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The Colony
In 1979, as violence erupts all over Ireland, two outsiders travel to a small island off the west coast in search of their own answers, despite what it may cost the islanders.
It is the summer of 1979. An English painter travels to a small island off the west coast of Ireland. Mr. Lloyd takes the last leg by currach, though boats with engines are available and he doesn't much like the sea. He wants the authentic experience, to be changed by this place, to let its quiet and light fill him, give him room to create. He doesn't know that a Frenchman follows close behind. Jean-Pierre Masson has visited the island for many years, studying the language of those who make it their home. He is fiercely protective of their isolation, deems it essential to exploring his theories of language preservation and identity.
But the people who live on this rock--three miles long and half a mile wide--have their own views on what is being recorded, what is being taken, and what ought to be given in return. Over the summer, each of them--from great-grandmother Bean Uí Fhloinn to widowed Mairéad to fifteen-year-old James, who is determined to avoid the life of a fisherman--will wrestle with their values and desires. Meanwhile, all over Ireland, violence is erupting. And there is blame enough to go around.
An expertly woven portrait of character and place, a stirring investigation into yearning to find one's way, and an unflinchingly political critique of the long, seething cost of imperialism, Audrey Magee's The Colony is a novel that transports, that celebrates beauty and connection, and that reckons with the inevitable ruptures of independence.
It is the summer of 1979. An English painter travels to a small island off the west coast of Ireland. Mr. Lloyd takes the last leg by currach, though boats with engines are available and he doesn't much like the sea. He wants the authentic experience, to be changed by this place, to let its quiet and light fill him, give him room to create. He doesn't know that a Frenchman follows close behind. Jean-Pierre Masson has visited the island for many years, studying the language of those who make it their home. He is fiercely protective of their isolation, deems it essential to exploring his theories of language preservation and identity.
But the people who live on this rock--three miles long and half a mile wide--have their own views on what is being recorded, what is being taken, and what ought to be given in return. Over the summer, each of them--from great-grandmother Bean Uí Fhloinn to widowed Mairéad to fifteen-year-old James, who is determined to avoid the life of a fisherman--will wrestle with their values and desires. Meanwhile, all over Ireland, violence is erupting. And there is blame enough to go around.
An expertly woven portrait of character and place, a stirring investigation into yearning to find one's way, and an unflinchingly political critique of the long, seething cost of imperialism, Audrey Magee's The Colony is a novel that transports, that celebrates beauty and connection, and that reckons with the inevitable ruptures of independence.
376 pages, Hardcover
First published February 3, 2022
About the author
Audrey Magee
2 books229 followersAudrey Magee worked for twelve years as a journalist and has written for, among others, The Times, The Irish Times, the Observer and Guardian. She studied German and French at University College Dublin and journalism at Dublin City University. She lives in Wicklow with her husband and three daughters. The Undertaking is her first novel.
In her 20s and 30s, she travelled extensively, first as a student, living in Germany and Australia, where she taught English; later as a journalist, covering, among many other issues, the war in Bosnia, child labour in Pakistan and Bangladesh, and the impact of Perestroika on Central Asia. She was Ireland Correspondent of The Times for six years, and wrote extensively about the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the subsequent peace process and the chaos caused by the Omagh bomb.
In her 20s and 30s, she travelled extensively, first as a student, living in Germany and Australia, where she taught English; later as a journalist, covering, among many other issues, the war in Bosnia, child labour in Pakistan and Bangladesh, and the impact of Perestroika on Central Asia. She was Ireland Correspondent of The Times for six years, and wrote extensively about the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the subsequent peace process and the chaos caused by the Omagh bomb.
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January 13, 2025
Longlisted for Booker Prize 2022
I read two longlisted books written by an Irish author back to back, which was accidental but also welcomed. If the Colony is set in 1979 during the Troubles, the other one, Small Things Like These, is set in 1985 and deals with the hardship of being a woman. The two novels are different in subject but I still see the Church playing a central role in both historical accounts.
In the summer of ’79 two men visit a remote island in the Irish sea. The 1st one, Mr. Lloyd, is an English painter who saw the island’s cliffs in a magazine and is searching for his best works on its shores. The 2nd, Jean-Pierre Masson, a Frenchman returns to the island to finish his book about the Irish Language and its preservation in that remote place. Both men want to work in solitude and without the other’s influence and presence. As it happens, the conflict between the two will affect more the family who hosts them than the visitors.
As the name suggests, the author tries to show the damage of Colonialism by choosing the small island as a symbol. Both strangers want something of the island and are doing what they need to obtain it, without thinking about the consequences or what they leave behind. The novel moves smoothly from one point of view to the next, we see what the visitors and the islanders think, how their ideas and hopes contrast with the other. In addition, the author inserts reportages about some of the murders which occur on the continent between the Protestants and the Catholics. I thought the construction and the idea were excellent and it deserved to be on the longlist. However…
Most of my friends loved this novel and their average rating is 4.70 out of 33 rating. I was very surprised to realise that I did not love it, as I was expecting. I admire its structure and writing but I was not awed. I do not understand why exactly. I know I was a bit bored by the repetitive plot. How many times can one drink tea or skin a rabbit? Also, I felt as a dispassionate viewer of the events, I could not feel part of the story.
I listened to the audiobook masterfully narrated by Stephen Hogan and I did not encounters the punctuation and paragraphing issues some others discussed.
July 26, 2022
There is a quiet beauty to The Colony. Audrey Magee's latest novel is set in 1979 on an unnamed island off Ireland's Atlantic coast where traditional life and language are receding to extinction. With the Troubles at a boiling point on the mainland, the islanders host two summer visitors - one a painter from England, the other a linguist from France. As the title indicates, Magee situates the Troubles within the framework of colonialism and post-colonialism. That framework is gradually revealed as the novel unfolds. Magee's touch is light, letting the reader form their own conclusions about the encroaching violence. What truly elevates The Colony is Magee's magnificent prose and flowing narrative voice, with points of view often shifting within the same sentence or paragraph. The boundary between thought and speech is also permeable, particularly as most characters are multilingual. The form is quietly innovative yet unobtrusive. The characters are nuanced and beautifully drawn. There are many layers to this gorgeous work.
September 8, 2022
2nd in my 2022 Booker Prize longlist rankings - my Bookstagram rating, ranking, summary review and Book themed Golden Retriever photo is here:: https://www.instagram.com/p/ChHzX-TMI...
A really fascinating and distinctive fictional examination of the effects of colonization – ranging from artistic appropriation, through language (cleverly both external dialogue and internal monologue) to the legacy of violence.
The novel begins with an English artist – Mr Lloyd – travelling to a remote Irish Gaelic-speaking island off the West coast of Ireland where he intends to paint. Ostensibly he is travelling to paint the cliffs but he is also interested in all aspects of the traditional life of the islanders, starting by insisting on being rowed across the island in line with pictures he has seen in a book – and seems keen to emulate Gauguin and his work based around Noa Noa.
The island is now largely denuded of population – and his main interactions are with one three generational family: the matriarch Bean Uí Néill, her daughter Mairéad (whose father, husband and brother all died in one fishing accident) and her son James (Séamas) Gillan; Francis (Mairéad’s husband’s brother – a fisherman on the mainland but still very influential on the island - who wants to take his dead brother’s place in her bed) and Mícheál (a trader and boatman).
Shortly after his arrival on the Island to a frosty reception (particularly around any hints that he wants to paint the inhabitants rather than the cliff), he is disturbed when another visitor arrives on the island: a Frenchman “JP” Masson – a linguist determined to save the Irish language and using the Island both to preserve the particular dialect spoken and as a research case study for the way the language is being contaminated by English influences over time and across generations.
The two take an immediate dislike to each other – JP due to Mr Lloyd’s corrupting influence on the island’s linguistic evolution, Mr Lloyd due to JP’s disruption of the peace he needs for his art – while both compete in different ways for the affection of the attractive Mairéad.
Over time we understand more of both visitors drivers:
Lloyd’s part-estranged wife is a successful modern art dealer and exhibitor who has derided his traditional painting as derivative – when James starts to show some artistic promise (to his chagrin pointing out issues in Lloyd’s painting) he both uses Lloyd’s ideas to improve his own art and proposes the idea of a joint exhibition of their work in London (with the rabbit hunting James – who is desperate to avoid his inevitable fate as a fisherman on the Island – to accompany him and start at art school).
JP is the son of a French soldier and an Algerian mother his father met on active duty – and is conflicted by his own past with a preference for assimilation in France over retaining his mother’s colonised Arabic language.
The first real strength of the book alongside the themes it examines is its use of interior monologue.
Lloyd’s thoughts start fragmentary both reflecting his uncertainty around his status on the Island and his examination of everything he sees as a potential (and often actual) subject for his continuing sketching, but gaining in confidence over time as he starts to assimilate James’s advice and ideas.
JP, initially confident of his welcome on the Island and in love with language, starts both fluent, wordy and heavily figurative – before over time moving into both a more academic and more suspicious register as the Islanders make it clear he is as guilty of appropriation as Lloyd.
James’s voice is more formative and explorative – as he tries to absorb the interrelated possibilities both of art and of escape/a new identity.
Mairéad’s is still haunted by the loss of her husband and her desire to make her own life choices within the duties and responsibilities placed on her by others, not least the Francis.
The author is also particularly dexterous in switching from interior monologue immediately and seamlessly to dialogue or to another character’s interior - with the two streams blending seamlessly together.
The second is the way that the main storyline – which can seem at first like a timeless fable, interacts with the other part of the book: a chilling and historically precise description of the circumstances leading to the death of the victims of the Northern Irish Troubles in 1979.
At first this seems like an odd mix, then over time changes into a thematic counterpoint (as my comments imply) but by the end the two storylines gradually but impactfully bleeding into each other – with first the characters discussing what they hear on the radio of the atrocities but eventually them considering how the events impact on their own plans.
Overall highly recommended – and a book which lingers in the mind and in which my review covers only a fraction of the ideas and involved (for example the extensive discussion of art) or the novels strengths (for example the brilliantly wry dialogue of the islanders to and about Lloyd and later JP).
A really fascinating and distinctive fictional examination of the effects of colonization – ranging from artistic appropriation, through language (cleverly both external dialogue and internal monologue) to the legacy of violence.
The novel begins with an English artist – Mr Lloyd – travelling to a remote Irish Gaelic-speaking island off the West coast of Ireland where he intends to paint. Ostensibly he is travelling to paint the cliffs but he is also interested in all aspects of the traditional life of the islanders, starting by insisting on being rowed across the island in line with pictures he has seen in a book – and seems keen to emulate Gauguin and his work based around Noa Noa.
The island is now largely denuded of population – and his main interactions are with one three generational family: the matriarch Bean Uí Néill, her daughter Mairéad (whose father, husband and brother all died in one fishing accident) and her son James (Séamas) Gillan; Francis (Mairéad’s husband’s brother – a fisherman on the mainland but still very influential on the island - who wants to take his dead brother’s place in her bed) and Mícheál (a trader and boatman).
Shortly after his arrival on the Island to a frosty reception (particularly around any hints that he wants to paint the inhabitants rather than the cliff), he is disturbed when another visitor arrives on the island: a Frenchman “JP” Masson – a linguist determined to save the Irish language and using the Island both to preserve the particular dialect spoken and as a research case study for the way the language is being contaminated by English influences over time and across generations.
The two take an immediate dislike to each other – JP due to Mr Lloyd’s corrupting influence on the island’s linguistic evolution, Mr Lloyd due to JP’s disruption of the peace he needs for his art – while both compete in different ways for the affection of the attractive Mairéad.
Over time we understand more of both visitors drivers:
Lloyd’s part-estranged wife is a successful modern art dealer and exhibitor who has derided his traditional painting as derivative – when James starts to show some artistic promise (to his chagrin pointing out issues in Lloyd’s painting) he both uses Lloyd’s ideas to improve his own art and proposes the idea of a joint exhibition of their work in London (with the rabbit hunting James – who is desperate to avoid his inevitable fate as a fisherman on the Island – to accompany him and start at art school).
JP is the son of a French soldier and an Algerian mother his father met on active duty – and is conflicted by his own past with a preference for assimilation in France over retaining his mother’s colonised Arabic language.
