Eric, who has bought an inn on an island off the north coast of Scotland, much to the chagrin of his increasingly embittered wife, strikes upon an idea for showing that he can make a go of his business. He places an advertisement that offers:
Dreading Christmas? Then get away from it all at an inn at the edge of the world...The five lonesome guests who show up are a predictably troubled lot. Ms Ellis puts her characters through their paces with mordant wit, but real affection. There's an especially nice scene where an older military man who's writing about Chinese Gordon has been discussing his work with a semi-famous actress when:
He noticed, surprised, that he had been needing to talk to somebody about what he was doing, and Jessica felt the sleepy gratification of a child who has been told a story.Later the same two have been talking about Christmas and she's been fairly morose:
"I'm sorry to be so depressing," said Jessica. "I'm not usually -- I think," she added modestly. "Except for you I don't much like the people here. Maybe that's it. Maybe this whole idea was a huge mistake. It was bound to be when you come to think about it -- plunging yourself into a load of strangers at the edge of the world. Trouble is -- when you get there you find it isn't the edge of the world. I think I forgot the world is round, so no matter where you go, no matter how far you run, sooner or later you find yourself staring at your own retreating backside. How pointless everything is."Unknowingly. With the exception of Harry, and the author and we observers, they're all too unknowing, unable to see the cost to themselves of their atomization, unable to see that they've made their own pointlessness. It's a sad but funny book and I look forward to reading more by her.
Harry had no words of comfort. He would have said that the pointlessness existed because she had left Christ out of Christmas. She had had sufficient good sense and good taste to learn to eschew the bacchanalian excesses of the season, but not enough to realize what else she had sacrificed. You could say, thought Harry, that she had thrown out the Holy Child with the bath salts, bath oil, bath essence and bubbles which so often appeared as gifts, unknowingly symbolizing the frankincense and myrrh...
(Reviewed:15-Mar-05)
Grade: (B+)
