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Archipelago
Gavin Weald lives with his six-year old daughter Océ an and their dog Suzy in a newly rebuilt pink house. It is only a few months since a devastating flood swept through their home, with heartbreaking consequences.
Gavin is trying desperately to carry on, but wakes each night to his daughter's cries and his own fears for the future. So one day he does the only thing he can think of: he takes his daughter and his dog down to the marina, to his old boat Romany which hasn't set sail in years, and embarks upon a voyage to make his peace with the waters. They set sail into deep open ocean, watch fish and dolphins leap from the waves, and head for the Caribbean archipelago that Gavin longed to explore as a younger man, before he fell in love with a woman and moored his boat for what he thought was the last time.
Now Gavin has a new reason for wanderlust and an unexpected crew, who are about to discover the full power and majesty of the sea. A miraculous journey awaits, new sights and wonders - but it will take more than an ocean to put the memory of the flood behind them�
Gavin is trying desperately to carry on, but wakes each night to his daughter's cries and his own fears for the future. So one day he does the only thing he can think of: he takes his daughter and his dog down to the marina, to his old boat Romany which hasn't set sail in years, and embarks upon a voyage to make his peace with the waters. They set sail into deep open ocean, watch fish and dolphins leap from the waves, and head for the Caribbean archipelago that Gavin longed to explore as a younger man, before he fell in love with a woman and moored his boat for what he thought was the last time.
Now Gavin has a new reason for wanderlust and an unexpected crew, who are about to discover the full power and majesty of the sea. A miraculous journey awaits, new sights and wonders - but it will take more than an ocean to put the memory of the flood behind them�
369 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 1, 2012
37 people are currently reading
994 people want to read
About the author
Monique Roffey
17books435followersMonique Roffey, FRSL, is an award winning British-Trinidadian writer. Her most recent novel, The Mermaid of Black Conch (Peepal Tree Press/Vintage) won the Costa Book of the Year Award, 2020 and was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize, 2020, the Rathbones/Folio Award 2021, and the Republic of Consciousness Award. Her other novels have been shortlisted for The Orange Prize, Costa Novel Award, Encore and Orion Awards. In 2013, Archipelago won the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. She is Professor of Contemporary Fiction at Manchester Metropolitan University.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 151 reviews
August 22, 2022
4.75 stars
My first work by Monique Roffey: set in the Caribbean and Pacific, as far as the Galapagos Islands. Two things in her own life triggered Roffey to write this: a flood which affected her brother and her own travels in a small boat in the Caeibbean. The novel starts in Trinidad, where Roffey comes from. There is a flood which destroys Gavin Weald’s home. His baby son dies. Things are difficult, his daughter (Ocean) and dog are traumatised. Gavin part owns a boat and he decides to take is daughter and dog on a trip from Trinidad to the Galapagos Isles, via the Panama Canal. There is some mystery as to what has happened to Gavin’s wife Claire, but this becomes clearer as the novel progresses. Gavin leaves his job, takes his daughter out of school and sets off in his boat with his daughter Ocean (who is about eight or nine I seem to remember) and his aging dog Suzy.
The trip to the Galapagos is incident prone and there are lots of themes including climate change, tourism, piracy and smuggling, weather (inevitably) local politics and inevitably wildlife. The sea is pretty much a character in itself. There are lots of Melville references and even a white whale. Sometimes Roffey does drift into travelogue mode:
"peaks of harvested solar salt, dazzling and miraculous, rising up like unicorns, or hills of a distant moon"
But not very often.
The characterisation is good and each character works through the trauma of the flood which destroyed their house and begins to come to some sort of understanding of what has happened:
“It feels like he and Océan have blended. They have softened in themselves and with each other; the sea has dissolved them, and they are suppler in their skin. They have been disappeared for weeks now, and they are sun-henna brown […] He didn’t expect to feel so lost in his own escape; a new space has opened up, an ocean.�
The relationship of the body to the environment and nature are significant and Gavin’s sense of himself and his relationship with what is around him develops throughout the novel. The journey through the Caribbean is also a journey through environmental and colonial history. Roffey also deals with the mythic as well, filtering Homer (the Odyssey) and Melville through Caribbean eyes. There are also echoes of another Trinidadian writer CLR James and his work on Melville where he says:
“Nature is not a background to men's activity or something to be conquered and used, it is a part of man, at every turn physically, intellectually and emotionally, and man is a part of it. If man does not integrate his daily life with his natural surroundings and his technical achievements, they will turn on him and destroy him�
Roffey emphasises this in relation to tourism and climate change, but in a thoughtful way and the reader is led rather than dragged. Gavin and his daughter visit the slave houses of Bonaire and both feel the trauma of the place in different ways.
Gavin questions himself and his own relation to colonialism:
“Why does he accept the earlier invasion of the Dutch, the fancy buildings, the wild donkeys brought by the Spanish, and yet he minds the twentieth-century invaders, those who brought the casinos and Taco Bell? Because Americans are also New World—and they haven’t built grand cities like the Spanish, the British or the Dutch. They haven’t brought people, trees, plants, animals, languages. America is still young and has arrived in modern style, in recent decades. America has colonized invisibly, via cable and satellite TV�
The novel ends in myth, at carnival time. But carnival is as much protest as it is backward looking. As Bakhtin says it is “bodily participation in the potentiality of another world�. This is a novel which tells a good story and airs many issues without really feeling preachy. Roffey is someone I will read again soon.
My first work by Monique Roffey: set in the Caribbean and Pacific, as far as the Galapagos Islands. Two things in her own life triggered Roffey to write this: a flood which affected her brother and her own travels in a small boat in the Caeibbean. The novel starts in Trinidad, where Roffey comes from. There is a flood which destroys Gavin Weald’s home. His baby son dies. Things are difficult, his daughter (Ocean) and dog are traumatised. Gavin part owns a boat and he decides to take is daughter and dog on a trip from Trinidad to the Galapagos Isles, via the Panama Canal. There is some mystery as to what has happened to Gavin’s wife Claire, but this becomes clearer as the novel progresses. Gavin leaves his job, takes his daughter out of school and sets off in his boat with his daughter Ocean (who is about eight or nine I seem to remember) and his aging dog Suzy.
The trip to the Galapagos is incident prone and there are lots of themes including climate change, tourism, piracy and smuggling, weather (inevitably) local politics and inevitably wildlife. The sea is pretty much a character in itself. There are lots of Melville references and even a white whale. Sometimes Roffey does drift into travelogue mode:
"peaks of harvested solar salt, dazzling and miraculous, rising up like unicorns, or hills of a distant moon"
But not very often.
The characterisation is good and each character works through the trauma of the flood which destroyed their house and begins to come to some sort of understanding of what has happened:
“It feels like he and Océan have blended. They have softened in themselves and with each other; the sea has dissolved them, and they are suppler in their skin. They have been disappeared for weeks now, and they are sun-henna brown […] He didn’t expect to feel so lost in his own escape; a new space has opened up, an ocean.�
The relationship of the body to the environment and nature are significant and Gavin’s sense of himself and his relationship with what is around him develops throughout the novel. The journey through the Caribbean is also a journey through environmental and colonial history. Roffey also deals with the mythic as well, filtering Homer (the Odyssey) and Melville through Caribbean eyes. There are also echoes of another Trinidadian writer CLR James and his work on Melville where he says:
“Nature is not a background to men's activity or something to be conquered and used, it is a part of man, at every turn physically, intellectually and emotionally, and man is a part of it. If man does not integrate his daily life with his natural surroundings and his technical achievements, they will turn on him and destroy him�
Roffey emphasises this in relation to tourism and climate change, but in a thoughtful way and the reader is led rather than dragged. Gavin and his daughter visit the slave houses of Bonaire and both feel the trauma of the place in different ways.
Gavin questions himself and his own relation to colonialism:
“Why does he accept the earlier invasion of the Dutch, the fancy buildings, the wild donkeys brought by the Spanish, and yet he minds the twentieth-century invaders, those who brought the casinos and Taco Bell? Because Americans are also New World—and they haven’t built grand cities like the Spanish, the British or the Dutch. They haven’t brought people, trees, plants, animals, languages. America is still young and has arrived in modern style, in recent decades. America has colonized invisibly, via cable and satellite TV�
The novel ends in myth, at carnival time. But carnival is as much protest as it is backward looking. As Bakhtin says it is “bodily participation in the potentiality of another world�. This is a novel which tells a good story and airs many issues without really feeling preachy. Roffey is someone I will read again soon.
December 14, 2018
Found this at Dollar Tree right after arriving in Arizona in early November.
The story is stunning: told slowly, no tsunamis of information coming at us. We learn bit by bit why Gavin's life has gone out of control and we struggle along with him to find a way to recover some sort of normality for himself and his daughter.
Will his plan to sail to the Galapagos Islands with only his daughter and their dog be the right solution? He always wanted to go there, he used to talk about it with his buddy years ago. Maybe now is the proper time at last, even though he hasn't been at sea for years and is not absolutely confident that he can handle what to do and when to do it.
I want to read this again soon; it is so captivating and just plain pretty, once through is not enough to feel it all.
