A review by escape_through_pages
The Colony by Audrey Magee

informative reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

📖 REVIEW 📖

An Englishman and a Frenchman walk onto an Irishman’s island…

Lloyd is an English artist travelling to an unnamed Irish island to paint its landscape. The island is small with few inhabitants who largely speak the Irish language. This has attracted French linguist, Masson, who is studying the subtle changes in language amongst its inhabitants for his research and passion for preserving those languages at risk of becoming extinct. 

Given Lloyd cannot speak Irish, Masson is none to pleased to meet him on the island, accusing him by his mere presence, of accelerating the decline of the language. What follows is a forced tolerance between the two.

It’s a story of how people with different backgrounds interact and influence, of co-dependence; Lloyd and the islanders serving as a metaphor for the larger English - Irish political relationship and conflict. 

It’s a depiction of colonialism and its effects. Of power and manipulation, broken promises and stolen futures. The levels this story can be read on are a virtual mille-feuille.

The chapters are interspersed with vignettes of the key real life events happening on the mainland at the time - violence and murders between Catholics and Protestants and IRA bombings.

If that isn’t enough, the writing is a dream. It’s literary but accessible. It’s addictive, I didn’t want it to end but I couldn’t put it down. 

And the vitality of the land and community is realised in the descriptions. There are the cliffs, the kitchen table gatherings, the paint on canvas, the driving rains and wind, the cold, the prickly fire heat, the taste of buttered bread with hot tea, the smell of fish and the sound of the waves. 

And still there is so much more to say. This book is a triumph, if I don’t see it on the Booker longlist I’ll be disappointed. It’s potentially the best book I’ve read this year. 

𝙒𝙝𝙤 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙬𝙚?

𝙒𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙙𝙤 𝙬𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢?

𝙒𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙬𝙚 𝙜𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙜?

𝙃𝙤𝙬 𝙙𝙤 𝙬𝙚 𝙚𝙭𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙩𝙤𝙜𝙚𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙤𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙝?