Book Review: 2012 Long Listed: Alison Moore’s The Lighthouse

Rating: 3
The Lighthouse
A Novel by Alison Moore
2012 / 192 Pages

For my part of the Bookermarks Collaboration, I finished 6.5 books - all of the short list (except for the last half of Umbrella) and not counting the long listed Teleportation Accident in which I will finish sometime in the near future.  The fourth book I read was Alison Moore's The Lighthouse.  Finishing it over a month ago, I still have not written the review for it.  Why? Because I just don't know what to write about.  I liked it - but I just wasn't impressed enough with it to discuss it.  It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either.


The Lighthouse is about Futh, forty-something Englishman who embarks on a pilgrimage to Germany on a walking vacation and Ester, the proprietress of the inn in which he stays his first and last nights of the vacation.  The book alternates between Futh's recollections of the past while walking during his trip and Ester' past and present.

Futh is one of those guys that just lets life happen to him.  He is so unremarkable that not even Alison Moore, the author, will even refer to him by his first name.  Those he considers his closest friends and family don't have a second thought for him.  He doesn't even learn to drive until he is much older. A dork - a loser - someone you meet but never commit his name or face into your memory.

I can say less about Ester.  A woman who made the wrong choices and lives with them unhappily but does nothing to change or move on.

The story is interesting but bland. It has a few laugh out loud moments and it does have an interesting ending which some think is brilliant. However, I was so apathetic to the characters that the ending and its brilliance was lost on me.

So if you want a review more worthy of reading from those that seemed to care for the book more than I did - check out the reviews from the other Bookermarks: Penny, Aaron, Jackie and Karli.