ronshavreen's " BestBooks"

I read this more than 25 years ago. It is a beautiful novel of a small island community facing the approach of modernisation. The style and format are original and captivating, the language poetic. The stories of the various characters, which start off being told separately, gradually become more and more involved and intermeshed as the novel progresses. As individual stories they are beautiful, sad, exciting, disappointing, hopeful and more; but as they become enmeshed you get a growing insight into the nature of a small isolated community with its trusts and suspicions, its histories and secrets, its shared outlooks and conflicting pressures. It is ultimately a story of hope and resiliance. It reminds one of mankind’s increasing understanding of the need to preserve such lifestyle options as well as assisting such communities to face inevitable change.
It is a book about a community by an author who is very much a part of that comunity and as such it is a book written with love. It is a book which should be given as a gift to friends.