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Book Club Report - A Year of Marvellous Ways by Sarah Winman

A Year of Marvellous Ways is a book I loved even more the second time I read it. That said, I’ve discovered I may have interpreted it differently than the author intended.  In looking at the discussion questions provided in the paperback, I realized the story is meant to taken as magical realism, whereas I interpreted it as a comment on how revisionist our memories can be.  Any “magical realism” I took to be a representation of the various characters fancies.  

Several of the other attendees loved the book as well, but the discussion was kept piquant by one new member, a local author who has both feet firmly planted in the realism camp, who called it meandering and unstructured. He’s not wrong, it’s just that I happen to like meandering and unstructured stories.  As another attendee put it: reading this book is like being swept away by a river.  The prose flows so beautifully, with elegant turns of phrase blossoming among the gorse that grows alongside Marvellous’s home.