The first real strength of the book alongside the themes it examines is its use of interior monologue.
Lloyd’s thoughts start fragmentary both reflecting his uncertainty around his status on the Island and his examination of everything he sees as a potential (and often actual) subject for his continuing sketching, but gaining in confidence over time as he starts to assimilate James’s advice and ideas.
JP, initially confident of his welcome on the Island and in love with language, starts both fluent, wordy and heavily figurative – before over time moving into both a more academic and more suspicious register as the Islanders make it clear he is as guilty of appropriation as Lloyd.
James’s voice is more formative and explorative – as he tries to absorb the interrelated possibilities both of art and of escape/a new identity.
Mairéad’s is still haunted by the loss of her husband and her desire to make her own life choices within the duties and responsibilities placed on her by others, not least the Francis.
The author is also particularly dexterous in switching from interior monologue immediately and seamlessly to dialogue or to another character’s interior - with the two streams blending seamlessly together.
The second is the way that the main storyline – which can seem at first like a timeless fable, interacts with the other part of the book: a chilling and historically precise description of the circumstances leading to the death of the victims of the Northern Irish Troubles in 1979.
At first this seems like an odd mix, then over time changes into a thematic counterpoint (as my comments imply) but by the end the two storylines gradually but impactfully bleeding into each other – with first the characters discussing what they hear on the radio of the atrocities but eventually them considering how the events impact on their own plans.
Overall highly recommended – and a book which lingers in the mind and in which my review covers only a fraction of the ideas and involved (for example the extensive discussion of art) or the novels strengths (for example the brilliantly wry dialogue of the islanders to and about Lloyd and later JP).
Read
December 17, 2023I was caught like an unsuspecting rabbit in the net of this book, and days after finishing, I'm still struggling to escape its hold. My intuition tells me that I need to step well back to see it clearly, that only time and distance will allow the patterns to make sense. Basically, I need to get past my own experience...and if you intend to read The Colony soon, perhaps you don't need to read more of this review in case the overlay of my experience interferes with your own perspective on the book.
Part of my inability to transcend my own experience comes from the fact that I identified very closely with one of the main characters: fifteen-year old island-boy James, wearing jumpers hand-knit by his mother, spending days on the cliffs catching rabbits with a net—and taking in every aspect of his wild Atlantic surroundings with an artist's eye though completely unschooled in art. I felt I knew James through and through. I felt I was James.
But when an English artist visits his west of Ireland island, James becomes completely schooled in art over the course of one brief summer. James somehow escaped me then, his level of sophistication regarding life in general, and especially regarding everything related to art, far outstripping my own—though this West of Ireland girl has been learning scraps of art history and art technique throughout her life.
I also identified closely with the time in which the book is set—the 1970s 'Troubles' period—when the radio, which was the main source of information in my parent's house as it was in James's home, brought news every day, in Irish and English, of yet another brutal killing in Northern Ireland, still a colony of Britain. And like James, my family knew of someone who went away regularly for a week at a time (a Milkman-type character), and who seemed to know more about those 'Troubles' across the border than the community cared to admit. We also heard reports of women from the Nationalist community in Northern Ireland being punished by their own people because they'd been 'fraternising' with the enemy—the British soldiers who were then in occupation. Some of those women were 'disappeared', their bodies not found until decades later.
So yes, perhaps I'm too close to this book to see it clearly so I need to step back and change my perspective, view the bigger picture as it were.
…………………
The bigger picture offers other echoes—from books I've read and paintings I've seen. The situation of the island boy with huge artistic talent, but initially no knowledge, reminded me of an Irish artist who was also an untrained islander: James Dixon, encouraged in his art over the course of many years by English artist, Derek Hill, who visited Tory Island off Donegal to paint in a little hut on the cliffs exactly as described in The Colony. That's a firm echo and helps to make the world of the book seem more credible to me. Here's an example of both Derek Hill's and James Dixon's Tory Island art:
Derek Hill
James Dixon
Fifteen-year old James catching rabbits recalls Maurice O'Sulivan's account of his childhood and youth spent on the Great Blasket island off the south-west coast of Ireland. In Twenty Years A-Growing, O'Sullivan describes all the activities James enjoys, rabbit hunting, climbing the cliffs in search of birds' eggs, or searching the rim of the sea for the return of his father, uncle and grandfather from a fishing trip.
And watching as the men unload the fragile canvas currach and lift it out of the water to store it safe from the fierce waves.
But James is less fortunate than Maurice. James lost his father, uncle, and grandfather to the waves when he was an infant, and it is his mother Mairéad who scans the sea in the vain hope that one day her husband, father, and brother will rise up from the bottom of the ocean. Mairéad reminded me of the grieving woman in J M Synge's drama, Riders to the Sea, and her very memorable cry when handed a scrap of clothing that is all that remains of her last son, drowned in a fishing tragedy: There's nothing more the sea can do to me.
In one of her interesting meditations, Mairéad wonders if the intricately patterned jumpers her loved ones wore might survive longer than their bones which she knows have long been transformed by the sea, reminding me of a verse I love from Shakespeare's Tempest:
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Mairéad is a very interesting character, and a very sophisticated thinker. She seemed to play a symbolic role in the story, reminiscent of the 'spéirbhean' of early Irish poetry, the beautiful woman who visited poets in their dreams. Sometimes that beautiful woman represented Ireland and was given a name. One poet called her Roisín Dubh (Dark Rosaleen). Others called her Caitlín Ní Uallacháin. The artist John Lavery painted her portrait (his wife was the model) and that painting was used on Irish banknotes from the foundation of the Irish state in 1922 right up to the 1970s.
The 'Dark Rosaleen' poem I mentioned earlier was about Spanish ships coming to aid Rosaleen/Ireland in 1601 in the struggle against English dominance.
In 1798, French ships were also sent to help in the struggle, though only one ship landed in the end—at Killala on the Mayo coast. Incidentally, the dialect of Irish spoken on James's island is from that coastal area so I feel the 1798 episode (fictionalised in 1979 by Thomas Flanagan as The Year of the French) must have been in Audrey Magee's mind as she was writing The Colony. She gives Mairéad and James their her own version of being rescued from English dominance by the French. As well as the English artist already mentioned, a French linguist happens to arrive on the island that same summer. He comes to record the erosion of the Irish language through contact with English. But the Frenchman is not content to simply record changes in language use, he also tries to force Mairéad and James to renounce English completely, though they are increasingly drawn towards English and the opportunities for a different life that it offers. The Frenchman's motives are complex, and far from altruistic—he seeks to dominate both the beautiful widow and the language itself for his own private purposes.
Speaking of language, Audrey Magee uses it very skilfully. Sometimes her writing is terse, at other times, she allows her characters long streams of inner chuntering, Mairéad, in particular, whose thoughts are often intermingled with Catholic prayers so that I began to see her as a Virgin Mary figure in addition to being a symbol of Ireland itself. But there is also a refreshingly earthy slant to her thinking, something pagan overriding the Christian mantras:
…though god is good for he gave her first a son, a son who looks like his father so that her husband can live on, thanks be to god, thanks be to the lord god, a father living through his son, through him, with him, in him, thanks be to god, his father’s eyes, his father’s hair, his father’s chin, father, son and holy ghost, holy ghost of a man, of a husband, a lover, a friend, not a trace of him anywhere, in rocks, in grasses, in waves, in clouds, in rain, in prayers, in beads, in crosses, nothing, not a sign...for the sea took everything, beating him into fragments small enough to send across the earth on a journey of further erosion and rendering, pounding him into still smaller particles, atomised eternity granted unto him, oh lord, but nothing more, nothing for me to hold at night, to look at in the morning...
The sections of interior monologue often move from third person to first, as in that meditation of Mairéad's. Another example of such a switch in point of view mid-sentence is this line about the smell of linseed oil: James inhaled deeply, soaking his lungs in this otherness that I could breathe all day, never come out. That sentence took me back to the first time I smelled linseed oil and oil paints myself—and also to a Cézanne painting, one of the ones where the artist destabilizes the viewer by merging two perspectives, two points of view, so that we are simultaneously looking down on a bowl of fruit and looking up at an isolated fruit beside the bowl.
Art is everywhere in this book. You could say Art 'dominates' Mairéad and James—when they are not being dominated by other forces.
James becomes the pupil of the English artist, Lloyd, but he is exploited more than he is tutored—Lloyd has problems with perspective in his drawings (and in general) which James resolves for him, and then Lloyd steals the ideas that James thinks up for his own paintings.
Mairéad too becomes interested in art and eventually becomes Lloyd's muse, fraternizing with him in a way that disturbs those Islanders who are fanatically anti-British. She becomes Eve, suffering ever after for wanting to taste the apple of knowledge.
At one point in the story, Lloyd decides to recreate the Gauguin painting called 'Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?' using Mairéad as the model for the central Eve-like figure, reaching up to pluck fruit from a tree..
I could see why the author chose that painting since the title sums up the dilemmas of the island community in 1979 when it was becoming more difficult to live completely cut off from progress as their ancestors had done—and as the Tahitians in Gauguin's painting of their paradise island life were trying to do.
Still, as Lloyd's large canvas progressed, I was reminded of a different picture entirely :
The painting, by Sir William Orpen, dates from 1916, a significant year in Irish history since it marked the beginning of Ireland's final fight for freedom from its British colonisers—attained in 1922 (but only for three-quarters of the country, hence the 'Troubles' in the north of the country where the struggle for freedom was still going on in 1979). Among other things, Orpen's large canvas is a comment on the conflicting pagan and Christian elements in communities in the west of Ireland. The figure in the top left corner is a west of Ireland artist called Sean Keating wearing homespun clothes from the Aran Islands. Keating had been a protégé of Orpen's just as Magee's character James was of the English artist Lloyd—and James wore similar woolen clothing. The semi-naked woman in the foreground of the painting, seated with her arms raised, is almost exactly as Mairéad is described in some of Lloyd's preparatory sketches for his homage to Gauguin.
The inclusion of Keating in Orpen's painting echoes Lloyd's Gauguin painting too. He added James into his scenario, wearing his hand-knit jumper—but carrying a brace of rabbits and not the paint brushes that James had requested be included. James's rendering is very much from Lloyd's perspective. He is fixed forever as an island boy and not as an artist.
Yes, The Colony gives the age-old conundrum of perspective an interesting revisit:
in the writing, where points of view shift frequently;
in the art, where James and Lloyd capture the same surroundings very differently;
in the story itself, where one character's perspective is not shared by another's, over, and over, and over again.
One person's colony to exploit is always another person's home where they just want to live in freedom—or leave if they choose.
But even when freedom from colonisers is achieved, there may still be someone dominating them, telling them how to view the world. In this book, that 'someone' is Mairéad's bully of a brother-in-law, who, unlike the Milkman in Anna Burns' book (set in the same year), controls all the perspectives in the end.
I'm glad I was able to step back and examine this book more objectively than I was able to do when I began this review a few days ago.
Now I better appreciate what Audrey Magee was doing with her multiple plot lines which at first seemed too many and even too didactic in parts.
Now I'm able to to see how her writing style mirrors her themes—and I understand how useful it can be for 'point of view' to shift, whether in life, in art, or in writing.
Part of my inability to transcend my own experience comes from the fact that I identified very closely with one of the main characters: fifteen-year old island-boy James, wearing jumpers hand-knit by his mother, spending days on the cliffs catching rabbits with a net—and taking in every aspect of his wild Atlantic surroundings with an artist's eye though completely unschooled in art. I felt I knew James through and through. I felt I was James.
But when an English artist visits his west of Ireland island, James becomes completely schooled in art over the course of one brief summer. James somehow escaped me then, his level of sophistication regarding life in general, and especially regarding everything related to art, far outstripping my own—though this West of Ireland girl has been learning scraps of art history and art technique throughout her life.
I also identified closely with the time in which the book is set—the 1970s 'Troubles' period—when the radio, which was the main source of information in my parent's house as it was in James's home, brought news every day, in Irish and English, of yet another brutal killing in Northern Ireland, still a colony of Britain. And like James, my family knew of someone who went away regularly for a week at a time (a Milkman-type character), and who seemed to know more about those 'Troubles' across the border than the community cared to admit. We also heard reports of women from the Nationalist community in Northern Ireland being punished by their own people because they'd been 'fraternising' with the enemy—the British soldiers who were then in occupation. Some of those women were 'disappeared', their bodies not found until decades later.
