THE NAMELESS DEAD

TITLE: THE NAMELESS DEAD

AUTHOR: BRIAN McGILLOWAY

Pages: 379

Date: 29/03/2014

Grade: 4+

Details: No. 5 Inspector Devlin

             A Dialogues Through Literature

             Reading group read

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The blurb:

“'You can't investigate the baby, Inspector. It's the law.' 

Declan Cleary's body has never been found, but everyone believes he was killed for informing on a friend over thirty years ago.

Now the Commission for Location of Victims' Remains is following a tip-off that he was buried on the small isle of Islandmore, in the middle of the River Foyle. Instead, the dig uncovers a baby's skeleton, and it doesn't look like death by natural causes. But evidence revealed by the Commission's activities cannot lead to prosecution. 

Inspector Devlin is torn. He has no desire to resurrect the violent divisions of the recent past. Neither can he let a suspected murderer go unpunished. Now the secret is out, more deaths follow. Devlin must trust his conscience - even when that puts those closest to him at terrible risk.”

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My thoughts:

The disappeared:

“Individuals who, during the early days of the Troubles in the North, had been targeted because of some slight, imagined or actual, against the local IRA commanders.”

This book is the fifth title in a series in which I haven’t read any of the previous stories. Although I didn’t feel that affected the way I experienced this book it is of course possible that my review would have been slightly different if I had read the book after the previous four.

This book has a lot going on between its covers. Inspector Devlin is overseeing a search for one of the disappeared when the body of a baby is found. Not only does the baby show signs of having been born with birth-defects, it is also clear she was murdered. The death of an innocent baby, even if it happened decades ago, is not something Devlin can ignore even if he does know that he can’t officially investigate the dead nor use anything he discovers in a prosecution.

Things get more complicated when the son of the ‘disappeared’ man they are searching for is murdered. The waters are muddied even further when a second man is found dead.

When several other babies are found buried, all with similar birth defects, the case reaches a new level of frustration for Devlin. He can’t help feeling that the man who was ‘disappeared’ decades ago, the babies and the recent murders are all connected in some way. But with the law as it stands, he is officially not allowed to investigate anything except the recent murders.

When everything is eventually revealed it does provide answers, but whether or not justice has been served is anybody’s guess.

It is clear from my description there is a lot going on in this book. The disappeared, unbaptised babies, a crying baby that doesn’t appear to exist, ‘normal’, present day murders, ghost estates, cross-border jurisdiction, and private issues in the Devlin household all add to the story in what, occasionally, seemed to be almost an overload of story-line. Having said that, I was impressed with the way in which the author managed to pull all those, apparently separate, issues together in what was a well plotted although not entirely satisfactory conclusion. I would love to say more about this and explain why I found the ending less than satisfactory but can’t do so without spoiling the story. All I say is that it had nothing to do with the writing or the plotting, and shouldn’t be a reason for anyone to not pick up the book.

This book did make me think though. I’ve been aware of the disappeared and the efforts to find them for as long as I’ve been living in Ireland. I have to admit though, that I hadn’t really given it any thought before reading this book. It is one hell of a dilemma. Of course everybody wants to find those who disappeared without a trace decades ago, if only so that their families at last have certainty and the opportunity to bury their dead. On the other hand, the price for that scant comfort – no investigation and no prosecution – seems incredibly high. Just as the fact that those who committed those murders are getting off without any punishment just feels wrong and very far removed from anything justice is supposed to be.

Overall I would call this a good mystery, filled with realistic characters and more than enough issues to ensure the discussion my reading group will be having next week should be lively.

A LONG LONG WAY

TITLE: A LONG LONG WAY

AUTHOR: SEBASTIAN BARRY

Pages: 292

Date: 25/06/2013

Grade: 4

Details: Book Club read for Dialogues

              Through Literature

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The blurb:

“In 1914, Willie Dunne, barely eighteen years old, leaves behind Dublin, his family, and the girl he plans to marry in order to enlist in the Allied forces and face the Germans on the Western Front. Once there, he encounters a horror of violence and gore he could not have imagined and sustains his spirit with only the words on the pages from home and the camaraderie of the mud-covered Irish boys who fight and die by his side.  Dimly aware of the political tensions that have grown in Ireland in his absence, Willie returns on leave to find a world split and ravaged by forces closer to home. Despite the comfort he finds with his family, he knows he must rejoin his regiment and fight until the end.”

