Latest / Bookies' Favourite / Sea | Eden's Shore by Oisín Fagan | Review

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Sea | Eden's Shore by Oisín Fagan | Review · Bookies' Favourite

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Hello, welcome to the Club bookies favorite book club.
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We discuss award-winning authors, nominated novels, best
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selling books, bookshelf stories, and recently released
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reads. This episode marks the start of
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our Read along chapter by chapter of Eden Shore by Oshin
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Fagan. This episode we are discussing
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Part 1, Chapter 1 C. This episode contains
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discussions of slavery, sexual assault, and sex work, as well
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as graphic depictions of sickness and injuries.
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So if that's not for you, I would advise tuning out.
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We will also hopefully have Osheen on the podcast once we've
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wrapped up this read along, so send us your questions for him.
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I'm our resident radio journalist, Aaron, and I am
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snacking on some oatmeal biscuits while tucked up in the
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captain's bed. I've lost count of how many
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times I've actually read this first chapter.
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It must be about 7 Times Now and most of the time it it has been
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by audiobook. It's narrated by Tom Alexander
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and I. I really love the seafaring
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story and how Austin squeezes so much into it.
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Hi, I'm Lucy and I'm dressed as Neptune parading about on the
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crossing the line ceremony right now.
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I've, I've read it a good few Times Now and I feel like I am,
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I'm going a bit mad, like I have cabin fever with it.
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I've just been reading it so much and trying to make sense of
1:43
different things in it and I I think I'm going slowly a bit
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insane but we'll see how this goes.
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So to start us off, here's a quote from C.
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You think yourself in some adventure, some fairy tale.
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You misread every sign. You think yourself haunted, but
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it is only the living who haunt. You're a minor player in someone
2:04
else's story. Spoiler warning from this point
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onwards if you haven't read the book yet and you're planning to
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come back to this discussion after you've done so.
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In Sea we follow seasick Irishman Angel Kelly on his
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journey from Liverpool towards Brazil.
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At the close of the 18th century.
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Angel plans to start a utopia in South America, but midway
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through his trip on the Atlas, he discovers the ship is
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carrying slaves from Africa. A mutiny happens among the
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sailors, followed by a mutiny from the slaves.
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Angel ends the chapter overboard and washes up in a South
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American jungle under the care of an indigenous girl.
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Let's start things off with the discussion of the main plots.
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I think that's going to mainly consist of Angels reasons for
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going to Brazil. Basically he's going to Brazil,
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the start of Utopia. He gets a bit of money from his
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aunt who's died, who is his only living relative.
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And he's a bit drunk and he's talking to his friends in the
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pub and he's like, I'm going to go off to Brazil and start a new
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a colony of Utopia. And his friends all make fun of
3:15
him. And he does what everybody does
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when your friends make fun of you and you follow through and
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go to Brazil and try and start your own colony, which is what
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he's trying to do. But see, this chapter just deals
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with his trip on his boat journey from Liverpool to South
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America. So yeah, he's so naive that it's
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at various points in the in the text, he he is told kind of
3:42
almost close to bluntly that it's a slaver, but he kind of
3:47
either ignores it or is so like drunk and hungover that he just
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doesn't really realize what they're saying.
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It's hard to establish whether or not he's just really, really
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naive or he just doesn't want to know.
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He wants to go to Brazil so much that he's kind of willfully
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ignoring it. I have a quote here that's
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actually page 13, but it's what he kind of describes.
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Angel the character describes what he wants from his utopia
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and I thought it was like the perfect the perfect quote to
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show how naive and how ridiculous Angel is and how
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ridiculous his plan is. I would set up a colony that is
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free from the sins of the old world, a place free from
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tyranny, discrimination, illegality, religion,
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persecution, taxation. All will be equal.
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So like, I don't know how you set up a world with no
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illegality. Or like, does that just mean he
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has no laws? Like, I don't know, but it just
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seems like the most ridiculous things.
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Everything is equal. There's no taxes, though.
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And yeah, just. I think you don't really
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realize. Well, I think you do know that
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he's not the smartest person in the room, but I think that's
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when you kind of realize for definite that he has no idea
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what he's doing and what he is doing is completely pointless.
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And then when he actually does discover that there are slaves
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on the ship, he has a complete and utter moral crisis and
5:16
meltdown. He starts to pray, something
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that he has never really done before.
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And he feels immense guilt. He can't reckon with the fact
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that he has paid to travel on this ship that is also a
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ferrying slaves from Africa to the Americas.
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I think that that would be a horrible thing to find out.
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In all fairness to Angel, as much as he is naive and
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everything, it's like, oh, if you find out because he, he
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hears moaning in the in the below him in the hold and he I
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think he kind of, he doesn't know what it is.
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I think it's slowly dawning on him before it's told explicitly
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that it's slaves in the hold. The idea that those people are
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like beneath your feet and in extreme pain and you're not,
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he's not having a nice time on the boat.
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He's very seasick. But like at the same time, it's
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like you're in such a better position.
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And also the fact that he is going over as a colonizer.
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I think that's the thing that he kind of seems unaware of as
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well, is that he's going over to take land from all land but
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already has people. And he just, I think there's
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that kind of very European view, especially at the time and
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possibly not where it's like all these places were there to take
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and he very much sees it like that.
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I do feel bad for him, but at the same time I'm like, he he
6:45
should have known and he should have, he should have had some
6:48
idea. Then sometimes I think it's kind
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of like, you know, we in our everyday like use companies and,
6:55
and go through different things where we willingly know that
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they do bad things, but we just don't think about it.
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And we tell ourselves we have this kind of cognitive dissident
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dissonance where we're like, we're good people, but we still
7:07
are paying money towards like, horrific things and not really
7:11
doing anything for it. I guess we can also say that he
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is not an active participant in terms of he's not buying slaves,
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he's not the captain of the ship.
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He's just found himself in this situation where indirectly he is
7:30
involved. And for a lot of the plot, as
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the protagonist, he actually does not do much.
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There's a lot of the plot that happens around him and he gets
7:43
impacted by it, but he's not necessarily involved in what's
7:48
happening. And that all comes to a
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culmination at the end of the chapter.
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When is he thrown overboard? Or he throws himself overboard I
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believe. He's he's got a gun pointed to
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his head and he decides that he's going to risk jumping
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overboard. Even though he can't swim, Yeah,
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he washes up on a shoreline still.
