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 | | The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry ISBN-10: 9780670019403 ISBN-10: 0-670-01940-2 ISBN-13: 9780670019403 ISBN-13: 978-0-670-01940-3 Hardcover 2008-06-12 Viking Adult Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Product Description A gorgeous new novel from the author of the Man Booker finalist A Long Long Way As a young woman, Roseanne McNulty was one of the most beautiful and beguiling girls in County Sligo, Ireland. Now, as her hundredth year draws near, she is a patient at Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital, and she decides to record the events of her life. As Roseanne revisits her past, hiding the manuscript beneath the floorboards in her bedroom, she learns that Roscommon Hospital will be closed in a few months and that her caregiver, Dr. Grene, has been asked to evaluate the patients and decide if they can return to society. Roseanne is of particular interest to Dr. Grene, and as he researches her case he discovers a document written by a local priest that tells a very different story of Roseanne’s life than what she recalls. As doctor and patient attempt to understand each other, they begin to uncover long-buried secrets about themselves. Set against an Ireland besieged by conflict, The Secret Scripture is an epic story of love, betrayal, and unavoidable tragedy, and a vivid reminder of the stranglehold that the Catholic Church had on individual lives for much of the twentieth century. | ||
Reviews | ||
Faux-literary and Unbelievable I hate to be the first reviewer to throw water on this Booker-shortlisted novel, but so it goes. This novel is the literary equivalent of Oscar-bait, those middle-to-high-brow movies that come around in December and display solid acting and deep characters yet are not that challenging or complicated. Perhaps we could call this Booker-bait. Barry is clearly an accomplished writer and a master at poetic prose. The Secret Scripture drips with poetic little aphorisms and bon mots that make the reader admire the writer's craft. But the plot line develops rather leisurely and when the reader is done admiring the wordsmithing, there is not much else to admire. For me, the biggest impediment to enjoying the novel was its overall structure. Barry presents the novel as a series of diary entries, but I simply couldn't swallow the idea. No one writes such epic diary entries, or conveniently includes background information in their personal notebooks. The reader would have been much better served with a typical omniscient narrator than this hackneyed epistolary structure. (The Booker winner, The White Tiger: A Novel (Man Booker Prize), also has a simply unbelievable structure, but since that book is a farce, the reader can let it go. The Secret Scripture takes itself much too seriously to simply move on from this flaw.) Don't be disuaded from reading this book if you enjoy impressive literary language, beautifully painted settings, and psychological depth. But if after 50 pages you want to throw the book against the wall, don't say I didn't warn you that its substantial flaws will continue to irritate until the end. | ||
Another Fine example of modern Irish literature While this book definitely does not break new ground, it is a fine example of modern Irish literature. The story is moving and beautifully written. | ||
A Clear View Roseanne Clear is an ancient woman living in an Irish asylum to which she was committed "for social reasons" after she bore an out-of-wedlock child. She has been a resident for so long that no one knows how old she really is or exactly what the circumstances of her commitment were. The "secret scripture" of the title is Roseanne's narrative of her life, written on scraps with a pilfered pen and hidden under a loose floorboard. At the same time her story is unfolding, the psychiaitrist who heads the institution is slowly putting together a competing narrative of Roseanne's life. The asylum is closing -- Ireland's version of de-institutionalization -- and the terms of Roseanne's commitment must legally determine where she'll be placed next. In the end, the two narratives come together in a wholly surprising way, but not before surveying Ireland's brutal and complicated history of political and sectarian violence from the establishment of the Free State up to the present. The author turns a particularly cold eye on the devastating grip that the Roman Catholic Church held on Irish society and politics for the better part of the 20th century. Although I've cited its political and historical scope, the novel tells its story in wholly personal terms. At various points the novel is funny, magically poetic, tragic -- and often all three: a great read. Once you've read "The Secret Scripture," go on to read "The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty" -- a prequel, sort of, of this novel. | ||
"I do remember terrible dark things..." In THE SECRET SCRIPTURE, Irish novelist, poet, and playwright, Sebastian Barry gives us an intimate look at two persons: Roseanne McNulty and Dr. William Grene. It's a fascinating look and one I don't think most readers will soon forget. Roseanne Clear McNulty has been a patient in the Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital in western Ireland for the last sixty years. A native of Sligo, Ireland, Roseanne believes she could be one hundred years old, though no records indicating her true age can be found, and her admittance records to Roscommon have been destroyed. Now, Roscommon, an old, crumbling, Victorian institution, is going to be destroyed, and its chief psychiatrist, Dr. William Grene must decide which of his patients is well enough to live life in the "real" world, and which should be transferred to the new mental institution that is being readied. With little to look forward to, Roseanne begins to set down her life story, writing by hand on scrap paper. She desires to leave a history of her life, though she says she is but a "remnant woman," a thing left over, with no one outside Roscommon who even