Reviews for The village by the sea

The average rating for The village by the sea based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-09-25 00:00:00 Carey Drew Paula Fox is a rare kind of author, and this book is a rare find in its field. One of the very best Paula Fox novels I've read, The Village by the Sea takes on some intensely personal issues of lingering anger and jealousy, demonstrating how holding onto the flaming coal of our resentment of other people for long enough can burn a permanent scar into our psyche, damaging the mental tissue so badly that we never heal enough to resume our normal lives. You won't even know your grip on that fiery ember is too tight until the damage is already irreversible, and if that realization doesn't sober us enough to seriously consider how we're handling the negative feelings in our own life, then nothing likely will. Emma, age ten, is part of a family in flux. Her father isn't even of middle age, yet his heart is already showing serious signs of trouble, and he needs a bypass operation. While the surgery is happening and for a short time afterwards the medical situation will be highly stressful for Emma's parents, so they've arranged for her to stay with her Aunt Bea and Uncle Crispin over the next two weeks. Their house lies adjacent to the sea, so even if Emma finds living with her aunt and uncle to be boring, at least she'll be able to spend time relaxing in the languid surf that laps the beach. Emma is experiencing much emotional turmoil about what's about to happen to her father. What if there are complications to his bypass procedure, and he dies? What would she and her mother ever do if her father were gone forever? The dark waters of Emma's fear are much too choppy for her to successfully navigate at this point. She just has to hope that things are going to turn out all right, that the professional surgeons will do their job and fix in her father what needs to be fixed. The alternative is too haunting to ponder. Uncle Crispin is a friendly person who does much to welcome Emma to her temporary home, but Aunt Bea is a different story entirely. Emma's parents had implied that Bea was a hard woman to get along with, and Emma understands why almost as soon as she steps through the door of her house. There's something profoundly wrong with Aunt Bea, some mix of mental instability and a few extreme personality problems that have warped her essential outlook on life, causing her to treat everyone but her husband (and occasionally him, too) with nearly intolerable passive-aggressive venom. She insults their abilities while highly praising those of phantom friends and acquaintances of hers; she tries to make Emma feel guilty about not spending all of her free time with her, but without making any effort to be a pleasant enough person to be around; and she talks negatively about Emma's parents and repeatedly gives not-so-subtle hints that maybe Emma's father won't survive his operation. Emma's Aunt Bea is an unsavory person to be around at all times, which leads Emma so often to seek refuge by the sea, where she eventually runs into a girl named Bertie who becomes her friend. What is it about Aunt Bea, though, that has made her such a terror? I'm sure she has had deep, scarring issues that have crisscrossed her entire life, but little of that is explained in this book. What we do find out is that Aunt Bea has allowed the flaming cinder of jealousy to burrow into her heart so deeply, and sear it so badly, that much of her inert sense of right and wrong has been deadened, and she can't even interact civilly with normal people anymore. Whatever unique talents that she had to offer to the world have been burned away, dissolving into the air like black smoke and forgotten. It's terribly sad to think of a human being holding onto their own insecurities and pain so tightly that it ruins their life, which only makes them more insecure and bitter in a cycle that will never stop growing. Can a person be so badly burned on the inside that it's not even possible to ever recover? I don't know the answer to that. If they give up all hope and completely embrace their own bitterness and gall in the aftermath of terrible hurt, though, then I suppose there's no real way out of the darkness. This is the stage of the game that Aunt Bea has reached, and Emma is helpless to do anything but try to protect herself by keeping her distance. With the apprehension over her father's operation shadowing her mind always, and bad feelings being stirred up constantly because of the hostile environment created by her aunt around the house, Emma regularly goes out on her own and wanders the peaceful shore by the sea, until one day she happens upon Alberta (Bertie), a girl of about eleven or twelve. Bertie becomes Emma's haven for normality in this whole weird place, a normal girl who likes to do normal things and isn't manipulative the way Aunt Bea never ceases to be. The girls decide to build a sort of makeshift village by the shore made exclusively from natural objects that they find washed up by the tide, and with as much time as she puts into the construction of the village, Emma sees it blossom into a truly amazing little place. The two weeks away from home aren't such a bust, after all. While waiting for definitive word about her father and trying to deal with Aunt Bea's ever-present neuroses, Emma completes the village with Bertie, and they both realize that this is a truly special project they have created together. When something unexpected happens to the village, however, Emma will have to attain a level of understanding about her aunt's personality problems that cuts deeper than she cares enough to probe by this point, if she is to learn from the tragic mistakes that Bea has made and learn to let go of pain and anger in her own young life. The Village by the Sea is an excellent, emotionally relevant story which stirs up some issues that many of us would rather not face so directly. It shows us in unflinching style what comes at the end of the road of holding tightly to bitterness, and it's a disturbing picture. Like all great books, this one challenges each of us on a deep level, to reexamine how we deal with the wrongs committed against us in our own lives and how we treat other people whose prosperity may irk us. It's never easy to swallow the ostrich egg and do the right thing when doing so goes against our flawed human nature, but to ignore what's right and take the path of resentment will catch up to us if we stay on it for long enough. It's a path that never ends well. Never. Yet also in this book, more subtly, we see an example of extraordinary love, the type of love with roots so strong that nothing can upend it from its station. We look at Aunt Bea and think, How can Uncle Crispin love someone as deranged as her? Such a love isn't a matter of logic, though, and it's not about pragmatism or choosing the greatest happiness. It's just real love, in its plainest, starkest form, love that took root somewhere in the past not because Aunt Bea was the ideal woman, but simply and unexplainably because Crispin loved her, and a love that real never dies; it can't die, really. And so there's no chance of ever losing it, which is why there's nothing on earth more powerful or influential. It makes me want to live in the expression of real love, too. Paula Fox has done a very nice job with this book. There's so much depth to it that it could be good for hours of honest emotional conversation and thoughtful debate, a statement that can't truly be made about most novels. I would certainly give it three and a half stars, and my full recommendation to any reader with a passion for profound stories that speak directly to the deepest core of the human heart.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-07-16 00:00:00 Darrell Green Awesome children's book. It's a really fast read but very well written. I almost wish that Emma's aunt was explained a little better, but I guess the important thing is that Emma learned in the end to forgive her.