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The Gathering  By  cover art

The Gathering

By: Anne Enright
Narrated by: Terry Donnelly
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Publisher's summary

Man Booker Prize, Fiction, 2007

Regarded as one of her country's foremost voices, Irish author Anne Enright makes a fresh mark on a rich literary tradition. The Gathering is a deeply insightful family saga, steeped in secrets and intrigue, unfolding over three generations.

©2007 Ann Enright (P)2008 Recorded Books

Critic reviews

"Enright's hypnotic prose turns...desperation into something fierce and beautiful." ( Booklist)
"A melancholic love and rage bubbles just beneath the surface of this Dublin clan, and Enright explores it unflinchingly." ( Publishers Weekly)

What listeners say about The Gathering

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 3 out of 5 stars
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    46
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  • 3 Stars
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  • 2 Stars
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Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
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Story
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
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    39
  • 4 Stars
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  • 3 Stars
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Not For Everyone

This book has received a lot of negative ratings. I agree it is not a book for everyone's tastes. It's not an easy listen, but the narration is perfect. I loved the book. I felt like I was inside Veronica's confused and guilt-ridden head... experiencing all the twists and turns that happen when trying to make sense of things after a tragedy, on top of a lifetime of hurt. I will go back and listen again.

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30 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Get Out the Razor Blades

This book is so unrelentingly dreary that I can't find one good thing to say about it. Not one character had any appeal to me. I am so sick of reading about drunks and their devestating effects on children. I can't imagine how this book won any prize whatsoever. The only good thing I can say is that the reader successfully intoned, in a monotonic haze of despair, both the tone and content of this book. I hated it so much, it makes me mad.

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21 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

You can not libel the dead

“I do not think we remember our family in any real sense. We live in them instead”
― Anne Enright, The Gathering

I grabbed a couple of my Irish writers to read while traveling back and forth to Ireland for pleasure. Ha. Pleasure. The Irish know how to feck, fight and die. Oh, and write.

Both novels centered around drownings, death, and memory. Both were Man Booker Prize winners (born two years apart). Both were very different looks back. Banville's The Sea was more poetic, more soothing; a search for the correct word, the proper memory. 'The Gathering' was angrier. It was a picked scab, a hot wound, a shout into a dark wet cave; tea without sugar or cream, aged whiskey without the water. Banville's novel was almost elegiac and poetic in its mourning. Enright's was a primal, woman scream. It was less of a memory than an imagined history, a search for meaning in loss, a desperate search for who and why in family.

'The Gathering' was very good, just not great. I'm almost apologetic about making Enright's novel seem an Irish twin to Banville's. It is a bit unfair. She deserves to have her book examined alone. But the themes, the Irishness, the Man Bookered. Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore Man Booker hath joined together, let not man put asunder. I have hung the seabird of the second read, second published, around her book. Oh well, life moves forward and so do reviews and cranky critics.

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17 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

How could you do this to such a great book?

Would you try another book from Anne Enright and/or Terry Donnelly?

Anne Enright is a masterful, funny, nuanced, sly writer who sees what most others miss: the fine details, the incredible range of human emotion. Fabulous book to read with gorgeous language and a somewhat flawed structure. But stellar for the language alone. To listen? This recording kills the story right out of the gate. If I were the author I'd be dismayed. Terry Donnelly rings one note throughout: rage. It sounds like one long rageful rant, in fact, making it unlistenable. There's incredible tension in the book itself, but it comes not from rage but an extraordinary range of emotion. The reader missed it all. The character would have a right to be this enraged throughout, but she feels many things: from amusement and delight to sadness and grief--with humor! As it turns out, the reader missed all this leaving no room for discovery. And rendering this unlistenable. Who wants to listen to someone rage for many hours in a row? (Who wants to listen to someone rage unless it's righteously earned? And even then, for how long?) Enright didn't write an angry diatribe, though you wouldn't know it from trying to listen to this.

What did you like best about this story?

The book itself.

What didn’t you like about Terry Donnelly’s performance?

I'm sorry to be so dismissive here, but Terry Donnelly missed the point entirely and ruins access to a noteworthy story. There is nothing nuanced in her read.

Any additional comments?

Was there anyone directing the reader? Anne Enright was a radio journalist in the past. Did she hear how this was read before it was released? Did she get any say in the matter?

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11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars
  • JC
  • 02-24-12

So Irish, yet Universal

If you could sum up The Gathering in three words, what would they be?

Family, Irish, Generations

What did you like best about this story?

The flow of familial ties from generation to generation - the sense of time and blood ties flowing like a river without beginning or end.

Which scene was your favorite?

The wake - recognizing Liam's child.

If you could rename The Gathering, what would you call it?

Perfect title.

Any additional comments?

It appears some listeners are put off by the darkness of the book. As a survivor of family suicide I can say the book is spot on about the aftermath of suicide. It is dark, but charmingly Irish, and relieved by the dark humor so essential to surviving family tragedies. The narrator is a gifted actress and made the story authentic and more enjoyable.

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11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Grim

This story was so depressing I could not finish listening to it. The characters are uniformly sad and grim, without a trace of wit to lighten the mood. The pacing too is agonizingly slow, focusing on minute detail to the exclusion of action. The author appears capable of something better than this book's unrelenting theme of grief and loss.

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Story drags on...and on and on!

After two hours I had to admit defeat--the story still hadn't begun to take off. The narrator within the story (Veronica?) was not one with whom I could empathize. It might eventually have gotten better, but I don't have enough years left in my life to find out.

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Make that a negative star

This book is dreadful. When you're 6 hours into it and you don't care what happens to the characters, there's a problem. The narrator reads at an incredibly slow pace. I just want to get the sound of it out of my ears. This book needs to go on a list called "Waste of a Credit."

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9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

sooooo slooooowwwwww!

This book was beautifully written. But a real sleeper. I just kept waiting and waiting for the plot to go somewhere. But it NEVER did. Maybe someone with more of an interest in psychotherapy might relate but I found the main character very narcissistic and not even in an interesting way. I would not recommend this book to most readers.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Cure for Insomnia

This might be one of those great dark, Irish books if you are reading it, but listening to this book is torture. These are the most boring people on earth. I gave up after the first third and came to the web site for another book. The narrator should just divorce her husband and move on -- maybe get a job and a life. Initially I wanted to know what happened to Liam as a child, but then I just wanted it to end.

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3 people found this helpful