The Secret Scripture: A Novel

Continuing the fictional elaborations of his own family's facts, Barry tells of Irish repression movingly in this densely written but often poetic novel. Following "The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty," Roseanne Clear McNulty enters the saga around the same time, the Irish Civil War following partial independence in the early 1920s. After a tragic event in Sligo town during the internecine war brings unwarranted scorn upon her Presbyterian father, Roseanne must grow up isolated from defenders, increasingly compromised by the scrutiny of censorious Fr. Gaunt.What transpires crosses over with the story of Eneas, and while the details will be left for you to learn, this narrative tells a rather familiar story of loss and yearning effectively, renewing by the beauty of its ruminative style a landscape harsh and barren, within the lives of men and women and especially those, like Roseanne, confined as was her mother to an asylum for her own attempts to break free of the constraints of early 20c Catholic-ruled Ireland.Still, no story set here can be all bleak. She writes of her native city: "A hot Irish day is such a miracle we become mad foreigners in a twinkle. The rain drives everything indoors and history with it. There is a lovely lack of anything on a hot deay, and because our world in its inner truth is so wet, the surprised greens of the fields and hills seem to burn with a sort of bewilderment, a wonderment. The land looks lovely to itself, and the girls and boys along the strand are painted into the tawny yellows and the blues and the greens of the sea, also burning, burning. Or so it seemed to me. The whole town seemed to be there, everything suffering the same brushstrokes of the heat, everything joining and melding." (142)One caveat: the depth with which Roseanne writes down her story in such rich prose does tend to blend too much with the doctor's own diary's moods, and Barry for both seems to fall into an overly rich, and rather too-studied, prose style that can slow the pace of the narrative dramatically. Some readers may like to linger in its shallows, but others may want the plot to quicken.Later, however, the madness with which daughter as mother is diagnosed with and confined by hints at deeper suffering. Her story intersperses with Dr. Grene who researches the case of this hundred-year-old inmate at Roscommon's asylum. Roseanne tells him: "I do remember terrible dark things, and loss, and noise, but it is like one of those terrible dark pictures that hang in churches, God knows why, because you cannot see a thing in them." The doctor tells her "that is a beautiful description of traumatic memory." (101)The doctor, "the biggest agnostic in Ireland," struggles with his own loss, and seeks in Roseanne to solve her mystery, and perhaps his. "But we are never old to ourselves. That is because at the close of day the ship we sail in is the soul, not the body." (177) He too seeks understanding of death and loss, as does Roseanne. Betrayals can be eased by desires to do right by others. "We like to characterise humanity as savage, lustful, and basic, but that is to make strangers of everyone. We are not wolves, but lambs astonished in the margins of the fields by sunlight and summer." (178)I admit the betrayal that De. Grene confesses at this point appeared very minor and quite forgivable, but in the context of his great loss recollected, it may loom much larger in his guilty mind. Barry seeks to examine precisely this conflict between what we are accused of, by ourselves or others, and what can and should and must be forgiven and restored. In a time of cruelty for causes and utter suppression of desire, Roseanne represents a frail cry of flawed but innocent humanity.There aren't facile solutions for men and women caught in compromise in a century of clerical domination and political oppression. The wonder of Irish scenery conflicts with its terrors, and its inhabitants are caught within both splendid days and terrible nights. After decades, how much of what transpired can only be recreated partially by Dr. Grene. "The one thing that is fatal in the reading of impromptu history is a wrongful desire for accuracy. There is no such thing." (279)(P.S. I have also reviewed "The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty" and Barry's "A Long Long Way," a harrowing novel of WWI through an Irish soldier's eyes, on Amazon.)

Sebastian Barry is a great writer. His words, his cadences, his humanity are second to none. Brilliant!

I love Sebastian Barry’s fascinating heartbreaking story telling. Roseann’s inner life is amazing and unforgettable. I am eagerly anticipating the next novel in this series.

