Turtle Diary - Softcover

Hoban, Russell

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0747548315 ISBN 13: 9780747548317

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2000

Synopsis

In the aquarium at the London Zoo, three sea turtles swim endlessly in ‘their little bedsitter of ocean'. Two lonely people, William G and Neaera H, become obsessed with the turtles' captivity, and resolve to rescue them and release them in to the sea. William's and Neaera's diaries tell the story of how they achieve the turtles' freedom, and in the process re-define their own lives.

About this title

About the Author

Russell Hoban is the author of many extraordinary novels including THE LION OF BOAZ-JACHIN AND JACHIN-BOAZ, RIDDLEY WALKER, MR RINYO-CLACTION'S OFFER and most recently, ANGELICA'S GROTTO . He has also written some classic books for children including THE MOUSE AND HIS CHILD and THE FRANCES books. He lives in London.

Review

“It's this dissonance between the simple turtle story and the irresolvable adult story that makes Turtle Diary a quiet masterpiece.” —Bookforum

“It is an insightful and droll novel about mid-life discontents, entirely timely for the readers who grew up on his books and who now have children and crises of their own. Out of print for several years, this new edition of "Turtle Diary," with an introduction by Ed Parks, gives us a chance to discover a different Hoban – not the earlier children’s author and not the later fantasy novelist – and to be charmed by what’s in between.” —The Christian Science Monitor

“A story about the recovery of life...Like other cult writers—Salinger for instance, or Vonnegut—Hoban writes about ordinary people making life-affirming gestures in a world that threatens to dissolve in madness." —Newsweek
 
"Crackles with witty detail, mordant intelligence and self-deprecating irony." —Time
 
"This wonderful, life-saving fantasy will place Russell Hoban where he has got to be--among the greatest, timeless novelists." —The Times (UK)
 
"The marvellous energy of Mr. Hoban's writing, simultaneously dry and passionate, justifies everything he does." —Times Educational Supplement

"Russell Hoban is our ur-novelist, a maverick voice that is like no other. He can take themes that seem too devastating for contemplation and turn them into allegories in which wry, sad humour is married to quite extraordinary powers of imagery and linguistic fertility that makes each book a linguistic departure." —Sunday Telegraph

Edition details

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0747548315
• ISBN 13: 9780747548317
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 188