Migrations

Beautifully written and very moving. Among other things, it's a psychological thriller and an adventure story (i.e., following some of the remaining Arctic terns on their migration to Antarctica). Despite the book's restless, haunted narrator and its focus on mass extinction, it did not leave me feeling bleak. It raises important questions about what humans owe to the creatures with whom we share the planet, and those concerns are presented in an energizing way.

There are a lot of memorable, thought-provoking passages. For example, this one really jumped out at me: "I think of the impact of a life like that. It sounds quiet, and so small as to be invisible. ... But I know better than that. A life's impact can be measured by what it gives and what it leaves behind, but it can also be measured by what it steals from the world."

I thoroughly enjoyed it. I did about 50-50 reading and listening to the audiobook, and the narration by Barrie Kreinik was great.

I have complicated thoughts about this reading experience. Firstly, this was not what I expected. I thought this would be a contemporary fiction story about a woman's personal relationship with the world as it crumbles around her. And while there's an element of that here, this ended up being a bit more action packed with a heavy dose of mystery. This genre identity crisis is what ultimately ended up working against it.

The story had potential. Franny Stone is following what is expected to be the final migration of the last Arctic Terns. The setting is near-future where man-made climate change is decimating the ecosystem, species are going extinct by the thousands, and humanity is largely helpless in stopping it. Franny has a complicated past. Being a child of wanderlust and whimsy, she has severe commitment issues in all aspects of her life. We join her as she tries to con her way onto a fishing vessel (a detested profession) that is looking to score one final haul of the endangered Herring. Franny meets a cast of unique characters that join her on their joint venture with the promise that the Terns will lead them to the rare schools of Herring that still remain. On this journey, Franny confronts her own dark past while growing closer to her companions of circumstance.

Sounds good enough, right? Well the execution fell flat for me in some key areas. Firstly, the characterization was all over the place. One moment Franny is aloof, broody, and stoic, but the next she is emotional, immature, and girlish. This was a common theme for the whole cast of characters. They acted within their characterization until the story called for them to completely break character and act in completely unexpected ways. This wasn't done in a way that made the characters feel complex or dynamic, but rather like consistency was an afterthought.

Secondly, the pacing was very strange. There were dual (multiple?) timelines going on, which I didn't mind. But focusing on the "present day" story line, we hit the climax at about the 2/3rds mark of the book. This also marked a clear tone shift in the story with pre-climax being a slower paced contemporary fiction feel and the post-climax almost feeling like an action thriller. We also saw more time jumps in the last third of the book, which I do think helped hold my interest, but it really couldn't salvage the mess of the Arctic Tern plot which ended up feeling both rushed and slow at the same time. It was here that characterization suffered the most, being seemingly abandoned for the sake of story progression. It culminated in a completely unsatisfying end that left me scratching my head wondering why McConaghy decided to wrap it up the way that she did.

However, I do think it is worth repeating: something that I do need to give McConaghy credit for is the realistic setting that I found extremely depressing. This isn't something I hold against it: many books can be depressing but also good. But I believe this to be the most likely climate scenario for our current world, and it just makes me sad. Bearing witness to total ecological collapse while nothing substantial can be done to stop it is both sobering and infuriating to read about as we watch that reality draw closer day after day.

I didn't hate this book by a long shot. But I was disappointed by how much I didn't enjoy it.

 I wish I knew more about the formal aspects of literature, like what constitutes a plot and how to discern the main themes in a work. As far as I can tell, [a:Charlotte McConaghy|2869149|Charlotte McConaghy|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1573700805p2/2869149.jpg]'s [b:Migrations|42121525|Migrations|Charlotte McConaghy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1612818084l/42121525.SY75.jpg|65230718] sort of has a plot—a woman named Franny is out to follow what might be the last migration of Arctic terns—but it's really more of a character study of that woman. What she's like and how she got that way. And themes? In the discussion questions at the end of the edition I have, it asks about the meaning of home to Franny, yet early on she describes her life as being wherever she is and there's really no place that she would call home. Even at the end of the book she's about to go someplace else.
 I'm sounding negative but I don't mean to. The writing is great and it's often moving, and even though it skips around chronologically it's clear and easy to follow. The time jumps make sense. Being the kind of reader I am I was smacked by an error that shouldn't have been in the book. Franny's husband, Niall, tells her not to touch a crow's egg she's found because the smell of a human will keep the mother from tending to it. This is not true and comes from folklore. Birds have a weak sense of smell, and that's especially true of corvids. Why does this bother me, you ask? Because Niall is an ornithologist, that's why. How does a book so professionally produced, with all the beta readers, copy editors, friends and proofreaders get all the way to the trade paperback stage without someone catching something that a moron like me caught?
 I have to stop letting that kind of thing bother me. It's a very good book, despite its large vein of hopelessness. (It takes place in a near dystopian future.)

 But there won't be any more journeys after this one, no more oceans explored. And maybe that's why I am filled with calm. My life has been a migration without a destination, and that in itself is senseless. I leave for no reason, just to be moving, and it breaks my heart a thousand times, a million. It's a relief to at last have a purpose. I wonder what it will feel like to stop. I wonder where we go, afterward, and if we are followed. I suspect we go nowhere, and become nothing, and the only thing that saddens me about this is the idea of never seeing Niall again. We are, all of us, given such a brief moment of time together, it hardly seems fair. But it's precious, and maybe it's enough, and maybe it's right that our bodies dissolve into the earth, giving our energy back to it, feeding the little creatures in the ground and giving nutrients to the soil, and maybe it's right that our consciousness rests. The thought is peaceful.