It surprised me on first hearing that personal testimony in court cases is no longer considered reliable. But once I'd read on the subject and put myself though comparable memory tests, I became a believer. Sebastian Barry, an Irish playwright and author with a Man Booker nomination to his credit, demonstrates just such an idea in The Secret Scripture.Here, he presents the story of a hundred year-old woman, Roseanne Clear, through the device of two accounts of her life. One account is Roseanne's, the other is that of Father Gaunt, a Catholic priest. Actually, the book is meant to be a resolution of the two conflicting texts via a similar accounting by the narrator, Dr. Grene, a psychiatrist who has taken an interest in Roseanne late in her life. Dr. Grene works in the Roscommon Hospital, a mental hospital soon to be closed and torn down. His job is to evaluate the patients and determine which are competent to return to society. Roseanne is one of these. Somewhat inexplicably, Dr. Grene takes an inordinate interest in Roseanne's case.In digging into her life, he obtains Fr. Gaunt's depiction of why he had long ago insisted that Roseanne was incapable of living the life of a normal Irish citizen. In her turn, Roseanne has written in her account of her marriage to Tom McNulty, subsequently annulled by Fr. Gaunt. Roseanne, a beautiful woman in her early years, came of age as a Presbyterian between World War II and the earlier years of political conflict and consequent civil war in Ireland. The annulled marriage was by implication an example of heavy-handed attempts by Catholic authorities to assert their control during this time, not only politically, but by meddling deeply in the personal lives of the Irish people. Gaunt, in essence, banished Roseanne for political and social sins too complex to delineate here by having her committed to Roscommon, where she has spent most of her life. In resolving Roseanne's case, Dr. Grene himself becomes the surprising subject of Barry's story near book's end.By presenting conflicting accounts of key events in Roseanne's life, Barry reveals the vagaries of both long- and short-term memory, and by projection, the ways in which accounts of history itself become warped by memory's limitations. This is an inventive and at times poignant device as it's played out in Roseanne's personal life. Ordinarily, this is the sort of history-as-literature writing that I tend to devour. But my problem with Barry's literary device here is that Dr. Grene's role as narrator tends to be a too-visible intermediary in Roseanne's story. Essentially, then, Grene and his narration act as a filter through which Roseanne's and Gaunt's accounts are revealed, and the effect on this reader was to distance the often-intimate story from its reading. I have to wonder if the story as devised might not be better adapted to the stage than the page. Still, Barry's writing is agile, and in places, where he allowed his prose to carry the story along, The Secret Scripture glows.An aside: I've thought for a long time that, as the secular mentality grows and develops, distancing itself from religion's formerly socio-political roles, literature becomes a more common form of morality-and-ethics-by-example device. Judging by the book's title, I suspect Barry agrees.

