To set out on pilgrimage with two companions, find this island, and found a monastic retreat.’Īrtt persuades the Abbot to let him take a small boat and go in search of the island, accompanied by two other monks: the elderly Cormac, who came to religion late in life after losing his loved ones to plague, and Trian, a young man given to the monastery by his parents as a child. ‘The dream is an instruction to withdraw from the world. ‘I was with an old monk, and a young one.’ The Abbot shows no sign of understanding him. As if I were a bird or an angel, looking down on the three of us.’ His name is Artt and he claims to have had a dream, a vision sent by God: The setting is 7th century Ireland and the novel begins with a stranger arriving at the monastery of Cluain Mhic Nóis on the banks of the River Shannon. I’ve read four books by Emma Donoghue now and each one has been completely different from the one before! Haven is a particularly unusual novel and even after finishing it I’m still not quite sure what I really think of it.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |