Thank you very much for the e-ARC of One Boat!
A quiet introspective novel that moves forward and back through time gradually revealing a little depth of the characters and the setting. Like the expanding ripples on the surface after a single stone has been dropped into a body of water. Or the gentle lapping of ripples that originated in the past and have now reached the side of one lone boat on a lake. The loss of her mother, her experience years ago in the place that she has returned to and its inhabitants that have moved her.
It was a slow read but I felt that it was appropriate for the story rather than frustrating.
I didn't really feel connected to the main character despite it being a first person narrative. Her name wasn't dropped til much further into the book which was one of the things that kept her held at arms reach for me.
Nevertheless I found myself contemplating life after having read One Boat and thus it left an impression on me. 4.5 Stars

Just finished and I do enjoy the philosophical novel. I liked A Passage North previous longlistee. More going on here though because about the nature of being, wisdom and what it is, poetry and what it is, fiction and what makes a successful story, also do you need to be revered, your poetry or writing understood or valued. It is a slow novel and you have to adjust yourself to its meditative pace but very much worth it I find. One of the younger critics, Ben reads good or Bob the bookerer not sure which did see merit in it but ultimately saw it as a ‘weaker’ novel. I disagree. I have learned to distrust other people’s reviews. Of sally rooney’s intermezzo for instance. Both she and this author have important things to communicate about life and grief, the reorientation that happens. Wonderful ending, we know just what decision has been made. Hoping this is shortlisted for Booker maybe wins. Thanks for free ebook. Hope to reread.

Buckley's writing style is almost hypnotic as he transposes us to Greece in a dual timeline, covering both the same people in the same place but at a different time. Theresa travels to the small town in the earlier narrative after the death of her mother and later after the death of her father. She muses a lot on life and our place in the world. The writing is spectacular, and I was underlining so many quotes while reading this. It reminds me a lot of Rachel Cusk in style. Saying a lot, in beautiful prose with almost no plot whatsoever. This is slightly meatier on the plot front as we follow the characters through a series of conversations to explore different life lessons in a very muted and delicate way. Nothing about this book is obvious. The twist at the end added an interesting edge to the book that left me pondering for a long time. Isn't that always the sign of a great book? Thank you to the publisher for the E-ARC.

I found that I didn’t get pulled into this one like I had been hoping, some insightful pieces within it but wasn’t gripping and probably one I would have put down if it had been any longer.

3.5⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley and Fitzcarraldo for a copy of this book to read.

Having heard mixed receptions of this book, I can understand how it might not be for everyone, nonetheless I enjoyed this book and have only a few minor issues with elements of the plot and writing.

This books is not plot heavy whatsoever, it is more like a coming of age/intrinsic experience narrated by a middle-aged woman who returns to an idyllic and peaceful Greek town after the death of both her parents. Through these musings, both alone and with others, we discover more about our narrator, Teresa, and her character. We learn about her past at this village and an element of her philosophical ideology.

For the most part, this is all relatively cohesive although there are some areas in which I struggled to tell whether we were in the past or the present, while this may have been part of the intent in creating dreamlike sequences, memories blending and taking shape, it made it a little hard to follow at times.

My other question would be the final few pages which indicate a conversation involved in the publishing process. Were elements of this fictional? Are we supposed to have an unreliable narrator? I might have to re-read this section just to get an idea of the purpose of this part, perhaps it’s her talks with Petros that inspires this choice.

Either way, this was a light and refreshing read despite some of the issues it talks of, perhaps it is the semi-detached nature of the narrative which enables this.

Email: 1hannah.wilkins@gmail.com

I don't know where this book was leading. I took it up due to the Booker Prize longlist however I did not seem to enjoy it at all.

I unfortunately really could not get on with the pacing and writing style of this book. It felt like the scenes were too descriptive when it wasn’t something that was important to the main character which made it a slow read.

This book is less about plot than atmosphere. Quiet and meditative, it carries the rhythm of the ocean throughout. Cosy yet laced with grief, it feels similar to Rachel Cusk’s introspection but with prose that feels more open and accessible.

A subtle web of backstories links the characters, while the intimacy of small-town life emerges in conversations about mortality and in the narrator’s fascination with Petros and others she met previously in the town.

The final chapter shifts as she turns her reflections into story, finding in volunteer work with convicts a sense of redemption: mistakes made in youth do not define a person forever.

The result is a reflective novel about solitude, grief, and human nature

After her father’s death Teresa returns to the coastal Greek town to which she retreated when her mother died, nine years ago.
 
