instruction to read them and then destroy them. The first one is labeled "Hector" the name of Ismay's son. The second is labeled "Iz".

In Hector we enter the world of Iz, Hector's mother, who is married to Ronnie, an upper-class ne'er-do-well, who lives in a lighthouse on the Irish coast. World War II is on and life is difficult. There are many struggles not the least of which is coping with the foolish choices of Ronnie when it comes to money, responsibility, and other women. Throughout the story Iz is continually challenged by the problems of aging parents, being a good mother, managing finances such as they are and dealing with Ronnie who can be sweet and endearing when he has screwed something up which is pretty often.

As I was reading it I thought, as I often have with books of this type, why in the blue blazes a beautiful, intelligent, sophisticated woman like Iz stayed with a philandering, useless clod like Ronnie? In some ways Iz reminded me of Stella in Patrick McGrath's Asylum. Iz struggles through one screw up after another from her charming but useless husband and has a few romances of her own. Finally she has had enough and decides to devote herself solely to her son who is a grown man in the British Army being sent to Northern Belfast during the IRA conflicts. The story is difficult and heart-breaking and, as it ended, I really wondered if I could handle Part Two. I'm glad I kept reading.

Part Two, "Iz" begins a few years before Part One began. Now we go back in time to examine the life of young Iz, the beautiful, head-strong daughter of Anglo-Irish parents living on an estate - rich in land, poor in cash - during World War II and the beginning of the Irish struggle for independence. This part of the story is far more intriguing as we see young Iz among her sisters who all have different goals for their lives, come to womanhood on an estate that they are constantly in danger of losing. Iz could be the estate's salvation because she is being actively courted by Norman, a prosperous young man who offers to cultivate the estate and keep it profitable so that his future wife's family will be safe from the growing Irish unrest. But Iz's heart is in another direction, a young Irish dock worker who is penniless but whom she loves.

It is impossible to write more about this story without giving away too much but suffice it to say that when you reach the finally pages of Part Two, the incomprehensible parts of Part One are made clear.

This is a beautifully written, stylishly lovely book and, if not for the bizarre choice in formatting, would have earned 5 stars from me.

Grinin

The Sea and the Silence is set in Ireland in the period from the start of W W I I to the early 1970s. It opens in a solicitor's office. He has two envelopes. One of them is labeled "Ismay", for Iz, the woman central to the novel, and the other "Hector", her son. The solicitor, who has long had a crush on Iz, an English woman who lived much of her life in Ireland, is handling her will. Iz was married for a long time to an upper class anglo-Irishman, who cheated on her, drank way too much, and was a poor excuse for a husband. The novel, which goes back and forth in time, shows her trying to cope with the financial irresponsibility of her husband and his affairs, care for her aging parents, and be a good mother. She was only human and in one very moving and nearly shocking sequence she is abused and abandoned in her own affair by a man who most would have seen was just using her for his own amusement.

The novel also very subtly presents us with a picture of life in neutral Ireland during the World War II years. We see the scarcities and we sense the final decline of the Anglo-Protestant Ascendency in Ireland. In Ireland's neutrality we see a country and a people not sure of themselves, without a clear sense of their own identity. I think much of the very real depth and power of The Sea and the Silence is in the way the ambiguities in the life of Iz mirror the political and social issues of Ireland. Iz has always obtained her identity through her role as wife and mother, when she begins to lose this we see her lose anchor. Similarly, Ireland freed of England does not, it seems, quite to know what to do with herself. I mean no offense here but can one imagine in any possible way how the Irish would have been better of had the Germans won the war?

As the life of Iz develops, she becomes estranged from her husband and is totally devoted to her now grown son Hector who joined the British Army and is stationed in Belfast. Cunningham shows us the truth in Milton's dictum, "they also serve who only sit and wait". The war years are brilliantly realized.

I greatly enjoyed this book both for its treatment of the period, the very interesting structure of the novel, the well done characterizations and the exquisite prose.

Ghile

Iz is a young woman at the beginning if the book. We don't know the circumstances of her recent marriage but we do know she loves the place she lives with the sea nearby. She soon has a son, Hector, whom she & her husband both adore. However her marriage becomes strained through not having enough money & infidelity. The book is told in flashbacks based on letters she has given her solicitor. Much tragedy & great love too. I was surprised at all the twists of fate. I learned a lot about the Anglo-Irish in the time during & after WWII. Terrible violence for so many is at the heart of this book.

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