Home Feed
Home
Search
Search
Add Review, Blurb, Quote
Add
Activity
Activity
Profile
Profile
In the Orchard, the Swallows
In the Orchard, the Swallows | Peter Hobbs
3 posts | 4 read | 4 to read
A Guardian Book of the Year and Chapters/Indigo Best Book In the foothills of a mountain range in northern Pakistan is a beautiful orchard. Swallows wheel and dive silently over the branches, and the scent of jasmine threads through the air. Pomegranates hang heavy, their skins darkening to a deep crimson. Neglected now, the trees are beginning to grow wild, their fruit left to spoil on the branches. Many miles away, a frail young man is flung out of prison gates. Looking up, scanning the horizon for swallows in flight, he stumbles and collapses in the roadside dust. His ravaged body tells the story of fifteen years of brutality. Just one image has held and sustained him through the dark times -- the thought of the young girl who had left him dumbstruck with wonder all those years ago, whose eyes were lit up with life. A tale of tenderness in the face of great and corrupt power, In The Orchard, The Swallows is a heartbreaking novel written in prose of exquisite stillness and beauty.
Amazon Indiebound Barnes and Noble WorldCat Goodreads LibraryThing
Pick icon
100%
review
rachaich
post image
Mehso-so

Whilst this is beautifully written, with detailed descriptions of the world and emotions, it just didn't strike me as I'd hoped.
The short chapters were full but I struggled to feel much.

blurb
rachaich
post image

Such an interesting title :)

review
Hamlet
post image
Pickpick

The Pakistani narrator's tale is gentle even when harrowing. Though the tale deals with his fifteen years of prison and his beatings and deprivations there, the story's narrator is more than his pains might suggest. Not just wisdom or acceptance colors the tale, but an honesty about being broken in many ways, a hope rooted in love as well as imaginings of it; even regret is valued. The telling is too removed to be stirring but it is moving.