While you might expect that this is a novel about 20-year-old Erasmus student Pierre in title-giving Trondheim/Norway who suffers a heart attack, is rWhile you might expect that this is a novel about 20-year-old Erasmus student Pierre in title-giving Trondheim/Norway who suffers a heart attack, is resusciated, and falls into a coma, these events are in fact only a catalyst to offer a portrait of a couple under duress: His mothers are struggling in a marriage full of resentment and cowardly avoidance, and the events around Pierre highlight their differing approaches when it comes to dealing with the world. Unfaithful Lil, a personal trainer hailing from Ireland, tries to remain on top of the situation by assuming a dominant role, while Spanish-born translator Alba seeks spiritual refuge in Catholicism and community with other affected family members - and you might rightfully ponder whether this multicultural queer couple, which now travels from their residence in France to Pierre's bedside in Norway, is somehow performing stereotypical heterosexual roles.
I do actually know what it means when a close family member is revived after a heart attack and then, just like Pierre, is kept in a clinically induced coma on top of a natural coma - and the doctors desperately try to wake the person up, but fail repeatedly. The helplessness that comes with it, especially as you have to rely on strangers whose profession is an enigma to you, is well rendered by James. But Pierre as a person remains a chiffre, which - this is literature! - is not necessary from a narrative standpoint, and leads to the feeling of an empty center.
The mothers are also well-written, but I was struggling to keep my interest throughout: These are grown women with three children who fail at the most basic skills of communication and don't have the guts to either recalibrate or end their relationship. It's pathetic, and when juxtaposed with Pierre's destiny, it appears even more pathetic. And yes, the novel also ponders concepts like belief, hope, superstition, and framing - but is it all that captivating? This reader was not all too immersed, especially when the whole biathlon / firearms metaphor started derailing.
An uneven effort by an interesting writer - let's see what he comes up with next....more
Nominated for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2024 Irish social realism at its best: While the description of the plot - ten-year-old girl is suspected tNominated for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2024 Irish social realism at its best: While the description of the plot - ten-year-old girl is suspected to have killed another child - suggests some thriller, crime or even true crime novel, this set-up only serves as a framing device for an intense, psychologically stellar family portrait. Meet the Greens, an Irish family who, after the teenage daughter fell pregnant, has moved from rural Ireland to London. When the youngest family member, already born as a living sign of shame, is taken into police custody because she was the last person seen with the dead girl, ambitious young reporter Tom tries to get the family to speak. It's the 1990's, the heyday of the unregulated yellow press, and Tom wants to sell copies by unraveling the dark family secret that explains it all...
...which, no spoiler, does not exist: The Greens are just an unhappy working-class family, haunted by, as the title suggests, their ordinary human failings that amount to personal tragedies of the kind that the public (and hence the papers) usually don't care about. We learn about the silent, emotionally stifled father, the alcoholic son he had with his first wife, the destiny of the second wife and how the daughter became a young mother. We also hear about Lucy, the ten-year-old now suspected of murder. Nothing is spectacular per se, but as Nolan is an excellent writer, she writes about the lives of average people in a way that gives them dignity and illustrates the might of their inner lives.
It's a bleak, painful, hard to stomach book, because the little vignettes taken from the lives of the Green family are so effectively rendered and intense. All of the characters are vivid and plausible, even in their more indefensible decisions. The claustrophobia and pain is contained in every page, and even Tom, who could easily be shown as a stock character, is a complex villain, pathetic in his misguided ambition.
Great writing that renders silent, unspectacular human experiences that Tom would never publish, into a striking, exciting literary gem. Nolan belongs on some prize lists, so well done, Women's Prize....more
Now Winner of the Booker Prize 2023 in an overall rather disappointing year Take current public debates centering on the rise of right-wing authoritarNow Winner of the Booker Prize 2023 in an overall rather disappointing year Take current public debates centering on the rise of right-wing authoritarianism through elections in Europe, project the worst case into the future and, voilà, this is the result. It's certainly a worthwhile political dystopia, but surprising, innovative or unusual it is not, it's more like a mixture of 1984 and It Can't Happen Here, but make it Irish.
Our protagonist is microbiologist Eilish Stack whose husband Larry, a trade unionist, is abducted by the secret police of the new authoritarian Ireland, leaving Eilish to care for the four children and her father who is suffering from dementia. The family, perceived as traitors as Larry was organizing workers and was thus opposing authority, comes under increasing duress, topics like the loss of objective reality and truth are discussed (after all, Eilish is a scientist), and the aging father works like an oracle, constantly speaking from the depths of his slipping mind but knowing that Eilish should never underestimate the ruthlessness of people and thus the system they have built. The children show different reactions to their loss of freedom, and have to face different consequences.