Having just finished a back-to-back reading of all three novels in Sebastian Barry’s ‘McNulty’ trilogy, I thought I’d pen a few words for a review. I don’t intend to give away any of the intricacies of the plots, which I’m more than aware is rather infuriating, but instead try to convey the subtleties of Barry’s writing.Although not explicitly marketed as a trilogy, the novels should be read ‘in order’ to make the most from them as a reader. I’m sure that the publisher, Faber & Faber, as well as Barry himself, would argue that the novels can be read as singular entities and fully enjoyed as such. As indeed I imagine they could be. But to do that, or to read them out of sequence, would be an experience leaving you short-changed as a number of threads are continued, explored and explained as the novels progress.The first novel, ‘The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty’, was published in 1998. Written with a lyricism I feel is unique to Barry, the prose carries you along a winding stream of a storyline, following the protagonist Eneas after the First World War and later his experiences in the Royal Irish Constabulary, and later still, Africa.What follows is both a detailed history lesson and a sensitive contemplation of human behaviour. Touching on themes of family, loyalty and betrayal, Barry presents Eneas as a hugely likeable outsider adrift in a world of troubles not of his own making. Religious dogma, particularly the Catholic variety, is portrayed as an immovable force which cannot be questioned. This motif extends throughout all three novels: a sense, at one end of the scale, of bewilderment over the constraints of the Catholic church and at the other end a livid rage at the horrors perpetrated in its name.As the reader follows the hapless Eneas, there are glimmers of hope but also a terrible feeling of inevitability about the ending. You live this exile’s life with him and feel his quiet anguish. And what more could a reader want from an author than be allowed to immerse themselves in a character? Barry is undoubtedly an astute chronicler of the human condition.What stands out the most, more than the subtleties of the plot and the vividly drawn characters, is the sheer lyrical beauty of the prose. It is no surprise that Barry is an accomplished poet, as his words lift off the page and take on a life of their own. Also a successful playwright, Irish colloquialisms are fully captured and the dialogue pitch perfect. Barry’s imagery is unexpected and profound, adding many layers of meaning to his writing. In chapter 6, while Eneas is awaiting what he thinks may be a fatal visit from his former best friend Jonno, the writer captures a rare moment of freedom with the line ‘And away out on the wild sea-marsh and grasses of Enniscrone he is able to spread wide his arms and have the sun sit along them as if they were the fierce white featherings of a seabird.’ The same imagery, of course, has a completely different and more sinister interpretation when viewed from Jonno’s perspective.‘The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty’ is a heartbreakingly compulsive and emotive read, and possibly the most memorable of the three.The second novel, ‘The Secret Scripture’, published in 2008 (recipient of the Costa Book of the Year award) picks up the story of Roseanne McNulty, who featured in the first novel as a character on the fringe of Eneas’ life.The writing is more direct, with fewer lyrical flourishes than the first novel, but carries its own ingenuity. The dual narrative, with chapters split between the almost hundred-year-old Rosanne and her psychiatrist Dr Grene, is very effective at keeping the reader enthralled. The same themes are present, with a renewed sense of hostility directed towards the Catholic church. Roseanne’s treatment, as a vulnerable young woman, at the hands of (mostly) men who use patriarchy and religion to control women and boost their standing in society, is as horrendous to read as it is compelling.As readers we are obliged to question Roseanne as a reliable narrator. Time, age and memory are all at work here, yet against all the odds she does succeed in telling us her heart-breaking story. The denouement is an ingenious coming together of all the elements of this memorable novel.‘The Temporary Gentleman’, published in 2014, closes the trilogy and answers some haunting questions about the McNulty family. This time the focus is on Jack McNulty, brother of Eneas, who is married to the beautiful but flawed Mai Kirwan. This novel, written in its own distinctive style quite different to the first two, captures the disintegration of a marriage with painful realism.The spectre of alcoholism is never far away, ‘How is it that for some people drinking is a short-term loan on the spirit, but for others a heavy mortgage on the soul?’ asks our damaged narrator, Jack. Although to blame the couple’s woes on this alone would over-simplify a complex relationship. Jack also tells us ‘Everything had been said without saying a word. Everything had been understood without any intimation of understanding.’ And here Barry proves himself yet again a shrewd observer of human relationships.The ending of this novel, although containing a clever twist, also has the same sense of inevitability as the first novel. That Eneas and Jack are brothers speaks volumes.What Sebastian Barry conveys, more than anything else in these three novels, is the endless human capacity for cruelty, but also love. And how the former too often outweighs the latter.Barry has been shortlisted for the Booker prize twice. That he's never won it is either a travesty or more likely a reflection of how irrelevant that literary prize has become, or perhaps has always been.I’m surprised Faber haven’t published a single volume of the three novels, something along the lines of Cormac McCarthy’s ‘Border’ trilogy. This would be a fitting way to celebrate these novels, perhaps bringing them to a wider audience. In any case, it’s been a long time since any writer has had such a profound effect on me and I would recommend Barry without hesitation.As a trilogy, to be read back-to-back, in the right order, of course.

In west Ireland, a psychiatrist investigates the history of his 100-year-old incarcerated patient, Roseanne, who, unbeknownst to him, is writing a memoir and hiding it under a floorboard in her hospital room. The second of Barry’s McNulty trilogy, it was shortlisted for the Booker.It was indeed very good, very enjoyable, and I shall immediately move on to the third (The Temporary Gentleman). Most other readers say they prefer The Secret Scripture to the first in the trilogy (The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty), but I found it slightly less wonderful. It has more plot, more event, a bigger reveal, but the language is not as entrancing, and the resolution felt just a little over-contrived and explained. I googled the film adaptation, and see they simplified the ending.In brief, for me it was slightly less wonderful than Eneas McNulty, but wonderful nonetheless.

This is a book about Ireland and it's people, written by an Irishman. In many ways it tells of an Ireland in a time warp when the local priest commanded unchallengeable power and religious sects lived separate and irreconcilable lives.The use of that power ruins the life of a young, beautiful and innocent girl. But is her life ruined? There is much sorrow and gloom pervades the story. The style has hints of AJCronin and Thomas Hardy. High praise indeed and such praise is merited because the writing is superb. Many times I wished to note down particularly delightful and often surprising phrases. Although the ending was fairly predictable for quite a long time, it was handled skilfully and was moving. It is hard to believe that society tolerated the awful care of the so called "insane" just a few decades ago, yet much of the book describes the "care" such people received. Complex characters are well portrayed and the book is memorable.

There is a great deal of tragedy for Roseanne, aged 100, wrongly incarcerated in a mental institution, to remember as she puts down her memoirs in the pages of a journal. For someone kept there for about six decades, she seems strangely sane and lucid. You might well wonder what those years were like for her. It is best to suspend belief or questioning for much of this book. What you do get is a background of cruelty in which her proposed marriage at 16 to an unattractive widower chosen for her by the Catholic priest, Father Gaunt, is typical. It is for her own good as she is beautiful and therefore bait for all the men in town. As a married woman, respectable, she will be saved from herself and an automatic convert to Catholicism (from Protestantism) will complete the task of her being subject to controls by others whether she likes it or not. She marries and potentially loves her young husband but that was not to last owing to a false rumour of her infidelity which results in a painfully drawn existence of trauma and loneliness in a miserable hut. She has Father Gaunt to thank for this rumour and later her being institutionalised, with a rather comic word attributed to her, "nymphomaniac", a word she has never heard before. She is really an innocent soul who things happen to, a victim, who miraculously becomes a survivor. One very tragic thing is the loss of her child to whom she gives birth in a storm on the beach after being rejected by the mother of the child's father, a brother of her departed husband who has passed by on his way back to battle. The child disappears, being taken away and put in an orphanage, Roseanne being ignorant of the fact. The ending proves that he has been in her life for some time as he is a psychiatrist in the mental home. This story is set against a background of Irish struggles, the Black and Tans of which history I know nothing personally. Yes tragedies follow tragedies. Her father starts out as a gravedigger and becomes a rat catcher and again the priest is the seeming employer like a town councillor with endless power and authority. A rat soaked in paraffin escapes his killing and runs through a home for girls in which they are burnt to death or die by jumping out of a window. Roseanne's father to whom she was so close and by whom she was so well loved, commits suicide, after her mother is committed as insane. Within the social order, the rich are feted and the poor ignored and sadly the school nuns are no less snobbish. This book is not for the depressed but it is rich with wonderful turns of phrase and descriptions and where possible an undercurrent of facetious humour in the style. It kept me reading and I enjoyed the ride over several nights of reading in bed.

I loved reading the historic life of Roseanne - the main character in this book. The history of Ireland and also begin a Presbyterian in a catholic state, was fascinating and an eye opener.The story is told mostly by Roseanne Clear. Who at the present time in the book is 100 years old, and i. A mental health facility. Having lived here for decade's, Roseanne tell her life story, how she remembers it.Dr Grene, who is the senior psychiatrist looking after the facility where Roseanne lives is in charge to move the patients to a newer facility with less beds. Looking into who are fit for release, Dr Grene looks into Roseanne's case, being the longest and oldest resident, as to why she was committed in the first place and uncovers a history that even he wasn't ready for.This is such a beautiful story, well written and in a beautiful style. I'd love to read more by Sebastian Barr and intend to do just that.