The Gathering by Anne Enright
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Book Reviews of The Gathering
Book Review: Uneven
Summary: 2 Stars
The Booker prize is a strange beast. The books that make it to the short list are usually excellent, yet somehow the worst of those always gets chosen.
I expected to loveloveLOVE this book. I adore books about multi-generational family dysfunction, and I'm a total sucker for evocative locales. This book covers a large Irish family from the 1920s to the current day. The plot is driven by funeral arrangements for the family's black sheep, who has committed suicide. The writing is lovely. It is almost impossible for me to dislike a book that contains so many fascinating elements. Sadly, however, "The Gathering" is that book.
This is not to say the it's a total loss. What Enright can do, she does well. For instance, she perfectly captures the strange and malleable thing that is childhood memory. I found myself nodding along as the main character, Veronica, describes her grandparent's house and various members of the extended family through eight-year-old eyes. Enright clearly wants to convey the uncertainty of memory and she succeeds. Veronica vividly remembers events that may or may not have occurred, or perhaps involved her siblings rather than herself. Additionally, her prose is beautiful. You'll be struck more than once by a sentence that's horrible, gorgeous, brilliant, and despairing all at once.
At the same time, I agree with all the criticisms levelled here. The book jumps haphazardly from the present to the past, and if that wasn't bad enough, it's often unclear whether it's all a figment of Veronica's imagination. I think Enright wanted to intensify the sense of uncertainty around the stories we tell to make sense of our family history. She uses a heavy hand, and the end result is a confused mess.
This mess is most painful when it comes to Veronica's relationship with her husband. They are on the verge of divorce, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was wrong. Apparently her husband works a highly competitive field, and is unsatisfied. Wow, who knew THAT could happen? Or maybe her husband has cheated on her. It's hard to tell when Veronica states that her husband stays with her because he hates her. Yes, that might seem strange to the average reader, but that's before you learn that he, like all men, hates her because he doesn't want to lose control during orgasm.
This leads me to another point, one I was surprised to see no mention of: the narrator deeply, profoundly despises men. It's so pointed that I thought perhaps Enright wanted the reader to assume that Veronica was sexually abused, though it's not explicitly described. The generalizations about men as sex starved, narcissistic monsters come early and often. I'm not sure if just the narrator is bitter, or if perhaps the author is as well.
Additionally, I have to agree that the book is often self-indulgent and overwrought. If you're looking frequent and unflattering descriptions of genetalia, then this is the book for you. The romantic relationships generally start with people falling in love, or life-long lust, at first glance. Additionally, Veronica emphasizes over and over the haunting, stunning, heart breakingly blue eyes all the children have. Is this a serious work of literature, or a romance novel?
Even the writing, the strongest point in the book stumbles more than once. The first time Veronica describes a family member as "human meat", I was shocked and enthralled. Unfortunately, this metaphor loses some power after half a dozen uses.
Finally, I may be jaded, but this family didn't seem all that dysfunctional. There's tragedy, but when you're describing several dozen people's lives, what are the odds that every single one is happy and normal? Isn't that just life? Of course it's painful for the people involved, but I'm not sure that Enright realizes that pain, though it feels special when it happens to you, is quite ordinary.
I'll probably try another one of Enright's books, but overall, this one was not worth the effort.
Book Review: A mixed bag...
Summary: 2 Stars
I read a number of reviews on this book before writing this, and found something in each one to agree. I think if you pick one review each across the 1-5 stars and average out across all of them, you'll get a fair assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of this book. What I am going to try and do thus is present a balanced review, which pretty much represents my "average feeling" about the book.
Firstly, let me very briefly summarize the plot: the book revolves around the life of one of the nine surviving children of an Irish family, her reminiscences (real and imaginary) of her life and those of her family, and in particular her recently deceased brother. The "dysfunctional family story" which has been much bandied by a number of people is not strictly true, because this is really the woman's story, with the family naturally taking a prominent position given their size and range of "experiences".
The positives first then: Enright really does seem to have a "fresh" style of writing - I got hooked into the book right away, and read the first third at one quick go. Very surprisingly though, the freshness goes stale very quickly, and I found it genuinely tedious to go through the rest of the book. But we were talking of positives here, so let's get back there: the book is littered with some stylistic gems, such as the one quoted by another reviewer here: "All our parents were mad in those days. There was something about just the smell of us growing up that drove them completely insane." Enright, when she chooses to, can create really well defined characters, such as the protagonist, whose nuances - physical, mental, and emotional, are beautifully unveiled through her thoughts and actions.
The negatives: above all, Enright has no ability to use the non-linear narrative style to her advantage. On the contrary, it severely detracts from the book, making it a rather complex and painful read. A conscious or unconscious, but negative either way, fallout of this structure was that the book's dramatic arc was entirely absent - it just didn't feel like a build-up to something, instead remaining at a near constant sort of intensity (which is high largely) throughout. This might not bother other readers, but it really takes away a lot for me, because I like to and want to look forward to something - something to keep me turning the pages. On her style, while there were a number of gems in the book, there were as many, or maybe more occasions when the line was crossed and the prose became completely outlandish and pretentious. And finally, while the protagonist's character was very well detailed, almost all others were little more than silhouettes, leaving too much to the imagination, which was not a positive in this case given all the clutter that Enright was creating in the book.
