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A harrowing tale of suffering, solitude, and madness of a stranded sailor in WWII
This was listed on David Pringle's Modern Fantasy: The Hundred Best Novels: in English Language Selection, 1946-1987, and to be honest I don't think the author or most readers would have put it on that list. While it certainly takes place in the mind of stranded British sailor in the Atlantic, whose boat has been torpedoed by a German sub, it's intense exploration of his inner mental world is both fantastic and terrifying, but it's still a stretch to call it fantasy. It is very much a serious work of Literature, by an author famous for The Lord of the Flies, and the writing if of that very sophisticated, descriptive, and deadly serious British style of that period.

While it is undeniably well written and visceral, it is a punishing read, fitting of course for the existential crisis of Christopher Martin (Pincher to his mates), stranded and exposed a small lonely rock outcrop in the middle of the Atlantic, far from help and totally alone and trapped in his increasingly deteriorating mind. As an experimental POV narrative, it is very well executed, but hardly an uplifting experience. More a work to admire than enjoy.