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Shining at the Bottom of the Sea
An evocative tale told through an anthology-style series of pamphlets, literary journals, and other cultural publications introduces the island nation of Sanjania, a fictional region inspired by the literary traditions of English-speaking nations. By the author of Raymond and Hannah.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2007
About the author
Stephen Marche
19 books165 followersStephen Marche is the author of The Unmade Bed (2016), The Hunger of the Wolf (2015), Love and the Mess We’re In (2013), How Shakespeare Changed Everything (2012), Shining at the Bottom of the Sea (2007) and Raymond and Hannah (2005). He's written for nearly every newspaper and magazine you can name.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
June 22, 2021
Marche really pulled off quite a feat here, creating all the entries, commentary, and bibliography notes for a varied anthology of literature from Sanjania's time as a (supposed) British colony through to the modern day/after their independence. He charts the literary history of this imaginary place, assuming that the reader will "know" enough to appreciate the selections curated for this anthology (especially if the reader is at all familiar with any of the island nations that were once a part of the British empire). Marche also weaves in some true people/places/events in the selections, making the imaginary feel even more real. Fans of history &/or literature especially will find this a very clever & well-done book.
October 31, 2016
What a remarkable book. As Marche himself says In his entirely fictitious preface (pg 17): “You have never read anything like it”.
Sanjania is an entirely fictitious creation of the author’s imagination, but it is a testament to quality of his creation that I would really like to go to this small island in the North Atlantic.
Whilst people like J R R Tolkien rightly gain admiration for their creation of fictitious lands, Marche’s deserves special commendation because he has made it part of the real world that you and I read about in real world history books. Marche has embedded his creation in real geography and real history. As you read, you honestly start to feel that it is you at fault because you haven’t heard of this place. Several times, I reached for my iPad to Google an event only to remember at the last minute that it was all made up!
It is possible that this book might be considered rather too much of an intellectual exercise. And your view on that will affect your overall view of the book. But it is so very clever. Marche starts with a made up preface that introduces some of the history and background of Sanjay Island that became Sanjania when it gained independence. The snippets of information he drops into this preface then reappear in the main stories alongside other cultural facts that are not explained. Marche assumes you know enough real world history to understand his references to events outside Sanjania. He assumes you will be fascinated by fake footnotes referencing other documents that do not exist but which, if they did exist, would provide further background and would explain some of literary arguments that rage in the (entirely fictitious) Sanjanian literary world.
Once he has set up his central conceit, Marche presents us with an anthology of writings drawn from Sanjania's history. Starting with some of the writings of the fictioneers, he moves forward in time until he reaches the writings pulled from the current Sanjanian Diaspora. The timespan and the different types of writing give great freedom for Marche to write in different styles and to give free reign to his wildly vivid imagination!
As I say, you may find this an exercise too far in cleverness. I didn't. I haven't had so much fun reading a book for a long time.
Sanjania is an entirely fictitious creation of the author’s imagination, but it is a testament to quality of his creation that I would really like to go to this small island in the North Atlantic.
Whilst people like J R R Tolkien rightly gain admiration for their creation of fictitious lands, Marche’s deserves special commendation because he has made it part of the real world that you and I read about in real world history books. Marche has embedded his creation in real geography and real history. As you read, you honestly start to feel that it is you at fault because you haven’t heard of this place. Several times, I reached for my iPad to Google an event only to remember at the last minute that it was all made up!
It is possible that this book might be considered rather too much of an intellectual exercise. And your view on that will affect your overall view of the book. But it is so very clever. Marche starts with a made up preface that introduces some of the history and background of Sanjay Island that became Sanjania when it gained independence. The snippets of information he drops into this preface then reappear in the main stories alongside other cultural facts that are not explained. Marche assumes you know enough real world history to understand his references to events outside Sanjania. He assumes you will be fascinated by fake footnotes referencing other documents that do not exist but which, if they did exist, would provide further background and would explain some of literary arguments that rage in the (entirely fictitious) Sanjanian literary world.
Once he has set up his central conceit, Marche presents us with an anthology of writings drawn from Sanjania's history. Starting with some of the writings of the fictioneers, he moves forward in time until he reaches the writings pulled from the current Sanjanian Diaspora. The timespan and the different types of writing give great freedom for Marche to write in different styles and to give free reign to his wildly vivid imagination!
As I say, you may find this an exercise too far in cleverness. I didn't. I haven't had so much fun reading a book for a long time.
