Recent Reads - October 2023

 

Be Mine by Richard Ford

****

This is supposed to be Ford’s last novel in the Frank Bascombe series. And it certainly has an elegiac feel to it with the ageing and infirm protagonist taking his dying son on a road trip to Mount Rushmore. Doesn’t sound like much fun but it’s Ford’s usual blend of acute observation and reflections on Middle America - and there is much humour in his rueful account of the difficult journey and the parade of characters they encounter as they traverse parts of America that rarely appear in popular fiction. Even though he’s a cranky old bollocks I would strongly recommend it.

A Thread of Violence by Mark O’Connell

*****

Probably one of the two most engrossing books I’ve read this year. It sound unpromising - revisiting the much trodden path around Malcolm MacArthur and his two brutal murders. However, it focuses less on the murders and more on the slippery MacArthur, his family background and his current post-jail circumstances. O’Connell explores his psychology and fails to reach a conclusion. MacArthur’s inability to accept his deeds as anything more than a momentary aberration and his complete absence of remorse and empathy certainly suggest sociopathy. He sees himself as above the common herd and the only motive we can ascribe to his deeds is his quaint notion that gentlemen should not be burdened with the need to work. It all makes for a riveting read. 

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch

****

My tip for this year’s Booker Prize. It’s set in the near future where an authoritarian government, complete with Stasi-type intelligence services, began to sort out their supporters from the dissidents. The resulting violence and turmoil create a very modern state of disruption and deprivation in our own Fair City and beyond. It’s told through the experiences of a particular family as they go from cosy middle-class comfort to dislocated refugees. A convincing and timely warning of how fragile our world is and how we must guard our freedoms. Lynch writes well and draws us into this highly credible dystopia. 

Bee Sting by Paul Murray

***

Another tale of the cosy certitudes of a middle-class family being smashed but this time it’s economic recession rather than a fascist government. Murray focuses on the gradual diminishing of a family’s material well-being and the consequent effect it has on the individuals in the family: mother selling her clothes on eBay, daughter hiding their alarming fall from riches from her friends etc. This is also a Booker nomination but I found it somewhat lighter and less absorbing than Lynch’s book. Mildly entertaining at best.

Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry

**

I must confess that I’ve never really warmed to Sebastian Barry as a novelist although I remember enjoying very much his play The Steward of Christendom. Perhaps the fact that I saw the version with Donal McCann in the lead role (at The Gate) helped. There is a certain straining for effect, trying too hard for the literary flourish in his writing, that I find grating. This novel got such good reviews I thought I’d try him again - the fact that it was set down the road (in Killiney) also encouraged me. But no, it just didn’t work for me. There was a decent story in there somewhere but I found the journey to get there tiresome. I finished it but it was a struggle.

The Wager by David Grann

*****

This was the second of the two most enjoyable books I’ve read this year. But a very different sort of book to Mark O’Connell’s. This is a ripping yarn. There are few psychological musings - just a highly readable account of of the privations suffered by the shipwrecked crew of a Royal Navy ship on an inhospitable island off Cape Horn. This was the 18th Century with strict hierarchies on board ship which slowly break down as those best equipped for survival come from the lower ranks. Hints of Lord of the Flies in there and Mutiny on the Bounty. The sources for Grann’s work included the detailed diaries kept by two of the survivors - one of whom was an ancestor of the poet Byron. So we got a couple of perspectives on all the main events and loads of attendant detail. There is even the added bonus of a very surprising ending.

The Singularities by John Banville

****

Banville just can’t let Malcolm MacArthur go - this is the fourth novel in which his doppelgänger Freddie Montgomery features. As always with Banville you can luxuriate in the fine writing and the waxing and waning of the narrative is unimportant as usual. There are many sly references to characters and places from his earlier novels - even as far back as his books on the cosmologists. Those familiar with Banville will nod knowingly, but it can be enjoyed without having consumed his back catalogue. The characters are well rendered and the setting lovingly depicted. He story kind of peters out when Freddie moves into the background but we don’t read Banville for a neat conclusion. The particularly ugly cover features an irregular black sphere and when I queried Banville about it at the Dalkey Book Festival he maintained that it represented a full-stop - so maybe this is his last go at MacArthur. 

