The Revolution Continues
I continue on my quest to review all twelve stories in Young Irelanders, edited by Dave Lordan and published by New Island. I continue to be impressed by the ingenuity of thought, the insolence of language and the bravery of experimentation. In the next four stories we visit a cameo of urban dullness in rural Ireland, strip poker with a clerical twist and streams of consciousness and absurdity that would gladden the heart of Flann O’Brien.
Think of your average Irish town as a pie filling – all too often the filling is sub-standard for its younger residents, say, those between twelve and early twenties. Now take the crust that encases so many of these towns, the crust of grey dust, sparse greenery edging (as sparse as the life depicted on the wrong side of a provincial town) new motorways, but most of all, the dullness that is the industrial estate, spilling like random rubble into the surrounding countryside – a milieu that Colin Barrett has captured magnificently in Doon - the awfulness that is the crust within which so many rural Irish towns exist
Barrett paints the inevitability of the mundanity that passes for youthful survival in your average provincial Irish town cloaked in an arcane code of behaviour – a fixed menu of verbal and physical responses to the minutiae of a leaden existence, and yet, the old heads on young shoulders assimilating life’s vicissitudes in a jaded adult way. This extraordinary balancing act is cleverly and accurately captured by his truthful dialogue. Not even a febrile undertone can be detected among the players in Doon; it’s like the essential essence of ‘jaded’ has been bottled and sprayed over a time and place – and urban ‘sprawlville’ somewhere in rural Ireland.
Doon is to provincial Ireland what trailer park is to a southern US state. Doon brings to mind Billy Casper in A Kestrel for a Knave; nascent maturity with no exemplary adult role models. Indeed the ineffectiveness and sadness of adulthood borders on the depressing; Mr O’Domhnaill, the geography teacher, and Uncle Roddy, being two miserably wretched examples. Like Kes, Doon sees beyond the pointlessness of adult whys and wherefores, rules and conformities.
I read Cathy Sweeney’s Three Stories on a Theme very quickly; quickly because for me the experience was as delectable as eating a gourmet meal. The ‘clevericity’ of Sweeny’s writing leaves me awe-struck and amused. So many male authors have taken women’s’ voices but not enough female authors have taken male voices. Sweeny does so admirably in The Web. Making the incongruous seem normal is a subtle skill which Sweeney displays wonderfully in all three pieces. I wonder if she read Kipling’s Plain Tales as a child; as I think she opens her stories in a similar fashion – a fashion which I very much like. As the husband in The Web walks the street considering the import of his actions I am reminded of Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment wandering the streets of St. Petersburg grappling with similar dilemmas. The humidity in The Web rivals only the humidity in Garcia’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. Cathy Sweeny is a brave and adventurous writer. If you like ‘messing around’ with words and suspending belief, read Three Stories on a Theme; I think it would be a spoiler to elaborate on the theme. Mad Love and The Girl Made of Paper will wake you out of a stupor and remind you that inside your own head is one of the best places to live.
Having absolutely no interest in, or understanding of, the social life of men of the cloth, Retreat nonetheless holds on to me because of its uncommon setting. The writing in Eimear Ryan’s Retreat is urbane and sophisticated despite being about a surprisingly traditional topic; but yet it is compelling reading. The finer points of a priest’s sensibilities when faced with the rough and tumble of ‘unordained’ life is worth a literary probe in light of the shocking crimes committed by so many ‘ordained’ persons. Once your peers discover your ‘ordained’ status how do they interact with you? Do they see you on an equal footing? Do they treat you differently? Do they carry on the fine tradition of showering you with respect before you have earned it, or, do they hit out? Ryan creates a scenario that facilitates the answering of these questions, and more. She does it with form, precision, a motely band of side-show characters and a kind of New England sharpness – a kind of Park Your Car in Harvard Yard sharpness – a style I have a weakness for.
Isn’t it funny the things that make fleeting appearances in your imaginative recollections as you read a new piece of work? They parade silently across your concentration – insolent, unannounced – but, oddly enough, not like unwelcome visitors – more like eccentric revelations – novel condiments that serve to heighten the flavour of the main dish. The surprise guests that punctuated my reading of Oyster were the unlikely duo of Lewis Carroll and Franz Kafka – could it be the sea molluscs and arachnids I wondered. Oyster is the kind of story that you read slowly, and might I suggest, to a shamanic rhythm. That’s because it is a feast of words and thoughts that must be imbibed slowly and carefully – you don’t want to spill any – that would be a terrible waste. To say that I felt replete after consuming Claire-Louise Bennet’s Oyster is not a culinary flight of fancy – it is a compliment to the chef.
Eight down; four to go; I need a large brandy and port!
