What do you think?
Rate this book
First Light
First Light begins with an ominous coincidence: the reappearance of the ancient night sky during the excavation of an astronomically aligned Neolithic grave in Dorset. Add to this a group of wonderful eccentrics—archaeologists, astronomers, a civil servant, a stand-up comic, local rustics—who converge on the site to disturb the quiet seclusion of Pilgrin Valley.
Someone (or something) is trying to sabotage the best efforts of the excavators, headed by Mark Clare, to unearth the dormant secrets of the burial ground. Meanwhile, at the nearby observatory, astronomer Damien Fall, his telescope focused on the red star Aldebaran, is unnerved by the deeper significance he imputes to the celestial sophistication of the region’s ancient inhabitants. And Joey Hanover, a retired music-hall and TV entertainer searching for his own past, has learned secrets from Farmer Mint and his son, Boy, the weirdly cryptic guardians of their ancestral home in the valley. What do all these, among others, have in common?
All is masterfully woven into an immensely engaging and entertaining novel—a suspenseful reflection on life, nature, and the cosmos, and above all an illuminating and enchanting story.
Someone (or something) is trying to sabotage the best efforts of the excavators, headed by Mark Clare, to unearth the dormant secrets of the burial ground. Meanwhile, at the nearby observatory, astronomer Damien Fall, his telescope focused on the red star Aldebaran, is unnerved by the deeper significance he imputes to the celestial sophistication of the region’s ancient inhabitants. And Joey Hanover, a retired music-hall and TV entertainer searching for his own past, has learned secrets from Farmer Mint and his son, Boy, the weirdly cryptic guardians of their ancestral home in the valley. What do all these, among others, have in common?
All is masterfully woven into an immensely engaging and entertaining novel—a suspenseful reflection on life, nature, and the cosmos, and above all an illuminating and enchanting story.
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
About the author
Peter Ackroyd
185 books1,401 followersPeter Ackroyd CBE is an English novelist and biographer with a particular interest in the history and culture of London.
Peter Ackroyd's mother worked in the personnel department of an engineering firm, his father having left the family home when Ackroyd was a baby. He was reading newspapers by the age of 5 and, at 9, wrote a play about Guy Fawkes. Reputedly, he first realized he was gay at the age of 7.
Ackroyd was educated at St. Benedict's, Ealing and at Clare College, Cambridge, from which he graduated with a double first in English. In 1972, he was a Mellon Fellow at Yale University in the United States. The result of this fellowship was Ackroyd's Notes for a New Culture, written when he was only 22 and eventually published in 1976. The title, a playful echo of T. S. Eliot's Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948), was an early indication of Ackroyd's penchant for creatively exploring and reexamining the works of other London-based writers.
Ackroyd's literary career began with poetry, including such works as London Lickpenny (1973) and The Diversions of Purley (1987). He later moved into fiction and has become an acclaimed author, winning the 1998 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the biography Thomas More and being shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1987.
Ackroyd worked at The Spectator magazine between 1973 and 1977 and became joint managing editor in 1978. In 1982 he published The Great Fire of London, his first novel. This novel deals with one of Ackroyd's great heroes, Charles Dickens, and is a reworking of Little Dorrit. The novel set the stage for the long sequence of novels Ackroyd has produced since, all of which deal in some way with the complex interaction of time and space, and what Ackroyd calls "the spirit of place". It is also the first in a sequence of novels of London, through which he traces the changing, but curiously consistent nature of the city. Often this theme is explored through the city's artists, and especially its writers.
Ackroyd has always shown a great interest in the city of London, and one of his best known works, London: The Biography, is an extensive and thorough discussion of London through the ages.
His fascination with London literary and artistic figures is also displayed in the sequence of biographies he has produced of Ezra Pound (1980), T. S. Eliot (1984), Charles Dickens (1990), William Blake (1995), Thomas More (1998), Chaucer (2004), William Shakespeare (2005), and J. M. W. Turner. The city itself stands astride all these works, as it does in the fiction.
From 2003 to 2005, Ackroyd wrote a six-book non-fiction series (Voyages Through Time), intended for readers as young as eight. This was his first work for children. The critically acclaimed series is an extensive narrative of key periods in world history.
Early in his career, Ackroyd was nominated a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1984 and, as well as producing fiction, biography and other literary works, is also a regular radio and television broadcaster and book critic.
In the New Year's honours list of 2003, Ackroyd was awarded the CBE.