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We have yet to determine where exactly it is, but it's it's in
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South America, We know that. But we don't know if it's Brazil
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that he's ended up in or if it's somewhere else.
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I think it's a really interesting choice for Austin
8:26
Fagan to make to have him be that he's the first point of
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view character. And after this chapter it kind
8:32
of is more there's different characters.
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He Angel is not the main character and that's something
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that's said in that quote that I read at the start.
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It's that, you know, you think you're the main character of
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this story and you're not you're the minor player in someone
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else's story. And Angel actually in this book
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very much is the minor player. I think the thing about having
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him as a protagonist at start, it's such an easy way to tell
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the story where you have, well, not necessarily easy Oshing
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Fagan might disagree with that, but he's so naive.
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He doesn't pick up on things, and it means that the reader
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doesn't pick up on things and there's a lot of things
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happening. So you're getting like every
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sentence matters in the story because you're having to piece
9:13
together all these things. Angel is not piercing together
9:16
for you and you're not being told the plot as you're reading
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it. You are you have to work out
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what to give what weight to. You know, I think we're
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discussing this and that the the first time we spoke about this
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in the podcast, it's like everything is given the same
9:32
significance and the same weight.
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And I think that is because Angela is so naive and Angela is
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such a like, he doesn't know what's going on.
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And if he doesn't know what's going on and he's your point of
9:42
view character, how are you going to know what's going on?
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And I think that's possibly one of my favorite elements of the
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story. And then the next plot that is
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happening literally underneath Angel's feet is the slaves.
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And so at one point during this journey, when Angel is
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incredibly seasick and passed out, slaves are loaded onto the
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the ship in Africa and they are constantly howling and making
10:18
noises from beneath Angel. And he's, he's hearing moans.
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He's, he's hearing noises, but he just cannot determine what
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these noises are. There's a very dark part where
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Marian Lynch, another Irishman who works on the ship, invites
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Angel down to effectively rape some of the the slaves that are
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down there. There's a selection of five men
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who who are partaking in this act.
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Angel refuses. Angel is basically tormented by
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Marianne Lynch and these slaves are in that one specific
11:03
scenario. They kill one of the the men
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that had gone down to to rape them.
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This thing culminates with the slaves freeing themselves later
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after more men go down to to visit them and a mutiny starts
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which leads to the shipping overtaken by the slaves.
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All of the sailors are either thrown overboard or they're
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loaded onto rowing boats so they can make it onto the continent.
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But the the ship, The Atlas, in the end is completely manned by
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the slaves. When I first read it and I the
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first time I started reading it, I wasn't paying probably the
11:46
right amount of attention to everything that I should have
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been. When I was reading this, I
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didn't realize how dense it was. And this for me was the first
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part where I was like, so there's the second mate, Camacho
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tells Angel after Marianne's had the conversation with him.
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He tells him in no uncertain terms what the the sailors are
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doing when they go down to the hold.
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And for me, that was like, that's quite emotional.
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When I read it, I was like, I wasn't expecting it.
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So Camacho just tells him exactly what's happening.
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And it's so it's so brutal. And the fact that they don't,
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they almost say it as like their right to be able to do it.
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So one of the other plot points is that Camacho is kind of vying
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for top spot on the on the boat and he he's kind of trying to
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overtake Laughcato, who's first mate from he's from a Brazilian
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and he Laughcato does not want the men to go down to the hold.
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And so before we even know what's actually happening, you
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hear from different characters like Geronimo, the chef and
12:56
Camacho that they keep talking about Sin and they keep talking
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about like, how how can left Kato ask me to give it up?
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I think Camacho says that a few times.
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And it's not until the 2nd read that you realize, oh, this is
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what he's talking about. Like, this is what they're
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actually hinting at the whole time.
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And yeah, it's just it's it's really horrible and dark.
13:17
It was one of the possibly one of the horriblest things I
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thought about the book at the start.
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It's just so it's such a horrible idea that this even
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ever happened in the history of humanity.
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When the slaves rebel, they get guns and there's 150 of them,
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and I think there's 60 sailors. So they pretty much overpower
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them very quickly. And you're kind of like, yeah,
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fair play. Like I hope all these men die.
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So tied in with the mutiny of the slaves, the sailors
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obviously are involved in this, the assaults happening on the
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slaves. So we we start off with the
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captain in charge, Captain Neiwald, and he's pretty absent.
14:00
There's a lot of rumors going around about him and the first
14:04
mate Lofcadio. He seems to have be covering up
14:09
something that's been happening and he seems to take control of
14:15
all of the sailors. We then find out that Lofcadio
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has been shot by the second mate Camacho, basically left for dead
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and Camacho has committed a mutiny and he is now the leader
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of all of these sailors. This happens literally just
14:33
before the mutiny of the slaves, so he doesn't really get to be
14:38
in power for too long. There's so much of A build up to
14:41
to that action because it's like, you know, something's
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going on because it's all from Angel's perspective as he's
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walking around the boat or as he's like meeting these
14:48
different sailors and you know something's up because of the
14:50
way they're all talking about each other.
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And then eventually it all culminates in all this action.
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And you're kind of like wondering how does this relate
14:59
to the things we've learned earlier?
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Because it's so hard to piece it all together.
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And like, I'm sure you're probably the same as me iron,
15:05
but it's like you just have to like write things down or like,
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we'll try and work out who's here keeping all that in your
15:11
head of like who said what? Who did they mean when they said
15:14
that? Who are they referring to?
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Like because you know, they probably as captain, I will
15:20
would is already dead. They probably know that long
15:23
before Angel knows that various characters.
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So when they're saying captain, are they referring to Lavcado?
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Are they commit referring to Camacho?
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Are they who are they referring to?
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Who has allegiance as to who we we're assuming that the five men
15:35
who go down to the pool have some variation of allegiances.
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And we'll probably get into this, but we don't know where
15:42
Marianne Lynch stands. So let's have a look at the
15:45
specific characters a little deeper.
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Aaron, take it away. Let's take a look at Angel.
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He's got a couple of very special relationships and one is
15:55
with Jacques, who is the cabin boy.
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So Angel is introduced as basically being about 17 years
16:03
old. He has developed this good
16:08
friendship with Jacques, the cabin boy, who's described as
16:12
being about 15 years old at most.
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So there's only a couple of years between the two of them.
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Jacques is from France. Jacques is very he's extremely
16:23
sweet and he's looking out for Angel.