And I need to find more by this author!
The story is stunning: told slowly, no tsunamis of information coming at us. We learn bit by bit why Gavin's life has gone out of control and we struggle along with him to find a way to recover some sort of normality for himself and his daughter.
Will his plan to sail to the Galapagos Islands with only his daughter and their dog be the right solution? He always wanted to go there, he used to talk about it with his buddy years ago. Maybe now is the proper time at last, even though he hasn't been at sea for years and is not absolutely confident that he can handle what to do and when to do it.
I want to read this again soon; it is so captivating and just plain pretty, once through is not enough to feel it all.
And I need to find more by this author!
July 13, 2024
4.5 rating
One December night, in Trinidad, flood waters swarm through a small town. Gavin Weald, his wife and two children, weather the storm. Suddenly, a large gust of water rushes into their home, claiming the life of their youngest child.
Months later, Gavin is now living alone with his daughter, Ocean. His wife has left, stricken by grief.
After blacking out at work one day, Gavin realizes that he needs to take his daughter away and try to find peace again. He is drawn to the only place that has brought him solitude over the years, the sea.
How he loved the sea as a younger man; the sea was his first mistress, his first woman. She kept him from marrying for a long time. He would rather have the sea, this canny boat,... The sea loved him, kept him for herself.
Together, Gavin, Ocean, and their dog 🐶 Suzy, set off on an adventure through the Carribean Sea in the hopes of reaching a famous Archipelago (an area that contains a group of islands scattered in the ocean).
Gavin tells his daughter that she was named after the ocean.
You named me after which ocean, then?
He laughs. I named you after them all sweetie.
Why?
Because the ocean is full of wonders, and so are you.
Gavin is certain that this journey will help restore what remains of their family and give him and his daughter purpose again.
____________________________________________________________
The author decided to write this fictional novel after her brother's home was flooded in Trinidad in 2008.
It is a powerful story of self-reflection and finding oneself again after tragedy. It's raw and heartbreaking and will stay with me for quite some time. 🐳🐠💙
One December night, in Trinidad, flood waters swarm through a small town. Gavin Weald, his wife and two children, weather the storm. Suddenly, a large gust of water rushes into their home, claiming the life of their youngest child.
Months later, Gavin is now living alone with his daughter, Ocean. His wife has left, stricken by grief.
After blacking out at work one day, Gavin realizes that he needs to take his daughter away and try to find peace again. He is drawn to the only place that has brought him solitude over the years, the sea.
How he loved the sea as a younger man; the sea was his first mistress, his first woman. She kept him from marrying for a long time. He would rather have the sea, this canny boat,... The sea loved him, kept him for herself.
Together, Gavin, Ocean, and their dog 🐶 Suzy, set off on an adventure through the Carribean Sea in the hopes of reaching a famous Archipelago (an area that contains a group of islands scattered in the ocean).
Gavin tells his daughter that she was named after the ocean.
You named me after which ocean, then?
He laughs. I named you after them all sweetie.
Why?
Because the ocean is full of wonders, and so are you.
Gavin is certain that this journey will help restore what remains of their family and give him and his daughter purpose again.
____________________________________________________________
The author decided to write this fictional novel after her brother's home was flooded in Trinidad in 2008.
It is a powerful story of self-reflection and finding oneself again after tragedy. It's raw and heartbreaking and will stay with me for quite some time. 🐳🐠💙
June 24, 2013
Monique Roffey in Archipelago shows storytelling at its best, as you do not notice how quickly you are getting into the guts of the book as the story is so engrossing.
This wonderful story of Gavin and his daughter Ocean, along with their dog Suzy running away from Trinidad to escaping what had been a terrible year for his family. His young son killed in a flood, his wife's nervous breakdown and the home he had to rebuild. The 12 months since disaster have not been good to Gavin or his daughter, stress is getting the better of him.
He decides he and his daughter will sail away island hoping on the boat he and a friend have owned for 20 yrs. From there and the reefs and islands he heads for the Panama Canal and head to the Galapagos. Gavin and his daughter are learning and emjoying the sea and all the islands they visit. It is a wonderful learning curve they are both on.
The four months that they are away they are on a journey of learning and moving on. It is not until the death of their dog Suzy that they realise how much they miss their home. I have to admit there was even a tear in my eye as Suzy had bound them together in love and trust through out the book.
This is a wonderful book, a pleasant read and in a way warming and comforting, the story is rich in detail and the imagery it gives is beautiful.
This wonderful story of Gavin and his daughter Ocean, along with their dog Suzy running away from Trinidad to escaping what had been a terrible year for his family. His young son killed in a flood, his wife's nervous breakdown and the home he had to rebuild. The 12 months since disaster have not been good to Gavin or his daughter, stress is getting the better of him.
He decides he and his daughter will sail away island hoping on the boat he and a friend have owned for 20 yrs. From there and the reefs and islands he heads for the Panama Canal and head to the Galapagos. Gavin and his daughter are learning and emjoying the sea and all the islands they visit. It is a wonderful learning curve they are both on.
The four months that they are away they are on a journey of learning and moving on. It is not until the death of their dog Suzy that they realise how much they miss their home. I have to admit there was even a tear in my eye as Suzy had bound them together in love and trust through out the book.
This is a wonderful book, a pleasant read and in a way warming and comforting, the story is rich in detail and the imagery it gives is beautiful.
September 5, 2024
A man, his daughter, a dog and the sea. Simple elements in a simple story; moving over the sea can be lulling, where you're actually headed lost to you in its immensity.
In Archipelago, a year after a catastrophic flood took the life of his son and led to the incapacitation of and separation from his wife, Gavin Weald takes his 6-year-old daughter, Ocean, and their dog, Suzy, away from their home in Trinidad and toward ... something. Actually, it's more of a flight from than a journey to. A year later, the rains have brought back memories of the tragedy and made Gavin unable to deal. So, spur of the moment, off they go, on a months-long voyage to the Galapagos on Gavin's boat, Romany. Sometimes when you're at a loss, all you can do is flee.
Along the way they'll encounter a bold pirate, a young woman taken aboard to help with the roughest part of the journey and who will charm both of them, several ports of call and exploration of the land, and all that nature has to offer in that colorful part of the world.
It's an adventure tale in idea only; not a lot of big things actually happen, as plot points go Archipelago manages to be both fast-paced in its telling and languid in its plot. Most of the delight of the book comes from the relationship between Gavin and his daughter that, movingly, rings true. Gavin and Ocean (there's an accent mark over the "e" in the girl's name, but I can't for the life of me remember how to make that symbol) talk about many things, Moby Dick and Ahab among them, and while their journey is a sort of voyage of self-discovery, we're obviously dealing on a much smaller scale here.
In addition to Suzy, we're to encounter all sort of animals, from the fishy sort to Galapagos tortoises. Often, it's like a National Geographic travelogue.
Monique Roffey, who is from Trinidad but based in the U.K., throws in some wonderfully simple but beautiful touches in her writing, and Archipelago all in all is a low-key delight. I'd be suspicious of someone who called it a masterpiece, but I'd also wonder how someone could not be moved by it.
It's not as if nothing bad happens to Gavin and Ocean along the way, but I found their journey very soothing. I didn't even mind much that Roffey threw in one of my pet peeves: a gimmicky approach to quotes (there are no quote marks whatsoever). Oh, well; when you're dealing with the power of the sea, it's best to look at the big picture.
In Archipelago, a year after a catastrophic flood took the life of his son and led to the incapacitation of and separation from his wife, Gavin Weald takes his 6-year-old daughter, Ocean, and their dog, Suzy, away from their home in Trinidad and toward ... something. Actually, it's more of a flight from than a journey to. A year later, the rains have brought back memories of the tragedy and made Gavin unable to deal. So, spur of the moment, off they go, on a months-long voyage to the Galapagos on Gavin's boat, Romany. Sometimes when you're at a loss, all you can do is flee.
Along the way they'll encounter a bold pirate, a young woman taken aboard to help with the roughest part of the journey and who will charm both of them, several ports of call and exploration of the land, and all that nature has to offer in that colorful part of the world.
It's an adventure tale in idea only; not a lot of big things actually happen, as plot points go Archipelago manages to be both fast-paced in its telling and languid in its plot. Most of the delight of the book comes from the relationship between Gavin and his daughter that, movingly, rings true. Gavin and Ocean (there's an accent mark over the "e" in the girl's name, but I can't for the life of me remember how to make that symbol) talk about many things, Moby Dick and Ahab among them, and while their journey is a sort of voyage of self-discovery, we're obviously dealing on a much smaller scale here.
In addition to Suzy, we're to encounter all sort of animals, from the fishy sort to Galapagos tortoises. Often, it's like a National Geographic travelogue.
Monique Roffey, who is from Trinidad but based in the U.K., throws in some wonderfully simple but beautiful touches in her writing, and Archipelago all in all is a low-key delight. I'd be suspicious of someone who called it a masterpiece, but I'd also wonder how someone could not be moved by it.
It's not as if nothing bad happens to Gavin and Ocean along the way, but I found their journey very soothing. I didn't even mind much that Roffey threw in one of my pet peeves: a gimmicky approach to quotes (there are no quote marks whatsoever). Oh, well; when you're dealing with the power of the sea, it's best to look at the big picture.
