Review of HAVEN by Emma Donoghue

 3.5 Stars

The setting is 7^th century Ireland.  A priest named Artt has a dream telling him to take two monks, young Trian and old Cormac, to found a monastery away from the sinful world.  They find a bare, rocky island with one lone tree and hundreds of birds.  Will they survive and succeed in their mission?

The three men are very different.  Cormac, the eldest of the three, is a very practical man.  He is always thinking of things that need to be done to ensure their survival.  He is resourceful as well:  he manages to grow a garden on the little soil that covers the island.  He has faith in God, but believes that man should use intelligence and hard work to help himself.  He also questions some of Artt’s orders; he sees no harm in eating shellfish, for example.  He is protective of the younger Trian.  Cormac is also an entertaining storyteller.  I found him extremely likeable. 

Trian, the youngest of the trio, is innocent and eager.  Though he tends to be dreamy, he is also a hard worker.  He becomes a major food provider, going fishing on a regular basis.  He is filled with wonder at nature:  “It seems to him that nature is God’s holiest language. . . . Trian wonders whether these birds wheeling overhead, even these rocks, might be his sisters and brothers.”  He is upset when Artt orders the slaughter of puffins, seeing them only as a source of fuel.  Trian, like Cormac, is compassionate. 

Trian has a secret which is revealed at the end.  There are sufficient hints so I guessed his secret.  Of course, I also recently finished reading Fayne by Ann-Marie MacDonald so I was on that wavelength. 

Artt, who becomes the Prior, is a zealot who believes that God will provide everything that they need.  His faith seems to exclude reason; he begins by insisting that they discard much of the cargo that Cormac and Trian packed for their trip.  When Cormac suggests building a shelter in preparation for winter, Artt prioritizes the building of a church.  Rather than securing food, Trian is tasked with copying religious manuscripts.  Artt himself does little of the hard work; he instructs the men what to do and supervises.  From the two monks, he expects absolute obedience and is severe in his punishments when he perceives any of their actions as signs of impulsiveness or insubordination.  He is overly concerned with his legacy; his ultimate goal is sainthood. 

From the beginning, I had misgivings about Artt.  He is narrow-minded, inflexible, and arrogant and some of his choices can only be described as irrational.  He dismisses Cormac’s preoccupation with practical survival measures, and unlike Trian who tries to think how man fits into nature, sees everything on the island only in terms of its use to humans:  “’This whole island’s like one great banquet table that God’s spread for us.’”  It is inevitable that their different ideas of faith and their priorities are going to cause tensions and conflicts. 

The book is really a cautionary tale about religious fanaticism and blind obedience.

This is not my favourite novel by this author, but I enjoyed it.