The Secret Scripture - Sebastian Barry

In Sebastian Barry’s 2008 Booker Shortlisted piece The Secret Scripture, Barry is engrossed in Ireland’s most chaotic time - when the First World War, the 1916 rebellion, the 1920s War of Independence and Irish Civil War smoked through the skies of the old country. Here we find Roseanne McNulty, an ancient woman stepping close to her 100^th birthday. In a mental hospital of Roscommon County, this Roseanne, old and rather enchanting, secretly puts down on paper account of her days spent in the small town of Sligo - where she lived her life guiltless, gorgeous and injured. But in her childhood memories, lie strange divergences. Her story is closely examined by Dr Grene, who out of his fatherly (sometimes even motherly) feelings towards all the patients in his hospital is investigating the reasons for Roseanne’s admission into the hospital. Roseanne’s story as he finds, is spotted with odd uncertainties. The documented account of Fr Gaunt, a priest in Sligo, and a supporter of Roseanne’s poor family, is an image curiously dissimilar from Roseanne’s own descriptions of her life.

Now, if you’re expectant of a roller coaster ride full of thrill and mysteries, you will pleasingly be proven wrong. Barry’s “Secret Scripture” is a text merely made holy by Miss Roseanne McNulty’s unpolluted and innocent recollections of herself. As she recounts her childhood days, we’re plunged into her horrific life, where she’s ruined by the authority of the church, the republic and the people. Roseanne speaks a great deal about her father, whom she adores as a pet worships his caregiver. Her father as Roseanne describes was a “Presbyterian keeper of graves but himself too.” The people in Sligo town, despite being predominantly Catholics and narrow-minded, cherished him for the passionate human soul he had. He revered John Donne, taught his daughter the laws of gravity and spoke to her about the principles of life every night. For Roseanne whose familial life was otherwise quite disheartening (her father and mother lived like “two foreign countries simply having their embassies in the same house”), Fr Gaunt, the Catholic parish priest with his intimidating sense of priesty cleanliness plays the role of something in between an ally and the baddie for the family - more or less the author of the family’s sad fate and puzzling history. He suggests that the graveyard superintendent was a drunkard and ex-policeman, whose mouth was stuffed with feathers by assassins who beat him with hammers at the top of the tower, before hanging him in a derelict house nearby.

So which is for us to believe - Roseanne’s pure and solemn account of herself, or the clear-cut version of the omniscient Fr Gaunt who somehow seems to know all the details? The truth is perhaps somewhere in between - lying jumbled within the innocent child-like interpretations of a young Roseanne, or muddled and contaminated by the clean hands of Fr Gaunt, with gestures calculated to terrorize her. All the same, it is clear that Roseanne is a victim of the bullying power of forces and authorities. For Dr Grene, who feels an irrepressible involvement with the case of his oldest patient, this ambiguity converts into the sole purpose of his sad, parched life. And the discovery he makes in the end is the only one defect in this perfectly exquisite book. A predictable twist that dilutes this story’s otherwise uncontrolled charm.

One of the strongest contenders for this year's Booker Prize that lost out to Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger, Barry's book is confounding and beautiful. Clearly, with all that radiant writing about her past Roseanne McNulty never has been mad. She simply encapsulates the injured party, like many of Barry’s other characters brought to life in the past – all of who are driven to the edge by society and its dictates, and have lived their lives as outcasts. Roseanne McNulty, whom The Telegraph quoted as “one of the most memorable narrators of recent fiction” will leave you mesmerized. Her narration will make you cling to her details and heighten your senses. She recites her mortifying past with creeping affection, steely slashes of hysteria and a dry wit, sometimes like a hellish angel. Barry successfully uses her to amplify your gloom and modulate your fury. The Secret Scripture (at least until the moment of the banal twist in the end; and that for all the book's many treasures is easily excused), provides a fresh batch of appreciation each time a page is turned. And when Roseanne the old, captivating and passionate enchantress disappears, she leaves behind a touchstone of supreme storytelling.