[JXI]⇒ [PDF] Cormorant *OP Stephen Gregory 9781565049185 Books

Cormorant *OP Stephen Gregory 9781565049185 Books

Download As PDF : Cormorant *OP Stephen Gregory 9781565049185 Books

Cormorant *OP Stephen Gregory 9781565049185 Books

A young English family has inherited the Welsh cottage of Uncle Ian; the narrator, a disillusioned high-school teacher, hopes to use this freedom to write his masterwork novel. But Ian’s gift came with a strange clause: they can have the cottage as long as they provide for his pet cormorant and keep it alive. The bird is pure terror; not only must they contend with its flashing beak, and the gouts of s*** it projects everywhere, but there's the strange attraction between the bird and the couple's young son... To say nothing of the strange presence---Uncle Ian?---that the narrator senses lurking nearby...

Gregory's first novel is an elusive novel that withholds some of its secrets, even while dangling their presence in front of the reader. Is the bird just a bird, or is it something darker and more sinister? Is Uncle Ian haunting the family even now, or was that merely the product of a drunken imagination? If you don't mind the puzzling nature of the novel, it's really a masterful read---slow, cerebral, methodical, and drenched in eerie atmosphere, a kind of neo-Gothic very much in the style of Poe.


Tags : Cormorant *OP [Stephen Gregory] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. For a young couple, the small cottage tucked away in a quiet village in the mountains of north Wales,Stephen Gregory,Cormorant *OP,White Wolf Publishing,1565049187,0929-WS0601-A03010-1565049187,Horror - General,Fiction,Fiction - Horror,Fiction Horror,Fiction Science Fiction General,Horror,Horror & Ghost Stories,Horror & supernatural fiction

Cormorant *OP Stephen Gregory 9781565049185 Books Reviews

Excellent slow-burn horror. I'd definitely like to read more of his work.
The first thing I'd like to say is that the writing in this book is simply brilliant! While very adept at creating the perfect atmosphere, Gregory is at times almost poetic in some of his descriptions. This story begins with with the death of reclusive "Uncle Ian", who leaves to a young couple his cottage in North Wales--contingent upon the condition that they take care of his pet cormorant.

For those not familiar with a cormorant, Gregory's words truly bring it to life in every sense of the word. A large, black scavenger bird with a vicious horned beak capable of breaking fingers; with the exception of its grace when diving in the water, this bird had virtually no redeeming qualities. Gregory states <b><i>"The cormorant was a lout, a glutton, an ignorant tyrant. It affected nothing else."</b></i> One of the descriptive passages that I found most enlightening was the telling of what the other sea-gulls thought, upon seeing "Archie" <b><i>"It came and went in the company of a man, not his slave, for they had seen him retreat from the wild beak, but in the company of people. It was more than the cormorants along the shore....immeasurably more than the biggest of the black-birds or the oldest raven. The gulls swooped down to see. They recoiled from something they could not understand." </b></i>

The tension in this story starts up from the very first page, and seductively lures you in. Even in the lulls created by "Archie's" unpredictable behavior, you know that something horrible--yet not quite namable--is on the horizon. I won't give away any of the plot for this novel, except to say that it was an engaging read all along; one that had me unable to guess its ultimate conclusion at any point.

In summary of the "pet" cormorant <b><i>"But this bird made an art of being vile."</b></i>. That, very accurately, sums it up.

Highly recommended!
I'd heard many good things about this novel. I did like the prose style. Matter of fact when it needed to be, just enough exposition when it mattered. But the plot was predictable and I didn't feel much of anything but disappointment by the time I got to the end (and rushing to do so by that point).
I will probably always remember this book. And I will definitely read everything this man has written, or at least everything I can get my hands on.
For a young couple, being left an inheritance in their bachelor Uncle Ian's will of a cottage in Wales means the financial freedom to sell their house and live in relative comfort. While Ian's nephew stays at home writing a history textbook and watches over their eleven-month old son Harry, his wife, Ann, gets a job at a local pub. The will has one "binding condition," however the couple must take care of Ian's pet cormorant. It doesn't appear to be too much of a demand for the couple until the bird arrives in a box at the cottage a week after they have moved in and they discover they have a bird "as ugly and as poisonous as a vampire bat" in their midst with even more terrifying consequences ahead of them.