To me, the most interesting aspect was how Eilish struggles to be just in this impossible situation: She wants to stand up to the system and demand her husband back - but will that kill him, if he isn't already dead? Also, is she a bad mother if she fights political injustice, as she puts her children in danger? Should she flee and maybe save her children, but leave her severely ill father alone, a man who is already threatened by the state?
The language and style of this novel was much praised, alas, I cannot find the specific beauty in these run-on sentences, these deserts of text (as we say in German when the pages are crammed with letters). I see that there's a punchy rhythm going on, a bleakness that fits the narrative, but it didn't really reach me.
So while "Prophet Song" certainly has some things going on for it, it does seem a little conventional for me.
This is great fun: O'Donoghue expertly plays with the tropes of the coming-of-age novel as well as the 90's sitcom, then adds moral complications regaThis is great fun: O'Donoghue expertly plays with the tropes of the coming-of-age novel as well as the 90's sitcom, then adds moral complications regarding the Irish abortion debate, and the result is smart and entertaining. The story is carried by its lively characters: Protagonist Rachel is about to finish her English degree in the middle of the economic crisis in 2009 Cork. She lives with her gay friend James and develops a forbidden crush on college employee Prof. Byrne, who is married to one of his former students. Turns out though: Byrne is bisexual and closeted, and he starts an affair with James... of course, chaos ensues.
O'Donoghue does a fantastic job evoking the atmosphere of both freedom and fear at the brink of entering the job market a.k.a. the adult world: Rachel and James try to support each other in their aspirations, but they slowly start to realize the impact of coincidence and adverse realities while also making their own mistakes (not because they're young, more because they're people). I liked how political and social circumstances affect the characters, as they are organically included: Class issues, colonial questions (Ireland vs. UK), the economic climate and the job market, Trinity vs. all other Irish schools, the situation of queer people, moral bigotry, and particularly the repercussions of one character needing an abortion.
The whole story is told from an older, married, pregnant Rachel, which adds a different angle and more oversight. A compelling, intelligent, fun book with a lot to admire....more
Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2023 Finally: Someone trying something daring and different on this longlist! Feeney tells the story of Jamie, a neurodLonglisted for the Booker Prize 2023 Finally: Someone trying something daring and different on this longlist! Feeney tells the story of Jamie, a neurodivergent kid on the brink of puberty, who dreams of getting to know his dead mother by building an intricate machine that allows him to connect with her. Putting aside the downright absurd focus the list puts on dead parents (because who needs political fiction in times like these?), I truly enjoyed how this particular Irish gem weaves a web of poetic references that, while not bringing back the dead, connects the living: Jamie's mother died in childbirth; he befriends fatherless Terry at school; there's fatherless Tadhg, the woodwork teacher from the islands with a dark family secret; and Tess, a motherless teacher who experiences the breakdown of her marriage, the loss of her father to alcohol addiction and the horrors of an IVF treatment. All of these characters, much like Jamie's father, who always stands up for his son, defy the standards of propriety headmaster Father Faulks sets for his school, and at the heart of book lies the question of how much a person should bend to outside standards...
...which is where the wooden boat comes in: Jamie dreams of building a perpetual motion machine, a machine that stops the chaos of destiny, "a machine for before the falling apart" which, by the standards of physics, is of course impossible - but he believes the energy of it might cross time and space to his mom. Woodwork teacher Tadhg has an idea how Jamie could fulfill his ambition in a feasible manner: He, Tess, Terry and some other students and friends want to help Jamie to build a Currach, a traditional Irish boat, which is made of wood, so a living and moving material that is bent to the vessel's shape (but not too much, or it breaks!), and floats on water, a moving element that relates to Jamie's mother who was a talented swimmer. As Tadhg explains, Currachs are always in motion, "vulnerable, but powerful", boats built by ordinary people - and sure, that's a metaphor, and it works. Even the steps in the building process relate to the characters' experiences.
The point of view moves smoothly, mainly between Jamie with his perceptions that seem to convey that he is on the autism spectrum, and Tess as well as Tadhg, who develop a tender relationship. Motifs like the color red, water, boats, family, as well as the options fight vs. flight are modulated in varying situations, and the developing bonds between the different types of outsiders gradually start to remind readers of the magical bonds of friendship as displayed in the children's books of Astrid Lindgren - still, this novel is clearly aimed at adults, also pondering questions of sexual longing, the protection of children and growing up with familial trauma.
