The Shape of Water

by Anne Spollen

'I had come to know silence well during those months after my mother died. When you sit in silence long enough, you learn that silence has a motion. It glides over you without shape or form, but with weight, exactly like water.' Magda's mother always said the world was full of strange and beautiful secrets only the two of them could see. But now she's gone and Magda's world is flooded with anxiety and loneliness - and maybe, madness. As an imaginary family of bickering fish begins to torment her, Magda's only outlet is starting beautiful but destructive fires in the marshes near her house. "The Shape of Water" is a darkly lyrical and surprising tapestry of the mundane and the surreal, in which Magda begins to untangle her family's secrets and search for a stable place in the world.

• ISBN10: 0738711012
• ISBN13: 9780738711010
• Publish Date: 8 April 2008
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 25 May 2017
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Flux
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 312
• Language: English

Reviews

[nannah]

This book was an interesting find for me. I was wandering the library, and I don't know what compelled me to pull this random black spine from the shelf, but when I did the cover just captivated me. Seriously, take a good look at that cover. It's freaking gorgeous (although, I have to admit what made me take this lovely home was the fact that the protagonist's name is Magda . . .).

Okay, so firstly, there's no mistaking that this book deals with water themes. Every other sentence has some simile or metaphor relating to water. Which is beautiful for a while, and then starts to get tedious. But don't get me wrong, Spollen's writing is lyrical, gorgeous, and can create some fantastical images. I don't think I've read anything that has so many beautiful lines. Just . . . the water thing can get a little overused.

This book, though, was beautiful. It got me sympathizing with an arsonist, of all people (with such great symbolism, too). The book bordered on surrealistic at times, too--with the fish family moving into Magda's head--, but never fully went over-the-top. Three-fourths of the way through, though, things started to drag, what with Magda's character seemingly not developing and her trudging through the same ruts where she didn't care about anybody or anything that I almost didn't want to continue reading. I'm really glad I did. The ending really wrapped things up in a wonderful, almost sad way. It was in the last few pages, and I wished it had started earlier on in the book, but there was closure with her decision to move forward with her life, and I was satisfied.

It's really like nothing that I've personally read before, so it was really refreshing, to be honest, although I'm not sure that I'd read it again . . .