Naomi J. Williams

An epic voyage, undertaken with the grandest of ambitions.

I had no previous knowledge of the Lapérouse expedition before I read this book and I did not read about it on the internet until I just had a couple of pages left of the book to read. Two frigates left Brest in 1785 with two hundred men on board in a brave attempt to circumnavigate the globe. Every chapter in Landfalls is told from a different point of view. Both from the crew, natives, and other Europeans they encountered on their journey.

I had some problem with the story I must admit. Mostly because I had no previous knowledge of the journey and also with the shifting between the characters. So it took a while for me to really get into the story, and some characters left a bigger impression on me than others did. I especially liked the chapters with the captains Lapérouse and de Langle point of view.

One of my favorite part of the book was when they reached Alaska and everything that happened there. It was then I really started to enjoy the book. I think the chapter with the native girl in Alaska, her point of view was just so amazing to read. Just think how it must have been, never seen Europeans before. Amazing.

Also, the last part of the book, the mystery of what happened to the shop was just so fascinating to read about.

I recommend this book to anyone that wants to know more about the Lapérouse expedition or like to read historical fiction.

Thank you Piatkus for providing me with a free copy for an honest review!… (mehr)

An epic voyage, undertaken with the grandest of ambitions.

I had no previous knowledge of the Lapérouse expedition before I read this book and I did not read about it on the internet until I just had a couple of pages left of the book to read. Two frigates left Brest in 1785 with two hundred men on board in a brave attempt to circumnavigate the globe. Every chapter in Landfalls is told from a different point of view. Both from the crew, natives, and other Europeans they encountered on their journey.

I had some problem with the story I must admit. Mostly because I had no previous knowledge of the journey and also with the shifting between the characters. So it took a while for me to really get into the story, and some characters left a bigger impression on me than others did. I especially liked the chapters with the captains Lapérouse and de Langle point of view.

One of my favorite part of the book was when they reached Alaska and everything that happened there. It was then I really started to enjoy the book. I think the chapter with the native girl in Alaska, her point of view was just so amazing to read. Just think how it must have been, never seen Europeans before. Amazing.

Also, the last part of the book, the mystery of what happened to the shop was just so fascinating to read about.

I recommend this book to anyone that wants to know more about the Lapérouse expedition or like to read historical fiction.

Thank you Piatkus for providing me with a free copy for an honest review!… (mehr)

Landfalls is a novel of serious literary intent and for that I respected it even if everything the author attempted didn't quite work for me.

The author's approach to this story is unique in that she tries to get into the hearts and minds of individuals experiencing extreme circumstances, and to answer: what motivates these men? what are their goals and aspirations and weaknesses as individuals? These are Williams's burning questions--to know these people, not to write a rousing disaster story.

In some ways I was uncomfortable with her choices. Her attention to the small details in the beginning of the novel for instance didn't fascinate me even though I can appreciate how critical the pre-voyage preparations would be for any explorer of these times, since they needed in to anticipate everything that might go wrong, while at the same time having very little information about dangers they will face.

I was also uncomfortable with the semantic choices Williams made for dialogue because at times the choices made people sound like cliche' movie characters, for example:

"It is humble, this house," Sabatero said in heavily accented but comprehensible French..."well, you have been at sea a long time...any house looks good, yes?"

And I wasn't comfortable at all with the Snow Men chapter. Told from a non-European point of view, suddenly the syntax and sentence structure gets very simplified--it had more than a bit of "me-Tonto" feeling for me and I was disappointed that Williams's editor didn't do more to help her avoid this clunker. Even though I believe this chapter was previously published as a short story I found it very troubling here, perhaps because of its stark semantic contrast with the chapters told from European points of view.

It's an ambitious and thoughtful novel, however, and I'm glad to have read it.

… (mehr)