This novel drew me in and kept my interest throughout, it made me root for the characters and ponder their backstories and motivations. I particularly enjoyed Tess' story line (which references The Edible Woman) that depicts the mechanisms of her marriage and the expectations she faces - and despises. I also like me a well thought out structure that is build intentionally and stringently, which Feeney delivers.
This might not be a perfect novel, but it's ambitious, inventive, well composed, and captivating - which is quite a lot. It also screams for a movie adaptation....more
Dolan's sophomore effort works with a well-known concept: Celine and Luke get engaged right at the beginning, and the rest of the novel is driven by tDolan's sophomore effort works with a well-known concept: Celine and Luke get engaged right at the beginning, and the rest of the novel is driven by the question whether they will actually get married - but while the story progresses, the point of view keeps changing between their friends / ex-lovers. But this is not your average marriage plot: The question the text ponders is what people are seeking and trying to find in marriage, what factors influence their decisions, and the point is not to endorse or trash marriage as an institution, but to explore societal and personal motivations. Plus, Dolan's characters are almost all queer, which is not pointed out as unusual or even problematized, but just taken as a given - we need more texts like that.
Just like Exciting Times, the novel discusses the post-colonial relationship between Ireland and England, with settings in both Dublin and London as well as characters with connections to both countries (of course, the wedding is set to take place in the UK, because that's where the family who keeps intervening, but has all the money resides - go figure). And also just like Dolan's debut, the book uses its characters to show different types of people whose expectations, emotional needs, and also shortcomings lead them to desire different types of love, which goes against the one-type-fits-all "happy couple" idea that societal stereotypes about marriage will automatically lead to happiness. What the people we meet here need depends on who they really are - and the trick is to find out about that, so we as readers can try to judge what they should do. It's Jane Austen with a queer twist.
And Dolan does a good job leading readers on by slowly revealing different perspectives on individual characters: Take Luke, who is first seen only as a indecisive cheater, but turns out to suffer under aspects that are formerly overlooked; then there's Celine, who seems to live in a dream world, but is mostly just not interested in anything outside her career as a pianist (how would she be judged or decide if she was a man?); or Archie, the gay lawyer and best man, who tries to fight his enduring feelings for his ex-lover Luke; bridesmaid Phoebe, Celine's gay sister who has no interest in theoretical expectations; Celine's ex Maria as well as Luke's other ex Vivian, who watch the spectacle unfold - we learn about all of their opinions, grounded in their lived experiences.
What I specifically like about Dolan is her laconic voice, which she employs to entertaining and frequently comic effect, but without ridiculing her characters who in all their flaws remain relatable. I was captivated by the first around 75 % of the book, but then, there's an uneccessary denouement and the plot falls apart by adding information that wasn't needed. To go out with a bang would have been much more effective.
Still, Dolan remains an exciting (ha!) Irish writer to watch, and this book proves that she isn't a one trick pony.
Now Shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award 2024 Nominated for the Booker Prize 2023 Barry is just a master of empathetic, intense prose that illuminaNow Shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award 2024 Nominated for the Booker Prize 2023 Barry is just a master of empathetic, intense prose that illuminates the movements of human consciousness - but this is also a moral investigation into the crimes of the Catholic church in Ireland, and how the consequences of child abuse permeate individual lives and the destiny of families and communities. While told in the third person, the text is strongest when it turns into a maelstrom of consciousness and takes readers inside the mind of retired police officer Tom Kettle who, as his last name suggests, had found warmth and solace in his home, his family. But from the beginning, we learn that he suffers because his wife and kids have all died within the last ten years. When young policemen visit Tom about a cold case involving the murder of a clergyman who was accused of pedophilia as well as another priest who evaded imprisonment, we start to wonder what Tom knows about the case, and what happened to his loved ones.
The narration is highly complex, jumping between memory and present-day reality, showing a man struggling to revive long-buried trauma in order to know himself. Nine moths Tom has been retired, and the time has birthed a breakthrough of his inner turmoil. Both he and his beloved wife grew up in the care of the church, both were abused. In a way, Tom is an Irish noir detective, and Barry serves us typical elements of a crime novel - questionings, evidence gathering, theories -, but rooted in the psychological investigation of his protagonist's past.
