Haven
Ratings11
Average rating3.4
The highly anticipated novel from the internationally bestselling author of The Pull of the Stars and Room 'This is Donoghue at her strange, unsettling best.' - Maggie O'Farrell, author of Hamnet 'Combines pressure-cooker intensity and radical isolation, to stunning effect.' - Margaret Atwood via Twitter In seventh-century Ireland, a scholar and priest called Artt has a dream telling him to leave the sinful world behind. Taking two monks - young Trian and old Cormac - he travels down the river Shannon in search of an isolated spot on which to found a monastery. Drifting out into the Atlantic, the three men find an impossibly steep, bare island inhabited by tens of thousands of birds, and claim it for God. Their extraordinary landing spot is now known as Skellig Michael. But in such a place, far from all other humanity, what will survival mean? Haunting, moving and vividly told, Haven displays Emma Donoghue's trademark world-building and psychological intensity - but this tale is like nothing she has ever written before . . . One of The Times Books of the Year 2022 One of Easons 'Favourite Book of the Year 2022'. The Irish Times 'Books to Look Out For in 2022'. Pre-order Learned By Heart, the dazzling new love story from Emma Donoghue.
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A strange book - I thought it might be in a vein as Matrix, but it ended up being much more austere with a long, slow meander to the climax. Glad I read it though.
Not recommended for vegans or people who are squeamish.
I wanted to read this solely because of the author (and the mysterious, vaguely sinister cover art!). I've really enjoyed Emma Donoghue's books, especially The Pull of the Stars and Frog Music. Had Haven been written by almost anyone else, I probably wouldn't have considered it - a tale of three monks living in the early middle ages is far from my typical choice. That said, I'm very glad I did. I didn't necessarily love this book, but I found myself completely absorbed in it - I HAD to talk about it as I was reading it (to the point that my husband, not a huge reader, is eager to read it when it's available).
It's very much about religion, but it's also about the struggle to reconcile what you feel in your deepest self to be true about the world with what your ‘superior' is insisting is incontrovertible fact. While I couldn't relate directly to many of the things depicted in the book - from the devoutly religious, like vowing chastity, poverty, humility, and (most important to the plot) obedience, to the day-to-day of the monks' isolated existence, like writing on calfskin vellum and trying to carve out a garden from unforgiving rock - it reminded me in some strange but strong ways of Silicon Valley in the 21st century and the cult of tech leadership we buy into out of some combination of hope and willful delusion (e.g., Theranos). The power dynamics were easily the most fascinating part of the story for me. I also find myself coming back to the haunting implications - even back in the 600s, and exponentially so today - of the belief that everything on earth was put there by God for humans to use.
Overall, a really unusual and well-written meditation on what it means to be a ‘leader' and how to do right in the world. Recommend!
Thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.
As much as I love Emma Donoghue, I can't say I enjoyed this one at all. It read like a how-to manual on survival (or slow death) on a rocky, bird-infested, shit hole of an island with an obtuse, over zealous, infuriating monk. I really struggled with all the nature writing (it's not really my bag) and while I actually really liked the other main characters - it wasn't enough to keep me invested. Very disappointed - but I'm sure this book will find its audience with the more literary set. I just wasn't in the mood unfortunately.
