The Book Tower

I had high hopes for Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland. But whilst much of the book is very well written, I found the overall reading experience dull. For a relatively short novel, I struggled at times and was pleased to get it over with. I found the novel’s narrator, Hans van den Broek, unlikeable and consequently cared little for him. His wife, Rachel, was too sketchy, equally unlikeable. The third main character, Chuck, was equally sketchy, equally unlikeable. This is an incredibly, and annoyingly, overrated and pretentious novel.

I guess you’ve guessed that I didn’t like it very much, so I’d like to move on to The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry. This novel was nominated for last year’s Booker prize. It’s a very well written book, and the sort of book that at times suggests that it is going to turn into something rather special indeed.

The Secret Scripture is set in an institution in Ireland, the sort of place that was once called an asylum, and this way of thinking is at the heart of the novel. Long term inmate Roseanne, nearing one hundred years of age, looks back on her life in what has become a jumbled view of personal history. By her own admission, memory plays tricks and is deceitful, or can she not face the pain of the past? Why is she incarcerated and what, however misjudged, is the reason for it? Dr Grene, an apparently benign psychiatrist, attempts to piece her life together of the eve of the hospital’s closure. But are his motives really so kindly?

As I’ve said, at times I thought this novel was on the brink of brilliance. I liked the way that it played with memory and the reader’s trust in the narrator. The point of view switches betweeen that of Roseanne and Dr Grene, from her own take on events to Grene’s attempt at research into the cloudy past. For a moment I thought that The Secret Scripture was going to rival and possibly surpass Atonement in its examination of memory and how foolish choices can so affect the future with terrible consequences. And how it isn’t all as it seems, not all as it really happens.

But The Secret Scripture has a twist. And it’s a terrible twist, but alas not in the satisfactory sense. It’s a twist I saw coming but one I hoped I had wrong. It’s not a twist I’ll share to spoil the book, although it’s one that ultimately does ruin the novel. Another damn shame.