Seven Steeples - Rambling Readers

mark reviewed Seven Steeples by Sara Baume

Dreamlike chronicle of cohabitation

5 stars

Two people move to a house in rural Ireland and live there, in an every-shrinking world, for eight years. That is, essentially, the plot of the book. But what the book is about - at least to me - is the dread and joys of living with someone, experiencing both growth and entropy together. I spent most of the book reading in a state of apprehension, waiting in agony for the moment where the solitude of the couple is interrupted, where their precarious poverty becomes too much to bear, where illness or money or the outside world intrudes upon the life they've made for themselves. It's almost like domestic horror where the danger is entropy. An incredible book.

mark reviewed Seven Steeples by Sara Baume

Dreamlike chronicle of cohabitation

5 stars

Two people move to a house in rural Ireland and live there, in an every-shrinking world, for eight years. That is, essentially, the plot of the book. But what the book is about - at least to me - is the dread and joys of living with someone, experiencing both growth and entropy together. I spent most of the book reading in a state of apprehension, waiting in agony for the moment where the solitude of the couple is interrupted, where their precarious poverty becomes too much to bear, where illness or money or the outside world intrudes upon the life they've made for themselves. It's almost like domestic horror where the danger is entropy. An incredible book.

Fionnáin reviewed Seven Steeples by Sara Baume

Never Really Begins

2 stars

As a fan of Sara Baume, I was looking forward to this book. In the end, I'm a little disappointed. The writing and imagination captures moments brilliantly, as always, but the book's story is not engaging and it stutters to a stop without ever really getting started. It surrounds a couple and their two dogs as they form a life in the countryside after years of city living. They are watched over by the mountain, one of several active characters in the landscape.

Despite some good moments, Seven Steeples feels a little more like a study for two actors building character for a play than a work of literature, even an experimental one. And there is also an inexplicable use of spacing at times

that seems designed to do something with beat but never seems to make sense when it's used. The overall result is a little too self-aware, with …

As a fan of Sara Baume, I was looking forward to this book. In the end, I'm a little disappointed. The writing and imagination captures moments brilliantly, as always, but the book's story is not engaging and it stutters to a stop without ever really getting started. It surrounds a couple and their two dogs as they form a life in the countryside after years of city living. They are watched over by the mountain, one of several active characters in the landscape.

Despite some good moments, Seven Steeples feels a little more like a study for two actors building character for a play than a work of literature, even an experimental one. And there is also an inexplicable use of spacing at times

that seems designed to do something with beat but never seems to make sense when it's used. The overall result is a little too self-aware, with no real enjoyment left for the reader.