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And when Angel is seasick, he's the one tending to him and
16:31
coming in and cleaning up. And whenever Jacques gets beaten
16:36
for doing something that the the other sailors didn't like, then
16:42
Angel looks after Jacques. And whenever Angel gets thrown
16:46
overboard at the the crossing of the line, Jacques throws himself
16:52
into the water. I don't know if he necessarily
16:55
was already in the water, but he appears out of nowhere and is
16:59
trying to save Angel from the depths of the sea.
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And so I just, I, I really like their, their bond.
17:06
It's like a brothership that they have between each other.
17:09
And there's a specific aspect to this where at the very start,
17:16
Angel is really sad about the fact that no one will ever care
17:21
about him again and that nobody will miss him.
17:24
But immediately he has found somebody who will tend to his
17:27
needs and will look after him. So I I like that his his prayers
17:30
were answered. I agree with you, but I am like
17:33
he does not He's I don't think he's that nice to Jacques.
17:36
I I think he's like he's definitely older brother vibes
17:38
and I'm getting that. Jacques obviously is, as he
17:41
says, a bit of an idiot like he he's so he's like altruistic to
17:46
a fault. He's so good.
17:48
He he seems like he would do anything for anyone.
17:51
It's interesting because Angel asks Jacques opinion about the
17:56
slaves when he's when he does find out for certain their
17:59
slaves. And Jacques is kind of like,
18:04
well, I think Angel says specifically to Jacques, she's
18:07
like, he's like, why are you here?
18:10
Why are you on this boat? And I think he probably
18:12
recognizes the fact that Jacques a very good person.
18:13
So what nurse someone with those kind of morals, like the moral
18:17
viewpoint that Jacques has, like why is he there?
18:20
And he kind of says something about how he's here, Like, if it
18:23
wasn't for him, no one would be looking after them.
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Like no one would be going down and making sure that they had
18:27
water and food. Yeah, he's so sweet.
18:29
I think they do have a bond, but I think Angel takes it for
18:32
granted. And I think.
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Definitely. Yeah, like he definitely doesn't
18:36
realize what he has with shock. Also, like we have this theory
18:40
that we'll probably talk about more that one character might be
18:42
some kind of like devil or demon and one character might be like
18:46
a Jesusy figure, Angel kind of figure.
18:49
And I was thinking Jacques, obviously not Angel.
18:51
He's definitely not an Angel figure in my head.
18:54
And they'll be more about this in the next chapter.
18:57
But Jack again, is really good for her fault.
19:00
He doesn't expect anything in return.
19:02
He would sacrifice himself for others.
19:04
He's he is quite. He's like a simple Jesus.
19:08
Just adding to that, there is a part where he effectively dies
19:12
and he's resurrected. Forgot about that.
19:16
When he chokes to death on a massive jellyfish, but the
19:21
jellyfish is removed from his throat and then he's he's up and
19:26
fighting again after that. So he's also maybe extremely
19:32
gullible and innocent, just like Angel, because when he finds out
19:38
about this utopia that Angel wants to start, he, he's like,
19:42
can I come? Can I be there?
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And so the two of them are maybe so young and naive that they
19:49
both think that it's a possibility.
19:52
But it's it's nice that they both have that impression of the
19:55
world and that they share that with each other.
19:57
Something that I think is also interesting about that kind of
19:59
line of like the utopia. I think that there's something
20:02
interesting in the fact that Angel, if he has a utopia, he
20:04
wants to be in charge of this utopia.
20:07
Like he's going over and he wants to buy the land that he
20:09
wants to be mayor of as we own way town.
20:11
Whereas you can just see Jacques going in and being like, I'll be
20:14
OE worker, I'll help everyone. I'll just do my best to help
20:18
people. And there's like such different.
20:21
Forms of like how to be good in the world.
20:24
It's like, I don't Jacques not like wrestling with all these
20:28
big theories and all. He's just being good.
20:31
Like he's just, and people like him are never going to change
20:35
the world because they're not going to actually change
20:37
politics or anything. They're not going to like he's
20:39
still going to be on that slaver, but he's just going to
20:41
be nice to slaves. Like, I mean, that's not a great
20:44
thing at the end of the day because then slavery would never
20:46
end if it were people like Jack. Whereas Angel has all these
20:50
lofty ideas like slavery is wrong, all this stuff, but he's
20:52
not trying. He's wallowing in his own kind
20:56
of pity about it as opposed to actually trying to help or or
21:00
even being nice or like treating these people with like a bit of
21:03
respect. He's still like no interest in
21:07
actually speaking to them or like, you know, going down and
21:11
helping or anything like that. They're betting both of them are
21:14
possibly pretty ineffectual, but in different.
21:16
Ways the other person on this ship that Angel develops a bond
21:23
of sorts with is Flores, whose real name is Mohammed, but
21:29
everyone calls him Flores. I think it's probably one of
21:32
those things where they're like, we don't know how to pronounce
21:35
that, so we're going to call you a name that we're familiar with.
21:39
I think he says, though, what he's like introducing.
21:41
He introduces it with his full kind of Arabic name to Angel.
21:45
And then he's like, just call me Flores.
21:47
Just call me Flores. Just back to what I was saying,
21:50
that Angel is thinking at the beginning that no one's going to
21:55
care for him. He specifically mentions that no
21:59
one is going to place their their hand against his forehead
22:05
to check his temperature to see if he's feeling unwell.
22:10
And that's exactly what Flores does at one point where he
22:14
reaches out and puts and is like, you have a temperature.
22:17
He wanted somebody to do this. He was like, I this is never
22:20
going to happen again because all of my family are dead.
22:23
And then he has a found family basically where this man who's
22:29
only about 10 years older than him is like looking after him.
22:33
And it's like, oh, like basically giving him the current
22:37
treatment that that he is desiring.
22:39
That's so interesting, I never picked up on that at all.
22:42
I kind of think though Angel takes him for granted.
22:44
I think he takes Flores and Jacques for granted.
22:48
I don't think Angel would sit down and say those are my
22:51
friends or I have a relationship with those people.
22:55
I think Doug. He does, and I think those are
22:57
the strongest relationships he develops with with.
23:00
These. No, I think you're right, like.
23:02
And they're the relationships that he's desiring.
23:05
Yeah, you're making me think about this in a different way.
23:07
Laura is, is he's kind of a bit of a tragic figure in all this.
23:11
He is, I'm assuming from Martinia, which is where they
23:13
pick up the slaves. So his mother is a slave who is
23:17
on the hold and she becomes later on titled queen of the
23:21
slaves as she is one of the head.