Staying in the same hotel she resumes her daily routine, ready to catch-up with previous acquaintances. She wonders if she will be remembered, and if so, what will they think of her coming back? Will the lover she acquired think she came for him? And what of the dark confession of John, who left the town during her previous visit.  What damage, if any, did he leave in his wake?
 
Teresa is a fascinating character, she’s full of emotion and even though it’s all deeply buried beneath her analytical shell, it drives so much of her decision making.

In most of her encounters with other people, even those she already knows, she’s in a constant dialogue with herself, building a Teresa who will appear capable and likeable.  

Identity is a strong theme here.  “It was time to become myself for the day…” she says tellingly at one point.

How much did she make herself into the “respecter of rules” her parents identified in her? She tells how she chose her branch of the law, contracts, as one which relies solely on the rules, rather than criminal law where the wild cards of class, upbringing, addiction, intent, etc., can disrupt the good/bad binary into something more nuanced and, for her, unmanageable.

Being close to Teresa as she tries to get a grip on what people’s actions say about them, about what her actions say about her to others, is a rich experience.  She’s a great observer and recorder of the world around her, filtered through her uneasy mix of strong convictions and subsumed emotion. As she reviews and adds to the journals from her previous visit her sense of what she felt then and what she feels now become diffused and accrue a new shape.  Her awareness of self is elusive, but others feel they see her clearly, something she seem to find quite alarming.
 
I really enjoyed this intriguing, moving, and perceptive, book. It was my first Buckley and was absolutely delighted by it. I will certainly be reading more.

I went into One Boat expecting a story about a father and daughter, and in some ways, it is. But it's also much more subtle and introspective than I anticipated.

The novel follows Teresa, who returns to a small Greek coastal town, the same place she visited nine years prior, while grieving the loss of her mother. Now, she's mourning the loss of her father, and this familiar setting becomes the backdrop for a quiet, reflective journey. As she reconnects with the locals, Petros, an eccentric mechanic and poet; Xanthe, a café owner; and Niko, a diver with whom she shares a complicated past.

The pace is slow and deliberate, more akin to a meditative drift than a plot-driven narrative. The author takes you on a journey that explores memory, grief, identity, and the blurry lines of human connection. The conversations about justice, existence, and regret add depth and the themes around memory and personal history are thoughtfully handled. But for me, something felt just slightly out of reach. I wondered whether I missed the emotional core the author intended.

One Boat, while not hitting the emotional notes I had hoped for, is undeniably a well-crafted novel. It's a quiet, introspective exploration of grief and meaning, but for me, it lacked a certain spark.

Thank you, NetGalley and Fitzcarraldo Editions, for providing an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book felt dreamy and atmospheric, but I ultimately felt I was missing the 'point'. There is a low level mystery, which is slightly intriguing, and a bit of a metafictional take at the end, but this book didn't feel like it all came together for me at any point.

This was a beautifully richly descriptive book that felt at times that overtly descriptive. At the heart of its story it was about people, life, and the passing of time.

The story follows a woman who returns to a Greek island that she visited nine years prior after her mother's death. Following her father's death, she returns and encounters the same townspeople as before. Not a whole lot happens and the story floats along between memories, diary entries, and present day.

It took me a little while to get into as I struggled with some of the language choices, at times they felt odd and it involved a lot of telling, which made it come across as quite cold and detached. Clinical in its details. But during the middle there were moments that I really enjoyed and it produced some beautiful sentences that stuck with me. There are lots of little philosophical moments that leave you thinking.

Definitely recommend if you love beautiful descriptions and philosophical musings but it fell a little short for me and despite being a short book it felt longer than it needed to.

Grateful for Netgalley and Fitzcarraldo for the opportunity to review.

This novel feels incredibly quiet and floaty at times, but always with something moving. In exploring loss and how we adapt to the world changing around us, I found it deeply thoughtful. I sometimes struggled with how the novel felt as if it wanted to make its mission statement more overt towards the end, but the introspection of the narrator was intriguing.

I received a digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Buckley’s descriptions are beautiful but I’m afraid I didn’t get along with his philosophising and I had trouble connecting to the characters. The relationship between Teresa and the others felt off and I wondered why she was mourning in the Greek village at all, surrounded by people she hardly knows. Maybe I just didn’t get it.
Thank you Fitzcarraldo and Netgalley UK for the ARC, but I’m sad to say this wasn’t for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Fitzcarraldo Editions for providing me with an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

One Boat is one of those strange novels in which nothing happens, and yet it feels as though everything has happened. Teresa - the narrator, primary focus and also perhaps the singular boat of the title- revisits a small village in Greece after the death of her father, a village she’d previously visited nine years prior following the death of her mother. On both visits, she attempts to process her newly parent-less condition by recording her thoughts and observations in a notebook.

