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This tour-de-force firmly established J.G. Farrell on the long list of extraordinary Irish novelists. The story of a dilapidated mansion/hotel on the Irish coast begins in 1919, with the arrival of a English army Major straight from the front in World War I, come to see his “fiance,” the daughter of an extremely eccentric British nationalist and owner of the hotel, whose extreme views on the Irish and on Sinn Fein in particular (the action takes place on the eve of the Irish War of Independence) as 'untermenschen’ is a full-throated reflection of English attitudes in this period and of bigots everywhere and throughout time. The novel chronicles the demise of the hotel, the perfectly named Majestic, whose past glory, present state of near ruin, and retinue of cast-off characters still clinging to a past that is long gone, stand as pathetic mirrors to the fading of the British Empire. A wonderful, comic, beautifully written gem.