So yes, perhaps I'm too close to this book to see it clearly so I need to step back and change my perspective, view the bigger picture as it were.
…………………
The bigger picture offers other echoes—from books I've read and paintings I've seen. The situation of the island boy with huge artistic talent, but initially no knowledge, reminded me of an Irish artist who was also an untrained islander: James Dixon, encouraged in his art over the course of many years by English artist, Derek Hill, who visited Tory Island off Donegal to paint in a little hut on the cliffs exactly as described in The Colony. That's a firm echo and helps to make the world of the book seem more credible to me. Here's an example of both Derek Hill's and James Dixon's Tory Island art:
Derek Hill
James Dixon
Fifteen-year old James catching rabbits recalls Maurice O'Sulivan's account of his childhood and youth spent on the Great Blasket island off the south-west coast of Ireland. In Twenty Years A-Growing, O'Sullivan describes all the activities James enjoys, rabbit hunting, climbing the cliffs in search of birds' eggs, or searching the rim of the sea for the return of his father, uncle and grandfather from a fishing trip.
And watching as the men unload the fragile canvas currach and lift it out of the water to store it safe from the fierce waves.
But James is less fortunate than Maurice. James lost his father, uncle, and grandfather to the waves when he was an infant, and it is his mother Mairéad who scans the sea in the vain hope that one day her husband, father, and brother will rise up from the bottom of the ocean. Mairéad reminded me of the grieving woman in J M Synge's drama, Riders to the Sea, and her very memorable cry when handed a scrap of clothing that is all that remains of her last son, drowned in a fishing tragedy: There's nothing more the sea can do to me.
In one of her interesting meditations, Mairéad wonders if the intricately patterned jumpers her loved ones wore might survive longer than their bones which she knows have long been transformed by the sea, reminding me of a verse I love from Shakespeare's Tempest:
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Mairéad is a very interesting character, and a very sophisticated thinker. She seemed to play a symbolic role in the story, reminiscent of the 'spéirbhean' of early Irish poetry, the beautiful woman who visited poets in their dreams. Sometimes that beautiful woman represented Ireland and was given a name. One poet called her Roisín Dubh (Dark Rosaleen). Others called her Caitlín Ní Uallacháin. The artist John Lavery painted her portrait (his wife was the model) and that painting was used on Irish banknotes from the foundation of the Irish state in 1922 right up to the 1970s.
The 'Dark Rosaleen' poem I mentioned earlier was about Spanish ships coming to aid Rosaleen/Ireland in 1601 in the struggle against English dominance.
In 1798, French ships were also sent to help in the struggle, though only one ship landed in the end—at Killala on the Mayo coast. Incidentally, the dialect of Irish spoken on James's island is from that coastal area so I feel the 1798 episode (fictionalised in 1979 by Thomas Flanagan as The Year of the French) must have been in Audrey Magee's mind as she was writing The Colony. She gives Mairéad and James their her own version of being rescued from English dominance by the French. As well as the English artist already mentioned, a French linguist happens to arrive on the island that same summer. He comes to record the erosion of the Irish language through contact with English. But the Frenchman is not content to simply record changes in language use, he also tries to force Mairéad and James to renounce English completely, though they are increasingly drawn towards English and the opportunities for a different life that it offers. The Frenchman's motives are complex, and far from altruistic—he seeks to dominate both the beautiful widow and the language itself for his own private purposes.
Speaking of language, Audrey Magee uses it very skilfully. Sometimes her writing is terse, at other times, she allows her characters long streams of inner chuntering, Mairéad, in particular, whose thoughts are often intermingled with Catholic prayers so that I began to see her as a Virgin Mary figure in addition to being a symbol of Ireland itself. But there is also a refreshingly earthy slant to her thinking, something pagan overriding the Christian mantras:
…though god is good for he gave her first a son, a son who looks like his father so that her husband can live on, thanks be to god, thanks be to the lord god, a father living through his son, through him, with him, in him, thanks be to god, his father’s eyes, his father’s hair, his father’s chin, father, son and holy ghost, holy ghost of a man, of a husband, a lover, a friend, not a trace of him anywhere, in rocks, in grasses, in waves, in clouds, in rain, in prayers, in beads, in crosses, nothing, not a sign...for the sea took everything, beating him into fragments small enough to send across the earth on a journey of further erosion and rendering, pounding him into still smaller particles, atomised eternity granted unto him, oh lord, but nothing more, nothing for me to hold at night, to look at in the morning...
The sections of interior monologue often move from third person to first, as in that meditation of Mairéad's. Another example of such a switch in point of view mid-sentence is this line about the smell of linseed oil: James inhaled deeply, soaking his lungs in this otherness that I could breathe all day, never come out. That sentence took me back to the first time I smelled linseed oil and oil paints myself—and also to a Cézanne painting, one of the ones where the artist destabilizes the viewer by merging two perspectives, two points of view, so that we are simultaneously looking down on a bowl of fruit and looking up at an isolated fruit beside the bowl.
Art is everywhere in this book. You could say Art 'dominates' Mairéad and James—when they are not being dominated by other forces.
James becomes the pupil of the English artist, Lloyd, but he is exploited more than he is tutored—Lloyd has problems with perspective in his drawings (and in general) which James resolves for him, and then Lloyd steals the ideas that James thinks up for his own paintings.
Mairéad too becomes interested in art and eventually becomes Lloyd's muse, fraternizing with him in a way that disturbs those Islanders who are fanatically anti-British. She becomes Eve, suffering ever after for wanting to taste the apple of knowledge.
At one point in the story, Lloyd decides to recreate the Gauguin painting called 'Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?' using Mairéad as the model for the central Eve-like figure, reaching up to pluck fruit from a tree..
I could see why the author chose that painting since the title sums up the dilemmas of the island community in 1979 when it was becoming more difficult to live completely cut off from progress as their ancestors had done—and as the Tahitians in Gauguin's painting of their paradise island life were trying to do.
Still, as Lloyd's large canvas progressed, I was reminded of a different picture entirely :
The painting, by Sir William Orpen, dates from 1916, a significant year in Irish history since it marked the beginning of Ireland's final fight for freedom from its British colonisers—attained in 1922 (but only for three-quarters of the country, hence the 'Troubles' in the north of the country where the struggle for freedom was still going on in 1979). Among other things, Orpen's large canvas is a comment on the conflicting pagan and Christian elements in communities in the west of Ireland. The figure in the top left corner is a west of Ireland artist called Sean Keating wearing homespun clothes from the Aran Islands. Keating had been a protégé of Orpen's just as Magee's character James was of the English artist Lloyd—and James wore similar woolen clothing. The semi-naked woman in the foreground of the painting, seated with her arms raised, is almost exactly as Mairéad is described in some of Lloyd's preparatory sketches for his homage to Gauguin.
The inclusion of Keating in Orpen's painting echoes Lloyd's Gauguin painting too. He added James into his scenario, wearing his hand-knit jumper—but carrying a brace of rabbits and not the paint brushes that James had requested be included. James's rendering is very much from Lloyd's perspective. He is fixed forever as an island boy and not as an artist.
Yes, The Colony gives the age-old conundrum of perspective an interesting revisit:
in the writing, where points of view shift frequently;
in the art, where James and Lloyd capture the same surroundings very differently;
in the story itself, where one character's perspective is not shared by another's, over, and over, and over again.
One person's colony to exploit is always another person's home where they just want to live in freedom—or leave if they choose.
But even when freedom from colonisers is achieved, there may still be someone dominating them, telling them how to view the world. In this book, that 'someone' is Mairéad's bully of a brother-in-law, who, unlike the Milkman in Anna Burns' book (set in the same year), controls all the perspectives in the end.
I'm glad I was able to step back and examine this book more objectively than I was able to do when I began this review a few days ago.
Now I better appreciate what Audrey Magee was doing with her multiple plot lines which at first seemed too many and even too didactic in parts.
Now I'm able to to see how her writing style mirrors her themes—and I understand how useful it can be for 'point of view' to shift, whether in life, in art, or in writing.
July 26, 2022
Now Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2022
A novel set on a remote Irish island in 1979, and it couldn't be more timely: An English painter and a French linguist visit the island, both following their own agendas while also claiming that they are helping the poor, isolated community. Magee talks about colonialism, cultural identity and arrogant savior-types who don't listen to the people they state to help, and while the first half moves very slowly, the story picks up speed and becomes a real thriller, but crafted as a chamber play.
On the small island, we meet one of only 12 families living there: Four generations, mainly consisting of three women and teenager James. James' father, uncle and grandfather were fishermen and have drowned, but these dead men keep haunting the family and the book: They are a lost past the women can't break free from.
The first foreigner to arrive is English painter Lloyd, who stays as a tourist with the family and promises the matriarch that he will only paint nature, not the islanders - but of course he portrays the family, seeing himself as some kind of English Gauguin. Is he, the representative of the colonial power, here to submit the representation of island identity to the colonial eye, to exploit the Irish for his own glory as an artist? Not only that, he also makes promises to James, himself an aspiring artist who wants to avoid life as a fisherman at all costs.
Enter Masson, a French linguist with an Algerian mother (France was of course the colonial power of Algeria) who has come to the island for four years to study the Irish language - he aims to get a doctorate and score a job at the department with his work about a language threatened with extinction. Seeing Lloyd, he is shocked that the Englishman might corrupt the Irish speakers on the island with his colonial tongue, thus messing with his study. Whether the islanders want Lloyd there, what language they want to speak - that's of no importance to Masson, which doesn't mean that he isn't certain that he is doing the right thing. He just thinks he knows better than the islanders what's best for the island, and that this is a deeply colonial standpoint doesn't register with him (just read Terre d'ébène by Masson's compatriote Albert Londres, who follows the same logic in the realm of African colonialism).
The novel is set on a small speck of land, it has a limited cast of characters, and most action is developed out of conversations and descriptions of language and paintings, so cultural products. But the backdrop of this is violence: Again and again, the story is interspersed with short, factual descriptions of terrorist attacks committed in the context of the Troubles. Although the islanders live on the Western edge of Europe, far out, they have brutality as a steady background noise, broadcast to them from Dublin, Belfast, and elsewhere in their country. Magee names the victims, their ages, the families they left behind.
This text is filled to the brim with smart sentences, intelligent ideas about identity, self-determination and representation, and beautiful prose (including what Christoph Ransmayr would call "flying sentences"). The ending is quietly devastating, and the whole thing is just extremely well done. If this doesn't get nominated for the Booker, I will be SHOOK.
A novel set on a remote Irish island in 1979, and it couldn't be more timely: An English painter and a French linguist visit the island, both following their own agendas while also claiming that they are helping the poor, isolated community. Magee talks about colonialism, cultural identity and arrogant savior-types who don't listen to the people they state to help, and while the first half moves very slowly, the story picks up speed and becomes a real thriller, but crafted as a chamber play.
On the small island, we meet one of only 12 families living there: Four generations, mainly consisting of three women and teenager James. James' father, uncle and grandfather were fishermen and have drowned, but these dead men keep haunting the family and the book: They are a lost past the women can't break free from.
The first foreigner to arrive is English painter Lloyd, who stays as a tourist with the family and promises the matriarch that he will only paint nature, not the islanders - but of course he portrays the family, seeing himself as some kind of English Gauguin. Is he, the representative of the colonial power, here to submit the representation of island identity to the colonial eye, to exploit the Irish for his own glory as an artist? Not only that, he also makes promises to James, himself an aspiring artist who wants to avoid life as a fisherman at all costs.
Enter Masson, a French linguist with an Algerian mother (France was of course the colonial power of Algeria) who has come to the island for four years to study the Irish language - he aims to get a doctorate and score a job at the department with his work about a language threatened with extinction. Seeing Lloyd, he is shocked that the Englishman might corrupt the Irish speakers on the island with his colonial tongue, thus messing with his study. Whether the islanders want Lloyd there, what language they want to speak - that's of no importance to Masson, which doesn't mean that he isn't certain that he is doing the right thing. He just thinks he knows better than the islanders what's best for the island, and that this is a deeply colonial standpoint doesn't register with him (just read Terre d'ébène by Masson's compatriote Albert Londres, who follows the same logic in the realm of African colonialism).