The Cormorant (1986) is Welsh writer Stephen Gregory's first novel. Gregory (b. 1952) has written five horror novels to date. The Cormorant "received the 1987 Somerset Maugham Award, and, in 1993, the BBC made it into a film, starring Ralph Fiennes, which won two BAFTA Cymru awards" [...]. In his Introduction to the new Valancourt edition, Gregory explains "Birds, and the wild countryside, especially the woods and beaches and mountains of Wales... it's the material I've loved to work with and use as the setting for my stories. One review had said that my writing was a fusion of Stephen King and the English nature-poet Ted Hughes..." Gregory tells of being "homesick in North Africa, twenty-three years old and teaching English in a shabby, sidestreet language school... longing to be home in England or breathing the salt air of a beach in Wales." Gregory finds himself writing a poem about a cormorant, "trying to catch the paradox of the bird, its dual nature... its satanic silhouette as it stood on the rocks and dried its cloak of wings, its silvery sleekness as it dived and hunted underwater." Years later as he begins to write a book, he returns to the cormorant "The same essential paradox of the bird intrigued me. Its dual nature--its beauty in the water and yet its sinister gluttony--appealed to me as the subject for another, longer story. Through my first winter in the Welsh mountains I wrote and re-wrote the novel, it grew darker and odder in its rewriting..."

As the narrator of The Cormorant accepts the "strange gift" as well as the "bizarre duty" of taking care of the bird and begins to gain "growing confidence with Archie" (the name given to the bird), bonding with the eighteen-month-old bird as did the man's uncle, the reader develops a growing sense that all is not right with this creature and that danger for the family hangs on a tail feather or upon the flash of Archie's three-inch beak, "an impressive weapon of heavy horn." Adding to the suspense of the novel is that while Ann will have nothing to do with the bird or its care, Gregory's narrator appears to be totally oblivious of any possible danger and lulled into a sense of security around the bird.

Readers are also bound to note that for a first novel, The Cormorant is not only well written, but contains some strikingly well-crafted passages. Something as simple as a jet howling overhead leaving "behind a thunder of bruised air" leaps out from the page. Gregory excels at describing domestic tranquility as well as the chaos and discord that the antics of Archie can abruptly cause. The author vividly portrays the contradiction of the cormorant in the sea near the beach of Caernarfon the bird becomes a graceful and even beautiful, efficient predator. On land "away from water, it was ungainly and crude." Gregory also displays moments of incredible restraint, at times choosing to describe intact portions of entities allowing the reader's imagination to provide gruesome details of what Gregory has chosen not to describe. Such writing is quite effective.

As the novel progresses Gregory throws in some taunting foreshadowing spiced with tones of the supernatural as events begin to transpire, hurling readers toward a climax that is not altogether unexpected, but still shocking none the less. The Cormorant is a fast read and at times the cliché, nail-biter, applies to the book as well. The Cormorant is definitely a treat for horror and suspense fans. Perhaps not so much for bird lovers!
I picked it up and was locked into this beautiful dark tale from start to finish, as obsessed with the story as the main character is with his cormorant. The author's empathy for everyone, including the bird, is what adds the complexity that makes this a truly disturbing work. I'm amazed I hadn't heard of it before and so very glad I found it.
A young English family has inherited the Welsh cottage of Uncle Ian; the narrator, a disillusioned high-school teacher, hopes to use this freedom to write his masterwork novel. But Ian’s gift came with a strange clause they can have the cottage as long as they provide for his pet cormorant and keep it alive. The bird is pure terror; not only must they contend with its flashing beak, and the gouts of s*** it projects everywhere, but there's the strange attraction between the bird and the couple's young son... To say nothing of the strange presence---Uncle Ian?---that the narrator senses lurking nearby...

Gregory's first novel is an elusive novel that withholds some of its secrets, even while dangling their presence in front of the reader. Is the bird just a bird, or is it something darker and more sinister? Is Uncle Ian haunting the family even now, or was that merely the product of a drunken imagination? If you don't mind the puzzling nature of the novel, it's really a masterful read---slow, cerebral, methodical, and drenched in eerie atmosphere, a kind of neo-Gothic very much in the style of Poe.