Read Ireland Book Reviews
Issue 380 - 2 June 2007
Appletree Classics
A Drama in Muslin by George Moore
Paperback; 11 Euro / 15 USD / 8 UK; 266 pages
A work of quite remarkable range, George Moore's first Irish novel is at once a deeply felt response to the tragic situation of the women of Anglo-Ireland and an exposure of an entire society and the system which underpins it. The 'muslin martyrs' of the novel are the numerous unmarried daughters of the Anglo-Irish gentry, and Moore, with a characteristic blend of sympathetic insight and almost feline delight, depicts these women at their husband-hunting activities, both in the rural Big House settings and during the festive events of the Dublin "season" to which the debutantes flocked. Rich in language, A Drama in Muslin constantly delights with its satirical effects and vivid period detail. Moore excelled at large set-piece scenes and so we encounter stately Dublin drawing-rooms and a lively 'Spinsters' Ball' at Ballinasloe. His perfect depiction of the last days of life in the 'Big House' and the new order is encapsulated in his heroine's story of escape from privileged but stifling Ascendancy Ireland to life as a doctor's wife in London.
Hurrish by Emily Lawless
Paperback; 11 Euro / 15 USD / 8 UK; 208 pages [Add To Basket]
The unusual title of this compelling novel is derived from its hero, Horatio O'Brien, who is familiarly known to his family and friends as "Hurrish". Hurrish is a gentle giant of a man who farms a smallholding in the Burren district of Co. Clare. Emily Lawless, offers a violent tale of local rivalries about land, resulting in brutal confrontations and, finally, murder. The protagonists of this setting are seen as victims of a disorderly society and which mistrust of the law leads inevitably to brutality and chaos. The author's own antagonism to the Land League, set up to better the lot of impoverished smallholders, is clear, yet she does not exonerate the colonial authority from blame either.
Fardorougha the Miser by William Carleton
11 Euro / 15 USD / 8 UK; 240 pages
In 1839 Fardorougha the Miser was published in Ireland to critical acclaim; since then this novel has continued to absorb readers with its terrible tale of obsession and greed. Fardorougha Donovan and his wife, Honor, have been married all of thirteen years and are childless. Honor continues to pray that she will bear a child, while her husband abandons such hopes, giving himself over to the accumulation of wealth through usury and other exactions inflicted upon poorer neighbours... Offering a compelling analysis of a tormented individual and his ruinous obsession, William Carleton reveals the chaotic Ireland of pre-Famine days, an Ireland ill-governed and prey to the lawless terror of such anarchic gangs as the Whiteboys.
Ormond by Maria Edgeworth
Paperback; 11 Euro / 15 USD / 8 UK; 256 pages [Add To Basket]
Ormond, the last of Maria Edgeworth's four brilliantly comic Irish novels, was published in 1817, the year of her beloved father's death. In Harry Ormond, the yound hero of the book, Edgeworth offers a well0born young man in search of his Anglo-Irish identity, an identity that must struggle against the social mores of the day. He is provided with various possible allegiances, Sir Ulick O'Shane of Castle Hermitage is a hard-drinking, calculating unionist politician. Directly contrasted with him is one of Edgeworth's most celebrated characters, King Corny of the Black Islands, an independently eccentric lord of a realm where lawless freedom prevails.
The Nowlans by John Banim
Paperback; 11 Euro / 15 USD / 8 UK; 256 pages
"A powerful novel, The Nowlans is, for its period, surprisingly frank in its treatment of sexual frustration and the strains of clerical celibacy. In John Nowlan, Banim charts with great boldness and considerable psychological insight violent, sensual impulses, such as those which torment Hardy's Jude Fawley and Joyce's Stephen Dedalus. Through the harrowing personal struggles of "priest John", Banim illuminates the sectarian tensions of the Ireland of his day - an Ireland which saw the proselytising activities of the "New Reformation " in full swing, an Ireland where all that was solid and respectable was also Protestant and where the vast majority of the people were Catholics, struggling desperately to achieve some sort of civic identity for the first time since the inception of the penal laws. A compelling work, The Nowlans veers between tragic realism and heady melodrama. Torn between his love for Letty Adams and his duty to his clerical vocation, John Nowlan is one of the most memorable characters to be found in early nineteenth-century Irish fiction."
