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Available
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Publication
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2007), Hardcover, 352 pages
Description
Humphrey Clark and Ailsa Kelman spent a summer together as children in Ornemouth, a town by the gray North Sea. Now, as they journey back tonbsp;receive honorary degrees from a new university there--Humphrey on the train, Ailsa flying--they take stock of their lives, their careers, and their shared personal entanglements, romantic and otherwise. Humphrey is a successful marine biologist, happiest under water, but now retired; Ailsa, scholar and feminist, is celebrated for her pioneering studies of gender. Their mutual pasts unfold in an exquisite portrait of English social life in thenbsp;latter half of the twentieth century.
User reviews
LibraryThing member janeajones
I love reading Margaret Drabble. I have loved reading Margaret Drabble since the 1970s when I stumbled upon Waterfall and The Garrick Year. She is the paramount novelist of manners of my generation. Yes, I am a baby-boomer, a feminist, an American, an unfamous academic, a once-urban dweller -- and
In The Sea Lady, an eminent marine biologist, Humphrey Clark, and a famous performer turned feminist academic, Ailsa Kelman, are on their way to the relatively new University of Ornemouth in Finsterness in the north of England to receive honorary degrees. Their lives are entwined -- they spent a memorable summer together 50 years ago at the seaside in Finsterness and later connected for a brief period in London in the 1960s when they were in their twenties. But they haven't seen each other for over 30 years. The journey back to Finsterness is a journey back in time and remembrance. I savored every page.
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oh, I recognize and know her people: I've spent time in England, married an (American) graduate of an English drama school, and my best friends in NYC in the 1970s were English. And Margaret Drabble has grown old with me -- like Margaret Atwood and Judi Dench and Helen Mirren and Doris Lessing -- and even Meryl Streep. Can I say I am grateful for those women who acknowledge that growing old is a part of life? I wonder if Jane Austen would have written about growing old if she had lived beyond the age of 42?In The Sea Lady, an eminent marine biologist, Humphrey Clark, and a famous performer turned feminist academic, Ailsa Kelman, are on their way to the relatively new University of Ornemouth in Finsterness in the north of England to receive honorary degrees. Their lives are entwined -- they spent a memorable summer together 50 years ago at the seaside in Finsterness and later connected for a brief period in London in the 1960s when they were in their twenties. But they haven't seen each other for over 30 years. The journey back to Finsterness is a journey back in time and remembrance. I savored every page.
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LibraryThing member thorold
Drabble goes a bit over the top with marine imagery here - simply everything in the book is tied to the sea in some way, which is fun for a while, but gets a bit distracting when it keeps happening. On a more mundane level, the story is fairly engaging: two characters, one a dull but distinguished
As Drabble explores their respective back-stories, we get a nice condensed view of how British society has involved since the forties, how Humphrey, once a clever child exploring rock pools with the aid of the Children's Encyclopaedia, became a biologist to study organisms and finds himself sidelined in a discipline where no-one is interested in anything bigger than a molecule any more, whilst Ailsa, who embraced controversy and television from an early stage in her career, has flourished.
In the end, I'm not sure how much this book amounted to - I found both The seven sisters and The red queen more interesting and challenging, but, even when she's not going anywhere in particular, Drabble is always worth reading.
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professor of marine biology and the other a feminist media intellectual à la Germaine Greer, are on their way to receive honorary degrees at the new university in the seaside town where they holidayed as children, fifty years ago.As Drabble explores their respective back-stories, we get a nice condensed view of how British society has involved since the forties, how Humphrey, once a clever child exploring rock pools with the aid of the Children's Encyclopaedia, became a biologist to study organisms and finds himself sidelined in a discipline where no-one is interested in anything bigger than a molecule any more, whilst Ailsa, who embraced controversy and television from an early stage in her career, has flourished.
In the end, I'm not sure how much this book amounted to - I found both The seven sisters and The red queen more interesting and challenging, but, even when she's not going anywhere in particular, Drabble is always worth reading.
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LibraryThing member tandah
The story was interesting, the structure very interesting but overall it was a book I was happy to finish, it was at times a bit too repititive and ponderous - its not my favourite Margaret Drabble book.
