"The Colony" by Audrey Magee

An audio book.

Mr Lloyd (from London) is rowed to an island (fewer than 100 inhabitants, many not English-speaking) with his artist's equipment - a perilous 8 hour trip but he wants to be close to nature. He describes moments as a series of self portraits and scenes. He's staying there for summer. He removes the curtains, has the bed dismantled. He's there to paint cliffs. He wants light.

While this voyage and arrival is narrated, there are short (paragraph long?) interruptions when we're told of Northern Ireland murders.

He sketches local people although he said he wouldn't. James (15) and he have conversations about art and other islanders. JP arrives, a French linguist who stays annually to study the infiltration of Gaelic by English. They have adjoining cottages and eat in the same kitchen in the main house, the food cooked by James' grandmother. Lloyd resents the invasion of his isolation. JP (who speaks to the hosts in Gaelic) can no longer assess the subtle shifts of Gaelic's sad demise.

James shows Lloyd a remote hut where he stays for a while. James thinks he may eventually live there.

JP records the great-grandmother (89). It’s his 4th annual visit and the two are affectionate. She’s wise.

Lloyd’s wife is an art dealer. Their tastes in art have diverged. She has another man.

The locals read about the mainland troubles. Is in right to take English money from the Lloyd? Which language should be used in the main house? Should coloniser English be used? There are extracts of JP’s thesis, showing how Gaelic was influenced by social pressures, how it became a language only used at home.

Lloyd suggests to JP that he should passively observe the use of Gaelic, not try to manipulate it. He suggests that France’s behaviour in Algeria wasn’t good. JP’s mother was Algerian; his father was a French soldier. She'd taken him to Arabic lessons. He didn't like them. His father beat her mother, wanting her to be more French. She gave up.

James doesn’t want to be a fisherman like his dead father. He doesn’t want to stay on the island as a preserver of Gaelic. He wants to be an artist. He tells Lloyd that he paints light on the surface of the water, but its reflections shine from below. Lloyd’s impressed. Lloyd plans to put on an exhibition of his and James’ pictures.

James’ mother Muraid sees Lloyd’s sketches of James. She poses for Lloyd wearing only a sheet then later nude. She reckons he’s about 40. She wants to be timeless and exhibited elsewhere. Her dead husband’s brother Francis wants her. She's been sleeping with JP.

Lloyd works on a big painting with Muraid naked in the centre and villagers holding symbolic objects. He copied the idea of the symbolic objects from James, telling James that all artists copy. James is angry then later resigned. Lloyd sees it as his breakthrough piece - Gauguin, Dejeuner sur l'herbe, and Guernica combined. He repaints James, reducing his symbolism from painter to fisherman. He decides not to take him to London when he goes, because it's not safe for him. Francis tells Muraid that they've had a meeting and they're not happy with what she's done. JP fears that if the painting becomes famous, TV crews will visit the island, destroying its isolation.

The book seemed rather slow at first. Once the extra themes appeared I began to like it.

Other reviews

• Jonathan Myerson
• Kevin Power (Islands, in fiction, are always metaphors – and, as a rule of thumb, the smaller the island, the bigger the metaphor ... It’s a novel that both courts and refuses allegory, charting a disorienting course between a piercingly satirical realism on the one hand, and on the other, something much cruder – parable, perhaps, or fable.)
• Kathryn Hughes (“The Colony” is a novel of ideas and at times those ideas can feel schematic, especially when JP is given a back story for his linguistic zealotry that draws on France’s historical occupation of Algeria.)