When I was in high school in the 00s I read an excerpt of _The Sooterkin_ by Tom Gilling. The quaint tale of a human woman birthing a seal pup stuck in my head, and I recently bought a used paperback to read it in full. It won a bunch of awards and has near-universal acclaim online, so why did the entire book feel like a half-baked approximation of a ‘great novel’ that went barely anywhere?
I know this is /iamverysmart territory here but I read **a lot** and I can always find something redeemable about a book, or appreciate it on its own merits even if I don’t personally like it. But I feel like I’m missing something big about _Sooterkin_. Characters came and went in an unpleasantly dizzying way, motivations were difficult to follow, the newspaper excerpts were gratingly artificial, and nothing about the ending felt redeeming or even conclusive. But it’s described as ‘Dickensian’ and was(is?) apparently huge in Australia. Does it rely on Aussie humour I’m too northern hemisphere to get?
by Oduind