January 2, 2009
Marche has concocted a fictive anthology of the imagined national literature of a pretend island in the North Atlantic, Sanjania, a purported former British colony: a fiction from first to last page, from Foreward and Preface to Biographical Notes and Acknowledgements. At first I was skeptical of the conceit but Marche pulls it off, I think with grace, wit and an impressive ability to shift style and voice to create not just distinctive characters but distinctive authors. This is a book, however, that could only have been written by someone who has passed through or is ensconced within literary academia, with its isms and theories and periods. In the past, I haven’t been impressed with other authors attempts to write, for example, 19th century novel sound-alikes (in this case, it would have been faux post-colonial lit), but Marche’s hand here is light and deft, which is why I believe he succeeds in what might have been only an imitative tour de force. Instead, this book reads as an original.
November 15, 2007
(My full review of this book is much longer than the excerpt posted below; find it at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com].)
There is of course a long and proud tradition here in the West of elaborate histories concerning made-up places; take JRR Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" series, as perhaps the most famous example of all. But now imagine that the made-up land in question is designed deliberately to mix with our real world, geography and history -- for example, that your particular made-up land is supposed to be a part of the British Commonwealth, just a part that doesn't actually exist in the real world, originally part of the British Empire in the same way that Bermuda, Jamaica and New Zealand became members of the Empire and then Commonwealth too. Imagine an island in the middle of the North Atlantic, one that became crucial in the 1600s for British sailors making their way from the Continent to America, and has been part of British history ever since; a place where the citizens themselves are the same bronze natives like you find in the British Caribbean, but who have cultivated a culture at their island almost exactly like Ireland's craggy fishing coast, complete with Victorian lighthouses and big burly wool sweaters.
Picture that, ladies and gentlemen, and you're starting to correctly picture the latest mindblowing novel by the multi-talented writer Stephen Marche, the made-up literary anthology Shining at the Bottom of the Sea, which purportedly is both a folk history and a survey of arts concerning the exact kind of fictional North Atlantic British colony and later independent nation just mentioned. Known as "Sanjan Island" during its colonial period and "Sanjania" after independence, it is a place that shares many traits of other former UK colonies but that combines these traits in odd and unique ways; a remote island known mostly as a trading and military port for far-flung sailors, but more like Iceland or Greenland in makeup than the British ports of the South Seas, although with still as glorious and complex a history concerning their British overlords as any equatorial paradise.
In fact, turns out that there's a unique detail to Sanjania's history as well, one that makes it stand out among all of the Commonwealth nations...
There is of course a long and proud tradition here in the West of elaborate histories concerning made-up places; take JRR Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" series, as perhaps the most famous example of all. But now imagine that the made-up land in question is designed deliberately to mix with our real world, geography and history -- for example, that your particular made-up land is supposed to be a part of the British Commonwealth, just a part that doesn't actually exist in the real world, originally part of the British Empire in the same way that Bermuda, Jamaica and New Zealand became members of the Empire and then Commonwealth too. Imagine an island in the middle of the North Atlantic, one that became crucial in the 1600s for British sailors making their way from the Continent to America, and has been part of British history ever since; a place where the citizens themselves are the same bronze natives like you find in the British Caribbean, but who have cultivated a culture at their island almost exactly like Ireland's craggy fishing coast, complete with Victorian lighthouses and big burly wool sweaters.
Picture that, ladies and gentlemen, and you're starting to correctly picture the latest mindblowing novel by the multi-talented writer Stephen Marche, the made-up literary anthology Shining at the Bottom of the Sea, which purportedly is both a folk history and a survey of arts concerning the exact kind of fictional North Atlantic British colony and later independent nation just mentioned. Known as "Sanjan Island" during its colonial period and "Sanjania" after independence, it is a place that shares many traits of other former UK colonies but that combines these traits in odd and unique ways; a remote island known mostly as a trading and military port for far-flung sailors, but more like Iceland or Greenland in makeup than the British ports of the South Seas, although with still as glorious and complex a history concerning their British overlords as any equatorial paradise.
In fact, turns out that there's a unique detail to Sanjania's history as well, one that makes it stand out among all of the Commonwealth nations...
August 9, 2011
I picked up this book solely on the precis on the dust jacket. I was curious - could the author pull off this conceit, or would it simply turn out to be a clever gimmick that went horribly wrong? I must say I was MORE than impressed by this clever yet READABLE "novel". Its very form makes me question what constitutes a novel.
There is no linear plot, per se. Instead, the book is an anthology of short stories which chronicle the history of literature on the fictitious island of Sanjania. And yet, these short (fictional) stories by (fictitious) Sanjanian authors manage to evoke for the reader a believable history of the island while giving him a feel for the life and customs of its people. Extraordinary.
