Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #542066 in Books
• Published on: 1999-08-26
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Waterstone's Books Quarterly
'Written in potent, lyrical prose.'

Synopsis
In this suspense novel, a handful of disparate lives converge at a remote seaside inn: a lovelorn professor, a renowned painter and a beautiful young girl. An intimate web of destinies and associations begins to reveal itself.

Customer Reviews

A truly beautiful book with a true heart
This book is an essential addition to the fiction shelf. It has an eerie, magical quality that leaves you feeling as fresh as the sea air around the setting. The author takes you to a place of refuge that, once you have finished reading, you'll keep with you. Enchanting, diverse, personal and refreshingly clear headed, the author is truly a master of storytelling. The book translates with all the emotion intended, and leaves you wanting more. (Try, "Silk", a short story by Barricco which is just as absorbing.) To round off what makes this book my perfect read, the cover and pages feel so soft, you'll want to take it everywhere! Just go ahead and read it!!!

for sea lovers
Baricco is the most talented Italian writer and Oceano Mare the best Italian book for ages. I hope that the translator will be able to recreate the magical atmosphere of the Almayeda Inn.

Enigmatic and amazing. Ocean blue. Pure.
-Sometimes I wonder what are we waiting for. -For it to be too late, madame.

I have read OCEANO MARE in its original language, but the grammatic is so clear that the translation can easily keep the beauty of Baricco's writing. It recalls the style fo the naturalists fo the XIX century. It is an original story. There are differents settings that runs parallel and then blend together. Several characters with different stories find a personal meaning in the ocean that can be either terrible or beautiful, gentle of furios, can carry joy oy death. A group of men abandoned on a boat; two men that look for the end or the beginning of the sea; storytellers that comes from the waves; lovers walking on the beach; children that know more than adults about everything; they are all connected to the ocean sea somehow. The book is strong and delicate. It goes beyond the love and hate human feel for the sea, it is a story that goes deep in the human soul, it is a rappresentation of the most secret desires, that goes beyond rational thinking. Enigmatic and pure. OCean blue. I loved it.