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A review by ronanmcd
Reading in the Dark by Seamus Deane
5.0
Disclaimer - I know the author's family.
I have never read a book that more accurately evokes just what it is to be Irish. Secrets never to be shared that tear the owner in shreds, guilt from before birth, down trodden in their own back yard, catholic superstition, obedience and subservience, a distaste for it all without a taste or ability o change any of it. All the elements of Irishness are there.
But that's as it might be in any Irish book. This is so much more. Told with the disappearing innocence of a growing boy as a series of roughly chronological candid filled with reminiscing and stories of the past, it's the very telling, the eye on the phrasing and details that make it so compelling.
It's a beautiful, powerful and sad book, but one that brings the Irish state of being in the 20th century into a more poetic scrutiny than any i have read.
I have never read a book that more accurately evokes just what it is to be Irish. Secrets never to be shared that tear the owner in shreds, guilt from before birth, down trodden in their own back yard, catholic superstition, obedience and subservience, a distaste for it all without a taste or ability o change any of it. All the elements of Irishness are there.
But that's as it might be in any Irish book. This is so much more. Told with the disappearing innocence of a growing boy as a series of roughly chronological candid filled with reminiscing and stories of the past, it's the very telling, the eye on the phrasing and details that make it so compelling.
It's a beautiful, powerful and sad book, but one that brings the Irish state of being in the 20th century into a more poetic scrutiny than any i have read.