This is Silver’s story, or stories. Orphaned
early and taken in by Pew, the blind keeper of Britain’s northernmost
lighthouse at Cape Wrath, she is entranced by his storytelling and embraces it
as part of her unofficial apprenticeship.
Pew’s view is that stories have no beginning
or end but just connect an older tale to a newer one. Timeless themes recur of
love and loss, longing and passion, hope and seeking, sometimes finding.
The key episodes of Silver’s own story are
interspersed with those of Babel Dark; he’s a nineteenth century preacher who
washed up at Cape Wrath about the time the lighthouse was being constructed,
who is tormented by some competing components of his personality.
Real life figures pop in and out of the
narrative: Robert Stevenson, engineer and designer of the lighthouse; Robert
Louis Stevenson, Jekyll and Hyde author (more light and dark); and Charles
Darwin, proponent of the ultimate never-ending story of evolution.
The imagery and echoing connectivity is
handled with such delicacy as to be almost subliminal, unobtrusive to the well
told tale, but working away in the background like the seasoning in a tasty
casserole.
In this edition (Harper Perennial paperback)
the accompanying interview and articles give an insight into how Winterson
creates her novels – letting the central characters and events emerge
unplanned, then piecing them together to produce, in this case, a polished gem.
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