The Visitors Rebecca Mascull 9781444765212 Books
Download As PDF : The Visitors Rebecca Mascull 9781444765212 Books
Imagine if you couldn't see
couldn't hear
couldn't speak...
Then one day somebody took your hand and opened up the world to you.
Adeliza Golding is a deaf-blind girl, born in late Victorian England on her father's hop farm. Unable to interact with her loving family, she exists in a world of darkness and confusion; her only communication is with the ghosts she speaks to in her head, who she has christened the Visitors. One day she runs out into the fields and a young hop-picker, Lottie, grabs her hand and starts drawing shapes in it. Finally Liza can communicate.
Her friendship with her teacher and with Lottie's beloved brother Caleb leads her from the hop gardens and oyster beds of Kent to the dusty veldt of South Africa and the Boer War, and ultimately to the truth about the Visitors.
The Visitors Rebecca Mascull 9781444765212 Books
This is a short book, just shy of 300 pages taking place in 1876 England. Chapter one introduces the reader to Adeliza Golding's as she makes her entrance into this world. She is the fifth and only child of the Goldings and the only one to survive the birth process. The "Visitors" are the first thing she meets. Liza is born with shadows of vision that soon fade to total darkness. At two, scarlet fever steals her hearing. The first half of this story is a Helen Keller type tale with much time spent on how Liza and her parents live and cope with what life has dealt each of them. When an unexpected turn of events affords her a teacher, the wild child learns, blossoms and thrives. Unlike the Helen Keller story, Liza is befriended by a very skilled physician. Appearing throughout the story are the earthbound spirits of The Visitors (ghosts). Liza can see, "telepathically "hear" and "speak" to them.In the second half Liza faces decisions which challenge her courage & strength taking risks with great determination to save the love that war has taken from her. In doing so the young woman finds a greater destiny is hers to fulfill should she choose it.
Once I made it to the second half, this turned out to be a an OK read. As ghost stories go, this is not the best I've read by a long shot. The Visitors do play a major role in the turning and outcome of the story but if you're looking for scary, creepy stuff, this is not it by a long shot.
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Tags : The Visitors [Rebecca Mascull] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Imagine if you couldn't see couldn't hear couldn't speak... Then one day somebody took your hand and opened up the world to you. Adeliza Golding is a deaf-blind girl,Rebecca Mascull,The Visitors,Hodder & Stoughton,1444765213,Historical,English Historical Fiction,FICTION General,Fiction,Fiction Historical,Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)
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The Visitors Rebecca Mascull 9781444765212 Books Reviews
"The Visitors" is Rebecca Mascull's début novel. And a real stunner it is, too. It should also come with a warning it is 19 chapters long; I would advise you to have at least 3 tissues handy for each!
Part tale of personal survival, part love story, part something so much more, the book presents as a period piece, set at the start of cusp of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is told from the first person perspective of a young girl deaf and blind from an early age. It is emotionally charged and highly personal in its detail, with a prose style that is both sensitive and moving, yet epic in scope. The story speaks with a power that is simply overwhelming in its consistent and consistently up-lifting honesty, optimism and generosity. Once started, it is extremely hard to put down.
Beyond that, I am not prepared to comment, simply because much of the beauty of this book lies in the surprises that the author manages to deliver on almost every new page -- surprises both large and small that are an utter delight when they occur and which repeatedly make the eyes water up and have you reaching for yet another tissue!
In short, books as beautiful as this are few and far between. Buy it! You won't regret it.
Rebecca Mascull’s debut novel, first of all, reads nothing like a debut novel. The author writes with subtle, understated assurance this fascinating, alluring story of a deaf-blind girl, in late Victorian England, then later in South Africa during the Boer War.
I have to admit I nearly missed this one, as the combination of publisher blurb and the rather muted pretty cover had me mistakenly convinced that this would be a slightly fey and marshmallow book. Whilst not averse to fey, I don’t do soft-centre that well.
However………never judge……and all that
I’m so pleased I gave this one a try (after being offered a copy for review by the publisher, Hodder)
This is most surely a book ‘about stuff’ and whilst it is very clear Mascull has done much research into the time, place and subject matter of her story, she is a writer who wears that research extremely lightly, and almost instructs the reader subliminally, in a very natural and easy way.
