fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3861 ]

[ SECRET POST #3861 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3861 ⌋

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I just finished the book a few minutes ago, so it's fresh in my mind!

I'll write up a post in a few minutes and post it in response to this comment.

Feel free to post your thoughts, praises, critiques, questions, or other reactions to Ring of Bright Water :)

My overall thoughts: this isn't the best book I've ever read, but it's not the worst. However, it took a really long time to get going. It wasn't until page 53 iirc out of 140 that otters were even mentioned, and it took a while longer after that for the story to really pick up. While Camusfeàrna certainly sounds pretty, that much exposition is usually something of a slog to me.

The writing itself was very good; old-fashioned without being hard to understand, and the prose was enjoyable.

The thing I liked most about the book was the thing it was advertised as - a story about otters. I loved all three of the otters that were spoken about, and mourned the deaths of Chahala and Mijbil. (The guy who killed Mij pissed me off so much, ugh.) I loved reading about their antics and their intelligence and their beauty. I'd never want to have an otter - they sound like ten times as much work as a dog, and I don't have the patience for that - but they certainly sound captivating. I also love that, at least in the edition I read, there were photos of the otters as well as drawings of them and of other animals.

Camusfeàrna itself sounds like a place I'd love to visit, but hate to live in. The author extolls its isolation, and that to me sounds miserable. The only people within walking distance of his house were a trek up the mountain! Even most people who like quieter surroundings would, I think, find this level of isolation to be too much. It also is overall way too cold for me (probably true of Scotland in general). It seemed to be perfect for Maxwell, however.

I wonder if anyone lives there now.

I also wonder how he had the money to live as he did - ordering various supplies and materials, taking trips, owning two homes and constantly moving around while apparently not having a job other than writing. Maybe he was a very good author? I have never read anything else by him and don't know what he liked to write. He never talked about that.

I don't, unfortunately, think there's very much more to say. The book had little plot and was mostly exposition and a series of sequential short stories, which were cute and at times very funny (I laughed out loud several times, such as when he talked about his geese not leaving their cage even though the door was open), but not containing much in the way of plot. I did tear up when the dog died, though (why does the dog always die??).

Please post your reactions :) and if anyone has more direct experience with otters, I'd also love to hear about that!

I only ever read the first book (didn't know there were sequels) but I didn't mind the fact it took so long to get to the otters. The beginning of the book I feel is kind of necessary to understand the hows and whys of the author's choices and feelings when you get to the "living with otters" part. A lot of it was kind of a love song to the location and I actually really enjoyed that---i felt like I was there. The otter photos are SO CUTE and the descriptions of their personalities and habits are equally cute. As a kid I read it and thought "I want an otter!" But now I think you're right about it being like a dog that's 10x the work lol. I do love watching the otters at the zoo though and every time I do I think about the RoBW otters.

The first book was all we were reading for club so you're good!

I will definitely think about RoBW next time I see otters at the zoo. 100% agreed with you there. They were delightful to read about and look at!

DA >em>A lot of it was kind of a love song to the location and I actually really enjoyed that

Yes, I think he got a lot of pleasure out of simply being there. It was a bolt-hole, I think - the pressures of being gay in that period must have been considerable.

TIL Maxwell was gay

hardly surprising, though, when I consider

The back of my copy of the book said he was an aristocrat so I assume he must have inherited money, the way he talks about going between his place in London and Scotland, so at least that cleared up that mystery for me because yeah, he never talked really how he made his money.

And yes, I felt that the first part of the book was slightly necessary and dragged on too long, considering the sequels were supposedly abridged in my edition (which I'm debating reading right now, I have Alta- the sequel to Joust-to read first)

I liked his stories about the antics of the otters but it seemed peculiar to me that he just decided to get an otter in Iraq and happens to have found one that is a completely new species? I also liked the photos and drawings and I think that helped break up the story a bit.

I couldn't live in that much isolation at all, knowing how long it even took for mail to get there and no electricity would have bothered me.

I rate everything on goodreads and I gave this book a 3 out of 5. It wasn't perfect, but it was enjoyable.

eh I think it's probably a variety that was known to the locals for a while, just not the western world. Not totally outside the realm of possibility to me.