23:23
I think she's named several times, has been the head
23:26
instigator of the mutiny from the slaves perspective and she's
23:31
thrown overboard and unfortunately does not come back
23:35
up and does. Flores at the end of that
23:38
chapter, is desperately trying to find his mother.
23:40
The captain, Captain Iwold, allows him to pay for ferry
23:46
across the Brazil, where he is planning on being able to buy
23:49
his mother back. When he starts describing it in
23:52
a really sad way, I feel like this is a bit of a fairy tale as
23:55
well. Like that, he thinks that this
23:56
is necessarily gonna happen as easily as it is.
24:00
So what about Marianne Lynch? He's the, uh, the character that
24:04
you alluded to that we have a theory that he might be some
24:08
kind of demonic or devilish kind of character.
24:11
That's like Austin vegan. If he ever listens, this is
24:15
going to be like they are barking up the extreme wrong
24:17
tree. But you said this to me the
24:19
other day and I was like that actually it it kind of fits a
24:23
lot of things together. So maybe unintentionally Austin
24:27
wrote it, if he didn't intentionally write it like
24:29
this. He's kind of really impish is
24:32
Marianne Lynch. He kind of appears different
24:34
places and says really cryptic things.
24:37
He is goading Angel to go down and to rape the slaves
24:42
effectively, and he doesn't do it like he's not part of it.
24:46
It's not like he wants Angel to be part of something he's doing.
24:49
It's like, why does he want Angel to do this when he's not
24:52
doing it himself? You know, there's so many
24:55
strange things that don't quite make sense.
24:57
When we first meet him, he Angel, has just got over his
25:01
period, first period of seasickness.
25:04
And it's like his first time eating with the rest of the
25:06
crew. And Marianne Lynch just comes up
25:08
to him, takes all the food from his bowl, eats it and walks off.
25:12
And then when Angel kind of starts to like maybe challenge
25:17
him about it, he says, I'm going to drag you to night time, which
25:21
is something we'll maybe discuss in a bit.
25:23
But he he makes these kind of cryptic references and he's
25:27
constantly talking about like night time and he's going to
25:30
drag him there and like he's going to teach him how to like
25:33
swim and like be in the sea. But it's not like as nothing he
25:37
says is clear, Like nothing he says makes a lot of sense.
25:40
But he seems to be very out of it.
25:42
He kind of double crosses Laughcado for a fiddle later on.
25:48
And when he gets the fiddle, he doesn't really even seem to care
25:52
that the slaves of mute like have had a mutiny.
25:55
And the minute the slaves have had a mutiny, it's like all the
25:58
sailors are are going to they're not going to, they're not going
26:01
to win this war. And if he doesn't seem to care,
26:04
he just says we're all dead men now.
26:05
And he's just happy because he's got to be fiddle and he's, he's
26:08
grand. Yeah, he's he's basically like a
26:11
stereotypical Bard. He is known as the comedian on
26:16
the ship and he I think he sings at one point or, or he's playing
26:24
some instruments during the crossing of the line ceremony.
26:28
It really reminded me of The Devil Went Down to Georgia and
26:31
where he seems to be very much a Bard that dabbles in some kind
26:38
of strange activity. There's multiple points where he
26:43
doesn't seem to enter a room unless he's invited to, which is
26:47
very vampiric. There's a point where he's on
26:52
the other side of the door while Angel is lying in his hammock
26:57
and it's specified that the door does not have a lock on it.
27:02
And Marianne Lynch keeps asking Angel to open the door and he's
27:08
banging on it, and he even pushes down on the door handle,
27:12
but he never actually opens the door to come in.
27:15
And then there's another point in the captain's quarters when
27:20
the mutiny is just happening from the well.
27:23
Both the mutinies are basically happening at the same time.
27:26
And he shows up to the door and he asks Camacho, I want it or
27:31
can I have it or whatever it is. He says it in Spanish.
27:34
Camacho says yes, you, you can have your your fiddle.
27:38
And that's when he enters the room.
27:40
So it seems like there's some kind of odd thing with him where
27:44
he can't enter a room unless he actually gets permission to.
27:49
And then there's another point when we are first introduced to
27:52
him where Angel is trying to get away from him and get to his
27:56
quarters. And no matter which way he
27:58
turns, Marianne Lynch seems to be there and seems to be in
28:02
front of him, and he's basically haunting Angel.
28:06
It's really, it's unexplained and because this book doesn't
28:10
necessarily strike you as being like fantastical, but there's
28:14
just some elements that makes me think that there's something a
28:18
bit deeper happening there. So I think I read this book like
28:21
just thinking so much about plot, like who who's plotting
28:24
what in the mutinies? Like what bit of information can
28:27
we get before it actually happens?
28:30
I don't I really struggled to kind of see the wood from the
28:33
trees. I was like, I like I, I didn't,
28:37
I couldn't think of the bigger picture thing.
28:38
So I think that you, you've kind of thought more and you've got
28:41
like better ideas. Well, like avoid that kind of
28:44
thing. And like when you said it, I was
28:46
kind of like that. That's not true.
28:48
But then like the more you've said it, even the like vampire
28:51
not coming into the room, it's like I reread that section and I
28:54
was like, why doesn't he go in? It's not something I would ever
28:58
have thought of. And I totally blame it on you
29:00
watching too much sinners. You have put down the Atlas as a
29:04
character and the Atlas is the name of the ships that they are
29:07
all upon the slaver going to Brazil.
29:10
Atlas being a Titan, he holds up the the heavens from the earth.
29:16
And that's also something that we kind of, this is maybe tying
29:18
it into a bit of a theme, but the theme of like the land, the
29:21
sea in the sky and like their relation to each other and like
29:25
how similar they are and how they're like mirroring each
29:28
other. There is a lot of references to
29:31
the cosmos and the heavens and they seem to be interchangeable.
29:35
There's a lot of references to the the moon and to space.
29:41
Even with the glasses that the clerk is wearing in Liverpool,
29:46
they are like moon shaped. And who is it?
29:52
Marianne Lynch has the shape. His face is a Crescent moon
29:57
shape and the moon's reflection is in the water and creates like
30:02
the shape of a pyramid whenever they get to the land.
30:06
And when they get to the land, there's bugs that are forming
30:10
constellations in the sky. He looks out and he sees a
30:14
shooting star. There's so many references
30:17
there's and he he pulls up a bucket of water and and it's got
30:22
like bioluminescence in it or whatever.
