Book Review – Beside The Ocean of Time by George Mackay Brown

5 stars, read in January 2019, while on the Isle of Harris

Thorfinn is a daydreamer. He loses attention easily in class and his mind wanders to great historical adventures in which of course he is involved.

<blockquote> Of all the lazy useless boys who ever went to the Norday school.. </blockquote> the novel begins.

Home is a tiny village on the Orkney island of Norday. Brown’s classic novel takes us through Thorfinn’s daydreaming, as well as giving us an insight into the island life, especially it’s characters, in the years either side of the Second World War. But this absolutely isn’t a war novel, in fact, anything but. It’s a ‘feel good’ story about Orkney life with beautiful descriptive and yet simple prose.

It is intimate and humourous, and effortlessly combines the strands of history with folklore, and the past with the present. It is a deceptively simple book, like a tale told to a child, but it reveborates on unforgettably.