Adeliza Golding is born almost blind, the daughter of a successful Kentish hop farmer and his wife, the only survived child after a series of miscarriages. She is deeply loved by her sorrowing parents. An early illness leaves her completely blind, and also deaf. By the age of three she is enraged and half-feral. Fortuitously, one of the seasonal hop-picker families, oyster fishers (another seasonal industry) from Whitstable, had a deaf-blind daughter themselves, and had come in contact with a clergyman who was aware of the technique of palm signing. The oldest daughter, Lottie, is the first person to break through Liza’s rage – a rage born not of feebleness or savagery, but of her inability to communicate
“For many years, my deaf-blindness was like a monster from myth. My aim was to overcome it. Every monster has a weakness exploited by the hero to win the day. In my darkest memories, I see my early self as a blind monster crashing through the wilderness. But it was not my disability which kept me there. It was my ignorance. Once I found language, the spell was broken and I assumed human form. One does not need sight and hearing to be fully human, only communication. My lack of sight and hearing were not the enemies, only my lack of connection was my monster, my isolation”
The early part of the book, describing Liza’s journey out of that isolation, and the relationship which develops between Lottie as teacher and Liza as pupil, and the almost overwhelming nature of the world which can finally be revealed for Liza, as more and more refined ways of communication tools become available, are stunning, and wonderful.
Liza’s world soon becomes even more expanded, as she develops a wider relationship with Lottie’s family.
Liza does have a secret however – she has spectral, ghostly communicants ‘The Visitors’ which no one else can see or hear. Within the book, the Visitors are far from some sort of fey authorial device, yet this is not primarily ‘a spooky story’ either. Liza herself, like the reader, grows in understanding the nature of these communicants.
In the broader world, war is on the horizon, (the Boer War) and this becomes also a central part of the story, with some of the potent historical issues playing out in the lives of Mascull’s fictional characters.
This brings me to something else in her writing. There is a major relationship which develops in the story, and at a couple of points I found myself thinking ‘oh no, oh no, please don’t say this fine and truthful writer is going to start moving her characters around like pawns in order to satisfy some plot-shock. No spoilers revealed here, but what I will say is that there was a sense of absolute authenticity to the complex, layered characters Mascull had created – and I was intrigued, in her afterword, an interview conducted with the author, she discovered that what had happened for her in the writing was that magic, where though she had intended her characters to have one journey, somewhere, they up-sticked and said NO.
My sense, all through reading this book was that here is a writer of authenticity and listening. One not showy, one not ostentatious
“I just want my reader to be able to enter a different world and to care about the characters. I don’t want the story to be directed before it is told. I want the characters to do what they want and not to be restricted by genre. Genre is a useful tool but I prefer to use it lightly” (author interview)
A wonderful, thoughtful piece of writing, which is about a lot, yet says it all economically, without indulgence, without histrionics, and with humanity and precision.
However – reader beware, I note with some surprise that no less than 3 novels, by 3 different authors, were published early this year, with the self-same title. This one is by Rebecca Mascull, and I shall definitely be looking forward to her second book, whenever that shall be.
The story of the life of a blind deaf girl who recovers her sight abounds with possibilities which I felt weren't fully exploited. The prose is stilted, though this may have been an attempt by the author to convey something about the heroine.
I enjoyed reading the book - The Visitors by Rebecca Mascull, I thought the characters & the story line were good
This os the tale of a girl born in the 1880s with faulty eyesight at birth who slowly loses all sight. Further, around age 2, she is afflicted with the loss of hearing. Her struggle to understand and be understood as the world opens for her gives the reader insights into the life of those with these disabilities as well as historical information about the era 1880s - very early 1900s. Sensitively written this is a moving story. Life in Kent, England and aspects of the Anglo Boer war are among the other topics the author explores.
This is a short book, just shy of 300 pages taking place in 1876 England. Chapter one introduces the reader to Adeliza Golding's as she makes her entrance into this world. She is the fifth and only child of the Goldings and the only one to survive the birth process. The "Visitors" are the first thing she meets. Liza is born with shadows of vision that soon fade to total darkness. At two, scarlet fever steals her hearing. The first half of this story is a Helen Keller type tale with much time spent on how Liza and her parents live and cope with what life has dealt each of them. When an unexpected turn of events affords her a teacher, the wild child learns, blossoms and thrives. Unlike the Helen Keller story, Liza is befriended by a very skilled physician. Appearing throughout the story are the earthbound spirits of The Visitors (ghosts). Liza can see, "telepathically "hear" and "speak" to them.
In the second half Liza faces decisions which challenge her courage & strength taking risks with great determination to save the love that war has taken from her. In doing so the young woman finds a greater destiny is hers to fulfill should she choose it.
Once I made it to the second half, this turned out to be a an OK read. As ghost stories go, this is not the best I've read by a long shot. The Visitors do play a major role in the turning and outcome of the story but if you're looking for scary, creepy stuff, this is not it by a long shot.
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