The novel is set on a small speck of land, it has a limited cast of characters, and most action is developed out of conversations and descriptions of language and paintings, so cultural products. But the backdrop of this is violence: Again and again, the story is interspersed with short, factual descriptions of terrorist attacks committed in the context of the Troubles. Although the islanders live on the Western edge of Europe, far out, they have brutality as a steady background noise, broadcast to them from Dublin, Belfast, and elsewhere in their country. Magee names the victims, their ages, the families they left behind.
This text is filled to the brim with smart sentences, intelligent ideas about identity, self-determination and representation, and beautiful prose (including what Christoph Ransmayr would call "flying sentences"). The ending is quietly devastating, and the whole thing is just extremely well done. If this doesn't get nominated for the Booker, I will be SHOOK.
August 16, 2022
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.
July 26, 2022
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 BOOKER PRIZE
4.5 stars, rounded up. I'd be extremely surprised if this didn't make the 2022 Booker longlist, and maybe even the shortlist.
Magee has succeeded admirably in painting a lyrical and precise portrait of a tiny community of Gaelic-speakers living on a small rocky island off the west coast of Ireland in 1979, at the height of the Troubles. The Colony accumulates realistic scenes of domestic life-- simple meals, cliffside walks, teatime conversations-- over the course of a summer.
Beyond these narrative pleasures and deft character studies, it's also a subtle allegory of the deep cultural scars left by British colonialism, and the illusory binary of tradition and modernity. Magee slowly ratchets up the tension and menace, interspersing narrative chapters of island-based events with terse journalistic accounts of the escalating death toll of sectarian conflict, whose waves ultimately lap up against the island's shores by the novel's end.
The locals are alternatively bemused by and resentful of two outsiders, who embody two different variants of colonialist objectification and the imperial gaze. Lloyd, a middlingly-talented and middle-aged English landscape painter, arrives on the island as a figure of ridicule, seeking a truly authentic experience of windswept cliffs and pristine solitude. He lodges in the home of a young window, Mairéad, who becomes his muse, the Gaelic equivalent of Gauguin's Tahitian maidens. Lloyd nurtures the artistic ambitions of her teenaged son James, absorbing and exploiting his painted images, as the pupil quickly surpasses his master's achievements.
Jean-Pierre Masson, a Parisian linguist, also arrives on the island for his fifth summer of fieldwork, seeking to preserve the authenticity of Gaelic from the encroaching influence of English, which Lloyd has thoughtlessly brought with him, contaminating his best-laid experiments. But JP's motives are just as impure as Lloyd's, and he projects his fantasies of linguistic purity upon the villagers, especially Mairéad's monoglot mother and grandmother; and he treats Mairéad like his concubine. In flashbacks, it's revealed that he himself is post-colonial: his mother was Algerian, married to a French soldier, and that the islanders' Gaelic is an analogue for the Arabic he never learned to speak.
By the novel's halfway point, Magee channels the characters' inner lives through extended soliloquies, expressing all of the desires they can't bring themselves to speak out loud. The only flaw is the novel's oblique and muffled conclusion, when the narrative tension mysteriously dissipates, but I was thoroughly transfixed by this novel until the very end. Very highly recommended.
Many thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Netgalley for sharing an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.
4.5 stars, rounded up. I'd be extremely surprised if this didn't make the 2022 Booker longlist, and maybe even the shortlist.
Magee has succeeded admirably in painting a lyrical and precise portrait of a tiny community of Gaelic-speakers living on a small rocky island off the west coast of Ireland in 1979, at the height of the Troubles. The Colony accumulates realistic scenes of domestic life-- simple meals, cliffside walks, teatime conversations-- over the course of a summer.
Beyond these narrative pleasures and deft character studies, it's also a subtle allegory of the deep cultural scars left by British colonialism, and the illusory binary of tradition and modernity. Magee slowly ratchets up the tension and menace, interspersing narrative chapters of island-based events with terse journalistic accounts of the escalating death toll of sectarian conflict, whose waves ultimately lap up against the island's shores by the novel's end.
The locals are alternatively bemused by and resentful of two outsiders, who embody two different variants of colonialist objectification and the imperial gaze. Lloyd, a middlingly-talented and middle-aged English landscape painter, arrives on the island as a figure of ridicule, seeking a truly authentic experience of windswept cliffs and pristine solitude. He lodges in the home of a young window, Mairéad, who becomes his muse, the Gaelic equivalent of Gauguin's Tahitian maidens. Lloyd nurtures the artistic ambitions of her teenaged son James, absorbing and exploiting his painted images, as the pupil quickly surpasses his master's achievements.
Jean-Pierre Masson, a Parisian linguist, also arrives on the island for his fifth summer of fieldwork, seeking to preserve the authenticity of Gaelic from the encroaching influence of English, which Lloyd has thoughtlessly brought with him, contaminating his best-laid experiments. But JP's motives are just as impure as Lloyd's, and he projects his fantasies of linguistic purity upon the villagers, especially Mairéad's monoglot mother and grandmother; and he treats Mairéad like his concubine. In flashbacks, it's revealed that he himself is post-colonial: his mother was Algerian, married to a French soldier, and that the islanders' Gaelic is an analogue for the Arabic he never learned to speak.
By the novel's halfway point, Magee channels the characters' inner lives through extended soliloquies, expressing all of the desires they can't bring themselves to speak out loud. The only flaw is the novel's oblique and muffled conclusion, when the narrative tension mysteriously dissipates, but I was thoroughly transfixed by this novel until the very end. Very highly recommended.
Many thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Netgalley for sharing an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.
July 9, 2022
“The ‘culture’ that the intellectual leans towards is often no more than a stock of particularisms. He wishes to attach himself to the people; but instead he only catches hold of their outer garments. And these outer garments are merely the reflection of a hidden life, teeming and perpetually in motion.”
– Frantz Fanon
Well-written novels that engage with Hot-Button Social Issues always win prizes, and The Colony is sure to be no exception. This is a book that flaunts its “Post-Colonial Novel” badge proudly. Magee’s characters clearly exist primarily as a means of exploring ideas about imperialism in Irish history and the politics surrounding the Gaelic language.
The danger with books like this is that the grand political themes can end up stifling the human element or sapping the life out of the characters. Thankfully, for the most part, Audrey Magee does a wonderful job of conveying her characters with empathy and authenticity. The nagging cynicism I felt at first (that this was going to be a giant piece of pontificating Booker-prize-bait) eventually faded away.
The prose is understated and beautiful, precise and measured without seeming too artificial. The occasional broken lines of stream-of-consciousness are quite effective, and Magee obviously has a great affection for the history and culture of the book’s setting.
Ultimately, what she offers here is a deconstruction of the simplistic idea that a culture (or language) should be “preserved” by isolating it from the forces of the outside world. Instead, as Magee shows us, it is by engaging with the world that the bearers of that culture can express themselves and forge their own identities. This is certainly not a new idea (see Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth from 1961), but Magee explores it quite beautifully in the Irish context. If I could give half-stars I'd probably give this book a 4.5 but it's certainly one of the most impressive 2022 releases I have read so far!
For those who enjoyed The Colony I would recommend Peig: The Autobiography of Peig Sayers of the Great Blasket Island and The Aran Islands.
December 22, 2022
4.5, rounded down.
Had to mull my rating and what I felt about this book overnight - it IS thought-provoking and very well written - and yet I wasn't ENTIRELY satisfied; although of the six 2022 Booker nominees I have read thus far, it is clearly the standout (which actually says more about the dearth of anything amazing in this year's list, rather than the virtues of this entry).
Others have mentioned it was slow going in the beginning, but I found it quick-paced from the get-go. The storyline and characters I found compelling, and the prose often stunningly lovely. It also had an almost cinematic quality I found appealing - I liked the dialogue heavy scenes the best; if it weren't for the interior monologues, this might make for an intriguing film.
So why a curmudgeonly 4.5 rounded down instead of up? My qualms had to do more with structure and some lingering questions. Once it became apparent that the (usually) long narrative sections set on the island would be juxtaposed with alternating short chapters detailing lethal atrocities from 'The Troubles', set out chronologically, and just stating the facts in each case, I got anxious and 'antsy' - there were really no 'surprises' in any of those brief chapters and if it weren't that they were so short, I'd probably have skipped them all together. Yes, thematically it all ties together - somewhat - but ... ok, we get it - move on! Occasionally, the lack of quotation marks and the drifting into other characters minds/viewpoints within the same sentences/paragraphs threw me and I found that jarring as well.
There were other idiosyncrasies that also made me squirm. The island is supposedly inhabited by 92 individuals, yet we only really get to know 6 of them, all from the same family - I found this insularity disconcerting; surely with all those cliff walks our main characters would encounter SOMEONE else in an island 3 miles by 1 mile in four months (others are vaguely alluded to only when the curraches are carried in from the sea).
Minor point, but this ALSO irked me: Masson makes a point of disregarding James's desire to be known by his English name and insists upon calling him Séamus - and every time he does so, James corrects him. But there are two instances - once to his face, and once when talking to his mother - when Masson 'slips' and calls him James - why? Did the author just not catch that. or was there something else at stake? never figured it out. Nit-picky, I know!
Once I do more mulling - and complete the long list - perhaps I will alter my rating, but for now, I'll let it stand.
Had to mull my rating and what I felt about this book overnight - it IS thought-provoking and very well written - and yet I wasn't ENTIRELY satisfied; although of the six 2022 Booker nominees I have read thus far, it is clearly the standout (which actually says more about the dearth of anything amazing in this year's list, rather than the virtues of this entry).
Others have mentioned it was slow going in the beginning, but I found it quick-paced from the get-go. The storyline and characters I found compelling, and the prose often stunningly lovely. It also had an almost cinematic quality I found appealing - I liked the dialogue heavy scenes the best; if it weren't for the interior monologues, this might make for an intriguing film.
So why a curmudgeonly 4.5 rounded down instead of up? My qualms had to do more with structure and some lingering questions. Once it became apparent that the (usually) long narrative sections set on the island would be juxtaposed with alternating short chapters detailing lethal atrocities from 'The Troubles', set out chronologically, and just stating the facts in each case, I got anxious and 'antsy' - there were really no 'surprises' in any of those brief chapters and if it weren't that they were so short, I'd probably have skipped them all together. Yes, thematically it all ties together - somewhat - but ... ok, we get it - move on! Occasionally, the lack of quotation marks and the drifting into other characters minds/viewpoints within the same sentences/paragraphs threw me and I found that jarring as well.
There were other idiosyncrasies that also made me squirm. The island is supposedly inhabited by 92 individuals, yet we only really get to know 6 of them, all from the same family - I found this insularity disconcerting; surely with all those cliff walks our main characters would encounter SOMEONE else in an island 3 miles by 1 mile in four months (others are vaguely alluded to only when the curraches are carried in from the sea).
Minor point, but this ALSO irked me: Masson makes a point of disregarding James's desire to be known by his English name and insists upon calling him Séamus - and every time he does so, James corrects him. But there are two instances - once to his face, and once when talking to his mother - when Masson 'slips' and calls him James - why? Did the author just not catch that. or was there something else at stake? never figured it out. Nit-picky, I know!
Once I do more mulling - and complete the long list - perhaps I will alter my rating, but for now, I'll let it stand.
January 22, 2023
For a relatively short novel, The Colony offers several important themes such as the sense of national identity preserved in a language, hatred having its roots in history and religion or the need to cut off oneself from life lived previous generations.
I put off reading this novel for a long time, and I was yet again rewarded after deciding to read it or rather listen to it. The language. Poland was non-existent as a country for 123 years and preserving the language and culture was seen of the utmost importance by both the elites and ordinary people. It was a non-violent tool against the legal systems of Russia, Prussia and Austro-Hungary, the latter one being least oppresive regarding the Polish language. Having the history in mind, I was related to this theme strongly. The hatred. Opposing any religious intolerance which leads to killing your brother, the newspaper-style chapters on brutal murders of Catholics and Protestants left me saddened and helpless.
The colony. This word receives several meanings and shades in the novel, and the island with its inhabitants is the place which can be appreciated if not fully comprehended only by those who want to bond themselves with it. The artist who arrives at the island expects to exploit it for his own ends and leaves after achieving them and destroying hopes of some of the inhabitants. Those islanders who resist him, win.
