I loved this character study of people living on a small island off the coast of Ireland. Magee's writing was calming and beautiful. I really loved when Magee would switch from the interior voice of each character to dialogue between them. A great rainy day read.

Having based her debut novel in mainland Europe during World War II, Audrey Magee sets her follow-up, The Colony, closer to her own roots: an Irish island in the late 1970s, at the height of the Anglo-Irish Troubles.
The Colony opens with Mr Lloyd, a London artist, being transported to a Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking) island in a hand-rowed currach, eschewing the more convenient passenger ferry. This attempt at immersing himself in the local customs results in the regurgitation of his breakfast. A rather innocuous episode, it could nevertheless be read as symbolic of much larger issues that erupt when one culture gate-crashes another: exploitation, dilution of indigenous identity, conflict — all of which are examined by Magee in this discomfiting narrative.

Lloyd is traveling to the nameless island in search of solitude and inspiration; the painter's imagination is freighted with clichés of "raw, rugged, violent beauty," conveying all the innocence — ignorance? — of the outsider. The island's undesignated status in the novel may itself be significant: It implies stolen identity as a result of foreign dilution, or perhaps signifies that it is representative of all colonized habitats. Stylistically, Lloyd's pretensions are wrought through Magee's prose, which shifts into lyrical columns to illustrate her protagonist's interior monologue, punctuated with italicized captions — Self-portrait: alone, for example — that he imagines for each vignette.

The Englishman's hosts on the sparsely-populated island, the Gillans, are a multi-generational Irish-speaking family. They immediately have their visitor's measure, with the youngest family member, James, denouncing Lloyd's patronizing bearing as "obnoxious." Lloyd's disagreeable disposition is brought further to the fore when he discovers that the cottage next door has been rented for the summer by a French linguist, Jean-Pierre Masson (JP), who is working on a thesis founded on the moribund Irish language. Neither incomer has been forewarned of the other's presence, and they immediately clash, much like "[t]wo bulls in a field." Both become territorial: Lloyd because he had imagined himself to have some sort of exclusive entitlement to the island (at one point the family has to remind him that he "rented the cottage ... Not the island"); JP because he perceives the proximity of an English-speaking inhabitant as something that will skew his research and speed up the decline of an already diminishing language. The interlopers' conflict is weighted with the baggage of history, which the Gillans astutely recognize: "They've been squabbling over our turf for centuries."

As the story unfolds, it is revealed that JP's Algerian mother was abused by her French partner — this may account for the linguist's abhorrence of foreign influence. He even goes so far as to insist on addressing James as Séamus (the boy's Irish name), against the young man's express wishes. With all the blinkered arrogance of the colonist, JP pillages his subjects — irrespective of the standpoint of the colonized — while, paradoxically, earnest in his pursuit of preserving their linguistic heritage.

Teenager James becomes a pivotal individual in the novel, epitomizing the impact of external influence. Unlike his great-grandmother, pipe-smoking monoglot Bean Uí Fhloinn, who "has no English," James's language is thoroughly Anglicized. For JP, Lloyd's residence on the island means that the "linguistic evolution" — which he acknowledges is taking place — will alternate to a "sudden and violent" monolingualism in the form of English. Meanwhile, James becomes an apprentice to Lloyd, exhibiting a raw talent the mentor himself does not possess. For James, whose father and grandfather both drowned while out fishing, it is deemed "[b]etter to be an artist drawing death, instead of being death." James's desire to break with tradition does, therefore, lend some credence to JP's assertion that outside influences exacerbate the death of tradition. Interestingly, Magee chooses not to use speech punctuation; consequently, all communication — verbal or internal — becomes an organic element of the tapestry of the island: Traditional language and behaviors intermingle with incoming influences — including the two foreign visitors. What becomes clear is that both men have mythologized the community, consumed by their own agendas — perhaps the hallmark of the colonist.

But the two summer inhabitants are not the only source of territorial conflict in The Colony. Stark, bulletin-style accounts of real-life atrocities on the mainland coldly explode from the page in chapters that are brief, factual, clinical. They are a forceful reminder that this is 1979, when terrorist acts carried out by both Loyalist paramilitaries and the Provisional IRA are at their peak. Attacks are savage and frequent; each chapter's end is marked by a jolting reminder of their existence. Historical fiction and historical fact are juxtaposed, indicative of the nature of history itself. And at the root of this brutal bloodshed is colonization, enmeshed in the long and complicated history of England's violation of Ireland.

Traditionally, the island is a literary trope used to represent a refuge, and a simpler, purer way of life. Magee unmasks this misconception. The pace of life may be slower and more detached, as echoed in her unhurried, dispassionate prose, but is never impervious to infiltration; the aggressors are never too far off. After the cultural looters have gleaned their treasures, the islanders, and others like them, are left to navigate the aftermath.

This is a work of art - the best book I have read in a long time. The writing is beautiful, and we have stories combined with serious subject matter without preaching to us. I appreciate a book that makes me think but still has me reading sentences or sections over again just for their beauty. Amazing!

A multi-layered, insightful and beautifully written exploration of identity, colonialism and power, and the clash between tradition and modernity. Set in 1979 on a remote island off Ireland’s west coast, an island with a dwindling population, we watch as the outside world impinges on the inhabitants, and see how the lure of that world is rejected by some and embraced by others. Over one summer, the island receives two visitors. Mr Lloyd, an artist, comes to paint, while Mr Masson, a linguist comes to record the vanishing language in an effort to save it. Both want to preserve what they see and experience, but who speaks for the local people? To what extent are these visitors intruders, or do they simply offer an opportunity for the islanders to broaden their horizons – and make some welcome money? Whatever the end result, the two men have a profound effect on the local people and the reader has to judge whether they are a force for good or evil. While the summer progresses, the narrative is interrupted by blunt reports of the Troubles on the mainland, press type statements about the murders of Protestants by the Provisional IRA and Catholics by Loyalist paramilitaries, introducing a jarring note of death and destruction into a seemingly safe environment. Well-crafted and well-paced this is a wonderfully immersive and compelling read, which I found powerful and haunting.

This book showed the brutality of hate with the descriptions of deaths that occurred in Northern Ireland of mostly young men during the Troubles. It also depicted the brutality of isolation living on a small island . What a reader takes from this book can be complex if you want to delve into colonialism, language, struggles between French and English , artists or can be simple if you just want to see what living on a small island is like with three generations of women with a few menfolk and the arrival of an artist Lloyd and an linguistic Masson. I loved the description of the boat ride over with Mr. Lloyd and the dialogues between Mr. Lloyd and James. A little overboard with the tea , the history of the Irish/ English language, the rabbit stew but an enjoyment read.

Lovely, slow-moving, lyrical book about visitors to an island off the coast of Ireland. Very fascinating to read about this way of life.