Jess Kidd
Autor de Things in Jars
Sobre El Autor
Créditos de la imagen: Jess Kidd
Series
Obras de Jess Kidd
La nave della notte 1 copia
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Etiquetado
Conocimiento común
- Fecha de nacimiento
- 1973
- Género
- female
- Nacionalidad
- UK
- Lugar de nacimiento
- Richmond, Surrey, England, UK
- Lugares de residencia
- London, England, UK
- Educación
- Open University
- Ocupaciones
- creative writing teacher
- Agente
- Susan Armstrong (C+W)
- Biografía breve
- Jess completed her first degree in Literature with The Open University after leaving college to have her daughter. She continued to work and study part-time, finally gaining a PhD in the field of creative writing studies. Jess’s dissertation focused on the ways in which disparate modes and genres can be brought into correspondence to create new hybrid forms in crime fiction. Her research covered several key crime fiction and magical realist texts, along with the work of John Millington Synge and Dylan Thomas. Jess has taught creative writing at undergraduate level and to adult learners. She has also worked as a support worker specialising in acquired brain injury, a PA to a Rector, and an administrator at a local community centre.
Jess was brought up in London as part of a large family from Mayo, and plans to settle somewhere along the west coast of Ireland in the next few years. Until then, she lives in London with her daughter.
Miembros
Reseñas
I love Jess Kidd’s books . This one has the usual blend of folklore, mythology, history, horror and the supernatural (or is it.)If you know the story of the Batavia, you won’t go in expecting a walk in the park, and you certainly won’t get one. She makes you care about the two child protagonists and then deftly flips back and forth between the two tales. I saw others complaining about it, but I felt that it served to heighten the suspense. She subtly creates empathy for outcasts in all her books and leaves you hoping for a happy ending. Do you get one at all in this book…. Still thinking about it.… (más)
Loved it. Will definitely be trying more of the authors work. Characters were interesting, plot satisfying and the surreal bits of atmosphere, taxidermy, autmotans, Gypsy fortune tellers and ouija boards all in one book. What more could you ask for. Cats and foxes, you say, don’t worry , they’re there to, along with saints and sinners galore
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Estadísticas
- Obras
- 6
- También por
- 2
- Miembros
- 2,450
- Popularidad
- #10,467
- Valoración
- 3.8
- Reseñas
- 129
- ISBNs
- 99
- Idiomas
- 4
- Favorito
- 2
I have always been intrigued by the story about the Batavia, which was shipwrecked in 1629, on the Abrolhos Islands, while on its maiden voyage to Batavia (Jakarta). The ship was commanded by two men: upper merchant, Francisco Pelsaert and skipper Ariaen Jacobsz, both of whom already hated each other prior to the voyage. Mutiny was brewing prior to the fatal shipwreck. After running aground many of the passengers were offloaded onto small islands nearby, others had to be left on the ship and were drowned. Francisco Pelsaert made the decision to take a group of 48 people in an open long boat and make their way 3,200km to Batavia to get help. Amazingly this was successful, but by the time the rescue boat returned the remote islands had turned into a scene of brutal massacre and carnage. Jeronimus Cornelisz, the Under merchant, took charge, and with a group of thugs set themselves up on Batavia’s Graveyard (now Beacon Island) and began to systematically eliminate the survivors, including the children, to reduce competition for food and the chance of being hung for mutiny if the rescue ship returned. Some of the women were kept alive as sex slaves. Cornelisz and his men disarmed and marooned the loyalist soldiers in the group on nearby West Wallabi island. Instead of perishing, this group found water, and under the leadership of Wiebbe Haijes, withstood attacks on them, and were able to intercept the rescue ship Sardam first and tell their version of the gruesome events. Pelsaert executed Cornelisz and some of the mutineers on the islands, two men were left on the coast of Western Australia, and the rest sailed to Batavia. Of the original 341 ship inhabitants only 122 made it back to Batavia with at least 125 having been murdered on the Abrolhos, others having drowned or perished.
Jess Kidd’s version is beautifully written and atmospheric but some of the events are lost in the childish recount of the story. I felt too much time was spent following Mayken’s search for an eel monster, the Bullebak, instead of helping us understand the mutiny and events. Gil faces a similar fearsome monster, the Bunyip, based on local Indigenous folklore. Both children face terrible tragedy and heartbreak. Gil is considered weird by the rough islanders and persecuted by both adults and children. His only solace is his pet tortoise Enkidu (named for the Gilgamesh epic).
This was a well-written atmospheric story but probably got itself overly caught up with monster stories, which may not have been entirely necessary given the monstrous reality actually occurring.… (más)