A virtuoso performance from an emerging new literary talent who crafts a vividly drawn history of an imaginary country.
In this stylisti... read full description
In this stylisti... read full description
reviews
Nov 15, 2007
Jason
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(My full review of this book is much longer than the excerpt posted below; find it at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com].)
There is of course a long and proud tradition here in the West of elaborate histories concerning made-up places; take JRR Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" series, as perhaps the most famous example of all. But now imagine that the made-up land in question is designed deliberately to mix with our real world, geography and his More...
There is of course a long and proud tradition here in the West of elaborate histories concerning made-up places; take JRR Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" series, as perhaps the most famous example of all. But now imagine that the made-up land in question is designed deliberately to mix with our real world, geography and his More...
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Aug 09, 2011
Brett
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I picked up this book solely on the precis on the dust jacket. I was curious - could the author pull off this conceit, or would it simply turn out to be a clever gimmick that went horribly wrong? I must say I was MORE than impressed by this clever yet READABLE "novel". Its very form makes me question what constitutes a novel.
There is no linear plot, per se. Instead, the book is an anthology of short stories which chronicle the history of literature on the fictitious island of Sanj More...
There is no linear plot, per se. Instead, the book is an anthology of short stories which chronicle the history of literature on the fictitious island of Sanj More...
Dec 28, 2008
Spiros
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Compendia always tend to be hit-or-miss; compendia of literarture from imaginary cultures probably will inevitably miss more than they hit. Some of the earlier pieces in this anthology of Sanjanian literature are engaging; as the Sanjan culture evolves into Sanjania, the stories and criticism become more pallid and didactic, which may well have been the effect Marche was aiming for, but doesn't really do the reader any favors.
Another problem, over and above the quality of the writing, is t More...
Another problem, over and above the quality of the writing, is t More...
Jan 29, 2012
Mary
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The structure of this book is intriguing - Marche has made up an entire island nation in the North Atlantic, part of the British Commonwealth, and created an anthology of writings as well as a literary history and literary criticism. Some of the selections are particularly fun - A Wedding in Restitution reminded me a bit of the fantastical stories with a grain of truth from the movie Big Fish - and there is a criticism of Robinson Crusoe purportedly written by Friday which is delightful. The M
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Jan 01, 2009
Paula
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Marche has concocted a fictive anthology of the imagined national literature of a pretend island in the North Atlantic, Sanjania, a purported former British colony: a fiction from first to last page, from Foreward and Preface to Biographical Notes and Acknowledgements. At first I was skeptical of the conceit but Marche pulls it off, I think with grace, wit and an impressive ability to shift style and voice to create not just distinctive characters but distinctive authors. This is a book, howeve
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May 04, 2008
Marjorie
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Following on Possession, another work of alternate literary history, this time an anthology of literature from an imaginary North Atlantic island country called Sanjania (Sanjan Island before that, Saint John Island sometime when the first Europeans stumbled upon it). Because so few people seem to have taken much interest in this book, I'm going to assume it was written for me: it's at once deeply bookwormish and deeply concerned with the role of place in literature, which is one of my primary
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Mar 28, 2008
Jennifer
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Shining at the Bottom of the Sea definitely gets points for originality. Marche actually invents an island called Sanjania, and creates not only a history , but a literary history as well. Basically, this book is a collection of short stories that reflect Sanjania's history. The stories start out with unique dialect that portrays the early 1900's, and slowly gets "cleaner" over the years, especially after the "Clean Movement" approach to writing that united the dialects of di
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Mar 22, 2009
Moses Operandi
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Upon my second reading, Shining at the Bottom of the Sea proved to be just as enchanting as it was at first. This is a staggeringly inventive collection of fictional short stories, pretending to be a scholarly collection of the best short stories from Sanjania, a small independent island in the North Atlantic. If I knew a little less about the world, reading this book would compel me to buy a ticket to Sanjania on the next plane. Knowing as I do that this is a work of fiction is strangely disapp
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Apr 07, 2010
Meaghan
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I really liked the idea of this book and the way that Marche has created his own fictional country. I wanted to love this book, because the vision of it is so interesting, but in practice only a few of the stories really caught my attention.
Jul 16, 2008
jcg
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I couldn't finish this book. I tried reading the Foreword, but found it wordy and convoluted. So I skipped that and went to the Preface, which I found wordy and convoluted and full of pointless detail - it was just a recitation of invented facts, dry as dust, there was nothing to make me care about the place or the people. So I tried reading a couple of the stories which I found wordy and convoluted. No doubt that the book has some inventive language, but couldn't some of that inventiveness be p
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Dec 22, 2011
Mike
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Terrific idea of organizing a book and telling a story. The details and back story of characters was well done.
Dec 17, 2009
Eoin
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Unrepeatably perfect. I'm a sucker for elaborate lies, but Marche succeeds on the order of Carey's Kelly Gang without even the folklore backgrounding. The man wrote a beautiful, wideranging anthology of an imaginary culture, complete with criticism. Tlon? Funeary Violin? The only way this could have been done better, is if the book didn't weren't listed as "Experimental Fiction" in the Library of Congress. Astonishing. I am astonished.
Mar 10, 2008
Rick
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Fabulously creative. The author, via an "anthology" of the literary history of the fiction of the fictional authors of the fictional country he creates, gives you a window into a North Atlantic island culture he imagines in beautiful detail. Plus, each of the stories is written in a unique, interesting voice. The comparison to David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas is obvious and neither work suffers by its association with the other.
Jul 27, 2010
Melissa
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Due to a frustrating printing error found in all copies at both Brooklyn and New York Public Libraries, I was 70 pages away from the end of this until I broke down and bought a cheap remaindered copy from Amazon. After all that... well, the fragmented reading experience made it hard to come away with a great opinion of this, but I appreciated its inventiveness.
Aug 21, 2007
Jenn
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The author has invented and peopled a mythical but absolutely plausible island, Sanjania, and this book "collects" pamphlets and writings from various Sanjanian authors. The individual pieces are mostly very sweet, and I was fascinated by the invented patois and slang. It's a really big concept, and executed beautifully.
Jun 26, 2008
Colin
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Wasn't so into it -- the first few stories grabbed my but they seemed to grow progressively more implausible as individual pieces of lit as they went on. . .
nifty idea, though
nifty idea, though
Nov 12, 2007
Heather
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Didn't finish this. Interesting idea (an anthology of stories purporting to be by different authors from an invented country) but execution was pretentious and often quite boring.
Dec 20, 2010
Tessa
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This was really impressive as an intellectual exercise AND as separate works of fiction. I'm glad I bought it instead of getting it from the library.
Nov 07, 2008
Ali
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this is possibly the only book that i have read through and immediately started reading again.
actually, i know this is the only book.
actually, i know this is the only book.
Nov 26, 2008
Well, marche is a genius, no doubt. Here he's become a sort of cross between David Wilson, Alfred Jarry and Joey Smallwood. Read, and be amazed!
Apr 24, 2008
kirsten
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had to get it out of one library twice and then another to finish because of a misprint. still pretty good.
Jan 24, 2012
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