Hannah Kent

This is a difficult book to score. I recognise the strength of the story-telling, the characterisations, the smells, the sights, the weather, the evocation of a tough isolated village life in 19th century rural Ireland and the grip that the very real world of the somewhat malevolent fairy spirits exterted on the community. But I quite simply didn't enjoy it. I never found excuses to put down what I was doing in order to pick this book up, and I was relieved to finish it.

Kent has a terrific feel for language, and I was intrigued by the tension created between a powerfully Catholic faith and the superstitious hold of the spirit world. The descriptions of the consequences of death and disability were living, real entities. I was moved yet uninvolved. Perhaps because I found no characters I liked enough to care about? I think it's entirely my loss that I didn't like this book more. Maybe it's one of those I shall re-evaluate as I gain more distance from it.… (mer)