Roman Clodia's Reviews > The Colony
The Colony
by
by
1.5 stars
I'm feeling very much at odds with my GR friends over this year's Booker long-list: I seem to like best the books others are ambiguous about (Trust, After Sappho) and actively dislike the books tipped for Booker stardom which nearly all my friends are raving about, including this one.
So without wanting to disrespect opinions which are different from my own, this reads to me like a book which is saying very familiar things and trying to find a new way to structure those points linguistically.
We know, surely, that the politics of colonialism operate across multiple fields including the cultural and the linguistic? We know, surely, that cultural appropriation and unacknowledged assimilation is a tool of imperial hegemony? We know, surely, that the violence inherent in colonisation operates in and affects both the personal and public spheres? We know, surely, the compromised and often blinkered stances of colonisers, whether they name themselves thus or not, as they pursue their desires and tell themselves that old story that it's for the others', the colonised, own good? Why, then, does this book think it is saying something fresh and new?
In some ways, this book reminded me of Graham Greene's The Quiet American, written in 1955, about the French colonial struggle to hold Vietnam, with the nascent American interests hovering on the sidelines and making catastrophic interventions. The two male characters of a jaded English journalist and the politically-naive young American struggle over a Vietnamese young woman, the whole thing packaged as near-allegory with complicated motives that interweave the personal and the political.
The Colony tries to shake up its material through structural and linguistic devices: interwoven 1st and 3rd person narratives (courtesy of James Joyce?), interior commentary (self-portrait: Irish boy with rabbits), sections from a linguistics researcher's dissertation on the history of the politicised eradication of Gaelic (more info-dump, though inherently interesting for a quick-and-dirty historical overview - but couldn't it have been woven in better?), random
line breaks
as if spaces
make prose into
poetry
despite there being no metric sense or rhythm. And alternate chapters of news items about the daily killings of the 'Troubles' which, gradually and minimally, intersect with the tiny island family.
I don't mind that there's no closure to the narrative, though it is framed by an arrival and a departure by boat - but there's not much story in between either which is a big ask to keep me reading for around 400 pages.
It took me four goes to finally push through this to the end and I'm genuinely at a loss to understand why this is getting so much attention from reviewers whose opinions I respect and often share.
I'm feeling very much at odds with my GR friends over this year's Booker long-list: I seem to like best the books others are ambiguous about (Trust, After Sappho) and actively dislike the books tipped for Booker stardom which nearly all my friends are raving about, including this one.
So without wanting to disrespect opinions which are different from my own, this reads to me like a book which is saying very familiar things and trying to find a new way to structure those points linguistically.
We know, surely, that the politics of colonialism operate across multiple fields including the cultural and the linguistic? We know, surely, that cultural appropriation and unacknowledged assimilation is a tool of imperial hegemony? We know, surely, that the violence inherent in colonisation operates in and affects both the personal and public spheres? We know, surely, the compromised and often blinkered stances of colonisers, whether they name themselves thus or not, as they pursue their desires and tell themselves that old story that it's for the others', the colonised, own good? Why, then, does this book think it is saying something fresh and new?
In some ways, this book reminded me of Graham Greene's The Quiet American, written in 1955, about the French colonial struggle to hold Vietnam, with the nascent American interests hovering on the sidelines and making catastrophic interventions. The two male characters of a jaded English journalist and the politically-naive young American struggle over a Vietnamese young woman, the whole thing packaged as near-allegory with complicated motives that interweave the personal and the political.
The Colony tries to shake up its material through structural and linguistic devices: interwoven 1st and 3rd person narratives (courtesy of James Joyce?), interior commentary (self-portrait: Irish boy with rabbits), sections from a linguistics researcher's dissertation on the history of the politicised eradication of Gaelic (more info-dump, though inherently interesting for a quick-and-dirty historical overview - but couldn't it have been woven in better?), random
line breaks
as if spaces
make prose into
poetry
despite there being no metric sense or rhythm. And alternate chapters of news items about the daily killings of the 'Troubles' which, gradually and minimally, intersect with the tiny island family.
I don't mind that there's no closure to the narrative, though it is framed by an arrival and a departure by boat - but there's not much story in between either which is a big ask to keep me reading for around 400 pages.
It took me four goes to finally push through this to the end and I'm genuinely at a loss to understand why this is getting so much attention from reviewers whose opinions I respect and often share.
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Reading Progress
August 15, 2022
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Started Reading
August 16, 2022
– Shelved
August 16, 2022
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Matthew Ted
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rated it 2 stars
Aug 16, 2022 09:55PM
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line breaks
as if spaces
make prose into
poetry
despite there being no metric sense or rhythm.
Ha! Love you being all contrarian :)
Now it's a toss up whether this beats Small Things to the Booker top spot - aargh!
Thanks, David - I'm hoping I won't get kicked out of M&G for all my oppositional opinions this Booker-year ;)
And Lark, yes - those issues of timing, what we've just read, what literary baggage (good and bad) we carry with us, all go to shape each new encounter with a book. Glad we can all happily disagree :))
It's interesting, though, on Irish colonialism, that fewer people have read, for example, The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen, which was published in 1929 but set in 1920 in a 'big house' in what is about to become the Republic of Ireland. Bowen's complicated position of being Anglo-Irish adds to the nuance and complexity of the politics of the first 'Troubles'. And she's a glorious stylist.
And Milkman, of course, showed us that there are still new ways of treating this material both in terms of content and style.
Echoing Laura, RC. I mentally contrasted The Colony with Milkman too, and Milkman easily came off as a better book.
I didn't think of The Last September but it's a great reference too. Such a successful book in every way. I agree that The Colony is less successful, and you make some great points in your review. I had issues with a few of the things that bothered you and with a few other things that didn't ring true for me, mostly related to the art theme, although Lloyd's broken phrasing worked for me as I imagined he thought in terms of strokes of a brush on a canvas, if that makes any sense.
I grew up during the troubles not far from Audrey McGee's fictional island (going by the dialect of Irish she uses) and remember the daily news bulletins about the killings across the border in Northern Ireland. Including them worked well I thought, and neatly underlined one aspect of her main theme of violence.
The boatmen refusing to explain the wait should have set off bells for me too, but they only went off much later when I realised that Francis, whom the boatman was waiting for, must be involved in the struggle for freedom in Northern Ireland and therefore his comings and goings were bound to be unpredictable. I liked that Magee left such things for us to figure out or not. I liked too that she didn't feel the need to spell out the destiny of the various characters.
The more I think about this book the more I like it though I had lots of reservations initially.
I also liked the reticence to spell out some of the plot: though Francis was on my radar immediately, for some reason. I guess I thought this book would be bound to include a fighter given the news reports.
This surely can't be worse than Small things like these! 😀
Smart! It took me a while to register Francis as important. It was clever of Magee not to bring him into the story much, and not to give us his thoughts but just some telling words here and there.
No pressure, Laura, though the island life as Magee describes it may interest you—I know you've been to the Great Blasket and her fictional island is very similar.
Interesting how divisive this book has been on here but not so much with mainstream media reviewers.