Bornholm Night Ferry (Abacus Books) - Softcover

Higgins, Aidan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0349116830 ISBN 13: 9780349116839

Publisher: Abacus,1985., 1985

Synopsis

... the whole book... gave me the furtive feeling of reading private letters to which I'd been given unwarranted access' OBSERVER. - Elin and Finn are lovers. She is a poet, from Copenhagen - he is Irish and a writer. They both have families of their own. But after meeting on a holiday they are instantly attracted to each other and begin a thrillingly intense and passionate affair - one which is fuelled more by their letters and silences than by their actual meetings, which fill only 47 days in a relationship lasting 5 years. - BORNHOLM NIGHT-FERRY is the powerful record of the thoughts, suspicions and longings which compound their struggle to keep their relationship alive. '... as a demonstration of the language of love (and the nature of love), of two people tiring and inspiring themselves and each other by their intense monologuing. - BORNHOLM NIGHT-FERRY is an inspired piece of writing' THE SUNDAY TIMES

About this title

About the Author

Aidan Higgins has written short stories, novels, travel pieces, radio plays, and a large body of criticism. A consummate stylist, his writing is lush and complex. His books include "Scenes from a Receding Past", "Bornholm Night-Ferry", "Balcony of Europe", and "Langrishe, Go Down", which was adapted for television by Harold Pinter.

From Publishers Weekly

Higgins (Scenes from a Receding Past) records a passionate, doomed epistolary love affair between Elin Marstrander, a 33-year-old Danish radio writer and single mother, and Finn "Fitz" Fitzgerald, a married Irish novelist of note, 15 years her senior. The novel, now in its first U.S. edition after its original 1983 publication in Ireland, tracks five years of the lovers' correspondence, following the first time they meet on holiday in Spain in 1975. From Copenhagen, Elin makes dire declarations in awkward English ("My teeth turn soft in my mouth of jealous"); from Dublin and elsewhere in Europe, Fitz writes with stream-of-consciousness yearning: "I want you always to be in places I cannot imagine where I can catch hold of you." Although the two rarely manage to see each other, their relationship nourishes a creative fire, especially for Elin, who begins to write and publish poetry. Bornholm, a Danish island facing Poland in the Ostsee, appears often in the narrative, both as a real place where Elin has spent joyful holidays, and as a metaphor for hope of their reunion. By 1980, Elin sums up the couple's chronic plight with grave resignation: "Today I know that I can live without you and that I want to live with you."
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Edition details

• Publisher: Abacus,1985.
• Publication date: 1985
• ISBN 10: 0349116830
• ISBN 13: 9780349116839
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 256