The hallucinatory quality heightens the sense of entrapment that renders the whole text gloomy and claustrophobic. Tom is existentially lonely, his pain is overpowering, and to sort out his trauma-stricken, huddled memory seems like the only path to salvation: From the Catholic institution, Tom escaped into the military, was sent to war, joined the police, and tried to make a home for himself with his equally damaged wife whom he loved dearly - all while experiencing how even the police has continued to protect abusers in the clergy. Barry's lyrical prose shines once more, and his unreliable protagonist - unreliable even to himself - remains an enigma, as we all are, but a captivating one.
And then there's Tom's neighbor, an actress named, of course, Ms McNulty, who has fled her husband who used to abuse her now deceased daughter - who are this woman and her son? Not only do they relate to Barry's McNulty family that appears in several of his works, they also relate to the hauntings of the past, the ghosts that have followed Tom since his childhood in the orphanage.
I'm not sure how Barry manages to write such moving novels that are also this complex and never kitsch-y. Just nominate him for the Booker again, he deserves it....more
Originally published in the New Yorker, this short story has not only been turned into a printed book and an audio rendition, the movie version "An CaOriginally published in the New Yorker, this short story has not only been turned into a printed book and an audio rendition, the movie version "An Cailín Ciúin" (The Quiet Girl) is currently nominated for an Academy Award for Best International Film - and have I mentioned that the movie is in Irish? What intrigues me about Keegan is that her stories appear so deceptively simple and are composed in such clear, sparse prose (just look at Small Things Like These), but they develop depth through the quiet empathy that fuels the narration.
"Foster" is written through the eyes of a young girl (in the movie, she is nine years old - seems about right) who is sent to temporarily live with foster parents parents until her mother has given birth to yet another sibling - the family is poor, the father drinks and gambles, both birth parents seem emotionally neglectful. Thus, the girl spends the summer on the farm of a married couple, the Kinsellas, who pay close attention to her needs and treat her with kindness and respect - and the girl experiences a whole new mode of life. Slowly, it is revealed that the Kinsellas suffer from their own trauma, as they have lost their young son.
The story is full of precise observations, written through the eyes of a kid that comes from an emotionally stifled environment, learns to open up and constantly ponders the world of the grown ups around her. Sure, the text is loaded with intense metaphorical imagery that could easily veer into kitsch territory when employed by a lesser writer, but when Keegan tackles it, it works. It's a tearjerker, but masterfully done, because it beholds emotional truths that are easily relatable.
This author is starting to win me over, and I guess I have to read more Keegan....more
Now Shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award 2024 Donoghue takes us to the 7th century to tell a story about radicalization and fanaticism: In a dreamNow Shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award 2024 Donoghue takes us to the 7th century to tell a story about radicalization and fanaticism: In a dream, the famous Irish sage Brother Artt has a vision in which God tells him to take two monks, middle-aged Brother Cormac and young Brother Trian, to an uninhabited island in the Atlantic Ocean in order to turn it into a bastion of God. The three travel to Skellig Michael, shown on the front cover of the novel (the island really holds a monastery which is a UNESCO World Heritage, but its history differs from the fictional version in the book). There, prior Artt requires his two monks to perform more and more unpractical, illogical, and dangerous acts to honor God at the expense of their own well-being and, ultimately, survival.
The text is a claustrophic chamber play about the perversion of faith, about fanaticism (and to me, strangely reminiscent of Imperium: A Fiction of the South Seas, which deals with a wannabe cult leader that goes insane and is an allegory on German fascism). Practical Cormac became a monk late in life after the plague killed his family, younger Trian was given to the monastery as a child and carries a secret that, when it gets revealed, is the catalyst for the finale (although it remains a mystery to me why the author chose exactly that to be his secret - it feels like she just hints at very current debates that do not convincingly relate to the story). The two monks are fantastically rendered characters, their prior and his motivations remain somewhat enigmatic though.
All in all, this novel is atmospheric and beautifully written, but it does not have all that much to say: Fanaticism = bad. Although it's relatively short, it still feels too long. This should have been a novella or a short story....more
There is such an insane amount of excellent writing coming out of Ireland, and even though not every single one of Barrett's short stories hit the marThere is such an insane amount of excellent writing coming out of Ireland, and even though not every single one of Barrett's short stories hit the mark for me, he is a fascinating writer with a recognizable voice. This collection consists of eight stories, mostly set in County Mayo, that stand out due to the knack for evocative details and the beautiful, atmospheric sentences. There is emotion shining through the rough dialogue, and humor even in the more dire tales about addiction and death. From time to time, Barrett drops dead-serious aphorisms on life and its inherent cruelty that can only be fought with mercy (look close enough, and there is some Catholicism to be discovered).