Wow, this was a difficult book to read. I’ve rarely read a book so filled with heartbreak, violence, despair and darkness.

Willie Dunne is a wonderful character; an admirable young man living in Dublin with his father, who is a superintendent with the Dublin Metropolitan Police, and his three sisters. Disappointed not to be tall enough to join the police himself, Willie finds joy in his job as a builder, his loving family, and Gretta, the girl he wants to marry one day.  When the First World War breaks out Willie doesn’t hesitate for long and decides to sign up. And that is where the nightmare starts. The optimists who liked to think this would be a short war and an easy victory for England and its allies turned out to be very wrong. While Willie might have feared that he wouldn’t be finished training soon enough to join the fighting, it isn’t long before he finds himself wishing that those fears had come true. Because Flanders in the years from 1914 until 1918 was a living nightmare and young Willie was there for almost all of that time. And we, the readers, get to join Willie Dunne as his youthful optimism is transformed through pessimism into despair.

And the war on the continent is not the only form of upheaval impacting on Willie Dunne’s life. While he is fighting with the British Army in Belgium, the Nationalists rise in Dublin. With those Nationalists seeing the Germans as their allies since the Brits are the enemy, the big question becomes where does that leave Willie and the other Irish volunteers. And since Willie is “a long long way” from home, trying to come to terms with that dilemma is near impossible. By the time the end comes around there is little to nothing left of the happy boy who joined the army. And the one thing that could have made his heavy load a little lighter arrives too late to bring him any comfort.

This is a powerful story of the horrors of war, of values slowly disappearing, of loyalty – to yourself, to each other, to your country, your faith, your ideals – and the loss thereof, of the nightmare that is a war between young men, fighting for ideas they know very little about for all the wrong reasons.

This book reads like a long listing of misery. In fact, even the writing itself at times sounds like the author is compiling a list; sentence after sentence starting with “and then”. It makes a point because four years of pure nightmarish misery is of course exactly what the First World War was, what every war is. It does make this a very difficult book to read though. By the time I reached page 200 I had to start forcing myself to keep on turning the pages.

Don’t get me wrong. Of course I don’t expect a book about war to bring me a happy story. But I have read enough books about war and destruction to recognize this one as particularly bleak. And perhaps that is the sort of story the world should be reading. Because we still have young people going to join conflicts in countries they don’t know anything about for reasons they don’t understand to obey masters who have no idea about the hell they’re sending their youngsters into. All of that still doesn’t mean that I enjoyed reading this book. I’m glad I did, but I don’t think I’ll ever look at this book again. Because some stories, no matter how well written, are just too heart-breaking to read twice:

“Between your own countrymen deriding you for being in the army, and the army deriding you for your own slaughter a man didn’t know what to be thinking. A man’s mind could be roaring out in pain of a sort. The fact that the war didn’t make a jot of sense anymore hardly came into it.”

Or, in the words of the song The Green Fields of France:

But here in this graveyard it's still no mans land

The countless white crosses stand mute in the sand

To man's blind indifference to his fellow man

To a whole generation that were butchered and dammed

Well Will Mc Bride I can’t help wonder why

Do those that lie here know why did they die

And did they believe when they answered the call

Did they really believe that this war would end war

Well the sorrow the suffering the glory the pain

The killing the dying was all done in vain

For young Willy Mc Bride it all happened again

And again,and again,and again,and again

THE LONELY PASSION OF JUDITH HEARNE

TITLE: THE LONELY PASSION OF JUDITH HEARNE

AUTHOR: BRIAN MOORE

Pages: 223

Date: 28/05/2013

Grade: 3

Details: Book Club read for Dialogues

            Through Literature

Own

 

The blurb:

“The lonely Passion of Judith Hearne is the story of a respectable and religious piano teacher who has moved into a boarding-house in Belfast. Miss Hearne, like the house, has known better days. The landlady, her monstrous son and the other tenants make her nervous, but the landlady’s brother, Mr. Madden, seems attractive, possibly a suitable husband. Judith thinks he owns a hotel in New York, but in reality he is close to penniless and he has a drink problem. So does Judith. As her emotional and social life begins to fall apart, she also loses her grip on the faith that has sustained her. At last she does something shameful in a church.