Beautiful novel that will stay with me ...
OverDrive, thank you!
I put off reading this novel for a long time, and I was yet again rewarded after deciding to read it or rather listen to it. The language. Poland was non-existent as a country for 123 years and preserving the language and culture was seen of the utmost importance by both the elites and ordinary people. It was a non-violent tool against the legal systems of Russia, Prussia and Austro-Hungary, the latter one being least oppresive regarding the Polish language. Having the history in mind, I was related to this theme strongly. The hatred. Opposing any religious intolerance which leads to killing your brother, the newspaper-style chapters on brutal murders of Catholics and Protestants left me saddened and helpless.
The colony. This word receives several meanings and shades in the novel, and the island with its inhabitants is the place which can be appreciated if not fully comprehended only by those who want to bond themselves with it. The artist who arrives at the island expects to exploit it for his own ends and leaves after achieving them and destroying hopes of some of the inhabitants. Those islanders who resist him, win.
Beautiful novel that will stay with me ...
OverDrive, thank you!
March 23, 2022
On a small, sparsely-populated and remote Irish island there is an ageing population that still speaks their native Irish language, but they are steadily dying out. One of the remaining youngest island residents is James who prefers to speak English and be addressed by his English name rather than his Irish name Seamus. Two foreigners separately travel to this island for their own purposes. There is irascible London artist Lloyd who wants to create paintings that capture the island's beauty and its inhabitants. He hopes to produce great works that will establish him as the “Gauguin of the North”. There's also Frenchman Jean-Pierre, a linguist who has been making excursions to the island for many years to record how the “purity” of this spoken language is slowly changing with the increasing influence of English. He wants to write an account of whether true Irishness can be preserved and Lloyd's presence is mucking up his plans. The two bicker and clash over their right to be on this island. The actual residents of the island grudgingly tolerate both of them as they are paying guests who bring in much needed capital as the native fishing industry has also been dying out – quite literally as both James' father and grandfather died at sea.
This is a slow burning drama that builds to say something much bigger about notions of national purity and colonialism. Read my full review of The Colony by Audrey Magee at LonesomeReader
This is a slow burning drama that builds to say something much bigger about notions of national purity and colonialism. Read my full review of The Colony by Audrey Magee at LonesomeReader
June 21, 2022
That’s what artists do, James. Take from each other, learn from each other. That’s what we’re doing here, in our little artist’s colony.
James fingered his cup. It doesn’t seem right, Mr Lloyd.
The Colony is a sneakily allegorical exploration of colonisation and its enduring effects on colonised people; it’s sneaky because it seems quiet and measured, but this is a book that roars beneath the surface. Set on a tiny island off the west coast of Ireland in 1979, author Audrey Magee imagines this last outpost of monolingual Irish speakers under existential threat from two summer lodgers: an English painter (who fancies himself a modern day Gaugin; re-interpretive, not derivative, surely) and a French linguist (on the final year of the research that will be the basis of his PhD thesis, he resents the presence of an English speaker influencing his subjects’ virgin syntax). Throughout, Magee inserts impassive accounts of lethal attacks between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland — 1979 was the height of violence in The Troubles, culminating in the bombing deaths of Lord Mountbatten and his family while on a sea cruise — and while at first these interludes may seem to be background colour, they eventually make clear that the few dozen inhabitants of this unnamed island consider themselves to be thoroughly Irish; fully developed adults with opinions and self-awareness of their position in the world (hardly the “primitives” who would need an Englishman and a Frenchman to argue over what’s best for them.) This works as both historical fiction and as an exploration of an enduringly thorny topic, and I loved the whole thing. Rounding up to five stars. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)
self-portrait: at sea
I’d like you to sing, he said.
We don’t sing, Mr Lloyd.
But I need something to focus on. Counting or singing.
Not in this boat.
I read in a book that you people always sing while rowing.
Not a very good book then, is it, Mr Lloyd?
I came here because of it.
The boatman looked past Lloyd, at the land behind.
You need a better book, Mr Lloyd.
It seems that I do.
Mr Lloyd is a middle-aged traditionalist landscape artist — desperate to make himself relevant in the modernist London art scene alongside Auerbach, Bacon, and Freud — and he has an idea of how his ideal undiscovered country will look, and the money to pursue his follies (money enough to pay a couple of fishermen to row him across the Atlantic for nine hours in a flat-bottomed canvas currach because he saw the scene in a book once). There’s a whiff of flag-planting about Lloyd, but as the above early exchange between Lloyd and his hosts demonstrates, it will be hard for this Englishman to get the better of the Irish in a debate. Lloyd does seem to be a serious and talented painter, and as the summer progresses and fifteen-year-old local, James, begins to paint alongside him, Lloyd becomes more humanised and integrated with the community.
One of the great delights of The Colony is the seamless interior monologuing that passes from character to character. Lloyd demonstrates what a twit he is when titling every scene he looks upon as though it is already painted (as above: self-portrait: at sea, elsewhere: island scene: mass on sunday or self-portrait: becoming an islander), and there’s something very self-consciously Proustian about the French linguist’s stream-of-consciousness (and particularly as his mother was an Algerian Arab and his father an abusive French soldier who demonstrated against his wife’s body the violence of French colonialism; Jean-Pierre might be on the island as a saviour of the Irish language, but he wants you to know that he’s 100% French):
An Englishman. In this, my final summer. He shouldn’t be here, not on this island, not in this yard, for this is my place, my retreat, where I sit, alone, at the end of the day, hidden by the whitewashed walls from the rest of the island, from the islanders, the evening sun on my closed eyes as I dissect the day’s language and analyse the phrases and inflections, the intonations and borrowings, hunting for influences of English, for traces of that foreign language creeping onto the island, into the houses, into the mouths and onto the tongues of the islanders, tracking those tiny utterances that signal change, marking the beginning of the end of Irish on the island, these thoughts, this knowledge, encased and protected by the smallness and stillness of this yard, with only the birds to hear my mutterings, as it was in the wood-panelled courtyard of my grandmother’s house on the edge of the village far from the town, further still from the city, sitting on my own at the circular table cast of iron, under the willow tree, the birds above me, around me, witness to my childhood mumblings on those early summer mornings, my parents, my aunts, my cousins still sleeping, my grandmother in the kitchen, humming as she prepared my hot chocolate, a freshness and softness to her movements that would later, as the day aged, become irritated and hardened, but then, in the early morning, as I sat outside, alone in the courtyard, as she stirred the chocolate powder into the warm milk, she was gentle, smiling as she set the blue and white bowl in front of me, smiling still when she returned from the kitchen with a basket of bread, with butter and jam, with a teaspoon, a knife, a napkin and a glass of water, setting them all in front of me, ruffling my hair, telling me how happy she was to see me again, to have me to stay, and I, aware even then of the transience of our intimacy, kissed her hand, her skin not yet old but beginning to grow old, holding her until she pulled away and returned to the kitchen, her slippers slapping the tiled floor still to be warmed by the day’s sun, leaving me alone again with the birds. As it had been here. As I had been here. Alone, in this yard, until now, until the arrival of this Englishman with his English talk. Masson lifted the brush and slammed it against the concrete. Damn you, Lloyd. This yard is mine.
As an added bonus: as Jean-Pierre begins writing the intro to his dissertation while on the island, The Colony contains a very succinct history of the English colonisation of Ireland and how it led to the attacks that everyone is hearing about on the radio when they gather for evening meals. Lloyd and Jean-Pierre debate the effects of colonisation — Lloyd taking the view that there’s not much tragic about languages dying out if it improves a people’s economic situation — and even though Jean-Pierre (despite the burden of having rejected his mother’s cultural heritage) thinks of himself as the island’s lone cultural champion, both of these men fantasise about their work generating fame and fortune and drawing newspaper and film crews to this tiny outpost.
Imagine that, said Mairéad. A Frenchman and an Englishman squabbling over our turf.
They’ve been squabbling over our turf for centuries, said Francis.
I suppose they have.
Yet while the Frenchman and the Englishman have their great debates about the island’s future, it’s obvious that the islanders aren’t naive about their situation: with young people moving away and too few older folks remaining to support a traditional way of life, their community will need to evolve into something else. Mairéad (James’ widowed mother) dials the common experience down to the personal: All of the men she meets want to protect or possess her, and while this or that one might believe he is taking advantage, Mairéad is (like the islanders as a whole) a fully developed, mature person who has her own desires and motivations; no one need feel sorry for Mairéad. Even so, James will end up being used in a way that demonstrates the worst of colonial impulses (manipulation, exploitation, appropriation), and ultimately, Magee says something very powerful and necessary about how the effects of colonialism linger in the psyches of people on each side of the power divide. Simply a remarkable example of a well-written book with something important to say.
August 10, 2022
Lovely writing but, considering that nothing happened, it felt a bit too long.
Hey, writers of the modern world, just so you know good writing on its own doesn’t make up for dull storytelling. Just saying…
Hey, writers of the modern world, just so you know good writing on its own doesn’t make up for dull storytelling. Just saying…
August 16, 2022
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ ½
Genre: Literary Fiction + Historical Fiction
In 1979, an elderly community that still speaks their native Irish language exists on a small, poorly inhabited, and secluded island in Ireland, but they are rapidly vanishing. For different reasons, two foreigners come to this island separately. One of them is a painter from London called Lloyd. He picked this secluded island as the perfect place to paint the nature of the island as well as some of its people.
The other man is Jean-Pierre, a French scholar who has visited the island on numerous occasions over the years. Jean-Pierre has been looking closely at how the English language has been increasing and has a strong foothold among the inhabitants of the island. It is more like research or an essay that he wants to do to show the effect of the English language on the native language. However, the French man will find himself in constant conflict with the English man. Each one of them thinks he is entitled to do his work, while in reality, both of them are barely tolerated by the people of the island!
I have been alternating between reading the book physically and listening to the audiobook. The writing is very beautiful. At times, it is even lyrical. However, the story was not as captivating as I expected it to be. This is a slow-burn fiction that depends on bigger ideas of colonialism and nationalism rather than smaller events that concern the characters directly. In other words, the plot itself is loose and not the strongest point of the story. The story is more character-driven. I feel the audiobook helped me a lot in liking the book. The narrator did a wonderful job. The physical book does not have the best format, which makes it more difficult to get through. This is a book that should be read to appreciate the beautiful writing and the broad ideas more than the story itself.
Genre: Literary Fiction + Historical Fiction
In 1979, an elderly community that still speaks their native Irish language exists on a small, poorly inhabited, and secluded island in Ireland, but they are rapidly vanishing. For different reasons, two foreigners come to this island separately. One of them is a painter from London called Lloyd. He picked this secluded island as the perfect place to paint the nature of the island as well as some of its people.
The other man is Jean-Pierre, a French scholar who has visited the island on numerous occasions over the years. Jean-Pierre has been looking closely at how the English language has been increasing and has a strong foothold among the inhabitants of the island. It is more like research or an essay that he wants to do to show the effect of the English language on the native language. However, the French man will find himself in constant conflict with the English man. Each one of them thinks he is entitled to do his work, while in reality, both of them are barely tolerated by the people of the island!
I have been alternating between reading the book physically and listening to the audiobook. The writing is very beautiful. At times, it is even lyrical. However, the story was not as captivating as I expected it to be. This is a slow-burn fiction that depends on bigger ideas of colonialism and nationalism rather than smaller events that concern the characters directly. In other words, the plot itself is loose and not the strongest point of the story. The story is more character-driven. I feel the audiobook helped me a lot in liking the book. The narrator did a wonderful job. The physical book does not have the best format, which makes it more difficult to get through. This is a book that should be read to appreciate the beautiful writing and the broad ideas more than the story itself.
July 26, 2022
Longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize
He once more built a frame of newspaper, sticks and turf and squatted to see the fire move through his structure, watching the flames lick the timber and dried earth, releasing the cloying smoke that seeped into the room and coated his clothes, his books, smothering the smell of damp and mildew taking root on the surface of his shoes and boots
of my skin
smearing me
in smells
of them
their past
present still
in this turf that burns
ancient grievances
buried in this burnin earth
cow dung
pigs' excrement
rotten potatoes
famished bones
the fetid blood of war
of poverty
of blame
smothering me
suffocating
english lavender
dry-cleaned tweed
though he smells still
of paris
of coffee
of chocolate
his turf untainted
The Colony is a book I hope and expect to see featuring in the Goldsmiths and Booker shortlists (and another inexplicable omission from the 2022 Women's Prize list).