While I found myself skipping over some pages - the pacing is not always ideal, and some stories feature a bunch of unnecessary characters -, the parts that grabbed me where outstandingly effective. I particularly enjoyed how the author, who often focuses on struggling male figures (themes include death of parents, alcoholism, writing as a career, depression, loneliness, lack of direction, sibling relationships), combines gloomy outlooks and events with the weird: A desperate, aspiring poet who earns his money by drawing perverted comic fan art on request? A night at the local pub where someone brings a katana? Yes, please. I know Barrett specializes in the short form, but I love to read a novel crafted by him. Astute observations, sharp, punchy writing, great stuff. ...more
In his debut novel, Magee tells the story of 22-year-old Sean, a Belfast working class kid who graduates with a degree in English, but can't find a joIn his debut novel, Magee tells the story of 22-year-old Sean, a Belfast working class kid who graduates with a degree in English, but can't find a job due to the recession. It's 2013 and Sean is adrift, his family, friends and the whole town are haunted by what happened during The Troubles, and his class background and family trauma contribute to an atmosphere of hopelessness that our protagonist tries to fight in his own way. But it's an uphill battle: The book opens with Sean assaulting a young man after feeling diminished and ridiculed by him and his crowd at a party. Sean refuses to plead guilty and is sentenced to a high fine and 200 hours of community service, and the text covers the time it takes for him to work off his sentence while battling marginalization and coming to terms with toxic masculinity: What is his responsibility, what his agency? And how can he find a place for himself, the aspiring writer?
The organic and absorbing novel manages to negotiate various themes: There are The Troubles, which are still very much present in the biographies and conduct of many of the characters; there is the destiny of the working class, impersonated mainly by Sean's mother, an art-loving woman who fell pregnant as a teenager, is now a twice divorced mother of three and tries to get by as a cleaning lady; there are Sean's brothers who struggle with addiction and violent outbursts as well as his old mates who hardly get by and regularly escape by partying a.k.a numbing themselves; and there is Sean's struggle to fit in: He graduated in Liverpool and is now back in Belfast, torn between his old friends in the working class part of town and the Belfast college crowd, the link being his old school mate Mairéad who also crossed class lines. While it is not entirely plausible that an English graduate who supposedly chilled with the student crowd in Liverpool has now such severe habitus issues in Belfast, the feeling of being caught between class lines is in itself very well portrayed.
Much like Shuggie Bain or Trainspotting, "Close to Home" investigates a society permeated by trauma and hopelessness, and how young people cope (or don't cope) growing up in such an atmosphere - and it does so in a nuanced way: Sean is not only a victim, he is also a perpetrator and makes bad decisions. Still, as a reader, you can see where he is coming from, and you will start rooting for him (and his mother). Sean feels like no matter whether he does good and works hard or whether he fails and slacks, the outcome is the same, and there are powers that he can't overcome: Stricken by poverty so severe that he steals food to get by and repeatedly forced to change plans due to circumstance, he still decides to stay and fight, while many of his friends try to escape by leaving Belfast.
His most oppressive battle is the one against his self-loathing: Sean feels like a failure, like dirt. All the while, he is searching for his father who abandoned him, and his teenage half-sister, Aiofe - but why? He doesn't know himself, as he wants to know where his dad is, but he also hates him for the terrible things he did. Sean's worst fear though is that literature won't save him, and his terror of being right about this assumption is so severe that he hardly dares to try. The book offers quite some references to world literature, from existentialist novels over László Krasznahorkai to Marcel Proust and Milan Kundera.
This novel is definite Booker material - after Audrey Magee in 2022, Michael Magee is a must for the 2023 longlist.
This is my first Banville - and it was a terrible idea to start here (I chose to because the novel is brand new and might get Booker-nominated). The wThis is my first Banville - and it was a terrible idea to start here (I chose to because the novel is brand new and might get Booker-nominated). The whole text relies on the conceit that the author resurrects and brings back characters from different other novels and lets them interact. Additionally, there's a style over substance approach, a playful venture into alternate lives with alternate storylines within the story, which is already a riff on former stories - in "The Singularities", nothing is singular. So the question arises: How worthwhile is this if you're not a Banville stan who gets the intertextual meta-jokes?
