About this title: OFFSHORE is a love story set among a community of barge-dwellers on the Thames, where Fitzgerald herself lived with her family in the 1960s. The novel won the Booker Prize in 1979. THE GATE OF ANGELS, also known as THE BLUE FLOWER, tells the story of an idealistic man who is the lover and mentor of a 12-year-old girl with whom he is obsessed. Upon her death three years later, she becomes his muse. This novel is based on the life of the German romantic poet Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg, 1772-1801), whose major work was a novel describing the artist's search for a "blue flower."
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Mariner Books
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780395478042ISBN:0395478049
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. light wear on edges but other wise very good. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 144 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Mariner Books
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780395478042ISBN:0395478049
Description: Grade: B. Catalog: Fiction General Synopsis: 141 pages. On the Battersea Reach of the Thames, a mixed bag of eccentrics live in houseboats. Belonging to neither land nor sea, they belong to one a... read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Mariner Books
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780395478042ISBN:0395478049
Description: A wonderful copy with some minor edgewear to the cover. Previous owners name inscribed inside front. -, Trade PaperBack, Very Good / read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Mariner Books
Date Published: 1998-04-03
ISBN-13:9780395478042ISBN:0395478049
Description: Good. X-library with library markings, laminated cover, pgs clean & tight, light tanning to pg edgesFirst Class shipping if available for faster service. read more
"This is a better place to start with Penelope Fitzgerald. She makes all other literary fiction seem like the boring, phony sheiss it is. It takes place among the semi-failures who live on boats permanently moored in the Thames, and is not quite too sad to bear. She is the niece of Father Knox, the first official Catholic padre for Oxford students (I think) and a wonderful writer, the author of the great, infinitely re-readable book Enthusiasm, and a series of books with wonderful titles: The Mass in Slow Motion, etc. in Slow Motion. When you read him, you're Catholic!"
"Offshore is set mostly on barges moored along the banks of the Thames in London. As is pointed out by the author, the place where these characters live is between the land and the water, and the idea of it being a place of transition becomes one of the book's themes. This book reminded me strongly of the writings of Muriel Spark -- the writing is straightforward, with little to complain about; the characters are intriguing and well- if not fully developed; and the plot is minimal, although there are moments of drama, especially toward the end. As when reading Spark, I felt a little unsure upon finishing Offshore as to exactly what I was supposed to have gotten out of it. I'm surprised to see that it received the Booker (as apparently were more than a few people at the time). This is not to say that the book is not enjoyable. If nothing else, its brevity keeps it from overstaying its welcome, and the world of the barge dwellers is an interesting one, which could probably have been explored in even greater depth anyway."
"I read a few of Penelope Fitzgerald's books a long time ago and scenes from those books are still clear in my mind. She's just a great storyteller, you find yourself immediately immersed in her world. This book is no different- I breezed through its 140 pages and desperately wanted the story to go on, and on, and on... she creates characters that feel like real people whose lives continue beyond the book's pages, and you can't help but want to follow their lives indefinitely. I still feel like Richard and Nenna and her children are living on the houseboats on the Thames, forty years on. Wonder what they're doing now..."
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