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Editorial Review:
'...remarkable...for the unblinking attention it pays to the inner lives of its characters'
At a time when everyone is mirroring everyone else, Enright's style of writing remains singular and instantly identifiable
She beautifully describes the way hurt can be inherited... Enright is a daring writer - witty, original and inventive... Utterly compelling
A welcome return, for this writer, to novel form, and as a fresh, sophisticated take on the ever-popular dysfunctional family saga
Anne Enright has all she needs in terms of imagination and technique and she's a tremendous phrase maker
Enright ambushes as memory does, drawing you into an event and then questioning it's reality
`sharply observant'
`Enright's language is intensely physical'
`humane, funny, and often magisterial'
`Beautifully written and full of surprising insights, this novel compels from start to finish'
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 2.5 / 5.0
Tedious Constant analysis by the narrator of the minutiae of life just becomes utterly tedious and irritating very quickly. I persevered to the end but I really didn't find any of the characters engaging or interesting.
"All I have are stories..." . . . writes Veronica, the narrator of this unusual family saga, in the opening pages, ... "night thoughts, the sudden convictions, that uncertainty spawns." It will be important for us, the readers, to keep this in mind as we get increasingly drawn into Anne Enright's award-winning novel. While it is a family saga of sorts, it is much more a psychological study of a woman in crisis. Written in a straightforward, sometimes witty, conversational tone which later may sometimes prove deceiving, Veronica's... more info
unjustly maligned Having just finished this book, I find some of the descriptions of its boredom-inducing qualities in other reviews unwarrented. The central 'plot' is well-described elsewhere - a woman comes to term with her past and that of her recently dead brother in the context of her large Irish family - but it is the peeling back of the onion layers, the gradual revelation, the crystallisation of detail that gives this book its appeal. Yes, it reads as a monologue, first-person narrated, and yes, there may be little... more info
A Family of Saga of Death or a Femist Tract? Somewhere in the course of lives, I suspect that a need arises to dissect one's life and the life of close relatives and friends. Veronica, the narrator of The Gathering, is prompted to do so on the death of her brother, Liam. Veronica's narrative takes us back and forth in time as she dissect and reveal family relationships and in particular her's and Liam's journey into adulthood. On publication there was so much hype about The Gathering being a bleak and depressing novel, primarily about the suicide... more info
