ABOUT BOOKS AND AUTHORS.
After almost two years, I am resurrecting this blog; now, rather than writing miscellaneous random thoughts and opinions, I'm focusing on books that are usually not reviewed in the NYRB or the LRB or on pop listings - - books I am inspired to read - - and their authors as well as related subjects. The first:
"The Dead Republic," by Roddy Doyle. Viking 2010.
"If you're trapped in the dream of the other, you're fucked." Gilles Deleuze.*
I am now a few pages from the end of the last chapter in "The Dead Republic," the final novel of Roddy Doyle's trilogy - - a fictional history of the Irish Republican Army as told in first person by Henry Smart, a participant in the 1916 Easter Rebellion. (My paternal grandparents immigrated to the US from Ireland in the early 1800s.) Two of Doyle's books - -"The Snapper" about an Irish-Catholic family whose unmarried daughter gets pregnant, and "The Commitments" where a bunch of Irish lads start a rock-band - - had been made into wonderful films. I saw both and loved them.
Doyle's trilogy spans the decades between the early 20th Century (Smart's birth) to its end. The first of the three novels, "A Star Called Henry," reads much like a Frank McCourt depiction of the struggles of Irish poor with a hefty mix of Dickens; it follows little Henry, his sad, worn, mother, father (a wooden-legged bouncer for a bordello, and hit man for the madam who gets the hit list from her rich landlord), and his five year-old younger brother, Victor through all kinds of hardships. When the brothers are on the run from the law, Henry faces the choice of leaving the ailing Victor under a bridge. Victor's last cough haunts Henry to the end of his life.
Pre-teen Henry falls in love with Miss O'Shea, his Catholic school lay teacher, who later becomes his lover and side-kick during the rebellion. He, like his father, end ups a heartless killer- - but for the Cause, as well as an expert in guerrilla warfare. He is a looker, with dark hair and intense blue eyes, who knows how to carry himself, even in dead husbands' suits, and is a magnet for women. Constantly on the run from pro-Brit Irish, the Blacks and Tans, or in hiding, he leaves Ireland for America where he feels he will be safe, but leaves Miss O'Shea behind. Lovely scenes in this first book are of Henry and Miss O'Shea fighting as rebels, working, playing, and riding a bike (she on the handlebars carrying the weapons) on Ireland's suburban back roads.
The second book,"Oh, Play That Thing," sees Henry in New York and Chicago during prohibition and the depression. He becomes Louis Armstrong's bodyguard long before the musician is famous. To survive and to pay Louis's debts, they burgle the homes of the rich. Doyle writes in the Irish vernacular of his characters. I often feel as though I'm on a fast-moving train trying to keep up with pace of the dialogue, the constantly shifting scenes and times. I have to stop and take a breath. There's lots of swearing and racial epithets; yet beautiful, extraordinarily colorful, and humorous writing throughout. Doyle captures the heartbreak of the social struggles between the rich and poor against an oppressive government, the extreme measures ordinary people are forced to take just to have a place to sleep, food, and a means to protect themselves and their families when there are no jobs, not even the most menial. His renderings of the moods, music, early New York street life, shabby tenement walk-ups, the roof pigeon and sandwich-board carrier wars, and the alcoholism during prohibition put you right there with Henry Smart.
Henry's been found in America by men who want him dead. He eludes them for decades by riding the rails all over the country, now with a family, from whom he gets separated in a harrowing episode. At fifty, he feels old; he's bereaved and gives up. He walks into the desert to die unaware that he is on a John Ford movie location. Henry Fonda, starring in the film, walks off the set to take a leak and almost pisses on Smart, buried in the sand, dehydrated and near death. (Yes, there is a lot of improbable funny stuff in his books, but he makes them work.) Ford, Irish himself, learns of Smart's history and wants to make a film about him. They and the film crew fly to Ireland.
Doyle's final book, "The Dead Republic," begins with Smart's alliance with Ford. Conflict arises between them over Smart's true history and the fictional one Ford creates for the film, "The Quiet Man," starring John Wayne as Smart and Maureen O'Hara, as Miss O'Shea. Which makes Henry Smart angry enough to want lethal revenge. Doyle shows his knowledge of film making by including Ford's hassles with studios, and illustrates sets for "Rio Grande," another Ford film, without detracting from the gist of his novel. As in samurai novels where the hero, after years of fighting and killing enemies, disappears in the countryside to grow flowers, so Henry Smart disappears in a small town, becomes a part-time gardener and a full-time janitor at a boys school. Through Henry's eyes, we see the rise of Thatcherism; and as in the US, the disintegration of the system; the impact of drugs on students and people in general; the bankers, corporations, and commercial property owners getting richer. Pieces of Henry's past come together in a nursing home. He is still honored as the original hero of the IRA, but like what happened in Ford's film, he's portrayed by his adoring public as a different person who'd lived someone else's life. *Hence, the above quote.
Next: "Forever Flowing," by Vasily Grossman, translated from Russian by Thomas P. Whitney, 1986. First published in 1970 in Russian as "Vse Techet." A Soviet political prisoner has returned to "freedom" after thirty years in Arctic labor camps. What it has meant to be a Russian throughout its history, especially since October 1917. ". . . . Conceived and written with a power unmatched in contemporary Russian literature." Grossman's most famous book, "Life and Fate," was censored by the Soviet Union before publication and its galleys thought destroyed. He was forced into hiding. However, decades later, the original was found in Soviet Archives and was published in Russia and translated into English. "Forever Flowing" was the last of Grossman's novels. He died in 1964.
posted by Gaetana @ 1:24 PM