April 9, 2023
4.5 ⭐️ I loved The Mermaid of Black Conch by this author and loved this one too. Both quite melancholy reads in some respects, but life affirming in others. Will definitely reserve Monique Roffey’s other books at the library 🥰
September 8, 2012
Having read Monique Roffey's last tome, With Kisses from his Mouth, I approached her latest oeuvre more in hope than expectation; Kisses was largely autobiographical, whereas Archipelago is a return to her Alma Mater, fiction. Sure enough Roffey narrates a story with a sure footedness & balance that was only fleetingly present in Kisses.
Once again she mines her (bottomless) seam of loss, but the loss of a child is far more comprehensible, and she uses the conceit of travel (i.e. road movie ) as a vehicle that is universally resonant (helping the medicine go down).
However the acid test . Is Archipelago worth investing £5 and several hours of endeavour, still remains to be answered.
Archipelago ticks several boxes when it comes to a last minute airport afterthought, and will engender envy as you lay on some Baleariac or Grecian atoll , contemplating your return to our recession laden Stygian skies with the Metropolitan daily drudgery and the pervasive depressiveness that is Cameron Britain.
You can only admire the vistoral breadth of the novel, as Gavin the father meanders from one island paradise to another, in his ancien sail boat. Indeed as a land lubber I felt moved to follow Gavin's sails. The novel feels well researched, with an torrential effluence of largely incomprehensible nautical terms. ( the constant reference to Ahab, and hoisting the mainsail induced flashbacks of obscure Beach Boy songs , Robert Newton's Long John Silver and Gregory Peck 's pindown regime). Notwithstanding Roffey's affliction of stylistic tourettic outbursts the prose is lucid, well written, typoless with the episodic discipline underpinning a transparent structure ( the unattributed dialogue working 90% of the time).
Océan and Suzy the dog are sympathetically imagined to the extent that you yearn for the possibility of their narrative, rather than the humourlessly measured angst of psoriasitic Gavin (though I still find the dog biscuit scene worthy of reporting to the CPtA).
Archipelago will make a beautiful film ( breaching the Caribbean black hole), though Roffey will probably not receive a screenplay commission; there is a distinct lack of cogent action and narrative drive ( Batman Returns ennui) . Only Suzy and Océan render credible sympathetic characterisations. The back story of Gavin's loss , his flight, and subsequent travails for someone who has experienced both seems what it is ... superficial. Indeed the novel contains a smorgasbord of issues, Slavery, Tourism, Ecology, Chavez, notwithstanding the pulled punches on racism, which strangely only arises in the Dutch Arses comment.
However these thorny strands are never weaved into a substantive analysis and thus appear as mise en scene wallpaper.
Roffey's strength is her poetic observations ; the wildlife :- flamingoes, tortoises, flying fish, seals, the albino whale, the dolphins; Océan's insights are page charmers : penetrating and life affirmingly naive. From the accuracy and translucency of these sketches of Ocean and the assorted wildlife, Roffey is clearly not observing from the fascistic telescope of say W.C. Fields, but imho she struggles to make Gavin either sympathetic or credible.
Little gripes include the fact that the source of Gavin's finance source/supply is never explained, how to pronounce Océan (e acute ?), the plotless randomness as personified in Phoebe, the punctuative crying, the academic sex scenes, Roffey's embarrassing attempts to write and integrate passable Trini patois ( dem nah learn yah dat pon creative writing course gal?), and the final trite denouement ...
In all a worthy Touristic and Cinematic Caribbean novel but one that should have been much more and thus will probably leave the 2012 bestsellers chart (costa?) untroubled this wet summer.
Camera lite diction : wh'appen ta deh rice n peas?
WebBlog :-
Once again she mines her (bottomless) seam of loss, but the loss of a child is far more comprehensible, and she uses the conceit of travel (i.e. road movie ) as a vehicle that is universally resonant (helping the medicine go down).
However the acid test . Is Archipelago worth investing £5 and several hours of endeavour, still remains to be answered.
Archipelago ticks several boxes when it comes to a last minute airport afterthought, and will engender envy as you lay on some Baleariac or Grecian atoll , contemplating your return to our recession laden Stygian skies with the Metropolitan daily drudgery and the pervasive depressiveness that is Cameron Britain.
You can only admire the vistoral breadth of the novel, as Gavin the father meanders from one island paradise to another, in his ancien sail boat. Indeed as a land lubber I felt moved to follow Gavin's sails. The novel feels well researched, with an torrential effluence of largely incomprehensible nautical terms. ( the constant reference to Ahab, and hoisting the mainsail induced flashbacks of obscure Beach Boy songs , Robert Newton's Long John Silver and Gregory Peck 's pindown regime). Notwithstanding Roffey's affliction of stylistic tourettic outbursts the prose is lucid, well written, typoless with the episodic discipline underpinning a transparent structure ( the unattributed dialogue working 90% of the time).
Océan and Suzy the dog are sympathetically imagined to the extent that you yearn for the possibility of their narrative, rather than the humourlessly measured angst of psoriasitic Gavin (though I still find the dog biscuit scene worthy of reporting to the CPtA).
Archipelago will make a beautiful film ( breaching the Caribbean black hole), though Roffey will probably not receive a screenplay commission; there is a distinct lack of cogent action and narrative drive ( Batman Returns ennui) . Only Suzy and Océan render credible sympathetic characterisations. The back story of Gavin's loss , his flight, and subsequent travails for someone who has experienced both seems what it is ... superficial. Indeed the novel contains a smorgasbord of issues, Slavery, Tourism, Ecology, Chavez, notwithstanding the pulled punches on racism, which strangely only arises in the Dutch Arses comment.
However these thorny strands are never weaved into a substantive analysis and thus appear as mise en scene wallpaper.
Roffey's strength is her poetic observations ; the wildlife :- flamingoes, tortoises, flying fish, seals, the albino whale, the dolphins; Océan's insights are page charmers : penetrating and life affirmingly naive. From the accuracy and translucency of these sketches of Ocean and the assorted wildlife, Roffey is clearly not observing from the fascistic telescope of say W.C. Fields, but imho she struggles to make Gavin either sympathetic or credible.
Little gripes include the fact that the source of Gavin's finance source/supply is never explained, how to pronounce Océan (e acute ?), the plotless randomness as personified in Phoebe, the punctuative crying, the academic sex scenes, Roffey's embarrassing attempts to write and integrate passable Trini patois ( dem nah learn yah dat pon creative writing course gal?), and the final trite denouement ...
In all a worthy Touristic and Cinematic Caribbean novel but one that should have been much more and thus will probably leave the 2012 bestsellers chart (costa?) untroubled this wet summer.
Camera lite diction : wh'appen ta deh rice n peas?
WebBlog :-
April 12, 2021
A really terrific story and not at all the "lightweight" I expected it to be - not even close!
addresses several important issues - climate change and the extreme weather events it can cause, deforestation, and endangered and vulnerable species caused by human overconsumption, and introduced or invasive species - all expressed through the story of a family fractured by the events of one terrifying evening. It could happen to any one of us, but this particular story is told of a father, Gavin, his inquisitive, charming 6-year-old, Océan, and their dog, Suzy. Gavin decides the three of them will leave their life in Trinidad behind, and sail into the Caribbean Sea, looking for... he's not sure what. But over the next few months they visit several islands, meet myriad interesting people, and have all kinds of adventures.
Monique Roffey shows an amazing talent for storytelling. I was glued to my e-reader from start to finish. At one critical point in the story I felt sick to my stomach and began crying so hard and long I was wailing "No, No!". I was absolutely inconsolable and had to get out of bed and walk around for a while. I finally had to remind myself that it was only fiction, but still it was difficult to stop my tears.
This author is really good!! Read it and find out for yourself. Highly recommended.
addresses several important issues - climate change and the extreme weather events it can cause, deforestation, and endangered and vulnerable species caused by human overconsumption, and introduced or invasive species - all expressed through the story of a family fractured by the events of one terrifying evening. It could happen to any one of us, but this particular story is told of a father, Gavin, his inquisitive, charming 6-year-old, Océan, and their dog, Suzy. Gavin decides the three of them will leave their life in Trinidad behind, and sail into the Caribbean Sea, looking for... he's not sure what. But over the next few months they visit several islands, meet myriad interesting people, and have all kinds of adventures.
Monique Roffey shows an amazing talent for storytelling. I was glued to my e-reader from start to finish. At one critical point in the story I felt sick to my stomach and began crying so hard and long I was wailing "No, No!". I was absolutely inconsolable and had to get out of bed and walk around for a while. I finally had to remind myself that it was only fiction, but still it was difficult to stop my tears.
This author is really good!! Read it and find out for yourself. Highly recommended.
February 10, 2013
A good read for a lazy Sunday afternoon. I probably won't remember much of the detail
in the book, but will remember the topic and great feeling I was left with.