What happens is apparently this: Mathematician Freddie Montgomery from The Book of Evidence is released from jail where he served time for murder. He now calls himself Felix Mordaunt and returns to his childhood home, where he encounters the Godley family from The Infinities - the late Adam Godley researched the (fictional!) Brahma theory which proves the existence of infinite universes and produced an interference effect in the world. Mordaunt/Montgomery becomes the driver and servant of Godley's son and daughter-in-law. Then, there's a biographer named Jaybey (J.B. - John Banville, get it?) who shows up aiming to write the life story of old Godley, who was his academic nemesis...
This constellation spreads out in various echos and references that underline the God-like position of the author who creates infinite universes and variations: It's a novel about contingency in writing, about the beautiful "what if" that is allowed in the infinite world of fiction, not in the singular world we actually inhabit.
I applaud John Banville for building his own, constantly shifting metaverse, for writing a book that certainly has great literary merit, but is also pretty much incomprehensible (at least when it comes to the really interesting parts here: The shifting references) for Banville newbies. You certainly can't claim that he's selling out or compromising his artistic vision, even though I, personally, am scratching my head while the novel leaves me cold. It was simply the wrong place to start.
Here's a superb review by Kevin Power that highlights all the Easter eggs I never could have found and thus illustrates how clever the writing actually is: https://www.independent.ie/entertainm......more
The first novel by James Joyce is a Bildungs- and Künstlerroman revolving around the author's alter ego Stephen Dedalus (who also features in Ulysses)The first novel by James Joyce is a Bildungs- and Künstlerroman revolving around the author's alter ego Stephen Dedalus (who also features in Ulysses), a young Irish man who learns about the sociopolitical struggles in Ireland in early childhood, gets introduced into the rough social customs of class and power in Catholic school, experiences his family losing money and status, later indulges in hedonist adventures before seeking redemption and salvation in religion - and who finally finds freedom after emancipating himself from school, church, politics, and his family by becoming an artist (please note that in the prototypical Bildungsroman, the text that defined the genre - Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship - it's exactly the other way around: Young Wilhelm joins a traveling theater troupe and works as an artist before becoming what the author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe would have described as a respectable citizen).
While Ulysses works with The Odyssey, "A Portrait..." is more focused on Metamorphoses, namely the myth of Icarus who fell from the sky into the sea after he flew too close to the sun with his waxen wings - wings made by his father Daedalus (ha!). While the story Joyce tells is rather interesting, what turns this novel into a spectacle is the language that not only grows with Stephen, becoming more and more mature as the protagonist ages, but also floats between third-person narrative and free indirect speech, effectively conveying mental states and how they are affected by the events depicted. The language sounds stunningly beautiful, and even the philosophical, political, and religious musings are rendered in engrossing, riveting sentences, although the intensity can become a little daunting from time to time.
World literature for very obvious reasons - one day I'll tackle Ulysses, but before that: Dubliners....more
Now Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2022 This quiet novella contemplates how the morality of a whole society relies on decisions of average citizens:Now Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2022 This quiet novella contemplates how the morality of a whole society relies on decisions of average citizens: It's 1985, and coal and woord merchant Bill Furlong is making his rounds shortly before Christmas. He discovers a young girl locked into a shed near the convent, who turns out to be a "fallen woman", a teenager who fell pregnant and doesn't even know where the nuns took her child. Bill himself is the illegitimate son of a teenage mother, but she was lucky to evade such circumstances - a man of small financial means and with no societal power, Bill now wonders about his responsibility towards the young girl...
The book refers to Irish Magdalene Laundries, Catholic institutions were "fallen women" were exploited and mistreated, and that sold babies as a business model. Bill Furlong lives in a town that is complicit in these crimes, people close their eyes and tell themselves that they have no power, even his wife states that they need the money from the convent to feed their own girls. As Bill knows that one of these babies-turned-commodities could have been him, he has a hard time following the common narrative.
Keegan references A Christmas Carol and offers a comparable, rather simple message, but one that, as the state of the world proves, needs to be repeated and underlined: That empathy and integrity are dangerous weapons against cruelty and loneliness. The held back narration, Bill's rich emotional world and the intensity of his inner struggle render the short text affecting and effective. Not the most complex or subtle book ever written, but captivating, quietly passionate and well composed....more
Now Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2022 A novel set on a remote Irish island in 1979, and it couldn't be more timely: An English painter and a French Now Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2022 A novel set on a remote Irish island in 1979, and it couldn't be more timely: An English painter and a French linguist visit the island, both following their own agendas while also claiming that they are helping the poor, isolated community. Magee talks about colonialism, cultural identity and arrogant savior-types who don't listen to the people they state to help, and while the first half moves very slowly, the story picks up speed and becomes a real thriller, but crafted as a chamber play.
