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Literary Reviews - 2005 Estudios Irlandeses, Number 1, 2006, pp. 141-155 ___________________________________________________________________ AEDEI Literary Reviews - 2005 Introduction by David Pierce ..........................................................................................................141 Irish Haiku by Chris Arthur (2005). James McGrath .......................................................................143 The Sea by John Banville (2005). Laura P.Z. Izarra ........................................................................145 Sheila-na-Gigs: Unravelling an Enigma by Barbara Freitag (2004). Luz Mar González ...............148 The Irish Writer and the World by Declan Kiberd (2005). Wolfgang Wicht ...................................150 Memoir by John McGahern (2005). Brian Cosgrove ......................................................................152 In the Shadow of the Ombú Tree by Hugh Fitzgerald Ryan (2005). Edmundo Murray ...................154 Copyright (c) 2006 by the authors. This text may be archived and redistributed both in electronic form and in hard copy, provided that the authors and journal are properly cited and no fee is charged for access. Introduction months later. Any book by John McGahern is By David Pierce, 31 January 2006 also worth noticing and I am pleased to see Brian Cosgrove’s review of his memoirs in this For Issue 1 of Estudios Irlandeses we have issue. Less obvious are some of the other kept the number of reviews limited to a half- choices. Next year I will include more poetry dozen. In future issues we hope to expand this and drama. number and provide more substantial space in keeping with the ambitions of an internet 2005 witnessed a continuing expansion of the journal for the contemporary world. Input and Irish list of publications from the usual feedback would be much appreciated at this publishing houses with new work by leading stage, and let me say we have begun receiving writers as well as less familiar names. In terms books from authors and publishers. of poetry, there were new volumes by Derek Mahon (Harbour Lights) and Rita Ann Higgins My primary concern for this issue was to (Throw in the Vowels), and a new translation ensure that reviewers were a mix of the of Brian Merriman’s The Midnight Court by acknowledged scholars drawn from across Ciaran Carson. Also of note here was Padraic Europe and the wider world as well as younger Fallon: A Poet’s Journal, edited by Brian scholars learning the trade. The titles chosen Fallon. In terms of fiction, 2005 also gave us for review also reflect what one expects to be Jennifer Johnston’s Grace and Truth, reviewed as well as less familiar works. In this Sebastian Barry’s A Long Long Way, and way, readers can deepen or extend their Murphy’s Revenge, another novel by Colin understanding of what is currently being Bateman and a sequel to Murphy’s Law. written in a context that resists too much stress Autobiographies were in plentiful supply on hierarchies or established order. Irish including one by James Liddy and another by studies is a growing field and something of its Thomas Lynch entitled Booking Passage: We dynamism and scope is a challenge for those Irish and Americans. There were new seeking to reflect it. Needless to say, with a biographies of the Gore-Booths of Lissadell by restricted number of reviews here, there is no Dermot James, of James Connolly by Donal attempt at comprehensiveness. If one title Nevin, and Edward Carson by Geoffrey Lewis. stands out in 2005 it would have to be John The Troubles rightly continue to exercise Banville’s The Sea, but I didn’t know when I writers, critics, and historians. In Bloody asked Laura Izarra to review it in September Sunday, Patrick Hayes and Jim Campbell that it would win the Man Booker Prize two return to an event which won’t lie down. __________________________________ ISSN 1699-311X 142 Geoffrey Beattie’s autobiography draws on his O’Toole, and Dialogues: Interviews with Northern Protestant background. In A Special Contemporary Women Artists by Katy Kind of Courage, Chris Ryan provides an Deepwell. Two books also caught my eye this account of the British Army bomb disposal year: The Disappearing Irish Cottage by Clive squadron. More upbeat, in London, the Simmons and Seamus Harkin, and Gerry National Portrait Gallery mounted an Smyth’s The Noisy Island: A Short History of exhibition on Ireland in Victorian London with Irish Popular Music. Perhaps the most an accompanying brochure written by Fintan spectacular event in drama was the Druid Cullen and Roy Foster entitled Conquering Theatre’s staging of the six plays of John England. Elsewhere, Bob Quinn produced a Millington Synge in Galway in July and then at book with the intriguing title The Atlantean the Edinburgh Festival. Elsewhere, the Irish: Ireland’s Oriental and Maritime productions of Irish drama in 2005 I Heritage. For bibliophiles, Clare Hutton edited particularly enjoyed were the Hull Truck a collection of essays on The Irish Book in the production of Martin McDonagh’s The Twentieth Century. Also useful for those of