Claire Keegan: Rocks Rocked in Dun Laoghaire

Entertaining event at the Pavilion Theatre in Dun Laoghaire last night. Claire Keegan was interviewed live on RTE’s Arena arts programme by its presenter Sean Rocks. She was not an easy ride for the amiable and always well-briefed presenter whose customary savoir faire was severely tested. His reasonable questions and mild assumptions frequently provoked tart responses. For instance when he spoke of her lucky break in having a family in the USA sponsor her studies over there, she responded that her own hard work had a lot to do with her success. In addition, her answers, like her novels, tended to be short and succinct leaving the unfortunate Rocks having to dip into his question bag more frequently than felt comfortable. She comes across as very self-possessed and a tad earnest - with little interest in playing the game as it’s usually done at these events where the interviewer lobs a safe question and the interviewee lobs back a bland answer and keeps the ball in play for a while. She did however do three fine readings from her books. Although she comes across as slightly humourless, there were flashes of dry wit. During a discussion of misogyny in Irish men she did aver that due to the smallness of her dating sample she would refrain from generalising. The full house was about 80% women - and they gave her an enthusiastic reception. I am a fan of her work and came away from the event an admirer of this doughty woman also. 

Great Expectations - Tempting Fate in Paris

There seems to be general optimism about that we will beat New Zealand in the Rugby World Cup quarter-final today. Anyone with a sense of history should be feeling a slight pessimism. I have been watching rugby since I was a schoolboy in CBC Cork in the late 1950s (saw Jack Kyle at Musgrave Park, saw Tommy Kiernan play scrum-half for UCC at the Mardyke, attended Ollie Campbell’s Triple Crown win in Landsdowne Road in 1982). I also marked the great Jerry Walsh at centre when I played a practice match for UCC minors against the senior team. In all my years watching, this is without question the best team we have ever had. There are no weak links. It’s a golden era - we now expect to win rather than hope to win, and have been rewarded with Championships, Grand Slams and regular wins against all the powerful rugby nations. But this match today is different and I’m sure all concerned feel the weight of history. We have never won a quarter-final in the World Cup and to do so we must beat the team with the best record in the competition. It’s not the all-conquering New Zealand of recent times but there is no such thing as a poor NZ team. Also, having won 17 matches in a row there is a statistical likelihood that at some stage we are going to come undone. I feel that the match is going to be very close and could revolve around an injury to a crucial player or, more damagingly, a sending off. I’m sure Peter O’Mahoney has been warned to button his lip around Wayne Barnes who always considers himself to be the most important person on the pitch and reacts badly to lip. There have been bitter disappointments over the years. I was at Landsdowne Road in 1991 when we came closest to a semi-final. We threw away a winning chance against Australia in the last minute. (If only Saunders had found touch.) We had never been expected to win that match so perhaps the players were free of the kind of pressure our guys will face today. One factor may prove useful. We have injected some New Zealand blood into our our team in the form of Lowe, Aki and Gibson-Park. They carry that winning DNA that could  tip the balance in a match that’s sure to be close. If we win, no matter what happens next it will be seen as a great campaign. If we lose, a nation will go into mourning. 

Thus Spoke Jeremiah.

Richard Ford is a Cranky Old Bollocks But…

 I’ve read most of Richard Ford’s novels over the years and have always enjoyed his meandering, observational style. He documents Middle America with a keen eye for humbug and bigotry but also with a wry acceptance. He’s a bird watcher. His novels ignore mostly the over heated and over-written-about East and West Coasts and focuses on the mundane lifes of low achievers and regular Joes in the heartland. We follow his modest Everyman Frank Bascombe as he goes through life in five of his novels and in his latest novel, Be Mine, Frank is facing the final curtain. He visited the Dalkey Book Festival in the summer and I experienced first hand his reputation for being a cranky old bollocks when I asked him a question about a negative review by Claire Lowdon in the TLS. I persisted in making my point, a tad after it was clear he wasn’t having it, and experienced the full force of his impressive wrath.  I had bought his latest novel Be Mine a few weeks before and following my very public reading from the altar in the Dalkey Town Hall I was disinclined to read it. However, I found myself short-taken and bookless one night so I decided to forgive him and give it a try. The basic premise of the book sounds unpromising: a sick and ageing Frank Bascombe takes his dying and autistic son on a final road trip to Mount Rushmore. What fun we think. But astonishingly it is fun and turns out to be one of his most densely packed and amusing books. Check it out.