Peter Ackroyd's mother worked in the personnel department of an engineering firm, his father having left the family home when Ackroyd was a baby. He was reading newspapers by the age of 5 and, at 9, wrote a play about Guy Fawkes. Reputedly, he first realized he was gay at the age of 7.
Ackroyd was educated at St. Benedict's, Ealing and at Clare College, Cambridge, from which he graduated with a double first in English. In 1972, he was a Mellon Fellow at Yale University in the United States. The result of this fellowship was Ackroyd's Notes for a New Culture, written when he was only 22 and eventually published in 1976. The title, a playful echo of T. S. Eliot's Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948), was an early indication of Ackroyd's penchant for creatively exploring and reexamining the works of other London-based writers.
Ackroyd's literary career began with poetry, including such works as London Lickpenny (1973) and The Diversions of Purley (1987). He later moved into fiction and has become an acclaimed author, winning the 1998 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the biography Thomas More and being shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1987.
Ackroyd worked at The Spectator magazine between 1973 and 1977 and became joint managing editor in 1978. In 1982 he published The Great Fire of London, his first novel. This novel deals with one of Ackroyd's great heroes, Charles Dickens, and is a reworking of Little Dorrit. The novel set the stage for the long sequence of novels Ackroyd has produced since, all of which deal in some way with the complex interaction of time and space, and what Ackroyd calls "the spirit of place". It is also the first in a sequence of novels of London, through which he traces the changing, but curiously consistent nature of the city. Often this theme is explored through the city's artists, and especially its writers.
Ackroyd has always shown a great interest in the city of London, and one of his best known works, London: The Biography, is an extensive and thorough discussion of London through the ages.
His fascination with London literary and artistic figures is also displayed in the sequence of biographies he has produced of Ezra Pound (1980), T. S. Eliot (1984), Charles Dickens (1990), William Blake (1995), Thomas More (1998), Chaucer (2004), William Shakespeare (2005), and J. M. W. Turner. The city itself stands astride all these works, as it does in the fiction.
From 2003 to 2005, Ackroyd wrote a six-book non-fiction series (Voyages Through Time), intended for readers as young as eight. This was his first work for children. The critically acclaimed series is an extensive narrative of key periods in world history.
Early in his career, Ackroyd was nominated a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1984 and, as well as producing fiction, biography and other literary works, is also a regular radio and television broadcaster and book critic.
In the New Year's honours list of 2003, Ackroyd was awarded the CBE.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
May 29, 2017
Peter Ackroyd has a thing about the past coming back to haunt the present. That sounds like a pretty straightforward theme, and is the basis of so many novels. Ackroyd takes this idea and turns it into such a transformative (and often disturbing) experience that the result is very different from the one I had initially imagined.
I’m not sure what I expected when I first picked this up. Perhaps I was thinking of the darkness of Hawksmoor, except transplanted to the English countryside. But from the very start of the novel, this was something different: the musings of an aged astronomer form the opening, musings that extol the wonder of the bigness of the universe, the incredible largeness of it all... described in such a way that make the reader and the world they live in feel very small, very minor. After that strange and unsettling opening, the reader is shown the life of various amusing and quirky – for lack of a better phrase – “English types”. There are bumbling archeologists. Hilariously pretentious bureaucrats. Dramatic theatre types. A horny Scottish lad and his flirty assistant. Odd, close-lipped, slightly sinister farmers (Farmer & Boy Mint, my favorite characters). And malicious country village queens who would be at home in the world of Mapp & Lucia. All the characters come together, in one fashion or another, around the dig of an increasingly sinister archaeological find in the countryside. The story consists of many small and varied chapters: pithy comedies of manners, obliquely off-kilter episodes full of ambiguity, and sometimes barbed, sometimes wistful domestic vignettes.
Yet underneath many of these characters and scenes, there is melancholy and fear, slowly churning away. For all of the funny one-liners and deadpan character bits, this is a novel with tragic death, disturbing dementia, and a longing for oblivion at its core. It is both adorable and chilling, in equal parts. The mysteries of life and where it all comes from, where it all is going, remain unsolved, of course. The mysteries of why we do the things we do and to what end are also left for the reader to contemplate. This is a novel full of much wit, but the overall feeling I was left with was one of almost transcendent yearning, as felt by the characters, and as felt a bit by me when realizing that this yearning is, as always, destined to remained unfulfilled. Such is life!
