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The Gathering (Man Booker Prize)
 

The Gathering

by Anne Enright

Amazon Significant Seven, November 2007: Pretty early on in The Gathering you realize that in her lingering portrait of the Hegarty clan (and this isn't hyperbole--they are a family of 12), Irish novelist Anne Enright will wrestle with all the giant literary tropes that have come before her. Family, of course, is the big one, but with equal intensity she explores death and dying,... (read more)

Top tags: fiction,  ireland,  booker prize,  contemporary fiction,  family (all tags)

Discussions

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  • maria g

    maria g said:

    “I saw this book as both very Irish and truly unique. It explores themes that are familiar to anyone interested in Irish literature: family, alcoholism, the connection to the landscape and the burden of religion. But it does so in a very carefully balanced fashion, the writing blending heart-breaking intimacy with the cool academic observations of a Hegarty outsider. Very depressing at times, especially the lingering suggestion that the abuse is not an one-off, but rather symptomatic of that place at that time. It exposes a kind of social pathology the aftermath of which is still widely felt in the country. Despite everything, a joy to read.”

    posted Wednesday, June 4 2008 ( | view 1 reply )
  • agnes01

    agnes01 said:

    “I did not enjoy this book at all. Why did it win the booker? Maybe I am missing something. It bothered me we as the reader basically could not trust Veronica's memory (because she herself did not). Who knew what to believe? So why bother spending the time when half of it is not true? The style just did not work for me.”

    posted Thursday, May 15 2008 ( | view 1 reply )
  • agnes01

    agnes01 said:

    “I did not enjoy this book at all. Why did it win the booker? Maybe I am missing something. It bothered me we as the reader basically could not trust Veronica's memory (because she herself did not). Who knew what to believe? So why bother spending the time when half of it is not true? The style just did not work for me.”

    posted Thursday, May 15 2008
  • Katherine T

    katherine t said:

    “This novel is a slow read and requires the reader to just stick with it. The story revolves around a brother's funeral and is told from the point of view of the sister, Veronica. The stream-of-consciousness style makes the text difficult to follow while at the same time gives the novel an air of autheticity - the reader follows the inner thoughts (and familial discussions) of a sister struggling with the death of a once favorite brother and all the disjointed memories that are a part of their history. It is at times challenging to keep up with the book while at other times it is voyeuristic.”

    posted Monday, May 5 2008 ( | view 2 replies )
  • Dana

    dana said:

    “If you'd like to get into the mind of a grieving Irish woman....enjoy. Otherwise, move on to something else. Ironically, the narrator is Veronica which is the title of another book that I found equally puzzling.”

    posted Sunday, April 20 2008
  • beadology

    beadology said:

    “I pretty much hated this one! I thought the writing style awful. Nobody was likable. I wanted to tell Veronica to get some therapy! I kept thinking of "Charming Billy" by Alice McDermott. ”

    posted Sunday, March 9 2008 ( | view 1 reply )
  • chickenlips

    chickenlips said:

    “I found this book to be totally overrated and cliched. I can not understand why it won the Booker. There was no originality in it at all. A disappointment. ”

    posted Tuesday, January 1 2008
  • FatherOfHollywood

    fatherofhollywood said:

    “This is a complicated book, one that requires more than one reading with which to fully understand all the issues. There's a lot going on here, about family, about the ties that bind, about the fact we can never escape the past.”

    posted Thursday, October 18 2007 ( | view 1 reply )
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