A Distant Shore

who belongs and who's a stranger', 11 Mar. 2012
By
sally tarbox

This review is from: A Distant Shore (Paperback)
Brilliant novel that seems to start out quite tamely, but through switching to and fro in time, Phillips gradually lets us into more and more of the characters' lives. Dorothy, the retired schoolmistress, is our first narrator, and she seems a prim and proper type (although surprisingly likes going to the pub for a Guinness). Her neighbour, handyman Solomon, is polite and friendly, an African in an otherwise all-white (hostile) village. Two isolated individuals, they form a tentative friendship...
Part one, narrated by Dorothy, tells of their acquaintance to its conclusion. But then in parts 2 and 3, the lives of each, and how show more they got to that place in time (and got to be the people that they were) are explained.
Controlled prose (bit like the writing of Kazuo Ishiguro), will definitely read more of Phillips' work. show less

The tale begins with inviting insights into the life of a fellow retired teacher.

After the two main characters meet and connect on different small levels,
the plot roils into shock,
redemption - at least externally - for Gabriel/Solomon,
then gradually eases into the boredom of Dorothy's
mental decline and institutional convalescence.

Why Mike had to die is pretty odd since his death only serves to give Solomon the car
which links him to Dorothy. With Dorothy's Mum and Dad, Gabriel's Family and Friend,
Sheila, and Dorothy fading, this is simply too many deaths.

"...I'm glad that I live in a cul-de-sac.
There's something safe about a cul-de-sac.
You can see everything when you live near the far end..."

I thought the plot was going to evolve more show more deeply from lines like this. show less

This book was just simply stunning. The prose was superb, the stories tragic. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys finely-written literature. Many readers may not like the structure of this novel, nor the fact that the story is told in almost flashback like format; it took me a little while to figure out that time is not linear in the novel.

A brief synopsis:
Set in England, there are two main characters in this novel. One is Dorothy who is in her fifties, and has retired from teaching music. She has just moved into a new housing development. She gives private lessons, but even that ends after the girl she is teaching quits. Once in a while Dorothy gets out of the house to go visit the local pub, and to make visits to a show more "specialist," from whom she seeks help for sleeplessness. This puts her into contact with Solomon, who volunteers as a driver through the local hospital, and who is sort of a jack of all trades as well as a watchman in the housing development in which Dorothy lives. He senses Dorothy's loneliness and tries to talk to her, but the place in which they both live is filled with people who have nothing better to do than to spread talk and watch what goes on so the two never really quite connect on any kind of in-depth level.

The story underlying the eventual fates of the two characters, as I noted, is told in flashback, switching back and forth between the stories of Dorothy and Solomon. While the stories are vastly different, they have one common meeting point: both are set in a society that doesn't work for either character. Solomon arrives as a refugee from war in Africa, and fails to understand the country and its people who only want to accuse him and rip him off and deal with him with prejudice. Dorothy remarks often about how England has changed -- she remembers the days when children were interested and wanted to learn and when life was simpler; when human responses to one another were just that.

Solomon has his own demons as well, beginning back in his native country. Eventually he makes his way to England entering illegally, and the first thing he knows he is sharing a prison cell with an Iraqi who is dying and nobody seems to care.

Both Dorothy and Solomon have what the other needs or what the other sees as a solution to belonging to a system that doesn't want them or which discards them, but tragically they never realize it. They are set apart by society and can never reach out to each other.

Obviously this is a very quick, nutshell synopsis, but the book is outstanding and I cannot recommend it highly enough. show less

A sad book really, the distant shore being both metaphorical and physical. It's quite possible that everyone has a metaphorical distant shore. Dorothy was a character I could relate to very well, which is kind of scary, given her situation.

Short stories of immigrant experiences. Story of man escaping from genoicide in Africa meets warmth and hatred through his struggles. An incident that encourages us to think of social justice:
According to Said, his brother is still in Iraq, but at other times he is in America. Sometimes Said has a wife and at other times he is a bachelor. But he always has children a boy and a girl. He was a teacher. He reports that on a train ride an Englishman and his wife sitting near him asked him to watch their things. When they returned they accused him of stealing their money. He was taken to jail. He was in the US to work and send for his family. He died in jail (p. 72.) Are immigrants often falsely accused?