Review of THE GATHERING - A novel by Anne Enright

INTRODUCTION

The book that I have reviewed here is Anne Enright’s The Gathering. This is the fourth novel of Enright where she has delicately dealt with her relation with her brother, around whose life and death the novel revolves. It was published on 3 May, 2007. The major reason why I chose this book for a review is author’s incredible achievement in winning, The Man Booker Prize of 2007 for it.

As said above, The Gathering was published on 3 May, 2007. It is written in English and depicts the inner struggle of writer to find the real cause behind her brother’s death. As Enright was not a famous writer, this book failed to grab much of the readers until it won The Man Booker Prize of 2007.  The novel comprise of 39 chapters without any title. The novel even don’t contain any prologue or epilogue, it just waves through and out. It is written in a first person singular tone and the narrator is a 39 year old woman named Veronica. 

The novel begins with the narrator telling about an incident that she witnessed when she was eight at her Grandmother’s place but then leaves it there leaping to the present time where she is with her two daughters, Emily and Rebecca. In the later chapters we find she is visiting her mother’s place and has to perform a serious task of breaking news about her brother’s, Liam, death to her mother. Meanwhile she informs the readers that her mother has given birth to 12 children and had seven miscarriages.  Out of these twelve two are dead and she is there to tell about the death of a third child who was closest to her. 

“The seeds of my brother’s death were sown many years ago. The person who planted them is long dead – . . .” and with this sentence she takes us back to the time when her grandmother, Ada, was of nineteen and Lamb Nugent twenty-three. Nugent is fond of Ada who was working at a hotel in 1925. But, it so happened that Ada married Charles, leaving Nugent forever as her good family acquaintance. 

The story comes back to the time when Veronica is carrying out the responsibility of claiming the dead body of her dear brother. She then also gives description about her married life. She is married to Tom, a good husband overall, who somehow fails to satisfy her psychologically. Veronica lives a weird life; left her job, lays awake at night writing this book, goes to sleep in the morning and avoids her husband as much as possible.

Now she goes back to the time when she is eight and Liam nine and they are at Ada’s home during holidays along with Kitty her younger sister. There every Friday she saw Nugent visit Ada and bring chocolates for children. Veronica thought that Ada was a prostitute in her narrow mind of a child.

Veronica comes to know that Liam died of drowning. Liam had stones in his pocket that means he committed suicide. Liam had never been an obedient child and was a black sheep of the family. Once during a quarrel at home he even threw a knife which missed mother. Liam lived a life of an alcoholic, continuously changing his dwelling, each worst than the other. He had many affairs and had a child from one named Sarah. The name of his son is Rowen, who comes to the picture only near the climax when the rituals of Liam’s funeral are performed.

In the middle of the novel Veronica reveals the bitter reality of how Nugent physically abused Liam when they went to Ada’s place in Holidays. Liam was physically used by Nugent to satisfy his hunger of sexual intercourse. Veronica considers this act as a reason behind evil and distinguished nature of Liam.

Later on she finds few letters at her mother’s home which were sent from Nugent to Ada. Nugent was Ada’s landlord and in those letters he sounded like cruel owner.

Veronica in the end leaves her husband and family to start a new life. 

This novel is a journey of narrator’s mind; her strive to go into the past and bringing out some of the incidents though vague but important. Enright is well poised in her writing and knows where to control her pen. She has dealt with the issues of marriage, sex, family, relationships very ardently. The way story leaps from past to present to future even, from facts to fiction and also from clarity and vagueness of memories is remarkable.

The story reveals page by page, episode after episode with something new at each end. The lapses of time is merged so smoothly making readers pass on the roads of it easily.

Not a single character is left undefined by the author. This novel is a family saga and the repercussions of one on the other. Entire family of Veronica-the Hegarty gathers at the wake of her brother Liam which gives the novel its title. 

The novel also comes out with some epic-philosophical lines. Such as:

“We are human being in raw. Some survive better than the others, that is all.” (Pg-216)

“People do not change, they are merely revealed.” (Pg- 252)

The major characters of the novel are the narrator herself and Liam.

i) Veronica

The narrator of the story is a woman of 39 and is fighting between her present and past making her future worth. She is an obedient daughter but an unsatisfied wife. She travels through the memory lane with her dead brother. She most of the time makes an imaginary ghost form of Liam.

ii) Liam

A character, which is dead in the novel, is alive in his sister’s thoughts and memories. He is physically abused at nine by his grandmother’s landlord. This had a scar on his psyche and with an urge to get rid of it he commits blunder in his entire life and finally suicide. 

The novel is full of minor but important characters. Enright through Veronica has described all the minor characters keenly. First there is Ada who seems both smart and helpless. There is Charles, a dedicated husband of Ada. Nugent, a negative character, is someway responsible for death of Liam. Then there are siblings of Veronica - Midge, Bea, Ernest, Stevie, Ita, Mossie, Kitty, Alice and the twins Ivor and Jem. Veronica’s mother is not a wise woman and so she thinks of her father, a strict catholic. Then it’s Tom, Veronica’s husband and her children. 

This novel is not the one which pours out a message directly. It is a descriptive one.

We can put light on the horrible incident that took place in Liam’s life for getting the message of the novel. A child when abused in anyways in his/her childhood lives an entire life with its burden. And when they are not able to get rid of it, they free their life.

And yes, the climax does give us a message through the decision of her life that Veronica takes. To live the life in the way she wants. She yearns to live a normal life where she can sleep at night and wakes in the morning like normal people.

MY READING EXPERIENCE

Oh! The reading of this novel was an experience rarely forgotten. It is not an ordinary novel with some cliché and easy vocabulary. It was a perspiring task. Even though reaching the middle of the novel, I wasn’t able to grasp the theme. But then the way it turned up, I don’t actually remember where I was left detached from it. It took me more and more deep within and with the characters and episodes.

It has undoubtedly improved my taste of reading and choice of books.

Well, in this review I have tried my level best to give justice to the book. To read this book is not everyone’s cup of it in India. Sorry to say this but readers here are still forming a reading habit due to which they prefer easily read material not one which challenge their reading skills. The Gathering is dark but a worthy and the best work of Enright.

INTRODUCTION TO THE NOVELIST

Anne Teresa Enright (born 11 October 1962) is an author from Dublin, Ireland. She graduated from the University of East Anglia's Creative Writing Course. She is skilled in all forms of writings and has published essays, short stories, a non-fiction book and four novels. She worked as a director and producer of a television programme before she took writing as her full-time profession. Enright's first novel, The Wig My Father Wore, was published in 1995. It deals with the theme of love, motherhood and Roman Catholicism. Her second novel was What Are You Like? in 2000 with a story of twin sisters who were separated at the time of birth and were raised at altogether different places. Then arrived was her novel, The Pleasure of Eliza Lynch (2002), which is a fictional account of life of Eliza Lynch. Her next work was a collection of candid and humorous essays about childbirth and motherhood, Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood (2004). And her fourth novel was The Gathering (2007) which brought her to limelight from a low profile writer.