Related News
An old-fashioned delight
By Rachel Nolan |
October 2, 2011, Sunday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
SO many people have emigrated from Ireland over the centuries that the diaspora far outnumbers those in the home country. The old joke goes that if all Irish returned, the island would sink under their weight. Most departed to seek jobs. Others, like the narrator of "On Canaan's Side," Sebastian Barry's new novel, were chased out with IRA henchmen in hot pursuit.
As the book opens, 89-year-old Lilly Bere sits at her Formica kitchen table with only her scalded teapot for company. Stricken by the suicide of her grandson, she tries to manage her grief by writing an account of her life in a daybook. These entries add up to a novel with so many twists and killings and cases of mistaken identity that were it not for Lilly's musical language it might be mistaken for a thriller.
How did such a mild-mannered lady, then a teenager, come to be hounded out of Ireland? Her family was on the wrong side of history, Lilly records, and dangerously so. During the World War I, as Ireland swelled with rebels, it was not a good time to be a policeman in British employ as Lilly's father was. Worse, she was engaged to marry one of the 210,000 Irish men who fought the war in British khaki and came home to disgust and cries of "traitor." This soldier, Tadg Bere, was unmoved by the idea of freedom. "He did not believe in any new Ireland," she recalls. "He devoutly loved the old one."
Aided by Lilly's father, Tadg found employment with the most hated force in Irish history. "They barely had uniforms, and in the beginning wore bits and bobs of various forces, half army and half police, which is why they were dubbed the Black and Tans." Before long there was a price on his head, and the young couple fled to America. Lilly draws a veil over the crimes of that time, rather lamely concluding, "Perhaps in that moment, as Ireland stirred like a great creature in the sea, and altered her position, we should all have been taken out and shot, as a sort of kindness, a neatness." Throughout her years in the US, Lilly longs for the smell of heather, but never returns to Ireland.
The novel reads less like journal entries than like a monologue told in the melodic accent of Lilly's youth. Barry's novel feels old-fashioned with its sense that a story properly begins with childhood, contains all the events of life and ends with death. The beauty of this novel is that for all its murders and scents of Irish heather, it is not overwritten.
As the book opens, 89-year-old Lilly Bere sits at her Formica kitchen table with only her scalded teapot for company. Stricken by the suicide of her grandson, she tries to manage her grief by writing an account of her life in a daybook. These entries add up to a novel with so many twists and killings and cases of mistaken identity that were it not for Lilly's musical language it might be mistaken for a thriller.
How did such a mild-mannered lady, then a teenager, come to be hounded out of Ireland? Her family was on the wrong side of history, Lilly records, and dangerously so. During the World War I, as Ireland swelled with rebels, it was not a good time to be a policeman in British employ as Lilly's father was. Worse, she was engaged to marry one of the 210,000 Irish men who fought the war in British khaki and came home to disgust and cries of "traitor." This soldier, Tadg Bere, was unmoved by the idea of freedom. "He did not believe in any new Ireland," she recalls. "He devoutly loved the old one."
Aided by Lilly's father, Tadg found employment with the most hated force in Irish history. "They barely had uniforms, and in the beginning wore bits and bobs of various forces, half army and half police, which is why they were dubbed the Black and Tans." Before long there was a price on his head, and the young couple fled to America. Lilly draws a veil over the crimes of that time, rather lamely concluding, "Perhaps in that moment, as Ireland stirred like a great creature in the sea, and altered her position, we should all have been taken out and shot, as a sort of kindness, a neatness." Throughout her years in the US, Lilly longs for the smell of heather, but never returns to Ireland.
The novel reads less like journal entries than like a monologue told in the melodic accent of Lilly's youth. Barry's novel feels old-fashioned with its sense that a story properly begins with childhood, contains all the events of life and ends with death. The beauty of this novel is that for all its murders and scents of Irish heather, it is not overwritten.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