I've never been on a long sea journey of any kind. Spending the time with Gavin, Océan and Suzy on this small vessel for two months was certainly an unexpected adventure. I was just as happy as they were when the voyage came to an end! I also wanted to leave all sorrows behind and celebrate the joy of living at the Trinidad festival.
It took a serious adventure, like Gavin's need to sail west in his boat Romany to sort out his feelings of devastation and deep sorrow with the drowning of his baby son and the mental obscurity his wife chose after the event. But in the end it was time which brought the healing for both him, his wife Claire and his daughter Océan. They all learnt how to deal with death in many ways and make it part of life. The narrative leaves a message of hope and how to celebrate life unconditionally.
in the book, but will remember the topic and great feeling I was left with.
I've never been on a long sea journey of any kind. Spending the time with Gavin, Océan and Suzy on this small vessel for two months was certainly an unexpected adventure. I was just as happy as they were when the voyage came to an end! I also wanted to leave all sorrows behind and celebrate the joy of living at the Trinidad festival.
It took a serious adventure, like Gavin's need to sail west in his boat Romany to sort out his feelings of devastation and deep sorrow with the drowning of his baby son and the mental obscurity his wife chose after the event. But in the end it was time which brought the healing for both him, his wife Claire and his daughter Océan. They all learnt how to deal with death in many ways and make it part of life. The narrative leaves a message of hope and how to celebrate life unconditionally.
August 15, 2022
This is a perfect summer book. Such a lovely story of a father and daughter father adventure across a part of the world I knew very little about
September 9, 2012
When we meet Gavin he is a broken man, struggling with grief after a terrible tragedy, drowning under the pressure of trying to raise his six year old daughter, Ocean, alone and floundering in a job he no longer cares about. In time, it all becomes too much for him to bear, and one day he walks out of his job, picks up his daughter and dog, and sets sail in his old boat, which had been unused and neglected ever since his marriage. Together this bruised and battered remnants of a family sail from Trinidad, to the islands around the coast of Venezuela and beyond, enjoying a new adventure while trying to come to terms with what has happened to them.
Monique Roffey’s greatest strength is her beautiful descriptive writing; she’s able to effortlessly conjure a scene with words that’s much richer and more immersive than any photograph. Read this and be prepared to sail away with Gavin and Ocean, feel the sun on your face and taste the salty tang in the air. The story itself moves quite slowly, and there’s a melancholy feeling to the whole book which matches Gavin and Ocean’s mood. We don’t find out the exact nature of their tragedy until quite a long way through the book, and it has more impact for us having got to know Gavin and Ocean quite well by then.
The book is written in the present tense, which is unusual for a novel that moves at such a leisurely pace � usually the present tense is used to propel a story more quickly, but that’s not the objective here. The author does a good job with both her main characters, especially Ocean, who manages to come across as bright but not unrealistically mature for her age. Ocean is struggling with the massive change in her life but, as a child, she’s adaptable, and arguably copes better than her father, who longs desperately for his old life and finds it impossible to envisage what the future could hold for him.
One of the major themes of Archipelago is the environment, and Gavin and Ocean observe many of the ways in which mankind is slowly destroying its own habitat during their voyage. The book is at least a third travelogue, but Roffey never shies away from the harsh truths that lie beneath the picture perfect beaches and seas.
I’m not sure I loved this quite as much as Monique Roffey’s previous book, which really caught my imagination while also teaching me a lot about Trinidad, its history and culture. Some may find Archipelago a little too slow and sad, but if you enjoy first class descriptive writing and sensitive prose about loss and its aftermath, I would highly recommend this.
Monique Roffey’s greatest strength is her beautiful descriptive writing; she’s able to effortlessly conjure a scene with words that’s much richer and more immersive than any photograph. Read this and be prepared to sail away with Gavin and Ocean, feel the sun on your face and taste the salty tang in the air. The story itself moves quite slowly, and there’s a melancholy feeling to the whole book which matches Gavin and Ocean’s mood. We don’t find out the exact nature of their tragedy until quite a long way through the book, and it has more impact for us having got to know Gavin and Ocean quite well by then.
The book is written in the present tense, which is unusual for a novel that moves at such a leisurely pace � usually the present tense is used to propel a story more quickly, but that’s not the objective here. The author does a good job with both her main characters, especially Ocean, who manages to come across as bright but not unrealistically mature for her age. Ocean is struggling with the massive change in her life but, as a child, she’s adaptable, and arguably copes better than her father, who longs desperately for his old life and finds it impossible to envisage what the future could hold for him.
One of the major themes of Archipelago is the environment, and Gavin and Ocean observe many of the ways in which mankind is slowly destroying its own habitat during their voyage. The book is at least a third travelogue, but Roffey never shies away from the harsh truths that lie beneath the picture perfect beaches and seas.
I’m not sure I loved this quite as much as Monique Roffey’s previous book, which really caught my imagination while also teaching me a lot about Trinidad, its history and culture. Some may find Archipelago a little too slow and sad, but if you enjoy first class descriptive writing and sensitive prose about loss and its aftermath, I would highly recommend this.
November 29, 2021
Not quite sure how to review this book. It was a compelling story, but at the same time odd. The premise was interesting and had plenty of diverse characters and situations. There was no formal conversation in the way that the author did not write this with quotation marks that signified who was speaking. I did like the ending as it was satisfying and hopeful.
April 7, 2020
3.5/5 - Archipelago by Monique Roffey
This book brought me immense nostalgia, sadness, and joy.
I spent a lot of time reflecting on my time spent with sailors and students aboard the vessel, Lady Maryland, last summer, and how that experience directly paralleled with "Archipelago." I loved going through the journey of sailing that Roffrey set in place for the reader, her descriptions of the sea--how it is not hesitant to change moods, how the vicissitudes will always ebb and flow, how humans love it; but, it will never love them back.
My favorite part of the novel was the conversations between Océan and her father, Gavin. The simplicity, compassion, confidence, and wanderlust Océan carries allowed me to connect more with my inner child. I learned to take more steps toward being my true, genuine self, to be content with allowing all of my emotions to flow, and never to let my curiosity for life to falter.
This book brought me immense nostalgia, sadness, and joy.
I spent a lot of time reflecting on my time spent with sailors and students aboard the vessel, Lady Maryland, last summer, and how that experience directly paralleled with "Archipelago." I loved going through the journey of sailing that Roffrey set in place for the reader, her descriptions of the sea--how it is not hesitant to change moods, how the vicissitudes will always ebb and flow, how humans love it; but, it will never love them back.
My favorite part of the novel was the conversations between Océan and her father, Gavin. The simplicity, compassion, confidence, and wanderlust Océan carries allowed me to connect more with my inner child. I learned to take more steps toward being my true, genuine self, to be content with allowing all of my emotions to flow, and never to let my curiosity for life to falter.
August 29, 2024
My second Monique Roffey read - what a poignant novel full of emotion, environmental concerns, family pain and more but just on the right side of balance - I’m coming away from this with my heart not truly broken x
May 25, 2013
DNF
I just couldn't get through this book, not after reading September Girls and suffering through that. I was expecting an inspiring journey of a father and her daughter but what I got was boring monologue that consisted of the most random, detailed and absurd thoughts ever.
I mean the father literally thought that pissing was like a
This is a 40 year old man we're talking about. Do I really want to know about this? He's peeing and then also thinking about having sex with this women at his workplace because he hasn't had sex in a while and feels 'less of a man'.
What finally convinced me to stop was when he found a bundle of cocaine at the sea and started to get high on it but stopped when his daughter wanted to try some and his dog wanted to stuff her nose into it. Uhm what? Your kid is right there and you want to get high on cocaine? You're in the middle of nowhere.
I do not need to know every single painstaking detail of what Gavin does and all the sensations he is feeling. This book is a good reminder to me as to why I am reluctant to read any old adult book because of how boring they usually are but this is the tip of the iceberg because I haven't read such an awful adult book in a long time and I don't DNF every single day, I have a pretty high tolerance so if I do DNF, there's something really bad about this book and I tried not to because this was a review book.
I just couldn't get through this book, not after reading September Girls and suffering through that. I was expecting an inspiring journey of a father and her daughter but what I got was boring monologue that consisted of the most random, detailed and absurd thoughts ever.
I mean the father literally thought that pissing was like a
... strange dull orgasm
This is a 40 year old man we're talking about. Do I really want to know about this? He's peeing and then also thinking about having sex with this women at his workplace because he hasn't had sex in a while and feels 'less of a man'.
What finally convinced me to stop was when he found a bundle of cocaine at the sea and started to get high on it but stopped when his daughter wanted to try some and his dog wanted to stuff her nose into it. Uhm what? Your kid is right there and you want to get high on cocaine? You're in the middle of nowhere.
I do not need to know every single painstaking detail of what Gavin does and all the sensations he is feeling. This book is a good reminder to me as to why I am reluctant to read any old adult book because of how boring they usually are but this is the tip of the iceberg because I haven't read such an awful adult book in a long time and I don't DNF every single day, I have a pretty high tolerance so if I do DNF, there's something really bad about this book and I tried not to because this was a review book.