Judith is an intensely sad heroine, but the way she is portrayed by Brian Moore is vibrant with life and dark comedy.”

A story without a single sympathetic, relatable or pleasant character in it is hard to like, and I have to admit that I didn’t enjoy this book very much. This is the second time I read this book and I really hoped that my dislike of it, the first time around, was due to me still being fairly unfamiliar with life in Ireland. Alas, it turned out that after another 10+ years in Ireland I don’t like this book any better than I did back then.

On the plus side I have to admit that this is a well written story. Brian Moore knows how to put a story together and build it up to its inevitable climax in a convincing and compelling way. For me to end up disliking the book and the characters in it as much as I did in this case both the story and people in it have to be written in a convincing manner.

My problem is that this story was compelling in the same way an accident or natural disaster can be hard to look away from; you can’t stop staring but feel kind of disgusted with yourself for not turning away. I mean, it is not unusual for me to come across a character I would love to slap around for a while. What is unusual is to read a book in which none of the characters appear to have any redeeming qualities. This book appears to be a study in human pettiness, determined to show-up the middle classes in Belfast about 50 years ago as small-minded, selfish and lacking in most forms of human decency. It really doesn’t matter which of the characters you look at; from Judith herself to her landlady, the landlady’s horrid son, the landlady’s brother returned from America and even the parish priest, everybody seemed to be thinking only of themselves, their own interest and the image they would like to uphold. It painted a very sad picture.  Although there were characters who, through their actions, appeared to show some human kindness near the end of the book you’d have to wonder if that was the result of their goodness or just to silence their guilty conscience.

Regardless of whether or not this book paints a faithful picture of Belfast in the 1950’s I can’t find many redeeming qualities in it, least of all the dark humour described in the blurb. And it is safe to say that I won’t be reading this book a third time, not for any reason or occasion.

THE HAND THAT FIRST HELD MINE

TITLE: THE HAND THAT FIRST HELD MINE

AUTHOR: MAGGIE O’FARRELL

Pages: 374

Date: 27/02/2013

Grade: 3.5

Details: Reading Group book for

            Dialogues Through Literature

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From the back of the book:

“Fresh out of university and in disgrace, Lexie Sinclair is waiting for life to begin. When the sophisticated Innes Kent turns up on her doorstep in rural Devon, she realises she can wait no longer, and leaves for London. There, Lexie carves out a new life for herself at the heart of bohemian 1950’s Soho, with Innes by her side.

In the present, Ted and Elina no longer recognize their lives after the arrival of their first child. Elina, an artist, wonders if she will ever paint again, while Ted is disturbed by memories of his own childhood – memories that don’t tally with his parents’ version of events.

As Ted’s search for answers gathers momentum, so a portrait is revealed of two women separated by fifty years, but linked by their passionate refusal to settle for ordinary lives.”

What to say about this book? I was a bit disappointed by it. The blurb seemed to promise more than the book actually delivered. Yes it is a story set at two different times (the 1950’s and the present) and yes they are connected, but not in the way the blurb suggests. I didn’t see a lot of similarities between Elina and Lexie other than that they live their lives according to their own agenda. As for the connection between the two stories, I had that figured out long before the details were revealed in the story, which took some of the intended tension away.

I find myself getting increasingly annoyed with the blurbs that come with books. I realize that they are meant to make a book sound as enticing as possible in a limited amount of words, but is that really an excuse for suggesting story-lines that aren’t really there? In this case it is Ted’s search which is mentioned in the blurb but doesn’t really take place in the story. While Ted is aware that some things aren’t quite right with his memories, he isn’t actively looking for answers. And when he does stumble across the reason for his doubts it is by accident, and not the result of his “search”.

I did appreciate the realistic picture of motherhood this book gave. While there is no doubt that both Elina and Lexie love their sons with all their hearts, the story does show the insecurities, frustrations and complications that accompany motherhood. Having said that, Elina’s part of the story seemed to be about little else except the way in which she was adjusting to her new status, and that got a bit boring after a while. And I have a problem believing that it would have been easier for Lexie to adjust to motherhood, in her circumstances and during the 1960’s, than it was for Elina in the present.

