Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald was first published in 1979 and this book won the Booker prize that year. I’m often puzzled by the books that win prizes and that’s the way I feel about this book, but I must say that I haven’t read any of the books which were short-listed for the prize that year. Suffice to say that I wasn’t too impressed by this one, it isn’t terrible but it’s just nothing earth-shattering, or even that entertaining. I’m left wondering if it was the slimness of the volume at just 140 pages which endeared it to the judges!
Offshore is set in the 1960s in a community of houseboat dwellers, berthed on the tidal River Thames at Battersea Reach. They’re an eclectic bunch of people who all share a love for the boats they are in, despite most of them being in a poor state of repair. The boats are all close together, some linked by gangplanks to the one next to them. The boat owners go by the name of their boats.
Nenna is a young mother of two daughters, the father has left them, but Nenna expects him to come back – sometime. Nenna is lax about her daughters, she’s often in trouble because she’s happy for the girls not to attend school, but the nuns and priest definitely aren’t. Nenna had bought their boat Grace with all the money that they had while her husband was working abroad, and she had given him the impression that she had bought a substantial house at a good London address.
Maurice is always up for a party, but he has a sinister ‘friend’ who uses his boat to hide stolen goods in it. Harry is obviously a ‘baddie’ but he has a hold over Maurice, because Maurice is a male prostitute, and Harry could get him imprisoned at any time just by calling the police.
Dreadnought is up for sale, but is about to sink at any moment. There are a few others, all with their own problems. The most engaging characters are Nenna’s young daughters Martha and Tilda who have more maturity and sense than both their parents, and have a lucrative if dangerous hobby of recovering goodies from ancient boats which had sunk years before with cargoes such as de Morgan tiles in their holds.
The ending is not conclusive, it depends on how optimistic the reader is I suppose. I found it dissatisfying.
I remember reading this book back when it was chosen as the prize winner. I loved it. I would have to go back and reread it to see if it still held the same allure for me. At the time, I thought the characters insightful.
aline,
I’m glad that you loved it, it’s just as well that we are all different. I think most of her characters were believable as people, and that can’t always be said. I did sort of roll my eyes when she had the gay character living on a boat which he had named Maurice though, presumably just in case we didn’t realise he was gay.
After reading your post, I went over to Wikipedia and looked up past winners and runners-up of the Booker Award. I had a vague recollection of Salman Rushdie winning the award, but was otherwise ignorant of who won and who didn’t in any particular year. Thus it came as a surprise to find that I’d read four of the winners, and two of the shortlisted. In all cases my decision to read had nothing to do with the award.
+ J. G. Farrell “The Siege of Krishnapur” (1973)
+ Ruth Prawer Jhabavala, “Heat and Dust” (1975)
+ Paul Scott, “Staying On” (1977)
+ Salman Rushdie, “Midnight’s Children” (1981)
+ Len Deighton, “Bomber” (1970)
+ Salman Rushdie, “The Satanic Verses” (1988)
I support a couple of content creators through the Patreon platform. One of them is a singer who lives on a houseboat and occasionally records short videos on board. The interior views give the impression of a comfortable, well-furnished, and very cosy environment.
I do, however, wonder about the practicalities of living on a houseboat: connecting to power and other amenities, payment of council taxes, etc. I struggled through a few episodes of The Chelsea Detective (who lives on a houseboat) and came away none the wiser.
Janusz,
I could not live on a houseboat although I like boats in general, but rats seem to be a feature of all riverbanks and harbours, and that book. I could not be doing with those. My nephew bought a houseboat in the Netherlands and lived on it for quite a few years, but it’s quite common there. I didn’t watch The Chelsea Detective. Until now it has been a cheap way of living, because if you keep moving the boat every few months you weren’t charged taxes, but that is just about to be changed. I enjoyed The Siege of Krishnapur and the Rushdies. I hadn’t read any of the short-listed books from the year that this one was published though. Hilary Mantel won the prize twice I believe and they are both hefty books, it obviously didn’t put the judges off them, I think they deserved to win.
I must admit that I feel the same about my one read of a Fitzgerald book. I was very underwhelmed, which was odd because other people love her work.
kaggsysbookishramblings,
The only other book by her I have read is The Beginning of Spring which I read just last year, but can hardly remember a thing about it although I apparently enjoyed the Russian setting. However, I complained about the very abrupt ending, it must be a feature of her writing!