30:25
I'm probably using the wrong term there, but he like splashes
30:29
the water and he talks about how it looks like a Galaxy and the
30:34
cosmos is basically alive within this bucket of water.
30:38
And there's so many references to the heavens and him being
30:43
Angel. There's a part where Marianne
30:45
Lynch talks about and when men get thrown overboard, are they
30:49
ever taken down by an Angel or something?
30:53
And there's just so many references to the cosmos and to
30:57
the heavens that every time it comes up constantly, and I was
31:02
just so enamored by it. This is definitely something
31:05
that I'm like people should definitely read this book for.
31:08
I love the descriptions when he has the bucket of water that
31:12
he's brought up for himself and he's like throws it against the
31:16
the wall and it's like he's seeing the stars and things.
31:19
Have you ever been to Lochine in County Court?
31:21
No, I haven't. It's, I'm going to say Europe's
31:24
only or I could be completely wrong.
31:27
Freshwater, sorry, saltwater lake and it has bioluminescence.
31:31
Twice I have been at a midnight kayak on it.
31:34
You could see all the stars, like, everywhere.
31:37
And then when you put, like, your little ore in, like, you
31:40
just, like, it's like the bioluminescence, just like
31:42
ripples after, you know, it's like, it kind of reminded me of
31:46
like that experience. So we've kind of discussed the
31:48
sea there as well as the idea of it being a character because it
31:51
is so beautifully portrayed, this, the sea, the sky and the
31:55
land, like, not the land in this part, but like the sea in the
31:57
sky and like. Yeah.
31:59
Reflection of 1 into the other, where the heavens might actually
32:04
come below us, not above us. And that's something that we'll
32:09
probably get into more down the line where the sea might.
32:13
Be have more than meets the eye yes, exactly.
32:17
I think that's something that I'm really excited to talk about
32:19
like further on, like because there's so much kind of illusion
32:22
to it in this chapter, but it will be more apparent in the
32:26
next kind of couple of chapters, like more about the idea that
32:29
there's stuff happening in the sea.
32:31
Just another thing about Atlas, obviously they're traversing the
32:35
globe, so you've got another little reference there to the
32:39
name Atlas, but with other mythology, the jellyfish is
32:45
described as being a Medusa, and which is a name of that that can
32:50
be attributed to jellyfish. I had never heard of it before.
32:53
I had to look it up, and I think it comes up again in later
32:57
chapters where they talk about jellyfish but call them Medusas.
33:01
There's also Neptune who features and that is part of the
33:06
line crossing which we will get into a little bit more.
33:09
Is there any themes that that stuck out to you?
33:13
Angel is from a colony but he wants to go and colonize.
33:16
So like the idea that Angel is existing in this time where like
33:21
the United Irishman would have been umm, like the big forefront
33:25
of kind of Irish politics and independence.
33:28
And like there was a lot of stuff for him to be doing in his
33:32
own land where he could have been affecting politics and
33:35
where he could have been been like helpful.
33:38
And if he had all these ideas and these ideas of freedom,
33:41
because a lot of the stuff he's saying is kind of like your
33:43
Rousseau and that kind. Well, that's mentioned that he,
33:46
he's read Rousseau. How much of Rousseau he's read
33:49
is maybe up for, up for debate. But like these are all the ideas
33:54
like the French Revolution and stuff are happening in Ireland
33:57
as well. Like the idea that we, we could
33:58
have our own kind of parliament and that kind of stuff and and
34:04
the same rights across the Catholics, Protestants and
34:08
dissenters. So like this, all this stuff is
34:10
happening. It's not like he's, you know,
34:13
English and like, there's not that there's nothing to do with
34:16
English politics, but just it's, it's like he lives, he's living
34:20
in this really important time, like a revolutionary time in his
34:23
own country. But yeah, it's still like, I'm
34:26
just going to go to Brazil. I'm just going to like go and
34:30
make this utopia and take these, this other people's land.
34:34
It's like he doesn't even think about that.
34:35
He doesn't. It's that kind of colonial
34:37
mindset where it's like, oh, this is mine for the taking.
34:40
But he doesn't think that this is the thoughts that people were
34:42
having when they came over and colonized Ireland.
34:45
The man who's offering to sell this land is probably, Yeah.
34:48
And like, what we would see is more of an evil colonist.
34:51
But like, there's probably so many people like Angel involved
34:54
in colonizing all parts of the world where they think they're
34:56
doing something good and they're just really not.
34:58
I wanted to touch on women, specifically mothers.
35:02
They seem to come up a lot throughout.
35:06
Even in this chapter there's very few women that are even
35:09
featured. There's Molly Sheridan, which is
35:12
a sex worker that that Angel met with during his very short time
35:19
in Liverpool and she seems to be at least 40, so she herself
35:24
could be a mother to to Angel. He talks about his aunt and how
35:29
she's passed away, but we never meet her, but obviously she's a
35:33
mother figure to him. Then we have Camacho who talks
35:37
about his mother and he's having visions of his mother.
35:40
We have Angel who starts praying to his mother that he's never
35:43
met and he wants to meet her again in the afterlife.
35:48
Then we have Flores and his mother who's the the slave and
35:53
then just religion as well. One of the topics that Angel
35:57
discusses with his friends in Dublin is the impossibility of
36:01
God. And yet numerous times
36:04
throughout this trip, we find Angel is praying to God, and
36:10
then we can compare that with Flores, who is studying the
36:14
history of Islamic religion and the history of Christianity.
36:19
So yeah, then let's talk about the foreshadowing, the Easter
36:23
eggs and the references that that are made.
36:26
Was there anything that that stood out to you in particular?
36:29
I love the concept of the The Night Town, which is discussed
36:34
by Marian Lynch. We don't really know what it is
36:36
at this stage, sort of want to give too many spoilers.
36:38
But when I was when I started reading it and we were reading
36:42
about Angel's time in Dublin, before he leaves, Angel is very
36:46
into his Dublin sex workers. He goes to a street called
36:50
Mecklenburg St. And at the time I just come back
36:52
from Dublin when I was rereading this and I was like, oh look and
36:56
see if I was anywhere near these streets.
36:57
So I was like looking it up and it doesn't, it doesn't exist.
37:00
At least it's not called Mecklenburg St. anymore.
37:02
But when I looked it up, a website came up for like James
37:05
Joyce's Ulysses, which like obviously people go way too into
37:10
they're like us with this book. He mentions Mecklenburg St.
