Young Ireland – at home and abroad
I have done my duty; all twelve stories reviewed. I am thinking that these last four stories prove the point that reading good fiction is one of the best ways to understand the human condition. These are the kind of stories that articulate what many people feel but cannot put into words themselves. They also show how mundanity, like a stickleback, can travel with you, making it immaterial whether you are in New York or Granard, London or Amsterdam. Hence, these are the kind of stories that not only add to the literary store but will make many readers feel that they are not alone. You could call it public service publishing! See what you think yourself.
Take the odd trio - three dysfunctional lads sharing a flat who become ‘friends by mistake’ in Alan McMonagle’s Remark – brilliant. The effect of bread dipped in poteen brings us into the realm of the absurd – and a very welcome realm this is for me. On consuming the strange culinary bedfellows (bread and poteen, that is), the lads weep instantaneously for no apparent reason; its effects as dramatic and as random as the bottle helpfully labelled ‘DRINK ME’ in chapter one of Alice in Wonderland. As you read this story you will ask yourself these few questions – what is real? What is imaginary? What dreams are attainable and what dreams are fantastical? To be young is to dare to dream, to exaggerate, to ‘blow your trumpet’ very loudly, and the odd trio do this magnificently. As is frequently the case; one lad is more insane, irrational, and unpredictable than his flatmates. It was always thus; isn’t that why they always put three men on an offshore lighthouse? Furthermore, this trio exude a faint whiff of Stephen Dedalus, Buck Mulligan and Haines sharing that Martello tower in Ulysses; there is even mention of a daily milk delivery in both – although the old milkmaid in Sandycove is no competition for the lovely Mary P in Remark. Like Dedalus, Eric is the one with the money. There’s also that religion thing playing out in the background with Dedalus and Madigan. Of course, the most hilarious and cleverest aspect of Remark is that in parallel with the real goings on is the meteoric rise to fame of an iconic, alter ego rock band.
If Sydney Weinberg were a tailor she would be plying her trade on Savile Row where the final article has to be impeccably crafted. Omen in the Bone upholds the traditions of fine storytelling but does so in a contemporary setting; it sometimes drew my mind back to Auster’s New York Trilogy or even E.L. Doctorow. On many occasions, a sentence resembles a clever execution of stitching to make something awkward look polished – “Her words were precise and brilliant, he felt, but he was too stoned to retain them; he was left only with the impression of her masterful voice juxtaposed against his wavering one, like a music teacher demonstrating scales.” This is a long story that comes full circle in a most unexpected way. At one level you could say that Omen in the Bone is a psychological study of a young man, but to a large extent, it is what hangs off of this study that makes for a marvellous commentary on some aspects of being young in modern Europe – what ties us; what we want to shed. When it comes to the adventures of young men I always have a weakness for the rollicking escapades of Fielding’s Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones, but Weinberg has pulled me firmly into the concerns of 2015.
If Sydney Weinberg is an adroit tailor then Sheila Armstrong is a dexterous bricklayer. Maybe this allusion springs to mind because I recently finished Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich – a short book incidentally that took me far too long to read! Perhaps the grimness of a well-used toilet on an intercity train or the burgeoning seediness of a Dublin alleyway beside the Coronor’s Court equals the Siberian labour camp in actualité. But no; it’s the aftertaste of the precision and perfection of Denisovich’s bricklaying that lingers in my subconscious as I admire the craft that is the writing in Armstrong’s The Tender Mercies of its Peoples. Anyone who has held their breath to run through that alleyway between South Frederick Street and Dawson Street or has succumbed to the disquiet of a full bladder on an intercity train will appreciate that Armstrong has captured the physical essence of both train and alleyway. Moreover, her portrait of a random female jogger is uncharitably perfect. But most profound of all is her treatment of a protagonist coping with the aftermath of a tragedy; it’s sobering and real against the aforementioned dingy backdrop.
Finalmente, can I humbly suggest that when you read Oisin Fagan’s Subject, please do so when you are ebullient. Subject dragged me down into a very dark place with what I think is graveyard humour. The realism of Subject hurts the reader; spits in your eye as it ‘fesses’ up to how shitty life can be for an ordinary bloke. Fagan masterfully paints the ordinariness, mundaneness and mediocrity for average said bloke with a savageness that is simultaneously macabre yet commonplace – if that makes sense. It’s like you become acclimatised to something so you no longer find it appalling but always slightly unsettling. Accepting your lot, sinking, bouncing back, sinking again before finding an even keel of humdrum is a big ask for any poor guy; weaving the turgid journey into words and sentences that make the reader feel that the protagonist is in the psychiatrist’s chair and that the reader is the psychiatrist is a marvellous feat.
