![]() Much of the novel, though, is taken up with what appear to be memories and flashbacks to Veronica’s youth and adolescence - her memories of her distant and mentally ailing mother, of sibling fights and violence, and especially of her grandmother Ada, her grandfather Charlie, and their mysterious but ever-present friend Lamb Nugent. The story is told by Veronica Hegarty, one of twelve children in an Irish family her older brother Liam has just been found dead and throughout the novel she’s preparing for his funeral - the gathering of the title. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with this particular narrator and her troubled and troubling voice. ![]() I don’t particularly like saying that in another mood, at another time, I might have liked the book - it feels like a cop-out to me: if I didn’t like the book I should just say I didn’t like it - but in this case it’s probably true. And the first chapter is not even two pages. ![]() The first chapter irritated me with its elusiveness, its refusal to make complete sense, its jumping around from character to character and time period to time period. I did begin to like the book more as I went on, and now that I’ve finished it I have come to admire it, but the experience of reading it wasn’t pleasurable. I’ve been trying to figure out why I struggled with Anne Enright’s The Gathering the best I can come up with is that I started off badly with the book, and that bad start was too much to overcome. ![]()
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