The Gathering (Man Booker Prize)

The Gathering (Man Booker Prize)
by Anne Enright

The Gathering (Man Booker Prize)
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Book Summary Information

Author: Anne Enright
Edition: Paperback
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2007-09-10
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 272
Publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat

Book Reviews of The Gathering (Man Booker Prize)

Book Review: Betrayal - Major Theme of "The Gathering" by Anne Enright
Summary: 5 Stars

One the the overriding issues or themes in Anne Enright's book THE GATHERING is that of betrayal.
The character Veronica (the narrator) feels betrayed by her grandmother, her husband, and ultimately by her dead brother Liam. I would venture to say that she feels betrayed by her mother also, but her feelings for her mother are more complicated than that. She rather sees her mother as a non-entity - someone who popped out tons of children but didn't bother to raise them, choosing instead to "have a nervous breakdown" and become a victim - a non-player in Veronica's life.

When Veronica is eight or nine she, Liam and another older sister are sent to live with their grandparents Ada and Charlie. They become wild children - left much to their own devices. Veronica begins to fantasize about Ada and Charlie and a man who is always around, Nugent. Seeking a female mentor, Veronica places Ada at the center of a created love triangle. She watches Ada deal with life's daily challenges, Charlie's death, Nugent's constant visits and ultimately Liam's abuse. Veronica sees the abuse occurring in Ada's house and she believes without a doubt that Ada knows what Nugent is doing but does not stop it. Ada betrays Veronica (and of course Liam) and Veronica's silence over the many years betrays Liam. I think that this betrayal is the center of the story - Veronica of Liam. Do you agree?

But I've gotten off

As an adult, Veronica feels betrayed by her husband - we learn that he may or may not have had an affair. It's one of those stories she tells us that she's not quite sure has occurred. Nonetheless, to soften the blow of her guilt toward Liam she accuses her husband of infidelity - she wants to be married and care for her two daughters but something inside her rebels and she becomes more despondent about her role (one she has chosen albeit) ......transferring her unhappiness to her relationship with her husband is a tool to hide the true despondency of her spirit. The reader wonders if she will reverse her feelings if she comes to gripe with Liam's death.

Then lastly, the most complicated of the betrayals is Veronica's feeling that Liam betrayed her. In the absence of parental love, Veronica looked to Liam for companionship, protection, and direction. She's tells us a story over and over again about young Liam's peeing into a fence and as he does it spatters across the mesh.....she believes he is wonderfully strange .....or perhaps in need of constant looking after; either way, she indelibly with him. They share lives through college and young adulthood then after Ada's death Liam begins to unravel and disappears for long bouts. He returns after long unexplained absences for stays with Veronica and her family but he is usually drunk, unkept and unruly. What happended to their bond, Veronica thinks. Why has he abandoned her or as we will learn why did she abandon him?

Do you agree with my premise? Do you think Liam is Veronica's savior or her needy child?

Summary of The Gathering (Man Booker Prize)

Anne Enright is a dazzling writer of international stature and one of Ireland?s most singular voices. Now she delivers The Gathering, a moving, evocative portrait of a large Irish family and a shot of fresh blood into the Irish literary tradition, combining the lyricism of the old with the shock of the new. The nine surviving children of the Hegarty clan are gathering in Dublin for the wake of their wayward brother, Liam, drowned in the sea. His sister, Veronica, collects the body and keeps the dead man company, guarding the secret she shares with him?something that happened in their grandmother?s house in the winter of 1968. As Enright traces the line of betrayal and redemption through three generations her distinctive intelligence twists the world a fraction and gives it back to us in a new and unforgettable light. The Gathering is a daring, witty, and insightful family epic, clarified through Anne Enright?s unblinking eye. It is a novel about love and disappointment, about how memories warp and secrets fester, and how fate is written in the body, not in the stars.

Amazon Significant Seven, November 2007: Pretty early on in The Gathering you realize that in her lingering portrait of the Hegarty clan (and this isn't hyperbole--they are a family of 12), Irish novelist Anne Enright will wrestle with all the giant literary tropes that have come before her. Family, of course, is the big one, but with equal intensity she explores death and dying, the sea and its siren song, sex, shame, secrecy, unreliable memories, madness, "the drink," and--always in the shadows--England. That said, it's not like any other novel about the Irish that I've read. The story of the Hegartys is indeed bleak, and hard, but it surges with tenderness and eloquent thought which, in the end, are the very things that help this family (or at least her narrator Veronica) survive. Through her eyes, and in Enright's skillful imagination, those small turning-point moments of life that we all know in some form or another--a petty fight, a careless word, an event witnessed--come together in an unshakeable vision of how you become the person you are. --Anne Bartholomew

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