The Thirteenth Tale being one of my favourite novels of all time, I had looked forward to reading 'Once Upon a River.' The writing had me spellbound fThe Thirteenth Tale being one of my favourite novels of all time, I had looked forward to reading 'Once Upon a River.' The writing had me spellbound for the first few chapters. The reader is transported to the rickety benches of an old British pub by the banks of the Thames, where the locals gather to hear and tell stories by candle light. The richly described settings come alive with drama and suspense as a wounded stranger stumbles into the pub on a cold night, holding a dead child. The local midwife who is summoned to attend to the man's injuries finds the child come alive in her arms. From there onwards, the story meanders this way and that. The plot built around the identity of the child is shaky. It is never made clear why everyone in the village are drawn to the child and long to adopt her. There are too many characters, too many twists and turns in the story which flows placidly in places and rushes forward in a furious stream at others. As in The Thirteenth Tale, Once Upon a River too nods to classic English novels especially in the characterisation and endings of the Dickensian villains.
There are many things I liked about this book. The consistently beautiful writing which paints a picture of the English countryside in the Victorian period and some memorable characters. Nurse Rita and photographer Daunt who are both passionate about their respective work, the kind pub owner Margot and her storyteller husband Joe, the Oxford psychiatrist Mrs Constantine who is mistaken for a psychic, the farmer Robert Armstrong Senior who is the natural son of a Lord, and who loves his pigs almost as much as he loves his beloved family among others. Armstrong is a worthy addition to the list of best fathers in fiction. However, the uneven pace, the ambiguous resolution of the child's story, the attempts to blend magic realism and scientific theories of evolution and the half-patronising way the reader is addressed towards the end makes the novel fall short of its potential....more
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