I’m not sure what I expected when I first picked this up. Perhaps I was thinking of the darkness of Hawksmoor, except transplanted to the English countryside. But from the very start of the novel, this was something different: the musings of an aged astronomer form the opening, musings that extol the wonder of the bigness of the universe, the incredible largeness of it all... described in such a way that make the reader and the world they live in feel very small, very minor. After that strange and unsettling opening, the reader is shown the life of various amusing and quirky – for lack of a better phrase – “English types”. There are bumbling archeologists. Hilariously pretentious bureaucrats. Dramatic theatre types. A horny Scottish lad and his flirty assistant. Odd, close-lipped, slightly sinister farmers (Farmer & Boy Mint, my favorite characters). And malicious country village queens who would be at home in the world of Mapp & Lucia. All the characters come together, in one fashion or another, around the dig of an increasingly sinister archaeological find in the countryside. The story consists of many small and varied chapters: pithy comedies of manners, obliquely off-kilter episodes full of ambiguity, and sometimes barbed, sometimes wistful domestic vignettes.
Yet underneath many of these characters and scenes, there is melancholy and fear, slowly churning away. For all of the funny one-liners and deadpan character bits, this is a novel with tragic death, disturbing dementia, and a longing for oblivion at its core. It is both adorable and chilling, in equal parts. The mysteries of life and where it all comes from, where it all is going, remain unsolved, of course. The mysteries of why we do the things we do and to what end are also left for the reader to contemplate. This is a novel full of much wit, but the overall feeling I was left with was one of almost transcendent yearning, as felt by the characters, and as felt a bit by me when realizing that this yearning is, as always, destined to remained unfulfilled. Such is life!
November 26, 2021
Uzun zamandır bu kadar kötü yazılmış bir kitap okumamıştım. Aslında hikayenin ana malzemesi -çağrısı- son derece ilginç ve umut vadediyordu. İlk bölümünden çok iyi bir sezon izleyeceğim hissini yaratan dizileri anımsattı. Fakat roman fena patladı:) Karakterler o kadar eksik ve yapaydı ki bir süre sonra sadece olay örgüsünü takip etmeye başladım. Diğer bütün ayrıntılar ilginçliğini kaybetti. Diğer yandan yazarın yer altından galaksiler ötesine kurguladığı izleğin romantikliği bir yerden sonra inanılmaz sıkıcı hale geldi. İlk yarısında romanı Göbeklitepe projeksiyonunda okuyarak, acayip bir özdeşleşmeyle eşlik etmiştim; ikinci yarısında ondan sıyrılmam da okuma keyfimi ciddi ölçüde baltaladı. Daha önce bir Peter Ackroyd kitabı okumamıştım, bu son olur muhtemelen. Tavsiyeci olmayacağım:) İyi okumalar.
January 14, 2014
Atmospheric, immersive, melancholic and ultimately anti-climactic. Ackroyd has ability but in this book seems to create slightly hollow characters, that are set up to be caricatures of themselves, which is amusing at first, but limiting in the end. The role-reversed lesbian couple, the retired stand-up and his malapropistic wife, the seemingly simple but oddly disquieting farmer and son, the astronomer desperate in his mediocrity, and the tragic archeologist with his crippled wife invite curiosity but do not inspire empathy. The book is clever without being satisfying, marvelling at some of the construction but oddly less moved than one would expect.
March 16, 2018
I like the themes of archaeology & astronomy woven together. This is definitely an oddball book. I have never read Peter Ackroyd & didn't know what to expect yet it's theme resonated with me.
Quote from Damian:
Did you hear how I was caught in the underground passage for a while? It was there I first realised it. That I first understood how nothing really dies. Just because we are trapped in time, we assume that there is only one direction to go. But when we are dead, when we are out of time, everything returns. Everything is part of everything else. . . Someone once told me a wonderful thing. He told me that our bodies are made out of dead stars. We carry their light inside us. So everything goes back. Everything is part of the pattern. We carry our origin within us, and we can never rest until we have returned.
As a meditator this quote resonates with me. Reminds me of the Stephen Hawking quote: Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet . . .
Quote from Damian:
Did you hear how I was caught in the underground passage for a while? It was there I first realised it. That I first understood how nothing really dies. Just because we are trapped in time, we assume that there is only one direction to go. But when we are dead, when we are out of time, everything returns. Everything is part of everything else. . . Someone once told me a wonderful thing. He told me that our bodies are made out of dead stars. We carry their light inside us. So everything goes back. Everything is part of the pattern. We carry our origin within us, and we can never rest until we have returned.
