The Colony of Unrequited Dreams

The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston is probably one of the best Half-On-Sea novels I've read since Moby-Dick. Even though I felt this way - some of the storyline aspects were a bit lacklustre and themes underdeveloped. I still enjoyed it though. 

Characters: 

Charlie Smallwood is my favourite character seeing as he is the main character from the very beginning - having quite a dramatic entry into the story and then we move backwards through a "history of the Newfoundland" and even told how to pronounce it. 

Themes:

The theme of identity and the theme of selfish/selflessness is very important here. The book talks often about who people are. For example, that Charlie Smallwood doesn't like to be simply called "Smallwood" (for reasons you will find out if you read the book). These small quirks around who people are make a good definition of character as we move through the book - giving us a foreshadowing of personalities. Another quirk is "the burning of the boots" (for reasons you will also recognise whilst reading the book). 

Storyline:

The storyline, as I said, is a little bit lacklustre. Once we start speeding up in a chapter and getting past all the description-laden sectors and the setting up of characters; the chapter seemingly ends. I believe this may be intentional by Johnston, but personally it's not my thing. 

Verdict:

I give this book 7 out of 9. 

100% for characters: I believe that Charlie Smallwood is very well presented and then very well represented by various symbols in the book. Especially the symbol of fire - which contrasts to water, but also gives light to his fiery persona that we meet later on in the book. 

2/3 for themes: I like the theme of identity - but I feel themes such as love and loss, grief, history and patriotism are are little bit underwhelming and seemingly not as important as identity. 

2/3 for storyline: As I've said twice now, "a bit lacklustre". I don't mean that it's bad - I mean that it's short chapters with little development. Well, you could read a few chapters and not have made it very far through the story. Be that as it may, the storyline did stir interest as being something done on purpose rather than something done to detach the reader without deliberation. 

Buy the book? Click here.