Escaping the world

For the person of faith, obeying God’s call – or even recognizing it – can be challenging enough. But what happens when one believer’s firm sense of calling dictates the callings of others? This is one of the themes at the heart of Irish writer Emma Donoghue’s most recent novel, Haven.

The story begins when a 7th-century Irish monk called Artt, esteemed for his holiness and many conversions, has a dream in which he sees himself on a remote island with two other monks: one young, one old. Interpreting this as God’s command to “withdraw from the world” and establish a monastery, he tells youthful Trian and aged Cormac, “God put you in my dream,” and asks them to join his mission. Days of daunting water travel lead them to Great Skellig (also known today as Skellig Michael), the larger of two forbidding craggy islands off Ireland’s southwest coast. But the journey there is only the beginning, as the struggle to endure the harsh conditions tests the monks’ monastic vows.

Donoghue’s engaging prose draws us into the island’s bleak yet spectacular terrain and, in the process, the three characters’ inner landscapes. Trian enters joyfully into the adventure and is determined to be loyal and obedient, seeing Great Skellig as “a tiny, perfect land, stood on end; a bridge to the sky” – while Cormac, a wise, earthbound man converted to Christianity in later life, has his “head… crowded with practical concerns” about how they will survive. Artt, the leader and visionary, views the island (tellingly) as “an abandoned fortress, awful in majesty. No… not abandoned, just lonely, waiting for its commander. The most gigantic of cathedrals, ready for its priest.”

As the monks cope with the unforgiving island environment while trying to worship and produce manuscripts, cracks appear in their hastily-formed fellowship. Obedience to God-given authority starts to seem at odds with obedience to God himself. Dependence on divine provision clashes with common sense. Humble acts of devotion congeal into “hard-hearted certainties.” Even delight in God’s creation – such as Trian’s love of the single rowan tree with its prolific berries and “riches of colour” – descends into exploitation.

Part of the appeal of Haven is that despite its remote geographical and temporal setting, it addresses timeless concerns. Leadership, vocation, doubt and identity all come into play, as the desolate setting brings what Cormac calls “the varieties of human weakness” into sharper relief.

One of the novel’s most fundamental questions is this: does God love us, as us, or is it just our souls he cares about? As the tiny community sinks into chaos and Artt’s single-minded authority is challenged, he demands, “What grounds have we for believing that our living pleases [God] any more than our death?”

Haven is an object lesson on where that kind of thinking can ultimately lead. It is also a haunting and compelling story of religious faith, community and survival.