Well written and easy to read I still found that the story in this book didn’t completely captivate me. I enjoyed reading it but wasn’t really interested in the characters or what was happening to them. It felt as if I was observing the story as it unfolded as through a mist, as if there was a barrier between me and it. This was especially true for the contemporary part of the story. I completely failed to connect with Ted and Elina. Lexie’s story was far more interesting, probably because her story covers a much longer period and had a lot more happening in it.

This is by no means a bad book and I’m sure there will be lots of readers for whom this book works perfectly well. It just wasn’t the book for me at this time. And considering that this book won the Costa Award, I’m perfectly willing to accept that this is the result of either my taste or my mood rather than the qualities of this book.

THE SPECKLED PEOPLE

TITLE: THE SPECKLED PEOPLE

AUTHOR: HUGO HAMILTON

Pages: 298

Date: 20/10/2012

Grade: 3.5

Details: Memoir

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In this memoir Hugo Hamilton tells the story of his youth. Born in Dublin in the 1950’s with a German mother and an Irish, nationalistic, father his upbringing was anything but conventional. Because of his father’s strong and uncompromising views on being Irish and resurrecting the Irish identity it was forbidden to speak English in their house. While the rest of Dublin lived in an English speaking world, Hugo and his siblings grew up speaking German and Irish at home, with punishment awaiting anyone who dared to bring English into their home. They are “the speckled people”, partly from Ireland and partly from somewhere else.

“We are the brack children. Brack, homemade Irish bread with German raisins.”

Because of his father’s views on being and speaking Irish the family found themselves outsiders in the neighbourhood where they lived. Having a German mother at a time when World War II was still a very recent memory only made things worse for the Hamilton children. Teasing, bullying and being left on the fringes of the world they lived in were the result. And there is so much the children don’t understand, things that will only become clear when they are older (and mostly after the story in this book has ended); the past his father is ashamed of and trying to hide, and the pain his mother caries with her always as a result of things she witnessed, was exposed to and had to endure during Hitler’s reign in Germany. This is a family that doesn’t really fit in anywhere. Cultures clash, differences confuse and all young Hugo wants is to be the same as everybody else, to not to be called a Nazi and treated like an outcast.

In many was this was a fascinating book. It was interesting to read about Ireland in the fifties and sixties, and the composition of this family made this into a unique story. Up until fairly recently foreigners were a rarity in Ireland and I can’t begin to imagine what it must have been like to be one in Dublin during those days, never mind being a German so shortly after the war. And while I’m all for raising children bi-lingual, the set up in this book, with the children not being allowed to speak the language everybody else around them was using, smacks of child-cruelty.

I had a difficult time with the way in which this story was told though. Although the story was obviously written with hindsight by an adult author, the language and images used are those of the child at the time the events take place. This means that a lot is not said or explained. An awful lot of what must have been happening is left unsaid because the child Hugo didn’t understand what was going on. This means that the reader has to read between the lines and draw their own conclusions. Was the father just misguided and overzealous in his determination to only allow Irish in his house or was he actually a cruel man? Was his mother a loving and supportive creature, or was she weak and ignoring problems when she should have been able to deal with them and maybe protect her children better? These questions weren’t answered for me while I was reading the book, and now that I’ve read the last page, I’m still not sure. I will say though that I admire the way the author seemed to have gone with complete honesty and didn’t try to make his younger self look perfect. In fact, at times he seems to actively dislike the person he was back then.

On the other hand, there were some observations that I did recognise and love, like:

“My mother says you can’t be sure in Ireland if people say things with admiration or not. Irish people are good at saying things in between admiration and accusation between envy and disdain.”

And while this book may have been published in 2003, with the story being set in the 1950’s, some things are as true now as they were back then. In fact, the following statement seems to have real relevance these days:

“Irish people were so afraid of being poor that they spent all their money, while German people were so afraid of being poor that they saved up every penny.”

Overall I would call this a powerful story which, unfortunately, was told in a way that just didn’t work very well for me.

