With its quick narrative pacing, its unusual story lines filled with ironies, its wounded characters (appealing in their vulnerability), and the novel's inherent charm, this newly reprinted novel from 1975 shows author Russell Hoban in fine fettle, creating a novel which raises big questions while focusing on two quiet characters whose lives are about to change thanks to a series of "coincidences." Until now both characters have spent their middle-aged lives dreaming and second-guessing - while ruing the fact that they have missed their chances for happier, more satisfying lives. In their separate narratives, William G. and Neaera H. share their often similar lives and thoughts with the reader.
William G., the divorced father of two, now works in a bookshop and lives in a small room. As the novel opens, he is at the zoo, where he observes the sea turtles in their "grotty little tank no bigger than my room...soaring, dipping, and curving with flippers like wings, in a glass box of second-hand ocean." Neaera H., a single, 43-year-old writer of children's stories, is sick of writing about Gillian Vole and furry-animal picnics and is thinking of making her next character a predator. Neaera, upon her own visit to the zoo, is also touched by the plight of the sea turtles, and though the two characters do not know each other, they decide independently that they want to free them from captivity (further suggesting their single identity). "The Zoo is a prison for animals who have been sentenced without trial," Neaera remarks. Eventually, with the private collusion of the Head Keeper of the Aquarium, they meet and develop a plan to transport the turtles to the Cornwall coast and to free them, but both are still nervous about this big undertaking.
Although the two characters will undoubtedly intrigue the reader with their separate lives and thoughts throughout the novel, the number of unusual coincidences and the often parallel thinking of William G. and Neaera H. raise the question of whether these two characters are intended to be two incarnations of the same person, or even, more broadly, the yin and the yang. Many readers will undoubtedly have as much fun as I did playing with all these possibilities, which expand the themes and scope while leaving much to the reader's imagination. What follows is no "love conquers all" scenario - Russell Hoban is far too clever an author to resort to narrative cliches. As he and T. S. Eliot have reminded us, "the ends of things are always present in their beginnings," and by the time these two characters begin their road trip with the turtles, two weeks after devising the plan, they are beginning to see life in new ways and to think in new directions. Freeing the turtles will be just the beginning of a new stage of their lives.
Hoban's cleverness also shines through his unique and often amusing descriptions. Neaera thinks her next-door neighbor's eyes "look as if he's pawned his real ones and is wearing paste." William has little respect for composer Stravinsky: "Stravinsky looks to me like a man who was potty-trained too early." He does not like Stravinsky's music any better than his appearance. Throughout the novel, the author's many literary and musical references are included with an offhanded, casual good humor, and usually with great irony. Where else have you ever seen Oedipus Rex and Peter Rabbit sharing the same sentence as it does near the beginning of this novel? With a lack of pretension about his literary roots, Hoban uses these references to broaden his scope and themes beyond the lives of his two (or one) ordinary and unexciting protagonists as they take tentative steps in new directions. Thoughtful, delightful, and great fun to read, the novel is at the top of my favorites list for this year.
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Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 8, 2013
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 14, 2015
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 12, 2021
Very interesting view of people's lives. How each spends their days and thoughts. Life and death along with. Lonelyness.
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 9, 2019Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 8, 2019
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 15, 2013
Top reviews from other countries
namelesshere
Turtle Diary - Russell Hoban
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 28, 2020Feanor
The most accessible Hoban
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 17, 2012Helen Barnes
Not his best (but still head and shoulders over many)
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 27, 2012
