📚 'Rather Dated' January: AliceThomas Ellis's 'The Inn at the Edge of the World 📚

[FuzzyCaoraDhubh]

Welcome to the 'Rather Dated' bookclub!

This month we are discussing 'The Inn at the Edge of the World' by Alice Thomas Ellis.

Five lonely, socially-awkward people want to get away for Christmas and they answer an advertisement to take a break in a remote Inn on an island off the coast of Scotland. They don't have any great expectations, but things take a strange turn as there are Mysterious Goings On which only become evident at the end of the book and then only to some of them.
The ones who are self-obsessed don't see it. Ronald only sees dinner plates!

I thought the book was quite clever; the unveiling of the selkies on the island happened gradually. There were clues, but I didn't pick up on these straight away. It was subtle and as the story progressed, became obvious. I liked the wry wit and the dark humour of the writing. The characters ranged from unlikeable to detestable but I still found I was entertained and engaged.

I liked the mythological aspect of the book too. Being Irish, I am familiar with entities in mythology that change shape. 'The Children of Lir' comes to mind; three children who were changed into swans. I like how Ellis took a myth and wove it into a contemporary tale.

I was confused about why we had to hear so much about General Gordon of Khartoum. I felt these parts dragged a lot.
Perhaps it highlighted religion versus Paganism and Harry's faith or lack of faith? He had something in common with Gordon in his attitude to death. He didn't have a death wish, but he was resigned to death. Jessica talked on and on about 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall'. I didn't get the bearing of this on the story. Apart from alcohol and Arthur's alcoholism. They all drank so much in the course of the story. No wonder they were seeing things!

A funny, unusual, odd book. I liked it.

Thanks Fuzzy. I agree strongly with your review, especially about the unlike-ability of the characters. They were all pretty annoying I thought - there wasn't anyone I felt much sympathy with.

I also agree that the bits about General Gordon were beyond tedious!

What I did enjoy was the way in which an atmosphere was created - quite claustrophobic as they are all sort of trapped on the island and in the pub, and with a growing sense of something sinister. The story also carries you along and you do want to find out what happens, even if you don't like the characters.

I'm out of the house right now so away from my Kindle, but may post a few more thoughts when I look back at it properly. I've just thought, another thing I enjoyed was reading about the food! I love food in books. The tinned consommé with added sherry sounded pretty awful.

The tinned consommé sounded dire 😄 but credit is due to Eric and most particularly to Finlay's sister-in-law (she who is forever nameless) the food did not sound bad at all. It could have been disastrous. I agree with you about how Ellis created a claustrophobic atmosphere very well.

On the scale from least unlikeable to to most unlikeable characters, I suggest Eric, Harry and Jessica, then Anita and Ronald, finally the Professor and Mrs H. (An awful pair). Jon is in his own category! Mabel wasn't really in it.

I liked it as well.

Although, coming from a Scottish island, her island didn't feel quite real. Selkies are associated with Orkney and Shetland but her landscape and train journey to the island felt like the western isles.

It was a strange book but quite original and memorable I thought. Dry and pretty funny in places.

I liked Eric's sense of being an incomer and his exasperation with the stubbornness of the islanders, and Finlay in particular. Also the way he misses his wife while fully aware that she makes his life a misery when she's around.

I liked Jessica and Harry and I thought Harry's grief, having lost his wife and then his son, was very well portrayed.

I thought the valiant attempts by Anita to find Ronald acceptable as a husband - despite him constantly not measuring up - were entertaining.

The professor was dreadful. All these girls who unaccountably hung around him. Where did he find them all?

I understood why Harry risked - and lost - his life trying to save Jon. He'd been weary and grieving for a long time and was fairly indifferent to his own safety. But what possessed Jon to set off so recklessly? Did he just completely lose the plot?

I'd read another by this author. Good choice!

I feel like I’ve read a completely different book to the rest of you because I really didn’t like this at all! I would have given up if I hadn’t been reading it for this thread (and because it was quite short). I just found it really boring. Nothing happened until right at the end and by that point I just wished they would all fall into the sea as I didn’t like or care about any of them.

I won’t be reading anything else by this author.

At least a couple of them fell into the sea, Chessie 😄
I think the darkly humorous writing kept it lively for me. I particularly liked Ronald's observations.

I found Janina's comment interesting, that the island didn't sound authentic to her.

Yes, Jon completely lost the plot highlandcoo. You could say his mania went out of control and/or he heard the selkies calling him out to sea. He heard voices as they called him ('poor child').

Well I’m delighted to see this group again - my last RDBC read was The Country Girls and I really didn’t like it so I dropped off.

I’m going to give this one a miss, given the reviews! What’s next?

@olderbutwiser join us on the main thread where we discuss what books to read. No decisions made about the next book so feel free to make any suggestions you want!

www.mumsnet.com/talk/what_were_reading/5029141-the-mumsnet-rather-dated-book-group-all-welcome-to-join?page=3&reply=141143206

HNY all and TY for starting us off @FuzzyCaoraDhubh !
Registering as a fence sitter (or seal-woman hybrid, hoho).
I love both fairytale/folkloric respins and nothing-happens dark comedies of manners, but somehow this particular hybrid didn't quite work for me.

