I selected Seascraper as the first of the nominees from this year's list of nominees to read, as I liked the marine sound of the title. Later I found out it was more inclined towards novella length, and in fact double checked to see if the audio book version I listened to ended half way. No, no trouble there, but it was the ending which was rather open ended.
This was a quiet read, with solitude mainly that of our protagonist, Thomas Flett, a "shanker" who makes ends meet for his rather young mother, and himself, being the main companion of the reader. At just 20, Thomas, has already given up on finding a more meaningful life for him, and clearly lacks the courage to confront his rather selfish and complaining mum about dreams of his life. Then as chance should have it, a film producer visits the desolated beach side, and finds the scene ideal for a movie he has in mind to produce, where he meets Thomas. The novella then moves on to elaborate on the difficulty one finds in materialising one's dreams - be that of Flett's dream of being a folk singer, or Edgar Acheson's dreams of producing a movie out of a book he has read. We find the demons that Edgar has fought all his life, and how in possibly his last attempt at success he may have inspired a boy just sufficiently to chase his dreams, irrespective of the odds.
The novella is thin in plot, but oozes of the environment that it is fixed in. The cold sea breeze, the stench that Tom so wants to rid, the sand - but is his fate, the bleakness that the whole setting brings, makes the reader feel that she is isolated in a rather barren place, where life hardly moves, and when it moves, only through the cyclic pattern which offers no hope for a change. The success of this novel is in how Benjamin has managed to encapsulate this bleakness, cocooned in a short trip that will stay in the readers mind for quite some time.
Rating: ****
Long Listed for the Booker - 2025 ( with the short list yet to be announced)
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