37:14
He goes to visit sex workers. Basically it's in an area that's
37:18
called Night Time. So I was kind of like when
37:21
Austin Fagan was writing this, was he specifically mentioning
37:23
these places that existed in this, like this night, night
37:27
time in in Dublin and why he uses the term night time to mean
37:32
what it's going to mean? Am I just reading too much into
37:35
this or like is there something more?
37:37
So I'm just going to run through a quick fire list of different
37:42
references that I noticed. And so there's a part where
37:46
Camacho is talking about being from the Mediterranean, and he
37:51
specifically mentions that there was some historical figure who
37:55
had his hand blown off in the glittering spray of the sea or
38:02
something along those lines. And later in this chapter,
38:07
Camacho's hand gets blown off in the glittering spray of the sea.
38:12
I think there's a reference to Moby Dick.
38:15
Camacho hands a gun to Angel and tells him this is cocked.
38:22
Pull this trigger there. She blows before Angel boards
38:26
the ship. In Liverpool, the captain
38:29
mentions that he can't be too public about announcing when the
38:34
Atlas is going to depart because of French spies.
38:39
This story is potentially happening around the time of the
38:42
French Revolution, so that's probably why he's so cautious
38:46
about the French spies and that might come up later.
38:50
So one of his friends in Dublin, Patrick Edgeworth, mentions that
38:56
Brazil is basically a play that Angel is going to partake in and
39:04
that it's all a bit of theatre, which is just something to note
39:08
down for the future. There's a pigeon, a messenger
39:12
pigeon that the captain tries to send off early in the book, but
39:17
it gets shot out of the sky by Lacario.
39:20
Then when all the mutiny is happening, Angel is in the
39:23
captains quarters, he notices that there's a pigeon that has a
39:29
message on its ankle. I'm so curious who wrote that
39:32
second message? Is it going to get to where it's
39:35
supposed to go? What did the first message say?
39:39
Also at the very start when Angel is seasick, he has a
39:43
hallucination of a little girl who has dark skin and she seems
39:48
to have an injury or potentially be dead, but she comes in and
39:53
kneels down and prays over him with a young version of himself,
39:58
so it's obvious that he's having a hallucination.
40:01
I think this is very interesting because the chapter also ends
40:04
with him having a hallucination of Flores's mother, who we
40:09
believe to be dead at this point as well.
40:12
So why is he having these hallucinations of these dark
40:17
skinned female characters? Something I was thinking about,
40:21
right? And this is only I only
40:23
remembered this like a minute or two ago, but there's this
40:27
section in Page 31, right? We're basically so we find out
40:33
like near near like the end of sea, we find out that laugh
40:37
Caddo is laugh Caddo is shot and he has like a like the typical
40:44
like iron. I imagine it's like an iron ball
40:47
probably lodged in his chest from the the bullet.
40:51
And for some reason, and I don't really 100% get this.
40:55
So you might be able to shed some light in this iron, but in
40:57
Page 31, long before this happens, it describes as and
41:02
something was already waiting there for him, something bright
41:05
and terrible nesting between his ribs.
41:08
That seems to me to be like a foreshadowing of the fact he
41:11
gets shot and there's something lodged in his ribs.
41:13
And that's definitely something to think about as well going
41:16
into the next chapter. There's a couple of other things
41:19
that I just want to to bring up here.
41:21
So there's crossing off the line, which is an actual
41:23
ceremony. So in this, it's portrayed as
41:26
like a hazing ritual where you have to give yourself to the
41:30
ocean or give yourself to Neptune, and before it's given
41:34
back to you and Lucy, you've been talking to someone who
41:40
might have a bit of knowledge around these ceremonies.
41:42
Now, I was speaking to a friend who is in an unspecified Navy.
41:48
They were discussing the fact that it does it is still a
41:51
thing. It's like people who haven't
41:52
someone that the top person in this Navy who's on the boat,
41:56
like we'll dress up as Neptune or Neptune's wife if they happen
42:00
to be a woman. There will be people who have
42:03
never crossed the line and people who have crossed the
42:05
line. So if you're like crossing the
42:08
line virgin, then you're treated like horrifically.
42:11
And it is a proper like hazing event that still goes on in I
42:15
think multiple navies across the world.
42:17
So it's like the minute you cross, they've crossed their
42:19
first line, then that's them and they're they're able to be the
42:23
hazer. My friend told me a lot of
42:25
things and they were quite horrific.
42:27
It doesn't make me want to join the Navy anytime soon.
42:30
Another thing that I wanted to bring up because it could so
42:33
easily be bypassed, but I think it is probably going to be
42:37
important down the line, is the capsized hull, the hollow one
42:42
that they come across. At one point they think that
42:45
they're being stalked or or followed by another ship.
42:51
And when they do come upon it, it seems to be a capsized hull
42:56
of a ship that has an olive tree growing in it and a mast.
43:03
But there's a crucified man in the mast and a young girl is
43:10
sitting in the branches of the olive tree.
43:14
It's such a strange and odd the scene that takes place.
43:19
Do you have any specific thoughts on that?
43:22
Oh, here, I have absolutely no idea about that.
43:24
Every time I read it, I'm like, there's something going on here.
43:28
I suppose the religious allegory Ness of some of the parts of it,
43:34
like the crucified man and he has his his legs are missing and
43:39
they I think the the sailors on the ship believe that the little
43:42
girl is accountable. It alluded to that, but then I
43:47
don't even know. Do we know that she's alive with
43:49
like Jacques definitely thinks she's alive because he wants to
43:52
save her, but then the men in the boat think she's
43:54
accountable. So they don't want to save her.
43:56
Like we have tried. I think this is like been the
43:58
hardest book for us to like talk about because it is so dense.
44:02
There is so much stuff you don't like it all this.
44:06
Is only 1 chapter. This is only 1 chapter.
44:08
We're definitely leaving things out.
44:12
Oh, we are, we've left like we, we tried to approach this in
44:15
like a different way where we went through every like there's
44:17
21 sections in, in this chapter and we tried to go through
44:21
everything in it. And it was like, we can't do
44:24
this. We'd like been recording for
44:26
like an hour and a half and we were like, we, we have like we
44:30
can't condense this down any further.
44:32
We were like halfway through the chapter.
44:34
So I'm going to change things up a little bit here.
44:37
And so I've got a bit of a theory for you.
44:40
So this may be taking us down a bit of a rabbit hole, but I
44:44
thought that it was worth mentioning.