Review of stories 1-4 can be read on: http://www.oldfilibuster.com/young-irelanders-edited-by-dave-lordan-stories-1-4.html
Review of stories 5-8 can be read on: http://www.oldfilibuster.com/young-irelanders-edited-by-dave-lordan-stories-5-8.html
I have done my duty; all twelve stories reviewed. I am thinking that these last four stories prove the point that reading good fiction is one of the best ways to understand the human condition. These are the kind of stories that articulate what many people feel but cannot put into words themselves. They also show how mundanity, like a stickleback, can travel with you, making it immaterial whether you are in New York or Granard, London or Amsterdam. Hence, these are the kind of stories that not only add to the literary store but will make many readers feel that they are not alone. You could call it public service publishing! See what you think yourself.
Take the odd trio - three dysfunctional lads sharing a flat who become ‘friends by mistake’ in Alan McMonagle’s Remark – brilliant. The effect of bread dipped in poteen brings us into the realm of the absurd – and a very welcome realm this is for me. On consuming the strange culinary bedfellows (bread and poteen, that is), the lads weep instantaneously for no apparent reason; its effects as dramatic and as random as the bottle helpfully labelled ‘DRINK ME’ in chapter one of Alice in Wonderland. As you read this story you will ask yourself these few questions – what is real? What is imaginary? What dreams are attainable and what dreams are fantastical? To be young is to dare to dream, to exaggerate, to ‘blow your trumpet’ very loudly, and the odd trio do this magnificently. As is frequently the case; one lad is more insane, irrational, and unpredictable than his flatmates. It was always thus; isn’t that why they always put three men on an offshore lighthouse? Furthermore, this trio exude a faint whiff of Stephen Dedalus, Buck Mulligan and Haines sharing that Martello tower in Ulysses; there is even mention of a daily milk delivery in both – although the old milkmaid in Sandycove is no competition for the lovely Mary P in Remark. Like Dedalus, Eric is the one with the money. There’s also that religion thing playing out in the background with Dedalus and Madigan. Of course, the most hilarious and cleverest aspect of Remark is that in parallel with the real goings on is the meteoric rise to fame of an iconic, alter ego rock band.
If Sydney Weinberg were a tailor she would be plying her trade on Savile Row where the final article has to be impeccably crafted. Omen in the Bone upholds the traditions of fine storytelling but does so in a contemporary setting; it sometimes drew my mind back to Auster’s New York Trilogy or even E.L. Doctorow. On many occasions, a sentence resembles a clever execution of stitching to make something awkward look polished – “Her words were precise and brilliant, he felt, but he was too stoned to retain them; he was left only with the impression of her masterful voice juxtaposed against his wavering one, like a music teacher demonstrating scales.” This is a long story that comes full circle in a most unexpected way. At one level you could say that Omen in the Bone is a psychological study of a young man, but to a large extent, it is what hangs off of this study that makes for a marvellous commentary on some aspects of being young in modern Europe – what ties us; what we want to shed. When it comes to the adventures of young men I always have a weakness for the rollicking escapades of Fielding’s Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones, but Weinberg has pulled me firmly into the concerns of 2015.
If Sydney Weinberg is an adroit tailor then Sheila Armstrong is a dexterous bricklayer. Maybe this allusion springs to mind because I recently finished Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich – a short book incidentally that took me far too long to read! Perhaps the grimness of a well-used toilet on an intercity train or the burgeoning seediness of a Dublin alleyway beside the Coronor’s Court equals the Siberian labour camp in actualité. But no; it’s the aftertaste of the precision and perfection of Denisovich’s bricklaying that lingers in my subconscious as I admire the craft that is the writing in Armstrong’s The Tender Mercies of its Peoples. Anyone who has held their breath to run through that alleyway between South Frederick Street and Dawson Street or has succumbed to the disquiet of a full bladder on an intercity train will appreciate that Armstrong has captured the physical essence of both train and alleyway. Moreover, her portrait of a random female jogger is uncharitably perfect. But most profound of all is her treatment of a protagonist coping with the aftermath of a tragedy; it’s sobering and real against the aforementioned dingy backdrop.
Finalmente, can I humbly suggest that when you read Oisin Fagan’s Subject, please do so when you are ebullient. Subject dragged me down into a very dark place with what I think is graveyard humour. The realism of Subject hurts the reader; spits in your eye as it ‘fesses’ up to how shitty life can be for an ordinary bloke. Fagan masterfully paints the ordinariness, mundaneness and mediocrity for average said bloke with a savageness that is simultaneously macabre yet commonplace – if that makes sense. It’s like you become acclimatised to something so you no longer find it appalling but always slightly unsettling. Accepting your lot, sinking, bouncing back, sinking again before finding an even keel of humdrum is a big ask for any poor guy; weaving the turgid journey into words and sentences that make the reader feel that the protagonist is in the psychiatrist’s chair and that the reader is the psychiatrist is a marvellous feat.
Review of stories 1-4 can be read on: http://www.oldfilibuster.com/young-irelanders-edited-by-dave-lordan-stories-1-4.html
Review of stories 5-8 can be read on: http://www.oldfilibuster.com/young-irelanders-edited-by-dave-lordan-stories-5-8.html