June 9, 2014
This novel seeped into my pores like the sea it is so obsessed with. It nagged at my mind as I was reading it, and it entranced me with lyrical descriptions and then brought me crashing down like the merciless waves, storms, and tides it described. By the end of the book, I was breathless and dazzled, much like the protagonist of this adventure.
The book follows a middle-aged father trying to piece his life back together after a flood that destroys his former life. He embarks on a mad quest to sail to the Galápagos Islands with his six year old daughter. Rarely have I seen a child depicted so convincingly and affectingly in fiction (nary a cutesy moment in sight). The novel grapples with the relationship between slavery and environmental exploitation, global capitalism and pollution, waste, and overdevelopment. While the novel feels redemptive because of the tone of the ending and its focus on immersion, ritual, bacchanal, and baptism, what resonates longest past its conclusion are the mournful images of the marred relationship between man and animals and the tragic and gorgeous geography of the Caribbean and the archipelago of the title. With this novel. Roffey is urgently reminding us that we are a part of nature and that may lead to our tragic end, not in an Ahabian man versus nature kind of way but rather drowning in our unfathomable guilt for (and vulnerability to) tearing at its balance.
The book follows a middle-aged father trying to piece his life back together after a flood that destroys his former life. He embarks on a mad quest to sail to the Galápagos Islands with his six year old daughter. Rarely have I seen a child depicted so convincingly and affectingly in fiction (nary a cutesy moment in sight). The novel grapples with the relationship between slavery and environmental exploitation, global capitalism and pollution, waste, and overdevelopment. While the novel feels redemptive because of the tone of the ending and its focus on immersion, ritual, bacchanal, and baptism, what resonates longest past its conclusion are the mournful images of the marred relationship between man and animals and the tragic and gorgeous geography of the Caribbean and the archipelago of the title. With this novel. Roffey is urgently reminding us that we are a part of nature and that may lead to our tragic end, not in an Ahabian man versus nature kind of way but rather drowning in our unfathomable guilt for (and vulnerability to) tearing at its balance.
August 10, 2012
On the island of Trinidad, floods have destroyed Gavin’s home and wrought havoc on his family. Left to raise his six-year-old daughter, Océan, by himself he’s struggling with work and overwhelming loneliness. When he wakes up one morning he decides he wants to run away; take his boat, his dog and his daughter and sail out into the Caribbean and beyond.
Archipelago has made me want to hire a boat and sail round the Caribbean! Whilst the natural beauty may be a tourism advert, it is balanced by the darker side of the islands, unethical tourism, natural disaster and the seedier side of the locals. The sea itself is both mesmerising and dangerous. And whilst Gavin and Océan are surrounded by beauty, there is an underlying feeling of melancholy and a loss that is rarely talked about.
Océan makes a convincing six-year-old; she is perceptive and curious but not in a way that is beyond her years. She comes out with questions typical to children her age and her sadness is quiet, from someone who is not quite sure what is wrong in her world but knowing it is definitely not right. Despite some of the content, I never found it a depressing read and there are several moments that will bring a smile to your face to counteract the bad. It might be a bit too slow a read for some but if you love books about the sea, I would highly recommend.
Archipelago has made me want to hire a boat and sail round the Caribbean! Whilst the natural beauty may be a tourism advert, it is balanced by the darker side of the islands, unethical tourism, natural disaster and the seedier side of the locals. The sea itself is both mesmerising and dangerous. And whilst Gavin and Océan are surrounded by beauty, there is an underlying feeling of melancholy and a loss that is rarely talked about.
Océan makes a convincing six-year-old; she is perceptive and curious but not in a way that is beyond her years. She comes out with questions typical to children her age and her sadness is quiet, from someone who is not quite sure what is wrong in her world but knowing it is definitely not right. Despite some of the content, I never found it a depressing read and there are several moments that will bring a smile to your face to counteract the bad. It might be a bit too slow a read for some but if you love books about the sea, I would highly recommend.
July 6, 2012
After his family home in Trinidad is torn apart by a flood which leaves his family in tatters, Gavin takes his six-year old daughter Ocean and their dog Suzy on a sailing trip to try to run away from their grief. But the sea has a habit of making you address things you'd rather not have to face.
I absolutely loved this book and read it in a single sitting. Gavin, Ocean and Suzy are wonderful characters who you want to look after and protect from the terrible things that have happened to them. The book is funny and tragic and really gets across that the aftermath of a tragedy goes on and on, sneaking up on the victims when they least expect it. One particular chapter towards the end of the book made me cry, which hardly ever happens to me while reading.
The book points out the frailty of mankind and how we affect the world around us. Monique Roffey writes movingly about nature, animals and the impact we have on them, as well as of the inter-relation of all humans and everything else on the planet.
I felt quite upset when I finished the book as I had become so fond of the characters that I wanted it to go on and on. They will stay with me for a long time.
I can't recommend Archipelago highly enough.
I absolutely loved this book and read it in a single sitting. Gavin, Ocean and Suzy are wonderful characters who you want to look after and protect from the terrible things that have happened to them. The book is funny and tragic and really gets across that the aftermath of a tragedy goes on and on, sneaking up on the victims when they least expect it. One particular chapter towards the end of the book made me cry, which hardly ever happens to me while reading.
The book points out the frailty of mankind and how we affect the world around us. Monique Roffey writes movingly about nature, animals and the impact we have on them, as well as of the inter-relation of all humans and everything else on the planet.
I felt quite upset when I finished the book as I had become so fond of the characters that I wanted it to go on and on. They will stay with me for a long time.
I can't recommend Archipelago highly enough.
August 23, 2013
fun book about sailing west from trinidad to margarita, los roques , curacao, aruba, cartagena, san blas, the canal, galapagos
so fairly interesting and accurate sailing stuff. interesting plant animal water descriptions of stopping points/islands (neat map too), good incorporation of geopolitics and culture.
so but for the heartbreaking part, there are lots of tears, a devastating flood that ruined narrators life, wife, killed his infant son, ptsd his young daughter, even affected his damn dog.
so wifey is awol, kid is pyscho, dog is hanging in there, and gavin, the dad is losing it. so he packs up daughter, dog , and a hat and sails west from t and t. he thinks quite a bit about just jumping off his sailboat, romany, and doing the suicide, though how serious? when your dog and daughter are on board?
aaanyway, they all 3 reach some epiphanies, and tend to cry less by the end. wonderful writer, some great dialog (i would have liked to heard waaay more from the kid and dog though) and hearttugging (even a cool 4 way sex scene in a brothel in aruba, no, the dog and daughter were asleep in the van in parking lot) so lots to like here, and hopefully more from author roffey in future and more from caribbean too!
so fairly interesting and accurate sailing stuff. interesting plant animal water descriptions of stopping points/islands (neat map too), good incorporation of geopolitics and culture.
so but for the heartbreaking part, there are lots of tears, a devastating flood that ruined narrators life, wife, killed his infant son, ptsd his young daughter, even affected his damn dog.
so wifey is awol, kid is pyscho, dog is hanging in there, and gavin, the dad is losing it. so he packs up daughter, dog , and a hat and sails west from t and t. he thinks quite a bit about just jumping off his sailboat, romany, and doing the suicide, though how serious? when your dog and daughter are on board?
aaanyway, they all 3 reach some epiphanies, and tend to cry less by the end. wonderful writer, some great dialog (i would have liked to heard waaay more from the kid and dog though) and hearttugging (even a cool 4 way sex scene in a brothel in aruba, no, the dog and daughter were asleep in the van in parking lot) so lots to like here, and hopefully more from author roffey in future and more from caribbean too!
July 22, 2016
"A modern day Moby Dick" says one of the blurbs on the back of the paperback edition which I found on the shelves of my local little island library. "Big hearted" from another. Yes, this is a novel dealing compassionately with big human issues like life, death, love and survival (the "journey of redemption" thing and donʻt all throw things at me at once. You know what I mean.).
A father, his young daughter and their dog run away to sea, sail from Trinidad to the Galapagos, after a flood has killed the baby son/brother and left the wife/mother catatonic with grief. Thereʻs a journey, some dark moments of crisis, some epiphanies, loss, sorrow, temptation, recovery and ultimately growth and gain. The resolution was a little too neat for my liking. I would recommend this to adventurers and especially waterpeople and sailors - those who find themselves in thrall to the mercurial Mistress Ocean but it is, in the end, a story about grief and healing.
Would make a good all genders book discussion group - told from male POV. Caribbean author, Orange Prize finalist for other titles, this one won 2013 BOCAS prize for Caribbean lit.
A father, his young daughter and their dog run away to sea, sail from Trinidad to the Galapagos, after a flood has killed the baby son/brother and left the wife/mother catatonic with grief. Thereʻs a journey, some dark moments of crisis, some epiphanies, loss, sorrow, temptation, recovery and ultimately growth and gain. The resolution was a little too neat for my liking. I would recommend this to adventurers and especially waterpeople and sailors - those who find themselves in thrall to the mercurial Mistress Ocean but it is, in the end, a story about grief and healing.
Would make a good all genders book discussion group - told from male POV. Caribbean author, Orange Prize finalist for other titles, this one won 2013 BOCAS prize for Caribbean lit.
February 7, 2016
Counted this one for "The Caribbean" in the .