Mr. Marche easily changes stylistic hats - and the breadth of his writing style is truly astonishing. While it may be true that not ALL of the stories are first rate (perhaps intentional?) there are quite a number which have a freshness that I found quite appealing.
I cannot think of another book which has so pleasantly surprised me in recent memory. A truly delightful book.
There is no linear plot, per se. Instead, the book is an anthology of short stories which chronicle the history of literature on the fictitious island of Sanjania. And yet, these short (fictional) stories by (fictitious) Sanjanian authors manage to evoke for the reader a believable history of the island while giving him a feel for the life and customs of its people. Extraordinary.
Mr. Marche easily changes stylistic hats - and the breadth of his writing style is truly astonishing. While it may be true that not ALL of the stories are first rate (perhaps intentional?) there are quite a number which have a freshness that I found quite appealing.
I cannot think of another book which has so pleasantly surprised me in recent memory. A truly delightful book.
May 4, 2008
Following on Possession, another work of alternate literary history, this time an anthology of literature from an imaginary North Atlantic island country called Sanjania (Sanjan Island before that, Saint John Island sometime when the first Europeans stumbled upon it). Because so few people seem to have taken much interest in this book, I'm going to assume it was written for me: it's at once deeply bookwormish and deeply concerned with the role of place in literature, which is one of my primary preoccupations. But I'd love it if someone else would read it! There's so much going on here: an affectionate sendup of the development of literary writing over the last 150 years (complete with an anecdote about having dinner with Derrida), a multi-voiced meditation on home and exile, the ghost of a nation's history filled in here and there by clues in the stories, the preface, the pseudo-biographical notes on the authors, and the section of criticism at the end. I read this book from beginning to end, but I also did a lot of flipping back and forth to make better sense of the story behind the stories.
The fictions themselves are mostly very short and they vary a lot. Some of them don't hold much interest (for me, anyway) beyond the way they fit into the larger narrative--okay, this is your Sherlock Holmes ripoff, got it--but others are quite lovely. If Marche has a point to make with this project, it's not obvious; he undercuts his own authorship every which way, giving himself both good and bad reviews, filling the book with short fiction and then saying that the country's main literary culture is really found in theater. Whoever reviewed this book for Publishers Weekly thought that the Sanjanian literature went drastically down in quality as the twentieth century proceeded, and that this might be Marche's comment on twentieth-century literary trends. But two of those late pieces, "Histories of Aenea by Various Things" and "A Wedding in Restitution," were my personal favorites--and "To Be Read at the Hour of Independence" is a breathtaking commemoration/anticipation of a historical event that, of course, never happened.
Overall I can't resist giving this book five stars, even if it has limited appeal and even if I don't know what the heck the author was trying to do, just because I don't know when I've seen a world so convincingly invented in less than 300 pages. (Two five-star reviews of literary novels in a row: I think this is a first since I joined this website.)
The fictions themselves are mostly very short and they vary a lot. Some of them don't hold much interest (for me, anyway) beyond the way they fit into the larger narrative--okay, this is your Sherlock Holmes ripoff, got it--but others are quite lovely. If Marche has a point to make with this project, it's not obvious; he undercuts his own authorship every which way, giving himself both good and bad reviews, filling the book with short fiction and then saying that the country's main literary culture is really found in theater. Whoever reviewed this book for Publishers Weekly thought that the Sanjanian literature went drastically down in quality as the twentieth century proceeded, and that this might be Marche's comment on twentieth-century literary trends. But two of those late pieces, "Histories of Aenea by Various Things" and "A Wedding in Restitution," were my personal favorites--and "To Be Read at the Hour of Independence" is a breathtaking commemoration/anticipation of a historical event that, of course, never happened.
Overall I can't resist giving this book five stars, even if it has limited appeal and even if I don't know what the heck the author was trying to do, just because I don't know when I've seen a world so convincingly invented in less than 300 pages. (Two five-star reviews of literary novels in a row: I think this is a first since I joined this website.)
March 13, 2017
34. Shining at the Bottom of the Sea by Stephen Marche
I like complicated books and stories but this was ridiculous. Marche has invented a tiny island nation, Sanjania. with tragedies, traditions, literature and criticism. One of the stories shows up as a film later, and the two reviews of it are conflicting. Do not put this book down for over a week, or you will have to go back and reread. I found it too confusing and too much work for too little reward. I really wanted to like it, but it was too much of a put on. It reeks of academia, and reminded me o1f a novel I didn’t finish because it had footnotes on every second page. Not enough fiction and too much commentary. This was not a novel, it was a conceit.