These observations provide the overarching structure for the book, the method by which we as the readers meet the cast of characters Teresa interacts with. The novel is sparse, but Buckley deftly conjures up the sights and sounds of the Greek village and its inhabitants, seeming to create fully rounded characters with a few simple brushstrokes and leaving me aching for a Greek holiday. We get enough of a glimpse of every character to feel as though we know them, although on finishing the book they reverted back to outlines of themselves with no real substance to describe. A fascinating technique, and one which I am sure was deliberate. In particular, the careful and subtly introduced idea that two of the characters - Petros and John - have already crossed paths, was a delightful moment of slow dawning realisation.

Where this novel falls flat, in my opinion, and the reason I’ve only given it three stars, is the lack of emotional heft. I’m sure it was deliberate, but Teresa records her thoughts and observations, but is seemingly bereft of any emotional output. Understandably a side effect of grief on both occasions, the lack of an emotional connection with the protagonist left me with an impression of pretentiousness instead. However, this novel holds up well against the few Booker longlisted novels I’ve read so far, and the Greek tourist board will be delighted with it!

A slow and meandering journey into memory and loss, as a British woman returns to a greek island she visited 9 years prior when her mother died, to grieve her now dead father.

The book has quite a simultaneous blended and fractured structure making it hard to distinguish dreams from reality and one scene from the next. This helped play into the grieving aspect of the novel but it made it hard to follow at points. Definitely a unique read and one that has rightfully received praise but just maybe not for me.

I read this because of its Booker long listing - as others have noted: for fans of Rachel Cusk.

It is about a British woman who travels to the Peloponnese on her own to contemplate the loss of her father and make time to think. She's visited the same little town 9 years earlier when her mother died, and she revisits that first stay based on the notebook she kept. She also looks for the people she met.

I suspect the Booker-judge rooting for Katie Kitamura picked this one as well. It is a similar little book in that it creates a suspenseful atmosphere not by a spectacular plot but by withholding important background information. Some of it is never revealed.

Buckley's work is more philosophical though, it explores big questions, and conversations are important to unpick them.

Somewhat unfortunately, I was more impressed by the accessible way the ideas were described than fascinated by the philosophical ideas themselves.

It was all quite enjoyable, but lost me a bit in the final chapters (except for the surprising final chapter!). Nice to have read it, but don't see this make the shortlist.

ONE BOAT by Jonathan Buckley is a highly introspective account of Teresa’s stay on a Greek Island in the aftermath of her mother’s death, having visited the same island 9 years earlier following her father’s passing. I really enjoyed the structure and form of this - memories of her prior visit so seamlessly woven with the present as well as snippets of her journaling showing her interpretation of observations and interactions with those living on the island. The writing itself was also terrific. Substance-wise, I think I was waiting for a moment of profoundness to occur, an original realisation about grief or memory perhaps, but it never really came. I appreciate maybe that wasn’t the point, but then I’m not sure I understood what was! This left me with not an entirely bad reading experience but not a very memorable one either.

Without care, there is no connection....

One Boat tries to talk about a lot of things, there is grieving at the loss of a mother and a father, grieving at the loss of a marriage. Teresa has chosen a particular quiet village in Greece as her place designate to grieve and get herself together. She has come here nine years ago at the death of her mother and now once again at the death of her father. She goes around the village, thinking ‘thoughts’ and interacting with the village people, with Petros for philosophy of life, with Nikos for sex, with Xanthe for complicity, with John for some moral dilemma. Ah there are also dreams involved though I found it hard to distinguish these from the other moments.

I found One Boat to be rather fragmentary with Teresa all over the place and the writing following her. In fact, I think that Buckley plays around with the idea that all this is our life, true and valid. However, if he wants my attention while reading then let me confirm that I found it extremely hard to make heads or tails re what I was reading. As Patrick says in the book itself, I needed momentum, I needed a direction. Otherwise, I remain lost in the book and I’m already lost enough in my own life, my own thoughts, my own dreams and I did not have the reading impetus to care about Teresa.

One Boat by Jonathan Buckley is an enjoyable and well-written novel. Reflective, thought-provoking and poignant.