This is the 3rd book I have read by Monique Roffey, and I am officially a fan!
Although I didn't enjoy this as much as The White Woman on the Green Bicycle , this book took me on a journey. I loved the characters, and the storytelling was fantastic.
I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the 4th novel House of Ashes
This is the 3rd book I have read by Monique Roffey, and I am officially a fan!
Although I didn't enjoy this as much as The White Woman on the Green Bicycle , this book took me on a journey. I loved the characters, and the storytelling was fantastic.
I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the 4th novel House of Ashes
Read
December 11, 2016Sometimes you have to run away to heal. And figure out whether home is still home.
January 9, 2021
There's so much I want to say, and at the same time, I want to say nothing at all. This book was quite a mixed bag.
The first parts were a bit hard to get into because the writing style and language is so very different from typical English books, since it's based in Trinidadian culture. I enjoyed the experience of the story but could only read bits at a time. Some parts felt too rough in style and language, and just plain childish and overly repetitive writing, making it hard to read; and other parts were smooth, magical, profound and insightful, parts that brought back memories and made me feel connected.
I suppose as a woman with daddy issues, a parent myself, and having the experience of losing loved ones, I could strongly relate to the premise, which I thought was heartfelt yet tragic. But the execution wasn't fully there. Some chapters I wanted to re-read from its beauty and other chapters I wanted to skip because it was so choppy and uneventful. There were plenty of moments I wondered what the purpose of the words were, like the author was trying to hit a word count.
I also struggled to understand what exactly was happening in the beginning because how the author laid out the events and the wording she chose. I'm sure she did it intentionally but I thought it made it all a bit off. And because of her strange sequencing, I ended up believing half way through the book that a character was dead when she was actually alive but in a deep depressive state.... it was just strange.
I also didn't jive with the ending. The book felt like this big long adventure, and right up until the end, both main characters are having lots of emotional turmoil, which you suspect will be somehow soothed, which it was, but much too quickly. The whole recap and emotional healing took about two paragraphs and that was it. And the last chapter felt slapped on just to end the whole thing already. I just have this great feeling that the author enjoyed writing all the troubled scenes but didn't know quite how to solve it all in the end and so wrote too little for it.
And while I took several memorable quotes from this book, I was equally disappointed in the childish, repetitive thinking and language of the father, which is pretty much the entire book. One moment the author is having him healing and saying he's doing great, the next moment he's thinking how terrible he is, and back to great again. And sometimes this all happens in just one paragraph, which makes it feel quite like the general neurotic human mind that we all have to deal with daily, and frankly, this is why most people read - to escape and relate (but not so bluntly like it was done in this book).
Honestly, I probably should've only given this book 3 to 3.5 stars but opted with 4 because of the sentimental value it holds (someone dear who passed away had given it to me right before they passed); I am also Caribbean born and miss my home, which made reading an island book fun for me, as being in America, it's hard to find decent island written books; and because it's an island book set between islands and ocean and sailing, all of which hold places in my heart, I did feel somewhat connected to it.
The 3 stars though is for the premise, for the climax execution, some of the beautiful scenery, the emotional turmoil, and other jumbled points that were done well. And the extra star for my own sentimental purposes.
This is all to say, I have a hard time coming to terms with the fact that author has won such prestigious awards, but this being one of her latter books, maybe the award winning content just wasn't there in this one. I suppose I'll have to read her debut book to see what the fuss is about.
Overall, if you're used to American styled books, this might be a good fun challenging read, something new, but for the rest of us, I wouldn't recommend getting your hopes up. The middle parts of the book are really only worth the reading time.
The first parts were a bit hard to get into because the writing style and language is so very different from typical English books, since it's based in Trinidadian culture. I enjoyed the experience of the story but could only read bits at a time. Some parts felt too rough in style and language, and just plain childish and overly repetitive writing, making it hard to read; and other parts were smooth, magical, profound and insightful, parts that brought back memories and made me feel connected.
I suppose as a woman with daddy issues, a parent myself, and having the experience of losing loved ones, I could strongly relate to the premise, which I thought was heartfelt yet tragic. But the execution wasn't fully there. Some chapters I wanted to re-read from its beauty and other chapters I wanted to skip because it was so choppy and uneventful. There were plenty of moments I wondered what the purpose of the words were, like the author was trying to hit a word count.
I also struggled to understand what exactly was happening in the beginning because how the author laid out the events and the wording she chose. I'm sure she did it intentionally but I thought it made it all a bit off. And because of her strange sequencing, I ended up believing half way through the book that a character was dead when she was actually alive but in a deep depressive state.... it was just strange.
I also didn't jive with the ending. The book felt like this big long adventure, and right up until the end, both main characters are having lots of emotional turmoil, which you suspect will be somehow soothed, which it was, but much too quickly. The whole recap and emotional healing took about two paragraphs and that was it. And the last chapter felt slapped on just to end the whole thing already. I just have this great feeling that the author enjoyed writing all the troubled scenes but didn't know quite how to solve it all in the end and so wrote too little for it.
And while I took several memorable quotes from this book, I was equally disappointed in the childish, repetitive thinking and language of the father, which is pretty much the entire book. One moment the author is having him healing and saying he's doing great, the next moment he's thinking how terrible he is, and back to great again. And sometimes this all happens in just one paragraph, which makes it feel quite like the general neurotic human mind that we all have to deal with daily, and frankly, this is why most people read - to escape and relate (but not so bluntly like it was done in this book).
Honestly, I probably should've only given this book 3 to 3.5 stars but opted with 4 because of the sentimental value it holds (someone dear who passed away had given it to me right before they passed); I am also Caribbean born and miss my home, which made reading an island book fun for me, as being in America, it's hard to find decent island written books; and because it's an island book set between islands and ocean and sailing, all of which hold places in my heart, I did feel somewhat connected to it.
The 3 stars though is for the premise, for the climax execution, some of the beautiful scenery, the emotional turmoil, and other jumbled points that were done well. And the extra star for my own sentimental purposes.
This is all to say, I have a hard time coming to terms with the fact that author has won such prestigious awards, but this being one of her latter books, maybe the award winning content just wasn't there in this one. I suppose I'll have to read her debut book to see what the fuss is about.
Overall, if you're used to American styled books, this might be a good fun challenging read, something new, but for the rest of us, I wouldn't recommend getting your hopes up. The middle parts of the book are really only worth the reading time.
September 16, 2012
Roffey takes us back to the Trinidad of Green Bicycle, and into the life of middle-aged, middle-income Gavin Weald and his six year old daughter Océan. Like George and Sabine Harwood, they live at the foot of 'the green woman of Trinidad', 'those green hills...curled up and close, like a colossus asleep on her side.' We meet them on a humid day in November 2010, eating macaroni cheese and ice cream with peas for dinner. They're joined at this meal by Suzy, the robust grumbling family dog, and afterwards all three huddle together on a dirty double bed to watch TV. Océan's mother is an ominous absence; later we learn that a second child, a baby boy, is also missing. Some natural disaster is hinted at - a flood, a landslide - that has permanently destroyed the family's happiness.
Gavin is in a sorry state. He hides away in his office at work and falls asleep standing up in toilet cubicles. All the skin is falling off his hands. He has woken up after a tragedy to find that he is alone, old and fat; and that he has lost sight of what life is for. His daughter is fragile with grief, and breaks down into hysterical fits whenever it rains (which is quite often in the rainy season in Trinidad). His dog is also old and fat, and he no longer sure if 'he needs or loves' her.
He didn't become the man he wanted to be. When he was younger he was more himself... Now he is a fat man who married a nice girl and got a good job and had two kids and worked hard and then got his fucking house knocked down in a flood which poured down the hill.
It is a sorry tale of 21st century discontentment compounded by grief. One hell of a mid-life crisis. He recognises that he has to do something - move on, snap out of it, man up - but what and how?
Salvation comes in the form of the Romany, the old Danish sailing boat of his younger days. He will run away; away from work and family and the green hills. Océan and Suzy in tow, he stocks the hold, chucks his mobile phone in the sea and sets sail on a cruise around the archipelagos of the Carribean. Ahead of him is the wide, seductive ocean. At the back of his mind is a nagging dream of his youth, to sail the Romany all the way to the Galapagos.
It reminds me very much of the premise of a children's story. Family trauma: check. Setting out on a redemptive adventure: check. Taking along family pet: check. The scale is bigger and more exotic - this is the Carribean, not Enid Blyton country; and it's the sea, not a lake - but still, there is the same hunger for transformation at the bottom of Gavin's escape from his everyday life. It reminds me of Swallows and Amazons or the Famous Five. The familiarity of the premise is almost comforting. Like those great adventure stories of childhood, Archipelago makes me want to go on an adventure too.
