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IT Goes ON and ON
“It became a burden--much like Veronica carries--to read all this grief page after miserable page. The sometimes beautiful prose lured me in. I loved the transitions from present to past. But, I must admit, I'm jaded from all the novels using child sexual abuse as the trauma revealed. Sharon Nelson, Spokane, WA”
An amazon user wrote this on 2009-10-26. -
Marginally better than 'Charming Billy'
“Ok, I think I'm going to give up reading 'award winning' books about deceased, drunk, Irishmen. "Charming Billy" by Alice McDermott was winner of the National Book Award (in 2000?) and it was a MAJOR SNORE. It is only about 200 pgs long but it's an excruciatingly painful 200 pgs. Just like "The Gathering", a drunk Irishman has died and, like "The Gathering", the author chooses to jump randomly from present to past without a clue as to what is going on. At least in "The Gathering", Ms Enright has had the thoughtfulness to keep the 'voice' to a single person whereas in "Charming Billy", Ms McDermott shifted narrators with wreckless abandon and without letting the reader know what was going on. So Man Booker Award or National Book Award, it's the same thing...meaningless tripe. I'm beginning to think that all they do is find the novels that sold more than 25 copies and put those titles in for a random drawing. I think 'The Gathering' is on its way to Goodwill (and good riddance).”
An amazon user wrote this on 2009-07-27. -
Raw view of suicide surviors,each caught within their own worlds
“Although set within a large dysfuntional Irish family, this speaks to the famlies of the world. Any time "shameful" secrets are allowed to fester, they shape lives and deaths, and guilty conscious' as ANNE ENRIGHT so powerfully illustrates in The Gathering. Just when you think you have it all perfectly in place, WHAM!. A curve I certainly didn't see coming. Love,bonds even death can't break,addiction's,mental illness, it has it all. A fine weekend's read.The Portable VirginThe Wig My Father Wore What Are You Like?: A Novel The Pleasure of Eliza Lynch: A Novel”
An amazon user wrote this on 2009-06-29. -
1 of 2 members found this review helpful.
Shoot the Booker people
“This book was nothing special.
An amazon user wrote this on 2009-06-24.
It was an okay book. All over the place, not well written, indecisive, a bit of a waste of time, but the sort of book a person picks up time and time again, and thinks, "That was an okay book".
The trouble is, when labels like WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE are attached to books. The label says, or at any rate suggests, this is really something, this is worth reading, go out and buy this book, read this book! And then you do, and you're filled with a sense of disappointment. You've been cheated, deceived, fraudulently robbed of your £6.99 (or $whatever).
The Booker people need to stop attaching a "Man Booker Winner" label to books that don't deserve praise. Then there wouldn't be so many disappointed people providing reviews like the low-star ones you find here. People who only bought/read the book in the first place because the Booker label suggested the read would be worth it.
Luckily my local library was chucking out five copies of this book, so I got it more or less for free.
I felt the same sense of disappointment with another Booker winner, "The God of Small Things", as I felt with this book. This one wasn't quite as bad as that one, but it didn't deserve a prize.
The Booker Prize people need to say, some years, "No book was up to prize-winning standard this year." Then they wouldn't waste our time and money.
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Irish Eyes Are Not Smiling
“Man Booker. OK. The writing is gorgeous. Plot, characters? If you have a tendency to depression this is not the book for you! It is a relentlessly and ultimately tiring dark tale of Irish life: too much sex, too many children, too much booze and death, death, death. The young girl picturing maggots swelling inside her dead grandfather was the end for me. Nope. Couldn't take it.”
An amazon user wrote this on 2009-06-22.