No electricity would be very difficult for me to adjust to for sure but that's not even the part of isolation that would be hardest. I just really need frequent social contact.

(Tell me how you like Alta! I haven't decided if I'm going to read it. And speaking of sequels, have you read any of the sequels to His Majesty's Dragon? I'm just starting on the third book in that series, I really love it)

A completely different anon has just read Alta! And yesterday I finished Sanctuary, too. I enjoyed them both - really as much for the details of training the dragons as for the plots. I did have to go "la la la, not seeing the plot hole here" now and then, but all in all I think they're well up to "Joust".

I just thought it was strange how he got the species named after him when it must have been known to locals. Otters in Iraq seem like a strange thing for me anyway.

The isolation would get to me, I go stir crazy in isolation after two days. Forget weeks at a time.

(I'll let you know about Alta when I start it. I haven't read the sequels to His Majesty's Dragon but I did read her other book Uprooted and really loved it)

saaame wrt isolation, oh man. Can't do it.

As for the otter being named after him - ethnocentrism for sure. He was the first white guy to have one, therefore he truly discovered it.

(definitely read the HMD sequels, I love them so much!!)

I also wonder how he had the money to live as he did

It's a lost world in so many ways! He seems to have taken it for granted, too.

Camusfeàrna itself sounds like a place I'd love to visit, but hate to live in.

I think I'd probably last about a fortnight. But for the rest of his time, he lived in London, so I suppose he appreciated the contrast!

The contrast is really what I'd like about vacationing there, but a place THAT isolated, I'd last two days at most. I just can't do it. Even being in rural Indiana (I live in Indianapolis) for more than a day makes me feel restless.

I read the trilogy version, which think is abridged? I didn't realise that, and one day I'll read the full version. But I enjoyed this one.
E's great on descriptions – a symptom of a more leisured age, I think – though I did boggle a bit at the description of the house wearing “that secretive expression that is in some way akin to a young girl's face during her first pregnancy.” Whut.

I really felt for poor Mij on his journey from Basra. A bit more preparation would have been an excellent idea. Also, the casual importing of wild animals – without so much as a vet's check! Times have changed, for sure.

I like his achievement of “an otter-proof situation” in Chapter 8! there doesn't seem to be any such thing.

I've got a note on Ch 8 that his thoughts on insecurity and its effects are chilling – Stockholm syndrome described several decades early – but I can't remember what made me write that down!

I've decided that Cuthbert was my kind of saint. He sounds like an early Attenborough.

The description of the haunted ravine in Ch 9 is very eerie. He's definitely got a way with words. I'd like to visit it myself, without knowing in advance exactly what it is, to see if I pick up the same vibe. Honestly, if it's as full of wildlife as he says, I'd probably like it.

The shop assistant in Ch 10 is awesome. But the rest of the chapter is very sad. :((( That seems to be the way with all animal-human interactions, though. I suppose it's how Tolkien's Elves felt: such short lives. :((

I've also been re-reading Gerald Durrell recently, and the contrast between the attitudes of the two men, at about the same time, is quite interesting – one went out and got experience and learned about the animals and how to care for them before bringing them back to the UK, and the other started off by killing them for a living, then gradually got to know individuals. In the end, they kind of met in the middle.

The book as a whole is lovely, both as a record of a man's friendship with the wild creatures around him, and as a record of a lost way of life, and as a way of escape into a less complicated, though rawer, way of life. It's like another world, seen from today's perspective, but it's not all that long ago. A really fascinating read, on many levels.

I only read the first book, so I can't speak to the other two.

Yeah I was also boggled by that simile. ???

Mij's flight from Iraq was both pity-inducing but also funny (like when he got into the American lady's purse, and Maxwell managed to stuff everything back before she noticed). Airplane security is another thing that's changed a lot, too.

The ravine sounded really cool and is a place I'd really enjoy exploring, personally.

Definitely another world...I wonder if I could have adapted to it if I lived in that time period. I'm too extroverted for that level of isolation, but living off the grid and doing without a lot of entertainment and physical stuff would have been easier for me to adjust to then than now, perhaps.

I'd love to go camping there, though (in the summer).

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[ SECRET POST #3861 ]

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