Gavin and his daughter explore the islands of the Carribean through the eyes of tourists and voyeurs who are simultaneously at home and native. Roffey is hard on the 'real' tourists of the book, the Americans and Europeans arriving on their cruise ships 'with surgical scars on both knees', chewing up the Carribean by visiting 8 ports in 10 days. But Gavin and Océan escape this judgement because this is partly their own world, their own place. Subtly Roffey explores the history of the islands through them. Layers of colonisation and settlement, both actual and psychological, are peeled back: first, the Spanish, then the Dutch, who brought over slaves from Africa; then the Americans and, perhaps, in the future, the Venezualans led by Hugo Chavez. Strange to imagine them sitting in a Taco Bell on Aruba, listening to fellow patrons speak a mixture of Dutch and Papiamento, a language developed by slaves and spoken on only three Carribean islands. Strange also to find them watching young black men break-dancing to hip-hop on the streets of Curacao, in a street of Dutch gabled houses strung with neon Christmas lights in the baking hot sun. Roffey writes beautifully about these places and their landscapes; it's not surprising to learn from the Acknowledgements that she has sailed in Gavin and Océan's footsteps herself.
The sea is the dominant landscape of the book. The islands in the text are like the islands in the sea: only temporary respites from the overwhelming presence of the water. For long stretches the only characters in the book are Gavin and the sea. He has turned to it in search of something, although he isn't clear what. Wisdom, forgiveness, the presence of God, a hard slap in the face? He has a romantic attachment to it, a fantasy of his own connection to it, that is partly nostalgia for his youth and partly a yearning towards a Higher Power. It is one of the reasons he called his daughter after it. Water has destroyed his family, but it seems natural to him to return to the water to repair it. But no sooner has he discovered an equilibrium, no sooner does he feel confident, a 'sailor man' again, than he is betrayed once more by the waves. The book is the chronicle of his violent see-sawing confusion: Is nature good, profound and meaningful, or is it ruthless, cruel and destructive?
Roffey invokes the shade of Moby Dick and Captain Ahab's vendetta against the White Whale to explore this theme throughout. She has Gavin explain to precocious Océan that the moral of the story is that Ahab wrongly blamed the White Whale for attacking him. He made it personal when, in fact, nature is not personal. Starbuck understood that taking revenge was pointless, because there was no conscious wrong to direct the revenge against. Gavin's family has also been hurt by a disaster in nature, by heavy rain which is blameless, so how should be resolve his anger about it? He isn't like Ahab; he consciously avoids making that mistake. But instead of seeking revenge he looks for meaning, for a mystery in the sea, the water. This, Roffey seems to say, is as misguided and perverse as attacking it. Archipelago is Gavin's therapuetic journey. Not in a Paulo Coelho sense; he doesn't have to travel in order to come back to himself in peace. Instead the journey is about disrupting his notions of what peace and love and nature are; it's about getting over the search for meaning rather than making meaning.
The sea is massive and there is a sense of its grand entitlement. The sea owns 70 per cent of the world... It owes them nothing. Gavin feels this keenly, for the first time in his life. Now he is aware that the sea isn't interested in him - and yet he's fascinated with her. The sea has no feelings towards him whatsoever, and yet she stirs unfathomably moods in him. The sea doesn't care, cannot card, not one jot, for him and his boat, his child, his dog, and yet they've been held mesmerised... It's as if he is floating on a giant mirror and the sea's purpose is only to reflect himself back. Who the fuck is he, after all?
From this thematic point of view I think the novel is successful; and the development of the sense of place and time and character is very successful. There are some bumps in the telling though. It is true that the plot is very A-B, with neatly lined up dangers and hurdles along the way. They are all things you would expect - storms, pirates, drugs trafficking, wild animals - and there is nothing to put the journey off course. Some of the descriptive passages a little loose and hackneyed. At one point the sea is Gavin's 'mistress' and I groaned outloud. It's probably inevitable that if you describe the sea every other line you're going to loose some originality. And there was something else, an inevitability to the novel which I found disappointing. It didn't have the shock and thrust of Green Bicycle, or that feeling of revelation. So: clever and enjoyable and recommended, but not quite equal to its predecessor.
Gavin is in a sorry state. He hides away in his office at work and falls asleep standing up in toilet cubicles. All the skin is falling off his hands. He has woken up after a tragedy to find that he is alone, old and fat; and that he has lost sight of what life is for. His daughter is fragile with grief, and breaks down into hysterical fits whenever it rains (which is quite often in the rainy season in Trinidad). His dog is also old and fat, and he no longer sure if 'he needs or loves' her.
He didn't become the man he wanted to be. When he was younger he was more himself... Now he is a fat man who married a nice girl and got a good job and had two kids and worked hard and then got his fucking house knocked down in a flood which poured down the hill.
It is a sorry tale of 21st century discontentment compounded by grief. One hell of a mid-life crisis. He recognises that he has to do something - move on, snap out of it, man up - but what and how?
Salvation comes in the form of the Romany, the old Danish sailing boat of his younger days. He will run away; away from work and family and the green hills. Océan and Suzy in tow, he stocks the hold, chucks his mobile phone in the sea and sets sail on a cruise around the archipelagos of the Carribean. Ahead of him is the wide, seductive ocean. At the back of his mind is a nagging dream of his youth, to sail the Romany all the way to the Galapagos.
It reminds me very much of the premise of a children's story. Family trauma: check. Setting out on a redemptive adventure: check. Taking along family pet: check. The scale is bigger and more exotic - this is the Carribean, not Enid Blyton country; and it's the sea, not a lake - but still, there is the same hunger for transformation at the bottom of Gavin's escape from his everyday life. It reminds me of Swallows and Amazons or the Famous Five. The familiarity of the premise is almost comforting. Like those great adventure stories of childhood, Archipelago makes me want to go on an adventure too.
Gavin and his daughter explore the islands of the Carribean through the eyes of tourists and voyeurs who are simultaneously at home and native. Roffey is hard on the 'real' tourists of the book, the Americans and Europeans arriving on their cruise ships 'with surgical scars on both knees', chewing up the Carribean by visiting 8 ports in 10 days. But Gavin and Océan escape this judgement because this is partly their own world, their own place. Subtly Roffey explores the history of the islands through them. Layers of colonisation and settlement, both actual and psychological, are peeled back: first, the Spanish, then the Dutch, who brought over slaves from Africa; then the Americans and, perhaps, in the future, the Venezualans led by Hugo Chavez. Strange to imagine them sitting in a Taco Bell on Aruba, listening to fellow patrons speak a mixture of Dutch and Papiamento, a language developed by slaves and spoken on only three Carribean islands. Strange also to find them watching young black men break-dancing to hip-hop on the streets of Curacao, in a street of Dutch gabled houses strung with neon Christmas lights in the baking hot sun. Roffey writes beautifully about these places and their landscapes; it's not surprising to learn from the Acknowledgements that she has sailed in Gavin and Océan's footsteps herself.
The sea is the dominant landscape of the book. The islands in the text are like the islands in the sea: only temporary respites from the overwhelming presence of the water. For long stretches the only characters in the book are Gavin and the sea. He has turned to it in search of something, although he isn't clear what. Wisdom, forgiveness, the presence of God, a hard slap in the face? He has a romantic attachment to it, a fantasy of his own connection to it, that is partly nostalgia for his youth and partly a yearning towards a Higher Power. It is one of the reasons he called his daughter after it. Water has destroyed his family, but it seems natural to him to return to the water to repair it. But no sooner has he discovered an equilibrium, no sooner does he feel confident, a 'sailor man' again, than he is betrayed once more by the waves. The book is the chronicle of his violent see-sawing confusion: Is nature good, profound and meaningful, or is it ruthless, cruel and destructive?
Roffey invokes the shade of Moby Dick and Captain Ahab's vendetta against the White Whale to explore this theme throughout. She has Gavin explain to precocious Océan that the moral of the story is that Ahab wrongly blamed the White Whale for attacking him. He made it personal when, in fact, nature is not personal. Starbuck understood that taking revenge was pointless, because there was no conscious wrong to direct the revenge against. Gavin's family has also been hurt by a disaster in nature, by heavy rain which is blameless, so how should be resolve his anger about it? He isn't like Ahab; he consciously avoids making that mistake. But instead of seeking revenge he looks for meaning, for a mystery in the sea, the water. This, Roffey seems to say, is as misguided and perverse as attacking it. Archipelago is Gavin's therapuetic journey. Not in a Paulo Coelho sense; he doesn't have to travel in order to come back to himself in peace. Instead the journey is about disrupting his notions of what peace and love and nature are; it's about getting over the search for meaning rather than making meaning.
The sea is massive and there is a sense of its grand entitlement. The sea owns 70 per cent of the world... It owes them nothing. Gavin feels this keenly, for the first time in his life. Now he is aware that the sea isn't interested in him - and yet he's fascinated with her. The sea has no feelings towards him whatsoever, and yet she stirs unfathomably moods in him. The sea doesn't care, cannot card, not one jot, for him and his boat, his child, his dog, and yet they've been held mesmerised... It's as if he is floating on a giant mirror and the sea's purpose is only to reflect himself back. Who the fuck is he, after all?