Overall, I felt disappointed with the book, but I don't think I will give up on the author - yet. This book reminded me of all the mediocrities churned out by Rushdie, because I have read each one partly for the sake of the few gems which I know I can be assured of, but more importantly in the hope that there might just be another "Midnight's Children" between the covers. I sense that Enright's masterpiece might come too, and I look forward to reading that someday.
Book Review: Worst Booker prize winner.........ever !
Summary: 2 Stars
Anne Enright's "The Gathering" has got to be the worst ever novel to have been awarded the prestigious Booker Prize. What was the award committee even thinking of when they shortlisted it from among possibly hundreds of other worthy titles ? What could they have seen in this rather unexceptional if not downright boring tale about a large damaged Irish family that led them to name it the best work of fiction for 2007 ? The Booker has been rather erratic in its choices in recent years. Unless this trend is arrested, it will become increasingly irrelevant in influencing what serious readers will eventually read.
Stories about damaged families are a firm favourite with English/Irish writers. Nothing wrong with that if the author has a half decent or interesting story to tell and tells it well. John Banford's "The Sea", another Booker winner from the recent past, is a good example. Sadly, on both counts, "The Gathering" fail rather miserably. The narrator Veronica's voice is so cryptic, judgmental, and unpleasant I found it hard to lend her a sympathetic ear. She's a self-centred bore and an interminable whiner. It's always her parents' or her siblings' fault. For example, she blames her mother - for what I'm not sure - and still don't know for sure by the end of the story. She criticizes her big brother Ernest who joined the priesthood then dropped out for being a hypocrite, etc etc. She's so devastated and numbed by her brother Liam's suicide she puts her relationship with her husband on hold for reasons we can only guess at - he's too interested in his career (is that a bad thing ?) and maybe had a couple of affairs on the side. The so-called family secret is also such a pathetic cliché I almost gave up when it is revealed two thirds of the way through. Not that it isn't a terrible crime, just that it isn't nearly enough to hang a story on.
Worst of all is Enright's prose. It's choppy, awkward, and ugly. Those one word sentences that punctuate the pages. How pretentious ! That noir-ish seduction scene at the hotel lobby when grandma Ada and her lover first laid eyes on each other is just plain absurd. Instead of sensing the sparks, I thought "how unlikely"!
Then I suddenly recall there was one book I read two pages of and then abandoned because I couldn't stand the writing and that turned out to be (also) Enright's "What Are You Like ?" Maybe Anne Enright just doesn't agree with me. I swear I'm never ever going to read another one of hers again.
Book Review: This is an award winning book?!!
Summary: 2 Stars
I fail to understand why "The Gathering" won the 2007 Man Booker Prize. This book is disturbing and disappointing on so many levels. I really did not enjoy this book. I felt like I slogged along as the plot slogged along. I've never read a book (and as a librarian, I've read countless books) where the narrator focuses/fantasizes on and about her dead grandparents' sex life. The narrator, Veronica, goes from present tense to past tense and her real memories seem to become more blurred with made up memories as the story progressed. I felt like she was just making it up as she went along. Veronica's parents had a prolific sex life, as she mentions numerous times, which resulted in a large brood of children. Aside from Liam, though, none of the siblings are developed beyond giving them a name or the fact that they died. The sibs were just disembodied characters floating around in a weak and tedious plot. If you're going to include so many characters, at least develop them a little more. If you can't or won't develop your characters into something we should even care about, leave them out. Undeveloped characters are pointless and confusing to the story. They just clutter the plot. The plot was cluttered enough already, with the above-mentioned memories. Let's just hope the 2008 Man Booker Prize winning book is better than "The Gathering."Book Review: Frustrating
Summary: 2 Stars
I was very much looking forward to "The Gathering", yet I must say it is my least favourite recent Booker winner. Anne Enright certainly writes well. Her words are well chosen and the book is generally well crafted.
I often enjoy books written on families and the hidden rage and secrets that exist. This book is typical of many others thematically and since Enright is a skillful writer, it should have the basics for a good book.
Her switches back and forth in time are very sloppy. I found myself very frustrated reading this book and didn't enjoy it much at all. I think this could have been very good but ultimately fails to entertain or provide insight. I probably disliked the characters more than I should have because I began to dislike Enright's style and frustration with her translated into frustration with the characters.
The tone reminded a little bit of John Banville's "The Sea", the Booker winner of 2005. While I didn't love "The Sea", I felt it was a much tighter book. Additionally, Banville is poetic at every turn.
I can't recommend "The Gathering". The craftmanship didn't make up for the frustration I felt in reading it.