Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #782 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Amazon.com Review
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

From Publishers Weekly
In the taut latest from Enright (What Are You Like?), middle-aged Veronica Hegarty, the middle child in an Irish-Catholic family of nine, traces the aftermath of a tragedy that has claimed the life of rebellious elder brother Liam. As Veronica travels to London to bring Liam's body back to Dublin, her deep-seated resentment toward her overly passive mother and her dissatisfaction with her husband and children come to the fore. Tempers flare as the family assembles for Liam's wake, and a secret Veronica has concealed since childhood comes to light. Enright skillfully avoids sentimentality as she explores Veronica's past and her complicated relationship with Liam. She also bracingly imagines the life of Veronica's strong-willed grandmother, Ada. A melancholic love and rage bubbles just beneath the surface of this Dublin clan, and Enright explores it unflinchingly. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine
The Gathering, Irish author Anne Enright’s fourth novel, displays the author’s exceptional skill at exposing dysfunctional family dynamics and the hollow pretense of middle-class life in newly affluent, postmodern Ireland. Her light, elegant prose and rich portrait of the Hegartysâ€"of Veronica, in particularâ€"won praise from the critics. While recognizing that some readers may find the story lacking in plot, they applauded the depth and intensity of this "slow deconstruction of memory and self" (Los Angeles Times). Bleak and unsentimental, Veronica’s interior dialogues are nevertheless lyrical and clever. Though at times Enright may strain to encompass too much of the Irish experience, critics generally agreed that this dark, evocative novel was a worthy recipient of the 2007 Man Booker Prize.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Excrutiating
I have absolutely no clue as to what when on in this award winning??book. As hard as I tried I couldn't even finish it. All I can say is the Booker Award judge must have owed the author a favor. It was like sitting through an awful movie waiting for it to get better (and it never does) and then kicking yourself for wasting 2 hours of your life. Read something else.

Graceful & Imaginative
I'm not surprised that this book won the Booker Prize. Enright has a superior command of the language. She creates fluid yet surprising prose, moving between real and imagined events, past and present with astounding grace and skill. This book is a surreal meditation on family--mother love, sister love, craziness, memory, and in particular the way one generation impacts the next.

Self-indulgent and tedious
My mother gave me this book a few months ago.

*Mom: I can't believe I'm giving this book to my DAUGHTER, but I'm interested to see what you'll think of it.
Me: Why wouldn't you give it to me?
Mom: It's uh... There's a lot of uh... Well, just read it and you'll see.

I took this to mean it has a lot of sex in it.

So, it sat on my shelf for a while, because I had a few other books in the queue. Honestly, I love a good sprawling family novel, but the description on the back just didn't grab me for some reason.

We went on vacation last week and I threw it in the suitcase since I knew I'd be finishing the book I was currently reading. I picked it up on the drive back and noticed for the first time that it won the Booker Award. "Well, that has to be a good sign", I thought. It wasn't.

I don't usually read the reviews here before reading a book, because I like to form my own opinions first. I didn't read the reviews here in this case either, and it's funny that as I read this book the words "tedious and self-indulgent" kept going through my head. I see that mentioned quite a few times here on the reviews, and I think it's interesting that these were the exact descriptions I came up with as well. Let me also say that I very rarely dislike a book enough to write a negative review of it. As a matter of fact, this is the first negative book review I have submitted to Amazon.

Much of what I could say about the book has already been said very well by other reviewers. I won't give a synopsis of the "plot" since that has already been done numerous times and I don't have anything more interesting to contribute about that, especially since I'm not even sure what the plot was.

As many have mentioned, the writing style is disjointed. This is not something I am generally opposed to in a book. I happen to adore The Time Traveler's Wife and Water for Elephants, which I think both incorporated a brilliant use of this technique. It's very effective if done well and for a reason. In The Gathering, there is certainly a reason to use the technique. The author is trying to convey the main character's disjointed and uncertain memories of her and her families' past. One would think this style would suit quite nicely, but it falls disappointingly short, making the book difficult to read and tiresome. A difficult book is not necessarily a bad thing, but in this case there seems to be no reward for slogging through the jumbled and, maybe (or maybe not) imagined scenes of the past.

We are never sure if Victoria is remembering or imagining what happened as a child. We are also unclear about her telling of the story of her grandmother Ada. There is no way she could know the story of Ada, so we can be fairly sure these stories are meant to be read as fabricated. As a result, this part of the story has to be telling us more about Victoria's character than Ada's, but what is the purpose? Both of these devices are so confusing and ineffective that we just don't care after a while. Eventually it seems that we are just being beat over the head with them. Yes! I get it that she's not sure of her childhood memories, she has an imagined life for her grandmother. I GET IT! Enough already!

I'm not generally opposed to graphic sex scenes either, but the ones in this book are again, confusing, disjointed, and well... seemingly pointless. Sex is painted with an angry brush, and we are never quite sure where this anger is coming from. What is its purpose and what does it lend to the story? How can we figure it out when we're not even sure what really happened? I'm still not sure, but it makes for a very dark read. I found myself comparing this aspect of the story to The Crimson Petal and the White, which also had abundant and dark sex scenes. In that case however, they were an integral part of the story. The story could not have been told without them. They made sense. In The Gathering, they just don't make sense. I feel the author must have had a reason, but that reason is lost in the (often) awkward prose, disjointed narrative, and dreary and confused "soul searching" of the main character.

I'm not going to say much about the portrayal of the characters. I will say that I found them mostly incomprehensible and unlikable.

About halfway through the book (after what seemed like a year of reading) the "secret" is revealed. That in itself was disappointing because (yawn), it is so trite and expected. At that point I did have a glimmer of hope though. Maybe the plot would turn around. Maybe something would now happen and the seemingly pointless ramblings would coalesce into a well defined, or at least a somewhat recognizable theme. Unfortunately this never happened (or hasn't so far, as I'm not done yet). The story wanders around some more and culminates into the wake of brother Liam, again finding no purpose or redemption.

I have, maybe, 50 pages left to go in the book, but I relented on my self imposed "rule" and decided to check the reviews here to see if there was any compelling reason to finish the book. I probably will, just because I find it hard to abandon a book, but I now have no hope that anything will redeem the book in my eyes.

I called my mom to tell her my opinions so far.

Me: Hey, remember that book you gave me to read?
Mom: No, which one?
Me: The Gathering
Mom: I don't remember it.
Me: It's about a woman whose brother dies, I guess...
Mom: That's not ringing a bell for me.
Me: Let me read the back to you. [I read the description on the back]
Mom: I still don't remember it. Are you sure it was me who gave it to you?
Me: Yeah, you said it had a lot of sex in it.
Mom: Oh yeah, that one. I remember it had a lot of sex, but don't remember what it was about.
Me: It wasn't about anything really.
Mom: Oh, okay.

*I feel I should note, in the spirit of the book, that I may not be remembering these conversations accurately.

BTW- if anyone would like this book I'll send it to you for the cost of shipping only. I usually give my old books to friends or relatives, but I can't fathom recommending this book to anyone. If you have read the reviews and would still like to give it a read, let me know. :o)