Scan barcode
too_many_megans_2's review against another edition
dark
informative
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
pamelas's review against another edition
3.0
The writing was beautiful, the pace slow, and at times, puzzled me as I tried to figure out where the book was going. But it slowly came together to tell the story of betrayal and guilt and the ripple affects that are felt beyond the first generation. I can't say enough about the writing, which evokes the times, the place, the poetry of the Irish. I actually wished for more drama because the story and the betrayal are really quite dramatic.
pardonmywritings's review against another edition
4.0
Reading in the Dark by Seamus Deane was a beautiful story that showed how family secrets were tainted by the political conflict in Northern Ireland during the 'Troubles'.
~
As my second experience of Irish literature, I learnt how mythical folktales about green eyed children taken by fairies and communal anger about victims of police oppression in Derry really shaped the protagonist's identity.
~
As my second experience of Irish literature, I learnt how mythical folktales about green eyed children taken by fairies and communal anger about victims of police oppression in Derry really shaped the protagonist's identity.
johnstonmr's review against another edition
5.0
I'm not sure I could say anything about this book other than that it is, in a word, brilliant. Written about a place Deane knew quite well, the book has that rare gift of making the reader feel intimately familiar with a place and a people he has never seen. Questions of truth, family history and the often-messy result of keeping it hidden, as well as vendetta and guilt by association, riddle the book. There are questions as to how much of the book is fiction and how much is fictionalized fact; I don't know that we'll ever know the true answer to that--and, really, it doesn't matter. Even if none of it really happened, events just like those in the book happened to many, many Irishmen and their families.
I don't want to give anything away, so I'm keeping plot details out of this, but I will say that it touches upon the Troubles of the early 20th century, and the harm done in those times to families on both sides, harm which often lingers for decades after the fact.
Be warned: It's sad, almost beyond the telling. The shadows of events that concern every character (which all happened long before the book opens) are felt for years, and the shadow falls across the entire life of the main character. This is not a happy book, despite the possibly-upbeat ending.
I don't want to give anything away, so I'm keeping plot details out of this, but I will say that it touches upon the Troubles of the early 20th century, and the harm done in those times to families on both sides, harm which often lingers for decades after the fact.
Be warned: It's sad, almost beyond the telling. The shadows of events that concern every character (which all happened long before the book opens) are felt for years, and the shadow falls across the entire life of the main character. This is not a happy book, despite the possibly-upbeat ending.
elizastudying's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
jckuhn4's review against another edition
4.0
What we remember, but do not say. What we suspect or deduce, but will not utter. What has been done to us, by those who did it "for" us. And the lengths a child will go to suss it all out, despite the price, and despite the answers, imagined or real. Do all lives lived under foreign occupation take on such unflinching, yet such self mortifying aspect? When divide and conquer is the rule of the day, what becomes of those under the sword who, willingly or unwillingly, with full knowledge or unwittingly, sever the closest and most intimate ties themselves? In the end we all know, and yet do not speak. For love? Maybe. Or maybe not.
sophiaf97's review against another edition
5.0
I have a feeling that this book will stick with me for quite some time. Beautifully written, and beautifully experienced.
jeanetterenee's review against another edition
4.0
The book begins with an epigraph from "She Moved Through the Fair":
The people were saying no two were e'er wed
But one had a sorrow that never was said.
Those two lines carry the essence of the story. The long-term consequences of keeping secrets are at the heart of Reading in the Dark.
The unnamed narrator describes his Catholic boyhood in Derry in the 40s and 50s. Both his parents' families have secrets held since the time of the Troubles in the 1920s.
As the protagonist moves from boyhood into adolescence, he becomes almost obsessed with the family legends and bits of conversations he has heard through the years. Who really killed Billy Mahon? Who was the informer? Is Uncle Eddie dead or alive? And why did McIlhenny run off to America? Eventually the boy pieces together the truth, but it comes at some cost to himself and his family. Too late he discovers that even those we love cannot bear our presence once we have uncovered what lies behind their deepest shame.
Woven into the early narrative are some juicy Irish myths, ghost stories, and superstitions. I would have welcomed more of these as the story progressed, but Deane abandoned them in favor of a more serious tone. This was my only disappointment, as I'd come to look forward to the next interjection of folklore.
All in all a fine work for a poet's first novel. Like his narrator, Seamus Deane grew up in Derry in the 40s and 50s, so this could almost work as a fictional memoir.
The people were saying no two were e'er wed
But one had a sorrow that never was said.
Those two lines carry the essence of the story. The long-term consequences of keeping secrets are at the heart of Reading in the Dark.
The unnamed narrator describes his Catholic boyhood in Derry in the 40s and 50s. Both his parents' families have secrets held since the time of the Troubles in the 1920s.
As the protagonist moves from boyhood into adolescence, he becomes almost obsessed with the family legends and bits of conversations he has heard through the years. Who really killed Billy Mahon? Who was the informer? Is Uncle Eddie dead or alive? And why did McIlhenny run off to America? Eventually the boy pieces together the truth, but it comes at some cost to himself and his family. Too late he discovers that even those we love cannot bear our presence once we have uncovered what lies behind their deepest shame.
Woven into the early narrative are some juicy Irish myths, ghost stories, and superstitions. I would have welcomed more of these as the story progressed, but Deane abandoned them in favor of a more serious tone. This was my only disappointment, as I'd come to look forward to the next interjection of folklore.
All in all a fine work for a poet's first novel. Like his narrator, Seamus Deane grew up in Derry in the 40s and 50s, so this could almost work as a fictional memoir.
stephh's review against another edition
3.0
Set in Derry, Reading in the Dark is a coming of age story, stretching from the main character's boyhood in the 1940s up to the 70s. With a background of The Troubles, the book dips into a lot of Irish folklore and the need for small town gossip. The reader starts the book innocent of any knowledge of the boy's family history, as the boy does himself, but as the book progresses the darkness and violence of the past leaps out in suspicions and confidences told to the boy by his family.
Following an unnamed main character makes you a little distanced from the story in my opinion, but it almost serves as a reminder that this could be any Derry child growing up in the Troubles. At the heart of the novel is religious and familial divide. It opens up to the reader how fraught these times were, and how knowledge is not always a good thing.
There have been suggestions that the book is too similar to Seamus Deane's own upbringing and early life for it to be anything more than a memoir. Whether there's any truth to this or not, I enjoyed the book in its relative simplicity. We followed a boy starting (and struggling) to understand the world in which he lived, his loss of innocence and introduction to politics. It's a good read if you want a fairly simple insight to life as a child during the Troubles, and I enjoyed it although I didn't find it very gripping.
Following an unnamed main character makes you a little distanced from the story in my opinion, but it almost serves as a reminder that this could be any Derry child growing up in the Troubles. At the heart of the novel is religious and familial divide. It opens up to the reader how fraught these times were, and how knowledge is not always a good thing.
There have been suggestions that the book is too similar to Seamus Deane's own upbringing and early life for it to be anything more than a memoir. Whether there's any truth to this or not, I enjoyed the book in its relative simplicity. We followed a boy starting (and struggling) to understand the world in which he lived, his loss of innocence and introduction to politics. It's a good read if you want a fairly simple insight to life as a child during the Troubles, and I enjoyed it although I didn't find it very gripping.