us Lonesome West and Adrian Noble’s production in the academic community were Dictionary of in London of Brian Friel’s The Home Place. Munster Women Writers, edited by Tina 143 Irish Haiku by Chris Arthur (illustrated by that of the literalist opposers. Yet, Arthur Jeff Hall III). (The Davies Group, writes that “Within the literal, another voice is Publishers, 2005) pp.234 + xxiv always singing”, and this essay’s beautifully Reviewer: James McGrath subtle imagery redeems the harshness of its scepticism. To begin unpacking the In his third book of prose reflections, Chris metaphorical implications of ‘Miracles’ and Arthur reminds us that “essay derives from other essays is for the reader, not the reviewer; essai, to experiment”, and uses the term ‘Irish it is enough here to point to Arthur’s implicit haiku’ to define his distinctive approach to depiction of the war-weary, ever-questioning ‘creative non-fiction’. Strongly influenced by Erskine as one crying in the wilderness to Zen Buddhism, he cites haiku as the supreme exemplify the symbolic resonances of this verbal testimony to “seeing what’s here, right book. now”. Yet though this poet’s prose is frequently epiphanic in haiku-like moments, he Arthur asserts that “Imagination and empathy, does more than see (and show): he as much as anything inquiry yields, are what philosophizes. Thought is the natural we rely on to make history”, and in ‘Obelisk’, consequence of perception in these ten subtly illustrates how. He writes of his great-uncle, interrelating essays; they adopt gradually whose brief existence was seldom mentioned Joycean structures in their shifts of focus, but by the family, due to his apparent suicide. represent less streams of consciousness, being Arthur’s archival investigations provide much more like meditations. insight into attitudes to this subject (and to police and clergy) in nineteenth-century For Arthur, an important aspect of the present Antrim, and his gradual disclosure of pivotal is memory, and though he now resides on the details in his search to understand this man’s British mainland, his Protestant upbringing in death is immaculately judged. The tragedy is Antrim forms the background of Irish Haiku. not diminished by his ‘plotting’ of the However, he appears more interested in how information, but enhanced by it; profoundly so individuals form rather than are formed by when he acknowledges that the mystery may cultures. Arthur chronicles formative events in never be resolved. This signifies a fundamental Ulster’s history (particularly his hometown, quality of Irish Haiku: it offers no clean Lisburn), but considers the Presbyterian conclusions, but re-introductions to the Northern psyche primarily by “concentrating familiar: “the real is also remarkably elusive”. on the margins”, invoking a fascinating cast of outsiders. The margins of personal memory are also explored. In ‘What Did You Say?’, Arthur The marginalised figure who (in ‘Miracles’) struggles to recall fragments of conversation most illuminates the religious attitudes that with his late father, but identifies an intriguing dominated late twentieth-century Ulster is aspect of how language is preserved when he Brother Erskine, Arthur’s former school recollects little more than the Ulster dialect chaplain. Brother Erskine had served as a terms he used. In evoking his local habitation commander in the Sahara desert and would tell within an intellectual narrative, Arthur honours his pupils: “Go there before you die, brothers, Antrim much as Richard Hoggart does Leeds. stand in its vastness at night”. Perhaps significantly, Erskine “taught English as well One of Arthur’s most appealing strengths is his as scripture”; he sparked controversy in 1970 ability to create atmospheres which, though when, preaching in Belfast, he suggested that gentle, are tacitly dark, as he shifts between the miracles were not to be understood as remote cottages, graveyards, canals, shops, literal events, which elicited vehement gardens, and streets. Irish Haiku is manifest objection from the Presbyterian Church and with a sense of stillness; partly because the local media. Arthur intuits that Erskine, like setting is essentially the past. Yet, Arthur’s himself, could not believe in “violation[s] of Ulster remains unsentimentalized. His the laws of nature”, but instead saw miracles in uncompromising honesty and recognition of “nature and its laws themselves”. Arthur’s present concerns reflect the Zen-like clarity of exposition of this marks the only compromise his outlook, as well as that of his style. of his otherwise unobtrusive narrative style; his In ‘How to See a Horse’, a consideration of the defence of Erskine’s liberalist stance is image, signifier and even biological expressed with dogmatism almost reflecting 144 consistency of this mammal, Arthur succeeds meditative style; to return, with emphasis, to in the challenging practice of writing about a his earlier comment: “imagination and painting before encouraging us to see through empathy” are “what we rely on to make modes of communication by seeing the modes history”.
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