The cantankerous reviewer in Private Eye said,
Your modern Hibernian may have a slightly different socio-economic terrain to write about when compared to his priest-haunted forebears…but oh dear me how regularly his or her books still come to be stalked by vengeful Oirish mothers and winsome dialogue of the “Ah now and is it yourself?” kind, with the family house clearly visible on th e hillside half a mile away while the wind blows in across the mutinous Shannon and auld Grandpappy Donahue lies dead under the sod.
On the other hand, Terry Eagleton said in the LRB that Anne Enright’s latest, The Green Road, was “superb”.
Take your pick. Gert tends to avoid Oirish tales of misery so she won’t be reading it.
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Laszlo Krasznahorkai has won the 2015 Man Booker International Prize for his magnificent Seiobo There Below.
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Short story fans may be interested in the shortlist for the Edge Hill Prize for Short Story:
Madeleine D’Arcy Waiting for the Bullet
Carys Davies The Redemption of Galen Pike
Toby Litt Life-Like
Anneliese Mackintosh Any Other Month
Rose Tremain The American Lover
Kirsty Gunn Infidelities
Gert’s excellent library has three of these !
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And happy International Yoga Day to all those who love books and yoga. Gert has just done 108 salutes, in company with 20 million others across the world, to celebrate the first ever International Yoga Day.
Images: http://rrm.co.uk/explore/wind-in-the-willowsphoto credit: <a http://www.flickr.com/photos/35800266@N07/8110033401
Well done Gert on the 108 salutes! Re Oirish Lit I once gave my mother a novel that I thought was an appropriately windswept and dark village drama but didn’t realise one of its major themes was bestiality. Oh dear thank god for the world of online reviews where similar faux pas can be avoided.
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A faux pas indeed. It must have confirmed her darkest suspicions about you.
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It did make for a rather awkward conversation afterwards. I think she described the book as ‘quite unusual’.
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