The Dark Floor Rises

Margaret drabble s new novel the dark flood rises opens with its protagonist francesca stubbs tensely driving her peugeot on an english highway fran is an expert on housing for senior citizens.

The dark floor rises.

Piecemeal the body dies and the timid soul has her footing washed away as the dark flood rises the main theme is growing old and dying. Farrar straus giroux. The dark flood rises moves between fran s interconnected group of family and friends in england and a seemingly idyllic expat community in the canary islands. The title of the book is a quotation from a poem the ship of death by d h lawrence about mortality.

In britain the flood tides are rising and in the canaries there is always the potential for a seismic event. Mortality that relentless law of universal carnage is the. The dark flood rises by margaret drabble book review. A rather doom laden work.

The dark flood rises is the ruminations of an assortment of ageing characters notably 70 something francesca fran stub alas margaret drabble s new novel the dark flood rises is due back at the library tomorrow and if i don t write the review this morning before the frivolity starts my thoughts will be lost in a haze of champagne bubbles. In britain the flood tides are rising and in the canaries there is always the potential for a seismic event. The dark flood rises moves between fran s interconnected group of family and friends in england and a seemingly idyllic expat community in the canary islands. The point of view hops from character to character sometimes two or three times in a single page.

It is mostly tell not show. In both places disaster looms. The dark flood rises is published by canongate. The dark flood rises is not a novel i should have liked.

The few direct quotes are buried in long paragraphs of narration. Drabble witty and intelligent story of old age and inevitable death does not make for an easy read. The dark flood rises in addition to offering various considerations of individual mortality also broadens its scope to examine the aging of our civilization and our world drabble depicts a europe overrun with refugees desperate for solace and safety an island chain at risk of destruction by volcanoes an england whose lowlands are increasingly subject to flooding. Novelists poets philosophers and theologians agree.

Free uk p p over 10 online orders only. The dark flood rises by margaret drabble 325 pp.