The Secret Scripture
by Sebastian Barry
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Book Reviews of The Secret Scripture
Book Review: A Clear View
Summary: 5 Stars
Roseanne Clear is an ancient woman living in an Irish asylum to which she was committed "for social reasons" after she bore an out-of-wedlock child. She has been a resident for so long that no one knows how old she really is or exactly what the circumstances of her commitment were. The "secret scripture" of the title is Roseanne's narrative of her life, written on scraps with a pilfered pen and hidden under a loose floorboard. At the same time her story is unfolding, the psychiaitrist who heads the institution is slowly putting together a competing narrative of Roseanne's life. The asylum is closing -- Ireland's version of de-institutionalization -- and the terms of Roseanne's commitment must legally determine where she'll be placed next.
In the end, the two narratives come together in a wholly surprising way, but not before surveying Ireland's brutal and complicated history of political and sectarian violence from the establishment of the Free State up to the present. The author turns a particularly cold eye on the devastating grip that the Roman Catholic Church held on Irish society and politics for the better part of the 20th century. Although I've cited its political and historical scope, the novel tells its story in wholly personal terms. At various points the novel is funny, magically poetic, tragic -- and often all three: a great read.
Once you've read "The Secret Scripture," go on to read "The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty" -- a prequel, sort of, of this novel.
Book Review: Masterful Use of Language and History
Summary: 5 Stars
Sebastian Barry is the kind of writer whose phrases deserve to be turned over in one's head over and over again. They are like drinking in a fine red wine and swirling it around your palate. The more you swirl, the more you appreciate.
If Barry were a winemaker - he'd be praised both for the attention to his craft (his suberb writing) and to his ability to let the product speak for itself without overrefining it away. He has caught that fine sparkle of language that characterizes the Irish writing in English at their best.
Barry explores history and memory and what that amazing organ (our brain) can hold seemingly to the very end.
The depth and richness of Roseanne's memories - the true and not so true - are astonishing. But the glimmers of the more ordinary (and familar to us in later times) of her doctor, William, though more briefly told, were pitch perfect to this reader.
Also evident in these pages is the a bird's eye view of Irish life in the Civil War and the aftermath - the good, the bad, the cowardly, the heroic - sometimes all in the same institution or the same person.
I had to ration my pages on this book - else, like a fine bottle of read wine, I am sure it would ahve been gone and done in an instant.
I truly recommend this one. If you need a contemporary comparision - think John Banville's "The Sea" or Ian McKeon's "Atonement". The "Secret Scripture" is at this high level of craft.
Book Review: `The written word assumes authority but it may not have it'
Summary: 4 Stars
Roseanne McNulty may be nearing 100 years of age - no-one is sure. Roseanne has been an inmate of the Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital for most of her adult life. Now that the hospital is being closed, her psychiatrist Dr Grene is meeting regularly with Roseanne to try to decide what is best for her in the future.
The story that emerges through the respective journals and thoughts of Dr Grene and Roseanne bring elements of the past to life. In Roseanne's case, her past includes the Ireland of the 1920s and 1930s with all of its conflicts and difficulties. Religion is one of the differences between Roseanne's family and their Catholic neighbours in Sligo. Dr Grene himself faces a personal tragedy during the time he is meeting with Roseanne. His investigation into Roseanne's life and her own journal make the tragic events of Roseanne's own life clear. Dr Grene undertakes his own research which leads him to fill in some gaps in his own past.
This novel could quite easily have been a sentimental exploration of an old and forgotten woman, and of the unsettled times in Ireland during the first four decades of the 20th century. The nature of Roseanne and her memories, her acceptance of some events and her rejection of others kept my interest. In some ways the ending was too predictable to fully satisfy and yet it didn't really diminish my reading pleasure.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Book Review: Mixed feelings
Summary: 4 Stars
I thought the first 100 pages of the novel were marvellous. The tale of the young Roseanne Clear as a little girl, as narrated by the 100 year old Roseanne in a mental asylum to her diary, is horrific, tragic, and sad. After these 100 pages, the story then starts to dawdle; the history of Roseanne Clear begin to jump around and become confusing. This confusion is deliberately set up by the author, to illustrate how unreliable the narrator is in her old age.
Authors employing the plot device of a unreliable witness to narrate the storyline is nothing new. However, I do find that Barry abused this technique in his writing. By using this plot device, Barry was absolved of explaining how the married Roseanne was voluntarily imprisoned in a hut, or why she chose to stay in the hut after being falsely accused of adultery, or why her husband and in-laws can believe the words of a single witness, or how her brother-in-law found her and impregnate her during one night of passion. If the narrator is truly unreliable because of her advanced age, how is she able to write her story in professorial prose? It seems that Barry is using the device of the unreliable narrator to escape of providing a coherent thread to Roseanne's life.
Forgetting the few gaps here and there, and on account of the superb but horrific first part of the novel, this novel is still a good read.
Book Review: Dark, dark Irish tale of asylums and the Church
Summary: 4 Stars
It appears that the Catholic church has caused more grief and despair in the name of religion. Sebastian Barry tells us a story from two vantage ponts, one is from an almost century old woman who has lived decades in an Irish asylum and the psychiatrist who is attempting to learn her real past to facilitate her transfer.
Mrs. McNulty, as Doctor Grene respectively calls her, is writing her memoirs hidden under the floorboards. And what a life she had, there may not have been two kind people in her whole life. She adored her father, who as a Presbyterian, was a supervisor in a Catholic cemetery but was demoted to a rat-catcher by Father Gaunt when he asked the priest for help in a deadly skirmish. This priest ultimately ruins her father's life and then goes on to ruin her life when he destroys her marriage. Dr. Grene has suffered his own personal loss and has his own demons.
Moving between the two stories, we are embraced by Ireland's turmoil and the tragedy of Roseanne McNulty. Despite her beauty, she is used and abused by everyone but her father, whose background is often ambiguous. But nothing is as painful as the damage the Church bestows upon this woman. As Dr. Grene investigates her life, the story weaves them together into a rather melodramatic ending. As the reader finds the truth, there is no mercy.