| SERVANTS
OF THE MAP By Andrea Barrett Flamingo (Harper Collins) - July 2002 ISBN 0007139918 - Trade PB Historical Literary Various periods 1810 to 1979 Reviewed by Rachel A Hyde, MyShelf.com Buy a US || UK Copy Science, obsessions and romance intertwine in this collection of literary short stories and novellas by the author of Voyage of the Narwhal. A homesick mapper high in the Himalayas in the 1860s writes letters home to his wife but finds himself instead, far from his native land. A young woman drops out of college and pursues other fields is mesmerized as an old man tells her of his mother and the forest she saved while her sister remembers her own beloved mother and her obsession for the man she collected beetles for in her childhood. A brother and sister are parted in early childhood yet search for each other all their lives, having their own adventures reflecting this longing and a woman runs a hotel that is also a sanatorium for the sick, providing cures of a different kind with its ambience of rest. I particularly liked the way in which the stories linked together as we met first one sibling then another and watched them pursue their own lives, before meeting in between another half of a relationship. The introspective prose is wonderfully descriptive, both of the inner geography of the characters and their various scientific passions and all the historical stories appear to be of the kind that immerse one in their particular period through long research no doubt. If you enjoy literary fiction then you will lap this up - stories of the kind that can be said to be "crafted" rather than merely written. |
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