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Kate O'Shea's Reviews > Prophet Song
Prophet Song
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by
3.5
I've thought long and hard about this book. I really wanted to like it because friends had all given it 5 stars and raved about it.
However I just couldn't engage with it at all. To begin with I never really understood what the original emergency was that led to the authorities turning tyrannical. Was there a war? A national crisis? Someone just got greedy?
The second problem for me was Eilis. She behaved like no mother I know. She put her husband's disappearance ahead of her children's wellbeing and continued to do so almost until the end. I found it totally unbelievable. Then there's the way she deals with the increasing military presence and curfew. She seems to consider that emergency supplies consist of chocolate and cigarettes.
Other things that bothered me was the substitution of "party types" into a very specific scientific role. Don't get me wrong I am fully aware that Ireland is crammed with extremely highly educated people but to find another scientist (or a lot of them) within such a short space of time felt unrealistic.
The only parts that felt realistic was Eilis' reaction to her father's increasing confusion and the way she deals with Bailey.
I recently read a book by a real refugee traveling from Africa and what he went through was much more harrowing. It felt like Paul Lynch wanted to go so far but no further - the scenes with Molly at the border come to mind.
The actual style I found a little irritating - was it a poem or prose?
I feel bad about not liking the book but it was simply unrelenting misery - even the weather was bad every day. Perhaps I'd built the book up too much in my mind? Perhaps I expected too much from a fictional account.
Thanks to Netgalley for the advance review copy ahead of the paperback release.
I've thought long and hard about this book. I really wanted to like it because friends had all given it 5 stars and raved about it.
However I just couldn't engage with it at all. To begin with I never really understood what the original emergency was that led to the authorities turning tyrannical. Was there a war? A national crisis? Someone just got greedy?
The second problem for me was Eilis. She behaved like no mother I know. She put her husband's disappearance ahead of her children's wellbeing and continued to do so almost until the end. I found it totally unbelievable. Then there's the way she deals with the increasing military presence and curfew. She seems to consider that emergency supplies consist of chocolate and cigarettes.
Other things that bothered me was the substitution of "party types" into a very specific scientific role. Don't get me wrong I am fully aware that Ireland is crammed with extremely highly educated people but to find another scientist (or a lot of them) within such a short space of time felt unrealistic.
The only parts that felt realistic was Eilis' reaction to her father's increasing confusion and the way she deals with Bailey.
I recently read a book by a real refugee traveling from Africa and what he went through was much more harrowing. It felt like Paul Lynch wanted to go so far but no further - the scenes with Molly at the border come to mind.
The actual style I found a little irritating - was it a poem or prose?
I feel bad about not liking the book but it was simply unrelenting misery - even the weather was bad every day. Perhaps I'd built the book up too much in my mind? Perhaps I expected too much from a fictional account.
Thanks to Netgalley for the advance review copy ahead of the paperback release.
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Zuzana
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Nov 27, 2023 07:19AM
I have read the synopsis here of the story but it doesn't seem anything new to me. World worked, works and will work like that in one place or other.
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I would agree with that. I know the theme of the novel is ‘at what point would you leave?’, but when she has 4 children & a sister in Canada who arranged passage for them and she turned it down I found that unbelievable. As a mother surely you’d take the chance of saving as many of your children as possible.
I could not believe the story and did not buy of it really … I was missing this bit of knowledge as what the original emergency was; what was it that dictated the emergency powers and the slide into the tyranny? The whole novel was unconvincing… up to and including the last scene.
I just finished it and your review sums up my thoughts exactly. Great review.
