The Secret Scripture

Posted on 15 February 2017 by Sebastian Barry

Nearing her one hundredth birthday, Roseanne McNulty faces an uncertain future, as the Roscommon Regional Mental hospital where she s spent the best part of her adult life prepares for closure Over the weeks leading up to this upheaval, she talks often with her psychiatrist Dr Grene, and their relationship intensifies and complicates.Told through their respective journals, the story that emerges is at once shocking and deeply beautiful Refracted through the haze of memory and retelling, Roseanne s story becomes an alternative, secret history of Ireland s changing character and the story of a life blighted by terrible mistreatment and ignorance, and yet marked still by love and passion and hope. Free Read The Secret Scripture [ by ] Sebastian Barry [ Kindle ePUB or eBook ] – kino-fada.fr A superbly crafted novel told in under 300 pages A story so cleverly written that for half of the Novel I believed I was reading a non fiction account image Rosanne Mc Nulty is nearing her hundredth birthday in the mental hospital where she was committed as a young woman Finishing up his case notes before the hospital is closed psychiatrist Dr Greene finds himself intrigued by the story of his elderly patient While Dr Green investigates, Ro...For history as far as I can see is not the arrangement of what happens, in sequence and in truth, but a fabulous arrangement of surmises and guesses held up as a banner against the assault of withering truth The Secret Scripture is a sublime work of fiction about memory and its effect on history and tru...Are you an honest person Truly Perhaps you instinctively think Yes , even as you realise you are not always scrupulously so, often for the best of reasons Often But not always One can t be totally honest all the time, can one Can one What is truth anyway, but a social construct What s wrong about her account if she sincerely believes itThere is no factual truth. It mattersthat the person is admirable, living, and complete what a curious trio of adjectives.In a post truth e Are you an honest person Truly Perhaps you instinctively think Yes , even as you realise you are not always scrupulously so, often for the best of reasons Often But not always One can t be totally honest all the time, can one Can one What is truth anyway, but a social construct What s wrong about her account if she sincerely believes itThere is no factual truth. It mattersthat the person is admirable, living, and complete what a curious trio of adjectives.In a post truth era, on a big day for possibly fake news a euphemism for lies and propaganda , our collective ability to recognise truth slips ever further from our grasp StoriesThis is stories of centenarian Roseanne s lives The tides of two world wars and a civil war bring opportunity, fear, birth, death, deceit, despair, and change crashing, crushing, on the shores of Sligo She s approaching her 100th birthday, and has been in asylums for around seventy years Dr Grene has to gently uncover Roseanne s story to see if she should mov...Sexuality in beautiful young women in backward societies is a double edged sword On the one hand it attracts young men, sometimes into marriage, and on the other it can seem to justify the accusation of being called a slut And should the woman have a baby outside marriage, then the accusation is proved and the girl condemned and if punishment follows, it will be considered validated.It s not much different today, is it Call a girl a slut and people look at her askance Not a nice person, not Sexuality in beautiful young women in backward societies is a double edged sword On the one hand it attracts young men, sometimes into marriage, and on the other it can seem to justify the accusation of being called a slut And should the woman have a baby outside marriage, then the accusation is proved and the girl condemned and if punishment follows, it will be considered validated.It s not much different today, is it Call a girl a slut and people look at her askance Not a nice person, not someone you d want to mix with But today the punishment is generally only social exclusion from hypocritical social groups Back then, in the time of this book after the Civil War in Ireland, it could mean being locked up in mental home for the rest of their lives.And now the girl, the woman, the old lady who is a century old is telling her tale to her doctor He is a gentle, understanding, unfulfil...A wonderful, poetic book about love and memory Also pain, and loss, and how you can miss the most important thing in the world, even though it s right under your nose Ireland too, of course.We re all innocent Roseanne, locked up in an asylum for decades for no reason, or because she happened to be born with the wrong religion, or because the jealous people around her find her beauty too disturbing She never really knows why, but she manages to forgive her tormentors anyway, even the cruel Fr A wonderful, poetic book about love and memory Also pain, and loss, and how you can miss the most important thing in the world, even though it s right under your nose Ireland too, of course.We re all innocent