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Haven emma donoghue6/28/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() But it just didn’t work - not for this reader, in any case, and I have to say that I feel the author has left us with one of the ugliest central characters at the heart of what could have been a far more generous and indeed glorious novel. Donoghue for being able to call from her literary and conversational research some really wonderful disclosures about how sixth-century men might have made their way there, and labored to create a monastic settlement in the sea. I must say, I find this a disqualification for the labor she undertook in trying to imagine and describe the first monastic settlers to this place of resurrection - a weird trinity of wonderfully different characters. I find myself days after the completion of its reading, still arguing and wrestling with Donoghue, the author, who only at the end of the story confessed that she had never been there. And though there were moments of marvelous description and intuition about how the founding trio of monks may have found their way to survive briefly this most rugged and unforgiving rock mountain in the sea, none of these moments added up to what the promise of the book was. As one who has scaled the arduous ascent of Skellig Micheal on several occasions, I was so eager to read this book with its promise of insight and imagination. ![]()
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