On the small island, we meet one of only 12 families living there: Four generations, mainly consisting of three women and teenager James. James' father, uncle and grandfather were fishermen and have drowned, but these dead men keep haunting the family and the book: They are a lost past the women can't break free from.
The first foreigner to arrive is English painter Lloyd, who stays as a tourist with the family and promises the matriarch that he will only paint nature, not the islanders - but of course he portrays the family, seeing himself as some kind of English Gauguin. Is he, the representative of the colonial power, here to submit the representation of island identity to the colonial eye, to exploit the Irish for his own glory as an artist? Not only that, he also makes promises to James, himself an aspiring artist who wants to avoid life as a fisherman at all costs.
Enter Masson, a French linguist with an Algerian mother (France was of course the colonial power of Algeria) who has come to the island for four years to study the Irish language - he aims to get a doctorate and score a job at the department with his work about a language threatened with extinction. Seeing Lloyd, he is shocked that the Englishman might corrupt the Irish speakers on the island with his colonial tongue, thus messing with his study. Whether the islanders want Lloyd there, what language they want to speak - that's of no importance to Masson, which doesn't mean that he isn't certain that he is doing the right thing. He just thinks he knows better than the islanders what's best for the island, and that this is a deeply colonial standpoint doesn't register with him (just read Terre d'ébène by Masson's compatriote Albert Londres, who follows the same logic in the realm of African colonialism).
The novel is set on a small speck of land, it has a limited cast of characters, and most action is developed out of conversations and descriptions of language and paintings, so cultural products. But the backdrop of this is violence: Again and again, the story is interspersed with short, factual descriptions of terrorist attacks committed in the context of the Troubles. Although the islanders live on the Western edge of Europe, far out, they have brutality as a steady background noise, broadcast to them from Dublin, Belfast, and elsewhere in their country. Magee names the victims, their ages, the families they left behind.
This text is filled to the brim with smart sentences, intelligent ideas about identity, self-determination and representation, and beautiful prose (including what Christoph Ransmayr would call "flying sentences"). The ending is quietly devastating, and the whole thing is just extremely well done. If this doesn't get nominated for the Booker, I will be SHOOK....more
When GoodReads crashed yesterday, it took my whole review down with it. WTF, GR, why so instable - again? Adding more nonsense features and ads or whaWhen GoodReads crashed yesterday, it took my whole review down with it. WTF, GR, why so instable - again? Adding more nonsense features and ads or what? ...more
Rooney's third novel strongly showcases why her writing divides opinion: Her characters ponder millennial first world problems, and while I find much Rooney's third novel strongly showcases why her writing divides opinion: Her characters ponder millennial first world problems, and while I find much of it very relatable, others despise her tropes - relationships that are complicated mainly due to the characters being emotionally unstable and confused; lengthy ramblings about socialist politics, the environment, feminism, and other woke culture subjects; and of course: Conversations that make the communes of '68 seem like efficient decision-making conclaves. And you know what? I'm here for it.
In "Beautiful World, Where Are you" we meet Eileen, a 30-ish woman stuck in a low-paying job at a literary magazine, and her best friend Alice, an enormously successful writer who struggles with the effects of her exposure and the demands that come with it (Alice seems to be an alter ego of Rooney, just read this Guardian article). Staying at an apartment in Dublin, Eileen has just lived through a break-up and starts a complicated non-relationship with the slightly older Simon whom she has known since childhood. Meanwhile, Alice tries to recover in the countryside, where she meets Felix, a warehouse worker.
Between alternating chapters that push the plot forward, we read long emails that Alice and Eileen send to each other, pondering how their lives have come to this point, and why the world isn't as expected, whether you reached your goals (Alice) or not (Eileen) - hence the title, which is taken from Friedrich Schiller's poem "The Gods of Greece", which juxtaposes the ideal of classic antiquity with the Christian age. I'm not a fan of epistolary narrative set-ups, but these chapters certainly helped to illustrate the inner workings of the two women, especially as it is often enigmatic even to themselves why they act as they do. Another interesting aspect here are the many detailed sex scenes that not only depict the dynamics between the characters, but also stress questions of consent.
