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A review by terrypaulpearce
A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry
5.0
This book really captures -- maybe more than any other -- the randomness and confusion of war. The protagonist, Willie, and those around him rarely know what's happening or why. It also manages to capture the confusion of Willie's conflicting feelings about heroism, war, the Easter Uprising and the struggles in Ireland. It carries Willie through the world crashing down around him until you wonder where he can go, in life, and so it then captures as well as anyone has the distance between a returning soldier and those he left.
I won't spoil the conclusion but it is more or less perfect, too. I loved The Secret Scripture but found it not quite as mind-blowingly good as the first novel I read of his, Days Without End. This is between the two for me, certainly on the same playing field as the latter, which is an exalted place. Barry is now one of those authors whose works I know I will read every one of in my time.
I won't spoil the conclusion but it is more or less perfect, too. I loved The Secret Scripture but found it not quite as mind-blowingly good as the first novel I read of his, Days Without End. This is between the two for me, certainly on the same playing field as the latter, which is an exalted place. Barry is now one of those authors whose works I know I will read every one of in my time.