The Wonder
Lib Wright is a Crimean War nurse, trained by Florence Nightingale. She is called to a small Irish village to watch a young girl, Anna O'Donnell, who claims she hasn't eaten in four months. Lib, along with a Catholic nun, has two weeks to ferret out whoever is feeding Anna on the sly. She thinks she can do it in a couple of days.
Author Emma Donoghue, who was nominated for an Academy Award for her screenplay for her novel ROOM, sets this novel approximately seven years after the potato famine. Anna's family is extremely religious. They say the rosary every day and Anna keeps repeating what Lib interprets as the “Dorothy” prayer. Eventually we discover she's saying “adore” in reference to God or the Virgin Mary. She says it thirty-three times a day. If you fast and say the prayer every Friday, it's supposed to help get someone out of Purgatory.
Eventually Lib figures out who's been feeding Anna, but by then Anna has begun to refuse even those small morsels. Lib worries that her and the nun's constant surveillance is starving the poor child to death.
Obviously Donoghue wants to show the danger religious zealotry can lead to, but she also saves a few zingers for the government (and perhaps ours). She goes on a walk one day on a road that stops in the middle of nowhere. This road was built by people too poor to buy food during the potato famine, but the government didn't want to just hand out free food. They had to work for it. People are buried along the side of the road. The side of the road is like quicksand, and Lib has trouble walking. Eventually she realizes she's been walking on bodies that haven't been entirely decomposed.
This is a read downer of a book. If you have a weak stomach, don't read it. There are really only two twists. Most of the time Lib is watching Anna die. She tries to get the parish priest, the village doctor and the committee formed to investigate Anna's situation to call off the watch. No one will listen. It's hard to know the motivation of the people involved. Are they looking for a tourist trap, or do they really believe Anna is some kind of saint?
Author Emma Donoghue, who was nominated for an Academy Award for her screenplay for her novel ROOM, sets this novel approximately seven years after the potato famine. Anna's family is extremely religious. They say the rosary every day and Anna keeps repeating what Lib interprets as the “Dorothy” prayer. Eventually we discover she's saying “adore” in reference to God or the Virgin Mary. She says it thirty-three times a day. If you fast and say the prayer every Friday, it's supposed to help get someone out of Purgatory.
Eventually Lib figures out who's been feeding Anna, but by then Anna has begun to refuse even those small morsels. Lib worries that her and the nun's constant surveillance is starving the poor child to death.
Obviously Donoghue wants to show the danger religious zealotry can lead to, but she also saves a few zingers for the government (and perhaps ours). She goes on a walk one day on a road that stops in the middle of nowhere. This road was built by people too poor to buy food during the potato famine, but the government didn't want to just hand out free food. They had to work for it. People are buried along the side of the road. The side of the road is like quicksand, and Lib has trouble walking. Eventually she realizes she's been walking on bodies that haven't been entirely decomposed.
This is a read downer of a book. If you have a weak stomach, don't read it. There are really only two twists. Most of the time Lib is watching Anna die. She tries to get the parish priest, the village doctor and the committee formed to investigate Anna's situation to call off the watch. No one will listen. It's hard to know the motivation of the people involved. Are they looking for a tourist trap, or do they really believe Anna is some kind of saint?
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