Book of the Week

Welcome back! We hope you've all had a fabulous summer, with plenty of time to relax (and read). It's the start of a new term, and here to kick off this year's posts is our first book of the week.  

Haven by Emma Donoghue

Recommended by Miss McLaren

Holidays can be a kind of haven, and small islands are often popular destinations. No wonder - they can offer an escape from everyday routines, and a different way of being, surrounded by the beauty and tranquillity of apparently unspoiled nature, places where you can relax and unwind, freed from the pressures of the outside world. The haven at the centre of Emma Donoghue's novel is very, very different ...

At the dawn of the 7th century, a mysterious stranger arrives at the monastery of Cluan Nic Mhois.  Part scholar, part sage, part warrior king, Artt has been inspired by a vision of founding a monastery on an island off the south-west coast of Ireland. He comes to Cluan Nic Mhois to recruit support, two holy men who will accompany him in a quest to make his vision a reality.  Like Jesus calling the fishermen, or Tennyson's Ulysses, urging his mariners to follow him on one last great voyage, Artt's idealism and charisma quickly inspire his listeners - impressionable novice Trian, whose family have dumped him at Cluan Nic Mhois as payment for a debt, and older, wiser Cormac, a grieving war veteran who has joined the monastery after the plague wiped out his family. Both fall under Artt's spell: Trian dreams of heroes and adventures, and Cormac finds purpose and meaning in Artt's quest.  Together, the three men embark on a perilous journey to the desolate and isolated rock which they plan to make into a refuge from the corruption of the modern world, and a beacon on the frontier of Christendom. But will they succeed? Or will their haven become a hell? 

Donoghue's gripping and compelling story is rooted in the history of a real island - Skellig Michael - where a monastic community was established around the year 600.  Nowadays, the island couldn't be any less isolated - it's a hot-spot for Star Wars fans, after it was used as the location for Luke Skywalker's retreat in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. Swamped by tourists, it's also under threat from rising sea levels.  

Rey discovers her destiny in The Last Jedi

But in Haven, Donoghue instead evokes the island's earlier days of wildness and bleak beauty, and only occasionally hints at its future (as a victim of climate change, rather than Hollywood over-exposure). Haven also follows in the traditions of many 'island' novels: one of the main areas of interest lies in the practical logistics of how to survive in an isolated, inhospitable environment.  Like Robinson Crusoe, the shipwrecked choirboys of Lord of the Flies, Andy Weir's abandoned astronaut, or Susannah Clarke's Piranesi wondering whether you can knit socks out of seaweed, Artt, Trian and Cormac have to adapt to survive, and find solutions to the problems of how to grow food without soil, and build without trees.  

Remains of the monastic community on Skellig Michael

Psychological as well as practical survival is also at stake on the island: can the trio retain their faith in God while surrounded by incontrovertible evidence of nature's superior powers? And what about their faith in each other? Trian's gentleness and Cormac's pragmatism begin to clash with Artt's spiritual fervour, leading them to question whether this really is a fellowship of equals, or whether Artt's idealism is simply a mask for tyranny - even virtue can corrupt.  Artt himself is burdened by the responsibility of his vision, and torn between self-doubt and magical thinking, finding evidence of his manifest destiny almost everywhere he looks. 

Donoghue wrote Haven during the COVID lockdowns, experiences which clearly inform her exploration of the shifting dynamics between individuals isolated in a confined space. Her novels are often fascinated by the ways in which humans create their own worlds within the limits imposed by circumstance - whether it's the friendships that bloom despite the austerity and tradition of the boarding school in Learned by Heart, or the love that struggles to withstand the terrors of the flu epidemic besieging a Dublin hospital in The Pull of the Stars. It's an idea at the heart of her best known novel, Room, a story told from the point of view of a 5 year old child, whose mother - abducted and imprisoned by her abuser - shields him from knowing the truth of his existence by turning the one room in which they live into an entire universe.

Haven is also a striking example of the modern historical novel. Donoghue creates a convincing sense of a world that is almost a millennia and a half older than ours, while nevertheless making the setting and characters feel utterly 'real' and immediate, just as Hilary Mantel does in the Wolf Hall trilogy. And while the imagery is carefully chosen to evoke the historical world of the novel, and deliberately pared of modern references, the story as a whole is endlessly suggestive of more contemporary parallels, particularly religious extremism - whether it's the Puritans colonising America, in order to build 'a city upon a hill', or Isis attempting to restore the caliphate. Haven also raises perennially interesting questions: can you, should you, try to build a better world outside the world? Can virtue survive contact with reality? Can anyone really be 'first among equals'? It doesn't offer easy answers, but its three characters are beautifully drawn, each of them intriguing and sympathetic and flawed in their own way, and their individual journeys are fascinating to follow.  

You can find more recommendations of books about islands here.  The book blog appears on Wednesdays, with reviews, articles about writers and writing, and creative pieces.  Anyone can submit a piece for publications - just email it to a member of the English Dept. And Senior English Society kicks off today with an introduction to this term's school play, Hamlet: E1, Milton Building, 12.55.  Be there!