The Gathering by Anne Enright
My rating: 3/5 cats
this book was very frustrating. i feel like i should love it, but it’s like there is a barrier – a chastity belt between us preventing our love, and as much as i want it, it isn’t going to happen for us. there is a quality to her writing that reminded me of What I Loved or Housekeeping, books i am also told i am supposed to love, but just can’t feel anything for, like distant relations. she is a less antiseptic writer than hustvedt, though. i respect her prose – there are lines in here of amazing beauty and melancholy that make me say, “yes, there you are – come out where i can see you,” but the nothing-new-here feel to the plot means these moments are not enough.
and for some reason, i always thought i liked the booker award-winners more than, say, the pulitzers or other prestigious awards. in my mind, i had decided, “no, the bookers are the “good” awards – i usually like those.” this idea, deeply rooted as it was, turns out to be like so many of my firmly-held ideas, and based on zero facts. i checked out the former booker winners and i have only actually read 10 of them, and only really liked 4. there are a lot of authors i like on there, but in a lot of cases, the winning book is one i haven’t read. so – i give up my idea of the booker as my gold standard and one more ideal topples.
one odd thing of note about her (“her” being author/narrator)- she is endlessly preoccupied with casually describing the genitals of characters: her own, her husband’s, the imagined genitals of her grandparents, etc. and they are usually compared to food – poultry etc. it is jarring, at first, then it becomes an accepted quirk, and by the end you can sort of see a psychological reason for it (for the narrator – enright’s choice to grossly describe is still a mystery), but still – enough with the genitals.
having finished it, i shrug and i move on, not really feeling i have read anything that will stick with me, but while i was reading it, i did make little bookmark pages that have examples of a beautiful turn of phrase, or a nice original observation, and i would type them out here, but if they are the reason to read the book, in my opinion, i don’t want to ruin the experience for any other future reader because they are like the jewels in the quiet night of her story.
i didn’t say she inspired glorious prose from other people
