Author: David Bergen
The Retreat is an intricate, complex and occasionally shocking novel. When one opens the book, they uncover a love story intertwined with a fierce protest for the rights of the Aboriginal people of North America. For me, the novel was entertaining and occasionally disturbing, "There was a time when Ms. Byrd had been happier, lighthearted and carefree, but when Fish was born, she descended into darkness and she gave Fish over to Lizzy, who was too young to say 'No, this is not mine.'" (94) I found this passage particularly jolting because the notion of handing a baby over to a child when you are perfectly capable and experienced when it comes to that field is a thought that my mind just cannot seem to wrap itself around. The book tends to cover a lot of heavy topics but do it in an eloquent and very readable way.
The Retreat, although enjoyable, is a book that is more difficult to read and understand if you have not experienced the events taking place in even the most remote of manifestations. I found that my reading experience of this novel was not as fulfilling as I could relate to none of the characters (although that is actually a good thing in this case). The cult-like retreat is like nothing that I have ever heard of or read about before. Bergen did a wonderful job of creating instances that the average reader would generally feel uncomfortable covering, this really spoke well to the odd personalities of the majority of the characters and the situations that they often found themselves in. A good example of this is on page 76, "Everett woke early and walked out to the pond and waited in the trees. The Doctor came. He undressed and he bathed." The final theme that seems to play an integral part in the book is that of family issues. Lizzy's family in particular had many family issues throughout the course of the novel. This is shown in this quotation, "Lizzy wondered if her father had felt a sense of collapse, that all the goof intentions at the beginning of the summer had been mislaid. It made her heart ache because she could tell that her father was still convinced that her mother would return before everyone left." This proved essentially that her mother was effectively a lunatic and that her father had to clean up with the messy trail left behind by Lizzy's mom.
The book was a decent book overall, but I found that it introduced a few too many tragedies and that even then they seemed to be a little out of context. For me, when I read a book I subconsciously compare it to the works of my favourite authors, (such as Jules Verne, Bryce Courtenay, Laurence Sterne, and Miguel de Cervantes amongst others) but this just did not compare. I often found that it presented a depressing plot that was always bleak. On the plus side it was well written. Three questions that I would like to ask Mr. Bergen are: 1) Where did you get the idea for the Retreat in the novel? Have you ever been to a similar place? (2) Why did you choose such an abrupt and tragic ending? (3) What caused you to write this book? Who are your greatest influences in your writing?