This will certainly be a book much discussed by other reviewers and discussion forums, so I simply wanted to note what, for me, was the novel's most impressive feature, the way that Magee has consciously built on the language of the interior monologue in literature, from Proust through Joyce, Woolf, Beckett and, more recently Mike McCormack's Solar Bones, and given it her own unique flavour in the different styles of her protagonists (which also evolve as the novel, and their views, develop):
- the English artist Mr Lloyd, with his staccato speech which frames everything as a picture; this from the first chapter when he is timidly trying to board a small boat:
self-portrait I: falling
self-portrait II: drowning
self-portrait III: disappearing
self-portrait IV: under the water
self-portrait V: the disappeared
- and the contrast to the Proustian recollections of his colonial rival Masson, a Frenchman, determined to save the islanders' language and their heritage, even if that isn't what they want, and hiding a secret of his own (that he betrayed his own linguistic and cultural heritage);
- Mairéad, who finds herself the object of the competing attentions of Lloyd, who wants to paint her, Masson, who wants and does get to sleep with her on his annual visits, and her terrorist sympathising nationalist brother in-law;
- and the bilingual James (or Séamus, his Irish name, which Masson insists on using despite his request not to do so), who dreams of another life in London:
He buried under the covers and rolled from side to sid basting his clothes and skin in the artist's oils and sweat, in pencil, charcoal and paint, rolling until he was certain that 11 smelt of something other than fish, because if I smell of some thing other than fish, of paints and oils, they might all see that I should leave, that I am not a fisherman, not a proper island boy, but something that has to be elsewhere, somewhere other than here looking after my mother, my grandmother, my great-grandmother, and now they're giving me the mother tongue to look after as well, to save that mother too, to save it all and the other mothers. I don't want so many mothers.
The way these voices blend in to each other, as one character overhears another and picks up the narrative baton is impressive. As is the way Magee incorporates reports of real-life killings from the Troubles in 1979 in a way that at first appears jarringly out of sync, but is gradually incorporated into the main narrative. And Magee also incorporates strong nods to art from Rembrandt through to Gauguin's somewhat problematical works.
4.5 stars
Two essays where Magee explains her approach:
https://www.thelondonmagazine.org/ess...
https://www.writing.ie/interviews/wri...
He once more built a frame of newspaper, sticks and turf and squatted to see the fire move through his structure, watching the flames lick the timber and dried earth, releasing the cloying smoke that seeped into the room and coated his clothes, his books, smothering the smell of damp and mildew taking root on the surface of his shoes and boots
of my skin
smearing me
in smells
of them
their past
present still
in this turf that burns
ancient grievances
buried in this burnin earth
cow dung
pigs' excrement
rotten potatoes
famished bones
the fetid blood of war
of poverty
of blame
smothering me
suffocating
english lavender
dry-cleaned tweed
though he smells still
of paris
of coffee
of chocolate
his turf untainted
The Colony is a book I hope and expect to see featuring in the Goldsmiths and Booker shortlists (and another inexplicable omission from the 2022 Women's Prize list).
This will certainly be a book much discussed by other reviewers and discussion forums, so I simply wanted to note what, for me, was the novel's most impressive feature, the way that Magee has consciously built on the language of the interior monologue in literature, from Proust through Joyce, Woolf, Beckett and, more recently Mike McCormack's Solar Bones, and given it her own unique flavour in the different styles of her protagonists (which also evolve as the novel, and their views, develop):
- the English artist Mr Lloyd, with his staccato speech which frames everything as a picture; this from the first chapter when he is timidly trying to board a small boat:
self-portrait I: falling
self-portrait II: drowning
self-portrait III: disappearing
self-portrait IV: under the water
self-portrait V: the disappeared
- and the contrast to the Proustian recollections of his colonial rival Masson, a Frenchman, determined to save the islanders' language and their heritage, even if that isn't what they want, and hiding a secret of his own (that he betrayed his own linguistic and cultural heritage);
- Mairéad, who finds herself the object of the competing attentions of Lloyd, who wants to paint her, Masson, who wants and does get to sleep with her on his annual visits, and her terrorist sympathising nationalist brother in-law;
- and the bilingual James (or Séamus, his Irish name, which Masson insists on using despite his request not to do so), who dreams of another life in London:
He buried under the covers and rolled from side to sid basting his clothes and skin in the artist's oils and sweat, in pencil, charcoal and paint, rolling until he was certain that 11 smelt of something other than fish, because if I smell of some thing other than fish, of paints and oils, they might all see that I should leave, that I am not a fisherman, not a proper island boy, but something that has to be elsewhere, somewhere other than here looking after my mother, my grandmother, my great-grandmother, and now they're giving me the mother tongue to look after as well, to save that mother too, to save it all and the other mothers. I don't want so many mothers.
The way these voices blend in to each other, as one character overhears another and picks up the narrative baton is impressive. As is the way Magee incorporates reports of real-life killings from the Troubles in 1979 in a way that at first appears jarringly out of sync, but is gradually incorporated into the main narrative. And Magee also incorporates strong nods to art from Rembrandt through to Gauguin's somewhat problematical works.
4.5 stars
Two essays where Magee explains her approach:
https://www.thelondonmagazine.org/ess...
https://www.writing.ie/interviews/wri...
September 3, 2022
How to win a Booker...
Pick a subject, any subject, and hide it beneath a ton
of
quirky
style
and lots of lists of words thrown
randomly
red blue
together
fried fish
meaningfully
or meaninglessly, perhaps.
Don't forget to entirely omit the conventions of grammar and punctuation that have stood generations of great and immortal writers in good stead. Instead of "quotation marks", for example, why not simply indent the start of the sentence every time anyone is
cabbages
turnips
speaking?
And to ensure that your readers remember that your character is an artist, as well as randomly listing colours
beige
fluorescent orange
pink polka-dots
you could have a little quirk like having the character imagine himself ironically as a series of self-portraits.
Self-portrait I: rolling eyes at what passes for literature these days.
And there you go! Longlisted for sure, almost a certainty for shortlisting and, it being the Booker, quite probably the winner.
Abandoned at 10%.
Pick a subject, any subject, and hide it beneath a ton
of
quirky
style
and lots of lists of words thrown
randomly
red blue
together
fried fish
meaningfully
or meaninglessly, perhaps.
Don't forget to entirely omit the conventions of grammar and punctuation that have stood generations of great and immortal writers in good stead. Instead of "quotation marks", for example, why not simply indent the start of the sentence every time anyone is
cabbages
turnips
speaking?
And to ensure that your readers remember that your character is an artist, as well as randomly listing colours
beige
fluorescent orange
pink polka-dots
you could have a little quirk like having the character imagine himself ironically as a series of self-portraits.
Self-portrait I: rolling eyes at what passes for literature these days.
And there you go! Longlisted for sure, almost a certainty for shortlisting and, it being the Booker, quite probably the winner.
Abandoned at 10%.
March 14, 2024
Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2022
This was one of the books that was being tipped most widely before this year's Booker longlist was announced, so I was very keen to read it, and for the most part it lived up to the high expectations which that created.
The setting is a rocky island off the Atlantic coast of Ireland whose small population contains some of the "purest" native Irish speakers. The plot, which is something of a microcosm for the wider history of Ireland, is driven by two summer visitors, their mutual antagonism and their oppositely blinkered views of what the community wants/needs. We meet the English painter Mr Lloyd first - he is something of a colonial caricature, bringing unrealistic expectations of material comfort and an arrogance with the locals. The other is M. Masson, a French language scholar who is writing a history of the Irish Gaelic language and fears that its last pure speakers are being lost. Masson is much initially more popular with the community, but becomes more nuanced as the story continues (as indeed does Lloyd ).
The story is set in 1979, and the narrative is often interrupted by short matter of fact descriptions of the murderous progress of the Troubles in Ulster, which seem a little jarring at first but eventually become crucial to the story.
This was one of the books that was being tipped most widely before this year's Booker longlist was announced, so I was very keen to read it, and for the most part it lived up to the high expectations which that created.
The setting is a rocky island off the Atlantic coast of Ireland whose small population contains some of the "purest" native Irish speakers. The plot, which is something of a microcosm for the wider history of Ireland, is driven by two summer visitors, their mutual antagonism and their oppositely blinkered views of what the community wants/needs. We meet the English painter Mr Lloyd first - he is something of a colonial caricature, bringing unrealistic expectations of material comfort and an arrogance with the locals. The other is M. Masson, a French language scholar who is writing a history of the Irish Gaelic language and fears that its last pure speakers are being lost. Masson is much initially more popular with the community, but becomes more nuanced as the story continues (as indeed does Lloyd ).
The story is set in 1979, and the narrative is often interrupted by short matter of fact descriptions of the murderous progress of the Troubles in Ulster, which seem a little jarring at first but eventually become crucial to the story.
July 24, 2022
Well, three days out from the 2022 Booker prize longlist announcement and this is the novel I have seen as most tipped to be on that list. I don't believe I have seen a single negative review at least amongst my colleagues here. So it is with some puzzlement that I found myself underwhelmed by this story of island life, interleaved with reportage of "The Troubles".
The opening scenes of Mr Lloyd bumbling around in a currach for his crossing to the island were beautifully done. The initial descriptions of the villagers, the windswept cliffs, the puffins, rabbit stew, how to make an Aran jumper- all good. Where I started to get restless probably coincided with the introduction of the French linguist. There were now little asides about the history of the Irish language, coupled with the reportage from the mainland - it became a real question of why I might not just prefer reading a book on Irish history instead.
I understand this is a novel about colonialism, language, art and sectarian violence. But my memories of it were mostly about James bringing people an inordinate amount of tea and me waiting for some moment of, well, excitement? A cliffside tumble, a fist fight, the willful destruction of one of these damn paintings... spoiler alert: none of this occurs.
Oddly enough in what is a very positive review of The Colony in the Guardian* I nevertheless find sentiments I can agree with :
Audrey Magee likes to keep her readers at arm’s length - Tick
emotions were bleached from the page, forcing the reader to dispassionately observe action and reaction - refers to Magee's first novel but is equally applicable here. Believe me, I dispassionately observed the skinning of rabbits and the sketching of birds and I come away unmoved.
Characters do very little very slowly and discontents are expressed sardonically or obliquely, if at all. - Ding, ding YES exactly
I will volunteer to place myself in the literary time-out corner until I can sort myself out and get prepared to face disgrace should this win the Booker ;)
*https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...
The opening scenes of Mr Lloyd bumbling around in a currach for his crossing to the island were beautifully done. The initial descriptions of the villagers, the windswept cliffs, the puffins, rabbit stew, how to make an Aran jumper- all good. Where I started to get restless probably coincided with the introduction of the French linguist. There were now little asides about the history of the Irish language, coupled with the reportage from the mainland - it became a real question of why I might not just prefer reading a book on Irish history instead.
I understand this is a novel about colonialism, language, art and sectarian violence. But my memories of it were mostly about James bringing people an inordinate amount of tea and me waiting for some moment of, well, excitement? A cliffside tumble, a fist fight, the willful destruction of one of these damn paintings... spoiler alert: none of this occurs.
Oddly enough in what is a very positive review of The Colony in the Guardian* I nevertheless find sentiments I can agree with :
Audrey Magee likes to keep her readers at arm’s length - Tick
emotions were bleached from the page, forcing the reader to dispassionately observe action and reaction - refers to Magee's first novel but is equally applicable here. Believe me, I dispassionately observed the skinning of rabbits and the sketching of birds and I come away unmoved.
Characters do very little very slowly and discontents are expressed sardonically or obliquely, if at all. - Ding, ding YES exactly
I will volunteer to place myself in the literary time-out corner until I can sort myself out and get prepared to face disgrace should this win the Booker ;)
*https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...
December 5, 2022
At first I wondered about this book’s style, specifically, so much direct address, which came across too polite (sometimes I read it as condescending), especially when only two characters are in a scene. But with the lack of quotation marks and so much dialogue, it did help in knowing who was talking to whom.