Lord Kilgobbin by Charles Lever
Paperback; 11 Euro / 15 USD / 8 UK; 444 pages
A work of unusual and complex range, Lord Kilgobbin was Lever's last novel and was published in the year of his death, 1872. With its settings spanning the Irish midlands to imperial London, and Turkey to Greece, the book's heroine, Nina Kostalergi, emerges as the daughter of an Irish gentlewoman and a Delos prince. When the novel first appeared the abortive Fenian Rising of 1867 was still fresh in the public mind, and Lever spins a gripping tale of Irish politics in a context of imperial negotiations.
Flann O'Brien Reissues:
The Third Policeman
Paperback; 11 Euro; 15 USD / 8 UK; 206 pages [Add To Basket]
A masterpiece of black humour from the renown comic and acclaimed author of 'At Swim-Two-Birds' -- Flann O'Brien. A thriller, a hilarious comic satire about an archetypal village police force, a surrealistic vision of eternity, the story of a tender, brief, unrequited love affair between a man and his bicycle, and a chilling fable of unending guilt, 'The Third Policeman' is comparable only to 'Alice in Wonderland' as an allegory of the absurd. Distinguished by endless comic invention and its delicate balancing of logic and fantasy, 'The Third Policeman' is unique in the English language.
The Dalkey Arcive
Paperback; 11 Euro / 15 USD / 8 UK; 192 pages [Add To Basket]
From the author of the classic novel 'At-Swim-Two-Birds' comes this ingenious tale which follows the mad and absurd ambitions of a scientist determined to destroy the world. Flann O'Brien's third novel, 'The Dalkey Archive' is a riotous depiction of the extraordinary events surrounding theologian and mad scientist De Selby's attempt to destroy the world by removing all the oxygen from the atmosphere. Only Michael Shaughnessy, 'a lowly civil servant', and James Joyce, alive and well and working as a barman in the nearby seaside resort of Skerries, can stop the inimitable De Selby in his tracks.
The Best of Myles
Paperback;11 Euro / 15 USD / 8 UK; 400 pages [Add To Basket]
Under the pseudonym Myles na Gopaleen, Flann O' Brien wrote a daily column in the 'Irish Times' called 'Cruiskeen Lawn' for over twenty years which hilariously satirised the absurdities and solemnities of Dublin life. With shameless irony and relentless high spirits Myles' 'Cruiskeen Lawn' became the most feared, respected and uproarious newspaper column in the whole of Ireland from its first appearance in 1940 until his death in 1966. This wonderful selection from the 'Cruiskeen Lawn' columns is a modern classic that will appeal to lovers of absurdity and sharp comic observation everywhere.
At Swim Two Birds
Paperback; 14 Euro / 19 USD / 10 UK; [Add To Basket]
The undergradute narrator of this novel lives with his uncle in Dublin, drinks too much and invents stories peopled with hilarious and unlikely characters, one of whom creates a means by which women can give birth to full-grown people.
Spoken Word on CD:
Almost Everything by Patrick Kavanagh
22 Euro / 28 USD / 14 UK; Audio CD [Add To Basket]
Patrick Kavanagh, the great rural poet, was born in County Monaghan in 1905 and died in Dublin in 1967. His life was spent almost equally between the two places. On this record he speaks of his life in Dublin and reads selections from his poetry.
Tracks: 1. Autobiographical Prose, Introduced by a song 'If ever you go to Dublin Town' Poems 2. The Same Again 3. Jungle 4. Narcissus and the Woman 5. Epic 6. God in Woman 7. Kerr's Ass 8. Peace 9. The Hospital 10. On The Death of Jim Larkin 11. Extract From 'The Great Hunger' 12. Living in the Country; Part One 13. Dear Folks 14. I Learned, I Learned 15. About Reason, Maybe 16. To Hell With Commonsense 17. October 18. Come Dance With Kitty Stobling 19. Prelude 20. Having Confessed
Recorded in Ireland by an Comhlacht Taifeadadh Tta, for Claddagh Records. Produced and edited by Proinsias Mac Aonghusa.
Beyond the Pale by Austin Clarke
22 Euro / 28 USD / 14 UK; Audio CD [Add To Basket]
Austin Clarke, poet and playwright, is one of the major figures of twentieth century Irish literature. He is respected both as an original poet and for his delicate translations from the Irish. Examples of each are included on this record.
