Beyond Reality discussion

Post here to discuss Once Upon a River. Spoilers ahead!

I finished this a few days ago and thought it was beautiful! I love the way the tale was told as if we were sitting in the Swan listening to Joe or one of the other storytellers - it definitely had that folkloric feel to it, with just a touch of the maybe supernatural, and it had me spellbound. The setting made me want to go take a trip to the UK and look for the source of the Thames (I have only ever been to London before and have always wanted to visit the countryside).

The weaving together of the threads of the story was well done, and I appreciated that it stayed civil and didn't turn into a big fight between the two families over custody of the child.

The one problem I have with the book is the way that it implied that Robin Armstrong's wickedness was an inherited tendency from his biological father - although I suppose it would be a natural assumption of the time, it annoyed me. But that's a minor quibble. I will definitely be looking up more from this author. Thanks to whoever nominated this one, because it was not on my radar screen at all!

A perfectly lovely story! I was only able to borrow an audiobook from the library, and the narrator added to the fairy tale style of the piece. I was struck by the emphasis on story telling, also present in the author's The Thirteenth Tale. While it is definitely fanciful, I don't tend to think of this book as a fantasy per se. But I was very glad to read this, and only sorry that I had to read at the speed of the audiobook, and couldn't race through the pages on my own.

I particularly liked the way the different stories intertwined, like the tributaries of the river itself, and how the turns and twists in the tale surprised me even as much as they seemed to surprise our main characters.

Shel, I did see the moment when Robin's wickedness was compared to his biological father. But there was also a moment when Robert Armstrong mused that each child was his own unique person, and there was only so much one could do to influence a child.

All the remarks about the "river gypsies" bothered me. Gypsy is considered a derogatory term today, although it was in use in Victorian times. Since there weren't any gypsy characters in our story, I felt it was an unnecessary reference. But then again, it did make sense in the end.

Loved this book.

9/10
I’m glad Amazon had this on sale and I decided to buy and read it! What a wonderful story, or rather, weaving of stories into a overall tale of life, death, love, and loneliness. The saddest, to my mind, was Lily’s story, and Rita and Daunt’s story was the most interesting since they were doing most of the mystery-solving while their relationship slowly developed like one of Daunt’s photographs. And I’m glad Ben the butcher boy’s story had a happy ending, along with the surprise of Alice being found in an orphanage in London. I appreciated those little loose ends being tied up.

As for Robin—it seems he was a nasty child from the time he was very young, but his erroneous “discovery” at age 8 that his father was an earl obviously had a profound influence on his attitudes toward Robert Armstrong and what he felt life owed him and was withholding from him. His mind and heart were fertile ground for the seeds his biological father sowed while nurturing his selfishness, narcissism, lying, thieving, and general wickedness.