Brendan
It took me quite a few days to read this book, but despite the slow going, it was well worth my time. This is what I left on Amazon:
Late in Brendan, the author, in one of the rambling, associative story threads that make this novel, Brendan mentions the "Thin Places" in the warp and fabric of creation, where other spiritual realms intrude close by our reality. The entire book, I found, lies along a seam ripped in one of these thin places.
If a reader expects a straight line narrative, then this would not be a good choice, as it wanders in and around three and sometimes four different narrative threads as well as modified quotes from the Saint's personal journals. They intersect, they diverge, they run parallel. The primary characters drift in and out of the scenes at hand with a striking resemblance to the out-and-back nature of Saint Brendan's voyages towards God, in all His forms. Some are factual, some are emotional washes fraught with color, some are allegory. All reveal the man who became a Saint, and the Saint who was a man.
As an historic reference, this book captures the diaphonous nature of the cultures of the soon-to-be, Post Roman World, very well. The author's affectionate descriptions of the nuance of the Irish language and her people remain singular in my reading experience. The book embraces Irish Catholicism as fervently as it embraces the older faiths it replaced, and makes a well-argued point for the hospitable nature of the Celtic Druids. They left a great deal of their spirit in the resulting blend of spirituality unique to Ireland and the author holds it up in clear detail within.
If you are expecting a factual timeline or straight plotted story, you may be disappointed, for this is a spiritual journey as much as it is anything else. But in that way, it pays great respect to its main character and his theology as well as the incessant motion of the sea travel that shaped his life. This book will touch your heart.
Reviewed by RL Sutton
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