Daniel Shindler's Reviews > The Colony

This beautifully conceived novel explores the way in which language and culture can survive in a changing world. The novel expands to contemplate how differing cultures can intersect in a struggle for power, colonial dominance and imposition of values.

“ The Colony” is noticeably bereft of plot yet draws the reader into a world that is idyllic in its quietude. It is set on an unspecified island on Ireland’s Atlantic coast in 1979. The island has been stripped of population. Fishing has been the island’s means of sustenance and the residents have gradually left for more vibrant population centers that offer greater opportunities. At the outset of the story, the island’s population is under twenty people. The traditions of the island’s language and culture are eroding in a vortex of a changing, more complex world.

The thematic concerns develop around two visitors who come to the island for the summer. Mr Lloyd is a painter from England who wants to capture the beauty of the environment and the residents on his canvas. Shortly after, a linguist from France, JP Masson, arrives. He is determined to preserve the Irish language and stem the language’s contamination from outside generational permutations. Both men have had disappointments in their personal and professional lives and hope to reinvent themselves through their vastly differing and conflicting visions of the island culture. The men instantly dislike each other as they joust for the supremacy of their ideas.

Both Lloyd and Masson display forms of cultural arrogance as they interact with one multigenerational island family. Each man’s vision contrasts sharply with the island family’s individual desires and self images.Particularly noteworthy is the relationship between the outsiders and the strong matriarchal island women who quietly dictate the emotional heartbeat of the community.The relationship between the outsiders and the native population presents a portrait of power, colonialism and conflicts of vision and will.

The novel is written in an unusual structure that juxtaposes an aura of calm with undertones of impending violence. The events on the island are delivered in internal monologues which shift points of view within sentences and paragraphs, creating a restrained yet ominous sense of calm and delayed aggression. These sections are punctuated by reports of the violence and death associated with the Northern Ireland Troubles of 1979. The islanders discuss these events as they are reported and assess the relevance to their lives on their isolated location.

The fusion of the events on the island with the violence beyond creates a devastating polemic about the effects of colonial imperialism and the exertion of power through controlling language, culture and environment. The author gradually weaves these strands together and leaves the reader contemplating how traditional values can be maintained or integrated into a turbulent changing world.