The Gathering (Man Booker Prize) | Anne Enright | Two Horrific Revelations, Perfectly Timed

The Gathering (Man Booker Prize) | Anne Enright | This is an award winning book?!!

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The Gathering (Man...

	The Gathering (Man Booker Prize) Anne Enright Grove Press, Black Cat, 2007 - 272 pages average customer review:based on 130 reviews view larger image
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Two Horrific Revelations, Perfectly Timed

Fear of delivering spoilers limits my own commentary. This novel, about the death of a sibling and the failure of the adult world to protect the children it creates, is a literary achievement of beauty and horror and should be required reading for all who have children, care for children, or profess to love them.

This is an award winning book?!!

I fail to understand why "The Gathering" won the 2007 Man Booker Prize. This book is disturbing and disappointing on so many levels. I really did not enjoy this book. I felt like I slogged along as the plot slogged along. I've never read a book (and as a librarian, I've read countless books) where the narrator focuses/fantasizes on and about her dead grandparents' sex life. The narrator, Veronica, goes from present tense to past tense and her real memories seem to become more blurred with made up memories as the story progressed. I felt like she was just making it up as she went along. Veronica's parents had a prolific sex life, as she mentions numerous times, which resulted in a large brood of children. Aside from Liam, though, none of the siblings are developed beyond giving them a name or the fact that they died. The sibs were just disembodied characters floating around in a weak and tedious plot. If you're going to include so many characters, at least develop them a little more. If you can't or won't develop your characters into something we should even care about, leave them out. Undeveloped characters are pointless and confusing to the story. They just clutter the plot. The plot was cluttered enough already, with the above-mentioned memories. Let's just hope the 2008 Man Booker Prize winning book is better than "The Gathering."

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