The Lighthouse
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3.2 • 12 Ratings
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- £6.99
Publisher Description
Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2012
The Lighthouse begins on a North Sea ferry, on whose blustery outer deck stands Futh, a middle-aged, recently separated man heading to Germany for a restorative walking holiday.
Spending his first night in Hellhaus at a small, family-run hotel, he finds the landlady hospitable but is troubled by an encounter with an inexplicably hostile barman.
In the morning, Futh puts the episode behind him and sets out on his week-long circular walk along the Rhine. As he travels, he contemplates his childhood; a complicated friendship with the son of a lonely neighbour; his parents’ broken marriage and his own. But the story he keeps coming back to, the person and the event affecting all others, is his mother and her abandonment of him as a boy, which left him with a void to fill, a substitute to find.
He recalls his first trip to Germany with his newly single father. He is mindful of something he neglected to do there, an omission which threatens to have devastating repercussions for him this time around.
At the end of the week, Futh, sunburnt and blistered, comes to the end of his circular walk, returning to what he sees as the sanctuary of the Hellhaus hotel, unaware of the events which have been unfolding there in his absence.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
American readers will enjoy Moore's (He Wants) assured debut novel, previously published in the U.K. and shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Futh, a man only ever referred to by his surname, has just broken up with his wife and has traveled to Germany, his father's homeland, for a walking holiday. He has brought with him a little silver lighthouse a special perfume container that belonged to his mother, who abandoned Futh when he was young. The narrative moves between the present and the past and between Futh and Ester, the woman who runs the first hotel he stays at in Germany and whose story has some odd parallels with Futh's own. Moore's deceptively simple style perfectly suits this tale of memory, sadness, and self-doubt. The details and the voice combine to create an unnerving, creepy story of a rather pitiful man. Futh is neurotic, socially awkward, and would be easy to mock yet Moore makes him a very sympathetic character, with the humiliations he endures at the hands of those he loves inspiring sympathy in the reader. An intriguing twist toward the end brings the two narratives together in this satisfying, mysterious novel.
Customer Reviews
readable reminiscences
The writing style engages you immediately and develops into a thoughtful and ruminative tale of hope........... or the lack of it. At which point you start to lose sympathy for the central character will, I guess, depend on how assertive you are in your own life - but I ended up wanting to shake him by the shoulders and slap him. In a book obsessed with aroma, he never seems to wake up and smell the coffee!