I loved when the dialogue flowed into a single character’s thought process. It’s much like Magee’s description of the painterly process, of the way an artist sees (which I connected to the writerly process), which becomes more complicated (in theme) as the story goes on.
This is all in contrast to the interspersed short factual sections. At first I wondered if the two types of sections might not be of the same time period, as life on the island seemed so “old-fashioned.” But as with the rest of the novel—the characters, the themes, the setting—I feel it should be left to the reader to discover, how it all evolves, how it’s all revealed.
I loved when the dialogue flowed into a single character’s thought process. It’s much like Magee’s description of the painterly process, of the way an artist sees (which I connected to the writerly process), which becomes more complicated (in theme) as the story goes on.
This is all in contrast to the interspersed short factual sections. At first I wondered if the two types of sections might not be of the same time period, as life on the island seemed so “old-fashioned.” But as with the rest of the novel—the characters, the themes, the setting—I feel it should be left to the reader to discover, how it all evolves, how it’s all revealed.
July 19, 2022
The Colony is an absolute banger; the kind of book that really gets me going. Magee has crafted and exquisitely lyrical novel about the languages of colonisers and colonisation. It’s cleverly constructed as a novel that is literally about the impact of colonisation on language, but the Magee’s exploration runs much deeper than just this one facet. It’s at once a very small, personal narrative, and simultaneously a far-reaching political critique. It’s hard to imagine anything other than prize-winning success for this excellent book.
August 8, 2022
Truth is elusive when money is in the room.
Or if any version of pride is there.
Now make the room an island, three miles long and one and one-half miles wide. Populate it. Give it ancestry and history. And human needs. Put it near The Troubles. So not quite a blank canvas when the Englishman comes, an artist in a slump.
We are not quite sure what to make of Mr. Lloyd when he arrives, vomiting from the currach. Will we like him, I mean. The islanders are polite, helpful but wary of him. Fifteen year-old James is the front man, taking care of Mr. Lloyd's needs. We like James straightaway. He is wiser than his years, and with an artistic gift superior to the Englishman's. Will James redeem Mr. Lloyd, we wonder.
There's foreboding, though. The island is too near, maybe. And Mr. Lloyd is an Englishman after all. And so a reader's heart got broken; this author made me care that much.
Now, if you haven't already, go read Fionnuala's review, which is scholarly and personal and, of course, inimitable. I read her review seconds before I ordered this book. Then again, seconds after finishing it. It's grand.
Or if any version of pride is there.
Now make the room an island, three miles long and one and one-half miles wide. Populate it. Give it ancestry and history. And human needs. Put it near The Troubles. So not quite a blank canvas when the Englishman comes, an artist in a slump.
We are not quite sure what to make of Mr. Lloyd when he arrives, vomiting from the currach. Will we like him, I mean. The islanders are polite, helpful but wary of him. Fifteen year-old James is the front man, taking care of Mr. Lloyd's needs. We like James straightaway. He is wiser than his years, and with an artistic gift superior to the Englishman's. Will James redeem Mr. Lloyd, we wonder.
There's foreboding, though. The island is too near, maybe. And Mr. Lloyd is an Englishman after all. And so a reader's heart got broken; this author made me care that much.
Now, if you haven't already, go read Fionnuala's review, which is scholarly and personal and, of course, inimitable. I read her review seconds before I ordered this book. Then again, seconds after finishing it. It's grand.
July 23, 2022
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.
“ 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.
September 8, 2022
Mr Lloyd is more concerned about the security of his paints, brushes, and easel than his own safety as he embarks for the island. However, during the crossing his concerns for his safety become paramount, and he questions his choice of the little currach for the voyage.
One page then interrupts this journey. One page in which a policeman and his friend are shot dead on the streets of Armagh. Two Protestant men killed by the IRA. These one-page intervals become a regular occurrence, each of them short stories of violence, death, the English, and the IRA. These random pages in a book pop up like the random attacks in Northern Ireland. A deft touch from Magee.
The destination of the trip is a tiny island, more of a rock really, with a dwindling population. Mr Lloyd is there ostensibly to paint the wild, rugged, cliffs of this island. He keeps being reminded by the inhabitants that he is not to paint them, only the cliffs. Secretly, the inhabitants and their life on the island is his true intention.
A few days after he arrives a Frenchman, Jean-Pierre Masson, arrives on the mail boat. Masson is a linguist and travels to the Island to study Gaelic, which is threatened with extinction. He is trying to preserve, save, the dying language by writing a book. Mr Lloyd believes he is too late. The two take an almost immediate dislike to each other. Mr Lloyd thinks that it is inevitable that the language will die, while Jean-Pierre, or JP, is tired of the English destroying tradition, banning the inhabitants from speaking anything but Irish.
James is a young boy, who is trapped on the island. There is nothing worse, he believes than following in the footsteps of his deceased father, living out his life as a fisherman on the desolate island. He asks Mr Lloyd if he can paint with him, and an escape from the island becomes possible. Mr Lloyd agrees to take him on as an apprentice and take him back with him to London. James is a natural artist, and Mr Lloyd promises to let James join his exhibition in London. A promise akin to promises made by colonizing powers.
Magee’s prose throughout the book borders on the poetical, with many paragraphs containing nothing more than four or five one-word sentences. The reader will either love this style or may find it a little jarring.
Throughout the whole novel there is a feeling of a looming confrontation between the English Artist and the French linguist. Both representations of their respective colonizing empires, and this is a definite theme. In this instance, the English with Ireland, and the French with Algeria. While the pages that pop up about the attacks and killings in Northern Ireland remind the reader of the inevitable violence of colonization, JP and his efforts to save the language, remind us of the loss of culture and language. Also, much like a colonizing empire, both men believe they are helping the island. Mr Lloyd believes that his paintings will bring tourists to the island and revitalize it, while JP, believes that he can save its culture and tradition. Meanwhile the island, a symbol for sure, would be better off without interference.
A novel that is much deeper than you first think.
One page then interrupts this journey. One page in which a policeman and his friend are shot dead on the streets of Armagh. Two Protestant men killed by the IRA. These one-page intervals become a regular occurrence, each of them short stories of violence, death, the English, and the IRA. These random pages in a book pop up like the random attacks in Northern Ireland. A deft touch from Magee.
The destination of the trip is a tiny island, more of a rock really, with a dwindling population. Mr Lloyd is there ostensibly to paint the wild, rugged, cliffs of this island. He keeps being reminded by the inhabitants that he is not to paint them, only the cliffs. Secretly, the inhabitants and their life on the island is his true intention.
A few days after he arrives a Frenchman, Jean-Pierre Masson, arrives on the mail boat. Masson is a linguist and travels to the Island to study Gaelic, which is threatened with extinction. He is trying to preserve, save, the dying language by writing a book. Mr Lloyd believes he is too late. The two take an almost immediate dislike to each other. Mr Lloyd thinks that it is inevitable that the language will die, while Jean-Pierre, or JP, is tired of the English destroying tradition, banning the inhabitants from speaking anything but Irish.
James is a young boy, who is trapped on the island. There is nothing worse, he believes than following in the footsteps of his deceased father, living out his life as a fisherman on the desolate island. He asks Mr Lloyd if he can paint with him, and an escape from the island becomes possible. Mr Lloyd agrees to take him on as an apprentice and take him back with him to London. James is a natural artist, and Mr Lloyd promises to let James join his exhibition in London. A promise akin to promises made by colonizing powers.
Magee’s prose throughout the book borders on the poetical, with many paragraphs containing nothing more than four or five one-word sentences. The reader will either love this style or may find it a little jarring.
Throughout the whole novel there is a feeling of a looming confrontation between the English Artist and the French linguist. Both representations of their respective colonizing empires, and this is a definite theme. In this instance, the English with Ireland, and the French with Algeria. While the pages that pop up about the attacks and killings in Northern Ireland remind the reader of the inevitable violence of colonization, JP and his efforts to save the language, remind us of the loss of culture and language. Also, much like a colonizing empire, both men believe they are helping the island. Mr Lloyd believes that his paintings will bring tourists to the island and revitalize it, while JP, believes that he can save its culture and tradition. Meanwhile the island, a symbol for sure, would be better off without interference.
A novel that is much deeper than you first think.
June 15, 2022
Definite prize contender and a potentially very worthy Booker triumph -- unquestionably of the first rank.
'And that is what I want, Mr Lloyd. To be lifted away, off, to some place else where I will endure and live beyond the transience of the everyday, a permanence that others get through god, the after-life, the promise of heaven, but I have already looked there, at that, and there is nothing, only a void that once seen cannot be unseen. I need a remedy against its harshness, Mr Lloyd. Against its bleakness. An after-life of my own. An after-life greater than atomised particles of dust across the kitchen floor. An after-life from an Englishman with sad eyes and a sad mouth, burdened by a need to draw, to paint, to live in isolation on the edge of a cliff, a hermit monk, his paints and brushes an offering to his art god.'
'And that is what I want, Mr Lloyd. To be lifted away, off, to some place else where I will endure and live beyond the transience of the everyday, a permanence that others get through god, the after-life, the promise of heaven, but I have already looked there, at that, and there is nothing, only a void that once seen cannot be unseen. I need a remedy against its harshness, Mr Lloyd. Against its bleakness. An after-life of my own. An after-life greater than atomised particles of dust across the kitchen floor. An after-life from an Englishman with sad eyes and a sad mouth, burdened by a need to draw, to paint, to live in isolation on the edge of a cliff, a hermit monk, his paints and brushes an offering to his art god.'
July 19, 2022
Enthralling and deeply affecting, the novel is taking place on a nameless remote island off the West coast of Ireland, populated by only 12 families and stretching 3 miles long and half a mile wide. Still untainted by commercial tourism, its raw natural beauty is preserved as are the old ways of islanders’ life and their Gaelic/Irish language. It centers on the three generations of women—a widowed Mairéad, her mother Bean Uí Néil, and grandmother Bean Uí Fhloinn—Mairéad’s teenage son James/Séamus, her brother-in-law Francis, and Micheál who brought two visitors to the island. Their two visitors are an English landscape artist Mr. Lloyd and a French linguist Mr. Masson/“JP”, whose story with the islanders over the course of the summer in 1979 is narrated in chapters that alternate with factual news fragments about violent incidents occurring at the same time, each naming the victims and their family background, at the height of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. While running parallel at first, these two threads of chapters/fragments slowly coalesce with the news reports echoing in the minds and talks on the island.
As the story gradually emerges from Magee’s deftly written prose that weaves conversations with interior worlds, I feel it would spoil the delight of reading this novel if I were to give the story outline. Instead, a few words about the themes and style, as these are as impressive as the story itself, multi-layered, inventively written and emotionally moving.
The novel speaks quietly but with great power about the issues of colonization, cultural identity, the originality vs. derivative in artistic expression, loyalty and betrayal, war as a tit-for-tat carnage, the tradition of women’s subservience… It packs such a wide range of themes that it would likely feel disoriented in the hands of a less skilled writer, but Magee encompasses them all with astonishing brilliance, depth and subtlety.
Magee’s narrating style and ingenious use of literary devices equally make it an unforgettable read. The dialogues and conversations written in spare prose alternate with the inner life of four characters (Mairéad, James/Séamus, Mr. Lloyd, Masson). And their interior monologues (feelings, memories, desires, observations…) are beautifully crafted in several forms. Lloyd’s fractured thoughts iterated in poetic snapshots, Masson’s Proustian flow of thoughts (NB: not as Proustian imitation but with the author’s original touch), and the lyrical narration of Mairéad’s and James/Séamus’ yearnings for freedom, each in their own way, with Mairéad’s nostalgia for the lost past and James’ hopes for a different future. What is additionally remarkable is that their interior lives often seamlessly blend with each other.
The enthusiasm of my reading friends motivated me to reach out for this book and I have no hesitation in warmly inviting others to read it. It’s only the summer now but this is already the highlight of my reading year (for contemporary fiction). It will stay with me for a long time.
Go raibh maith agat, Audrey Magee, thank you for gifting us this wonderful novel. And my many thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux for an ARC via NetGalley.
