Maxwell's Reviews > The Colony

Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2022

During the summer of 1979, two men venture to a remote island off the West coast of Ireland. One, an English painter, visits to paint the cliffs and soon starts to find the island's inhabitants of more interest. Another, a French linguist, returns for his fourth time to study the Irish language, as the matriarch of the island is one of the last people who speaks exclusively Irish. Meanwhile, in Northern Ireland, the Troubles between the Protestants and Catholics are beginning to boil up into larger conflicts, further dividing the people along social, political and religious lines.

I was hooked from the first page. The writing is evocative, especially when we follow the perspective of the painter, Lloyd. As a painter, he sees things a bit differently, paying attention to the colors, the shapes, the light of the island. While JP Masson, the French linguist, is focused on the sounds. Audrey Magee's writing reflects those senses when she weaves between the different characters. It's an effective form (not unlike the Booker winner last year, The Promise).

Between the longer sections of events taking place on the island, Magee intersperses short descriptions across the summer months in Northern Ireland of conflicts between various factions. These short chapters really highlight the amount of death that occurred during the Troubles, and in ways it propels the novel forward by causing the reader to anticipate some similar sort of violence or conflict on the island itself.

However, as the novel went on, I grew bored. It's mostly a character driven novel, where I felt it was going to be more plot heavy. The introduction of two new members to a remote island community felt like a powder keg for conflict, and especially with the constant references to the events in the north, I felt we were building toward something more explosive.

Much of the novel, though, is conversations and thoughts of the characters, about topics like national identity especially tied to one's language or location. It repeats itself quite a bit, and that really put the novel in a funk for me. This easily could have been 50-100 pages shorter than it was, and I think it would've felt even more propulsive and effective.

However, by the 30-40% mark I knew exactly what this novel was trying to do and say, and it never deviated from that path. That's not to say I don't think it makes good points or raises interesting questions; I just think it was quite clear from early on and so the journey to get to the end felt like a bit of a slog.

All in all, I can see the merits of this novel, but it wasn't one that wowed me. I wouldn't be surprised if this was shortlisted for the Booker though. It has all the makings of a Booker novel, and usually I don't love the winner anyway ;)