As a meditator this quote resonates with me. Reminds me of the Stephen Hawking quote: Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet . . .
August 14, 2019
I checked it out on a whim and was not disappointed. A very enjoyable read with a lot of pulpy goodness.
Read
January 30, 2022 A collection of archaeologists, astronomers, and various others try and make sense of a pre-historical find in Dorset, the complexities of human existence.
July 22, 2023
My first Ackroyd book, and I want more! The unusual setting of a tumulus excavation in rural Dorset is peopled somewhat exotically by archaeologists, astronomers, quirky yokels, a screechingly insincere lesbian civil servant and her partner, and a retired music-hall comic and his wife.
I loved it. The chapters are really short, which is a bonus for me as this encourages me to read to the end of the next one . . . and the one after that . . . and the one after that . . . .
And the delightful, unforgettable names! Damian Fall, the angst-ridden astronomer. Evangeline Tupper who is something in the Department of the Environment, and her tweedy, no-nonsense partner Hermione Crisp, addressed by the utterly inappropriate soubriquet Baby Doll by Evangeline. Farmer Mint and his son, Boy Mint, the last of a centuries-long family of Mints who have laboured in the valley. Mark Clare, Martha Temple and Owen Chard, members of the archaeology team. Joey Hanover, a retired comic and singer, and Joey's wife Floey. Augustine Fraicheur, an antique dealer who would fit in perfectly well to the world of "Mapp and Lucia". Lola Trout, the foul-mouthed doyenne of the village of Colcorum. Wonderful characters.
All these are pulled together in an extraordinary tale about the excavation of the tumulus and the gradual unfolding - or not? - of its ancient secrets. I recommend this book highly.
I loved it. The chapters are really short, which is a bonus for me as this encourages me to read to the end of the next one . . . and the one after that . . . and the one after that . . . .
And the delightful, unforgettable names! Damian Fall, the angst-ridden astronomer. Evangeline Tupper who is something in the Department of the Environment, and her tweedy, no-nonsense partner Hermione Crisp, addressed by the utterly inappropriate soubriquet Baby Doll by Evangeline. Farmer Mint and his son, Boy Mint, the last of a centuries-long family of Mints who have laboured in the valley. Mark Clare, Martha Temple and Owen Chard, members of the archaeology team. Joey Hanover, a retired comic and singer, and Joey's wife Floey. Augustine Fraicheur, an antique dealer who would fit in perfectly well to the world of "Mapp and Lucia". Lola Trout, the foul-mouthed doyenne of the village of Colcorum. Wonderful characters.
All these are pulled together in an extraordinary tale about the excavation of the tumulus and the gradual unfolding - or not? - of its ancient secrets. I recommend this book highly.
March 12, 2023
A typically haunting and genre busting book from Peter Ackroyd about our connection to the landscape, ideas of family, archaeology, space and time. I really enjoyed this short read. At times it was spine-tinglingly spooky and at others it reached farce. I don't think there was a single 'normal' character, but that just added to the fun
April 11, 2013
Spooky.
Depressing!
Not the best Ackroyd, a bit heavy going. For some reason though I have read it twice. Still not sure exactly what happens.
Depressing!
Not the best Ackroyd, a bit heavy going. For some reason though I have read it twice. Still not sure exactly what happens.
April 4, 2024
Ackroyd wins on his campy caricatures, dusky archaic atmosphere, and sustained suspense. It's sprinkled with star dust (in us all) for a sense of the immortal, while the archaeologists peel back layers around the cold stone to invest a sense of time immemorial. So far so good. However, I found a disharmony between the silliness and the serious that for me prevented 'First Light' from attaining steady luminescence. Evangeline as a case in point is a besuited lesbian besotted with ultra-butch 'Baby Doll', whose delightful daftness just jars with tragic arc of Kathleen Clare. Whereas Evangeline presents as a sadistically superficial uber-bitch (what is not to like), Kathleen trails a wan gloom direct from Goethe. The salty and sweet mix to make a sort of Gothy Carry-On. It is Barbara Windsor meets The Cure, via Time Team.
