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djmelvill 's review for:
Prophet Song
by Paul Lynch
A terrible, brilliant, astonishing book. The events take place in a modern day Ireland which is succumbing to an authoritarian regime, which leads to a civil war and a refugee crises. That alone would be interesting enough.
Yet the story is told from the perspective of a mother of four, and Lynch’s gorgeous writing (his voice is poetic and many sentences took my breath away) manages to expresses the internal emotions of what it might be like to live, and shepherd a family, through such events. It’s an astonishing imaginative achievement.
This is one of those war novels that makes the sheer horror of war—specifically, having your ordinary domestic home neighbourhood descend into a war zone—so very personal. The true horror of this novel is not just that such an event could unfold in any of our modern societies, but that such events are unfolding right now in countries around the world. I knew all that was happening before. But somehow, reading this novel made it feel maddening, agonizing, an utmost tragedy.
Yet the story is told from the perspective of a mother of four, and Lynch’s gorgeous writing (his voice is poetic and many sentences took my breath away) manages to expresses the internal emotions of what it might be like to live, and shepherd a family, through such events. It’s an astonishing imaginative achievement.
This is one of those war novels that makes the sheer horror of war—specifically, having your ordinary domestic home neighbourhood descend into a war zone—so very personal. The true horror of this novel is not just that such an event could unfold in any of our modern societies, but that such events are unfolding right now in countries around the world. I knew all that was happening before. But somehow, reading this novel made it feel maddening, agonizing, an utmost tragedy.