“The language, its history, its demise, the shift towards bilingualism in the most remote corner of Europe overshadowed by stories of death, of hatred, of fear, of tit-for-tat, retaliation on top of retaliation, a downward bilious spiral until the killers stalking the streets in the dead of night no longer remember what it is they are retaliating.” muses Mairéad as she slips into the bed of the Frenchman.
This rumination is a reflection of the narrative and drive of Audrey Magee’s compulsively readable new novel, THE COLONY.
Set in 1979 at the height of The Troubles in Northern Ireland, an English painter, Lloyd, travels to a remote Irish island to paint the landscape. Another foreigner, a French linguist called Masson, is also arriving, a return visit to finalise his studies and recording of the language still spoken on the rock, one of the last bastions of the original Irish tongue.
Both men represent the long, seething cost of imperialism. Lloyd is more benign, Masson a firebrand philologist with an evangelical zeal for the rock to remain purely Irish. His zealotry is patronising and pitiable.
Both of them are smitten by Mairéad, widowed single mum of James, jealously pined over by her brother in law, Francis.
James wants to become an artist and leave the island, imploring Lloyd to take him as an apprentice. He has a good eye and Lloyd encourages him.
Lloyd also requests Mairéad model for him, which she does, which creates a frisson between the two and a friction within the family.
When Francis ferociously vocalises his displeasure, Mairéad retorts “What is worse in your mind, Francis? Fucking a Frenchman or speaking English with an Englishman?”
Audrey Magee has a great eye and a great ear. The structure of her book is perfectly suited to the story, quiet pleasures on every page, dabs and strokes of rich imagery, the strength of the phrasing and cadence, pleasing to the printed page and a pleasure to read.
A literary larynx to the listening ear, the words wield wonders, sentences sing, the dialogue delights. And so richly does Magee deploy them, conjuring lyricism, liturgical litany and elegiac elegance in this enthralling exploration of the freedom of will – that choice, that freedom often more curtailed and complicated than you think.
THE COLONY by Audrey Magee is published by Faber