Its oddness could be a virtue and it certainly kept me interested but it was dessert with savoury canapés on top, with no really good palate cleanser or digestif to end on. There is a caper complete with pitchforks that pitches this towards the daft, which is a shame given the haunting creepiness that Ackroyd achieves on-and-off throughout. It was like Ackroyd couldn't decide whether he wanted this to be comedy, tragedy or philosophy, so the whole tends towards a cauldron where eye of newt is tossed in with a Snickers bar. The final flavour is weird without really managing to be wonderful.
Its oddness could be a virtue and it certainly kept me interested but it was dessert with savoury canapés on top, with no really good palate cleanser or digestif to end on. There is a caper complete with pitchforks that pitches this towards the daft, which is a shame given the haunting creepiness that Ackroyd achieves on-and-off throughout. It was like Ackroyd couldn't decide whether he wanted this to be comedy, tragedy or philosophy, so the whole tends towards a cauldron where eye of newt is tossed in with a Snickers bar. The final flavour is weird without really managing to be wonderful.
March 2, 2021
An astronomer works nights in an observatory in Dorset. Nearby an archaeologist with a crippled wife excavates a tumulus around which strange shapes flit. A retired TV comedian whose act is based upon the innocent malapropisms of his wife seeks a cottage he remembers. And are the local yokels comical or sinister?
It is written in the past tense, head-hopping between the PoVs of a number of characters in very short chapters. Perhaps because of the location, I felt the literary ghosts of Thomas Hardy and John Cowper Powys.
In some ways this is typical of much of Ackroyd's work: normal life encounters a supernatural element. There are some extravagant, almost Dickensian characters (the city-living representative from the government who pretends to be wildly enthusiastic about everything as a PR technique was my favourite) and the exuberance of the portrayal more than compensated for the stereotyping (of, for example, the farmer, the camp antique dealer, and the comedian). But the plot seemed very hackneyed: archaeologists disturb ancient and occult powers.
It is written in the past tense, head-hopping between the PoVs of a number of characters in very short chapters. Perhaps because of the location, I felt the literary ghosts of Thomas Hardy and John Cowper Powys.
In some ways this is typical of much of Ackroyd's work: normal life encounters a supernatural element. There are some extravagant, almost Dickensian characters (the city-living representative from the government who pretends to be wildly enthusiastic about everything as a PR technique was my favourite) and the exuberance of the portrayal more than compensated for the stereotyping (of, for example, the farmer, the camp antique dealer, and the comedian). But the plot seemed very hackneyed: archaeologists disturb ancient and occult powers.
June 2, 2024
It was intriguing and kept me reading for the whole novel. The intricate mixing of different people's lives and the connection with the archaeological find was also interesting. However, the gay couple were portrayed oddly and I could never fathom their personalities, so a lot of their actions seemed out of place. I was disappointed with the ending as it incorporated a very different explanation that had never been previously mentioned or touched on, while other parts of unfinished story seemed to just fade into oblivion with no conclusion.
February 11, 2017
Ackroyd is a writer of some standing. I actually enjoy his nonfiction to his fiction. I liked the idea of this book- the mixture of archaeology and astronomy was intriguing to me, but I found his characters and their dialogue stilted and unrealistic and the ultimate conclusion unconvincing and and unsatisfying. Their were many lovely descriptions and ideas, but overall it was a little disappointing.
February 9, 2023
Archeology and Sci Fi and pondering human existence? I'm sold.
"so everything connects? Everything is part of a pattern."
"Yes. If only we knew what it was. But I suppose, I suppose that we could only see the pattern if we were outside it. And in that case we would have ceased to exist. So all we can do is make up our stories.
We don't know more than ancient astronomers. We just know different things."
"so everything connects? Everything is part of a pattern."
"Yes. If only we knew what it was. But I suppose, I suppose that we could only see the pattern if we were outside it. And in that case we would have ceased to exist. So all we can do is make up our stories.
We don't know more than ancient astronomers. We just know different things."
December 18, 2021
Sounds great but I don't remember it
November 18, 2023
Campery collides with philosophical contemplation of the universe and a sitcom worthy cast of characters entertains en route to Ackroyd's trademark haunting residues, post-read.
February 27, 2011
CHECKED OUT THE BOOK FROM MY PUBLIC LIBRARY.
Review/Rating:
3 out of 5
With the discovery of an ancient astronomically aligned grave site in Dorset, everyone is excited over it — well, pretty much everyone. You see, something or someone is doing its best to sabotage and scare the archaeologists, led by Mark Clare, from digging there and Pilgrin Valley. How is it that something as small as a grave site will bring together a group of people, who seem to have nothing in common with each other?