Roseanne, locked up in an asylum for decades for no reason, or because she happened to be born with the wrong religion, or because the jealous people around her find her beauty too disturbing She never really knows why, but she manages to forgive her...Rose McNultry is almost 100 years old For most of her life she has been a patient in Roscommon Mental hospital in rural west Ireland This mad woman has lived here most of her adult life The hospital is going to be shut down and she is facing a scary future of being moved from where she has lived most of her life She has frequent talks with her therapist psychiatrist in the weeks leading up to the hospital s closure Her therapists job is to determine what to do with the patients left behin Rose McNultry is almost 100 years old For most of her life she has been a patient in Roscommon Mental hospital in rural west Ireland This mad woman has lived here most of her adult life The hospital is going to be shut down and she is facing a scary future of being moved from where she has lived most of her life She has frequent talks with her therapist psychiatrist in the weeks leading up to the hospital s closure Her therapists job is to determine what to do with the patients left behind He needs to determine who is of sound mind but institutionalized against their will and who is mentally ill This also asks the question, if you are sane when you are institutionalized, will this prolonged treatment render you insane Rose has been keeping a journal of her life which she keeps hidden under the floorboards of her room She only takes her journals out when it is safe It is through her journal entries that we learn about her past Her relationship with h...The Secret Scriptures is a remarkable holy grail of writing Barry masterfully writes a poetic psychological mystery where he magically weaves a story of 2 voices One of Roseanne McNulty, who now sits in a mental institution and has for the past 40 odd years of her 100 year life and the other of her psychiatrist, Dr Grene, who has known her for the duration of her stay Roseanne sits in her room as she nears the end of her life, reflecting back through the daily jo...Reading this novel I have felt as if I were peeling two onions one yellow, one purple First one, then the other, and back to the first and so on My illusion was that after peeling its outer tunic and I proceeded to remove, slowly and gradually each scale leaf, I was lifting a veil and approaching the inner bud, a hidden core The truth The yellow onion has less thinner and finer leaves In their frailty and subtler delicacy of colour, they are as the veiled and vulnerable memories of an old Reading this novel I have felt as if I were peeling two onions one yellow, one purple First one, then the other, and back to the first and so on My illusion was that after peeling its outer tunic and I proceeded to remove, slowly and gradually each scale leaf, I was lifting a veil and approaching the inner bud, a hidden core The truth The yellow onion has less thinner and finer leaves In their frailty and subtler delicacy of colour, they are as the veiled and vulnerable memories of an old woman Evocative and reminiscent The purple one has thicker, heftier, almost corpulent scale leaves They are also brighter in their colour contrast, as if written in black and white In their matter of factness they seem manlier and havepurpose As scientific men often do.And then as I peel them both, they gradually begin to lose their distinctiveness, and becomealike The white translucent tone predominates, and begins to feel as if they were the same onion after all.This illusion or tale of tw...Fare thee well sweet Anna Liffy I can no longer stay And watch me new glass cages that spring up along me Ouay My mind s too full of memories too old to hear new chimes l m a part of what was Dublin in the rare ould timesDublin in the Rare Ould Times, Dublin City Ramblers, Songwriters Pete St John for the Dublin City Ramblers Roseanne s Testimony of Herself Patient, Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital, 1957 The world begins anew with every birth, my father used to say He forgotFare thee well sweet Anna Liffy I can no longer stay And watch me new glass cages that spring up along me Ouay My mind s too full of memories too old to hear new chimes l m a part of what was Dublin in the rare ould timesDublin in the Rare Ould Times, Dublin City Ramblers, Songwriters Pete St John for the Dublin City Ramblers Roseanne s Testimony of Herself Patient, Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital, 1957 The world begins anew with every birth, my father used to say He forgot to say, with every death it ends Or did not think he...Last month my book club read Sebastian Barry s Days Without End , and we all loved it unconditionally That almost never happens So our hostess up for the April read decided to assign another of Barry s books, although she had some reservations that it might compare unfavorably to the one we thought so highly of How can it possibly be as good, she asked She needn t have worried, because it was as good, but in a different way Th...

English
15 February 2017

Sebastian Barry