I like complicated books and stories but this was ridiculous. Marche has invented a tiny island nation, Sanjania. with tragedies, traditions, literature and criticism. One of the stories shows up as a film later, and the two reviews of it are conflicting. Do not put this book down for over a week, or you will have to go back and reread. I found it too confusing and too much work for too little reward. I really wanted to like it, but it was too much of a put on. It reeks of academia, and reminded me o1f a novel I didn’t finish because it had footnotes on every second page. Not enough fiction and too much commentary. This was not a novel, it was a conceit.
March 28, 2008
Shining at the Bottom of the Sea definitely gets points for originality. Marche actually invents an island called Sanjania, and creates not only a history , but a literary history as well. Basically, this book is a collection of short stories that reflect Sanjania's history. The stories start out with unique dialect that portrays the early 1900's, and slowly gets "cleaner" over the years, especially after the "Clean Movement" approach to writing that united the dialects of different coves into one that all could understand.
In a completly OCD move on Marche's part, there is an opening forward, and ending criticisms OF HIS OWN stories. Some of this I found interesting, because you got a few helpful clues to timeline of Sanjania, but mostly is was a little too flat for my taste. Plus I couldn't quite get over the fact that Marche was essentially praising his own stories, though I have to admit I did enjoy them.
In a completly OCD move on Marche's part, there is an opening forward, and ending criticisms OF HIS OWN stories. Some of this I found interesting, because you got a few helpful clues to timeline of Sanjania, but mostly is was a little too flat for my taste. Plus I couldn't quite get over the fact that Marche was essentially praising his own stories, though I have to admit I did enjoy them.
June 22, 2009
I really wanted to like it.
July 19, 2023
There is nothing wrong with this book as far as I got. It has the voice of a textbook and I just didn't feel I was going to enjoy that for a whole book. As a concept, it's quite interesting. I just don't think I'm the person for this book and I hope it finds a new home with someone who'll enjoy it.
October 19, 2010
The structure of this book is intriguing - Marche has made up an entire island nation in the North Atlantic, part of the British Commonwealth, and created an anthology of writings as well as a literary history and literary criticism. Some of the selections are particularly fun - A Wedding in Restitution reminded me a bit of the fantastical stories with a grain of truth from the movie Big Fish - and there is a criticism of Robinson Crusoe purportedly written by Friday which is delightful. The Master's Dog is a poignant contrast between the locals and the colonial masters, and may be my favorite. Not all the stories hold up, but all the pieces are short enough to just get to the next one.
To some degree I am reminded of the defensiveness of smaller countries about their culture (and would include Canada in this - Marche is Canadian) - comes the question of whether individual pieces would stand up other than part of trying to pull together a body of writing. (Some of the earlier stuff in the US, at least when I was in school, fell into that category - stuff like extracts from Poor Richard's Almanac and Thoreau essays that I don't think would ever be noticed again in a larger body of writing, like say the UK or France at the same point) but the details of the island, and the seaward orientation of isolated cove communities, are well-imagined indeed.
To some degree I am reminded of the defensiveness of smaller countries about their culture (and would include Canada in this - Marche is Canadian) - comes the question of whether individual pieces would stand up other than part of trying to pull together a body of writing. (Some of the earlier stuff in the US, at least when I was in school, fell into that category - stuff like extracts from Poor Richard's Almanac and Thoreau essays that I don't think would ever be noticed again in a larger body of writing, like say the UK or France at the same point) but the details of the island, and the seaward orientation of isolated cove communities, are well-imagined indeed.
March 22, 2009
Upon my second reading, Shining at the Bottom of the Sea proved to be just as enchanting as it was at first. This is a staggeringly inventive collection of fictional short stories, pretending to be a scholarly collection of the best short stories from Sanjania, a small independent island in the North Atlantic. If I knew a little less about the world, reading this book would compel me to buy a ticket to Sanjania on the next plane. Knowing as I do that this is a work of fiction is strangely disappointing: I'll never travel from remote Sanjanian cove to remote Sanjanian cove by "geevee," savoring the newest little short story gems. Until dreams become reality and I can tread the streets of Port Hope in reality and not just in my head, I will have to content myself with Marche's little masterpiece. I can imagine worse fates. Five scintillating stars.
December 29, 2008
Compendia always tend to be hit-or-miss; compendia of literarture from imaginary cultures probably will inevitably miss more than they hit. Some of the earlier pieces in this anthology of Sanjanian literature are engaging; as the Sanjan culture evolves into Sanjania, the stories and criticism become more pallid and didactic, which may well have been the effect Marche was aiming for, but doesn't really do the reader any favors.
