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Ireland! Always a troubled land… a land of divided loyalties and tragic passions… of intense loves and fiercer hatreds…
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The above sentence is ... Read review
Advantages: About Ireland, very moving, excellent characters, well written story Disadvantages: some people may find it a bit long
...cover of this fantastic book: Trinity by Leon Uris. This book, more or less, is about Ireland from the time of the famine in the 1840s to the Easter Rising of 1916. However, that is definitely NOT a simple topic. It's very complex. Trinity does a very good job of including several groups and events from Irish history, while telling a fictional story.
Trinity follows the lives of three main groups of characters. The first is the Larkin ... ...some of the themes for Trinity (obviously), these themes are generally background and the main theme/issue is the social group or class of the characters. The characters themselves are dynamic, interesting and well written. This is the strongest point of Trinity for me. The fact that, by the end, I felt that I knew the characters and that I'd grown with them throughout the story. That is one of the biggest things I look for any time I read and recommend ... more
********************************************************************** Ireland! Always a troubled land… a land of divided loyalties and tragic passions… of intense loves and fiercer hatreds… **********************************************************************
The above sentence is the tagline from the back cover of this fantastic book: Trinity by Leon Uris. This book, more or less, is about Ireland from the time of the famine in the 1840s to the Easter Rising of 1916. However, that is definitely NOT a simple topic. It's very complex. Trinity does a very good job of including several groups and events from Irish history, while telling a fictional story.
Trinity follows the lives of three main groups of characters. The first is the Larkin family. They are simple Catholic hill-farmers from Donegal whose only desire is to live and work on their own farm without being mistreated, over taxed and forced to be British. The second family is the MacLeod family. They live in Belfast and are Protestant shipyard workers. Like the Larkin family they desire only to be allowed to work and live free happy lives. The last family is quite different from the first two. They are the Hubbles. This family lives wherever they want. They are the representatives in Ireland of the British aristocracy. They are the Earls of Foyle and desire to remain in power, continue to make money, and keep Ireland the way THEY want to keep it.
Even though the book is about the three groups (Larkins, MacLeods and Hubbles), it basically follows the life of Connor Larkin as he interacts with each of the other families. It is often written through the eyes of his best friend Seamus O'Neill. Since the story follows Connor's life quite strongly the biggest influence in the book is the Catholic Republican viewpoint, though the other groups also get their moments and are represented within their sections of the book. While religion and religious views are some of the themes for Trinity (obviously), these themes are generally background and the main theme/issue is the social group or class of the characters. The characters themselves are dynamic, interesting and well written. This is the strongest point of Trinity for me. The fact that, by the end, I felt that I knew the characters and that I'd grown with them throughout the story. That is one of the biggest things I look for any time I read and recommend a book. Trinity does this very well.
Leon Uris has broken Trinity into seven parts which are: Ballyutoue, The Orange Card, The Booley House, Bogside, Dusty Bluebells, Sixmilecross, A Terrible Beauty. Each part has its own specific story sometimes with characters that carry across parts, like Connor Larkin, and sometimes with completely new characters being introduced. Each part also includes a map to accompany the reading in order to give an idea of location of events. The maps, for me, were a big help. I generally found myself glancing at them quickly before reading a specific part and then coming back to them when I'd finished reading so that locations of events in the story were fixed more firmly in my mind and made more sense.
As far as readability, this book is excellent. It is a fairly long but once you get into it that won't be an issue at all. A few people I've spoken with had a hard time starting the book but after the initial little bit they got into the book as much as I did. The book is written very well and at a level accessible to anyone. The separation of sections and storylines into different parts actually makes the book seem like it's going faster and that you're reading several short books rather than one long volume.
I'd recommend Trinity to anyone who has ever wondered about Ireland. This seems to be an excellent place to start. It has a well written and thought out fictional story with some links to factual events. It's so well written that it's completely believable. Trinity is not for someone who doesn't want to feel any emotion in a book. This one hits them all! It's not a good book for someone looking for a light-hearted read either. It is fairly heavy reading as far as subject matter, but not with regards to writing style and language.
I was very happy with this novel and would definitely recommend it as a must read book. I am definitely looking forward to reading it's sequel: Redemption.
Recounts the interrelationships, clashes, and common concerns of the Catholic, hill-farming Larkins of Donegal, the aristocratic and British Hubbles, and the Scottish-Presbyterian MacLeods of Belfast during the years from the 1840s famine to the 1916 Easter Rising. From the Back CoverEver since the publication of Battle Cry more than thirty years ago, Leon Uris has continued to write bestselling novels. Each displays all of the author's skill, for he is a writer at his best when the subject seems almost too big to handle. One of the most popular storytellers of the twentieth century, more than 5,500,000 copies of his novels have been sold in Corgi alone. In Trinity, he writes passionately about the tragedy of Ireland - from the famine of the 1840s to the Easter Rising of 1916, a powerful and stirring novel about the loves and hates, the defeats and triumphs of three families - a terrible and beautiful drama spanning more than half a century. --This text refers to the Paperback edition. See all Product Description
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