LibraryThing member esigel
The Sea Lady by Margaret Drabble
At the beginning of Margaret Drabble’s novel, The Sea Lady, Humphrey Clark and Aisla Kelman, summer playmates and sometime adversaries from long ago, are each headed back to Ournemouth, a northern British coastal town, to receive honorary degrees from the
In this, her most recent novel, Drabble once again displays her talent for precise, muscular, often ironic prose; she has also mastered enough marine biology to sound authoritative on the subject. What was lacking for me was the sense of anticipation that ought to have preceded the reunion of Humphrey and Aisla. Aisla’s character, though fully drawn, failed to elicit the same degree of sympathy as the characters in some earlier Drabble novels (Jerusalem the Golden, The Realms of Gold) that I loved, nor did The Sea Lady have the sweep, the bite of social satire, the sense of society being turned topsy turvy that made The Radiant Way memorable. In this newest book I found myself admiring the flow of the prose while remaining strangely uninterested in the drama of what will happen when the former lovers meet again. The ending of The Sea Lady was quite strong. The early parts with their rendering of the intense feelings of childhood, were engrossing, if painful. But the middle of the book dragged, and left me feeling either that I missed something, or that something was missing.
At the beginning of Margaret Drabble’s novel, The Sea Lady, Humphrey Clark and Aisla Kelman, summer playmates and sometime adversaries from long ago, are each headed back to Ournemouth, a northern British coastal town, to receive honorary degrees from the
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university there. Humphrey is a renowned marine biologist; Aisla is a phenomenon--a performer, a TV host, a provocateuse who has both scandalized and wooed her many publics. They haven’t seen each other in 30 years, and while Aisla is aware that they will soon meet again, Humphrey is not. The book takes us back to their childhood days, when they explored the sea, its creatures and each other. It then moves forward to the time when, as young adults, they became lovers, married (briefly) and then separated. And finally it brings us back to the present: Humphrey is on the downward leg of a long academic career; Aisla is still very much in the public eye but must be aware of the fading of her beauty and of her power to charm and astonish. In this, her most recent novel, Drabble once again displays her talent for precise, muscular, often ironic prose; she has also mastered enough marine biology to sound authoritative on the subject. What was lacking for me was the sense of anticipation that ought to have preceded the reunion of Humphrey and Aisla. Aisla’s character, though fully drawn, failed to elicit the same degree of sympathy as the characters in some earlier Drabble novels (Jerusalem the Golden, The Realms of Gold) that I loved, nor did The Sea Lady have the sweep, the bite of social satire, the sense of society being turned topsy turvy that made The Radiant Way memorable. In this newest book I found myself admiring the flow of the prose while remaining strangely uninterested in the drama of what will happen when the former lovers meet again. The ending of The Sea Lady was quite strong. The early parts with their rendering of the intense feelings of childhood, were engrossing, if painful. But the middle of the book dragged, and left me feeling either that I missed something, or that something was missing.
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LibraryThing member oldblack
There are some good things about this book, but I'm not sure that it is a great success in an overall sense. I liked her proposition that childhood friends do still remember each other decades later. I've been thinking about my childhood friends and I always convince myself that although I remember
On the other hand, the main character and his primary adult focuses did not really draw me in. Three hundred and fifty two pages seemed excessive. I'm not turned off Margaret Drabble though.
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them, they probably haven't given me a second thought. I wonder if she's right? Another thing I liked was her concept that some sort of meaningful reconciliation between people can occur many, many years after a time of conflict or unhappiness. Finally, I found resonance with her descriptions of how a young child can find great significance in incidents, books, observations, and people, that would, to "an outside observer", seem to be of minimal importance.On the other hand, the main character and his primary adult focuses did not really draw me in. Three hundred and fifty two pages seemed excessive. I'm not turned off Margaret Drabble though.
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LibraryThing member marti.booker
Not sure why I bothered finishing this. It was unimpressive.
LibraryThing member sonofcarc
Possibly helpful geographical note: The setting of this novel maps seamlessly on Berwick-on-Tweed, the northernmost town in England. (Which is to say Finsterness is Berwick, and Ornemouth is Tweedmouth.) Never been there myself, I'm just a compulsive user of Google Maps.
LibraryThing member SumisBooks
Excruciatingly boring. Could not get into it for the life of me. I bailed on it. Sad because I really did want to like this book. ☹️
LibraryThing member varielle
What a disappointment. This was just awful. Two boring people cross paths after many years at a school awards ceremony. This stinks of fish. If you start this you will know what I mean but you should waste your time some other way.
Subjects
Language
Original publication date
2006
Physical description
352 p.; 9.1 inches
ISBN
0151012636 / 9780151012633
Local notes
An estranged couple return to the North Sea town where they met.