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The Colony  By  cover art

The Colony

By: Audrey Magee
Narrated by: Stephen Hogan
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Publisher's summary

He handed the easel to the boatman, reaching down the pier wall towards the sea. Mr Lloyd has decided to travel to the island by boat without engine - the authentic experience. Unbeknownst to him, Mr Masson will also soon be arriving for the summer.

Both will strive to encapsulate the truth of this place - one in his paintings, the other with his faithful rendition of its speech, the language he hopes to preserve.

But the people who live here on this rock - three miles wide and half-a-mile long - have their own views on what is being recorded, what is being taken and what is given in return.

Over the summer each of the women and men in the household this French and Englishman join is forced to question what they value and what they desire. At the end of the summer, as the visitors head home, there will be a reckoning.

©2022 Audrey Magee (P)2022 Faber & Faber

Critic reviews

"The Colony is a vivid and memorable book about art, land and language, love and sex, youth and age. Big ideas tread lightly through Audrey Magee’s strong prose." (Sarah Moss)

"The Colony is brimming with ideas about identity and soul; a canny, challenging, and never less than engrossing read." (Lisa McInerney)

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Like watching grass grow

Incredibly boring book. I barely got through the first 20min, but gave it a shot because of all the awards, and this was a book my bookclub selected, otherwise I would have not finished it.
Though I did finish it, I wish for my time and money back. The ending left me speechless at just how much this book offered me little value.
I did appreciate the Irish history, but other than that unless you like painful detail about tea being poured and bread being wrapped in a cloth, or paint cloths being left dry next to empty pain containers.

I’m not sure if the whole experience was made even more painful by the narrator, however I’d say that he was the right choice to reflect the slow and uneventful pace of the fictional part of this book.

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