Some of the previous posts have helped clarify why - esp @highlandcoo's questions which are trying to unpick the psychology, but I think the book seemed to be teasing those grounded interpretations (not just by having a psychologist character but all the humour around what people were saying vs thinking) before whirling off into woo-woo and not-quite-human weirdness.

e.g. the professor making all his 'girls' wear that coat, so selkies? But then both he and they some of the more mundane characters, not noticing the 'off' things some others were, or if they did, looking for rational explanations (for the music or footprints).

I think the Tenant refs were meant to tie in to the runaway wife theme, but I'm afraid just made me immediately take against Jessica for not getting it 😅
General Gordon was also famously Without A Wife although that's the only link I can muster (and only remember this because I read another novel featuring him/the Madhist war last year) and I also found it boring.

In Rather Dated terms I was a bit surprised by the casual stereotypical references to 'Chinaman' 'Arabs' etc. - were these really still common parlance in 1990?

Good to see you inaptonym! Interesting* *post!

Ahh...the runaway wife theme in Tenant.
Yes, of course! It's a bit tenuous though! Alcohol was a constant :)

Were the professor's girls in the duffel coat selkies? No, I don't think so. The girls who visited the professor used to share the manky duffel coat to give the impression that it was the same girl (as if). Selkies wore oily jumpers and old fur coats scattered around the place and in wardrobes.

There was a feeling of us versus them between the natives and the outsiders. Eric tried to articulate this when he referred to 'the island mentality'. I think he was sensitive to his environment and might have been sympathetic to the culture and values of the selkie community in time.

lol yes the alcoholism also ties in! Funnily there was discussion of Tenant on the 50B thread just as I was reading this. I did come round to Jessica eventually - her habit of zoning out of boring convos were some of the funniest bits, and very relatable.

Ok, I guess the duffel coat thing was more of an echo (cognate?) than the explicitly 'magic' jumpers - which had enough power to make Jon jump and good riddance.
Though Eric's wife* seemed to have no problem just selling that fur coat on the mainland and coming back in a new one - in another contradictory rendition of the theme.
*sorry, can't remember her name, read a few weeks (and many drinks) ago...

Forgot to say on a positive note that while the overall experience was just odd, I really liked the writing in this on a sentence/scene level and would read more by her.

She was Mabel! Actually, I hadn't noticed her fur coat switcheroo! It passed me by.

I agree it was an odd book. I would be curious enough to try another of hers at some stage.

Mabel had webbed fingers when she returned though. So everyone became a selkie eventually.

Everyone became one or all wandering selkies returned home.

Alice Thomas Ellis was my godmother!

I haven't read this one for years! I should rectify that!

Wow TragicMuse! Did you know her well?

I did! We spent lots of time with her and the family.

There were a lot of kids! We went on holiday to their cottage in Wales with them all and Beryl Bainbridge and her daughters.

I remember some great parties at the Piano Factory, home of Duckworth publishers which was her husband's company by then...

Sorry, very late to the chat. Fascinating to hear of your personal connection to ATE, @TragicMuse!

This wasn’t really my kind of book at all, at the outset anyway - I don’t do well with anything supernatural/ghost-themed - but I was happy to read along and enjoyed it, even if I didn’t really understand it. In fact I particularly enjoyed the undercutting of the woo aspects with the very down-to-earth humour, which seemed to ground the action in something quite commonsensical. From looking at various online articles about the author, this seems very typical of her - she was robustly outspoken, known for her dark wit, and also for her cookery writing, which explains the detailed descriptions of the food in the book (consommé with sherry is/was very much a thing!). Whoever on the main thread mentioned the 40s film 'The Halfway House' was onto something - I kept being reminded of that, with the same concept of a group of random strangers, each with their own problems, all ending up in a small inn. The ultimate explanation and setting are different but there’s a germ of a similar idea there.

Wow, ATE was your godmother, @TragicMuse ! That’s fascinating. For some reason, before I started reading, I thought the author was American. I’m muddling her up with someone, but who?
Anyway, I too am not much of a fan of supernatural/ghost writing … but this was such a beautifully written novel, with wry, spare humour scattered throughout that I enjoyed it tremendously. The first bit where I smiled was halfway down the first page, when Eric wonders “not for the first time” how it would feel to murder Mabel. Jessica was very funny too (I do that zoning out thing all the time). I’ve never been north of the Borders, so I don’t know how accurately a Scottish island was depicted, but what I will say is that I got a very strong sense of place whilst reading, and the suffocating atmosphere of the uncomfortable pub felt very real too. Poor Eric, wishing he’d never left Telford.
I didn’t know much about the Selkie legend, so that was interesting.
I was really surprised to learn that the book was published in 1990 as that seems so recent (although it’s 35 years ago… God) as it felt sort of older in my head. I think that may because of the Halfway House link, which I would bet my life ATE had seen!
A very interesting read. Thanks to whoever suggested it.

I've enjoyed hearing everyone's thoughts on this book. All very interesting! We must discuss on the main thread what to read next.

Are you thinking of Joyce Carol Oates, @StellaOlivetti?

Or Alice Hoffman, @StellaOlivetti ?

Amazing personal connection, @TragicMuse I'm jealous!