Word: mcgahern
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...McGahern is one of Ireland’s most prominent contemporary writers, claiming an accompanying slew of awards and visiting fellowships. Most of his novels unfold in Irish villages, the sort of quiet rural places where one generation stays and tends the farm while the children leave to make a life in a faraway city. Don’t expect quaintness though: the villages are as modern-minded as Dublin or London. There is a lot of “post-” to the small lakeside village of By the Lake: post-World War II, post-migration, post...
...stories are not, however, mere mimetic renditions of an unordered world, presented to readers as simple records of life. Although they generally are composed of plot and dialogue only, without narrative interpretation or explanation of the events they contain, Mr. McGahern says that they are not bereft of an attempt to answer questions, only that they are bereft of the actual answers. "I would think that all good writing makes suggestions," he says, advancing his definition of quality in literature, "and all bad writing gives answers. In that sense, the images comment...
Stories make clear that Mr. McGahern is not a writer who has assembled a fixed view of the universe and packaged it for us neatly. Often the stories show lives that seem to move on parallel lines but end up in vastly different places. In "Peaches," a marriage stinks like the dead shark festering near the unnamed couple's house. They live in a universe where everthing has been decided for them, and decided badly. But in "Bank Holiday," Patrick and Mary manage to find unexpected reprieve from the routine of life, ending up "so tired and happy that...
...McGahern writes with a pure and plain grace, lighting up the spots of life hidden in confused, blundering places. In both "Wheels" and "Gold Watch," he shows two narrators, each in the process of becoming finally, completely estranged his father. In "Wheels," the narrator leaves, free and alone; "Gold Watch" ends with the narrator outside his father's house as the lights go out, newly married and happy in it. In each story, time continues exorably, and the prose carries the reader along effortlessly almost to the place that escapes us while engaged in the business of living. where time...
...McGahern is often described as a great Irish writer, but he see that as a foolish categorization." "Somebody who set himself up to be an Irish writer would be a fool," he said, speaking of himself, "because you're Irish anyhow. It's an accident, and the less said about it the better." If he is a great writer, this may be his greatness, that his stories concern themselves with people and not nations, things he can know that may speak to things he cannot. "The very sky, the speech, all those things I inherited from the fact that...