To be honest, I did not start this book with the highest expectations, even though I enjoyed Conversations with Friends and Normal People. Now I have to say that this is Rooney's most ambitious novel to date, and I liked it best. I can't wait to read her next effort....more
Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2020 "Apeirogon: a shape with a countably infinite number of sides" - not the worst idea for structuring a book about tLonglisted for the Booker Prize 2020 "Apeirogon: a shape with a countably infinite number of sides" - not the worst idea for structuring a book about the conflict between Israel and Palestine. McCann's work is semi-fictional, as it is based on the real life stories of Rami Elhanan, Israeli and Jewish, and Bassam Aramin, Palestinian and Muslim. Rami's daughter Samadar was killed in the conflict in 1997 - she was 14. Bassam's daughter was killed when she was 10, in 2007. The fathers joined forces and decided to use their grief as a weapon, to promote forgiveness and understanding by telling their stories: "Nobody can listen to me and stay the same."
McCann's book has 1,001 chapters - yup, you read that right, and there are plenty of other references to The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights, Volume 1 of 3. Just like Scheherazade tells stories to save her life, Rami and Bassam tell their stories trying to save the lives of those who might fall victim to the conflict in the future. The first 500 chapters are numbered chronologically, the next 500 count backwards; in the middle, there are two chapters numbered "500", and they capture the speeches Rami and Bassam give in their public appearances.
This narrative concept is the real star of the novel. Many of the chapters are very short, and similar to the approach played out in Frankenstein in Baghdad (which, IMHO, is a much better, more daring book), they appear like the explosion / gunshot that killed the children: Smashed into different narrative particles of different lengths, they convey aspects of the lives of the kids and their families, but also extrapolate. We read about birds migrating over the war zone, about Jorge Luis Borges who visited the area ("Borges wrote that it only takes two facing mirrors to form a labyrinth"), and also get some info about weapons and how large parts of the world are connected to the conflict in one way or another.
Social media is currently debating whether this novel should have been excluded from the longlist for two reasons: For one, Colum McCann is an Irish dude, so some are stating that him telling the story of Israelis and Palestinians is cultural appropriation. To that I say: The Great Believers is a fantastic book, although I'm under the impression that Rebecca Makkai is not a gay man. The main problem with books like American Dirt is not that the author is not a person of color, but that they are badly written. And then there are allegations brought up by Roxane Gay that McCann assaulted her friend. The Booker and the author have not commented.
Looking purely at the novel, I have to say that my problem with it is that it carries its intention on its sleeve - subtle this is not, it's a very blatant manifesto, and I think that's exactly what McCann intended to do here. Obviously, it's a valid argument that a conflict like this does not call for subtlety, but for activism. But to me, this was a very long piece of activism, executed in a highly artificial textual structure that became tedious after, let's say chapter 329. This book is in-your-face.
And it's not a bad book at all, but IMHO, it's overwritten and burdened with narrative intention. To me, this is not a Booker winner....more
This hypnotizing, short novel is rendered in an enigmatic stream-of-consciousness, full of self-doubt and attempts at rationalizing situations and behThis hypnotizing, short novel is rendered in an enigmatic stream-of-consciousness, full of self-doubt and attempts at rationalizing situations and behaviors, gloomy, regretful and claustrophobic. The protagonist is a middle-aged woman who drifts through hotels in Avignon, France, Prague, Oslo, Auckland, and Austin - we never fully learn what she is doing in these cities except attempting to forget a man she once loved and who is probably the father of her child (god knows where this child is). The woman indulges in alcohol and casual sex, but it's never anything but a half-hearted distraction and unsuccessful self-medication.
The narrative technique is exceptionally well done, it conveys all the confusion and desperation of a protagonist who feels trapped in her own life, unable to break free of her behavioral patterns and depression. McBride makes a rather daring move by deciding to fully omit crucial information, thus creating a feeling of uncertainty and disorientation on the side of the reader, an unsettling fog. And of course, this is also frustrating: The narrator can't make sense of her own existence, and so can't we.
The stream-of-consciousness that goes back, forth and then in circles is not unlike the writing in Milkman, and the overall vibe of loss and pain is reminiscent of another woman-travels-and-drinks-because-she-lost-a-man-novel: The Third Hotel. Overall, the writing is impressive, but the book is too long for what it is, and it's also not a satisfying reading experience, although intentionally so....more
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