I’ll be honest with you. I absolutely hated this book. :| And it isn’t because of a lack of descriptions, which I love to have in the novels I read. I’ll continue with the reasons why I didn’t like the book in another paragraph since there are a lot of them. :( Oh, yeah, there might be some spoilers about the book toward the end of the review. :X
The first thing I didn’t like about this book is that it was really redundant, which is one of the reasons why the book was extremely slow-moving. The slow-moving plot is another thing I didn’t like about the book. It took about 100 pages just to get the characters digging and for the something/someone to sabotage the dig. Then, it went back to slow-moving until the last couple of chapters. The slow-moving gets kind of annoying, so I suggest just reading 20 pages each time you read, then take a break, and then start reading again. It kind of eases the pain of it. ;) Oh, also, the book kind of jumps from one point to another, which may confuse you if you don’t take breaks to think about it.
Another thing, I found the characters rather, umm, boring and depressing. I’m used to reading books where it shows different personalities for each character, like them being happy, sad, etc. In this book, they remain their depressing selves. I can just imagine a frown on all their faces everyday.I think that’s also what made it slow-moving because the characters were a little too depressing for me. :(
That’s pretty much the only things I didn’t like about this novel, now for the things I did like about it. Even though it is very slow-moving, the characters are depressing, and very little action, I liked how the descriptions were always there, no matter how boring it got. I know I say the book is “boring”, but in a weird way, it isn’t. The author uses poetry, metaphors, descriptions that make it a little less boring, and the author also uses the poetry to bring out a deeper meaning than just having a plot.
I read online that some people might be confused about the ending of the book. I have my own opinions about what it means. Think about it like this the theme mostly is about stars and how everything is connected in some sort of way, it is also about time, change, and death. At the end of the book, the characters realize that even though their find is old, the person’s family, still has the right to send them back to the sky to be stars (which you may say God, in some sort of way). Also, that as stars, the souls can still be with their loved ones and watch over them. And that to see every star (soul) in the sky, will be nothing but light, which is what one of the characters sees at the end of the book. Well, I that’s what I think what the ending means, whether it is right or not, I don’t know.
Also, I know I put “supernatural” and “horror” as the genre, but it isn’t really supernatural or horror. I just put that because of the summary on the back of the book. Unless you scare easily or are very superstitious, it won’t be those genre for you. :)
I rated it a three mostly because of the deeper meaning… I would have rated it a two, that is, if it didn’t have that deeper meaning that I like so much. ;) So don’t read, if you don’t like slow-moving, redundant novels. Also, you have to figure out the deeper meaning to really enjoy the book, but you have to get through the parts I found annoying first. :D
Review/Rating:
3 out of 5
With the discovery of an ancient astronomically aligned grave site in Dorset, everyone is excited over it — well, pretty much everyone. You see, something or someone is doing its best to sabotage and scare the archaeologists, led by Mark Clare, from digging there and Pilgrin Valley. How is it that something as small as a grave site will bring together a group of people, who seem to have nothing in common with each other?
I’ll be honest with you. I absolutely hated this book. :| And it isn’t because of a lack of descriptions, which I love to have in the novels I read. I’ll continue with the reasons why I didn’t like the book in another paragraph since there are a lot of them. :( Oh, yeah, there might be some spoilers about the book toward the end of the review. :X
The first thing I didn’t like about this book is that it was really redundant, which is one of the reasons why the book was extremely slow-moving. The slow-moving plot is another thing I didn’t like about the book. It took about 100 pages just to get the characters digging and for the something/someone to sabotage the dig. Then, it went back to slow-moving until the last couple of chapters. The slow-moving gets kind of annoying, so I suggest just reading 20 pages each time you read, then take a break, and then start reading again. It kind of eases the pain of it. ;) Oh, also, the book kind of jumps from one point to another, which may confuse you if you don’t take breaks to think about it.
Another thing, I found the characters rather, umm, boring and depressing. I’m used to reading books where it shows different personalities for each character, like them being happy, sad, etc. In this book, they remain their depressing selves. I can just imagine a frown on all their faces everyday.I think that’s also what made it slow-moving because the characters were a little too depressing for me. :(
That’s pretty much the only things I didn’t like about this novel, now for the things I did like about it. Even though it is very slow-moving, the characters are depressing, and very little action, I liked how the descriptions were always there, no matter how boring it got. I know I say the book is “boring”, but in a weird way, it isn’t. The author uses poetry, metaphors, descriptions that make it a little less boring, and the author also uses the poetry to bring out a deeper meaning than just having a plot.
