Reviews

Beautiful writing. Story of a young lad entering WWI and seeing the horrors of war. Not sugar coated here. What was wonderful, watching the boy becoming a man. Also, I had not been aware of course of the Irish and the English war within the war.

huggoyfm2's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

terrypaulpearce's review against another edition

Go to review page

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.

leslielu67's review against another edition

Go to review page

5.0

5 stars for narration - the Irish lilt and inflections would not come through if I had read this book instead of listened. While Willie is away in Flanders, fighting for the King, Ireland is moving toward turmoil as the Home Rule debate/fight starts up. Similar to other WWI narratives, the young soldier realizes after a few rounds that he cannot go home; his home, and country, have changed while he's been in the trenches. His family and his home are now the war.

ari_ceele's review against another edition

Go to review page

5.0

While the storyline may be fairly typical for a novel set in WWI, Sebastian Barry's use of language makes the horrors of war -especially of the trench war- come alive in a manner that I had yet to see.

Barry doesn't pull any punches. His Dantesque description of the battlefields blend together with Willie Dunne's sense of not belonging, the sorrow of no longer knowing the country he set out to fight for in the first place, and the painful knowledge that life outside the trenches has moved forward while his has been frozen in the midst of war.

It's been a long time since a novel made me cry, but this one definitely did the trick.

epgr's review against another edition

Go to review page

5.0

I can see why this was short-listed for the Booker Prize. I've read one of Barry's books before, and I enjoyed it enough to pick up this one, and this one was even better.

mstoddart's review against another edition

Go to review page

3.0

I read this for March bookclub, but really struggled getting into it. It's a short little book but it took me forever to read. I don't know if it was me or the book, but I was never pulled in. I might try rereading it at some point.

More...