The Gathering by Anne Enright, Jonathan Cape

Anne Enright’s The Gathering is not an easy read. At least that is the way I felt .I had to struggle with the book. The language is fine for a non-native reader. It is the way the thoughts are presented and the manner in which the story progresses if at all you can call it a story .It is more of a narrative. Why did I choose to read it any way? Simply because I wanted to find out more about the book which pipped “Mister Pip” to win the Booker in 2007.Well I frankly did not understand why it did .The only reason could be the book is more complex and written somewhat in a stream of consciousness style . The book will appeal to a more sophisticated reader.

The story is set in Ireland and tells the story of the Hegarty clan. The father a staunch Catholic does not adopt birth control measures and sires many offsprings .The mother goes through several miscarriages and finally nine children survive .The story revolves round Eliza and her grief at the death of her beloved bohemian brother Liam. Liam’s tragedy is traced back to his abuse at the hands of a sick old man during his visit to his grandparents’ house as a small boy. Their grandfather Charlie lost his house to this man who was his friend and who lusted after his wife, in a bout of gambling.Charlie was a habitual gambler and always in love with his wife. Exploited psychologically and physically Liam grows up with a fractured mind and eventually commits suicide by drowning himself in the sea.

It is a family epic, a tale about the life and times of almost four generations in a family .Eliza tells the story of her grandmother Ada and her husband, her parents, her own life and Liam’s life and briefly touches the lives of her children Rebecca and Emily. The strength and depth of the brother sister bonding comes forcefully across. All other relationships seem momentary and based on sexual transactions with no real meaning or understanding between two individuals. Life is seen and interpreted through the experiences and perceptions of the central character in the novel. At times trying to piece the different elements of the story together becomes a bit confusing.

I enjoyed moments like these. Liam tells his father you are a f…..ing baboon . “ A drinker does not exist .Whatever they say , it is just the drink talking." “We pity our mothers what they had to put up with ,in bed or in the kitchen and we hate them or worship them but we always cry for them….” .“ Or once , I remember some afternoon when he sat at the end of the bed in the white curtains’ light, and he looked like someone I knew from the beginning , whenever the beginning might have been. "

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