44:46
Have you ever heard of the mythical island off the West
44:49
Coast of Ireland in the Atlantic Ocean called High Brazil?
44:54
Or sometimes it's just called Brazil.
44:57
No, Well, no. You did discuss this to me the
45:00
other day. But prior to that, no, I'd never
45:04
and I haven't looked at that. Well, I've got a bit of an
45:06
expert to give us some background on the myth.
45:09
So we've got Emma from the podcast Real Life Ghost Stories.
45:13
They did an episode about it and this is a a a summary of of that
45:18
myth. Hi, Brazil was first recorded on
45:21
a map in 1325 by Genoese cartographer Delarto.
45:26
And I need to be really clear here that it was recorded on
45:30
official maps. I don't mean that it was
45:33
recorded in a sketch by a local fisherman.
45:36
The odd thing about this island is that it was steeped in a
45:40
strong oral tradition. People who lived on the
45:43
southwest coast of Ireland told stories of the floating island.
45:47
It was enveloped by a fog bank and would appear once every
45:51
seven years and then seemingly sink below the waves.
45:55
It was seen in Catalan maps of 1480 and even Saint Brendan
45:59
alleged to have found a mysterious island when he
46:02
returned from his great voyages. It was said to be a place of
46:05
great mystery and legend, and a place where riches were to be
46:08
found. High Brazil was then seen in
46:12
maps continually all the way until the late 1800s.
46:16
So Eden Shore is in the right time period for the people of
46:20
Ireland and the world to believe that this island actually
46:23
exists. And when Angel first sees South
46:26
America, he describes it as a vast mass of trees and rolling
46:33
greens, all covered in heavens of swirling mists.
46:38
It looked unreal to Angel, fake but wondrous, like some
46:43
stretched quilt draped loosely over the sea.
46:48
This sounds extremely similar to how witnesses of Brassell
46:54
describe it. They could see the meandering
46:57
coastline, and they could see the dark shapes of the trees and
47:00
the vast Woodlands. They could see rolling green
47:03
fields and deep valleys. The ship hit a dense fog.
47:07
It seemed to have descended over the ship out of nowhere, like
47:11
someone had just lowered a blanket around them.
47:14
You're shocked, Lucy. I know I wasn't expecting that,
47:19
but then how do you think that this fits in?
47:21
This could be where we'd get the title Eden Shore from, since the
47:26
mythical island was known to have Garden of Eden like
47:32
features. The Irish people claimed it was
47:35
full of treasure, that it was a magical land where a man could
47:38
make his fortune. The Irish people had for century
47:41
talked of high Brazil as a place where an advanced civilization
47:45
lived. This civilization were immortal
47:48
and they knew all the secrets of the universe.
47:52
The Irish people believed that these people were Wizards and
47:54
had magical powers. If you could reach the island,
47:58
you could return home with riches beyond your wildest
48:01
dreams. So we know that Angels goal was
48:05
to start a utopia in Brazil and the main goal of the colonizers
48:09
was basically to make their fortune from the land.
48:13
Kadosh and Fagan have purposefully conflated the two
48:17
places to add an element of Irish mysticism to the story.
48:22
I'm getting tearing and no vibes from this because that's off the
48:25
West of Ireland and it obviously also exists.
48:29
Like the story? What is it the story of Need not
48:31
Shane Oshing all coming together?
48:35
How is this then like because he obviously lands in South of
48:38
actual South America. Yes, as far as we know, he he
48:41
lands in actual South America. And I guess this is where my
48:47
theory of them kind of falls apart a little bit.
48:51
Hi, Brazil and Brazil actually aren't related.
48:55
I know a lot of people seem to think that like Brazil, that
48:59
people write that Brazil is like named after the island of High
49:02
Brazil. I think it's because people
49:04
confuse High Brazil, the Brasil, and they pronounce it as High
49:10
Brazil, which it is unlikely to have been.
49:13
It's likely that the actual name High Brazil came from an Irish
49:18
word for the High King of the World.
49:21
And what were you saying about Angel's goals for his utopia?
49:30
He wants to basically rule it. I don't like it when you use my
49:34
words against me, Aaron. So the two obviously aren't
49:37
etymologically linked, but does this mean that like we have to
49:43
fully dismiss the potential that Fagan was influenced by the myth
49:47
in some way? I think that some elements of
49:50
the myth could be linked to nighttime, a land in the ocean
49:55
which is like known for immortality, potentially the
50:00
afterlife. There is a part where Angel is
50:03
praying. He talks about being reunited
50:06
with his mother and he's come home.
50:09
Maybe I'm reaching, but I also think that this, this floating
50:14
hull, the hollow one that that they had come across, there's
50:19
some fantastical elements to that.
50:21
Could that potentially be something akin to Brazil, where
50:28
it is there, sometimes it's not there.
50:31
There's like people living on it.
50:33
I don't know what. What are your thoughts?
50:35
No, actually you have won me over with the the night town
50:39
stuff. Big theme throughout it, and it
50:40
is later on, and this is kind of linked with the theme of night
50:43
town is the idea that so many slaves have have died and umm,
50:49
they they've gone to the bottom of the the ocean and the idea
50:52
that they're like living under the ocean and they have
50:56
immortality. And it's kind of seems like a
50:58
way for Angel to make himself feel like less guilty about the
51:03
fact that he's umm, contributed to the slave trade in some way.
51:07
But it's, I find it, it's probably one of my favorite
51:10
parts of the first part. The first part of the book, and
51:12
actually throughout the book is just the idea that there is
51:15
something below the ocean, that these people are still alive and
51:19
they have lives. And yeah, it's like wishful
51:21
thinking, but it's quite nice. So I've I've got a new segment
51:25
that I would like to introduce to you here.
51:28
And so baking is one of my hobbies and I thought I could
51:32
maybe marry it with this podcast in the book club.
51:36
So I'm planning on maybe baking something from each chapter of
51:39
the book if there's a different food item that's maybe mentioned
51:43
throughout In sea, we don't really get too much discussion
51:47
about the food, but oatmeal biscuits do come up a few
51:50
different times throughout. So I did a little bit of
51:53
research and I found out that they're kind of like crackers.
51:57
They're dry. They're they're made to last for
52:00
months and months, potentially years.
52:02
And because if you're out at sea, you have limited resources,
52:06
so you want to have something that can sustain you.
52:09
They don't have a lot of flavour, but I, I've made some,
52:13
uh, some here. I am going to post on social
52:17
media a video of me baking them. So if you want the recipe then
52:22
please check out our our social media.
