Simply the Worst
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One of the pleasures of being in a book group is that you find yourself forced to read books you never would have otherwise tried, and as a result, sometimes discover a wonderful work (one such example in my case is Jose Saramago's Blindness). However, the evil twin of that pleasure is the unmitigated pain of wasting precious time slogging through something you can't stand. Unfortunately, not only does this Booker Prize-winner stand firmly in that second category, it is the champion of it: the most hated book of the 70+ I've read for my bookclub, and the least enjoyable work of fiction I've read this year (out of roughly 100 or so books).
Unlike many other haters of this tedious book, I didn't find it particularly difficult reading. The unannounced shifts back and forth in time and place didn't leave me adrift so much as amazed at their clumsiness. Then again, the book is essentially a monologue of remembrance, and human memories are messy things, so I was willing to conditionally accept that messiness as part and parcel of the protagonist. Speaking of the protagonist (middle-aged Veronica Hegerty), many haters seem to focus on her unlikability as the source of the book's problems. Personally, I don't think that a protagonist needs to be likable in any way -- just interesting. But she's not interesting in the slightest, just (like the book itself), annoyingly self-indulgent. I suppose this could be construed as a kind of commentary on her yuppiesh generation, but that seems like grasping at straws. Moreover, there are no other characters to connect with. The entire story takes place within Veronica's head, and even though it's populated with various family members who allegedly mean so much to her (in a love/hate way), the reader never gets a sense of any of them.
The plot -- such as it is -- revolves around the suicide of one of Veronica's brothers, which sends her on a trip to Brighton to bring the body back to Ireland for the funeral (she is gathering the body to bring it back to a gathering of people -- clever). About halfway into the book the "secret" of this brother's lifelong depression is revealed, and it's both jaw-droppingly cliched and wholly simplistic and reductionist. My one hope was that this "revelation" would be the spark that lit a fire under the second half of the book -- but no, it simply plods forward at the same stultifying pace. Ultimately the book has nothing to offer: it has no telling insights into memory or regret, it rehashes the same tired cliches about growing up poor and Irish, its use of the unreliable narrator is rudimentary at best, and its not even notably bleak and depressing. I guess you could make the argument that many of these flaws are actually commentary on the flawed nature of humans, but this doesn't make it worth spending your own precious time on.
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oh dear
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my main problem with this book - and i've got a few - is that it takes a rather dull life of a rather dull family who not a great deal happens to - and really tries extra hard to give that life and family a significance it just cannot have.
not that this approach need lead to problems - take the corections by frenzen for instance - less happens in the way of "oh my god" to the family at the centre of this book - but how many times better could a book be?
the gathering is enright trying too hard and the booker prize trying too hard to find someting in it.
some good turns of phrase - but more clever clever in this regard than anything beautiful or well done
what a disappointment
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The gathering of dispersive thoughts
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`The Gathering' happens because Liam Hegarty dies suddenly. Through the words of his beloved sister Veronica who collects his body and organizes the funeral, we learn the tale of the Hegarty family and a terrible secret from the distant past which she shares with Liam. Collecting her thoughts, feelings and memories hopping through three generations I suppose reflects an intrinsic quality, a certain originality in this novel, but it still did not satisfy me.
The display of thoughts and situations that flow and scatter chasing each other in almost every page is often too disjointed for my liking. This probably conveys Veronica's pain and state of mind in an authentic way -facing the irreversible past and struggling with grief, seeking redemption- but I found that past and present interchanging swiftly, with juxtapositional vague memories and some mental images, rendered the whole story a bit knotty. Also, I really did not think that any of the characters were suitably portrayed. There are no standouts one way or the other, which could have added depth to the novel; perhaps this was the author's intention (i.e. a portrait of a very ordinary, numerous, imperfect family) but because most characters seem to just linger in the background, without much purpose, the result was that I soon found the whole thing quite dispersive, bordering boring.
I have finished the book because I always do, but I was expecting more by a Man Booker Prize Winner.
Sorry, sometimes that's the way it goes.
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Misunderstood
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A lot of people reviewed this book and were negative about the character development. To me it was all about the main character. Not anyone else. Her grief was obvious from the start til the finish. I think this is a book for someone who has lost a sibling, I have. Being from Dublin I also associate with some of the places of "refuge" that she went to lament. In all, I think this book was a true and honest novel that covered a fragile and important facet of loss.
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Hard to comprehend other reviews here
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This is easily the best book I have read this year. The prose is fantastic, beautiful and hallucinagenic (as the critics say). Quite how other reviews on here can find such wonderful writing boring is beyond me. I cannot recommend this book enough. Very few books truly waste a word but this is one. A very clever woman wrote this book.
Not for those who like detritus such as Jodi Picoult (now there is a BORING writer!)
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