Fishing for Amber dazzles with its weave of narratives and the sheer pleasure taken in unwinding the three narrative strands: ribald telling of tales from Ovid's Metamorphoses, dark and disturbing Irish fairy stories, and fantastic tales of 17th-century Dutch painting. The universal theme is that of transmutation and the power of art—of light captured on canvas, experience immortalized in narrative. Stories branch infinitely into other stories, each connecting, and each fishing for the truth. The central image of amber, of light or creatures captured in it, transformed by it, is sustained throughout the book. Ciaran Carson lives in Belfast. He has been awarded the Irish Times Irish Literature Prize and the T. S. Eliot Poetry Prize, as well as the Yorkshire Post Prize for The Star Factory.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Ciaran Carson lives in Belfast. He has been awarded the Irish Times Irish Literature Prize and the T. S. Eliot Poetry Prize, as well as the Yorkshire Post Prize for The Star Factory.
--This text refers to the
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonders on every page!,
By
This review is from: Fishing for Amber (Hardcover)
"Fishing for Amber" is one of those enchanting books one secretly hopes to acquire every time one purchases a book. It is a treasure-box filled with wonders, each more delightful than the last. Part James Burke's Connections, part Umberto Eco, part Chet Raymo and all delightful, the book is a melding of poetry, fact, and all the stops between. The text meanders through ancient mythologies of the Greek Gods and their progeny, ghastly Irish yarns of bizarre encounters with the Fae, baroque histories from when the Netherlands were the cultural and intellectual center of Europe, and reflections on the author's own father, an Irish storyteller himself. Magical and haunting, it is a wild ride on horseback at midnight not to be missed.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Incredible Journey,
By Phil Makower (Cambridge, England) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Fishing for Amber (Hardcover)
This is an amazing book - a mixture of Fables, Folk Tales, Greek Myths, Dutch history, and Lives of Saints.26 chapters, one for each letter of the Alphabet, "Antipodes" to "Zoetrope". There are so many stories here, going off on so many seeming tangents, that you can hardly believe it will hold together, but it does so brilliantly
4.0 out of 5 stars
Amber Associations,
By
This review is from: Fishing for Amber (Paperback)
As the other reviewers here have been quick to point out, this book is a gallimaufry of narrative strands taken from history, folklore, literature and imagination. But, someone will ask, "What is Fishing For Amber all about anyway?" - If forced to be reductionist about it, I suppose the one word that comes to mind is "Associations." In a sense, the interweaving narratives and histories mimic the human mind's tangential nature. Save that, rather than tangents, the associations' points de depart into another history or narrative are circuitous and eventually land one back at another point in the history of, say, amber.
All this makes for interesting, fascinating, enjoyable reading. So why am I, unlike the other reviewers, giving the book only four stars rather than the superlative five? Because methinks that this book, this woof of nested narratives, covering Proust, Vermeer, much Irish folklore, Greek and Roman mythology, a history of submarines, a (true) account of an actual language based on the diatonic scale, hagiography, ergotism and much, much more is a wee bit too clever by half to be a truly profound read. It takes on more than 350 pages can handle, as is evident in the eight page bibliography of 107 sources. But it's fun, and you will certainly learn much between the covers of this book. I surely did. So, go ahead, drop your nets into these waters. Just beware that what you pull up will certainly be strange without necessarily being rich. You'll have to cast deeper into some of the books in the bibliography for that.
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
It was long ago, and long ago it was; and if I'd been there, I wouldn't be here now; if I were here, and then was now, I'd be an old storyteller, whose story might have been improved by time, could he remember it. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Earl Minor, Amber Room, Lough Neagh, Jack the Lad, Jan Steen, Black Rogue, Golden Age, Sally Gardens, Larry the Red, New York, John Keats, Pat the Lad, View of Delft, Bay of Biscay, Cranfield Inn, Jan Vermeer, John the Fog, Bishop Wilkins, Fenian Ram, Holy Face, Jules Verne, Marcel Proust, Blue Earth, Cornelius Drebbel, Curnan the Simple New!
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
It was long ago, and long ago it was; and if I'd been there, I wouldn't be here now; if I were here, and then was now, I'd be an old storyteller, whose story might have been improved by time, could he remember it. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Earl Minor, Amber Room, Lough Neagh, Jack the Lad, Jan Steen, Black Rogue, Golden Age, Sally Gardens, Larry the Red, New York, John Keats, Pat the Lad, View of Delft, Bay of Biscay, Cranfield Inn, Jan Vermeer, John the Fog, Bishop Wilkins, Fenian Ram, Holy Face, Jules Verne, Marcel Proust, Blue Earth, Cornelius Drebbel, Curnan the Simple New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 65
books:
See all 65 books this book cites
9
books
cite this book:
See all 9 books citing this book
- Other Inquisitions by Jorge Luis Borges on page 254, and Back Matter
- The Story of Writing by Donald Jackson in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Vermeer and His Milieu by John Michael Montias in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Seventeenth Century (Galaxy Books) by Sir George Norman Clark in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- A Modern Herbal (Volume 1, A-H): The Medicinal, Culinary, Cosmetic and Economic Properties, Cultivation and Folk-Lore of Herbs, Grasses, Fungi, Shrubs & Trees with Their Modern Scientific Uses by Margaret Grieve in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
See all 65 books this book cites
- On Stories (Thinking in Action) by Richard Kearney in Front Matter, page 28, and page 125
- On Stories (Thinking in Action) by Richard Kearney on page 28, and page 124
- The Poetic Economies of England and Ireland, 1912-2000 by Dillon Johnston on page 174, and Back Matter
- Shamrock Tea by Ciaran Carson in Front Matter (1), and Front Matter (2)
- The Routledge Guide to Modern English Writing by Ronald Carter on page 169
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