Prophet Song

First, I love the use of language, punctuation, syntax, in this book. It took time to acclimate, but once one does it becomes a character itself. I cannot imagine this story written in a more conventional way. At least not a story as powerful.

Second, I had no idea when I finished how much I would be thinking about it a month later. Do not get me wrong, I marinated on this book for a while after finishing (and while reading, of course), but recent events have made this story much more... pointed.

This was a difficult read and I wouldn't say I "enjoyed" it (apart from the language, which is beautiful at times, and cutting at others, and so so bleak). Do not go into Prophet Song expecting a rollicking read. It hurts, it frightens, it warns. This is all my opinion, of course, and I haven't explored the reviews of others much (if you see this, please let me know what you thought!). I am glad I read it.

...the end of the world is always a local event, it comes to your country and visits your town and knocks on the door of your house and becomes to others but some distant warning, a brief report on the news, an echo of event that has passed into folklore, Ben's laughter behind her and she turns and sees Molly tickling him on her lap and she watches her son and sees in his eyes a radiant intensity that speaks of the world before the fall, and she is on her knees crying...

This is possibly the scariest book I've ever read. A far right political party comes to power in Ireland and immediately declares a national emergency. Military types are dispatched to round up union organizers and other people the government deems pesky. A family is caught up in the chaos when the father is seized and detained, and the mother is left to struggle to keep her family together.

Despite the dystopian mood of the book, and how anxious it made me feel, I was hooked after reading the first few paragraphs. The story's power comes from amazing writing. Phrases are chained together into long sentences, like the fragment I quoted above. The characters talk back and forth at breakneck speed, there are no quotes in the dialog, and few spaces anywhere. Just looking at the block of text on the pages made me feel trapped.

Lynch is issuing a warning that is difficult to hear because it's threatening so many places: we need to watch out for creepy people with weird agendas bent on overturning our lives and our countries, and people will almost always have to fight tyranny locally, often with the rest of the world looking on.

The power of this writing is astonishing. I'm not sure I've ever been so shaken by a work of fiction. I'm impressed by a lot of exceptional literature coming from Ireland lately. Maybe they're having a new literary golden era? I know they have a strong tradition, but so many of the best books I've read lately are by Irish authors.

While gripping, immersive and as bleak as an Irish November during a beer shortage, this dirge was not as fun as your average dystopia. It even turns the genre on its head a bit. There is none of thae survivalist excitement that plays out in so many standard fare dystopias like an RPG-find the ammo, the helicopter, the petrol station- drive on mostly unobstructed roads fast as you flee or flight your way to a tenuous survival. Free of the YA hero/ine trope of teenagers saving humanity with their improbably expert skills. It does not even veer into more hopeless dystopias, like such movies as Time of the Wolf or The Survivalist. It is an imagining terrifyingly prosaic and I did felt nothing but numb horror but could not stop reading it. The events seemed to unfold so rapidly, one day a fascist is elected, the next day, emergency powers, then civil war. Though this actually takes place over several years, the party gets real evil real fast, mainly through your standard 1984 sort of propaganda and the nationalism festering from some vague threat. Get out, you start yelling at the heroine from early on in the book, but also, you know you yourself would hesitate. maybe too long. I was so depressed afterward, so timely and terrifying a narrative went right along with the usual Christmas gloom.