From this thematic point of view I think the novel is successful; and the development of the sense of place and time and character is very successful. There are some bumps in the telling though. It is true that the plot is very A-B, with neatly lined up dangers and hurdles along the way. They are all things you would expect - storms, pirates, drugs trafficking, wild animals - and there is nothing to put the journey off course. Some of the descriptive passages a little loose and hackneyed. At one point the sea is Gavin's 'mistress' and I groaned outloud. It's probably inevitable that if you describe the sea every other line you're going to loose some originality. And there was something else, an inevitability to the novel which I found disappointing. It didn't have the shock and thrust of Green Bicycle, or that feeling of revelation. So: clever and enjoyable and recommended, but not quite equal to its predecessor.
July 2, 2022
Archipelago is a really engaging mourning adventure. The author takes you along on the boat with Gavin, Océan, and Suzy almost immediately, slowly allows you to peek into their traumatic history, and then in one quick and brutal passage initiates you into the trauma with your own terrible loss as a reader. There you are thinking you are just sympathizing with this little family when Roffey just jabs your heart with a dagger and it gets very personal. I was shocked by my own grief and anger reading it. It was there that I started to get the point—that suffering touches us all, with no regard for our feelings or preferences, just as the ocean is noted to do in the novel. I should have known I wouldn’t be a mere witness to this story when I felt a bit seasick reading the first few chapters because Roffey’s descriptions of rough seas were so vivid they brought my own scary seafaring memories alive.
I appreciate Roffey’s handling of climate change in this book. Lately I feel like authors are including it, and all the dystopian feeling that go along with it, in a way that is aimed only at reminding readers that it is happening. This is very important, of course, but it was nice to see an author make a deeper point about it and use it to demonstrate something about the story and its characters, and about being a human in general. It allowed me to feel my climate grief and put it somewhere rather than just leaving me with it in my lap, which has been my experience at times with other novels that touch upon it. We need to both do whatever we can about climate change and process our relative powerlessness (as individuals) in the face of it. Roffey really respects her readers in fully articulating her art in that direction.
Rising up out of the bleakness of many aspects of this story is a message about letting go of attachments and continuing to move and live despite the loss all around us and our smallness in the face of it. There is no “it’s all going to be OK� element to this, just a beautifully grounded sense that this is what we do, what we must do.
I appreciate Roffey’s handling of climate change in this book. Lately I feel like authors are including it, and all the dystopian feeling that go along with it, in a way that is aimed only at reminding readers that it is happening. This is very important, of course, but it was nice to see an author make a deeper point about it and use it to demonstrate something about the story and its characters, and about being a human in general. It allowed me to feel my climate grief and put it somewhere rather than just leaving me with it in my lap, which has been my experience at times with other novels that touch upon it. We need to both do whatever we can about climate change and process our relative powerlessness (as individuals) in the face of it. Roffey really respects her readers in fully articulating her art in that direction.
Rising up out of the bleakness of many aspects of this story is a message about letting go of attachments and continuing to move and live despite the loss all around us and our smallness in the face of it. There is no “it’s all going to be OK� element to this, just a beautifully grounded sense that this is what we do, what we must do.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 28, 2021
This book was really good. The storytelling was absolutely excellent. It may seem a bit slow, but as you go along, you learn more and more into the backstory of the main character, Gavin, and start to understand what lead him to take this journey at sea. And by learning more about his backstory, that really made me want to keep reading to see how he ends up. At its core, this book is about navigating the journey of overcoming and understanding grief, and Gavin does what we all ultimately wish we could do: run away from the sadness. However, his journey teaches us that it’s really not that simple, and that you just have to accept the sadness and feel it fully so that you can move on from it.
Minus two stars because there are some things that left me with questions. For example, did this man really just kidnap his daughter and carry her to sea on an old boat and get away with it with zero consequences? Also what was that random scene of him visiting a whorehouse with his daughter waiting in the parking lot that was just thrown in and never talked about again? And is the daughter okay?? I feel like the trip was traumatic for her. yes she learned a lot about loss and dealing with it but she’s only 6 and she went through so much so i’m worried about her 😭 The author paid a LOT of attention to details, but there were just some things that left me confused.
[MAJOR SPOILER]
i would minus more stars for killing the dog because that was pure evil and it BROKE me 💔 I cried for like 20 minutes after Suzy died, and continued crying while reading the rest of the chapters. But it ends on a light note of hopefulness for the future which i loved.
Minus two stars because there are some things that left me with questions. For example, did this man really just kidnap his daughter and carry her to sea on an old boat and get away with it with zero consequences? Also what was that random scene of him visiting a whorehouse with his daughter waiting in the parking lot that was just thrown in and never talked about again? And is the daughter okay?? I feel like the trip was traumatic for her. yes she learned a lot about loss and dealing with it but she’s only 6 and she went through so much so i’m worried about her 😭 The author paid a LOT of attention to details, but there were just some things that left me confused.
[MAJOR SPOILER]
i would minus more stars for killing the dog because that was pure evil and it BROKE me 💔 I cried for like 20 minutes after Suzy died, and continued crying while reading the rest of the chapters. But it ends on a light note of hopefulness for the future which i loved.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 10, 2020
What a mesmerizing voyage. After tragically losing his son, Alexander, to a flood in his pink house in Trinidad, Gavin Weald quits his job and, with his 6-year-old daughter Océan and his dog Suzy, sets sail in his old boat Romany through the archipelago of islands along the north coast of South America, through the Panama Canal and to the Galapagos. His wife Claire has gone into a sleep, withdrawn into herself, and is staying with her mother in Trinidad; she doesn't at first know that Gavin has left. This sailing trip is Gavin's way of dealing with his grief over the loss of his son and his home, as well as his wife's withdrawal. He puts himself right in the middle of nature, coming face to face with the sea and its unpredictability, its gifts and its challenges. Nature, the force that didn't care about his baby son or his family, nature that acted purely on its own whim, by its own logic or lack thereof. It was nature that took his son, with no malice toward him or his family, but which destroyed it nonetheless. This journey is about a reckoning, a coming to terms with what it means to be human in our natural world, and how one deals with grief and loss.
July 27, 2023
"Archipelago" is an exquisite and emotionally novel that weaves a captivating tapestry of love, loss, and redemption. From the very first page, I was drawn into the vibrant landscapes of the Caribbean and the depths of the human heart.
The novel's protagonist, Gavin Weald, is a man haunted by the tragic loss of his beloved wife, Isabella. As he grapples with grief and the overwhelming burden of guilt, he embarks on a transformative journey of self-discovery to the Caribbean islands.
This book is a beautifully paced novel, with Roffey masterfully crafting a narrative that effortlessly transports readers between the past and the present, seamlessly shifting between different perspectives and time periods. This elegant structure not only adds layers of depth to the plot but also kept me engaged and eager to uncover the hidden truths that lie beneath the surface.
The novel's protagonist, Gavin Weald, is a man haunted by the tragic loss of his beloved wife, Isabella. As he grapples with grief and the overwhelming burden of guilt, he embarks on a transformative journey of self-discovery to the Caribbean islands.
This book is a beautifully paced novel, with Roffey masterfully crafting a narrative that effortlessly transports readers between the past and the present, seamlessly shifting between different perspectives and time periods. This elegant structure not only adds layers of depth to the plot but also kept me engaged and eager to uncover the hidden truths that lie beneath the surface.
January 14, 2023
This is an exquisite, epic tale of a father and daughter’s journey through the Caribbean and into the Pacific to see the Galapagos.
This is also a tale of grief - the pair are recovering from a tragic flood that ripped their family apart and destroyed their home.
I don’t know which struck me more: the intricate, well-researched passages on the enchanting Caribbean Sea and it’s inhabitants, or the fascinatingly simple conversations between this traumatized father and daughter as they unravel their grief.
There is profound wisdom in Roffey’s writing � the unpredictable, unforgiving nature of the ocean is an allegory for the powerful shifting tides of our lives.
This is the first time I have SOBBED (not cried) over a book in many years. Utterly moving.
This is also a tale of grief - the pair are recovering from a tragic flood that ripped their family apart and destroyed their home.
I don’t know which struck me more: the intricate, well-researched passages on the enchanting Caribbean Sea and it’s inhabitants, or the fascinatingly simple conversations between this traumatized father and daughter as they unravel their grief.
There is profound wisdom in Roffey’s writing � the unpredictable, unforgiving nature of the ocean is an allegory for the powerful shifting tides of our lives.
This is the first time I have SOBBED (not cried) over a book in many years. Utterly moving.
March 20, 2017
where do i begin? i think it shall start with the fact that i'm a... for a lack of better, more accurate word... sucker for the ocean. i am forever attached to it. when i am on a boat I'll just automatically smile unknowingly and i always surprise myself when i catch myself doing that. i think it's mostly the fear itself. oceans are terrifying. but there's something poetic and disturbingly beautiful about it. blue all around? that's heaven. such relief, such content. "you are a wild animal" my friend once told me. "you look like a crazy wild animal home at last". we were on a boat to a dive spot in the philippines facing the pacific. you know you are home when your heart is beating so damn fast but you feel in control - this feeling, is a gift.
the story book captured this feeling. and personally, i do not think that everyone will like this book. the writing is great, but there are certain scenes that lacked a "punch". but all in all i love it. :-)
the story book captured this feeling. and personally, i do not think that everyone will like this book. the writing is great, but there are certain scenes that lacked a "punch". but all in all i love it. :-)
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