Offshore
Award: Booker Winner 1979
Date Read: November 27, 2020
Offshore is a brief glimpse into a community of houseboats that are moored on the Thames. While surrounded by greater London, these boats are a microcosm of the dramas and challenges happening all around them. As the name implies, the characters presented here, particularly Nenna, Richard, Maurice and Willis are in some way distant and offshore from their lives and relationships.
This entire novella metaphorically mirrors the unreachability of these characters. Nenna is living alone with her two daughters, while she waits for her husband Edward to have a change of heart and join her on the houseboat she purchased without his input. Edward, for his part, is waiting for Nenna to come to her senses and join him on dry land. In the end, it appears Edward is willing to make a compromise but that conclusion is left dangling.
Perhaps more interesting is how the dwellers of these houseboats like to consider themselves unique and living a life apart from typical city-dwellers but nearly everyone comes to the distressing conclusion that they are merely like everyone else. The four main characters here are stuck in their perceptions of themselves and in their relationships, willing to sacrifice themselves for the perverse distinction of living a unique existence.
Ironically, in the end, just when Maurice and Edward come to a conclusion about what action they need to take in their lives, just as they reach out for a handhold, they are swept away on the tide. Well played, Fitzgerald. Well played…
Looking Forward: The Beginning Of Spring, The Blue Flower, The Bookshop, The Gate Of Angels
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