knows her name. Roseanne's haunting reminiscence is seemingly for her eyes only, or for some reader of the future. She writes in secret, and every time she hears someone approaching, she hides the pages of her manuscript under a loose floorboard near her bed. Since Dr. Grene's assessment of Roseanne has been made more difficult by the loss of her admittance records, he, too, begins to write - not a memoir, but rather a diary, which he calls his "Commonplace Book." Through Roseanne's testimony of herself, and through Dr. Grene's Commonplace Book, we come to know both of these fascinating and supremely human characters intimately. Roseanne's testimony makes up, by far, the bulk of the book, and it's skillfully and masterfully woven with the writings of Dr. Grene so the effect is of a seamless whole. Although I felt I would have liked it a bit more had Barry made the tone of Dr. Grene's writing a little more distinct from Roseanne's, despite the similarity, Roseanne's is still the more lyrical, the more haunting, the more graceful of the two. She takes us back to her childhood in Sligo, and as she details her life there, her sadness, her grief, and above all, her love for her father, Joseph Clear, a man who cherished the sermons of John Donne and Sir Thomas Browne's "Religio Medici," we come to see that Joe Clear was most certainly the love of Roseanne McNulty's life. Her feelings are so beautifully detailed they are almost palpable. I would have liked to have known more about Joe Clear. His sufferings are so great, he reminded me of Thomas Hardy's Jude Fawley or Job, himself, yet he is, at all times, totally believable. This is not to say that Dr. Grene's sections aren't arresting. They are. As he searches for the truth about Roseanne, we not only experience his private tragedies along with him, we come to see this gentle and compassionate doctor is also tortured by doubt and riddled with undeserved guilt. And, though her testimony is quite fascinating, the more Dr. Grene learns about Roseanne, the more we begin to doubt her reliability as a narrator. As Barry weaves Roseanne's testimony with the words of Dr. Grene's Commonplace Book, we move from Sligo between the wars to the present and back again. The more Dr. Grene learns about Roseanne, the more questions are raised - in his mind and in the mind of the reader. Were all Roseanne's tragedies based in reality? Or were some the product of her own imagination? Who should Dr. Grene believe, Roseanne or the Catholic priest, Father Gaunt, whose account of Roseanne's history differs considerably from her own? Perhaps both are truthful and both are not. Memory, after all, is subjective and filtered through personal experience, and Roseanne, herself, admits that "no one has the monopoly on truth." THE SECRET SCRIPTURE is written (but never overwritten) in sensitive, beautiful, lyrical prose, and gorgeous imagery, a testament to Barry's power as a poet. Although Roseanne and Dr. Grene certainly take center stage, the book is populated by an entire cast of ghostly, though beautifully drawn minor characters - Roseanne's enigmatic father, her beautiful, emotionally fragile mother, the chilling Father Gaunt, the crusty John Kane, an orderly at Roscommon. Even Eneas McNulty, the protagonist of Barry's earlier book, THE WHEREABOUTS OF ENEAS MCNULTY makes an appearance that will impact the lives of both Roseanne and Dr. Grene forever. Ireland, itself, and its tragic history are present in every page of this elegiac novel, and we come to learn more about the power the Catholic Church wielded over the country's residents, and how inhumanely the Protestant population, which included Roseanne, was treated. As gorgeous and haunting as THE SECRET SCRIPTURE is, and as human and unforgettable as are Roseanne and Dr. Grene, some readers are bound to be put off by a melodramatic plot twist that comes very near the end of the book. Although I would have preferred Barry not to have included this twist, I found the book so wonderfully written that it really didn't bother me that much. Other readers, however, will find that it nullifies all that has gone before. Personally, I trust Barry's storytelling skills and believe there's a reason why he decided to include this rather soap operaish and guessable twist. In the end, I found the means most definitely justified the end, and though I would have rather Barry not included the ending twist, the journey, for me, the gorgeous, heartbreaking, lyrically beautiful journey, was worth the destination. I will not soon forget either Roseanne McNulty or Dr. William Grene, and I will certainly treasure this book and read more of Sebastian Barry. Five stars. Recommended: Definitely. | ||
Mixed feelings I thought the first 100 pages of the novel were marvellous. The tale of the young Roseanne Clear as a little girl, as narrated by the 100 year old Roseanne in a mental asylum to her diary, is horrific, tragic, and sad. After these 100 pages, the story then starts to dawdle; the history of Roseanne Clear begin to jump around and become confusing. This confusion is deliberately set up by the author, to illustrate how unreliable the narrator is in her old age. Authors employing the plot device of a unreliable witness to narrate the storyline is nothing new. However, I do find that Barry abused this technique in his writing. By using this plot device, Barry was absolved of explaining how the married Roseanne was voluntarily imprisoned in a hut, or why she chose to stay in the hut after being falsely accused of adultery, or why her husband and in-laws can believe the words of a single witness, or how her brother-in-law found her and impregnate her during one night of passion. If the narrator is truly unreliable because of her advanced age, how is she able to write her story in professorial prose? It seems that Barry is using the device of the unreliable narrator to escape of providing a coherent thread to Roseanne's life. Forgetting the few gaps here and there, and on account of the superb but horrific first part of the novel, this novel is still a good read. | ||