I read online that some people might be confused about the ending of the book. I have my own opinions about what it means. Think about it like this the theme mostly is about stars and how everything is connected in some sort of way, it is also about time, change, and death. At the end of the book, the characters realize that even though their find is old, the person’s family, still has the right to send them back to the sky to be stars (which you may say God, in some sort of way). Also, that as stars, the souls can still be with their loved ones and watch over them. And that to see every star (soul) in the sky, will be nothing but light, which is what one of the characters sees at the end of the book. Well, I that’s what I think what the ending means, whether it is right or not, I don’t know.
Also, I know I put “supernatural” and “horror” as the genre, but it isn’t really supernatural or horror. I just put that because of the summary on the back of the book. Unless you scare easily or are very superstitious, it won’t be those genre for you. :)
I rated it a three mostly because of the deeper meaning… I would have rated it a two, that is, if it didn’t have that deeper meaning that I like so much. ;) So don’t read, if you don’t like slow-moving, redundant novels. Also, you have to figure out the deeper meaning to really enjoy the book, but you have to get through the parts I found annoying first. :D
January 28, 2024
I am re-reading this as a precursor to re-reading Philip Pullman's out-of-print and disowned first novel The Haunted Storm. When I read The Haunted Storm it put me in mind of to other novels I had read, one was this one, Peter Ackroyd's First Light, and one was The Bell. I'll read them both again before coming back to The Haunted Storm.
At first I wondered why the fourth (?) novel by a famous author would be out-of-print, but though I enjoyed it I have come away from this second reading a bit bemused. The almost mystical obsession with astronomy, the blend of funny and mystical, … it didn't quite work.
At first I wondered why the fourth (?) novel by a famous author would be out-of-print, but though I enjoyed it I have come away from this second reading a bit bemused. The almost mystical obsession with astronomy, the blend of funny and mystical, … it didn't quite work.
August 5, 2016
In which, notwithstanding the lack of an actual murder, Peter Ackroyd does 'Midsomer Murders'.
This is a weird book, all the more so because it seems so un-weird compared to Ackroyd's usual stuff. It's almost a mainstream story. It features characters who engage in dialogue of the modern-day variety. No historical characters are involved. Granted, most people are engulfed with the weight of melancholy for much of the time, and the Astronomer Damian Fall has been written by the automatic Peter Ackroyd character-generation bot. And, this being Ackroyd, Dorset can't just be Dorset, but is a mysterious landscape whose history is bored into its very rocks, where generations of (etc, etc).
In Martha Temple, Ackroyd's created a character of joyous loathsomeness - I wanted another side of hers to emerge. And I had this nagging feeling that the pacing didn't quite work; the later bits should have come a little earlier and so long. And when, in the final standoff, the rural farmer shouts to his son: 'get the pitchforks!' you can't help but laugh at the dialogue, although the other characters are laughing with us - the clunkiness is deliberate, and the sound of an author having fun. So not 'The Wicker Man' but rather 'Midsomer Murders' - and all very enjoyable.
This is a weird book, all the more so because it seems so un-weird compared to Ackroyd's usual stuff. It's almost a mainstream story. It features characters who engage in dialogue of the modern-day variety. No historical characters are involved. Granted, most people are engulfed with the weight of melancholy for much of the time, and the Astronomer Damian Fall has been written by the automatic Peter Ackroyd character-generation bot. And, this being Ackroyd, Dorset can't just be Dorset, but is a mysterious landscape whose history is bored into its very rocks, where generations of (etc, etc).
In Martha Temple, Ackroyd's created a character of joyous loathsomeness - I wanted another side of hers to emerge. And I had this nagging feeling that the pacing didn't quite work; the later bits should have come a little earlier and so long. And when, in the final standoff, the rural farmer shouts to his son: 'get the pitchforks!' you can't help but laugh at the dialogue, although the other characters are laughing with us - the clunkiness is deliberate, and the sound of an author having fun. So not 'The Wicker Man' but rather 'Midsomer Murders' - and all very enjoyable.
