[UYG]≡ Read Landfalls A Novel Naomi J Williams Books

Landfalls A Novel Naomi J Williams Books

Download As PDF : Landfalls A Novel Naomi J Williams Books

Landfalls A Novel Naomi J Williams Books

Debut author Williams chronicles the ill-fated expedition of the Astrolabe and Boussole, which departed France in 1785 for the South Pacific. The fictionalized account of this map-making and territory-charting journey is an interesting read, in no small part because it is told through many characters’ perspectives. Landfalls also is a reminder of how enormous the world once was. Travel in the Age of Enlightenment did not include a McDonalds in Moscow, or a Starbucks in Samoa.

Williams has a gift with description, and her prose shines when she takes readers through uncharted territories. She also pays attention to changing social mores, and addresses the debates and social issues in a less politically correct era.

What makes Landfalls, A Novel, really special is that in this risk-averse publishing environment, original voices are endangered species. The book is void of vampires or dystopian themes, and there’s not a shade of grey in sight. It’s an intelligent, well-written, painstakingly researched account of adventure. I would love to discover more authors like Williams, and I look forward to her next work.

Highly recommended.


Tags : Amazon.com: Landfalls: A Novel (9780374183158): Naomi J. Williams: Books,Naomi J. Williams,Landfalls: A Novel,Farrar, Straus and Giroux,0374183155,Action & Adventure,Historical,France - History - Louis XVI, 1774-1793,Historical fiction,Historical fiction.,La Paerouse, Jean-Franocois de Galaup,Scientific expeditions,Scientific expeditions;Fiction.,Sea stories.,Voyages around the world,010101 FSG Cloth,AMERICAN FIRST NOVELISTS,AMERICAN HISTORICAL FICTION,FICTION Action & Adventure,FICTION Historical General,FICTION Literary,FICTION Sea Stories,Fiction,Fiction - General,Fiction-ActionAdventure,Fiction-Coming of Age,FictionHistorical - General,FictionSea Stories,GENERAL,General Adult,Historical - General,Historical General,Literary,Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945),Sea Stories,United States,literary fiction; historical fiction; historical fiction novels; 18th century; adventure stories; sea stories; exploration; maritime fiction; age of enlightenment; women authors; american authors; american literature

Landfalls A Novel Naomi J Williams Books Reviews

This is a very engaging, well written, obviously well researched novel. It is the story of an expedition of exploration as viewed from land, both by those participating in it and those who did not sail with it but whose lives were profoundly altered by it nonetheless. The Lapérouse expedition is merely the context for a story about the vast phase space of humanity. The triumphs of human inventiveness, reasoning, foresight, and longterm planning feature alongside pettiness, desire for status, primal programming, and misperception. The stories are colored using the full range of human morality and emotions. The characters are not just denizens of the 18th century. They are people just like us. The author includes many little details in the stories that remind us of that fact and make the individuals real and present.
The most remarkable thing happened while I read "Landfalls" on a long plane ride I was transported, not to my present-day destination but back in time to the late 18th century. Though I've read historical novels before, I can't remember feeling so physically, mentally and emotionally in a place and time. Williams' research is meticulous but she never, ever flaunts her knowledge. Rather, it flows naturally out of the strengths, weaknesses, longings, sense of place and attention to duty that guide her characters.

Williams bases her novel on the real-life voyage of two French frigates assigned to engage in scientific exploration in the late 18th century. Much about the fate of what came to be know as the Lapérmouse expedition is unknown which leaves the author free to exercise her most fertile imagination. Her technique is admirable and even daring. She speaks in several voices and shifts tenses with dizzying ease. Yet her writing is never pedantic and her narrative never falters.

However, it is the brilliant specificity of time and place that elevates this book. Bring your sea legs for this journey. You will taste the salt and feel the pitch of the boat as you travel with these intrepid explorers in search of a better understanding of the globe they traversed.
In Landfalls, author Naomi Williams traces the ill-fated expedition of the 18th century French naval officer and explorer Jean François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse. In 1785 he set off with two frigates under his command on a round the world expedition to chart flora and fauna and map new areas of exploration.

Williams has done her research, but it’s her storytelling that brings the expedition alive and makes a reader care about these explorers and seamen from another era. They made it as far as Botany Bay, Australia, in January of 1788, after landfalls in Chile, Easter Island, Hawaii, Alaska, Monterey, Japan, Russia, and Samoa among other sites. Setting off from Australia for New Caledonia in the Pacific with plans to be home by June, 1789, they simply disappeared. Later rescue expeditions yielded evidence that Lapérouse’s ships had wrecked on the reefs near Vanikoro in the Solomon Islands and that a small group of survivors built a boat and sailed away, never to be seen again.

Williams bases each story at a different landfall, narrating it through the perspective of a different member of the expedition and sometimes one of the locals. Each voice is distinct from the others, yet every story is consistent in its elegance of tone, capturing interactions in a way that reverberates long after, the way a bell tone keeps echoing after the clapper is stilled. And while this collection of individual stories tells the larger story of the voyage, each can stand alone.

Her story openings are brilliant examples of the age old advice to “hook” a reader. Consider

From “Lamanon at Sea”
Lamanon has two years, three months, and fifteen days to live. He does not know this, of course. He has no inkling of what is to come.

From “Concepción”
How strange that the town was not there.

From “Snow Men”
There is a big disagreement in my family about what happens if you drown and your body is never found.

From “A Monography on Parasites”
They did not even get his name right when they came to apprehend him.

How can you not read on? When you do read on, these stories capture more than an ill-fated voyage of long ago. They are cautionary tales, signposts reminding one that no matter how well-intentioned one’s own voyage, obliviousness has long range consequences.
I wasn't sure what I'd get here. I'm not terribly into the 18th century, and the period writing is so often labored and awkward.

But this book is so different. The sentences shine like jewels, and the characters feel so real. People have real relationships, and they struggle with uncertainty. The historical research that went into this doesn't lead to pedantry at all; it is dispensed effortlessly and in perfect measure.

How interesting is it to read a novel when you know how it ends? Williams proves it can be absolutely fascinating. This isn't so much a nautical novel or a period novel. It is the most human novel I've read in years. Bravo!
Debut author Williams chronicles the ill-fated expedition of the Astrolabe and Boussole, which departed France in 1785 for the South Pacific. The fictionalized account of this map-making and territory-charting journey is an interesting read, in no small part because it is told through many characters’ perspectives. Landfalls also is a reminder of how enormous the world once was. Travel in the Age of Enlightenment did not include a McDonalds in Moscow, or a Starbucks in Samoa.

Williams has a gift with description, and her prose shines when she takes readers through uncharted territories. She also pays attention to changing social mores, and addresses the debates and social issues in a less politically correct era.

What makes Landfalls, A Novel, really special is that in this risk-averse publishing environment, original voices are endangered species. The book is void of vampires or dystopian themes, and there’s not a shade of grey in sight. It’s an intelligent, well-written, painstakingly researched account of adventure. I would love to discover more authors like Williams, and I look forward to her next work.

Highly recommended.