Tracks: 1. Night and Morning 2. The Scholar 3. Ancient Lights 4. The Envy of Poor Lovers 5. The Blackbird of Derrycairn 6. Mabel Kelly 7. Peggy Browne 8. Breedeen 9. The Abbey Theatre Fire 10. Irish-American Dignitary 11. The Flock at Dawn 12. Mount Parnassus 13. Over Wales 14. Burial of an Irish President 15. Cypress Grove 16. Marriage 17. Japanese Print 18. Beyond the Pale
Recorded by Gene Martin of Peter Hunt Studios, Dublin, 1964 for Claddagh Records Ltd
MacGowran Speaking Beckett
22 Euro / 28 USD / 14 UK; Audio CD [Add To Basket]
Claddagh is proud to release, for the first time on CD, a great recording of Jack MacGowran reading from the works of Samuel Beckett. MacGowran in his time was the foremost interpreter of Beckett’s work, and the recording sessions were personally supervised by Beckett. Beckett’s nephews played programme music on organ and flute, and Beckett himself banged a gong. MacGowran’s voice is a beautiful instrument, and he plays perfectly on it the absurdly tragic humour of the author.
Tracks: 1. from Malone Dies 2. from Watt 3. from an Abandoned Work 4. from Embers 5. from Molloy (1) 6. from Molloy (2) 7. from Endgame (1) 8. from Endgame (2) 9. from The Unnamable 10. Echo's Bones Read by Jack MacGowran John Beckett: harmonium Edward Beckett: flute Samuel Beckett: gong The music played is Quartet in D minor by Schubert
The Rough Field by John Montague
22 Euro / 28 USD / 14 UK; Audio CD [Add To Basket]
John Montague has published twelve volumes of verse. In 1998 he was the first to be appointed to the prestigious Ireland Chair of Poetry. One of his poems, The Rough Field, begun in 1960, was performed live in the Round House, Chalk Farm, London, in July 1973. The performance was recorded by Claddagh Records and the readers were John Montague, Seamus Heaney, Benedict Kiely, Tom MacGurk and Patrick Magee. Incidental music was played by The Chieftains. The poem is an epic investigating the wars between the chieftains of Ulster and the Elizabethan planters in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and it explores the lives and landscapes of their descendants. Throughout, the younger Montague searches for his own and his people's place among this history. An astonishing performance by some of the most familiar voices in Ireland - although they were all much younger then.
Tracks: 1. Introduction 2. Home Again 3. The Leaping Fire 4. The Bread God 5. A Severed Head 6. The Fault 7. A Good Night 8. The New Omagh Road 9. Patriotic Suite 10. A New Siege 11. The Wild Dog Rose 12. Driving South 13. Music by the Chieftains
The Poet and the Piper by Seamus Heaney and Liam O’Flynn
22 Euro / 28 USD / 14 UK; Audio CD [Add To Basket]
Seamus Heaney, the Derry poet, holder of the Nobel Laureate for Literature, and Liam O’Flynn, the internationally acclaimed uilleann piper have collaborated to produce an album of poetry and music, with Heaney (a great reader) reciting his own lines and O’Flynn playing the uilleann pipes. Not just a number of poems and tunes thrown together – the two artists laboured hard to achieve a coherent piece of work, and they succeeded. It’s a graceful, skilful performance that deserves to be listened to again and again.
Tracks: 1. The Given Note / Port na bPúcaí 2. Digging 3. Bogland 4. Árdaí Chuain 5. At the Wellhead 6. The Otter 7. The Rolling Wave / The Hag's Money 8. The Yellow Bittern (An Bonnán Buí) 9. The Yellow Bittern / The Broken Pledge 10. The Glamoured (Gile na Gile) 11. Aisling Gheal 12. The Tollund Man 13. Midterm Break 14. Sliabh Gallon's Brae 15. Clearances 3 16. Clearances 5 17. Cronán na Máthar 18. Two Lorries 19. The Humours of Castlebernard / The Bank of Turf 20. A Call 21. Seeing Things - Section 3 22. Fáinne Geal an Lae 23. St. Kevin and the Blackbird 24. Open the Door for Three 25. The Annals Say 26. Postscript 27. Garret Barry's Reel / Seán Reid's Favourite
Seamus Heaney: poetry reading Liam O'Flynn: uilleann pipes, whistle Rod McVey: harmonium Stephen Cooney: guitar Music producer: Liam O'Flynn, Poetry producer: Seamus Heaney Recorded at The Old Mill Nass, Co Kildare & Westland and Windmill Lane Studios, Dublin
With Respect to Mr. Joyce by David Norris
22 Euro / 28 USD / 14 UK; Audio CD [Add To Basket]
‘It is hard to imagine that anyone in the world can do a better job of bringing alive the writings of james joyce than david norris. he has played an enormours part in interpreting the works of the great writer for thousands who othersise might be intimidated by such apparently difficult books.’ From Gerald Davis.
Gregory Carr, Independent Bookseller
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