DECEMBER BRIDE

TITLE: DECEMBER BRIDE

AUTHOR: SAM HANNA BELL

Pages: 262

Date: 04/08/2012

Grade: 3-

Details: Read for Dialogues Through

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When Andrew Echlin’s wife dies, leaving behind Andrew and two grown sons, the man realises how important the woman was for the smooth running of his farm on the coast of Northern Ireland. Needing someone to take over the tasks his wife used to take care of, Echlin invites Martha Gormartin and her 30 year old daughter Sarah to come and live and work on his farm.

It isn’t long before both of Echlin’s sons, Frank and Hamilton take an interest in Sarah, an interest that is mutual.

When Sarah falls pregnant and gives birth to a son she refuses to name either of the brothers as the father and declines to marry either of them. This decision sends Sarah’s mother to an early grave and leads to the Echlin farm and its inhabitants being more or less shunned by the puritan Ulster community they live in.

It is only twenty years later, when there is only one brother left and Sarah’s second child, a daughter, wants to get married, that Sarah can be persuaded to marry the remaining brother.

This is a very grim and equally bare story.

What the author offers the reader are snapshots of a life in a time in the past during which horse drawn carts were still the normal form of transport in Ulster. What we get are glimpses at people and their surroundings without every finding out enough about either to feel any attachment to them. Motivations are hinted at but rarely clarified, feelings, when mentioned are suppressed and rarely, if ever, shared.

I read somewhere that a good author shows but doesn’t tell his audience what is going on with the characters in his story. If that is true, this author went about conveying his message in completely the wrong way. Nothing is shown in these pages, everything is told and despite that, or maybe because of that, I never really got a feeling for any of the characters in the book. I think it is quite possible that I could have felt sympathy for Sarah or any of the other characters in the book if I had been given a better insight into their emotions and motivations. But, since the author was cryptic at best when it came to revealing his characters inner lives, I really didn’t care about them or their fate at all.

I think this is a book that I would not have finished if it had not been a book for the “Dialogues Through Literature” programme and one that I will be discussing with my reading group at the end of the month. It doesn’t happen very often that I have to force myself to get back to a book, but with this one I found myself looking for excuses to do something else instead of reading.

I do understand why this book may have been picked for this reading programme; the story touches on the separation between Catholics and protestants and on the fact that although they had to cooperate occasionally to keep the community going, any conflict could and would be excused through that difference in faith and background.

The best I can say about this book is that it will make me appreciate future reads that much more than I might otherwise have. I guess that every now and again I need to be reminded that some books just aren’t for me and how lucky I am to read so many that I do truly love.

THE BOOK THIEF

TITLE: THE BOOK THIEF

AUTHOR: MARKUS ZUSAK

Pages: 554

Date: 28/05/2012

Grade: 5+

Details: Re-read for Dialogues Through Literature

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Oh boy, what a book. What a beautiful and heart-breaking book.

“It’s the story of one of those perpetual survivors - an expert at being left behind.
It’s just a small story really, about, amongst other things:

• a girl
• some words
• an accordionist
• some fanatical Germans
• a Jewish fist-fighter
• and quite a lot of thievery.”

This is Liesel Meminger’s the story. In 1939 Liesel is 9 years old when she travels with her mother and brother on a train towards Molching, a town beyond the outskirts of Munich. During the journey Liesel’s young brother dies and it is just after his funeral that Liesel finds and steals her first book; The Gravedigger’s Handbook. A book that would come to mean the last time Liesel saw both her brother and her mother.

Because Liesel’s parents are deemed to be unsuitable citizens in a Germany where who and what people should be is strictly controlled, the girl is placed with foster parents, the Hubermann’s. Hans Hubermann is a kind and patient man who manages to get Liesel out of her shell and teaches her to read during midnight sessions when nightmares keep the girl awake. Rosa Hubermann is a loud woman with a foul mouth and a heart of gold. It takes a bit of time, but Hans and Rosa become Papa and Mama.

Liesel’s best friend on Himmel Street is Rudy Steiner a boy with yellow hair and a talent for getting into trouble. A boy who will assist Liesel on some of her later quests to steel books. The boy Liesel should have kissed while she had a chance, but how could she have known what was to come.