52:24
Sorry Aaron, you've literally just gone.
52:26
These are plain, they have absolutely no flavour.
52:29
Would anybody like the recipe? I haven't tried them.
52:32
I haven't tried it, so I'm going to try it for you right now.
52:34
They look like I like rice cakes, but they're very.
52:37
Next time you see me, if they're going to last like a year, next
52:41
time you see me, you can bring me some.
52:43
I will bring you some now. Just so you're aware they are
52:45
known as motor Breakers. So I'm going to try give it a
52:48
little bite but I do have braces so I can't be Oh my.
52:52
Goodness, what? Is happening, you know, it's
52:59
fine, it's fine. It doesn't taste bad, but
53:04
there's not really much flavor to it and it is incredibly dense
53:08
and difficult to bite into, so I think I might have to soak it in
53:12
tea or something before I can actually enjoy the rest of this.
53:15
But I'll bring you some next time I see you.
53:18
I love this. And our listeners can get the
53:20
recipe for this potentially, Colleen.
53:23
And you're going to be charged by the dentist if you eat one of
53:27
these. Like, I think there'll be people
53:29
flocking to make this. So let's hear from others in the
53:33
book club that are reading along with us.
53:35
We actually do have a few people and we're going to hear from
53:37
1:00 today. And if you would like to share
53:38
your thoughts, contact us by e-mail or by social media links
53:41
in the description. Mark has been listening to.
53:45
See by audiobook. Here are some of his thoughts.
53:49
It was a strong opening in terms of setting, themes, ideology,
53:55
prose. Obviously Angel is an idealistic
53:58
young man Helmet on creating utopia it seems, whereas very
54:04
immediately that is challenged both physically and mentally
54:08
like he's not physically able to contend with with this struggle
54:12
and journey. I didn't know that you could
54:14
vomit through your nose, but interesting and good description
54:19
or prose by the author. We're seeing early on in the
54:24
depiction of Slee has been on the ship that this journey, the
54:28
colonialism that necessarily what it all involves, it's
54:31
brutal. Angel is forced to contend with
54:33
this. He's horrified by it all,
54:35
rightly so. I'm glad that the slaves did
54:37
free themselves rather than, you know, we enjoy this, this person
54:41
coming to free them. Umm, the characters, for
54:44
instance, all the, the sailors from the ship Lecario Camacho,
54:47
the very rough people, umm, very self interested.
54:53
They're men of their time. Particularly Marianne Lynch is a
54:56
foil of the Angel Angel to say the last idealistic Trinity
55:01
student, very privileged. Whereas Marianne Lynch is
55:04
clearly a man of the world, a man of his time as a sailor and
55:10
has very different ideas and how he sees the world.
55:12
And I would like to make the point that at least in the 1st
55:14
chapter, Angel very much comes across as a product of the
55:18
Enlightenment and the values that they're in and
55:20
republicanism and all these things.
55:22
But when heading to the New World and seeing what
55:26
colonialism essentially involves, those ideas are
55:31
intensely challenged because the indigenous and untransported
55:35
peoples and slaves and such do not get to experience those
55:38
values in the same way. That is very interesting.
55:40
I do like how he has touched on the fact that like as he said
55:44
there at the end, the fact that yeah, angels extremely what the
55:50
word naive views and his extremely idealistic views are
55:55
only things that white people can have, are only thoughts that
55:59
like Europeans can have about this.
56:02
Whereas everybody else is just whipped up in their plans and
56:07
they have no agency in this or the agency that they have is is
56:11
very limited. Also like his mention of the
56:15
vomiting through the nostrils, that is right off the bat and
56:19
kind of throws us into the very descriptive and gross graphic
56:25
details that Arsene Fagan for me is now infamous for.
56:30
So let's give this chapter a rating out of five stars.
56:33
I feel like I have an intense bond with this book now and I'm
56:37
giving it five stars. I think I said this in the last
56:40
episode that I was like, I'm giving a four stars
56:42
provisionally, like the whole book because I need to read it
56:46
again and I need to like, think about it now.
56:48
I'm just like, I love this so much.
56:50
Like every time I start reading again or start reading into
56:53
different bits, I'm like totally like I've just been transported
56:57
onto the Atlas. So I like, I think like
57:00
definitely if you ever pick this book up, like you have to give
57:03
it a chance, but you have to, you have to put the effort in.
57:06
Like you'll only get out of this book what you put into it.
57:11
And it's if you put the effort in, it's absolutely fantastic.
57:15
I completely agree, I give this chapter 5 stars.
57:20
I can't remember all of the chapters so we'll have to see
57:24
what I give the rest of them, but this one, like I said, I've
57:29
reread it about 7 Times Now and I still am learning things every
57:35
time I go through it. So I'm just whenever we've
57:38
completed all of these chapters, I'm really excited to start from
57:42
the very start again and go back and remember what happens later
57:47
in the book so that I can even find the the like more
57:52
references and foreshadowing and kind of draw and connect those
57:56
dots. So you can read along and share
57:58
your thoughts on Instagram. We are at Bookies favorite book
58:03
club. That's where you'll see my
58:05
version of Geronimo's Oatmeal Biscuits if you want to check
58:08
out the recipe. You can also e-mail us at
58:11
bookiesfavoritebookclub@gmail.com. Anything interesting that you
58:14
have to say about anything we've missed, anything we've not
58:18
spoken about or just anything about the book, we would be so
58:21
happy to hear and. We'll be uploading an episode
58:24
each Wednesday until we've finished all 5 chapters of Eden
58:27
Shore, so remember to send us your thoughts and questions for
58:31
the author, Ashim Fagan. Next week we'll be discussing
58:35
Part 1, Chapter 2 Land. Subscribe on whatever podcast
58:39
platform you're listening on so you don't miss the next.
58:41
Episode Share this episode with a book lover you think will like
58:45
this book. Read the podcast 5 stars.
58:48
A big thank you to Emma from the Real Life Ghost Stories podcast.
58:53
Check out their full episode of High Brassil.
58:56
Their details are in the description.
58:58
Go support another Irish podcast that helped us out.
59:01
Let's end on a final quote from CA.
59:04
Woman was pointing a gun at him, and seeing her, he wondered at
59:08
how he could have missed all the life beneath him, sprawling and
59:11
indestructible that had never stopped trying to communicate
59:15
itself. Goodbye.
59:18
Bookies out.