• 1001 BYMRBYD Challenge
  • About Zee
  • Book Challenges 2010
  • Rory Gilmore Reading List
  • Zee’s Book Reviews

Wordly Obsessions

~ … the occasional ramblings of a book addict …

Wordly Obsessions

Tag Archives: Dunkirk

Book Review | ‘The Snow Goose’ by Paul Gallico

25 Friday Mar 2011

Posted by mywordlyobsessions in Book Review

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

book review, childrens fiction, Dunkirk, Italy, Paul Gallico, Small Miracle, Snow Goose


The Snow Goose (Essential.penguin)The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Paul Gallico is a man who understood the art of story-telling not from a modern authorly angle, but rather from its more ancient verbal roots. The two simple tales of ‘The Snow Goose’ and ‘The Small Miracle‘ are beautifully crafted literary gems, with the former being about a hunchbacked artist, his relationship with a wounded goose and his act of bravery at Dunkirk and the latter a ‘contemporary fable’ inspired by St. Francis of Assisi about an orphaned boy and his donkey.

In both stories, Gallico’s writing is so simple and poetic that it demands to be read aloud. There are many scenic passages that I delighted in as he brought out the colours of the settings. In ‘The Snow Goose’, the cold, bleak marshy landscape of the Essex coast was brought to life using language reminiscent of watercolour paintings.

“Tidal creeks and estuaries and the crooked, meandering arms of many little rivers whose mouths lap at the edge of the ocean cut through the sodden land that seems to rise and fall and breathe with the recurrence of the daily tides.”

In ‘The Small Miracle’ the rustic ochres and olive greens of Italy give the story a Quixotic flavour as the young protagonist finds himself on the path to Rome which will eventually lead to the Pope, all for the sake of his beloved little donkey.

“Approaching Assisi via the chalky, dusty road that twists its way up Monte Subaiso, now revealing, now concealing the exquisite little town, as it winds its way through olive and cypress groves, you eventually reach a division where your choice lies between an upper and a lower route.”

I find that good and bad writing can be divided by this simple method of ‘sounding out’ a narrative. When you think about it, almost all stories these days are put together in silence. While the plot may be a good one, it is often the author’s ‘inner ear’ that may let him/her down when it comes to setting a rhythm to the work as a whole. The strong flow of the narrative, it’s sure-footed approach to the story and its clear visuals make this an ideal bedtime book for children. The fact that it also highlights the magical bond between humans and animals makes it a very pleasant alternative to some of the other stuff that is currently out there. Before picking this up, I didn’t realise how much I’d missed seeing animals in stories. A lovely read, highly recommended.

View all my reviews

Share this:

  • Email
  • Print
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • Pocket
  • More
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn

Like this:

Like Loading...

RSS Links

RSS Feed RSS - Posts

RSS Feed RSS - Comments

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 636 other subscribers

Blog Stats

  • 364,583 hits

My Visitors

free counters

Recent Posts

Top Posts

  • Hunter S. Thompson | "Some May Never Live, But The Crazy Never Die"
  • Book Review | 'Heroes and Villains' by Angela Carter
  • Hymn to Isis | (3rd-4th Century)
  • Famous Quotes | Edgar Allan Poe
  • Book Review | 'Chronicle of a Death Foretold' - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  • Would You Like to Smell Like Your Favourite Author?
  • Banned Books | Top Banned, Burned and Challenged Books
  • Sylvia Plath | 'Mary's Song'
  • Quick Review | 'South of the Border, West of the Sun' - Haruki Murakami
  • 'The Diary of A Young Girl' by Anne Frank

The best of the best of the best…

Bookish tweets

  • RT @Rachael_Swindon: Doing an experiment. Some 316 MPs claimed their utility bills on expenses last year, with some members claiming more… 4 days ago
  • 4 of 5 stars to The Sandman by Dirk Maggs goodreads.com/review/show/52… 1 week ago
  • RT @FreefromTorture: Still not deleting it standard.co.uk/news/uk/suella… 2 weeks ago
  • RT @BeckettUnite: • Firefighters don’t get subsidised food for saving lives • Nurses don’t get free parking for saving lives • Doctors don’… 2 weeks ago
  • RT @GNev2: They did! https://t.co/hWkIavggNN 1 month ago
Follow @WordlyObsession

Pinning stuff on boards is fun!

Follow Me on Pinterest

What’s on the Shelf?

Reading Wishlist!!

WP Book Bloggers List

For finding things…

50 books a year 1001 book list angela carter audiobook Benjamin Lebert book challenge book review books che guevara childrens fiction chinua achebe comic books crazy Dr. Gonzo dystopian edgar allan poe fantasy fear and loathing Fiction frankenstein goodreads gothic fiction Grapes of Wrath gustave flaubert Haruki Murakami hubert selby jr humour hunter s thompson ian fleming Indian literature Its monday what are you reading? japan japanese japanese horror story jm coetzee John Steinbeck Jorge Luis Borges kazuo ishiguro kurt vonnegut l. frank baum literary fiction literature liz jensen love story meme midnights children oscar wilde Paul Auster peter ackroyd poetry readalong religion roberto bolano Robert Rankin romance rory gilmore reading list rum diary ryu murakami salman rushdie science fiction short story stephen king sylvia plath teaser tuesday the motorcycle diaries the rapture Tokyo toni morrison Top Ten Tuesday United States ursula le guin virginia woolf war wondrous words wednesday writing

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Wordly Obsessions
    • Join 156 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Wordly Obsessions
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
%d bloggers like this: