Water
All of us enjoyed at least some of these pieces of writing.
It was difficult to rate the book as a whole as the stories were so different.
Nonetheless we appreciated the concept and enjoyed Vikram Seth’s opening poem.
Most of us thought “Crossing the River” the best story although some thought it was marred by being made unnecessarily explicit at the end.
Of the other pieces some were original and complete stories written for the purpose while others were fragments of a larger work.
Some were considered overly depressing or difficult to understand.
“(One Last) Throw of the Dice” was revealed as an allegory about global warming – fairly obvious perhaps but it had seemed to pass most of us by.
For some pieces the link with the theme of water may have seemed tenuous and rather contrived while “Kaltes Klares Wasser” had a particularly relevant point for Oxfam’s work.
Some of the fragments made us want to read more – this was particularly true for several of us of the last story Michael Morpurgo’s “Look at me, I need a Smile”.
NS November 2009
|
