The Love of Stones
by Tobias Hill
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Burrowing through the goldsmiths' quarters and hidden archives of London, Tokyo, and Istanbul, Katharine Sterne is on the trail of a ruby, diamond, and pearl brooch once worn by Queen Elizabeth I. Interwoven with the tale of her hunt is that of a pair of Iraqi Jewish brothers who traveled to London two hundred years earlier with fortunes made from an unearthed jar of priceless stones. Spanning two continents and six centuries, The Love of Stones follows three very different people, each show more consumed by the same desire-possession of the legendary jewel-which binds their stories together in an irresistible quest. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
A journey through obssession, with interesting passages detailing what it's like in modern-day Turkey and Japan as well as 19th century Iraq and Victorian London. The main narrator's voice resembles William Gibson's in _Pattern Recognition_ - for her insightful take on the things that she sees in her travels. Loved the scenes featuring Queen Victoria!
This is a very good book. An almost outstanding book really. WHile reaidng it, I was carried away - I wished I lived in a mansion in Turkey, I thought I could be a gem-smuggler, I was entranced by the Victorian history.
So why not five stars? Was it the protagonist, Katherine, who is someone that you just can't feel for? While I would admit that I really didn't care what happened to her, it did not get in the way of enjoying the story. Was it the fact that the real stars of the show were inanimate things - the stones in question? No, I found them fascinating. Was it the fact that the story slid between two periods of time? No, that was done seamlessly.
What did lose it a star was the overly contrived elements - the love story that show more Katherine becomes involved in at the end (no more details in case you haven't read it yet) and the story of the rag-and-bones girl who becomes involved with the protagonists in the Victorian era story. Which is such a shame, because everything else in this story rang true, and was particularly well written show less
So why not five stars? Was it the protagonist, Katherine, who is someone that you just can't feel for? While I would admit that I really didn't care what happened to her, it did not get in the way of enjoying the story. Was it the fact that the real stars of the show were inanimate things - the stones in question? No, I found them fascinating. Was it the fact that the story slid between two periods of time? No, that was done seamlessly.
What did lose it a star was the overly contrived elements - the love story that show more Katherine becomes involved in at the end (no more details in case you haven't read it yet) and the story of the rag-and-bones girl who becomes involved with the protagonists in the Victorian era story. Which is such a shame, because everything else in this story rang true, and was particularly well written show less
Splitting the story between the past and the present this is the story of Katerine's quest for the three brothers or three brethern. A piece that was once held by the queen of england, this is a story of obsession and the history of two sets of owners of the piece.
ALthough it's somewhat interesting it failed for me on some levels, possibly by trying too hard, that and Katherine being a character I disliked. I finished it but wasn't impressed.
ALthough it's somewhat interesting it failed for me on some levels, possibly by trying too hard, that and Katherine being a character I disliked. I finished it but wasn't impressed.
I really enjoyed the first 1/3 of the book, when the history and the story main protagonist (Katherine) intertwine. After that I found it too convoluted and to be quite honest one of the main plot elements just didn't make sense, then the last page which appears to contradict itself.
I give it a three. It was plodding, but held my interest enough for me to finish. The author was adept at weaving the past and the present into twining storylines. A bit predictable (at least the ending), but still not at all a bad read.
Couldn't get beyond 100 pages. Inge & Terri loved it ??
"[The rivers:] shifted in their sleep..." (55)
"It was both a concept and a word of advice. It meant that anyone you meet may be the most important person in your life. Therefore, that every stranger should be treated as a friend,. Loved before it is too late. You never know (he said) in which night your ship is passing." (134)
"The feel of obsession: like a reservoir of love gone sour." (159)
"Instead he began to feel an impending doom, a sense of loss lone before he had lost anything." (221)
"It was both a concept and a word of advice. It meant that anyone you meet may be the most important person in your life. Therefore, that every stranger should be treated as a friend,. Loved before it is too late. You never know (he said) in which night your ship is passing." (134)
"The feel of obsession: like a reservoir of love gone sour." (159)
"Instead he began to feel an impending doom, a sense of loss lone before he had lost anything." (221)
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Published Reviews
If there is such a thing as a poet's thriller, Tobias Hill's new novel, ''The Love of Stones,'' is that. Lapidary in both style and subject, the book follows the history of a spectacular medieval jewel and the people who are consumed by the desire to have it.
