The Thin Place

British readers will know what I mean when I say that this is a Marmite book. Like the notorious British savoury spread, you either love it or you hate it. [return][return]I love this book. (Marmite, too. Not sure if that means anything ...) I love the beautiful prose, and sharp descriptions. I love the omniscient point of view, in which (among others, and in no particular order) people, dogs, beavers, carp, a moose and (memorably) lichen on a stone are given their say. I love the sharp insights into human nature. I love the slow burn. I love the misdirection. [return][return]For what it's worth, this is one that I will cheerfully read again, and again and again. Don't know about you. What do you think of Marmite?

I enjoyed this well-written, darkly humorous and literary novel. I mean "humorous" in the tragic way, not that it is funny, though there are many moments of wit. It is humorous in its brief, matter of fact summations of events both horrific and merely sad, in its choices of focus, in its language, and in its sentiments. It includes both shaggy dog stories and stories told by shaggy dogs. Some reviewers have called it Christian allegory, which is certainly there (in a raw, messy, non-sanitized way), but it is at its center an animist tale of love, loss, and beauty. Some passages remind me of Annie Dillard's ecstatic nature writing, not in tone or structure but in their dizzying and sudden revelations of worlds that constellate with the show more world that appeared to be the focus of the narrative. Thus, the discourse shifts from the thoughts of a girl to a narration describing rocks, or to the voice of a beaver, or the telling of a character's secret. These secrets, hopes, and vulnerabilities not just of people but of animals and landscapes, are the true "thin places" of this novel, points of congruence and divergence not just between humans but all of the world's constituents.

My only complaint about the book is not about the book, but the cover. The cover image is misleading and creates an inaccurate expectation about the book's genre. Take out the man in the funny hat, change the baby for a cat, and the wedding dress for something semi-formal from the LL Bean catalogue for a much better depiction of the novel. show less

In some places, the veil between this world and the next is stretched very thin. In thin places unearthly powers can be drawn upon and twelve-year-old Mees Kipp accesses these powers to bring the dead back to life. Mees and her friends Sunny and Lorna stumble across the body of Mr. Banner face down on the local beach. While Sunny and Lorna run to call for help, Mees stays behind and reaches inside to pull Mr. Banner back through the veil. Thus begins the tale of an unusual summer in the small New England village of Varennes.

The Thin Place is the story of the inhabitants of Varennes; the people, animals and even the earth. Kathryn Davis has created a cacophony of unique voices, each pitch a small part of the complete composition. Like show more the ubiquitous blackflies which permeate The Thin Place, each character is necessary to Varennes’ biosphere. Initially the swarm of characters may simply annoy readers; however, in time each individual becomes clear and its part defined.

While The Thin Place is definitely a character driven novel, Davis obviously enjoys playing with language. Her descriptions are inventive and she ably captures the thought patterns of young girls. “Soon he wouldn’t be able to contain his anger, whirling around and giving Mees a piece of his mind. A piece of his mind, Lorna thought. He did that so often, no wonder it sometimes seemed like there wasn’t any left.” However, Davis doesn’t restrict her inventive prose to the human narrators. She weaves various elements into her engrossing novel; police logs, old journals, horoscopes, sermons, and the viewpoints of animals, plants and even the earth find voice here.

“Life has nowhere to move, being everywhere, doesn’t move though it’s always in motion, is the leaf is the trash is the girl’s pierced navel the worm the cat’s paw the lengthening shadows.” Words, like the characters, intertwine to create patterns and hyper-awareness of the otherness of Varennes - and the novel Davis has crafted.

Summarizing The Thin Place is no easy task; it must be read to be fully appreciated. She expects her readers to follow her through this created labyrinth and just as readers believe they have found the path and are on solid footing, the ground moves again. She challenges readers with obscure mystical references and yet on the surface The Thin Place feels accessible. In the end, Kathryn Davis forces readers to explore the thin places around them and contemplate the nature of life and death. show less

A strange tale of the residents of the small town of Varennes—in Maine, presumably—who include a sixth-grade girl with an extraordinary talent. The daily life and inner thoughts of these mostly ordinary citizens is interspersed with historical, geological, metaphysical, and theological musings. The best parts were those told from the point of view of the animals. An odd book that left me wondering what the point was. I suspect that this would have been better to read than listen to as an audio book.

Multiple perspectives can do wonderful things for a narrative. When it's done well, it can help flesh out the story and give the reader more insights than can be garnered from a single character. When it's done poorly, or haphazardly, multiple perspectives only serve to impede the flow of the story, and can confuse the reader. Such is the case here, where Davis gives us the perspective of many characters, including several of the pets in the small town in which her story is set. Here, the multiple perspectives have the effect of muddying the waters so that the reader can never gets a clear picture of any of the characters and can never know what's important to the story.

It's too bad that Davis never lets any one character's story come show more through fully, because she gives us several interesting threads. One character can bring people and animals back to life, but only under certain circumstances. What circumstances? How does she feel about her ability? Occasionally we feel as though we may be getting close to delving deeper into one perspective, but than Davis tears the story away to another character, or perhaps gives us a horoscope or something from the local police blotter. The effect is a very jerky, frustrating read. show less

At times nearly perfect, at times rather frustrating. The novel encompasses more than just its characters, it's also their pets, the lake, the place itself. And Davis's writing is often just perfect. But sometimes the rambling meditations get a little old. And there are an awful lot of characters to keep track of for such a small book.

This book was given to me by bumma a Christmas or two ago and I somehow avoided taking it off the shelf until recently. Having said that, I believe it has taken me longer than any book in recent memory to finish. Normally, I'm a magical realism kind of girl, but somehow I never found the flow of this book. Rather than stand as a story, the vignettes did not hold together for me. Perhaps it was because I would set the book down with one character and when I picked it up again, I was with someone totally different.

Thin places, particularly in Celtic Britain and Ireland, are spots where the veil between this world and the other world is thin -- spots where we can sense the existence of a world beyond what we know, where we can almost reach show more out to touch the Other World, but it remains just beyond our fingertips. And perhaps I was just too far away from the perfect spot to appreciate this book completely at this time in my life. It reminded me of Bergman's "The SEventh Seal", but that may just have been because of the cover of my particular edition.

On to the book--I won't try and describe the story, as it's just a bit to disjointed in my mind to relay. But it is set in a New England town and covers everything from the here and now, the yet to come and even a past tragedy in the 1800's. It is told from the perspectives of schoolgirls, dogs, octogenarians, pastors, parents, police reports and even at one point, a beaver. I've read reviews that focus on the opening event, three girls find a man's body on the beach. Two go off for help, and the third somehow finds the power to revive him. The whole book does seem to focus on spots between life and death, which may indeed be thin places. The prose was wonderful, if somewhat unconventional. I just think I need to digest it more before rating it or sending it off into the world. show less