Another problem, over and above the quality of the writing, is the question of plausability. What the hell would the British be doing with a slave colony in the North Atlantic, and why would they "crackdown" on the independence of a dependancy which produced no exports other than fish and literature? I know that this is work of fiction, but plausibility is every bit as important in the limning of an imaginary universe as it is the writing of non-fiction.
Another problem, over and above the quality of the writing, is the question of plausability. What the hell would the British be doing with a slave colony in the North Atlantic, and why would they "crackdown" on the independence of a dependancy which produced no exports other than fish and literature? I know that this is work of fiction, but plausibility is every bit as important in the limning of an imaginary universe as it is the writing of non-fiction.
September 3, 2007
Unrepeatably perfect. I'm a sucker for elaborate lies, but Marche succeeds on the order of Carey's Kelly Gang without even the folklore backgrounding. The man wrote a beautiful, wideranging anthology of an imaginary culture, complete with criticism. Tlon? Funeary Violin? The only way this could have been done better, is if the book didn't weren't listed as "Experimental Fiction" in the Library of Congress. Astonishing. I am astonished.
March 10, 2008
Fabulously creative. The author, via an "anthology" of the literary history of the fiction of the fictional authors of the fictional country he creates, gives you a window into a North Atlantic island culture he imagines in beautiful detail. Plus, each of the stories is written in a unique, interesting voice. The comparison to David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas is obvious and neither work suffers by its association with the other.
February 17, 2012
This book was an interesting concept about creating an imagined culture and writing an anthology style collection of that culture's most important literary works, However, it was not a page turner and took me five months to read its mere 200 pages (just because it never pulled the reader in that much). Its advanced vocabulary was well used, and it was a topic outside of my normal book choice, which I suppose made the read worthwhile.
August 22, 2015
Re-read this summer en route to Scotland and again delighted over the ambiguities of Sanjania, a fictional but so delectable and familiar British colony in the North Sea populated by archaic anglos and, apparently, natives of warmer climes. Mesmerizing and so so smart. I am one of those who appreciated the faux scholarship and painstaking footnotes even more than the strange tales themselves. Shades of Cloud Atlas (only the best shades) packaged in fine metawrap.
August 21, 2007
The author has invented and peopled a mythical but absolutely plausible island, Sanjania, and this book "collects" pamphlets and writings from various Sanjanian authors. The individual pieces are mostly very sweet, and I was fascinated by the invented patois and slang. It's a really big concept, and executed beautifully.
July 28, 2010
Due to a frustrating printing error found in all copies at both Brooklyn and New York Public Libraries, I was 70 pages away from the end of this until I broke down and bought a cheap remaindered copy from Amazon. After all that... well, the fragmented reading experience made it hard to come away with a great opinion of this, but I appreciated its inventiveness.
July 25, 2012
Torn. This had some breathtakingly beautiful passages and I appreciate the mock, Nabakovian kind of exercise of "inventing a literature" -- and it probably was handled fairly deftly -- but it's still one of those things where I'm going to have to go back and read it from almost a paper-writing perspective to completely appreciate. So probably won't.
October 30, 2013
Brilliant and devastatingly beautiful. Rich with ideas about individual and collective identity and the mystery of it. Mad respect for Marche for building a whole history and literature for a fictitious island and managing to illustrate truths of reality via magical realism. Not all of the stories grabbed me, but most of them did. And the ones that really did... Damn. They haunt me.
November 5, 2013
I really liked the idea of this book and the way that Marche has created his own fictional country. I wanted to love this book, because the vision of it is so interesting, but in practice only a few of the stories really caught my attention.
November 12, 2007
Didn't finish this. Interesting idea (an anthology of stories purporting to be by different authors from an invented country) but execution was pretentious and often quite boring.
December 20, 2010
This was really impressive as an intellectual exercise AND as separate works of fiction. I'm glad I bought it instead of getting it from the library.
January 3, 2009
Spectacular premise for a novel; a bit slow in the execution.
June 26, 2008
Wasn't so into it -- the first few stories grabbed my but they seemed to grow progressively more implausible as individual pieces of lit as they went on. . .
nifty idea, though
nifty idea, though
April 24, 2008
had to get it out of one library twice and then another to finish because of a misprint. still pretty good.
November 7, 2008
this is possibly the only book that i have read through and immediately started reading again.
actually, i know this is the only book.
actually, i know this is the only book.
December 22, 2011
Terrific idea of organizing a book and telling a story. The details and back story of characters was well done.
June 19, 2013
I didn't / couldn't finish this book. More like a chronological collection if very short stories from the same country. No characters to follow, no climax, no end in sight.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews