'Fishing for Amber' dazzlingly weaves Irish fairy tales, Ovid's 'Metamorphoses' and the history of the Dutch Golden Age into the form of a magical alphabet.
The universal theme is that of transmutation, of the power of art: of light captured on canvas, experience immortalised in narrative. Stories branch infinitely into other stories, each connecting, each fishing for the truth. The central image of amber, of light or creatures captured in it, transformed by it, is sustained throughout the book. Carson triumphs over the distinction between fact and fiction in the sheer pleasure he takes in telling stories.
