The Stranger by the Sea – Paul Binding (2019)

With thanks for the review copy

I was interested in reading The Stranger from the Sea because the premise just sounded so good. In this novel Paul Binding has created a dramatic re-imagining of characters from Ibsen’s play The Lady from the Sea. I wasn’t familiar with the play and decided not to look it up beforehand – which was the right decision as a chapter two thirds of the way through the novel, provides more details of the play. To be honest my knowledge of Ibsen is sketchy – if I was required to do so I could probably only name three Ibsen plays before reading this book, and The Lady from the Sea wasn’t one of them. In 2003 I went to see a production of Ibsen’s Brand at Stratford-upon-Avon starring a favourite actor – Ralph Fiennes, I remember it as dark, powerful, brooding stuff.

The Stranger from the Sea is set in the 1880s in the English coastal town of Dengate in Kent. Following a powerful storm in the English Channel a young Norwegian Sailor; Hans Lyngstrand is washed up of the shore of the Kent coast, and is recovering in hospital. Hans is among just a few survivors, and the incident has ignited the interest of the townspeople.

“I saw again, as in actuality I had not, the unbeatable viciousness of the Channel at the spring equinox, wind bullying water into ferocious waves curling upwards only to crash punitively down, destroying whatever was vulnerable in their course. For hour after hour these had been this youth’s only physical reality.”

Around the same time, a young journalist; Martin Bridges arrives from London to take up a position at the town’s newspaper. Martin is the narrator of this involved story, and the voice of an ambitious young Victorian is well done. The editor of the paper; Edmund Hough arranges for Martin to take up residence at a boarding house called Castelaniene, presided over by Mrs Fuller. Mrs Fuller is immediately a somewhat strange woman, insisting as Mr Hough had that Martin should be of a cheerful nature – and speaking rather oddly of her departed husband. Mrs Fuller is helped in the house by Sarah and a young daily; Mary, who she describes as being a ‘delightful little vehicle’. Initially, Martin is the only boarder at the house, but opposite his room is the Mercy room, a room kept ready for anyone who should need it. There is also a trio of cats – treated very much like honoured members of the household.

“The cats too, were a daily source of delight. Mrs Noah – the last of the house trio I met – kept a certain aloofness from everybody except Sarah. She’d been given her name, I was told, by Mr Fuller himself, who, out for a stroll one evening, had spotted her, alone and bewildered, on a small abandoned boat right in the middle of Dengate harbour.”

Martin has barely settled in before the Mercy room has a new resident – Hans Lyngstrand, released from hospital – but still recovering from his ordeal. Martin’s editor wants Martin to interview Hans about what happened the night of the storm, to take advantage of the townspeople’s fascination in the survivors. As Hans lies recovering in the Mercy room, Martin takes the chance to introduce himself – and the two become immediate friends. Hans tells Martin all about his life at sea, about the storm and particularly about the boatswain, who so savagely swore revenge against the woman he thought betrayed him, a man Hans believes could still be alive. The two young men start to draw closer together and as Hans recovers, the two find themselves invited to some local society events.

The first of these events is a meeting of the Gateway – a society about which Mrs Fuller is very evangelical but whose purpose neither Martin nor Hans have any idea. Following this somewhat surprising evening, in which Mary plays a rather unexpected role – and after talking to other newspaper colleagues – Martin begins to wonder about the truth of Mrs Fuller’s absent husband and son.

Martin’s complex friendship with Hans causes him to re-examine his previous experiences and future relationships. Will, an old friend from London turns up, who charms just about everyone with ease – and then Martin meets his editor’s daughter and she catches Will’s eye too.

Paul Binding’s writing is certainly good, I engaged with the voice and the literary style immediately, and in fact enjoyed the first part of the book. The peculiar Mrs Fuller is a well written character and Hans’s story is a fascinating one. However, somewhere along the line, I got a bit bogged down. The parts of the story I was engaged by got swamped by other parts of the story – and I found that a bit frustrating – I also thought the novel would have benefited from being shorter. There was a section in the second half of the book I was rather bored by – and although I thought the ending was very good, it felt like it took a while to get there. Well, we can’t all like everything we read now can we – but I had expected to like this rather more than I did.