RETURNING LIGHT

A memoir from the lighthouse keeper on a remote island off the southwest coast of Ireland.

Harris recounts his 30 years of part-time residency on Skellig Michael, a tiny, craggy pyramid more than seven miles off the coast of the Iveragh Peninsula. Despite its size, for the author, it harbors unlimited vistas onto nature and into the soul. Harris seduces with the lyrical opening pages, but the lengthy descriptive passages devolve into overly fanciful rhapsodies. Though he claims there are no words for the fleeting movements of light that play about the ruins of an ancient monastery or other parts of the island, the author never fails to tap oceans of words to express them. As a poet, Harris can be sublime, but his prose too often gets stuck in a single cadence, describing the same vistas and movements of animals over and over with little variation. He continually lets his imagination run away with him, investing both inanimate objects and living creatures with qualities they do not possess. It’s almost a shock when he suddenly comes down to earth and writes matter-of-factly about the island’s history and ecology, a respite from verbal pyrotechnics. To say Harris is imbued with the place is putting it mildly, but it’s not strictly a love affair. In addition to beauty, delicacy, and fortitude, he also shows nature’s indifference and a measure of spiritual darkness. One of the strongest features of the book is the author’s exploration of monastic histories, myths, and legends. Yet there are also wonderful personal interludes when he is transfixed by “magical” visitations, like a strange flight of butterflies finding their way into his lonely hut, drawn by lamplight. The power comes from describing it simply.

Those enamored with the ethereal will be captivated; those with little patience for repetition are in for an endurance test.