As the story gradually emerges from Magee’s deftly written prose that weaves conversations with interior worlds, I feel it would spoil the delight of reading this novel if I were to give the story outline. Instead, a few words about the themes and style, as these are as impressive as the story itself, multi-layered, inventively written and emotionally moving.
The novel speaks quietly but with great power about the issues of colonization, cultural identity, the originality vs. derivative in artistic expression, loyalty and betrayal, war as a tit-for-tat carnage, the tradition of women’s subservience… It packs such a wide range of themes that it would likely feel disoriented in the hands of a less skilled writer, but Magee encompasses them all with astonishing brilliance, depth and subtlety.
Magee’s narrating style and ingenious use of literary devices equally make it an unforgettable read. The dialogues and conversations written in spare prose alternate with the inner life of four characters (Mairéad, James/Séamus, Mr. Lloyd, Masson). And their interior monologues (feelings, memories, desires, observations…) are beautifully crafted in several forms. Lloyd’s fractured thoughts iterated in poetic snapshots, Masson’s Proustian flow of thoughts (NB: not as Proustian imitation but with the author’s original touch), and the lyrical narration of Mairéad’s and James/Séamus’ yearnings for freedom, each in their own way, with Mairéad’s nostalgia for the lost past and James’ hopes for a different future. What is additionally remarkable is that their interior lives often seamlessly blend with each other.
The enthusiasm of my reading friends motivated me to reach out for this book and I have no hesitation in warmly inviting others to read it. It’s only the summer now but this is already the highlight of my reading year (for contemporary fiction). It will stay with me for a long time.
Go raibh maith agat, Audrey Magee, thank you for gifting us this wonderful novel. And my many thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux for an ARC via NetGalley.
February 3, 2024
Audrey Magee clearly is a writer that likes to test her readers. This novel begins with a misleadingly simple plot: the short stay of an English painter on a remote island off the west coast of Ireland, covering the friction between the particularly unsympathetic and sullen painter and the few dozen Irish residents, that are represented as closed and living far from civilization. Can it be more cliché? But then Magee intersperses her story with short, journalistic reports of terrorist attacks in Northern Ireland (the year is 1979); the connection with the foregoing is not immediately clear, but the repetitive nature of the accounts underlines the brutality of the Northern Irish conflict. Finally, she also brings to the island a French linguist, a man who has made it his mission to record and preserve the ancient Irish language (Gaelic).
The subsequent interaction goes in different, interconnecting directions: the friction between the Englishman and the Frenchman, the naive hopes of a young islander to start an artist's career, his mother developing into a kind of faun and presenting herself as a nude model to the painter, the musings of the Frenchman on his youth trauma, didactic lessons on the history of Gaelic and on the brutal English colonization of Ireland, etc., etc. Gradually, the number of passages on the terror attacks in Northern Ireland increase, and the islanders also begin to comment on what they hear about that. And more and more the story takes the form of a series of interior monologues by different protagonists, with the narrative point of view jumping back and forth between the first and third person. And finally, there is also quite a bit of excitement and suspense about a mysterious canvas that the Englishman is painting of the islanders themselves.
Just to say: there is quite a lot in Magee's cocktail. But what is she really hinting at? As befits any great writer, the answer is not clear-cut. The most obvious storyline is that of the good and the bad: the Englishman as gruff and unreliable, the Frenchman as the savior of the true Irish soul, but, clearly, that is far too simple. Even the Irish islanders appear to be not just innocent sheep, neither the men nor the women; there is quite a bit of anger in them that expresses itself in very extreme opinions and behavior. It's as if Magee wanted to indicate that there is a terrorist or a fanatic in each of us.
Her ingenious use of style and perspective indicates that she had more in mind. At a certain point the book seems like an exposé about the interweaving of language and politics, about the charged nature of words and actions. And what with that title, ‘colony’? Does that refer to the English colonization of Ireland? To an artists' colony? or to the way in which people colonize each other...? I have to say that I'm not quite sure what to think of this novel, because despite the layering and the ingenious stylistic play, there also are quite a few weak elements in the book. As you can see, I'm struggling with it and I still haven't figured it out. So perhaps worth a reread.
The subsequent interaction goes in different, interconnecting directions: the friction between the Englishman and the Frenchman, the naive hopes of a young islander to start an artist's career, his mother developing into a kind of faun and presenting herself as a nude model to the painter, the musings of the Frenchman on his youth trauma, didactic lessons on the history of Gaelic and on the brutal English colonization of Ireland, etc., etc. Gradually, the number of passages on the terror attacks in Northern Ireland increase, and the islanders also begin to comment on what they hear about that. And more and more the story takes the form of a series of interior monologues by different protagonists, with the narrative point of view jumping back and forth between the first and third person. And finally, there is also quite a bit of excitement and suspense about a mysterious canvas that the Englishman is painting of the islanders themselves.
Just to say: there is quite a lot in Magee's cocktail. But what is she really hinting at? As befits any great writer, the answer is not clear-cut. The most obvious storyline is that of the good and the bad: the Englishman as gruff and unreliable, the Frenchman as the savior of the true Irish soul, but, clearly, that is far too simple. Even the Irish islanders appear to be not just innocent sheep, neither the men nor the women; there is quite a bit of anger in them that expresses itself in very extreme opinions and behavior. It's as if Magee wanted to indicate that there is a terrorist or a fanatic in each of us.
Her ingenious use of style and perspective indicates that she had more in mind. At a certain point the book seems like an exposé about the interweaving of language and politics, about the charged nature of words and actions. And what with that title, ‘colony’? Does that refer to the English colonization of Ireland? To an artists' colony? or to the way in which people colonize each other...? I have to say that I'm not quite sure what to think of this novel, because despite the layering and the ingenious stylistic play, there also are quite a few weak elements in the book. As you can see, I'm struggling with it and I still haven't figured it out. So perhaps worth a reread.
August 3, 2022
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 ;)
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 ;)
July 13, 2022
For those who love literary fiction, this book is HIGHLY recommended. It takes place on an island (off the coast of Ireland) inhabited by a few Irish families. Two men visit the island for the summer for different reasons. One, Lloyd, is a British artist trying to make a name for himself. The other, JP, is a French linguist intent on preserving the pure Irish language that still exists on the island. But the heart of the story is the mother, Mairead, and son, James, who host these men in their cottages and how their interactions impact their quiet lives.
This book has it all - - wit, tension, a slow burning build, beautiful language, and a wonderful character that I loved from the get go (James). It also is technically impressive, especially when revealing the back story of JP. It's political too, but honestly that's an overlay that adds importance to the book as a literary work, but is somewhat secondary to the great storytelling.
I am a bit torn as to whether this is a 4 star or a 5 star book. It definitely has all the hallmarks of 5 stars, but the ending frustrated me a bit. It's definitely not tied up with a bow, and the reader is never spoon fed. And I normally love that . . .but in this case, I was so invested in the characters that I felt a bit like I was watching this incredible drama, and the season ended. And I can't wait to be united next season with the characters, and then the show was cancelled. There's just so many directions the book could go that I almost can't stand not knowing what the author was thinking . . .
But no matter, the character of James just made this book. And no matter what I thought of the end, it made me cry . . .so I guess maybe it's 5 star after all.
This book has it all - - wit, tension, a slow burning build, beautiful language, and a wonderful character that I loved from the get go (James). It also is technically impressive, especially when revealing the back story of JP. It's political too, but honestly that's an overlay that adds importance to the book as a literary work, but is somewhat secondary to the great storytelling.
I am a bit torn as to whether this is a 4 star or a 5 star book. It definitely has all the hallmarks of 5 stars, but the ending frustrated me a bit. It's definitely not tied up with a bow, and the reader is never spoon fed. And I normally love that . . .but in this case, I was so invested in the characters that I felt a bit like I was watching this incredible drama, and the season ended. And I can't wait to be united next season with the characters, and then the show was cancelled. There's just so many directions the book could go that I almost can't stand not knowing what the author was thinking . . .
But no matter, the character of James just made this book. And no matter what I thought of the end, it made me cry . . .so I guess maybe it's 5 star after all.
September 25, 2022
It's 1979 and a small island off the coast of Ireland hosts two distinctive guests. First there is Mr Lloyd, an English artist who has come to paint the cliffs. He is fussy and demanding, immediately setting noses out of joint. But he does strike up a kind of friendship with 15-year-old James Gillan, reluctantly taking him on as an apprentice. The other notable visitor is Jean-Pierre Masson, a Frenchman who has spent the last few summers on the island studying the Irish language, which is slowly dying out. The two men clash - Lloyd can't concentrate on his work with all the hubbub Masson is making, while Masson is annoyed by the artist speaking English, a malign influence on the locals. Also, they both have eyes on James's mother Mairéad, a beautiful widow. Interspersed with all of this activity are reports of murders in Northern Ireland, with the Troubles at its height.
There is so much going on in this thoughtfully written novel. Magee deftly examines common themes like grief and jealousy, while carefully considering other subjects like the struggles of living on an isolated, rocky outpost, or a culture becoming extinct. Even the pressure a person can feel to follow in the family way of life is explored in the expectation that James will become a fisherman, like his father, who died at sea. I initially wondered what the bulletins from Northern Ireland had to do with it all but I believe they are employed to contrast with the island's more peaceful existence. We eventually learn that they are being heard on the radio in the Gillan house - the rising violence they describe becomes harder to ignore and it all lends itself to the notion that the island is being shaped by external influences, like it or not. The one aspect of the book that I didn't find all that interesting was Masson's childhood and his struggle with French/Algerian identity. But all in all, this is a captivating, expertly told story with many layers to uncover.
There is so much going on in this thoughtfully written novel. Magee deftly examines common themes like grief and jealousy, while carefully considering other subjects like the struggles of living on an isolated, rocky outpost, or a culture becoming extinct. Even the pressure a person can feel to follow in the family way of life is explored in the expectation that James will become a fisherman, like his father, who died at sea. I initially wondered what the bulletins from Northern Ireland had to do with it all but I believe they are employed to contrast with the island's more peaceful existence. We eventually learn that they are being heard on the radio in the Gillan house - the rising violence they describe becomes harder to ignore and it all lends itself to the notion that the island is being shaped by external influences, like it or not. The one aspect of the book that I didn't find all that interesting was Masson's childhood and his struggle with French/Algerian identity. But all in all, this is a captivating, expertly told story with many layers to uncover.
August 3, 2022
Let me just plunge in - I loved this book. The tone, the slightly remote feeling, the characters' voices, the story revealed on a less-is-more basis. It was all beautifully executed.
In 1979 an English artist seeks to re-invigorate his painting (and his life overall) by visiting an island off the Atlantic coast of Ireland where life is still firmly rooted in the past, but where the reality of the world on the mainland encroaches in fits and starts. Residents, particularly the young, face the question of whether to stay or leave.
Shortly after the artist's arrival, a second visitor, one who has come each summer for 5 years, steps off the boat. He is a French linguist who has been studying the incursion of English into the speaking habits of the locals, for most of whom Gaelic (Irish) is their first language. His goal is to publish a book that will earn him fame, and a doctorate.
The significance of the isolated island to these visitors, the significance of the visitors to the islanders, and the interactions among them are interrupted with increasing frequency by news of The Troubles in Northern Ireland. Old and new, insiders and outsiders, human nature and politics; the uneasy tug of war among all these things.
This has been longlisted for the Booker, and I wouldn't be surprised if it made the short list. It's that good.
In 1979 an English artist seeks to re-invigorate his painting (and his life overall) by visiting an island off the Atlantic coast of Ireland where life is still firmly rooted in the past, but where the reality of the world on the mainland encroaches in fits and starts. Residents, particularly the young, face the question of whether to stay or leave.
Shortly after the artist's arrival, a second visitor, one who has come each summer for 5 years, steps off the boat. He is a French linguist who has been studying the incursion of English into the speaking habits of the locals, for most of whom Gaelic (Irish) is their first language. His goal is to publish a book that will earn him fame, and a doctorate.
The significance of the isolated island to these visitors, the significance of the visitors to the islanders, and the interactions among them are interrupted with increasing frequency by news of The Troubles in Northern Ireland. Old and new, insiders and outsiders, human nature and politics; the uneasy tug of war among all these things.
This has been longlisted for the Booker, and I wouldn't be surprised if it made the short list. It's that good.
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