When Max, a Jewish fist-fighter, shows up on the Hubermann’s doorstep the family doesn’t hesitate but take him in and hide him for as long as they can and during that time, Max become Liesel’s friend.

In a notebook she receives as a gift from the woman she has stolen most of her books from Liesel records all that has happened in the years between her arrival on Himmel Street and the devastating end of her world. As the war continues and the tide turns against the Germans, tragedy is only a short time away. When Liesel loses the notebook containing her story it is Death who will pick it up and carry it away. And it is Death who will share her story with the world.

This is a wonderful book on so many levels. First and foremost because it is a beautifully told story. None of the characters in this book are just good and even the ones like Hans Hubermann who appear to be goodness personified can’t help making dangerous mistakes. However, despite their faults, the reader will end up loving almost every single character in the book, wanting the best for them. It is impossible not to read the last pages of this story with tears in your eyes for these people who were victims as much as the people in the rest of Europe were. It is hard not to agree with Death though when he says about the people living on Himmel Street hiding in basements: “The Germans in the basements were pitiable, surely, but at least they had a chance. That basement was not a washroom. They were not sent there for a shower. For those people, life was still achievable.”

Another reason this book has a special place in my heart is because it shows so clearly that while a country as a whole may be guilty of despicable acts, there will always be individuals who are good in the  middle of evil. Things are never as black versus white as they appear to be on the surface, and that is a message that can’t be reinforced often enough.

Another quote I love: Not leaving: An act of trust and love, often deciphered by children. How beautiful is that?

This is the third time I’ve read this book (previous reviews can be found here and here) and I doubt very much that this will be the last time. And that in itself goes to show how special this book is. About 20 years ago I vowed that I would stop reading books about World War II. Growing up in Holland I’d grown up on books about that period and I truly felt I’d read everything I wanted or needed to read about those years. This book showed me how wrong you can be in assumptions like that; it proved to me that there is always a side to the story you haven’t considered yet and that it pays to be on the look-out for those other perspectives.

And just one more quote from our narrator, Death: “…that I’m constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race – that rarely do I ever simply estimate it.”

Finally I would like to add that although I feel this is Zusak’s best book (so far) by a mile, his other books are more than worthy of any readers attention. Don’t deprive yourself and be sure to read “Fighting Ruben Wolfe” and “I am the Messenger”  

SHADOWSTORY

TITLE: SHADOWSTORY

AUTHOR: JENNIFER JOHNSTON

Pages: 233

Date: 29/04/2012

Grade: 4+

Details: Dialogues Through Literature title

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“That is all there is, really. Not much of a story, I’m afraid.”

Contrary to that quote, taken from the last pages of Shadowstory, there actually is quite a story here. A story about growing up and learning life-lessons along the way. A story about love and loyalty and the ties that bind us to others.

This is Polly’s (also known as baby) story. Born in 1940 when her father’s youngest brother, Sam, is only five years old, Polly lives her life in two places. The main part of her life, but a minor part of the story, takes place in Dublin where she lives with her mother, after her father dies in the Second World War. When her mother remarries and has two further children, Polly feels a bit like an outsider in her own home.

Most of Polly’s holidays are spend in Kildaragh and the house where her father grew up and his parents and youngest brother, Sam, still live.

Polly loves her grandparents, her young uncle Sam and the freedom and peace she experiences while in the west of Ireland.

As Polly grows up this peaceful idyll is slowly disturbed. When Sam decides to disappear from his family’s life without a word to anyone except Polly, he burdens her with a secret and a responsibility that is really too big for someone so young and innocent. With her grandparents desperate to know where Sam may be, it is all Polly can do not to blurb out the little she knows.

At the same time other tensions come to the surface in the house in Kildaragh. Polly has lot of growing up to do in very little time.

On the surface this is, as the quote above suggests, a very simple story. Told in minimal and subdued yet very beautiful and almost poetic language, it is easy for the reader to just flow with the narrative and be seduced by the idyllic surroundings and people in Kildaragh. It is only upon reflection that the reader realises how much is actually contained in this bare story.

This is a book that deals with growing up, first love, death, religion and family loyalty. This is a book that deals with, and is true to, life. It doesn’t offer unrealistic happy endings but it does deliver a very satisfying read.