January 13, 2016
Ackroyd's "mystic" novels are always good reads, mixing threads across history - the influence of the past on the present - with dark and threatening plots. Hawksmoor is perhaps the most effective of these. First Light certainly has its good share of suspense and mystery, so it draws the reader on in its at times frenetic pace
First Light brings in a lot of humour and that helps increase the tension built up in the central plot. But the characters - not all of them minor! - creating this light-hearted (at times burlesque, in the original English meaning of the word) environment are often too big, too dominant in the story. What could (or perhaps should) have been incidental highlights make the main focus seem less important. Is it a threatening, dark and complex thriller, or a comedy? Well it feels like neither, really.
It is a good read, though. I liked it and might easily have given it a four star rating if it were not for this flaw. While Dickens gets away with it in Bleak House, I'm afraid Ackroyd doesn't quite make it in First Light.
First Light brings in a lot of humour and that helps increase the tension built up in the central plot. But the characters - not all of them minor! - creating this light-hearted (at times burlesque, in the original English meaning of the word) environment are often too big, too dominant in the story. What could (or perhaps should) have been incidental highlights make the main focus seem less important. Is it a threatening, dark and complex thriller, or a comedy? Well it feels like neither, really.
It is a good read, though. I liked it and might easily have given it a four star rating if it were not for this flaw. While Dickens gets away with it in Bleak House, I'm afraid Ackroyd doesn't quite make it in First Light.
January 27, 2017
Took much longer than I thought I would to complete the book. NO credit taken away from the book though. I haven't read much science fiction but the idea of reading something with a mix of science (astronomy, archaeology), human relationships, and mystery sounded just about right.
I picked this book as a run up to reading the Foundation series from Asimov. I'm not even sure if First Light is the right place to start for it, but I'm glad I picked it. The story develops from multiple points of view and slowly culminates in one location / event. There were no lose ends through the story development and (spoiler alert) discovering that the Mints were aware of the tumulus all along and held sacred the sarcophagus inside becomes evident with about a tenth of the book to go. I was hoping for a more transcendental explanation to the happenings, but Ackroyd did not deprive me of the mystery element with his more human and simplistic conclusion.
3/5 definitely and would surely go back to reading more from him, though not immediately.
I picked this book as a run up to reading the Foundation series from Asimov. I'm not even sure if First Light is the right place to start for it, but I'm glad I picked it. The story develops from multiple points of view and slowly culminates in one location / event. There were no lose ends through the story development and (spoiler alert) discovering that the Mints were aware of the tumulus all along and held sacred the sarcophagus inside becomes evident with about a tenth of the book to go. I was hoping for a more transcendental explanation to the happenings, but Ackroyd did not deprive me of the mystery element with his more human and simplistic conclusion.
3/5 definitely and would surely go back to reading more from him, though not immediately.
January 13, 2013
I believe this was his first novel and the developmental aspect shows. Still, it is an interesting read if only because it shows some indications of Ackroyd's gifts as a writer which become much clearer in his later works of non-fiction, which include London: Biography of a City and the most recent Foundation. Ackroyd weaves history into this novel but without the deftness that is the hallmark of his later works such as Doctor Dee.
Want to read
September 17, 2011I have already developed polarity issues with this book and I haven't even read it yet. I am at once both repelled by it and, at the same time, strangely drawn to it all because of its subject matter... am bumping this toward the top of the pile in order to deal with the aforementioned issues. Time will tell.
May 21, 2009
By turns funny, grim (as befits a book echoing Thomas Hardy), eerie and above all thought-inspiring. An archaeological dig in Dorset has unexpected consequences for a broad cast of characters, some fortunate and some less so.
August 25, 2009
This book was hard for me to understand. I read it through wanting to finally find out how all the characters came together. A lot is going on as you read...many characters to follow. I still don't quite get the ending.
April 22, 2014
A delightful oddball comic novel.
If you're expecting seriousness about history, don't read it. If slapstick, farce, and 19th c. music hall humor work for you, then there's a hefty chance you'll enjoy it as much as I did.
If you're expecting seriousness about history, don't read it. If slapstick, farce, and 19th c. music hall humor work for you, then there's a hefty chance you'll enjoy it as much as I did.
May 17, 2008
Reminiscent of Robert Holdstock, but more grounded and with more sly humor. A tomb is unearthed in the English countryside - what mysteries lurk within and without?
April 7, 2011
Astronomers, anthropologists, common people: a great setting for a macabre story set in rural England.
December 6, 2012
A relatively okay book spoiled by universally dislikeable female characters.
July 6, 2013
Lots of characters that were unlikeable. A pseudo-mystical cult with archeologists. Not the worst book I've ever read, but not really worth the time.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews