In the foothills of a mountain range in northern Pakistan is a beautiful orchard. Swallows wheel and dive silently over the branches, and the scent of jasmine threads through the air. Pomegranates hang heavy, their skins darkening to a deep crimson. Neglected now, the trees are beginning to grow wild, their fruit left to spoil on the branches. Many miles away, a frail young man is flung out of prison gates. Looking up, scanning the horizon for swallows in flight, he stumbles and collapses in the roadside dust. His ravaged body tells the story of fifteen years of brutality. Just one image has held and sustained him through the dark times -- the thought of the young girl who had left him dumbstruck with wonder all those years ago, whose eyes were lit up with life. A tale of tenderness in the face of great and corrupt power, In The Orchard, The Swallows is a heartbreaking novel written in prose of exquisite stillness and beauty.
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Review
Like the story itself, the style is simple and straightforward and packs a powerful punch. Beautifully crafted, tender and very, very moving. (Harry Ritchie Daily Mail 20120106)
In fine, burnished prose, Hobbs takes the reader on a beautiful, often painful, journey of a young man's doomed yearning for love ... I immensely enjoyed this fine novel. (Mirza Waheed Guardian 20120113)
... achingly moving ... Hobbs makes beautiful writing look simple; his sentences are clean, spare, unladen with excess baggage, and yet they shine like jewels ... this is a simple tale, beautifully told. (Leyla Sanai Independent 20120115)
This perfectly cut jewel of a book speaks of the indomitability of the human heart and of the salvation of the imagination when nothing else remains. (Neel Mukherjee Financial Times 20120127)
... tender, graceful but devastating ... Hobbs's gravely luminous prose delivers scenes of breath-catching beauty -- or horror. (Boyd Tonkin Independent 20120124)
Hobbs writes with clarity and purity, able to detail the horrors of his protagonist’s torture as convincingly as he can describe the beauty of a garden. (Philip Womack Telegraph 20120220)
... poetic ... the politics of this book can not be ignored ... (Mike Landry Telegraph Journal 20120414)
"...In the Orchard, the Swallows is a literary experience of rare power. " (Ian McGillis Montreal Gazette 20120419)
A honed, elegant work of casual audacity ... perfect ... (Noah Richler Maclean's 20120427)
... exquisite ... this is simple yet breathtaking storytelling. (Krista Foss Globe and Mail 20120528)
... this slim novel is dense with hope and heartbreak (Josee Lafreniere Montreal Review of Books 20120629)
In fine, burnished prose, Hobbs takes the reader on a beautiful, often painful, journey of a young man's doomed yearning for love ... I immensely enjoyed this fine novel. (Mirza Waheed Guardian 20120113)
... achingly moving ... Hobbs makes beautiful writing look simple; his sentences are clean, spare, unladen with excess baggage, and yet they shine like jewels ... this is a simple tale, beautifully told. (Leyla Sanai Independent 20120115)
This perfectly cut jewel of a book speaks of the indomitability of the human heart and of the salvation of the imagination when nothing else remains. (Neel Mukherjee Financial Times 20120127)
... tender, graceful but devastating ... Hobbs's gravely luminous prose delivers scenes of breath-catching beauty -- or horror. (Boyd Tonkin Independent 20120124)
Hobbs writes with clarity and purity, able to detail the horrors of his protagonist’s torture as convincingly as he can describe the beauty of a garden. (Philip Womack Telegraph 20120220)
... poetic ... the politics of this book can not be ignored ... (Mike Landry Telegraph Journal 20120414)
"...In the Orchard, the Swallows is a literary experience of rare power. " (Ian McGillis Montreal Gazette 20120419)
A honed, elegant work of casual audacity ... perfect ... (Noah Richler Maclean's 20120427)
... exquisite ... this is simple yet breathtaking storytelling. (Krista Foss Globe and Mail 20120528)
... this slim novel is dense with hope and heartbreak (Josee Lafreniere Montreal Review of Books 20120629)
About the Author
Peter Hobbs grew up in Cornwall and Yorkshire. His debut novel, The Short Day Dying, was published by Faber in 2005. It was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award and the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and won a Betty Trask Prize. It was also shortlisted for the 2007 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. A collection of stories, I Could Ride All Day In My Cool Blue Train, was published in 2006.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By Friederike Knabe
TOP 50 REVIEWER
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
... the smell faint but so sweet, and it came to my dulled senses as powerfully a any narcotic."
A young man returns to the orchard of his childhood, and, as he reconnects with the colours, the scents, the taste of the fruit, and the view far down into the valley, images from the past return, happy ones of his youth, his first, innocent feelings of love, and sad and painful ones from the long time away from the orchard and village down the hill. Peter Hobbs's novella, In the Orchard, the Swallows, captures the reader from the first sentences with their subtle tone and the beautiful depiction of place and vista. Very quickly we sense that during the intervening years, between childhood and now - fifteen long years - much has happened to the young man, events and encounters that demand all his energy to absorb and process so that he can slowly heal. He is weak, bruised in body and soul, and would have died if he had not been found by the gentle and generous Abbas...
Having been confined for a long time, "I would crane my neck upwards, blinking into the light, looking for the swallows." They symbolize for him the freedom he had lost but his yearning for it had not diminished. "And when I raised my head and saw them flying free, there was a feeling in my heart of something I had not known for a long time. It was joy, and it was the most painful thing I have ever felt, because it reminded me of everything we no longer owned." There is another constant thought that keeps him company and the will to survive the tortures he is subjected to: the vivid image of his beloved, Saba, the girl he felt so innocently in love with at the tender age of 14...
In fact, the novel is an ode to Love, a journal addressed to the beloved in which he recounts not only his suffering during the years away and his return, but also his memories of a happy youth and how Saba's image kept him focused on life and now keeps him company as he is on the slow road to recovery...Memory or dream? "Perhaps one day I will come to choose that it was true, so that it will become a memory, and I will forget that it was just dream."
Hobb's brief novel is written with gentleness and intensity, haunting and brutally direct at times, relaxing at others. It will remain one of the most beautiful books I have read in a while. While references are made to northern Pakistan, the story could easily be imagined in other countries in the region and beyond. Hobbs's personal story has given insights into the human body and psyche and their ability to survive and heal that are captivatingly transposed into his novel. I rarely am taken by book covers, but this one attracted me from the first glance at it. [Friederike Knabe]
A young man returns to the orchard of his childhood, and, as he reconnects with the colours, the scents, the taste of the fruit, and the view far down into the valley, images from the past return, happy ones of his youth, his first, innocent feelings of love, and sad and painful ones from the long time away from the orchard and village down the hill. Peter Hobbs's novella, In the Orchard, the Swallows, captures the reader from the first sentences with their subtle tone and the beautiful depiction of place and vista. Very quickly we sense that during the intervening years, between childhood and now - fifteen long years - much has happened to the young man, events and encounters that demand all his energy to absorb and process so that he can slowly heal. He is weak, bruised in body and soul, and would have died if he had not been found by the gentle and generous Abbas...
Having been confined for a long time, "I would crane my neck upwards, blinking into the light, looking for the swallows." They symbolize for him the freedom he had lost but his yearning for it had not diminished. "And when I raised my head and saw them flying free, there was a feeling in my heart of something I had not known for a long time. It was joy, and it was the most painful thing I have ever felt, because it reminded me of everything we no longer owned." There is another constant thought that keeps him company and the will to survive the tortures he is subjected to: the vivid image of his beloved, Saba, the girl he felt so innocently in love with at the tender age of 14...
In fact, the novel is an ode to Love, a journal addressed to the beloved in which he recounts not only his suffering during the years away and his return, but also his memories of a happy youth and how Saba's image kept him focused on life and now keeps him company as he is on the slow road to recovery...Memory or dream? "Perhaps one day I will come to choose that it was true, so that it will become a memory, and I will forget that it was just dream."
Hobb's brief novel is written with gentleness and intensity, haunting and brutally direct at times, relaxing at others. It will remain one of the most beautiful books I have read in a while. While references are made to northern Pakistan, the story could easily be imagined in other countries in the region and beyond. Hobbs's personal story has given insights into the human body and psyche and their ability to survive and heal that are captivatingly transposed into his novel. I rarely am taken by book covers, but this one attracted me from the first glance at it. [Friederike Knabe]
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
5.0 out of 5 stars
1 review
5.0 out of 5 stars
Gone, but not forgotten
Sep 10 2012
By Dave the Rave
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
I know, I know, boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy loses girl forever. Yes, it has been done before but often less successfully (e.g., The Marriage Plot).
There is an additional problem associate with appropriation of other cultures/languages voices. However, after more than 20 years of land wars in Asia, I think most people who agree that these issues have invaded North American thinking in the same way that the British involvement in the same area (quick who led the last successful invasion of Afganastan? Hint: his tittle ended with 'the Great') affected their language and culture.
Nevertheless, I thought the book moved along and offered (to the NA eye) an alternative means of recovering from Posttraumatic Stress (think of Timothy D. Wilson's book, 'Redirect' on steroids).
THBS, I would have written the final chapter to at least raise the question of whether his romance was aborted but real or the only thing that rescued him through his ordeal was an idealized fantasy of a child to young to know anything different(think Dante's Beatrice).
There is an additional problem associate with appropriation of other cultures/languages voices. However, after more than 20 years of land wars in Asia, I think most people who agree that these issues have invaded North American thinking in the same way that the British involvement in the same area (quick who led the last successful invasion of Afganastan? Hint: his tittle ended with 'the Great') affected their language and culture.
Nevertheless, I thought the book moved along and offered (to the NA eye) an alternative means of recovering from Posttraumatic Stress (think of Timothy D. Wilson's book, 'Redirect' on steroids).
THBS, I would have written the final chapter to at least raise the question of whether his romance was aborted but real or the only thing that rescued him through his ordeal was an idealized fantasy of a child to young to know anything different(think Dante's Beatrice).
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