Items related to The Stream
Synopsis
When developers propose the construction of an industrial park in a scenic but depressed rural area, the promise of new jobs and new hope takes hold of the collective imagination of those who live there. Over time--and unnoticed by anyone--these events begin to take their toll on the valley and the stream that runs through it.
In a work Ted Hughes calls "dazzling," Brian Clarke depicts the changes that take place in the stream and charts the gradual but devastating effects on the plants and animals that live there. Little by little, the small creatures dependent on the stream are sucked into a mute and unseen struggle for survival. There are no villains in this story. What happens occurs quite by chance. But as the drama unfolds, The Stream raises powerful questions about priorities and choices: about the kind of world we want--and are creating.
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About the Author
Brian Clarke writes for 'The Times' on fish, fishing and the aquatic environment and has been the subject of a major BBC film for his work on trout behaviour. He is also a travel writer, and specialises in wildlife and wilderness subjects. He has published several non-fiction books, most recently 'Trout etcetera', a collection of his journalism and essays. The double-award winning 'The Stream' is his first novel. Brian Clarke lives in Hampshire.
From Publishers Weekly
The creatures of a pristine valley stream struggle against the changes wrought by the construction of an industrial park in Clarke's debut novel, which documents the deterioration of a rural ecosystem in poignant detail. After a ponderous opening that describes the forces of nature in wooden prose, Clarke hits his stride as he interweaves the story of the stream's denizens with the story of the machinations behind, and protests against, the park's development. The human characters are forgettable stereotypes, ranging from a corporate activist trying to save the stream to the various executives of Cogent Electronics, the British firm underwriting the industrial project. But the dilemma of the various animals and insects is described in loving, painstaking detail, as Clarke chronicles the demise of the local trout and salmon, then works his way down to the plight faced by mayflies as their environment is overrun with chokeweed and silt. As a work of fiction, Clarke's book is deeply flawed: the animal passages are repetitious, and the human characters severely underdeveloped. But as a naturalistic treatise, this narrative works because it brings home the interdependence of the various animals and their helplessness as their world is altered and they are destroyed. The novelistic blemishes may put off mainstream readers, but the book should find admirers among fans of environmental fiction.
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