added by KayCliff
Tobias Hill successfully finesses the ending, where wish-fulfilment demands that Katharine should hold in her hand the jewel for which she has given up so much, while sophistication prefers a dilution of triumph. What is confounding about The Love of Stones is not the occasional failure but an almost continuous success. It may be that the book, like Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow, is as close show more to the apotheosis of a yarn as to a literary masterpiece, but it deserves the many readers it will win. show less
added by KayCliff
Throughout the book, Hill relays the suspense of every meeting involving these ill-fated stones, and the filmic moment of disclosure - the box opening - is just as thrilling each time. But this paradoxically rambling and clean-cut novel would have benefited from fewer characters and less striving. For every successful character (such as Frau von Gott, the eccentric German collector and show more Sterne's mother figure), there is a superfluous one: the Dickensian sewer child, Martha, is a grubby-faced stereotype, a "please mister" delinquent whose dealings with the jewel seem little more than a closing device. show less
added by KayCliff
Author Information
12+ Works 962 Members
Tobias Hill was born on March 30, 1970 in London, England. He is an award-winning British poet, essayist, writer of short stories and novelist. Hill was educated at Hampstead School and Sussex University before spending two years teaching in Japan. Hill's early work appeared in magazines such as Envoi and The Frogmore Papers and published four show more collections,Year of the Dog, Midnight in the City of Clocks, (influenced by his experience of life in Japan) Zoo and Nocturne in Chrome & Sunset Yellow. In 1999, Hill published his debut novel, Underground. The Love of Stones (2001), Hill's second novel, earned wider recognition. Hill's third novel, The Cryptographer, was published in 2003. Tobias Hill's fourth novel, The Hidden, was published in January 2009. He made the Ondaatje Prize 2015 shortlist with his title, What Was Promised. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Love of Stones
- Original publication date
- 2001
- People/Characters
- Katharine Sterne; Daniel Levy; Salman Levy
- Important places
- Turkey; Japan; London, England, UK; Iraq; Istanbul, Turkey; Baghdad, Iraq (show all 7); Diyarbak'r, Turkey
- First words
- Years before his murder on the Bridge of Montereau, Duke John the Fearless of Burgundy commissioned a jewel called the Three Brethren.
- Quotations
- It was both a concept and a word of advice. It meant that anyone you meet may be the most important person in your life. Therefore, that every stranger should be treated as a friend,. Loved before it is too late. You never kn... (show all)ow (he said) in which night your ship is passing.
The writing is damaged where someone has laid a cup on the cheap paper. The script is delicate, spidery, written in nibbed ink.
The briefcase is full of demands.... In its main cavity are the President's treasures. An obscenely plump, ribbed silver pen.
The man looks like a collector of jewels, a buyer with more money than taste.
Aslan knows nothing about me ... Not that stones are their own reason, certainly. That jewels, like money, are their own motive. That I want the Three Brethren in the way he might want to sleep or fall in love, and that I wil... (show all)l do anything, almost anything, to get what I want.
I think that after a certain age jewels cease to be possessions. At that point they become the possessors.... For six centuries there have been people like me. We have all wanted the same thing. It connects us, a thick, deep ... (show all)rope of desire. Our lives repeat.... I look for what is precious and tangible, and my life becomes these things.... I have held jewels it is a privilege to touch.... I know what I want from my life. It is not the physical value of the jewel. Objects can be precious in other ways.
Pearls have such a subtle beauty, so elegant. They grow. Little lives. They are a function of pain.... The oyster has delicate flesh. Easily hurt. When grit becomes lodged there, it wraps up the pain in pearl. It smooths away... (show all) the hurt. The pearl is a function of pain.
The need for something was there long before [my mother] died.... The feel of obsession: like a reservoir of love gone sour. Inside me there was a love waiting to happen, and eventually, the jewel is what happened to it. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)A love out of stones.
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 312
- Popularity
- 101,616
- Reviews
- 7
- Rating
- (3.39)
- Languages
- 6 — Dutch, English, German, Russian, Spanish, Swedish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 15
- ASINs
- 3
