Threats to Traditional Island Life

The theme of Chapter Seven, "Aerodrome", is repeated in Brown's other major work Greenvoe. In some ways, the heart of the novel charts the ease with which industry and technology, coupled with the presence or threat of war, can destroy a simple culture, which has remained virtually unchanged for centuries.

The Norday Islanders are representative of many simple or "primitive" cultural groups, whose simple values and traditions are tied closely to the earth and the rhythms of both the land and sea. For perhaps the first time ever, traditional cultures around the world are threatened by changes imposed upon them by distant political centers and the influence of the industrialized world. In Beside the Ocean of Time, Brown describes moments in the childhood of Thorfinn Ragnarson. This young man witnesses in his lifetime the drastic and irreversible changes that come from the invasion of...