Tarka the Otter

Henry Williamson; Introduction by the Hon. Sir John Fortescue; Illustrated by C.F. Tunnicliffe

1927 • 255 pages

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Tarka the Otter: His Joyful Water-Life and Death in the Country of the Two Rivers is a highly influential novel by Henry Williamson, first published in 1927 by G.P. Putnam's Sons with an introduction by the Hon. Sir John Fortescue. It won the Hawthornden Prize in 1928 and remains Willamson's best-known and most popular work, having never been out of print since first publication.

As its title suggests, the novel describes the life of an otter, along with a detailed observation of its habitat in the country of the River Taw and River Torridge in North Devon (the "Two Rivers"); the name "Tarka" is said by Williamson to mean "Wandering as Water" (p. 10). Though often now characterised as a children's book, Tarka has influenced literary figures as diverse as Ted Hughes and Rachel Carson.

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Deb Nance

Tarka the Otter. What a story. The life of a male otter, from the time he was born until he dies, with all the playful fun of an otter as well as the deadly dangers from hunters and their hounds and traps.
The story is told from an emotionally neutral narrator, almost as if one were scientifically observing nature. It's rich in detail; it feels like you are right there in the rural part of 1920s England, swimming, catching fish, finding a mate, caring for cubs, evading the jaws of a snarling hound.

No doubt about this one. A fabulous five-star read. A book everyone should read.

If I'd looked up (and been able to find a definition for) every word I didn't know, I'd be reading this book the rest of the year, I think. Here are a few of the words (along with a bit of the other text) I didn't know from the early pages:

Sere reeds...Salmon and peal from the sea...Voles...Alder and sallow grew on its banks...Musical over many stretches of shillet...Straying from the wood beyond the mill-leat...His holt was in the weir-pool...At dimmity it flew down the right bank of the river...Seeds of charlock...A ream passed under the stone bridge...Where a gin was never tilled and a gun was never fired...The nightjar returned...He yikkered in his anger...His mother, tissing through her teeth...The pair of cole-tits that had a nest...Like brown thong-weed...Hound-taint from a high yelping throat...A dozen hounds were giving tongue...Chiffchaffs flitted through honeysuckle bines...The shock-headed flowers of the yellow goat's beard...A grey wagtail skipped airily over the sky-gleams of the brook...Paler than kingcups...Her rudder dripping wet behind her...Here burred the bumblebees...The grunting vuz-peg...At dimpsey she heard the blackbirds...The breaking of rank florets and umbels...They came to a bog tract where curlew and snipe lived...

I gradually began to be able to read along fairly well, figuring out nature words and onomatopoeia from the context, almost the way you gradually learn to read in another language. I can't think of another book I have read in the past ten years that had more beautiful language.

A completely delightful read.

March 27, 2021