Review of first four stories can be read on: http://www.oldfilibuster.com/young-irelanders-edited-by-dave-lordan-stories-1-4.html
I continue on my quest to review all twelve stories in Young Irelanders, edited by Dave Lordan and published by New Island. I continue to be impressed by the ingenuity of thought, the insolence of language and the bravery of experimentation. In the next four stories we visit a cameo of urban dullness in rural Ireland, strip poker with a clerical twist and streams of consciousness and absurdity that would gladden the heart of Flann O’Brien.
Think of your average Irish town as a pie filling – all too often the filling is sub-standard for its younger residents, say, those between twelve and early twenties. Now take the crust that encases so many of these towns, the crust of grey dust, sparse greenery edging (as sparse as the life depicted on the wrong side of a provincial town) new motorways, but most of all, the dullness that is the industrial estate, spilling like random rubble into the surrounding countryside – a milieu that Colin Barrett has captured magnificently in Doon - the awfulness that is the crust within which so many rural Irish towns exist
Barrett paints the inevitability of the mundanity that passes for youthful survival in your average provincial Irish town cloaked in an arcane code of behaviour – a fixed menu of verbal and physical responses to the minutiae of a leaden existence, and yet, the old heads on young shoulders assimilating life’s vicissitudes in a jaded adult way. This extraordinary balancing act is cleverly and accurately captured by his truthful dialogue. Not even a febrile undertone can be detected among the players in Doon; it’s like the essential essence of ‘jaded’ has been bottled and sprayed over a time and place – and urban ‘sprawlville’ somewhere in rural Ireland.
Doon is to provincial Ireland what trailer park is to a southern US state. Doon brings to mind Billy Casper in A Kestrel for a Knave; nascent maturity with no exemplary adult role models. Indeed the ineffectiveness and sadness of adulthood borders on the depressing; Mr O’Domhnaill, the geography teacher, and Uncle Roddy, being two miserably wretched examples. Like Kes, Doon sees beyond the pointlessness of adult whys and wherefores, rules and conformities.
I read Cathy Sweeney’s Three Stories on a Theme very quickly; quickly because for me the experience was as delectable as eating a gourmet meal. The ‘clevericity’ of Sweeny’s writing leaves me awe-struck and amused. So many male authors have taken women’s’ voices but not enough female authors have taken male voices. Sweeny does so admirably in The Web. Making the incongruous seem normal is a subtle skill which Sweeney displays wonderfully in all three pieces. I wonder if she read Kipling’s Plain Tales as a child; as I think she opens her stories in a similar fashion – a fashion which I very much like. As the husband in The Web walks the street considering the import of his actions I am reminded of Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment wandering the streets of St. Petersburg grappling with similar dilemmas. The humidity in The Web rivals only the humidity in Garcia’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. Cathy Sweeny is a brave and adventurous writer. If you like ‘messing around’ with words and suspending belief, read Three Stories on a Theme; I think it would be a spoiler to elaborate on the theme. Mad Love and The Girl Made of Paper will wake you out of a stupor and remind you that inside your own head is one of the best places to live.
Having absolutely no interest in, or understanding of, the social life of men of the cloth, Retreat nonetheless holds on to me because of its uncommon setting. The writing in Eimear Ryan’s Retreat is urbane and sophisticated despite being about a surprisingly traditional topic; but yet it is compelling reading. The finer points of a priest’s sensibilities when faced with the rough and tumble of ‘unordained’ life is worth a literary probe in light of the shocking crimes committed by so many ‘ordained’ persons. Once your peers discover your ‘ordained’ status how do they interact with you? Do they see you on an equal footing? Do they treat you differently? Do they carry on the fine tradition of showering you with respect before you have earned it, or, do they hit out? Ryan creates a scenario that facilitates the answering of these questions, and more. She does it with form, precision, a motely band of side-show characters and a kind of New England sharpness – a kind of Park Your Car in Harvard Yard sharpness – a style I have a weakness for.
Isn’t it funny the things that make fleeting appearances in your imaginative recollections as you read a new piece of work? They parade silently across your concentration – insolent, unannounced – but, oddly enough, not like unwelcome visitors – more like eccentric revelations – novel condiments that serve to heighten the flavour of the main dish. The surprise guests that punctuated my reading of Oyster were the unlikely duo of Lewis Carroll and Franz Kafka – could it be the sea molluscs and arachnids I wondered. Oyster is the kind of story that you read slowly, and might I suggest, to a shamanic rhythm. That’s because it is a feast of words and thoughts that must be imbibed slowly and carefully – you don’t want to spill any – that would be a terrible waste. To say that I felt replete after consuming Claire-Louise Bennet’s Oyster is not a culinary flight of fancy – it is a compliment to the chef.
Eight down; four to go; I need a large brandy and port!
Review of first four stories can be read on: http://www.oldfilibuster.com/young-irelanders-edited-by-dave-lordan-stories-1-4.html
