A History of Loneliness

De: John Boyne

Narrado por: Gerard Doyle

The riveting narrative of an honorable Irish priest who finds the church collapsing around him at a pivotal moment in its history.

Propelled into the priesthood by a family tragedy, Odran Yates is full of hope and ambition. When he arrives at Clonliffe Seminary in the 1970s, it is a time in Ireland when priests are highly respected, and Odran believes that he is pledging his life to "the good."

Forty years later, Odran's devotion is caught in revelations that shatter the Irish people's faith in the Catholic Church. He sees his friends stand trial, colleagues jailed, the lives of young parishioners destroyed, and he grows wary of venturing out in public for fear of disapproving stares and insults. At one point, he is even arrested when he takes the hand of a young boy and leads him out of a department store while looking for the boy's mother.

But when a family event opens wounds from his past, he is forced to confront the demons that have raged within the church and to recognize his own complicity in their propagation, within both the institution and his own family.

A novel as intimate as it is universal, A History of Loneliness is about the stories we tell ourselves to make peace with our lives. It confirms John Boyne as one of the most searching storytellers of his generation.

©2015 John Boyne (P)2014 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved. Produced by arrangement with Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. All rights reserved.

Narration

Loved how real the main character was. He was true to life. So many lessons learned in this story, sad, infuriating, and yet this is how most of us have been in one way or another. Excellent book!

A History of Lonliness

This book has really opened my eyes regarding the struggles of Catholic priests. The subject has been in the news for years but unless you are personally involved, it’s difficult to relate to both sides of issue. John Boyne is a superb author and he is now one of my favorites.

One of the best books ever

at times soul-crshing, at times comic this book, particularly this recording is u forgettable.

More about community than loneliness

Although the subject is painful - sexual abuse of children in the Catholic church - I enjoyed this book very much. Filled with interesting characters, both flawed and sympathetic, the story is believable and well-written.

John Boyne is a brilliant writer

The dialogue is engrossing and tells the tale along with the narrator”s revelations
Boyne always makes me weep in empathy with his characters and their dilemmas. The reader did a captivating job for audio.

scorching truth

excellent narration, revelations of the Catholic church that have long been swept under their corrupt rug

Thoughtful Piece with Little Plot

My current fascination with the narrator Gerard Doyle is sending me off in some unexpected directions. I doubt if I would ever have noticed this book if it were not for the narrator.

However, I was pleasantly surprised. Because in spite of the fact that this book, has no discernable plot, I found the author's style and prose very appealing. I will likely read other books by Boyne. So for that reason alone, reading this was worth it.

This tells the story of a Catholic priest in Ireland who entered the priesthood in the 1970s, a couple of decades before all hell broke loose within the Catholic church due to the sexual abuse and pedophile scandal that shook the church in Ireland even more than it did in the US. The narrator was not a pedophile and did not participate in any illegal or immoral activity. But he implicitly endorsed the behavior by choosing to ignore it and by failing to recognize the obvious activity going on right before his eyes, even when it involves a member of his own family.

Father Yates, the narrator is essentially a "good" man at least as respects his personal behavior. He is also genuinely likeable but not a sympathetic man, because no one as gullible and intentionally ignorant as he is can be sympathetic. He had a difficult childhood, a family full of mental illness and an overbearing mother who pushed him into the priesthood, although he seemed well suited for it. But none of this excuses his behavior.

And it was not just the sexual abuse of children he turned a blind eye to. He realized that the Church leadership suffered from extreme misogyny all the way to the top, that they had been able to bully their way out of any scandal for so long, that they had become inured to the suffering of others and were acting like immature children, once they were called to task for their excesses. He knew all this, complained to himself about it, but made no effort to call attention to the problems or attempt to solve them.

The book paints a very unflattering picture of the Catholic Church. But no more unflattering than the picture the real news has portrayed in the last two decades. I don't know how accurate the impressions about the last few Popes are, but it was interesting to read about them.

I did like the ending. It was rather abrupt but Yates was finally slapped with the hard truth of his quiet compliance in the scandal and the cover up and you sensed that what happened next was he spent the rest of his life grappling with his own cowardice.

Doyle toned his narration way back for this book. He matched the tone and the subject matter.

Another powerful story by John Boyne

The story is slow in starting. The plot is hard to follow with seemingly unrelated flashbacks and not in chronological order. The narrator's unmodulated, almost whining voice doesn't help.
2/3 into the story, however, things began falling into place and John Boyne picked up in his typical captivating style.(As if the first part had been written by another author). Then I totally loved the denouement.
When did numerous flashbacks become desirable in a book? I was warned against it when I started writing.
I had bought this audible and read its summary a good a few weeks before actually listening to the story. It may have helped to get through the fist part better if I had had that summary fresher in my head.
I've become a big John Boyne fan and the strong ending of this book redeemed it, hence the 4 starts from me.

My hands were shaking and I hit submi

Read the book. It is worth it. This was hard for me.


As I said there are many layers the author writes into these characters. Unfortunately I knew these people


Basically I loved someone and that someone felt he did not have a choice about his life. I knew I did. No communication ever. Nothing during the Boston scandals. AIDS. Homosexuality. I pray he wasn’t alone.

I accidentally downloaded this book. Every chapter was painful.

Read this and revisit the crossroads of your life. You will without a doubt question the loneliness of your own life



Actually the only chapter I needed was the last one.

Excellent

Thoroughly enjoyed the story, even though as an Irish woman, I found it most disturbing & thought provoking. Well read by narrator.