The Secret Scripture
by Sebastian Barry
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Book Summary Information
Author: Sebastian BarryEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-06-12
ISBN: 0670019402
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Viking Adult
Book Reviews of The Secret Scripture
Book Review: From the Shadows
Summary: 5 Stars
Towards the end of this beautiful poetic novel about a life lived in Ireland over most of the 20th century, one of the characters wonders about exhuming the past. "I was well aware . . . that the truth may not always be desirable, that one thing leads to another thing, that facts not only lead forward to resolution, but backwards into the shadows, and sometimes into the various little hells we make for each other." There are shadows aplenty in this quest for truth, most having their roots in the confused period of the Civil War of 1922-23, with Irishmen fighting Irishmen, but although the story passes through many little hells along the way, it ends in radiance.
The tortured story of Irish independence has been told in many ways, for example in the sweeping saga begun by Roddy Doyle in A STAR CALLED HENRY, or obliquely from the British point of view in J. G. Farrell's TROUBLES or Elizabeth Bowen's THE LAST SEPTEMBER. Sebastian Barry's approach is to focus on ordinary people who somehow reflect an entire era. He did this in A LONG LONG WAY, in which the birth pangs of the Republic are set against the carnage of World War I. The eponymous hero of another of his novels, THE WHEREABOUTS OF ENEAS MCNULTY, also fights in the war, then becomes a marked man, expressing his love for Ireland in a way deemed unacceptable by many of his countrymen. Eneas appears briefly but memorably in THE SECRET SCRIPTURE also, but the book is by no means a sequel, having its own focus, its own timespan, and a different kind of poetry.
There are two narrators. One, who at first takes a minor role, is William Grene, the doctor in charge of the Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital. Approaching retirement and scarred by tragedies of his own, he must decide the future of the patients in his charge before the hospital is razed to make way for a newer facility. The principal narrator, Roseanne McNulty, is one of these patients, an old woman approaching 100 who has been hospitalized for fifty years -- perhaps unjustly, for she still retains a lively intelligence and keen awareness. For example, here she is describing the local priest who played a significant part in her younger life:
"Fr. Gaunt arrived one day in his accustomed sleek soutane -- I do not mean this critically -- and as it was raining with that special Sligo rain that has made bogland of a thousand ancient farms, he was also covered in a sleek dark-grey coat of similar shiny material. Perhaps the skin of his face was also made of it, anciently, in his mother's womb. He carried a highly ecclesiastical umbrella, like something real and austere, that said its prayers at night in the hatstand."
Roseanne's advanced age and selective memory gives her a narrative that is particularly Irish, a poetic distillation of her personal past, full of wondrous images. As Dr. Grene investigates further, he discovers discrepancies between Roseanne's account and the surviving official records. Reconciling them is not a matter of deciding which is right and which wrong, but rather knitting the various strands together into a whole, a tapestry of sorrow and loss, but also of hope and beauty, which ultimately enfolds Grene himself in its warm embrace.
Summary of The Secret Scripture
A gorgeous new novel from the author of the Man Booker finalist A Long Long WayAs a young woman, Roseanne McNulty was one of the most beautiful and beguiling girls in County Sligo, Ireland. Now, as her hundredth year draws near, she is a patient at Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital, and she decides to record the events of her life.
As Roseanne revisits her past, hiding the manuscript beneath the floorboards in her bedroom, she learns that Roscommon Hospital will be closed in a few months and that her caregiver, Dr. Grene, has been asked to evaluate the patients and decide if they can return to society. Roseanne is of particular interest to Dr. Grene, and as he researches her case he discovers a document written by a local priest that tells a very different story of Roseanne?s life than what she recalls. As doctor and patient attempt to understand each other, they begin to uncover long-buried secrets about themselves.
Set against an Ireland besieged by conflict, The Secret Scripture is an epic story of love, betrayal, and unavoidable tragedy, and a vivid reminder of the stranglehold that the Catholic Church had on individual lives for much of the twentieth century.
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